Paranormal

[jimmyybob]

Im open minded about all that stuff and with all the bizarre discoveries going on in physics (astro and quantum) it wouldn't suprise me if these odd things were in fact an everyday event.

[mach1rob]

Maybe there is, maybe there isn't, there are many many things I don't believe in, heaven hell, etc etc. I've never seen or felt a ghost or spirit or anything out of the normal, and I kind of expect there will be a perfectly reasonable explanation for 99% of occurrences, but there's always one that really does seem to defy logic. My nan would often say she was chatting with either her mum or dad when they came to see her, despite them being dead for the past 60 odd years.

I think I'd like to do a ghost hunt, but deep down I think I know it'd be waste of time.

[rich.]

ive had quite a few corner of the eye things that have scared the crap out of me..

[arceye]

It's all a load of nonsense with the sole purpose of selling movies, frightening small children, and fleecing gullible widows!! It can all be explained rationally. Sometimes that rational explanation is hard to find, but it'll be there, without the need to invoke some imaginary world of spirits or the undead or hobgoblins or whatever! Really!!!!!!

I have to agree that everything has a rational explanation, but without meaning offence and only as a matter of opinion I find that blinkered as an overall view, as it sounds like an assumption that we already know everything from a scientific standpoint.

Just because we don't understand something does not make it the realm of fairytales, simply put "paranormal" is just something that is outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation". Once explained it ceases to be paranormal.

We have to be willing to accept that we do not know everything yet, as Jimmybob stated the work going on in quantum mechanics etc is bizarre and seems to challenge our basic understandings of the world and space. At least for ordinary people like me.

So, to decry everything Paranormal as bunkum or hoax seems blinkered, to presume we already have the knolwedge to explain it all is to me also a little blinkered. In time, as science moves forward all these things will cease to be paranormal, and become normal, in that we will understand them.

Whether that explanation be by an understanding of other dimensions, life after death, time travel, the ability for objects to be in several places at one time, or heaven knows what else ( yes some is far fetched but some already appears to have a place in science) , or by very mundane explanations I simply do not know, I doubt I will live long enough to know, but I'll keep an open mind.

People once believed the world was flat, and debunked any other theory, we have come a long way since then, but still have a heck of a way to go yet.

A little off the subject but sort of my point.....

" Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax." -- William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, British scientist, 1899.

Proof that a closed mind is proof of nothing. Doesn't make you wrong or others right, just doesn't prove anything.

[mach1rob]

Fully agree, science has disproved an awful lot of things over the years, and given a rational answer to a lot, however there are still things out there that can't be explained away.

[tractorman]

I suspect that there are three things here - fiction, science and the unexplained/unexplainable! Things like werewolves, hobgoblins and vampires are fiction and make good horror stories (if you are keen on such things).

On the other hand science is a handicapped institution because there are some arrogant people with tunnel vision who only want to prove - or disprove - a topic that they are researching and not looking at the wider picture. Their response to life after death is "If I can't touch, then it it doesn't exist" and, rather than admitting that they don't know the answers, they deny it might exist (often implying that any religion is a load of bunk); after all, their opinion on the subject is worth so much more than anyone else's - because they are scientists!

They may shout about the big bang theory, but can't comprehend that something must have produced the "nothing" in which there was a big bang! If there was nothing there, there can't have been anything to make the bang - or be produced as a result of it. I'm not denying the big bang theory - or the evolution theory, but where did the "nothing" come from?

Although my late father was a third-generation clergyman, he admitted that he didn't know the answers and pointed out that nobody else does either! Mind you, he liked a good horror film!

[mr rusty]

hey may shout about the big bang theory, but can't comprehend that something must have produced the "nothing" in which there was a big bang! If there was nothing there, there can't have been anything to make the bang - or be produced as a result of it. I'm not denying the big bang theory - or the evolution theory, but where did the "nothing" come from?

..............the thing with big bang is that once you remove the 'but there must have been something before....' from your thinking then it becomes an easier concept. We as humans are inculcated with the idea that cause must lead to effect, as this is generaly how we experience the world, but is that actually how things work? not neccesarily! II would recommend reading the physisist Julian Barbour's 'The End of Time'..it's somewhat abstract and requires a lot of effort and thought to get through but is well worth the effort.

There's a poem by John Clare, written during his final period in the asylum, 'An invite to eternity' which is very unlike his earlier work, and is clearly by someone who's mind has gone (Jonathan Bate's excellent biog will tell you the full story...) which attempts to grasp at the nature of time, but doesn't quite nail it down, I don't suppose anyone ever will, but Clare gives it his best shot, possibly unknowingly!

I Leave you with the well known quote attributed to JBS Haldane:

I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

without the need to invoke gods, ghosts, or goblins!

[jimmyybob]

It has been discovered that certain particles can and do spontaneously appear and disappear and some can in fact exist in two places at the same time (photons or electrons i don't remember)

Big band is a mind boggler unless you're stephen hawkins, It apparently came from nothing unless you agree with the bang squash bang squash theory but even then it started somewhere.? but apart from that what exactly did it expand into if there was nothing there in the first place.

CERN will no doubt answer a lot of question but willl most likely create many more bizarre ones.

[JPB]

I believe in the "suck, squeeze, bang, blow" theory. Does that count?

[TerryG]

What you get up to in your own home is nobodies business but your own