do you believe in EVP? spirits / ghost recordings?

[green papaya]

http://www.parismo.org/~brammer/littlebighorn.htm

EVP = electronic voice phenomenon

the recordings of sounds / voices from the spirit world

do you think it's for real? [huh]

 

[LolitaHaze]

As a general rule, yes I do believe in them, but some are quite questionable. I like to freak myself out sometimes and just listen to them at night... then I get all spooked out and run to my bed and hide! lol

 

[Feraud]

It makes for a decent movie but not much else.

 

[TommySalieri]

Yes and no.

I have heard that some EVP recordings are actually radio transmissions coming in at a low frequency.

However, there are some recordings that just sound too real.

 

[Rick Blaine]

NO & NO

I wonder how many times, since Marconi started his radio transmitter company in 1897, that people have thought that they were receiving messages "from beyond." You would think that, after over 100 years, most people would have figured out that if ghosts do exist, they probably do not possess radio transmitters.

-James Randi

 

[Matthew]

Complete Nonsense.

First "Intelligent Design," now more pseudoscience?

No, there is absolutely no evidence for EVP.

I will not go into length, as I have noticed on forums, nobody reads my long explanatory posts anyway.

Just read the links below:

(1) "The Skeptic's Dictionary"
http://skepdic.com/evp.html

(2) "The James Randi Educational Foundation"
http://www.google.com/u/JREF?q=electronic+voice+phenomenon&sa=Go!

(3) "Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal"
Picture from: rom: http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/evp.html

Since the "evidence" for EVP comes from people "hearing voices" in a mixture of random sounds, the phenomenon is very much correlated with a psychological happening known as pareidolia - the tendancy to hear/see/feel patterns in completely random sets of [sense] data (anybody who watches sensationalist news will, about every 8-10 months, will remember watching about people seeing Jesus/Mary/Symbol of Allah in various stains, food, glass smears, etc. will come to recognize this phenomenon as instances of pareidolia).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

EVP is supersitious speculation.

Considering ghosts and spirits; those same websites above reply in great length to those 'entities' as well.

- Matthew

 

[Matthew]

...yep.

I wonder how many times, since Marconi started his radio transmitter company in 1897, that people have thought that they were receiving messages "from beyond." You would think that, after over 100 years, most people would have figured out that if ghosts do exist, they probably do not possess radio transmitters.

-James Randi

Exactly.

- Matt

 

[Shimmy Sally]

No, I don't believe.

 

[Phil]

Yes an no

I DO believe in ghosts, I have had a few encounters of my own (scared the living daylights out of me), but I don't believe in EVP. I think the reason EVP happens is because what do you listen for when you turn on the radio? Voices and/or music. That's the whole reason that the radio was invented. So, therefor it is in the human nature to try and hear a voice. It's like how it's a natural human reaction to try and make a face or a figure in pictures of things. It's simply your mind forcing itself into seeing or hearing what you want to see. And besides, the radio isn't a perfect thing, radio waves bleed over into stations of dead static.

 

[TommySalieri]

I, too, believe in ghosts. And rightfully so, might I add.

I am not one to shut my eyes my upon possible explanations. But until someone can give me a believable and scientific explanation to what I experienced 4 years ago, then nobody will make me believe otherwise.

It was early in the afternoon. It was my day off and everyone in my household was out and about. My window blinds were slightly closed. My window was completely closed and the door to my room was also closed. I sat down to read a book when suddenly I felt something "smack" my wrist. It wasn't solid, mind you. It felt somewhere in between, as I felt it pass through my forearm. It was accompanied by a loud bang and hissing noise. I thought it was simply static electricity or a flying bug of some sort and shrugged it off. Suddenly, the window blinds began to move from the far left, as if someone stuck their arm into the far left corner of the window blinds and began to violently move them from left to right. This was odd because the window slides open from the right. No openings are present on the left side.

It did not feel like an earthquake, but I checked anyway. There were no major or minor earthquakes recorded during the day within my vicinity.

What do you believe happened that day?

 

[Rick Blaine]

Extraordinary Claims

Demand Extraordinary Proof

 

[Section10]

Demand Extraordinary Proof

I think most people believe in the possibility of some kind of supernatural activity and those who rule it out entirely are in the minority. Thus the claims of supernatural events are the most ordinary ones and their denials are the most extroardinary.

 

[TommySalieri]

I'll try not to take that as an insult.

I am often judged by my honesty and my integrity. Clearly, it is impossible for me to go back 4 years and gather the "proof" that you so desperately require. I am hoping that someone has knowledge of a scientific explanation for what occurred. Surely there must be one.

 

[Rick Blaine]

Ok, sufficient evidence then

I'll try not to take that as an insult.

Please do not. Your honesty and your integrity are not the question here.

I am often judged by my honesty and my integrity. Clearly, it is impossible for me to go back 4 years and gather the "proof" that you so desperately require. I am hoping that someone has knowledge of a scientific explanation for what occurred. Surely there must be one.

More exactly, what I am saying is that in the absence of verifiable, repeatable conclusions that are the result of experimental processes born of well designed inquiry, critical thinking and evidential reasoning, all we are left with are testimony, feelings, hopes, beliefs & opinions... all subjective.
To settle for less would require us to abandon centuries of careful observation and sophisticated experimentation that have resulted in a greater increase in human knowledge & understanding of the world in the last 500 years than in the previous ten thousand.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

I'll try not to take that as an insult.

I am often judged by my honesty and my integrity. Clearly, it is impossible for me to go back 4 years and gather the "proof" that you so desperately require. I am hoping that someone has knowledge of a scientific explanation for what occurred. Surely there must be one.

Recent findings and theories in physics help to explain these phenomena. We know precious little about the workings of this universe,...so why just discount the things we don't yet fully understand as mere nonsense? In my opinion, as one who has had several "unexplainable" experiences, people that simply scoff are just gyping themselves out of the extraordinary possibilities that the universe has to offer. The paranormal is a fascinating subject to say the least,and the potential benefits to understanding these things is too great to simply dismiss it all as rubbish.
Personal experiences such as yours, mine, and millions of other people are proof enough for me. I am thoroughly convinced that here are indeed multiple dimensions in space/time, and matter of a differant nature than the solid matter we percieve to be "real" in our dimension. I think that until a person experiences something paranormal for themselves, they will have a tough time believing, even when given what little scientific proof there is, some of which I have posted in the link below.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html

 

[Caledonia]

Recordings? Never heard one so can't comment. Strange happenings? Happen all the time. Our need to quantify and qualify? Inexplicable but vaguely understandable. Wierd things happen, "normal" things happen. I've had both. Bother me? No. Intrigued, yes. Conclusion - I'll wait and see how it all turns out in the end, because in the end that's all we're going to have to personally go on.

 

[Matthew]

Well said, "Rick Blaine,"

Extraordinary Claims Demand Extraordinary Proof

Exactly. Originating with (yes, the) Thomas Jefferson, this is known as "Sagan's Balance," after the man himself, Carl Sagan, who popularized the phrase.

However, "proof" does not apply to matters of science or inductive reasoning. As I always say, "the only people who need proofs are logicians, mathematicians, and bartenders."


More accurately, the maxim is "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

For example, if I claim:

I have a unicorn in my backyard,

...this would count as an extraordinary claim. Fantastic as it is, it is a claim that can be falsified and tested: simply look in my backyard and find a horse-like creature bearing wings, a horn, and possibly the color purple on it's body, then further investigation would be permitted.

For example, is the horn nailed onto it's skull, as PT Barnum did to his "unicorns" in the circus? Or, is the "horn" merely a birth defect, or bone cancer in the skull causing the bone to protrude from it's forehead, etc.

I think most people believe in the possibility of some kind of supernatural activity and those who rule it out entirely are in the minority.

Oddly enough, despite the amazing lack of evidence, you are correct in saying that an overwhelming majority of people believe in some kind of supernaturalism: be it theism, dualism, or belief in spirits, demons, ghosts, and other non-corporeal anthropomorphic agents, etc.

However, just because "most people believe in X," it is a non sequitur to say that the numbers of people that marshal under a certain claim make the claim any more viable. As Anatole France said,

"If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

An argument using this basis as a premise is a logical fallacy, an erroneous feature of thinking so common, it is categorized as argumentum ad populum - or appeal to the people.

However convincing to the layman, it is not the case that a multitude of voices make "claim X" to be true or false - the truth of any statement or hypotheses is not dictated by vote.

You continue,

...Thus the claims of supernatural events are the most ordinary ones and their denials are the most extroardinary.

Claims about, yes. The phenomenon as described by the claims? Without evidence.

Recent findings and theories in physics help to explain these phenomena. We know precious little about the workings of this universe,...so why just discount the things we don't yet fully understand as mere nonsense?

To discredit claims of supernatural phenomena based on our ignorance of them would be committing another fallacy, viz. argumentum ad ignorantiam However, supernatural claims are not met with skepticism because they are not yet known; it is because there is no evidence for the claims that supernaturalists posit. As such, the history of supernatural claims, from UFO's to ESP, is riddled with sophistry, biased testing, lies, manipulation, and trickery.

In my opinion, as one who has had several "unexplainable" experiences, people that simply scoff are just gyping themselves out of the extraordinary possibilities that the universe has to offer. The paranormal is a fascinating subject to say the least,and the potential benefits to understanding these things is too great to simply dismiss it all as rubbish.

It is not the case that you, or others, did not "experience" something, however it is unverified that something you label as "unexplainable" entails a supernatural phenomenon - a violation of a principle known as Occam's Razor.

For example, your "spooky " experiences can be understood, with greater accuracy, falsifiability, and parsimony with all other areas of science, by explanations such as hallucinations, confirmation biases, after-the-fact reasoning, and by the pliancy and moldability of our memories. Our sensory faculties are deeply, deeply fallible - even more so years after the occurrences supposedly happened. Four years?

See more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_biases

Personal experiences such as yours, mine, and millions of other people are proof enough for me.[/URL]

As I said above, testimony is not "proof" and cannot be so.

Personal testimony of others, especially about amazing phenomena, can have an incredible amount of pathos or emotional appeal. It is a lot more fun and exciting to claim to have seen a UFO, rather than to claim to have seen an airplane. Unusually, it takes a lot of passion and (self) convincing to "drive home" the fact that you saw a UFO, much more than an airplane.

Unfortunately, to regard alone the claims as others as evidence for any supernatural phenomena is without foundation. If claims were evidence, then goblins, ghosts, spirits, 3-headed dogs, and all the innumerable multitudes of gods invented by mankind would then exist!

But, we must demand more than testimony, or anecdotal evidence, to establish any claims. It is not enough to accept a mere story about X phenomenon to make it true.

I am thoroughly convinced that there are indeed multiple dimensions in space/time, and matter of a differant nature than the solid matter we percieve to be "real" in our dimension. I think that until a person experiences something paranormal for themselves, they will have a tough time believing, even when given what little scientific proof there is, some of which I have posted in the link below.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html

Another non sequitur.

The fascinating implications of Quantum Physics do not make any supernatural phenomenon more likely. Physicists will not someday find a "space-time rift" where ghosts thus enter our haunted houses.

Although I cannot address these claims in any time here, I'm sure nobody is reading this, - I will refer you to another source:

Bastardizations and manipulations of Quantum Physics by supernaturalists is addressed, very simply, by Dr. Victor J. Stenger, a quantum physicist himself, in a book I highly recommend, titled "Physics and Psychics: The Search for a World Beyond the Senses."

There are other authors that address supernatural claims in light of the supposed 'possibilities' of quantum mechanics, this is merely one of them.

My advice, try to not take seriously pseudoscientific claims, much like the nonsense propounded in popular media about quantum physics. And, no, Fritjof Capra still does not count.

Sapere aude!

- Matt

 

[Senator Jack]

Posited by Matthew
I'm sure nobody is reading this

Will somebody take a bottle or a lamp and end this?

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

I will most assuredly heed your advice,...

...and I will disbelieve all of your disbelief.
I know what I have seen and experienced my own self, while fully awake and cognizant. And as I said before, why limit one's self in a universe of limitless potential? :eusa_doh:
The writer of "The Elegant Universe", Brian Greene, did the math, (or at least some of it) and numbers don't lie. The mathematics dictate that other dimensions must exist in space/time.
I, and others that have experienced a variety of paranormal experiences, really have absolutely nothing to gain by sharing these experiences with those who do not or can not believe in at least the possibility of paranormal phenomena. That which is outside of our extremely limited view of this universe, and all that it contains.
Or rather I should say, we have nothing to gain except the ridicule of those who disbelieve,...but even that awful fate will never make me disbelieve what I have seen with my own eyes. lol

 

[TommySalieri]

You state it as if it's been 4 DECADES, rather than 4 years. It is very much fresh in my young memory. I happen to have an excellent long term memory, as I can remember things from when I was merely a toddler. I will take Nick Danger's side on this matter and wait for a sound scientific explanation. The hard nosed skeptics can, as they say, "stick their heads into the ground".