The_Barnacle wrote on Jun 16
th, 2019 at 1:06pm:
PZ547 wrote on Jun 16
th, 2019 at 11:36am:
and that's because (get ready to throw a fit here, Barnacle) because I am not closed minded nor unduly afraid that there may be far more to our human existence than that which is posited by the scaredy cat materialists
You would be surprised at some of my interest in Quantum theory, Cosmology and Psychology. Some of the concepts are quite mind bending. However the difference is that the concepts need to be observable, falsifiable and repeatable.
Personal anecdotes are pretty meaningless.
You would be surprised just how imperfect our brains are. Our memories are highly subjective and the memory itself becomes tainted each time we recall it. There are numerous logical fallacies we fall for, optical illusions and plain distortions of reality caused by our brains which are just organic material which evolved to help us survive.
If something can be more easily explained with a non paranormal explanation then invariably the reality is not paranormal
Quote:need to be observable, falsifiable and repeatable
which very often succeed in inhibiting the subject as science is all too aware
Quote:Personal anecdotes are pretty meaningless
Meaningless from the point of view of materialists who insist things must be measurable, quantifiable, etc. But far from meaningless to the individual to whom it happened and to those scientists who now gather similar events and find 'evidence' in those rather than 3000 random tosses of dice by a machine, which is the 'scientific' method.
Quote:You would be surprised just how imperfect our brains are. Our memories are highly subjective and the memory itself becomes tainted each time we recall it. There are numerous logical fallacies we fall for, optical illusions and plain distortions of reality caused by our brains which are just organic material which evolved to help us survive
no argument. We've all witnessed someone embroider something over time until it bears no resemblance to the actual event. They're not deliberately lying -- they're 'growing' a situation to more fit their preconceived beliefs and or for attention or simply to make the 'wow' factor more wowie. However, when multiple witnesses can attest to the same thing, then different complexion on the matter altogether. Which is when science pulls out the 'mass hypnosis' explanation.
Quote:If something can be more easily explained with a non paranormal explanation then invariably the reality is not paranormal
Science/experts can be ridiculously inventive in providing non-paranormal explanations -- which are often more convoluted and complicated than the simple event they're attempting to explain away
For example, Jenny Cockles, UK. All her life, from a very early age, she'd had vague memories of a place which she'd never seen in real life. And she worried endlessly, as a very small child, about her children.
Time passed, Jenny began a career, married, had real life children of her own. The day came when she could afford to travel to Ireland in search of the memories which had haunted her since early childhood. She eventually succeeded in locating the remains of an old cottage in which, in a previous life, she'd struggled to raise her several children. Further along, with help, she located the birth certificate of her previous self and the names of her past-life several children.
In the previous life, she'd died after giving birth, leaving six or so children on their own with their drunken, brutal father. In this life, Jenny managed to track down her past life children, then in their old age. She visited one, the eldest boy named Sonny I think. Initially, raised in orphanages in Catholic Ireland, he was extremely wary of Jenny's claims to have been a return of his deceased mother who'd died when he was a young boy.
But Jenny persisted and gradually, Sonny warmed a little. One day, Jenny asked if he remembered the rabbit. She went on to tell him how, when the cupboards were bare and all the children starving, Sonny and the others had managed to trap a rabbit. Sonny's eyes lit up. He said he'd never told his wife about how bad things had been, out of shame. Jenny went on to describe the scene -- how she'd come running from the cottage at the sound of the children's cries and had found Sonny with the rabbit. And the joy that night at having something for the little ones to eat. Sonny said no one in the world except he and his siblings and his deceased mother could have known about that day, about how close to starvation they'd been, how poor and desperate and the exhultation brought because of that skinny little rabbit. He and Jenny talked about many other small triumphs and sadness to have befallen the family. He accepted Jenny as the embodiment of his dead mother, despite that Jenny was many years younger than himself.
He went to the priest and asked, 'Father, how can it be that my mother has returned like this?". The priest consulted his superiors for answers. The answer came back -- God had felt so sorry for the children's dead mother up there in heaven that he'd 'put' that sad mother's memories into Jenny in order Jenny could be born and let the ageing children know their mother still cared for them. An sure, that be the answer, to be sure