Poll: Do you believe in the paranormal? If not, have you ever wanted to?

[Callate]

There are a few people I respect who believe that they've seen something, so I try to keep an open mind. Not that I'm about to put my healing into the hands of a lump of quartz wrapped in copper wire over a doctor or anything of the sort, though.

But there's always been a certain appeal to me in the idea that if there is something out there, it isn't exactly hiding. If there's some real power, it isn't "If you squint and turn your head sideways and look just so", but more [slaps the back of your head], "HEY!"

And the aforementioned people I respect mostly tend to relate something of the latter rather than the former.

 

[GundamSentinel]

People like to think they're reasonable, intelligent, rational. They like to think they're smart enough to explain everything around them, and if they can't, surely something paranormal must be going on, right? Right?

There's a huge difference between "I can't explain this" and "this can't be explained".

Weird shit happens, doesn't mean there's anything paranormal going on.

 

[Akytalusia]

the joke with this question is that when you ask 'do you believe in the paranormal', with paranormal being defined as phenomena beyond scientific comprehension, you're actually asking 'do you believe in possibilities beyond current scientific comprehension.'
if you say no, then you're saying you believe you're aware of every possibility.
if you say yes, then you're saying you're aware of the existence of possibilities beyond current scientific comprehension.

so, do you believe science has currently defined everything there is to define?

OT: guess.

 

[Something Amyss]

Matt Dillahunty has repeatedly said "I would like to believe as many true things and as few false things as possible."

I think this is a good route to go.

Given sufficient evidence that the paranormal existed, I would believe in it, but I've never specifically wanted to.

And so I'll note, for this thread, the difference between "what I can't explain" and "the supernatural." Magnets and giraffes are not miracles, no matter how hard ICP insists.

Additionally, I'm super wary about the concept of "human nature," because virtually everything that's been argued to be integral to humanity has turned out to not be.

No and no. If the paranormal did exist, politics would get worked into it and I'd hate everything to do with it. So probably for the best it stays in the realm of fiction where there won't be years of arguing about it and Donald Trump will never comment on it.

You haven't heard his position on vampires, then.

I dont agree

Then not all things are possible if you believe and he still wins.

 

[Something Amyss]

The ghosts at the Goldfield Hotel have been known to

You're essentially begging the question in order to promote what you've already decided to believe. This is not a reasonable assessment. But no, they haven't been "known to" and claims are heavily disputed. This was popularised by freaking carnies on reality TV, and it takes about 2 minutes of research to see that it's almost certainly full of shit.

 

[Kaymish]

I don't believe in the paranormal at all there is an explanation for everything even if we dont understand it yet. however sometimes i wish it would exist so i could have paranormal Abilities but that's just a power fantasy which i can fulfill with Video games

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

You're essentially begging the question in order to promote what you've already decided to believe. This is not a reasonable assessment. But no, they haven't been "known to" and claims are heavily disputed. This was popularised by freaking carnies on reality TV, and it takes about 2 minutes of research to see that it's almost certainly full of shit.

Sure because the idiots on Ghost Adventures are the only ones who have reported unexplainable activity. Except they're not. There have been many contractors and crews who went to work on remodeling the Goldfield Hotel, they all quit, suddenly, reporting the same sort of activity that the Ghost Adventures crew talked about. There are reports of unexplainable activity, that fits the definition of a "haunted" location, going on there going way back. Also the people who go around and find evidence that a given place isn't haunted tend to be people called "debunkers", who go in having made the decision they're not going to believe a claim, then use the most flimsy "evidence to back their view up. Neither is scientific, but when it comes to a location like the Goldfield Hotel, I'm a lot more likely to put my money on reports from a great variety of people going back decades. Instead of buying to the theories of people who are bound and determined not to believe something.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I've had some odd occurrences in life, might be considered paranormal, might have been the result of misfires in my chemically unbalanced brain. Do I have answers for everything that I've experienced? No. Does it mean I believe in the paranormal? More like there's plausible explanations we haven't yet found to explain these oddities in life.
I'm not an unbeliever, but I am skeptical. Like I said, I've seen some weird shit that isn't easily explained and wasn't due to any drug usage or alcohol, and shared by others. Doesn't mean it was ghosts or anything of that nature but rather science of the present failing to have an answer, yet.

 

[DefunctTheory]

You're essentially begging the question in order to promote what you've already decided to believe. This is not a reasonable assessment. But no, they haven't been "known to" and claims are heavily disputed. This was popularised by freaking carnies on reality TV, and it takes about 2 minutes of research to see that it's almost certainly full of shit.

Sure because the idiots on Ghost Adventures are the only ones who have reported unexplainable activity. Except they're not. There have been many contractors and crews who went to work on remodeling the Goldfield Hotel, they all quit, suddenly, reporting the same sort of activity that the Ghost Adventures crew talked about. There are reports of unexplainable activity, that fits the definition of a "haunted" location, going on there going way back. Also the people who go around and find evidence that a given place isn't haunted tend to be people called "debunkers", who go in having made the decision they're not going to believe a claim, then use the most flimsy "evidence to back their view up. Neither is scientific, but when it comes to a location like the Goldfield Hotel, I'm a lot more likely to put my money on reports from a great variety of people going back decades. Instead of buying to the theories of people who are bound and determined not to believe something.

Can you provide any evidence to support any of those claims, specifically that contractors have quit en masse due to hauntings? Every source I've found cites vandalism, inspired by ghost tales that are based on faulty historical fact (One of the ghost who supposedly haunts the place rarely ever showed up to the place, being essentially an investor, yet the stories say he was deeply connected to the place. A woman and baby who were supposedly murdered there were killed in years were it was logically impossible for the vents to occur, mine shafts that don't exist, and so on). Three movies were filmed in the hotel without incident. Most of the hauntings mirror, or are obvious evolutions of, stories told by Shirley A. Porter, who wrote a book about the place. Prior to this book, no sightings or claims. Afterwards, a bunch. People who own properties around the hotel talk about a huge rash of vandalism that can account for much of the 'spooky' stuff.

Long story short, there is nothing about the hotel, or in fact most haunted places, that is unexplained. Its vandalism, wishful thinking, a spooky setting, and confirmation bias.

And actually, 'debunking' is very scientific. The best way to verify a claim is to attack it, not build it up endlessly.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Can you provide any evidence to support any of those claims, specifically that contractors have quit en masse due to hauntings? Every source I've found cites vandalism, inspired by ghost tales that are based on faulty historical fact (One of the ghost who supposedly haunts the place rarely ever showed up to the place, being essentially an investor, yet the stories say he was deeply connected to the place. A woman and baby who were supposedly murdered there were killed in years were it was logically impossible for the vents to occur, mine shafts that don't exist, and so on). Three movies were filmed in the hotel without incident. Most of the hauntings mirror, or are obvious evolutions of, stories told by Shirley A. Porter, who wrote a book about the place. Prior to this book, no sightings or claims. Afterwards, a bunch. People who own properties around the hotel talk about a huge rash of vandalism that can account for much of the 'spooky' stuff.

Long story short, there is nothing about the hotel, or in fact most haunted places, that is unexplained. Its vandalism, wishful thinking, a spooky setting, and confirmation bias.

And actually, 'debunking' is very scientific. The best way to verify a claim is to attack it, not build it up endlessly.

The only direct evidence I ever encountered was a fellow who worked there and was part of a crew that quit within a week of being hired. One of the things he remembers is a pair of ladders they'd set up with a plank running between the two ladders across rungs, one of the ladders with no one touching it, folded and toppled the rig lengthwise. Work step ladders set in a triangular fashion have to lift to fold, they don't just do it by themselves. He also said he had incidents, painful ones, for weeks afterwards off site. But personally I've only heard anecdotal evidence.

Also being a skeptic of most things, "debunking" is often a good thing, when people are actively trying to disprove something, not supporting their own confirmation bias about something being nonexistant. Again I tend towards skeptical, I like seeing things conclusively disproved, but on the subject of the Goldfield, I'd much rather be safe than sorry.

 

[Something Amyss]

Sure because the idiots on Ghost Adventures are the only ones who have reported unexplainable activity.

Okay, if you want to start with a strawman, fine. Except when the primary sources for such claims come from relity TV shows (shows plural, not singular), it's kind of ridiculous to call them idiots.

There have been many contractors and crews who went to work on remodeling the Goldfield Hotel, they all quit, suddenly, reporting the same sort of activity that the Ghost Adventures crew talked about.

Which all appear to post-date the show. Well, I found ONE.

There are reports of unexplainable activity

There are inconsistent reports told by unreliable or unverifiable witnesses, some who appear to not exist.

that fits the definition of a "haunted" location

As long as those are scare quotes, yes.

I'm a lot more likely to put my money on reports from a great variety of people going back decades.

Even if they're not real.

Instead of buying to the theories of people who are bound and determined not to believe something.

Or people with journalistic experience who know how to research a subject and bother to do so.

Believe what you want, but don't try and make this out to be people who are willing to go to any lengths to deny something when it's clearly the opposite happening. You claimed to be a reasonable person, and any number of things mentioned here should reasonably set off red flags. Instead, you're making affirmative accounts of things that appear to have never happened.

I don't care what you believe in. But you made claims that can be falsified. Two people have now done it.

Again I tend towards skeptical

No, you really don't. Not just because of this post. So many of your comments lack even a shred of skepticism. Also, skeptics do not count "a friend recalls" as direct evidence. You just accused skeptics of trying to prove something false while you tried to defend it without evidence. Skepticism should lead you to not believe such claims, as they can be easily shot down.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I love a good mystery. I like unexplained things. Those sort of things fascinate me and I think that kind of curiosity is a natural part of being human. However, I don't make leaps of logic just because something can't be explained. Way too often people don't realize how easily their brain is tricked into thinking one thing, when it is really something else or nothing at all. That and most of the paranormal community really loves to do poor science or non-science and call it science.
So I guess I have to say no. Even if I was sitting in my room and watched a book fly off a shelf, levitate in mid air, do a barrel roll and then crash into my wall; all without any interaction from anything else. I still couldn't make a jump to say a 'ghost did it'. There isn't any evidence to say so and you end up making this jump of logic and you end up working backwards which isn't how it works.

 

[thewatergamer]

As an evangelical christian I can't really claim that I disbelieve in the paranormal now can I? I do believe that the vast majority of so called "supernatural" instances are completely bullshit scams meant to separate morons from their money, but do I believe that paranormal things exist? Well considering I believe in a dude who managed to come back from the dead, as well as a book in which several humans performed the impossible, not even mentioning horrible and evil demons attempting to deceive humanity, well I have to say that yes I do believe in the paranormal to an extent

 

[FirstNameLastName]

It really depends what you mean by "want to believe". I don't want to believe something if I already believe it to be false since that would mean I'm believing a falsehood, and I don't see why I'd want to believe a falsehood. I would, however, want for it to be true, since that would open all sorts of philosophical and theological debates.

 

[Chris Moses]

I've seen and done things that can't be explained by modern science, so I voted "yes".

 

[rgrekejin]

It depends on what you mean by "paranormal". If by that you mean "belief in anything other than the popular materialist conception of the universe that matter as we understand it is all that exists", then yes, I do believe in the paranormal, and it is precisely because I am a person of logic and reason that I do so. Materialist conceptions of reality fail in principle to explain some pretty basic features of the observable world, like intentionality (and no, you can't get out of the problem by simply saying "Electrical impulses in the brain code for it!" because that isn't solving the problem, it's committing a homunculus fallacy), the semantic content of thought, and the fact that truth exists and is knowable. As J.B.S. Haldane once said:

"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms."

Part of the problem seems to be that those that espouse strong materialist views of the world haven't really thought through all the implications of their position, and smuggle in some non-materialist metaphysics to make everything work. I recommend Alex Rosenberg's "The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions" for a really clear-eyed examination of the myriad bizarre things that materialism actually entails, although I recommend it because I think it serves as a sort of reductio ad absurdum of the materialist position, not, as Rosenberg would like, a collection of sober realities we need to learn to live with.

 

[CeeBod]

As J.B.S. Haldane once said:

"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms."

At the risk of going off on a tangent here, I'd suggest that that J.B.S Haldane quote makes it sound like he's espousing Cartesian dualism which was rather an outdated philosophy even during Haldane's lifetime. We know that a brain is composed of entirely ordinary matter made from entirely ordinary atoms, and it makes more sense to think of mind as being a process of the brain, much like life is a process of the body:Any emergent process can be orders of magnitude more complex than the physical matter that spawned that emergent process. Invoking something mystical and immaterial to account for this, like for example a soul, is just bad science.

I don't know in what context Haldane's quote is from, but he's a respected enough scientist that I'd be surprised if that inference was where he was going with his line of reasoning.

 

[happyninja42]

The only direct evidence I ever encountered was a fellow who worked there and was part of a crew that quit within a week of being hired. One of the things he remembers is a pair of ladders they'd set up with a plank running between the two ladders across rungs, one of the ladders with no one touching it, folded and toppled the rig lengthwise. Work step ladders set in a triangular fashion have to lift to fold, they don't just do it by themselves. He also said he had incidents, painful ones, for weeks afterwards off site. But personally I've only heard anecdotal evidence.

That's not "direct evidence" it's anecdotal evidence, as you yourself indicated. Which is the flimsiest of evidence out there.

Also being a skeptic of most things, "debunking" is often a good thing, when people are actively trying to disprove something, not supporting their own confirmation bias about something being nonexistant.

You do realize this applies to people who want to believe in something as well right? Confirmation bias is rampant in the supernatural proponents department.

Sure because the idiots on Ghost Adventures are the only ones who have reported unexplainable activity. Except they're not. There have been many contractors and crews who went to work on remodeling the Goldfield Hotel, they all quit, suddenly, reporting the same sort of activity that the Ghost Adventures crew talked about. There are reports of unexplainable activity, that fits the definition of a "haunted" location, going on there going way back. Also the people who go around and find evidence that a given place isn't haunted tend to be people called "debunkers", who go in having made the decision they're not going to believe a claim, then use the most flimsy "evidence to back their view up. Neither is scientific, but when it comes to a location like the Goldfield Hotel, I'm a lot more likely to put my money on reports from a great variety of people going back decades. Instead of buying to the theories of people who are bound and determined not to believe something.

You just used the Argument Ad Populum logical fallacy there. Saying "well hey, lots of people say it's happened, so it must be true." This isn't skeptical at all. Do you believe everything that a lot of people say happens is what they say it was? What about UFO abductions, tons of people, over several decades report those, but do you give those stories as much validity as these ghost sightings? Or the report from...shit I forget the details of it. I think it was about 60 years ago? Possibly longer, and was somewhere in South America I believe. A large number of people in this one valley, were reported (though there is some evidence that the number of people reported to have seen it was inflated for sensationalism), that the sun in the sky moved around of it's own power. Literally moved around, and they said it was a miracle. Now, nobody else on the planet reported this happening, and since this would be something that if it did actually happen, would've been globally witnessed. But hey, supposedly, dozens of people saw it, so it must be true right? My personal opinion is that there was sporadic cloud cover, and this made it look like the sun was moving in the sky, in relation to the clouds. I've seen this happen myself with the moon on various nights.

That's why you can't use the "lot's of people say it happened, so it must have happened" stance, if you are actually being skeptical. Because it's still nothing more than a collection of anecdotal statements. Which don't have any extra weight of evidence simply by being large in volume. At best it might suggest an investigation, as having multiple sources say "something happened here" would suggest that "something" happened. But what it was, should be left up to the actual investigation results.

 

[rgrekejin]

As J.B.S. Haldane once said:

"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms."

At the risk of going off on a tangent here, I'd suggest that that J.B.S Haldane quote makes it sound like he's espousing Cartesian dualism which was rather an outdated philosophy even during Haldane's lifetime. We know that a brain is composed of entirely ordinary matter made from entirely ordinary atoms, and it makes more sense to think of mind as being a process of the brain, much like life is a process of the body:Any emergent process can be orders of magnitude more complex than the physical matter that spawned that emergent process. Invoking something mystical and immaterial to account for this, like for example a soul, is just bad science.

I don't know in what context Haldane's quote is from, but he's a respected enough scientist that I'd be surprised if that inference was where he was going with his line of reasoning.

Some form of dualism, as a philosophy of the mind, is still around today, and is a position held by a lot of serious thinkers in the field (disclaimer: I am a hylomorphist, not a Cartesian dualist). I'm not sure what specifically you mean when you're talking about the mind as a process of the brain, but I think that Rosenberg, in the book I refer to above, makes a good case that any consistent materialism *must* take an eliminative position a la Dan Dennett towards the mind, rather than a reductionist position (some thinkers, notably the Churchlands, dispute this, but I think they're wrong for reasons I won't go it to here). And either position is nonsense anyway - John Searle is the man to read for a demolition of eliminatism and reductionism and a muscular defense of the irreducibility of the mind. If materialism entails eliminatism, and eliminatism fails as an explanation, then materialism is false. Curiously, Searle claims that he himself is not a dualist, but, upon examining his actual position, it seems to me that he's just a dualist who doesn't want to be called a dualist.

As for the fact that the brain is solely composed of atoms - yes, it certainly is, but saying so misses the point. The point is not that the brain is not composed of atoms, but that the mind is not identical to the brain. There is obviously a relation between them, but they are not ontologically identical. Haldane, frankly, could have phrased that better at the end, something like "I therefore have no reason for supposing my mind to be composed of atoms." And his basic point stands - if thoughts are determined solely by chemical functions in our skull, how can we possibly know them to be true or false, logically valid or not? The fact that truth exists, that the laws of logic work, and that intentionality is real, cannot have a purely material explanation, at least not as matter is presently understood. Haldane knew this - he may have been a well respected scientist, but he had a very firm grip on the limits of what science was capable of telling us, certainly better than the philisophical philistines running around today (we're looking at you, Lawrence Krauss). Evidence of this is seen in a number of his famous quotes:

"Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he's unwilling to be seen with her in public."

"My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we *can* suppose."