Do you believe in ghosts?

[Kevin 1]

I remember seeing some documentary a while back in which some scientist offered the explanation that it's often to do with the magnetic field that surrounds us, and that in some areas and buildings this field is particularly strong and can act as a sort of camera, and what people see is the images that the field has taken being replayed by enhanced magnetic activity at certain times.

 

I have seen something which I can't explain but I'm sure there is a logical explanation but I don't believe it personally. I tell you what though my Grandfatha could spin a yarn about what he'd seen down the pit.

 

Find that hard to believe. Science think they have an answer for every single thing. There has to be more than science in the universe.

[Geordieracer 0]

I remember seeing some documentary a while back in which some scientist offered the explanation that it's often to do with the magnetic field that surrounds us, and that in some areas and buildings this field is particularly strong and can act as a sort of camera, and what people see is the images that the field has taken being replayed by enhanced magnetic activity at certain times.

 

I have seen something which I can't explain but I'm sure there is a logical explanation but I don't believe it personally. I tell you what though my Grandfatha could spin a yarn about what he'd seen down the pit.

 

Find that hard to believe. Science think they have an answer for every single thing. There has to be more than science in the universe.

 

Not saying I buy it either it's just an interesting alternative explanation.

[Kitman 2188]

I remember seeing some documentary a while back in which some scientist offered the explanation that it's often to do with the magnetic field that surrounds us, and that in some areas and buildings this field is particularly strong and can act as a sort of camera, and what people see is the images that the field has taken being replayed by enhanced magnetic activity at certain times.

 

I have seen something which I can't explain but I'm sure there is a logical explanation but I don't believe it personally. I tell you what though my Grandfatha could spin a yarn about what he'd seen down the pit.

 

Find that hard to believe. Science think they have an answer for every single thing. There has to be more than science in the universe.

 

This is true and why it's best to have an open mind. Also scientists tend to be very boring folk in my experience.

[The Fish 8989]

I remember seeing some documentary a while back in which some scientist offered the explanation that it's often to do with the magnetic field that surrounds us, and that in some areas and buildings this field is particularly strong and can act as a sort of camera, and what people see is the images that the field has taken being replayed by enhanced magnetic activity at certain times.

 

I have seen something which I can't explain but I'm sure there is a logical explanation but I don't believe it personally. I tell you what though my Grandfatha could spin a yarn about what he'd seen down the pit.

 

Find that hard to believe. Science think they have an answer for every single thing. There has to be more than science in the universe.

 

This is true and why it's best to have an open mind. Also scientists tend to be very boring folk in my experience.

Really?

 

I find the narrow-minded views of the religious far more boring.

 

It's a bit daft to say "There must be more than science in the universe", unless you mean there must be more to the universe than the science we currently understand. At one point thunder and lightning was stuff of mythology and faith, not science. Now we understand it, it's no longer the work of a deity or demon. So sure there's shit in the universe we just cannot explain, but I've far more "faith" in the people trying to find answers, instead of the people who've already made up their minds that, Magic Man done it*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Robin Ince

[Kitman 2188]

Really?

 

I find the narrow-minded views of the religious far more boring.

 

It's a bit daft to say "There must be more than science in the universe", unless you mean there must be more to the universe than the science we currently understand. At one point thunder and lightning was stuff of mythology and faith, not science. Now we understand it, it's no longer the work of a deity or demon. So sure there's shit in the universe we just cannot explain, but I've far more "faith" in the people trying to find answers, instead of the people who've already made up their minds that, Magic Man done it*

 

Well I wasn't looking for a comparison between scientists and religious nutcases, that's like comparing dog and cow shit in my opinion. In other words they're both similar in their own way (and both are likely to smell too).

 

I don't really agree with your assertion that there's a scientific answer to everything. There's an essential arrogance about scientists that given enough time their methods are clever enough to come up with all the answers and explain everything in the Universe. This comes from the superiority complex that scientists have had since the days of the Enlightenment, and which is passed on in the classroom from generation to generation. The advances of the 19th and 20th centuries have reinforced this all encompassing deference to Science. Basically to a scientist, if it can't be explained by Science, it can't possibly exist.

 

However Science has been dreamt up by humans, it's practised by humans and is therefore subject imo to all the limitations that humankind have, as much as scientists like to argue otherwise. Good and bad science has come and gone over decades according to what's in fashion. Human beings can't help but interpret science through the prism of their own experience and according to their own prejudices and the limits of imagination. It's an extremely effective investigative method but it's not perfect.

 

So yes, I think there's more to the Universe than science. it shouldn't be a case of Science or nothing. There's plenty in human life and experience which is unscientific but which might be an equally valid way of looking at things, we just don't know. I think the idea that everything ultimately has a scientific explanation is just a bloody big assumption and well, distinctly unscientific.

 

I prefer to keep an open mind about things in general. Something better than scientific explanation might be just around the corner for all we know. Just wait till the little green men get here.

Edited August 18, 2010 by Kitman

[Kitman 2188]

I am a believer

 

did you see her face?

Edited August 18, 2010 by Kitman

[peasepud 59]

I don't really agree with your assertion that there's a scientific answer to everything. There's an essential arrogance about scientists that given enough time their methods are clever enough to come up with all the answers and explain everything in the Universe. This comes from the superiority complex that scientists have had since the days of the Enlightenment, and which is passed on in the classroom from generation to generation. The advances of the 19th and 20th centuries have reinforced this all encompassing deference to Science. Basically to a scientist, if it can't be explained by Science, it can't possibly exist.

 

At the end of the day, the bulk of science is explaining the what?, how?, why? of things. Everything that happens must have a reason for happening, something that causes it therefore its possible that science will find the answer. Given enough time and resources they will be answered, it could be however that those resources are billions and billions of pounds and the time limit is 10k years.

 

Everything has an answer, even if that answer is "a big soopadoopa all seeing all knowning being that controls everything", if some scientists susses that out and proves it then science is still responsible for the discovery.

[Kitman 2188]

I don't really agree with your assertion that there's a scientific answer to everything. There's an essential arrogance about scientists that given enough time their methods are clever enough to come up with all the answers and explain everything in the Universe. This comes from the superiority complex that scientists have had since the days of the Enlightenment, and which is passed on in the classroom from generation to generation. The advances of the 19th and 20th centuries have reinforced this all encompassing deference to Science. Basically to a scientist, if it can't be explained by Science, it can't possibly exist.

 

At the end of the day, the bulk of science is explaining the what?, how?, why? of things. Everything that happens must have a reason for happening, something that causes it therefore its possible that science will find the answer. Given enough time and resources they will be answered, it could be however that those resources are billions and billions of pounds and the time limit is 10k years.

 

Everything has an answer, even if that answer is "a big soopadoopa all seeing all knowning being that controls everything", if some scientists susses that out and proves it then science is still responsible for the discovery.

 

Cause and effect, question and answer, everything has an answer. Did you read science at uni by any chance?

 

No, I dont agree. There might be some things that human science can't explain, even given infinite time and resources. There's a limit to what human beings can observe, infer, conclude. Unless you're including alien science?

[Happy Face 29]

I once woke up in the middle of the night and saw what looked like a little girl stood in my bedroom doorway.

 

It also looked like a trick of the light so I rubbed my eyes and looked properly...and it still looked like a small child so I sat up a bit to get a different perspective and it was still there.

 

I couldn't be arsed to get out of the bed so I just ignored it and went back to sleep.

[Kitman 2188]

I once woke up in the middle of the night and saw what looked like a little girl stood in my bedroom doorway.

 

It also looked like a trick of the light so I rubbed my eyes and looked properly...and it still looked like a small child so I sat up a bit to get a different perspective and it was still there.

 

I couldn't be arsed to get out of the bed so I just ignored it and went back to sleep.

 

I had exactly the same experience the night before last. Except it was actually my daughter, 4 o'clock in the bloody morning....

[Gemmill 34460]

Radgina displaying signs of mental illness itt.

[The Fish 8989]

I don't really agree with your assertion that there's a scientific answer to everything. There's an essential arrogance about scientists that given enough time their methods are clever enough to come up with all the answers and explain everything in the Universe. This comes from the superiority complex that scientists have had since the days of the Enlightenment, and which is passed on in the classroom from generation to generation. The advances of the 19th and 20th centuries have reinforced this all encompassing deference to Science. Basically to a scientist, if it can't be explained by Science, it can't possibly exist.

 

At the end of the day, the bulk of science is explaining the what?, how?, why? of things. Everything that happens must have a reason for happening, something that causes it therefore its possible that science will find the answer. Given enough time and resources they will be answered, it could be however that those resources are billions and billions of pounds and the time limit is 10k years.

 

Everything has an answer, even if that answer is "a big soopadoopa all seeing all knowning being that controls everything", if some scientists susses that out and proves it then science is still responsible for the discovery.

 

Cause and effect, question and answer, everything has an answer. Did you read science at uni by any chance?

 

No, I dont agree. There might be some things that human science can't explain, even given infinite time and resources. There's a limit to what human beings can observe, infer, conclude. Unless you're including alien science?

 

It seems odd to me that you're claiming an open mind, but do not accept that the boundaries of human advancement may very well be limitless. How can we possibly deduce that in another billion or so years we have not evolved to the point that such big questions as "how did it all begin" are now within our grasp?

 

Science isn't just the science of modern times, bound by our current limitations. Science is simply the quest for provable answers, even if those answers disprove previously held ideas. Just as we mock past sciences as ludicrous, there are "sciences" now that would seem entirely mystical to someone from a couple of centuries ago, and no doubt in a century or so into the future, there may very well be sciences that are truly mind-boggling. So I don't know how you can possibly dismiss science so quickly.

 

Lets look at the progression of science vs faith, faith has clung on and has, itself, evolved to try and keep up with a discipline that, time and again, gains momentum as, time and again, it's theories are backed up with empirical data. Creationism is faith's way of trying to ride the wave of scientific discovery and pretending like the last thousand years of assertion to the contrary have gone away.

 

You say science needs answers, cause and effect? Surely that's a criticism that can be levelled at Faith as well. Scientists say it was the Big Bang, Creationists say it was God. Scientists don't pretend to understand fully the causes or circumstances of the Big Bang but they're trying to, Creationists outwardly decry anybody who does try to understand the terrible glory of God, and insist we should accept that God was the cause and we are the effect.

 

I guess I just don't understand anybody who is wilfully ignorant, and frankly don't care if this makes me sound arrogant.

[manc-mag 1]

Radgina displaying signs of mental illness itt.

 

Pretty sure I've seen her 'talking to ghosts' by Grey's Monument with a small group of her fellow 'psychics'

[Billy Castell 0]

I'm guessing that's where people often consort with spirits in Newcastle Manc-Mag.

 

Still can't beat a load of tramps singing a Queen medley as loud as possible in Bedford bus station though.

Edited August 18, 2010 by Billy Castell

[Renton 17771]

Really?

 

I find the narrow-minded views of the religious far more boring.

 

It's a bit daft to say "There must be more than science in the universe", unless you mean there must be more to the universe than the science we currently understand. At one point thunder and lightning was stuff of mythology and faith, not science. Now we understand it, it's no longer the work of a deity or demon. So sure there's shit in the universe we just cannot explain, but I've far more "faith" in the people trying to find answers, instead of the people who've already made up their minds that, Magic Man done it*

 

Well I wasn't looking for a comparison between scientists and religious nutcases, that's like comparing dog and cow shit in my opinion. In other words they're both similar in their own way (and both are likely to smell too).

 

I don't really agree with your assertion that there's a scientific answer to everything. There's an essential arrogance about scientists that given enough time their methods are clever enough to come up with all the answers and explain everything in the Universe. This comes from the superiority complex that scientists have had since the days of the Enlightenment, and which is passed on in the classroom from generation to generation. The advances of the 19th and 20th centuries have reinforced this all encompassing deference to Science. Basically to a scientist, if it can't be explained by Science, it can't possibly exist.

 

However Science has been dreamt up by humans, it's practised by humans and is therefore subject imo to all the limitations that humankind have, as much as scientists like to argue otherwise. Good and bad science has come and gone over decades according to what's in fashion. Human beings can't help but interpret science through the prism of their own experience and according to their own prejudices and the limits of imagination. It's an extremely effective investigative method but it's not perfect.

 

So yes, I think there's more to the Universe than science. it shouldn't be a case of Science or nothing. There's plenty in human life and experience which is unscientific but which might be an equally valid way of looking at things, we just don't know. I think the idea that everything ultimately has a scientific explanation is just a bloody big assumption and well, distinctly unscientific.

 

I prefer to keep an open mind about things in general. Something better than scientific explanation might be just around the corner for all we know. Just wait till the little green men get here.

 

What do you think 'Science' actually is out of interest? Give a definition if you can (and don't Google).

[NJS 3978]

Misfiring brain chemistry - and cunts like that John Edwards who make money out of peoples' very human sense of loss should be fucking strung up.

[Gemmill 34460]

Misfiring brain chemistry - and cunts like that John Edwards who make money out of peoples' very human sense of loss should be fucking strung up.

 

 

He was exposed as a fraud recently as well, wasn't he? What a twat.

[Ruler of Planet Houston 1]

Tell a 'believer' there is a ghost of a woman and child with no heads in a house and they will see exactly that. In my opinion, that is the start and end to 'are ghosts real?' arguments.

[Kitman 2188]

I don't really agree with your assertion that there's a scientific answer to everything. There's an essential arrogance about scientists that given enough time their methods are clever enough to come up with all the answers and explain everything in the Universe. This comes from the superiority complex that scientists have had since the days of the Enlightenment, and which is passed on in the classroom from generation to generation. The advances of the 19th and 20th centuries have reinforced this all encompassing deference to Science. Basically to a scientist, if it can't be explained by Science, it can't possibly exist.

 

At the end of the day, the bulk of science is explaining the what?, how?, why? of things. Everything that happens must have a reason for happening, something that causes it therefore its possible that science will find the answer. Given enough time and resources they will be answered, it could be however that those resources are billions and billions of pounds and the time limit is 10k years.

 

Everything has an answer, even if that answer is "a big soopadoopa all seeing all knowning being that controls everything", if some scientists susses that out and proves it then science is still responsible for the discovery.

 

Cause and effect, question and answer, everything has an answer. Did you read science at uni by any chance?

 

No, I dont agree. There might be some things that human science can't explain, even given infinite time and resources. There's a limit to what human beings can observe, infer, conclude. Unless you're including alien science?

 

It seems odd to me that you're claiming an open mind, but do not accept that the boundaries of human advancement may very well be limitless. How can we possibly deduce that in another billion or so years we have not evolved to the point that such big questions as "how did it all begin" are now within our grasp?

 

Science isn't just the science of modern times, bound by our current limitations. Science is simply the quest for provable answers, even if those answers disprove previously held ideas. Just as we mock past sciences as ludicrous, there are "sciences" now that would seem entirely mystical to someone from a couple of centuries ago, and no doubt in a century or so into the future, there may very well be sciences that are truly mind-boggling. So I don't know how you can possibly dismiss science so quickly.

 

Lets look at the progression of science vs faith, faith has clung on and has, itself, evolved to try and keep up with a discipline that, time and again, gains momentum as, time and again, it's theories are backed up with empirical data. Creationism is faith's way of trying to ride the wave of scientific discovery and pretending like the last thousand years of assertion to the contrary have gone away.

 

You say science needs answers, cause and effect? Surely that's a criticism that can be levelled at Faith as well. Scientists say it was the Big Bang, Creationists say it was God. Scientists don't pretend to understand fully the causes or circumstances of the Big Bang but they're trying to, Creationists outwardly decry anybody who does try to understand the terrible glory of God, and insist we should accept that God was the cause and we are the effect.

 

I guess I just don't understand anybody who is wilfully ignorant, and frankly don't care if this makes me sound arrogant.

 

I think you've missed my point really. It's not about "faith" vs science for me. I'm not championing religious faith at all, I'm questioning whether science is all it's cracked up to be. I don't believe in God, so I don't have an anti-scientist agenda if that's what you think. In fact I don't think I mentioned faith at all.

 

What I was questioning is where this belief in science as the font of all answers to everything comes from. I expect for some people, ghosts can't exist as there's no scientific consensus for it, so end of story. It's not logical, rational, scientific. But why form a view of the supernatural exclusively based on science? As you highlight above, scientific enquiry is changeable from age to age, put on and thrown off like an old coat, and yet if we're told it's scientifically proven/unproven, we tend to accept it as truth. We also tend to accept this as the correct way to think.

 

Scientists can't explain half of what goes on in human experience and on planet Earth without starting on the rest of the universe. I'm dubious whether given unlimited time and resources that will ever change but you think differently, so fair enough. For all the talk of scientific method and empirical evidence, I bet a lot of the great theoretical discoveries of the modern era owe a huge amount to imagination, inspiration, instinct and guess work back-filled with scientific method to provide a proof. I have no way of backing this assertion up of course, I should read up on Einstein but I can't be bothered. However for me science is just another iteration of the development of human thought, in one or two hundred years time or so I reckon there'll be another and better methodology along.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the progress we've achieved through science. I'm not a mad Luddite plotting the end of civilisation in a log cabin in Kentucky. However I think unquestioning acceptance of the scientific approach breeds a kind of prosaic literal mindedness which diminishes us and makes life duller. I prefer to think there's maybe more to life than a series of chemical interactions on a rock hurtling through space. I don't think ghosts exist but I'd like to think they do. I prefer not to rule them out simply because the scientists haven't come up with an explanation for their existence. I'm not convinced by Kevin's mate though, That's what I meant by having an open mind.

[Kitman 2188]

What do you think 'Science' actually is out of interest? Give a definition if you can (and don't Google).

 

I was taught at school that science is the explanation of physical events through systematic study and experiment.

[NJS 3978]

Scientists can't explain half of what goes on in human experience and on planet Earth without starting on the rest of the universe.

 

I know the "half" is just an expression but my arbitrary guess would be less than 1% is unexplained to any great degree.

[Kitman 2188]

Scientists can't explain half of what goes on in human experience and on planet Earth without starting on the rest of the universe.

 

I know the "half" is just an expression but my arbitrary guess would be less than 1% is unexplained to any great degree.

 

How literal minded of you

[Ruler of Planet Houston 1]

Scientists haven't come up with an explanation for their existence because there is no existence to explain.

[NJS 3978]

Scientists can't explain half of what goes on in human experience and on planet Earth without starting on the rest of the universe.

 

I know the "half" is just an expression but my arbitrary guess would be less than 1% is unexplained to any great degree.

 

How literal minded of you

 

Yeah but your inference is that even though science is sort of good, it doesn't really measure up in the big picture - I think you're wrong on that.

[Kitman 2188]

Scientists haven't come up with an explanation for their existence because there is no existence to explain.

 

Depends on your starting point I suppose. If you flatly rule out the possibility that anything could survive death in any form whatsoever, then of course it's a ridiculous idea.