The Paranormal?
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I understand the intent behind these examples but I think they are unhelpful analogies bro. They provide enough to justify an already held position, but offer little towards fostering a healthy conversation between people who disagree.
Yeah they are flawed analogies, but I think the intent was to demonstrate how we routinely take things on faith.
It reminded me of the movie Contact which I recently re-watched (great movie IMO). The Jodie Foster character is essentially an atheist and a hardcore materialist scientist, but in the end she ends up arguing for "faith" because of what she experienced.
This is typical of human nature...for most people they have to have the experience themselves. I also love the final punchline in the movie which is that the national security apparatus which discredited her testimony was actually suppressing the very evidence that supported it.
This sums up this entire thread...............
Of course the analogies are flawed. This is a tobacco pipe forum
But as @brian64 stated clearly, the intent is that we take a hell of a lot on faith. Science is only a precise as the input and only as accurate as the function used to create an output. We put a lot of faith into science. Some things, it works well for us. In other ways, science is only able to take the user only so far. The next action by the user requires a leap of faith based on their own experiences and often by the intuitive reasoning of their own logic and emotions. I spent a month on a murder trial and ended up being the Forman of the jury. After two days of looking at the "proof" which seemed quite clear and evident - most of the jurors made their decisions based on their own reckoning of what they heard. I am weary of those who demand proof... Too often, the proof is a twisted bit of evidence twisted around a fallacy of entangled twisted arguments and data. But to each their own.
Pretty much the case, especially so with discussions of "paranormal" events. My own experiences, which I have not and will not discuss here have been shared by others around the planet. We could all be having the exact same experience due to some hard wiring in our brains or it may be something that was an actual externally caused experience. To me it doesn't matter. I don't actually need an explanation. The experience is all the explanation I require.
It wasn't related to things that go bump in the night or any variation thereof. And no, I won't discuss it. I have, but that was because someone, in another part of the world, described the exact same experience, and we ended up comparing "notes". I've done this a few times.
Believe. Don't believe. It doesn't matter.
Which is precisely why it is the perfect vehicle to advance certain agendas.
And in yet other ways it can be corrupted by money and power like everything else.
Groupthink has a nasty habit of masquerading as science these days. It's like trying to distinguish between Capstan Blue Flake and Capstan Blue Ready Rubbed.
There will always be those who discount the paranormal or what goes for the unexplained due to a lack of scientific evidence. But the lack of evidence may only be that we as people lack the ability to see the evidence. The best example I can think of is the one where a two dimensional being watches a three dimensional being pass by them. They would never comprehend what they were seeing because they lack the ability to perceive in 3 dimensions. The same goes for us. A being, capable of operating in a so-called 4th dimensional space would be invisible to us, except for some strange perceptions that to us might very well look paranormal. Because the experience would be outside of our perceptional abilities to comprehend, our mind might very well register any disturbances as "supernatural or paranormal." As for as machinery and data collecting devices, they would be all but useless to collect data. The lack of proof is evidence of nothing, other than the many stories that have been told have yet to be validated by our scientific methodology and machinery, all designed for the reality they were built to detect, not the reality that has yet to be detected. Amazing things are happening in laboratories and think tanks around the world, some of which will seem like magic to those who go about their every day lives today. There may soon come about a day when our answers to these question are made apparent. Until then, why discount the possibility of something more based on a lack of proof today? Just a thought.
Reminded me of the Asch experiment, which is illuminating in regard to this aspect of human psychology.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
--Arthur C. Clarke
I know that coincidence will explain the following but still, it made me think; on the days that my Dad and Grandfather passed away, two interesting things happened. My Grandad said that when he died he would like to come back as a robin and dad said he would come back as a dog, my Gran said she would come back as a gold fish because she “didn’t want to remember anyway”.
The afternoon on the day grandad passed, he had left some tools out of the shed so I went to put them away. I put the hoe and the wheelbarrow in and as I turned back there was a robin, sitting on the handle of the fork that was sticking in the ground.
On the morning my dad died a black and white dog ran through my mum and dad’s garden. This one was stranger than the first because there had never been a dog in our garden and the garden was surrounded by a high fence with a solid gate - the robin I assume was on the scrounge for any potential earthworms that might be dug up but the dog made me wonder ?.
The afternoon on the day grandad passed, he had left some tools out of the shed so I went to put them away. I put the hoe and the wheelbarrow in and as I turned back there was a robin, sitting on the handle of the fork that was sticking in the ground.
On the morning my dad died a black and white dog ran through my mum and dad’s garden. This one was stranger than the first because there had never been a dog in our garden and the garden was surrounded by a high fence with a solid gate - the robin I assume was on the scrounge for any potential earthworms that might be dug up but the dog made me wonder ?.
Another famous argument:
My property (in Tennessee) is littered with rocks that excel at keeping tigers away. I personally guarantee each rock works for a minimum 5 mile radius.
I think for me the question is not so much "do I dismiss the possibility of something more?" as it is "how relevant is the possibility of something more to my life?". Clearly, none of us are in a position to speak with authority on the existence/nonexistence of paranormal phenomenon, so in the absence of that certainty what utility is there in informing our lives with the infinite list of things which may be true? I understand the driving force that curiosity is for scientific progress, so I'm speaking more about this community/laymen generally. As a species we can't even manage to acknowledge and react to the many urgent concerns which all evidence suggests are real and terribly consequential. This existence might just be a fever dream in the mind of a dying god, but that speculation doesn't do much about global food shortages or rising ocean levels.
Without going into specifics of what happened, can you offer any perspective on how having had this experience informs your life/outlook today?
Love is the most powerful and real force. Life is a stage of energy. All religions offer different pieces of reality, but none has the whole of it. Political ideology and alignment is completely beside the point and a life sucking waste.
I gravitate towards Buddhism, seems to be grounded to me. I've only just made it through the intro of this book...seems pretty good so far.
My NDE (Near Death Experience) has no explanation other than, many scientists and doctors have found that, in many deaths, the brain functions for a period after cessation of life functions. Some, for want of a better descriptor, refer to it as the soul. Who knows? My friends with a religious bent have one explanation. Non-believers have another. And, those in-between offer up their explanations. I don't need one, the experience was what it was.
In a question of similar vein to @MarcosEZLN above, has this experience led to a change in how you live your life? No pressure to answer bro. I find the impact of these experiences just as fascinating as the experiences themselves.
The Dalai Lama's most famous quote probably is "my religion is love." I do tend to believe this plane of existence is 1 of many, which, by the way, is also a Buddhist view. I'm closer to the end of my life than the beginning and, if I had it to do all over again, I would find a way to be more loving than I have been at times in my life.