Paranormal stories

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It's not complicated. Don't make it so.

-ERD50

For all we know, our existence might just be like avatars in a simulation.

If you've every played any computer game simulations with avatars, the "world" isn't always present but is "drawn" based on the avatar's perspective.

The simulation theory is not my idea but by folks much smarter than me. If you don't believe me, I'm sure you can look it up.
 
Well, all I know is what I experienced. I don't try to explain it - not really defend it even (you either believe me or you think I'm full of it - I don't care.)

Trying to explain what someone else experienced is likely to be unfruitful. YMMV

We cross posted there, but to be specific, I'll add: "you either believe me or you think I'm full of it " - no, it's not binary.

I believe that you believe it happened as you describe, so therefore, I don't think you are "full of it".

I'm simply questioning if it really happened as you believe it did - I think it is reasonable to consider (but as I said, I *cannot* *know*) that your mind played tricks on you, due to your sleepy state. But if that's the case, I can see where you would *not* think your mind played tricks on you, because - well, it's a catch-22, right?

-ERD50
 
For all we know, our existence might just be like avatars in a simulation. ...

Fine, and in a simulation, it seems reasonable to assume that the creator did not put in some special programming so that a tree only produces acoustic energy when it falls if only there are humans around to hear it? What would be the point?

This is why I trust Occam's Razor - you are going further and further out on a limb for complex scenarios to support complex 'solutions', when the simple ones are right in front of our face.

And if you want to believe that the simulation creator can do anything they want without any reasons that we can understand, well, we no longer have any rules at all, no basis for anything, and conversation is pointless.

Weren't there some "Alice in Wonderland" quotes earlier? I think they apply right now.

-ERD50
 
We cross posted there, but to be specific, I'll add: "you either believe me or you think I'm full of it " - no, it's not binary.

I believe that you believe it happened as you describe, so therefore, I don't think you are "full of it".

I'm simply questioning if it really happened as you believe it did - I think it is reasonable to consider (but as I said, I *cannot* *know*) that your mind played tricks on you, due to your sleepy state. But if that's the case, I can see where you would *not* think your mind played tricks on you, because - well, it's a catch-22, right?

-ERD50


IOW unresolvable. I can live with that and leave it there.
 
Fine, and in a simulation, it seems reasonable to assume that the creator did not put in some special programming so that a tree only produces acoustic energy when it falls if only there are humans around to hear it? What would be the point?

This is why I trust Occam's Razor - you are going further and further out on a limb for complex scenarios to support complex 'solutions', when the simple ones are right in front of our face.

And if you want to believe that the simulation creator can do anything they want without any reasons that we can understand, well, we no longer have any rules at all, no basis for anything, and conversation is pointless.

Weren't there some "Alice in Wonderland" quotes earlier? I think they apply right now.

-ERD50

Not reaching out on a limb. More like a coin toss (Note: The name of the author of the article is not named Easysurfer :cool:)

Ever since the philosopher Nick Bostrom proposed in the Philosophical Quarterly that the universe and everything in it might be a simulation, there has been intense public speculation and debate about the nature of reality. Such public intellectuals as Tesla leader and prolific Twitter gadfly Elon Musk have opined about the statistical inevitability of our world being little more than cascading green code. Recent papers have built on the original hypothesis to further refine the statistical bounds of the hypothesis, arguing that the chance that we live in a simulation may be 50–50.


One theory is why we can't break past the speed of light is because that's a constraint of the simulation:


We can see now that the speed of light meets all the criteria of a hardware artifact identified in our observation of our own computer builds. It remains the same irrespective of observer (simulated) speed, it is observed as a maximum limit, it is unexplainable by the physics of the universe, and it is absolute. The speed of light is a hardware artifact showing we live in a simulated universe.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/confirmed-we-live-in-a-simulation/

I'm sounding like a broken record, but once again I say "There's a lot more that I don't know about the nature of things than I do know." My mind is open enough to say that.
 
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Well, all I know is what I experienced. I don't try to explain it - not really defend it even (you either believe me or you think I'm full of it - I don't care.)
Late to the party once again, I see ERD has addressed this but I feel compelled to echo his response. I too am very skeptical that various paranormal claims are truly outside of normal. I suspect that most, if not all, are just unexplained. That said, I have friends who have had very strange experiences that they believe were paranormal, supernatural, whatever. I don't think any of those people, or you, are "full of it" for thinking their experiences were paranormal. I only start thinking they are full of it, if they demand that we accept that their experience was in fact supernatural just because they experienced it.
 
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Okay. Some more discussions :).

IMO, there are more shades of gray than things in black and white. Things mostly fall in a normal distribution. As for paranormal events, that's no different.

I do believe about things needed testing and scrutiny. Yet also I do believe somethings that don't seem probable (for me) are possible.

For every Warren Buffett out there that does really well, there are plenty of those who don't. But it's possible.

There are plenty plenty of quack psychics who will be happy to steal your money, but I wouldn't say that's impossible (there are plenty of quack financial people who are happy to steal your money too!).

Think about people who are savant and have a photographic memory for numbers. Compared to regular peoples' memories, they recall seems almost paranormal (heck, the only numbers I recall are a few like my cell number, birthday).

As for the monks who levitate by tapping into the worlds energy. For me, I can see it happening. Doesn't mean I'll believe the next guy I run into who claims that he can do that.
 
Not reaching out on a limb. More like a coin toss (Note: The name of the author of the article is not named Easysurfer :cool:) ....

OK, I'll play along with the 'simulation' theory for a bit.

It still seems at odds that all through this simulated history, mankind has attributed the things he did not understand as 'mystic'. And one by one, the mystic explanations drop by the wayside, as we better understand things like the weather, what causes earthquakes, solar eclipses, volcanoes, disease, comets, etc. We get an understanding of the elements, molecules, atoms and so forth. We can harness nuclear energy, send radio communications, travel to space, take X-rays, MRI's etc - and it all fits.

And out of all that - someone supposedly can levitate in a way we can't explain with our knowledge to date? Just doesn't seem consistent with all the other consistencies in this simulation.

Of course it can be hand-waved with a circular "well, that's just how the simulation works'. But that's just too easy, and too much of a stretch for me (though again, I *cannot* 100% rule anything out).

What's the old story - you come home and a plant is knocked over, there's dirt on the carpet and dog prints all over, and your dog is acting nervous and he has a history of creating havoc when you are out and acting guilty when you come home. So of course the dog did it - but can we rule out that some energy from the 197th dimension swooped in and did it to make it look like the dog did it? I guess we can't, but why even go there - the dog did it! Occam says so!

-ERD50
 
.... Things mostly fall in a normal distribution. As for paranormal events, that's no different. ...

Isn't this a paradox? If paranormal events are not understandable, then how do you 'know' they fit a normal distribution? It would seem the opposite, if they are *not* normal, shouldn't they *not* fit a normal distribution?

Is there such a thing as a 'paranormal' distribution? :)

edit to add: Hah, I guess so:

https://www.facebook.com/mfa2014/photos/a.2237532613017494/3420340401403370/?type=3

165554221_3420340404736703_6064942266407214480_n.jpg


.... ... As for the monks who levitate by tapping into the worlds energy. For me, I can see it happening. Doesn't mean I'll believe the next guy I run into who claims that he can do that.

Again, you are claiming to know something about the un-knowable. How does that work?

We don't really know if monks levitate (the 'evidence' is very, very weak), and if they can levitate outside of the known physical methods, then how do we know they do it by "tapping into the worlds energy.".

You are providing your own answers as part of an 'explanation', so it's just circular thinking.

-ERD50
 
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Again, you are claiming to know something about the un-knowable. How does that work? ...

-ERD50

That's my point. You are limiting your thinking to only allow things as measurable denying there is more than your ruler of measurement.
 
That's my point. You are limiting your thinking to only allow things as measurable denying there is more than your ruler of measurement.

But I wasn't asking about anything I said or believe, I was asking about what you said.

You are limiting paranormal events to a normal distribution. You are claiming to 'know' things about the paranormal.

I think it's about time for a visit from the Ministry of Silly Walks...

edit - ahh, my memory was off a bit, here it is:


-ERD50
 
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OK, I'll play along with the 'simulation' theory for a bit.

It still seems at odds that all through this simulated history, mankind has attributed the things he did not understand as 'mystic'. And one by one, the mystic explanations drop by the wayside, as we better understand things like the weather, what causes earthquakes, solar eclipses, volcanoes, disease, comets, etc. We get an understanding of the elements, molecules, atoms and so forth. We can harness nuclear energy, send radio communications, travel to space, take X-rays, MRI's etc - and it all fits.

And out of all that - someone supposedly can levitate in a way we can't explain with our knowledge to date? Just doesn't seem consistent with all the other consistencies in this simulation.

Of course it can be hand-waved with a circular "well, that's just how the simulation works'. But that's just too easy, and too much of a stretch for me (though again, I *cannot* 100% rule anything out).

What's the old story - you come home and a plant is knocked over, there's dirt on the carpet and dog prints all over, and your dog is acting nervous and he has a history of creating havoc when you are out and acting guilty when you come home. So of course the dog did it - but can we rule out that some energy from the 197th dimension swooped in and did it to make it look like the dog did it? I guess we can't, but why even go there - the dog did it! Occam says so!

-ERD50

As I said, not my theory. I'm saying folks smarter than me say about 50-50 chance. I'm just showing that it's okay, for some, to say we don't know everything.
 
Here is a video of “Our Lady of Zeitoun” showing apparitions that occurred over a three year period near Cairo, Egypt. The apparitions were viewed by hundreds of thousands of people and no one has been able to find or explain any natural cause.

Note: These are religious apparitions, but I hope the moderators will allow some leeway to the forum rules because of how it relates to this topic. There is no proselytizing intended in this video.

https://youtu.be/RmSrM9eKUHk?si=IMZNk_IsWf5RsX4-
 
That video convinced me. :peace: There is a painting in an old mission church in Rancho de Taos, NM that my parents took me to. You could actually see the cross on Jesus' shoulders glow. Some people would qualify that as extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims.

My skeptical mother harumphed at the Taos miracle. Even my very religious father smiled.
 
Some people might remember that in 1983 the magician David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Not just in front of those watching with him, but millions of people saw it on TV that evening.

To paraphrase Richard Feynman, we are remarkably easy to fool.
 
Some people might remember that in 1983 the magician David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Not just in front of those watching with him, but millions of people saw it on TV that evening.

To paraphrase Richard Feynman, we are remarkably easy to fool.
I saw him at the Warner Theater in DC. He was amazing.
 
Here is a video of “Our Lady of Zeitoun” ...

I'll keep an open mind, and hopefully can get through the whole 22+ minutes, but just two minutes in, and this (any, really) skeptic is already having his eyebrows raised (from the transcript):

2:02
thinking she was a young woman trying to
kill herself they shouted for her to
come down
then they realized that this was no
ordinary woman
soon word spread that the Virgin Mary
had returned to the Church of zeitoun

How did they come to 'realize' this was no ordinary woman? And that's a big leap from a “young woman" to the word spreading that this was the Virgin Mary. Does anyone in 1968 *know* what the Virgin Mary looked like? No contemporaneous portraits exist, do they? Do the dots get connected in the following 20 minutes? Let's find out!

Another few seconds in, and here's what I'm thinking: so far, we've only heard that witnesses saw something. OK, but as we've seen on the disappearing Statue of Liberty video, witnesses saw something (well, nothing, I guess!) too. What I'm curious to see if they reveal, was any inspection made of the area where the light was coming from? This might have revealed a very mundane projection system, set up by someone who wanted attention.

Had anyone been allowed to inspect Copperfield's set-up, the trick would have been obvious. Yet, they interviewed people who were amazed, they believed that he somehow made it disappear from their view (which he did, but it was conceptually dead-simple, just very difficult to pull off). And are there any interviews of people who figured out what was going on, or were those just not included? So I'll watch some more, hoping for some real content, wish me luck!

And while they interview believers, did they interview any skeptics? And the way they frame things, make their words a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy (from transcript):

12:30 the most astonishing public
manifestations of the supernatural ever
to have occurred on Earth
you had a tremendous circumstance
because not just one or two or six or
seven seen the Virgin Mary
but hundreds of thousands ...

See what they did there? They didn't say that that many saw “something”, but that they saw the Virgin Mary. How do they know that's what/who they saw? They made that leap, and they expect you to go along with it I guess. So, making this unsubstantiated leap, I expect other leaps as well. This is all sounding like that South park episode with the 'business plan' of “Collect Underpants, :confused:?, profits!”. How do you get from point A to point B?

Then it goes on with more (poorly documented) 'miracles' (with video dramatizations). To me, that's just a distraction - tell me about this vision of the Virgin Mary, did anybody inspect for a physical source?


@ 17:20, they bring in a physicist, but I suspect that if this guy was legit, they carefully edited him. Fine, he says the witnesses saw the same thing, (some) photographs are consistent, and apparently not faked. They show something physical.


18:32
studying those photographs that I can't
see any inconsistencies so if that's
true
then that would argue that The
Apparition was able to generate
physical light that was able to go to a
camera go through the Optics record
itself on the photographic Emulsion of
the film as a photochemical reaction
and hence you have something physical
associated with the the apparitions

So it is physical, not 'spiritual' or 'mystic'? He didn't say (or it got edited out) if he had any evidence of what created this physical light. Just agreeing that it is light isn't enough to assign a cause, is it? And doesn't it seem strange, that after years of this, they don't mention that anyone went up there to inspect anything, to look for lights, a projection system, mirrors? Anything? For me, what they left out is more important than what they presented.

OK, they finally mention a search for projection devices at 20:30. But I'd like to hear a lot more about how this search was carried out, it says it was done by “the police”, and “No device was found within a radius of fifteen miles capable of projecting the image,”, so I question if they were technical enough to know what to look for, and did they get to examine the church itself, or just the surrounding area?. That 'radius' comment sounds like the surrounding area, maybe the church itself was off-limits for religious reasons?

On wiki, they say the only secular, English-language account of the events was provided by Cynthia Nelson, a professor of anthropology at the American University in Cairo. And those reports are weaker: “Despite reports of regular appearances of the Virgin Mary, Nelson did not see anything that could be identified clearly as such. Instead she only saw a few 'intermittent flashes of light' and later, a glow of ambiguous shape shining through palm trees.” Wiki goes on to speculate on some of the psychology at that time that could lead to people wanting to insert meaning to some vague lights. Another site mentioned that every time any flashing light appeared, the crowd oohed and aahed , which just re-enforced something amazing happening to the rest of the crowd, many who wanted to see the Virgin Mary, so they did.

-ERD50
 
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I'll keep an open mind, and hopefully can get through the whole 22+ minutes, but just two minutes in, and this (any, really) skeptic is already having his eyebrows raised (from the transcript):



How did they come to 'realize' this was no ordinary woman? And that's a big leap from a “young woman" to the word spreading that this was the Virgin Mary. Does anyone in 1968 *know* what the Virgin Mary looked like? No contemporaneous portraits exist, do they? Do the dots get connected in the following 20 minutes? Let's find out!

Another few seconds in, and here's what I'm thinking: so far, we've only heard that witnesses saw something. OK, but as we've seen on the disappearing Statue of Liberty video, witnesses saw something (well, nothing, I guess!) too. What I'm curious to see if they reveal, was any inspection made of the area where the light was coming from? This might have revealed a very mundane projection system, set up by someone who wanted attention.

Had anyone been allowed to inspect Copperfield's set-up, the trick would have been obvious. Yet, they interviewed people who were amazed, they believed that he somehow made it disappear from their view (which he did, but it was conceptually dead-simple, just very difficult to pull off). And are there any interviews of people who figured out what was going on, or were those just not included? So I'll watch some more, hoping for some real content, wish me luck!

And while they interview believers, did they interview any skeptics? And the way they frame things, make their words a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy (from transcript):

12:30 the most astonishing public
manifestations of the supernatural ever
to have occurred on Earth
you had a tremendous circumstance
because not just one or two or six or
seven seen the Virgin Mary
but hundreds of thousands ...

See what they did there? They didn't say that that many saw “something”, but that they saw the Virgin Mary. How do they know that's what/who they saw? They made that leap, and they expect you to go along with it I guess. So, making this unsubstantiated leap, I expect other leaps as well. This is all sounding like that South park episode with the 'business plan' of “Collect Underpants, :confused:?, profits!”. How do you get from point A to point B?

Then it goes on with more (poorly documented) 'miracles' (with video dramatizations). To me, that's just a distraction - tell me about this vision of the Virgin Mary, did anybody inspect for a physical source?


@ 17:20, they bring in a physicist, but I suspect that if this guy was legit, they carefully edited him. Fine, he says the witnesses saw the same thing, (some) photographs are consistent, and apparently not faked. They show something physical.


18:32
studying those photographs that I can't
see any inconsistencies so if that's
true
then that would argue that The
Apparition was able to generate
physical light that was able to go to a
camera go through the Optics record
itself on the photographic Emulsion of
the film as a photochemical reaction
and hence you have something physical
associated with the the apparitions

So it is physical, not 'spiritual' or 'mystic'? He didn't say (or it got edited out) if he had any evidence of what created this physical light. Just agreeing that it is light isn't enough to assign a cause, is it? And doesn't it seem strange, that after years of this, they don't mention that anyone went up there to inspect anything, to look for lights, a projection system, mirrors? Anything? For me, what they left out is more important than what they presented.

OK, they finally mention a search for projection devices at 20:30. But I'd like to hear a lot more about how this search was carried out, it says it was done by “the police”, and “No device was found within a radius of fifteen miles capable of projecting the image,”, so I question if they were technical enough to know what to look for, and did they get to examine the church itself, or just the surrounding area?. That 'radius' comment sounds like the surrounding area, maybe the church itself was off-limits for religious reasons?

On wiki, they say the only secular, English-language account of the events was provided by Cynthia Nelson, a professor of anthropology at the American University in Cairo. And those reports are weaker: “Despite reports of regular appearances of the Virgin Mary, Nelson did not see anything that could be identified clearly as such. Instead she only saw a few 'intermittent flashes of light' and later, a glow of ambiguous shape shining through palm trees.” Wiki goes on to speculate on some of the psychology at that time that could lead to people wanting to insert meaning to some vague lights. Another site mentioned that every time any flashing light appeared, the crowd oohed and aahed , which just re-enforced something amazing happening to the rest of the crowd, many who wanted to see the Virgin Mary, so they did.

-ERD50



The Church actually goes to great lengths to try to disprove apparitions and miracles, because the are many attempts to fake them or are unproven because only one person has seen it. There is a long history of Marian apparitions around the world, and some the Church has accepted. I’m not listing them here because they are easy enough to search for.
There are many other videos and books about the apparitions in Zeitoun that present more facts. One explains how they cut power from the area, yet the apparition remained. It took place over three years, so there was plenty of time to search the area.
They knew it was Mary because she has appeared before and actually spoken to many. Catholics would know her.
 
Curious--why would Mary appear to people in this manner?
Because God and his/her angels and associated miracle workers are massive teasers?

Edit: I see others noting they don’t want to violate forum rules. I forgot that religious comments are as fraught as political. In retrospect, I suspect I shouldn’t have tossed out my attempt at humor. Since it is already up I will leave it to the moderators to decide whether to remove it. I apologize if I offended anyone.
 
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Curious--why would Mary appear to people in this manner?


For many of the apparitions she has given prophecies and messages to people. Many are documented and you can search for them. I’m trying not to break forum rules here.
 
The Church actually goes to great lengths to try to disprove apparitions and miracles, because the are many attempts to fake them or are unproven because only one person has seen it. There is a long history of Marian apparitions around the world, and some the Church has accepted. I’m not listing them here because they are easy enough to search for.
There are many other videos and books about the apparitions in Zeitoun that present more facts. One explains how they cut power from the area, yet the apparition remained. It took place over three years, so there was plenty of time to search the area.
They knew it was Mary because she has appeared before and actually spoken to many. Catholics would know her.

IMO, the Church could be motivated to support these sorts of things, but would have to at least put up the pretense of being skeptical of these claims, and out-and-out rejecting the more obvious fakes.


"so there was plenty of time to search the area." - yet, I found nothing that stated that any experts were allowed to search the rooftop/dome of the Church at all. Just that vague reference to a "15 mile radius"?

But I feel we are delving too far into religious beliefs, which are a touchy subject for many people. I'll just leave it at, that video was not very convincing, far too many loose ends.


-ERD50
 
Not being disrespectful, but I've read a number of stories over the years about supposed apparitions of Jesus and Mary. Invariably, the pictures are of what most of us accept as how Jesus and Mary looked. And our impression of how they looked is based on paintings, which of course were the artists' conceptions of generally Caucasian features. None of the paintings were done in Jesus' time, but centuries later. Reality, though, is that people in that region, at that time, for the most part did not look like that.
 
Back to levitation, and away from religion...

As I said, not my theory. I'm saying folks smarter than me say about 50-50 chance. I'm just showing that it's okay, for some, to say we don't know everything.

I'm not sure why I'm continuing this, but here we go.

Shortly after you referenced the "simulation" theory, I realized that, regarding levitation, it doesn't matter. Even if we are in a simulation, that simulation has rules, and as I mentioned, mankind has gone from explaining many things as 'mystic' to an understanding of the laws of physics that underlie them. These laws of physics apply to our 'simulation', well, because they do! And in this simulation, scientists have been putting physical things to the test for centuries.

And levitation is a physical thing. A body rises without presently known physical assistance, or it doesn't. Simulation or not.

So in our simulated world, bring a person who claims to levitate w/o known physical aides into a controlled, observed environment, and let him demonstrate it, just like everything else that obeys physical laws has done before.

If you are going to tell me that all rules can change at any time in this simulation, that's just a silly cop out. How did we prove anything else then, how did we create nuclear power plants - Oh, the rules are going to change the instant a monk enters a lab? It's beyond the absurd.

-ERD50
 
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