Something really strange just happened

[InSwamTiddler]

I’ve NC for this as I’m not sure what to make of it and I’m really confused.
Back story - I was raised Catholic, but I’m atheist now. I work in a science based field and for as long as I can remember I have believed in the factual, empirically provable reality of things. I don’t believe in God or the afterlife, or ghosts / paranormal stuff.

Nearly 9 years ago my dad died. He died very suddenly and unexpectedly at a young age in my childhood family home.

Due to some circumstantial things, I’m currently living back in my family home.
My mum has mentioned a few times over the years that she’s felt my dad’s presence here and I’ve always been openly kind to her about it, but thinking “nope. Your imagination is going crazy because you’re grieving”. She’s mentioned she’s felt pressure on the bed as if someone has sat down on it next to her for example.

Anyway, this morning DP has left for work and I was still in bed. I was listening to him brushing his teeth, then popping the kettle on so I was definitely awake, but a little drowsy.

I felt him get back into bed with me and thought “what’s he doing?”... it’s not unusual for him to pop back into the bedroom and give me a hug or kiss before leaving the house.

I felt the heaviness of him pressed against my back and his arms wrapped around me. There was a heat between my shoulder blades I have never felt before but I wasn’t scared but I knew it wasn’t DP then. I heard the front door open so DP was leaving the house. Then my whole back went tingly a bit like pins and needles but not in an unpleasant way.

When it was happened I felt calm and warm but I’m freaking out now and can’t stop crying. Sounds silly but I feel like it may have been my dad.

I was 100% awake, not dreaming. I leant over and flicked the lamp on straight after.

Does anyone believe in this stuff? I never have but now I’m questioning everything.

I was waiting for the Hamlet quotation, which appears with monotonous regularity on these threads, always posted by people who appear never to have seen or read Hamlet.

It gets used by people who want to justify whatever daftness they’re proposing (‘I can’t prove what I’m saying, but, hey Shakespeare says you can’t know everything, so I’m right!’) but in fact it’s a profoundly skeptical quotation if you look at the scene.

Horatio has just seen the ghost of Hamlet’s murdered father, and is understandably gobsmacked. Hamlet is not saying ‘You have to believe in stuff you can’t see or that haven’t previously featured in your field of knowledge’, but ‘’You have to believe in something when you’re presented with irrefutable evidence, even if you haven’t believed in it before’. And the Ghost in the play is real.

And Hamlet is fiction. Are we all going to believe in ghosts because Shakespeare thought they made a good dramatic effect?

How do you scientifically explain human consciousness, well on second thoughts no point in trying, no scientist has ever been able to.

"How do you scientifically explain human consciousness, well on second thoughts no point in trying, no scientist has ever been able to"

Not yet, no. That's no reason to stop trying, though!

I somehow think they won’t be devoting much time to it. They’ve conceded defeat.

hearts, according to whom?

"I somehow think they won’t be devoting much time to it. They’ve conceded defeat."

Who have conceded defeat to whom?

Oh, is it some kind of Last Battle with Science lined up against Woo, Psychics, Precognitive Dreams and The Ghost Who Moves the Remote Control?

This rather reminds me of the old saw that if the human brain were simple enough to understand, we would be too simple to understand it. If we're currently struggling for a material explanation, this doesn't mean there isn't one. It may well just mean it's difficult for a primate, however evolved, to understand.

Madame According to whom?
How can it be confusing, who do you THINK I’m talking about? my post pretty much means it’s a given that scientists accept consciousness as something unexplainable, as is 95% of other stuff.

BertrandRussell
I’m sure you know what i meant, but if it’s confusing for you go back to the posts immediately above.

Anyway can’t see the point in going round in circles with this. But before i go i’ll just say, it makes people look a bit foolish when they act as if they know more than the worlds leading scientists. In other words, if they’re baffled, then so should you be. Unless you’re cleverer than them of course. Love to see you in a debate with them.

In relation to the Last Battle of science vs woo you can be open minded (in a searching way rather than "it doesn't exist until you prove it to me" way) without denying science.

After all, Einstein said "Objective knowledge [science] provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another sources". Not all scientists will agree but as I said there isn't total unquestioning adherence to "rational fact" at high levels. (Though I accept that deepan thinks I am misinformed in this respect).

bertrand if you apply a scientific method (ie the "hypothesis, test, observe, draw conclusions" which is what I think you had in mind?) that doesn't in itself make it good science. It depends on the quality of the hypothesis, and so on, for a start. You'd be looking for high level peer reviewed published research etc if you wanted to quote it as "fact". When you say "everything paranormal that has ever been properly investigated fits into the first, or occasionally the second category" the investigations you refer to were not high level peer reviewed published research - if they were you would be able to link. The conclusions about things falling into your first or second category have not been reported in any proper research complying with any sort of scientific method to the best of my knowledge - and if I were wrong you would be able to link. So that puts what you said at the level of subjective opinion, anecdote, nothing more. What you wrote therefore didn't make sense without the "I think..." etc, because it was mixing up science with subjective opinion.

*another source

my post pretty much means it’s a given that scientists accept consciousness as something unexplainable, as is 95% of other stuff.

I posted a link several pages back which discussed the recent (2018) state of knowledge about consciousness. It's clear from that that scientists are nowhere near as baffled as you seem to think they are. I've also posted regarding your puzzlement over chemical explanation for love but you didn't answer them either.

"it makes people look a bit foolish when they act as if they know more than the worlds leading scientists. In other words, if they’re baffled, then so should you be"

Surely it is the people claiming supernatural explanations for unexplained occurrences who are saying they know more than the baffled world's leading scientists? Personally, I am happy to be baffled and wait for those world renowned scientists to explain things to me. But not knowing everything does not mean that we know nothing. We know lots- such as the rational explanations behind most so called paranormal events.

I have just skim read your article cali and it is a fantastic summary of exciting developments in neuro science. But it states clearly that we are decades off more conclusive answers about a specific hypothesis, and doesn't come close to talking about free will. "baffle" is subjective, but the posters on here who think they have all the answers are also being subjective. Your article says Absent a theory with testable predictions, any speculation about machine consciousness is based solely on our intuition, which the history of science has shown is not a reliable guide and so the discussion goes on...

As for chemical love, I missed your posts, sorry, did you post a link?
If it your thinking alone, do you think it is possible your thinking is affected by conformation bias?

Surely it is the people claiming supernatural explanations for unexplained occurrences who are saying they know more than the baffled world's leading scientists? no one on this thread has done this. People have shared their perceptions of experiences, and their thoughts and feelings. And you have rubbished them and then twisted things as per this post. I think your posts are rude, gaslighting, offensive, upsetting because of that. Your POV about your own experiences are valuable as is your basic understanding of science, as long as you caveat things as being your own subjective opinion. The rubbishing is indefensible. Put down your "Paranormal Explained" book (which is not related to science at all) and pick up a book about emotional intelligence and social rules.

*We know lots"

You mean "I think I know lots".

"I think your posts are rude, gaslighting, offensive, upsetting because of that"

Blimey. I would be very grateful if you could point me to where I have been rude, gaslighting or offensive.

big, you are terribly chippy about anyone on the thread you seem to perceive thinks they know more or differently to you.

Poor Bertrand has been endlessly patient and civil, in fact. Neither has she (he?) anywhere claimed to be a scientist.

Having said that, you don't need to be a scientist to do a quick search and have a look at articles in decent newspapers and journals ans websites which are based on, and link to, peer-reviewed research, rather than some crackpot's own blog or the Daily Mail.

It's common sense, and sifting available sources of information for credible material is one of the first things taught to university students on virtually any degree course, not just the scientists.

And again, anyone with basic common sense can grasp the problem that the overwhelming majority of the early, poorly-run studies in neurofeedback were run by people who had some investment in nf businesses, and were extremely biased, while later studies with properly blinding and control groups, show no improvement beyond the control group.

the posters on here who think they have all the answers are also being subjective

But no one at all on the thread has ever said they had 'all the answers' or anything like it. People have only pointed out that science certainly isn't engaged in the kind of baffled arm-waving and defeated shruggings about consciousness, or alternatively, producing credible, peer-reviewed studies that find mysterious results in experiments in neurofeedback or ESP, that some of the 'science and woo will soon converge!' posters have argued.

I, I suspect like many others on the thread, would be intrigued if credible studies were able to discover some scientific principles which transform our understanding of what is now called the 'supernatural'.

But, as precisely nothing has emerged at all to date, despite a lot of investigation, it's hardly unreasonable to go with Occam's razor and conclude that human fallibility, wishful thinking, fear of death, predisposition to perceive patterns in random events, as well as neurological events such as sleep paralysis, are a more likely explanation for 'the supernatural' than anything else anyone has come up with till now.

In fact, @bigcuddlytomcat, I've just gone back through the thread in case I was rude-I try very hard not to be- and needed to apologise to anyone. I found multiple examples of you being rude and disparaging to me in a way completely disproportionate to my contribution to the thread. It all looks rather odd. Particularly considering I was just one voice among many saying the same sort of things.

You strike me as very confused about your own arguments, Tomcat & it would help if you understood how science actually works. Also your notions of “openmindedness” seem rather self-serving.

Science is not an attitude, it’s a method - a method for sorting out what’s real and what’s not.

It’s achievements to date cannot be underestimated. Nothing that human beings have ever done has achieved more - or likely ever will.

It’s put men on the moon, eliminated diseases, put every human being in potential contact with every other no matter where they are, given us glimpses into other words so far away that light takes thousands of years to reach us...

...and yet, it has singularly failed to find any credence to the very frequent claims that people known to be dead can still interact materially with the world. That they can leave messages, scare cats, make rooms cold and throw furniture around.

There will never be peer reviewed literature of the type you seem to expect for one simple reason...science launches itself from an observation. An observation does not mean “X person said so” but an actual potentially measurable effect, or the appearance of one.

“X person said so” or even “500 X people said so” is meaningless unless there is also some real world meaningful observation that can be investigated. But there never is.

Scientists have looked into claims - but until someone can show that there’s a real phenomena there to apply the scientific method too then it falls outside the remit of science.

Of course you (and others like you) who would prefer to believe that supernatural spookery is real use this to try and pretend that it’s science that has failed somehow...but it’s not. It is you who have failed because it is your job to provide the evidence for your claims, no one elses. And yet you don’t.

And please don’t try and pretend that this is all about “open-mindedness”. Scientists are skeptics are the most open-minded people in the world. Just bring the evidence and watch how quickly people change their minds.

The very defintion of closed-mindedness is firm belief without any evidence at all.

Stop shouting at people and accusing them of “rudeness” and whatever. Just bring evidence that’s all any wants. If you want to be intellectually rigorous I suggest you ask yourself why, precisely, you are completely unable to do that.

hearts again...it is not the place of science to explain things for which there is no evidence.

I'm afraid this includes 'consciousness', something I suspect you would have a hard time defining, yet alone providing evidence for the existence of.

You know when you stick your hand in hot water and it feel cold for a bit?

You are feeling cold...but the reality is hot.

This is the problem with consciousness....we feel conscious - but that isn't enough to determine that it is a real definable measurable thing.

That people react to stimuli in complex ways is certainly measureable. That there is something called 'consciousness' that somehow makes us different from animals (or computers) seems more like an arbitrary left over distinction we've inherited from a much less enlightened time.

@bigcuddlytomcat I think MadameDuBarry's and TwittoWoo's most recent posts sum things up for me. I don't see much point in going over old ground again. We're not going to agree on things, particularly if you accuse those in opposition to you of gaslighting!

@bertrandrussell My first post to you was a bit personal and I apologised. Other than that I haven't been rude at all. What I think is gaslighting is for example where you say that other people have made extraordinary claims to do with the supernatural, whereas in fact people have shared personal experiences, and thoughts and perceptions and feelings...and not extraordinary claims. Giving your point of view on science, or on life in general, is one thing but there is a huge difference between that and doing the above, and perhaps you should reflect on it, as it has p*ssed off numerous posters in the past. You posted earlier in the thread that I had made extraordinary claims yet when I asked you to clarify what, what extraordinary claims, you didn't answer... which I thought was a bit goady. Sorry it took so long to get back to this thread to clarify that.

madameberry calihummers twit hope the above clarifies.

You strike me as very confused about your own arguments, Tomcat

Not really.

& it would help if you understood how science actually works

err, right back at you.

Of course you (and others like you) who would prefer to believe that supernatural spookery is real use this to try and pretend that it’s science that has failed somehow...but it’s not. It is you who have failed because it is your job to provide the evidence for your claims, no one elses. And yet you don’t

Can you quote me on any of this??!! I love science! Are you on glue? Science hasn't failed!!

madameberry

I am not chippy at all about people knowing more or differently from me. I have welcomed points of view, have said that more than once.

Poor Bertrand has been endlessly patient and civil, in fact. Neither has she (he?) anywhere claimed to be a scientist well we will have to agree to differ on "endlessly patient and civil" but in relation to knowledge, I did ask her about why she felt it was ok to put people right and she said that paranormal was something she knew a lot about... But no one at all on the thread has ever said they had 'all the answers' or anything like it well yes, actually, she did... rtt

Right, ladies, here is Einstein again, in case you missed it first time round:

"Objective knowledge [science] provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another sources"