Introduce yourself

[Mike]

Hello everyone,

I am currently living on the East Coast of the United States. I've had a long-standing interest in some of what is usually called paranormal phenomena (although I don't particularly like the term "paranormal"). I tend to approach such phenomena from a standpoint that I'd call "open minded agosticism." I try to avoid the extremes of "fundamentalist" approaches, but rather to appraoch any phenomenon from the standpoint of critical thinking and with a willingness to alter my views as I learn more. I am interested in reports of unusual phenomena because of what they might tell us about untapped human potential. I also am not that interested in sterile laboratory studies of the paranormal, but am much more interested in careful field investigations of so-called "spontaneous phenomena."

[Eteponge]

Hi all. I'm Eteponge. I'm 26 (soon to be 27). I'm simply an open-minded paranormal researcher who prefers researching phenomenon from all sides of the issue, and goes for a "full data" presentation in the articles I write on a perticular subject. I know Marcel Cairo and Matthew Cromer who also post here, and have spoken with Alex of Skeptiko a few times, and I am a frequent commenter on Michael Prescott's Blog (which is from where Marcel and Matthew know me from). I was recommended here by Marcel, after I wrote my indepth article examining the Veridical Cases of Psychic Dorothy Allison indepth.

My Blog:

Eteponge's Blog

[puffmouse]

Software developer in michigan, standing in line for soup handouts with everyone else here. I'm not sure I have an explanation for why I care about the paranormal except that its on tv and in the movies. What I do care about though is the stupidity of old age and death. I get frusterated when I see the headlines of another brilliant mind has succumbed to cancer or heart failure. The loss in intellect we are forced to suffer because we fail at life. That we subscribe to belief systems that teach us to accept death as inevidable. That we live with this delusion that somehow we will magically not be rotting in a box in a cemetary after we die just seems so tremendously unproductive. That we spend so much money on things like football and christmas presents and so little of our time working together in a feverish panic to solve what seems like the only stupid obvious real problem we will ever really have.

I listen and read about the topic of life after death, ghosts and hauntings, those stupid ghost hunter shows on travel channel and sci fi where the second they hear a noise they scream away scared as quickly as possible as if actual contact wasn't really what they were looking for in the first place. I ask myself why new york ground zero isnt a churning hurricane of massively pissed off poltergeist making reconstruction virtually impossible to consider due to an endless series of unexplained reoccuring paranormal disorder. Then I think about the disasters of history. These people in their ghost stories go to creepy buildings and then inject their fears, they should be going to places where mass death has actually happened, regardless of the architecture involved. War fields, old torture camps...um HOSPITALS hello???? And they should be using deployed surveillance, robots or remotes, instead of bringing in 'clairvoyants'.

Delusion has served its purpose in evolution. People who are superstitious about a thing are less likely to be careless. They might not have the right reasons for a behavior, but a behavior that gives them better odds at survival is really all that matters. So man doesn't really need correct perceptions, he doesn't need the truth to pull off a life that creates offspring, he only needs to do what doesn't kill him - often a tall order. So we see our world exactly the way we need to in order to survive, and what we see doesn't require truth for this purpose.

I think being a skeptic means being tired of the delusion constructed for bare survival, we're tired of getting our chains yanked by those drunk on their own imaginations. We are at an end with the institutions that dominate our cultures whose outer workings are based on mythology and inner workings based on money and control. Some of us have an interest in truth, because we are tired of the lie that death is a thing that just has to happen. That if we just lay down and be quiet theres some damn light that will make us be happy again. I believe that the greatest most important discovery mankind can experience is the discovery and proof that there is absolutely nothing after death. That the only thing you will ever have is this thing right here and now. What would you do? Personally i think any religion that teaches life after death truly devalues life for how fragile and precious it really is. Inarguable proof that death means death is something we need for global reasons. All cultures are infested with belief systems to the contrary.

My number one issue with life after death is our five basic senses we use to perceive the world. These senses exist because over time they proved advantageous. In our evolutionary history we didn't always perceive vibrations in the air or temperature changes in our environment. But those creatures that did develop these senses better avoided approaching predators and did a better job at keeping their bodies operating better. The sense of sight especially is so incidental. The small spectrum of light we filter out and use as a way to gauge our surroundings is barely a decent facimile of the real universe we live in. Any of these senses exist as a complex fabrication requiring a number of different neurologicaly systems stacked up on top of each other to process the data, assemble the data, and then interpret that data. And the final end product isnt even a reality its a general reading that lives only in our heads, it is not the truth. Its the delusion that did just good enough to allow us to survive. When we die, those systems are GONE. Theres no organ to filter out the information from your surroundings, theres no pathways to carry that data to a brain for processing and reconstruction. Even if there was some sort of risidual echo of consiousness to interpret this data, there is no longer a way to gather information to react to. Those pieces are no longer doing their job. A consciousness that carries on would do so in a void. There would be no eyes, no ears, no skin. Just your thoughts, and memories... as those cells slowly fade away for lack of oxygen.

If our spirit could truly see the world around us even though the eyes are gone? What makes this so? What other organs do you think would live on also in some spiritual form? Is there appetite after death too? Is arrousal possible, or any sort of excitement that is supposed to require hormonal release? You know my neighbor is deaf, there is no amount of personal adaptation he can make in his life that will ever truly give him the sense of hearing that I have, EVER. Is he going to be hearing things in his nde too? What if he had been blind? If the 'soul' can somehow 'see' after death why is it waiting till then? If the soul can see without eyes I could save a lot of money on corrective eyewear right now. If the 'soul' could see without eyes theres a couple pounds of flesh we could all be happily doing without right now. There are people who wouldn't need guide dogs to get around, they would just use their soul to see things. Wishful thinking is what i see.

Its like instead of working hard to earn immortality ourselves, mankind waste its time dreaming about winning the heaven lottery. And if you dream hard enough, and dream just the right way, the dream will somehow come true...

If we are serious about getting off this world and on to the next one, this is not a system of belief that should be coming along with us. Especially looking at journeys that require eras to complete. We will need minds geared toward fact and not faith. We need to stop losing wisdom to the grave. And we will need lifespans that last the distance of our stars.

[Phronk]

I guess I'll briefly introduce myself too.

I've always loved science in all its various forms, which is what has led me to my current position as a grad student in psychology. It's also what's causes me to pick up books about a wide variety of subjects, and after one random library looting, I found myself with several books on parapsychology. The one that got me particularly intrigued was Richard Broughton's "The Controversial Science", which revealed just how much actual scientific research had been done on things that I had assumed were fiction, long put to rest by serious scientists.

I still don't know if there is anything to the phenomena that parapsychologists study. What I am sure of, though, is that these phenomena deserve serious scientific inquiry, whether they are genuine or not, and that there is a large body of evidence that there is something going on. I don't see how any true scientist can look at that evidence and not see it screaming out for explanation.

This is sad, but I don't want to give away too much more information about myself. I am in academia, and an admitted interest in parapsychology could do real harm to my career. But let's say I've looked into it pretty deeply, I've gotten to meet Richard Broughton and many other parapsychologists, and getting to the bottom of these unusual phenomena is one of my many passions.

I hope to have some nice lively conversations here! See you all around.

[bertvan]

Phronk:

I am in academia, and an admitted interest in parapsychology could do real harm to my career.

Bertvan: This is not only true of an interest in parapsychology, but academics dare not show an interest in any subject these days that does not dogmatically parrot the tenets of deterministic materialism.

I know psi exists; I experienced it. A century ago many people in this country had no trouble getting a table to move around. They believed they could do it and they did. Even though I witnessed examples of mind interacting with matter by table tipping, I doubted deceased spirits were involved. But whether or not table tipping is a real phenomenon is not important. What is important is that academia has become so dogmatically entrenched that no one is permitted to investigate anything that shows doubt about materialism..

Questioning the materialist view of biology is equally forbidden. Anyone doubting that “natural selection” can organize a bunch of genetic accidents into complex biological systems is denounced as “an ignorant creationist”. There should be enough tenured professors to fight such tyranny, but sadly that doesn’t seem to be true.

http://30145.myauthorsite.com/

See question ten of my “Questions about Materialism” for my experience with table tipping.

[nalani53]

I thought this fourms sounds interesting.

[Venom]

I'm from belgium (my native language is French), but I currently live in Japan. I have a master's degree in psychology and another one in philosophy.

I'm an hardcore skeptic. I'm listenning to the podcast so I can ear also the other side of the argument. Well, I must say for the moment, I'm enjoying the podcast, because it deals with a lot of stuff I'm interrested in, even if of course I disagree with a lot of stuff people says on it.

My main interrest as a skeptic is the ufo phenomena, but I also like parapsychology and other unusual experiences (of course, in the ufo phenomena, there is the abduction phenomenom).

Hope we can have interresting discussions...

[NinjaKitty7]

Hello,

Well, I am from the Midwest. 28 years old. I found this blog really interesting. I guess some personal experiences led me to an interest in this field. And yes, I know that does not constitute as debatable evidence. But it was enough for me. Before then, I was a steadfast skeptic and materialist and skeptic for a large portion of my life. I have a B.A. in sociology with a minor in philosophy. I guess that means I am not going to get a really nice car anytime soon. I guess I identify more with Buddhism then anything at the moment, but I am not claiming to be a Buddhist. I try not to claim that I know the truth about anything. But sometimes my ego does get the best out of me. Anyways, that is my introduction. Hope everyone is doing well.

[The skepTick]

Hi all,

I'm writing from Maryland, just outside the DC beltway. Although I am a skeptic, I'm not a warrior skeptic and will not descend into vitriol. Always testing my skeptical methods, I frequently play devil's advocate in the hopes that I may see opposing points of view with clarity and understanding. I think we’re all on a journey together, ultimately heading to the same destination, and skepticism is a method that leads to the road with the fewest potholes. I think science is a great big delicious pizza, with the best toppings ever created. I think pseudoscience, claims of the paranormal, and all that jazz add interesting spices. These can provide wonderful evanescent flavors or make you gag, like forced metaphors blowing in the wind.

I think “skeptic” is an ugly label, possibly evidence of early Klingon on our language. Maybe it’s the letter ‘k’ that keeps it from flowing trippingly off the tongue, but there are few words where this letter is most needed. Also, I think skeptics are perceived to be ‘holier than thou’. Unfortunately, too many skeptics foster this elitism, knowingly or not. Have you ever read mensans argue back and forth? Skeptics can be like that (except for the skeptic who is reading this).

Lastly, I think all phenomena that we discover must accord with the laws and theories of physics. I do not believe that all of these laws have been discovered or that all of our current theories are complete. However, we must always remain on guard for charlatans who attempt to use these “loopholes” as a means to substantiate specious claims.
As for the Skeptiko podcast, I appreciate that Alex interviews prominent skeptics as well as non-skeptics. This goes a long way to bringing credulity to what would otherwise be an incredulous show.

[fluffleshark]

Hi there everyone!

This is my first post on the Skeptiko forum. But I thought I'd introduce myself before I started posting.

I am living in Ireland, but grew up in South Africa. I grew up in a nasty little insular ultra conservative Christian suburb. I was raised an Anglican, but left the religion at quite a young age because, firstly, the Christian cosmology makes no logical sense to me, and secondly, I just couldn't handle the hypocrisy of the church community. I hence received lots of letters as a kid saying that people were praying for me.

I started university and was planning to major in comparative religious studies, but due to ill health had to leave unfortunately. I then qualified fully as an accredited aromatherapist, and later did a postgraduate course in metaphysical aromatherapy.

I would class myself as agnostic (although I like to take things from different religions which I enjoy), so I end up veering towards a weird mixture of Hinduism and Wicca. I would class myself as largely Fortean - I am fascinated in unexplained phenomenon, and in finding out more about it, but for the most part I am neither a believer nor a non-believer. As far as belief in things is concerned, I choose to believe certain things because they make sense to me or because I enjoy those beliefs, but I'm perfectly aware of, and happy with, the fact that I may be mistaken.

Telepathy and spiritual healing are two things that I do believe in, and that I believe have always come naturally to me. I tend to have more success with other species than with humans though.

I am a stay at home mom to a little two year old girl who I adore.