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Invisibledurian_2008
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Registered: 04/02/08
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: Nillion]
    #28514369 - 10/22/23 03:30 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)

Produce a cucumber out of thin air, and whichever credentialed smart ass is going to jump like a housecat and fill in the lost time with a false memory.


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: Nillion]
    #28514371 - 10/22/23 03:32 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)

there is no genetic memory
but there are many situations when a baby (or 3 year old) hears stuff and never thinks about it but one day revisits it in a dream, and then while confronting their mother, hears it again for the first time and maybe not at all.

nobody can tell the future.

eg.

what will happen in GAZA? - this is totally up in the air IMO.
but if you work for world peace, and if you have any supernatural or paranormal or even just abnormal influence, please give it a go.


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Invisibledurian_2008
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #28514377 - 10/22/23 03:36 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)

There are studies in which worms fed the RNA of other worms can remember their tricks, that assuredly make people of other academic persuasions lose their minds.


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Invisibledurian_2008
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: durian_2008]
    #28514379 - 10/22/23 03:38 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)

I would go so far as to say, be careful with your contact info as "professionals" have called and yelled at me.


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InvisibleNillion
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Registered: 04/14/22
Posts: 1,000
Loc: Terra Firma
Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #28514391 - 10/22/23 03:46 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:
there is no genetic memory



I've read studies showing genetic memory being passed down by mice and am aware of it happening with plants as well. Some amazing work has been done with Zea showing the gametic transmission of memory.

The idea of genetic memory is not controversial in various Scientific communities, there is quite a lot of evidence supporting the conclusion that it exists.

However, I do have memories that are far earlier than are typical and it is possible that I heard information that I processed later into a dream.

As for the future content, it isn't something I am able to causally dismiss. Nor do I believe that people can predict or tell the future.
However I also believe that human perception and knowledge are limited and I want to avoid making any presumptions one way or another, unless they are strongly evinced by measurable evidence.


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InvisibleNillion
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Registered: 04/14/22
Posts: 1,000
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: durian_2008]
    #28514396 - 10/22/23 03:51 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)

Quote:

durian_2008 said:
There are studies in which worms fed the RNA of other worms can remember their tricks, that assuredly make people of other academic persuasions lose their minds.



Indeed.
Nematodes are kinda amazing as model organisms for all sorts of things.

I might write about my own understanding of such phenomena at some point but will leave that aside for now. I do have some education, both formal and informal and am cautious about claims lacking evidence.

Certainly, however, I do not anticipate being called by anyone, given that I am not among those who own or carry a cellular device!


Edited by Nillion (10/22/23 03:52 PM)


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Invisibledurian_2008
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: Nillion]
    #28514401 - 10/22/23 03:53 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)



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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: Nillion]
    #28514408 - 10/22/23 03:56 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)

Quote:

Nillion said:
Quote:

redgreenvines said:
there is no genetic memory



I've read studies showing genetic memory being passed down by mice and am aware of it happening with plants as well. Some amazing work has been done with Zea showing the gametic transmission of memory.

The idea of genetic memory is not controversial in various Scientific communities, there is quite a lot of evidence supporting the conclusion that it exists.

However, I do have memories that are far earlier than are typical and it is possible that I heard information that I processed later into a dream.

As for the future content, it isn't something I am able to causally dismiss. Nor do I believe that people can predict or tell the future.
However I also believe that human perception and knowledge are limited and I want to avoid making any presumptions one way or another, unless they are strongly evinced by measurable evidence.



plants don't have memory
and not all "peer reviewed" published and reported science is reproduce-able (hence valid), or properly interpreted with mice or with worms or with plants or with people.

we inherit knowledge or memories by storytelling, and mimicry - it's good enough.


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Invisibledurian_2008
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #28514411 - 10/22/23 04:00 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)

Quote:

More than 3,000 mainstream biologists were dismissed or imprisoned, and numerous scientists were executed in the Soviet campaign to suppress scientific opponents. The president of the Soviet Agriculture Academy, Nikolai Vavilov, who had been Lysenko's mentor, but later denounced him, was sent to prison and died there, while Soviet genetics research was effectively destroyed. Research and teaching in the fields of neurophysiology, cell biology, and many other biological disciplines were harmed or banned.





And, I assure you that academics, here and now, become physically aggressive as any witchfinder.


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InvisibleNillion
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Posts: 1,000
Loc: Terra Firma
Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #28514415 - 10/22/23 04:03 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)

Quote:

plants don't have memory




I can respect that opinion but do not share it.

Plants exhibit forms of memory very much akin to those of their single celled, motile, photosynthetic aquatic ancestors. It is rather simplistic compared to the complex memory that we exhibit, but remarkable nonetheless and is transmitted via gametes. At some point I will likely share more about this. It is a fascinating topic.


I agree completely about the other point, regarding studies.




Edited by Nillion (10/22/23 04:07 PM)


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: Nillion]
    #28514459 - 10/22/23 04:44 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)

single celled creatures do not have memory either.
they store their goodies in vacuoles, they don't need no stinkin' memories.


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Invisibledurian_2008
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #28514466 - 10/22/23 04:53 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)

Actually, there is discussion regarding whether simple life forms learn without brains.


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: durian_2008]
    #28514486 - 10/22/23 05:27 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)

unlikely for less than a worm, but likely if limited for anything more complex than a worm.


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InvisibleNillion
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: durian_2008] * 2
    #28514492 - 10/22/23 05:32 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)

Quote:

durian_2008 said:
Actually, there is discussion regarding whether simple life forms learn without brains.




I think the recent observations about what appears to be apparent consciousness in jellyfish is rather interesting myself. As is the subject of cellular consciousness, as that some sort of reactive awareness appears to be present in numerous types of cellular life and it doesn't appear to be limited to cells with a nucleus, though those having one have the most overt signs of types of reactive awareness and transmissible acquired behaviors.

Certainly memory was a part of nature before linguistic communication was a thing, though arguably what we call knowledge may not have been part of the world in ancient times, biologically relevant information was clearly transmitted across generations and between organisms.
Indeed that is what gametes are, living packets of information that combine together forming a complete set of instructions which can include aspects of behavior. Needless to say, the idea of knowledge being transmitted via gametes is a problematic concept, but the idea of aspects of memory being transmitted is reasonably well supported.

It is all rather lovely trivia.

However it is also true that the process of science, is that in which such discoveries and investigations demand and entail the use of evidence that can be reproduced, measured and tested thoroughly. Evidence, or that which evinces, is key to this process of learning, accumulating and revising information.

Herein lies the problem when it comes to the supernatural or paranormal, which may just be different words for superstition rather than words that describe genuine phenomena. Hence the super and para are prefixes that indicate that what the word is being applied to cannot be reasonably interpreted as normal.

Is it possible to prove something beyond normality?
That seems far fetched to me, like trying to argue that the nonexistent exists because it doesn't exist. Science as a process cannot be employed for understanding things that cannot be observed and measured in a consistently reproducible manner.

Moreover, if something that is considered supernatural is evinced as extant, then it is natural and the label of supernatural cannot be reasonably applied.

In my case, regardless of the content of certain childhood dreams, I cannot consider dreams to be evidence of the supernatural regardless of my inability to explain said content. Nor, however, can I rightly dismiss them. Rather, without being able to measure their content, there is no tenable basis for any conclusion or even consideration of them as real or fake. Thus they are functionally irrelevant. Still, they were peculiar.

Some interpret the appearance of people they know to be dead in dreams as evidence of an afterlife. I find myself unable to make such an assertion. I think it is just evidence that we dream, no more, no less.


Edited by Nillion (10/22/23 05:38 PM)


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: Nillion]
    #28514741 - 10/22/23 09:10 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)

I do not think the way our mind works is just trivia.
nor is it trivial to see the similarity between (1)our mental approach towards what is of current interest, and (2) an insect or fish (or jellyfish) doing the same thing.
albeit the range, complexity, energy, and feelings that reflexively accompany mental navigation are as immensely different between ourselves and some of our squishy friends, as are our body shapes and abilities.

Worms, insects & jellyfish might not consider the dead after the smell is gone. Some fish, however, might; birds and mammals have been observed to grieve, and some reptiles have shown affection with long standing mates.


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InvisibleNillion
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: Pinkerton]
    #28514780 - 10/22/23 09:47 PM (3 months, 4 days ago)

I do not disagree.

I meant that my familiarity with science and fact is trivia to me in relation to the topic, which is why I used the line about it being trivia to segue back to the discussion of proving the paranormal.

I did not mean to offend you by mistakenly implying that scientific theories of mind, consciousness and behavior are trivial.

I apologize for any misunderstanding that my wording may have caused. Please forgive my poor choice of words.
Sorry about that.

I have likely written something in this post poorly as well, I fear, so I ask for your forgiveness should I continue to offend you.
Please forgive me.
It is not intentional.

Am I in the wrong by trying to participate in discussions here?
I am starting to get the impression that I am not welcome here.
If that is the case, I apologize.

I will withdraw from the conversation now.


Edited by Nillion (10/22/23 09:50 PM)


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: Nillion] * 1
    #28514966 - 10/23/23 04:29 AM (3 months, 4 days ago)

that's ridiculous,
apologies rejected, withdrawal rejected!


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InvisibleNillion
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: Pinkerton]
    #28515099 - 10/23/23 08:40 AM (3 months, 4 days ago)

Then the mistake or misunderstanding is mine and I apologize for my confusion!

Once I met a boy in a cafe who just walked up to me and introduced himself and then proceeded to tell me that he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. In that particular conversation I believe I mostly just kept replying "Oh?"

I sat there and realized that I was pretty biased when it comes to that claim. Likely because decades of internet use has shown me that this type of claim is absurdly common... as in far more common than I could or would have guessed it was. As he kept talking he explained his reasons for thinking what he did. I don't really recall many of them. One was that his birth name was Joshua, which is one of the most popular boys names among US religious communities. He had been born into a notorious polygamist family in Utah, where the cafe was. Some of his other reasons included his birthday and his last name.

He didn't appear to doubt himself. I quickly withdrew from the conversation, which I admit was something I was not very comfortable participating in. If I tell him what I thought, how would that help, and if I didn't, would I be contributing to his apparent delusion and potential psychosis? This path, of thinking oneself a deity, has led more than one person to a psychotic break, historically speaking. I told my spouse about him and a few weeks later they came back from a party and told me that he was there, that he walked up, introduced himself and started his whole speech about how he is the Son of God. My spouse stopped him and told him "I know who you are" and walked away!

Looking back on this... I am not even sure what evidence I would consider as proof of his claims. I know that none of what he considered proof was even remotely convincing to me. I confess, several of my experiences, psychedelic and otherwise, lead me to the concept that the universe is an interesting place in which peculiar things happen from time to time. I have often needed something and then it appeared in my life, mundane stuff typically, like a belt breaking and then finding a nice one that fit me on the side of the road later that day. I love things like this and they happen all the time to lots of people. Still I think it is far too easy to read into them and make a leap to absurdity and that religion and superstition play huge roles in that. Did the universe conspire to help me hold up my pants? To some perhaps an event like that is proof of just such a thing. I thought it was convenient and I liked that my pants stayed up. But maybe it was a case of the universe actually conspiring to drop someone else's pants and my finding the belt they lost was just incidental!

The evidence appears to prove that I found a belt and it fit.

I have experienced other things like this in my life and I think we all do, things that can be, imaginatively, interpreted as being on purpose. However, upon examination of those events and beliefs, I think we cherry pick circumstantial evidence to support ideas that make us feel better about ourselves. Many of us have beliefs that we want to be true because of how we relate to them, instead of beliefs that make actual sense.

To me this invokes an ancient concept that has changed considerably over the years. It is called Karma. Today in the west we see Karma as some sort of law of universal balance, a cosmic version of people get what they deserve. In the ancient version, however, it is the opposite of that, sort of. The thing is that things we see as good or bad happen to people we see as good or bad without any actual pattern. Karma originally was the law that what happens to people is beyond their comprehension. It is the teaching that if you look for a reason why things happen to people then you won't actually find one because it is all beyond human understanding. This is clear in old Hindu scriptures, but today people think of it as something that allows them to understand why things happen and divide it into good karma and bad karma. This allows them to interpret things they perceive as good and bad as something they or others deserve. In reality this is a dangerous and inherently problematic delusion that can be used to justify atrocity by casually dismissing it as the will of the universe or as the result of so called bad karma, but just writing that here will likely cause others to give me considerable grief about it.

The old version of Karma, however, relates to an ancient teaching of fate. It is actually the first rule in an old system of understanding but it is not quite as people see it today. Fate is not that which is meant to be, rather it is that which we have no control over. It is that which cannot be changed, rather than a manifestation of a plan of the universe. This older version of it is even compatible with relativity and what are called time-like curves!

Both Karma and Fate, today, have become woo concepts, to borrow a term I rarely use, but in their original sense they are both a version of Shit Happens, so don't worry too much about it or it will lead to delusional thinking, which it clearly does. They are practical concepts in their original forms, but today are imaginative concepts used to reinforce the same subjective delusions they were originally intended to dispel. But of course this is not something one like me says to boys in cafes who claim to be deities. Likewise teaching stuff like this to people online who think they are deities or reincarnated celebrities from the ancient world, is also rarely productive.  So too is reinforcing their delusion, which can and does become full fledged psychosis in some of them. Many of us who have been involved in the psychedelic community have seen this happen repeatedly and know that there is often a tragic human cost involved.

I try to be as open minded as I can be, but it can be difficult.

When someone says they can prove supernatural claims and then provides as this proof testimony that they know it to be true, then it is easy to see that they do not understand that a testimonial is only proof that they believe what they claim. It is not proof of the truth of what they claim, regardless of how strong their belief is. And yet for some people this seems to be an insurmountable mental obstacle.

Some people, though, are convinced that a testimony is proof, which is why we have cults and infomercials and the monstrous offspring of their union; televangelism.

The perception of what people interpret as supernatural events is also something that is being studied today. A good lay article about this, which I think relates to the topic can be found here:
https://news.yahoo.com/news/ve-ever-heard-voice-wasn-140418564.html
I hate to say that our perceptions can be misleading, but there is evidence supporting that, evidence I think is worth considering.

I am not actually an atheist nor a skeptic. I too have beliefs that others would likely consider woozy, as it were. One of those beliefs is that there is much in the universe that is beyond explanation. I believe in a type of fate, as well as karma, but the old versions I mention, which are still considered woozy beliefs by many people today.

There is a difference, I think, between looking for proof of a belief one already has and searching for truth.

To me, the theme of this thread is about looking for ways to prove beliefs that one has already decided are true. I don't think people should worry too much about that because it appears that superstition is surprisingly contagious already and merely saying you believe something will be taken as proof by some people in the world. Convincing others is, often enough, more about finding people who will believe you than it is about what you have to say. At least, it seems like that to me.

I've been wrong before and am just some guy on the internet, nothing I write should be considered as proof of anything.


Edited by Nillion (10/23/23 08:53 AM)


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: Nillion] * 1
    #28515136 - 10/23/23 09:49 AM (3 months, 4 days ago)

ah, just one of the people on the internet, but one with an exceptionally good journalistic style. :wink:


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InvisibleNillion
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Registered: 04/14/22
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Loc: Terra Firma
Re: How do you prove the paranormal? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #28515151 - 10/23/23 10:16 AM (3 months, 4 days ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:
ah, just one of the people on the internet, but one with an exceptionally good journalistic style. :wink:



That is the best compliment I've ever had about my writing, without exaggeration.

I'll take it!
Thank you for that.


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