Do you believe in the paranormal?

[Vergillicious]

I'm not sure..but my boyfriend told me a few scary things.

1. His closest friend was in his room sleeping and then he heard some heavy breathing right in his ear beneath the bed.

2. After his friend got scared he left his room and went out into the living room. And told my boyfriend what happened. And then an hour later when they were watching TV, there was one of those big baby toy things that you put the baby in and it makes noise. Well that went off by itself and it said "picka-boo I see you" and "let's play" it went off every 5-10 minutes.

 

[Lain]

Not really. It is my firm believe that everything no matter how strange has a rational explanation.

It's because of this that if I hear something go bump in the night, my immediate reaction is burglars not poltergeists.

 

[Dante's Stalker]

I believe there are a lot of things, seen and unseen, that we have yet to discover and learn about.
Do I believe there are ghosts? Not in the way the world has portrayed them as, no. I do believe there are spiritual entities than can duplicate deceased people. But this all stems from my studies and understanding of religious texts and the occult.

Spoiler: history info dump

Prior to Newton using science to explain why something was drawn to the ground to fall from a higher altitude, so about 400 plus years ago, gravity would have been classed as magic. Wicked. Paranormal. Unknown. If a person was dunked in water and floated, they were a witch and sentenced to death, because density was not known or understood and therefore paranormal.

Back in the day, people used to draw sea monsters on maps. A hundred years ago people may have thought these drawings represented actual monsters. Today we can question and investigate these things: maybe it was an island or a rock formation that was in the shape of a monster. They named places for their appearance and defining traits way back in Biblical times (example: Jesus was crucified in Golgotha, aka 'skull' because the hillside there had gouges in it that made it resemble a human skull) so it's not a far stretch that they used the same method in mapping out the world a few hundred years ago.
But then again, in Biblical times it's said that King Solomon controlled 72 malevolent spirits, and that Jesus and His disciples had the power and authority to free people who were possessed. So it's also not such a far stretch to guess that the drawings on the maps could very well actually be legitimate sea 'monsters' that modern day science has yet to discover.

 

[Lain]

^ That's just it really. If Ghosts, Gods and what have you really do exist then by definition they aren't really "Paranormal".

They would be just another scientific fact that could one day be explained.

 

[berto]

Yes.

 

[Foxtrot94]

Nope.

 

[LordOfDarkness]

Yes.

Nope.

Not to be rude or anything, but would you mind elaborating on your reasons as to why you do/don't believe in the paranormal?

 

[berto]

Not to be rude or anything, but would you mind elaborating on your reasons as to why you do/don't believe in the paranormal?

Because the universe is larger than the human mind can comprehend.

More things on heaven and earth, my dear Horatio.

I'll go into more detail later. I'm being anti-social right now. No one appreciates the dude who won't get off his phone.

 

[Viper]

I'd like to believe there is something beyond this world, but first and foremost I believe in science and that paranormal just means "yet to be explained".
When one lies down and presses on their ear, they can actually hear their own body working (breathing, heartbeats, blood flow) and quite loud, so it's possible that when half asleep one can mistake it for there being another person. Toy mechanisms can also end up damaged from frequent use, and activate themselves on their own because something happened to move into just the right position.
Old people here used to say that when one suddenly hears a loud cracking sound that someone died and their soul is making it known. It's actually wooden furniture making that sound cause wood expands and contracts under influence of temperature.
Likewise, ghosts and curses could possibly have something with transformation of energy and similar stuff, but we have yet to have a good enough method and machinery to measure it.

 

[berto]

For a moment imagine that the world really is just as simple as what we can see, hear, touch and taste, that there is nothing more. Now, at this point, is where the questions start to arise. All the big ones that can't be answered by simply trying to accept that things are as they seem and that there's nothing more. Taking into account the pattern of human history if these views are the established norm then most people will want them to stay that way and if someone were to start to ask those questions the masses will either quiet them through peer pressure or through more violent means. Fortunately, we're no longer that primitive; We've reached the pinnacle of scientific endeavour and enlightenment. We are on the right path.

By subscribing to that train of thought you have just become the same as every scientist (and their equivalent) that has always walked the Earth. At any point in history people believed that they had all the answers and their science was absolute. Some insisted that the universe was composed of 4 elements, that the Earth was both flat and the center of the universe, that a person's traits were determined by their physical attributes, and that since illness was carried in the blood all they needed to do was bleed the person and they knew it with as much certainty as we believe that the atomic weight of cobalt is 59 ± 0.000005 u. In other words, they knew it as fact. They also thought as we do, that we will never be proven wrong and those that came before them we archaic fools who couldn't see beyond themselves because they were too arrogant to see beyond their feeble believes, too scared to even consider that their truth might've not actually been the real truth. And just like them, when we look back at the arrogance of those that came before us it's almost comical to we of the distant year of two thousand seventeen.

Yeah, right. Argue all you want about how far we've come but human arrogance hasn't changed; we believe that we know all there is to know and that which we don't we at least know of it's presence so we are better than the primitive and/or faux scientist that laid the groundwork. That we and our believes will never be proven wrong. Somehow, since we labeled everything with a numeric value or a latin/greek name we seem to think we exist above those things and in some cases even hold some kind of authority over them. We think ourselves the pinnacle of nature because of our grandiose intellect and that that which exists beyond our control, our perceptions, our knowledge or our power is, well, there is no such thing. (We still think we are the center of the universe)

And this is in a concept we all agree to be evident, science. So what of things that science and, by extension, man cannot explain?

The Preternatural, the supernatural, and the paranormal. The question of whether or not these things are real are just as perplexive as the classic 'who am I.' Some would dismiss it because there is no science behind it, others because it's plain old stupid to believe in childish matters like these, but none the less we continue to ask, we continue to have that feeling in the back of our heads that we try to dismiss as silly childhood fears, as some primal residue from our time as fearful primitives at the mercy of the cold and hostile world. Are you afraid of the dark? Why? What do you think lays there in waiting in the shadows for you? Is it the Devil? Science, common sense and all other forms of reason dictate that there is no such thing and if you are alone in the dark there is nothing to be afraid of.

I believe because I know the world is full of secrets, both fascinating and grotesque. If so it's not beyond the realm of possibility that some or even many of those secrets could be of an unexplainable, unreasonable or unscientific nature. I believe that for all the rationality the masses try to muster to throw at the face of the possibility of such things there is still too much that can't be quantified nor rationalized for all things that exist to simply exist in the surface.

The world and its mysteries. Even within science there are ideas and propositions that can only be explained with abstract mathematics so I don't really find it that much of a stretch but human arrogance doesn't permit for those things to be widely accepted. To be quite honest I often get the feeling some people don't believe in god do so because the idea that there is something greater than themselves is too much for their frail egos to take. (Since this is the internet and every single statement has to come with a disclaimer here's the one for this statement, no, I'm not referring to all atheists, just the ones who seem insulted by the idea of a god for obvious ego reasons, and, yes, I've meet a few)

If you want a simple answer, with time being as infinite as it is and space being as infinite as it is there is no such thing as impossible, simply highly mathematically unlikely.

 

[Foxtrot94]

we believe that we know all there is to know

Kudos to you for writing that interesting post but I had to address this specific segment, which contains a statement that is absolutely wrong.

No one, from the common guy on the street to the scientist in his lab, believes we know everything there is to know. The latter in particular, dedicates his whole life just to that, research what's unknown. No scientist on Earth takes anything for granted, and no scientist believes they know everything. In fact, scientific research is based exactly on that, that we don't know everything. If we actually believed that, the entire researching field of Science would not exist. So you can see how what you said is not the case, and cannot be, as it goes against how the scientific method works in the first place.

This was not to refute your entire post, which is your view on the topic and I respect it as such, and leave it at that, it's just that I found that that statement there really downplays... actually totally negates the work of researchers. I'm sure that you didn't mean to, but that's what I feel it does nonetheless.



As for my stand on the matter, I don't believe in paranormal simply because I know that the concept of it is an ancient one that's always been used to try and explain stuff we couldn't explain at the time, with the knowledge and understanding we had. Saw a guy covered in long, thick fur? What would that be? A rare genetic disease? Hypertrichosis? Nah, gotta be a werewolf.
As that knowledge progressed we learned to dismiss some of those beliefs, but of course, something as ancient and as deeply embedded in every culture's lore as the belief in the paranormal can't just disappear like that, so it remained. And it will remain, maybe forever, I don't know. However, even though I was raised with a catholic education, and in a part of my country where supernatural beliefs are very strong and heartfelt compared to the rest of the territory, I eventually detached myself from such mentality and said to myself that just because I don't know how something works, I shouldn't just jump to the conclusion that something "supernatural" and that cannot be explained in the first place makes it work.

Of course, that's not the only reason for my stand on this. Aside from the "supernatural as a way of trying to explain the unknown" argument, there's also another one, that...
You know what, I'm gonna make it short by quoting someone who's surely more knowledgeable on the matter than me, since this passage just came to my mind right now. By Geralt of Rivia's words, from The Last Wish:

"People like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live."

To me, the paranormal is a very interesting historical and social phenomenon, and little to no more than that.

 

[berto]

No one, from the common guy on the street to the scientist in his lab, believes we know everything there is to know.... how the scientific method works in the first place.

No, you're right, I wasn't articulate with my statement about this. I said that, and I'm quoting myself here (something I don't like to be in the habit of), we believe that we know all there is to know and that which we don't we at least know of it's presence. What I should've said is that we believe that nothing is out of our reach, that given time and the scientific method all knowledge is within our grasp and that our technology is boundless. I don't believe that. I think that there are things that are beyond human comprehension, that are beyond the realm of science and technology.

For the record I have a great love for science. I think I've mentioned that before. I have a fascination with a lot of branches of science, astronomy, biology, zoology, psychology, physics, temporal mechanics, and most anything that might've been covered on the science channel and Star Trek. I'm also a man of faith so I don't discount things because science says they don't exist nor do I just take what my religion dictates as 'sacrilege' or 'evil' simply because it contradicts the bible. You can't be blindly obedient to either side because both sides are governed by men with their own passions and believes and like any man, woman or child with those they can't help but have a build in mechanism that wants to refute others and is constantly trying to prove that the other team sucks.