
Reasons not to scoff at ghosts, visions and near-death experiences - pseudolus
https://aeon.co/ideas/ghosts-visions-and-near-death-experiences-can-be-therapeutic
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gus_massa
It's easy to solve the problem of science ignoring the ghosts and visions. All
you need is a good experiment. Preferably something reproducible like saying
"Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice". An alternative is something that can
convince Randi, but a lot of people will claim he sell out.

My favorite example is high temperature superconductivity. In 1970 if you
claim that you have a high temperature superconductor people will dismiss you.
It was not theoretically impossible, but all tries had failed and there was no
theoretical support to expect one. But one day, someone made a high
temperature superconductor and published a difficult to follow recipe, and
then someone else published an easy to follow recipe, and now everyone with a
good lab can make a high temperature superconductor.

~~~
krapp
The problem's been solved. Every supernatural claim that can be tested has
been tested, and every conceivable experiment done, the data collected, and
the results are in... ghosts and other paranormal phenomena aren't real.

~~~
gus_massa
You can't prove that ghost don't exist. For a technical discussion, see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability)

What if ghost only realiablily appear when someone dies and there is a big
neutrino flux? Have someone build a room for dying people in the path of a big
neutrino beam?

What if neutrinos push ghost, so they are pushed to deep space by the
neutrinos of the Sun? I guess the best place to put a ghost detector is at the
top of a hospital and try to measure a passing ghost at midnight.

I obviously don't expect neither of these scenarios to be real, but I guess
nobody had measured them.

Going back to my superconductor example, let's imagine that you go back in
time to 1950 and say that the best superconductor is a ceramic, but you don't
remember the exact formula. Hey, you don't even remember the formula of any
ceramic material. They will think you are nut. Someone will even try with the
wrong ceramic. Or with the wrong composition. Or let it catch some humidity
and ruin the sample. Everyone will get convinced that all the conceivable
ceramic are tested and it is impossible. They are not even conductors!

~~~
foogazi
> You can't prove that ghost don't exist.

Can you prove that ghosts exist?

~~~
LyndsySimon
That's not the point.

It is possible to prove ghosts exist (if they exist).

It is not possible to prove ghosts do not exist (whether or not they exist).

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qubex
At the risk of drawing an inordinate volume of fire and critique, I’m going to
be candid and state openly that there’s no way ai could possibly integrate
this kind of material into my world view and therefore it stays on the cutting
room floor.

I’m so utterly materialist and rationalistic that the lack of plausible
mechanisms by which any of this might occur leads me to (arguably
‘unscientifically’) dismiss it out of hand.

Not can I support the idea that promoting a benevolent fiction can in any way
be positive. After all, one could always hew to honesty (as indeed this piede
does) by arguing that benefits can accrue from believing in something
_irrespective_ of its veracity, without directly engaging with the
truthfulness of the beneficial statement itself.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
> the lack of plausible mechanisms by which any of this might occur

But some of the mechanisms themselves are already reasonably well known. We
can already make light points appear to another person via electric signals in
spite of the fact no such light points actually exist in front of that
person's eyes. So it's not a question of whether these phenomena exist or not,
but rather how exactly they are related to the brain.

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0d311
I’m not sure I really needed “fart” to be censored to “f——“. Am I out of touch
with how acceptable it is to use the word fart? Am I going to accidentally
offend someone?

~~~
harimau777
In the same sentence but before the quote it is not censored. I'm guessing
that the censorship was part of the original quote. Given that Kant wrote in
the 1700s I could see it being considered impolite at the time.

