Is Your Office Haunted? 266
WormholeFiend writes "You know Halloween is around the corner when websites like Forbes.com releases a story wondering about the supernatural. From the article: 'Maybe the spirits have decided that spooky mansions and creepy battlefields are passé. Maybe they want to cash in on the glamour of corporate life. Maybe they just wanted the sushi.'" Anyone out there have any encounters with a spiritual Milton?
The mainstream media says nothing of value. (Score:5, Insightful)
They're just in it to put cash in their pockets.
Sure Haunted (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:To those who doubt the paranormal (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I wouldn't do it because I'd have a bunch of pseudo-scientists clambering over me for my delicious bounty.
Re:I see dead people (Score:3, Insightful)
No surprise here (Score:1, Insightful)
I glanced down and low and behold: Zonk.
Re:Fishy (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. And that reason is that they know they'll be proven to be a fraud. Those paranormal dorks only want to perform on their own terms under their own controlled conditions. Never anything scientific. Hey, if you can levitate, do it. Show the world. Show Randi and get rich.
But nah, the Silvia Brown's and Uri Gellars of the world would much rather indulge in fame and fortune on such enlightened outlets such as the Art Bell show and Montel Williams.
If someone could prove to me under controlled scientific conditions that any of these paranormal claims (ghosts, aliens, levitation, ESP, etc) are absolutely real, I'd cut off my left nut and donate 50% of my salary to charity for the rest of my entire life.
But the fact is, nobody ever wants controlled expiriments, because they can't cheat. I mean . . . DUH. And what's hilarious is the same people who are rational enough to call out creationists and other nuts have no problem indulging in little green men, caspers and David Blaine.
Re:Fishy (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, don't get me wrong, I agree with you, I'm just saying that the Randi foundation cannot be held as an unbiased group by any stretch of the imagination. In fact they have a powerful vested interest in never handing out their million. Mind you, some of the applicants do provide a good deal of comic relief... heres one beauty from the site, he was also talking about "lightning a tree".
You owe me a million dollars: 2 million.
1: for the itching you got when I first demonstrated possessors exits.
2: for the demonstration with two independent witnesses who verifyed it, and hopefully will work with your demonstration checker.
Calling the police and reporting you for fraud is a step I could take. The contract I signed did not have three wittnesses, so you dont believe I signed it, so it is invalid.
John N. Maguire III and the gosts
send for our free religion
paranormal and proving it.... (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems to me this is a group which has given more thought than anyone else to applying science and logic to the whole thing. I don't think they're necessarily less motivated to hand over their prize money than anyone else would be who offered something like that up? I mean, no - nobody probably wants to give away a million bucks that's earning them a tidy sum of interest in a bank account someplace. But the claim that the Randi foundation would just "go away" if they had to give away the prize seems blatantly false. They'd simply be able to continue doing what they've done
Re:paranormal and proving it.... (Score:3, Insightful)
If I could read minds and/or predict the future i sure as hell wouldn't want anyone to know about it.
Re:Fishy (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the purpose of the organization is to debunk pseudoscience.
So the whole million dollars thing is just a side show... I see...
If you claim something is true, prove it
Eh I'm not claiming anything is true, or untrue either. In fact I don't really care if there are paranormal powers in the world, I have neither the time nor the patience to deal with that question. All I'm saying is the Randi foundation cannot be pointed to as solid evidence that such powers and-or abilities don't exist, since discovery of such powers and abilities would cost them a cool million. The first time.
I'm relatively certain btw, that there isn't any such thing as a legitmate paranormal.
Based on what criteria? What scientific evidence? Absence of proof is not proof of absence. Two centuries ago, would you have been relatively certain that radio waves didn't exist?
I dunno, I seem to have hit a nerve here, I won't repeat myself any further. I have yet to hear any transcripts from within the foundation to support or deny my hypothesis, but until I do, I still maintain that they have a strong incentive never to pay, and this remains an important factor to consider.
Re:Fishy (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a naive analogy. Radio waves do exist, and they existed then. If you posessed a transmitter and receiver you could demonstrate that fact. The lack of understanding has NOTHING to do with the cause and effect. Paranormals make claims that they can affect the physical world with their powers. If for example ESP existed, then it would be demonstrable regardless of our understanding of it. We would not have to wait 200 years to discover the mechanism just to see that it exists.
Re:Sure Haunted (Score:3, Insightful)
Creepy, huh?
I must admit, I see a lot of horror movies and read lots of horror books, so I got pretty distrubed when this started happening. It sometimes scares me even now.
But, the cause is sadly mundane: disk drives spinning down! Disks drive usually spin very fast ant the frequency of vibrations they produce are above human hearing levels. As they spin down, they pass quickly through the hearing range producing a sound like somebody is whistling on their breaths end... a "fading" whistle of sorts. Many operating systems today can be setup to spin down disks after periods of inactivity, so there - if you're close enough to the case, you hear a single solitary, "sad-sounding" whistle. I believe the "puff of air" in this case is just imagination, as we "know" that all whistles are produced by puffing air :)
(btw. this is not guesswork - I checked: at least one of my disks produces a sort-of-whistling sound when it spins down and the case is open so the sound is more audiable)
Re:Fishy (Score:2, Insightful)
Sigh yourself. You seem to think you're making some deep points. But you fail to see the simplest of points. No knowledge or skill is necessary to demonstrate something that one claims has obvious effect.
People CLAIM they have a power, for example, that ridiculous women that talks to animals that she demonstrates daily on TV to millions, if not billions, of idiots around the world. This woman implicitly claims that animals have human like thoughts, are aware of familial relationships, perhaps even the basics of math, science, etc, and are able to share this with humans who have her "power". This claim is not outside the limitation of science to test. This is not a limitation of our ability to measure. This woman claims that she talks to animals and that they talk back and despite the fact that you can't hear them, she can.
Now, let's suppose she's telling the truth and the communication happens via some mechanism that we don't yet understand and won't for thousands of years.
You CAN say that science can say nothing about that mechanism today. You cannot test that mechanism without some understanding of what it is.
BUT, and it's a BIG DAMN BUT, you can test her ability. Tell five cats that they have a new name. Tell each cat in isolation that his name is X. Make sure that the cat hears the name X many many times, say five thousand times or more. X must be different from the cats name given by the owners.
Now, we send the cats, one at a time, into a room with her. However, no cat owners can be present. Can she successfully tell us what the original name of the cat is, and what each cat was told its new name is?
I've seen the show, in between fits of laughter I caught enough of her responses to suggest to me that she believes she could do such a thing.
But, let's say she doesn't like that PROTOCOL. She is free to design one of her own so long as it fully demonstrates that her power is indeed talking to animals and NOT reading clues from her customers.
No science equipment is needed to test such a "power". People claim today that they have such powers and that they affect the world with their powers. That ability can be tested without understanding any mechanism that may or may not exist.
Just as if you had a radio 5000 yeas ago, you could test the existence of a magical medium that allowed you to talk over great distances.
Perhaps you should consider the moderation to mean somthing different than you seem to think. You seem to think that you are offering some kind of insight into the matter yet others disagree. It is possible, that the reason isn't because others don't get it, but rather because you don't.
Re:Fishy (Score:5, Insightful)
Jesus just shut the fuck up and admit you're wrong.
There's a dude out there who will sign a contract and give anyone on the planet $1 million in hard cash if they only demonstrate anything paranormal in a truly correct scientific way. Nobody, not one single person among the innumerable charlatans on this planet, has stepped forward and made a decent effort to obtain the prize. That speaks volumes. Sometimes, abscence of proof really is proof of abscence. At the very least, it is proof that even if there are "paranormal" effects out there that nobody understands, none of the current crop of practicioners are anything but frauds.
I can't believe I'm even having this conversation on this site. Where did rationality go?