DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
I've been over this with MR, for page after page.
He honestly thinks we see what is in front of us.
why we need ghosts
- Thread starter birch
- Start date
He honestly thinks we see what is in front of us.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
No we don't. We see an organized structure of a reality happening right in front of us. That is an undeniable fact of our experience. But then we know you know you're only denying this as an excuse to deny paranormal experiences. That's what skeptics do.
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Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
LOL! We don't see what is right in front of us!
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
As previously pointed out, you are entitled to your own beliefs.
But you are not entitled to your own facts.
The facts have been stated, and they falsify what you believe. Those facts are available (indeed. required) to anyone who has a serious interest in studying the paranormal. (History shows that you are not serious, or you would bone up on the facts.)
Unless you have something new, there's really nothing more that can be said about this anecdote.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Then shut up. You are contributing nothing more that what an armchair skeptic would say about any paranormal experience.
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
You of all people should know that kind of talk is uncalled for. You're being a hypocrite.
I am contributing scientific fact, not emotion.
So we see reality because that is what the eye sees, correct?
Ummmm so why does the brain invert the image from the eyeball?
True reality should be the other way because that is what the eyeball sees???
Got it
Your brain synthesizes an organized visual field from incomplete, conflicting and misleading visual input. That's why it is so easy to fool your eye with the above experiments. For those subjects, they provably do NOT see the organized structure of the reality right in front of them. Their brain's ability to confabulate visual information has allowed them to be deceived.
The above experiments are undeniable by any rational person.
I have not mentioned any paranormal experiences. I am just explaining the reality of human perception. Keep in mind we did not evolve to see the world as it is. We evolved with eyes and brains that prioritized the most useful information and synthesized it into a format that was useful to us. It was certainly NOT evolved to present the most accurate version of reality to us.
Write4u
bloodhound’s nose
eagle eye
Open to all especially MR
Do bloodhounds smell, and eagle eyes, smell and see ghost "better" due to their enhanced sensory abilities?
bloodhound’s nose
eagle eye
Open to all especially MR
Do bloodhounds smell, and eagle eyes, smell and see ghost "better" due to their enhanced sensory abilities?
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
I doubt it. As far as I know, dogs and eagles lack abstract imagination and thus would not see what was not there.Write4u
bloodhound’s nose
eagle eye
Open to all especially MR
Do bloodhounds smell and eagle eyes see ghosts "better" due to their enhanced sensory abilities?
When my dog barks there is always something real out there. She does not bark at clouds or mist or rustling of tree leaves, only at living physical beings, our neighbors or our neighborhood cats, dogs, squirrels, raccoons, an occasional skunk, quail. Never known her to bark at a ghostly emanation.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Look again and see if those two squares now look the same shade. After all you actually know they are the same color, yet you are unable to perceive them as being the same color.
My thoughts exactly
Along the same train of thought one can suppose if ghost give off any sort of smell a bloodhound could track
Of course a bloodhound would be slowed by needing to go through doors not walls
Part of why I asked I seem to recall some Ghostbusters use animals as detection instruments
To lazy to Google it
I recently saw a CBC documentary about how unreliable memory is, https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/the-memory-mirage
So even if we did perceive reality accurately, we wouldn't remember the perception accurately.
"We all have crystal-clear memories of where we were and what happened on specific dates such as 9/11 — or JFK’s murder. Events which seem seared on our brains are called “flashbulb memories” because we practically see them in our mind like pictures illuminated by flashbulbs.
We have great confidence in these memories — but we are mostly wrong, says NYC neuroscientist Elizabeth Phelp. Her studies show that flashbulb memories erode over time just like fading memories of birthdays and love affairs."
We have great confidence in these memories — but we are mostly wrong, says NYC neuroscientist Elizabeth Phelp. Her studies show that flashbulb memories erode over time just like fading memories of birthdays and love affairs."
So even if we did perceive reality accurately, we wouldn't remember the perception accurately.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
I believe all this has to do with microtubules in the brain which apparently are able to record a subjective sensory imprint in the brain. I believe the term is "engram".
However this does not guarantee that the original event was perceived accurately and that a "memory" may be affected by extraneous sensory input which distorts the eventual chronology and may leave an incomplete or distorted memory.
The brain does not know, except for the electro-chemical signals generated by all the senses during a remarkable event. The senses can be fooled as demonstrated by optical illusions.
Thus, like any good logical computer; garbage in --> garbage out.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
That is true. and another factor we neglected to mention here.
Faulty memory has been shown to be a powerful factor in eyewitness reports.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
I think a paranormal experience would qualify as a "flashbulb" memory, more vividly imprinted in our brains than normal memories due to the intense emotion aroused by it. Plus not that much time has passed for these memories of these office workers. Maybe a few months or a year at most. We tend to remember accurately and in greater detail negative emotional experiences, and this is supported by numerous scientific studies.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2676782/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2676782/
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
IMO, all observations are subject to "relativity" and what seems to be true from one perspective may not be true from a different perspective. Only when the relative observations agree can we use an "equality sign" and call it reality.
x + x = 2x , where both "sum" and "product" yield the same result.
x + x = 2x , where both "sum" and "product" yield the same result.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
That is a vast amount of time for memories to get altered. Memories can start to get inaccurate after mere hours.
Often, there are contributing factors such as reinforcement: discussing it with others who shared the experience will alter everyone's memories inadvertently. Discussing it with others who did not share the experience will also alter memories inadvertently.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
I think the vividness of the memory overrides any alterations that may occur in talking about it. I mean people don't just make up memories just because they talk about them with other people. It's amusing how far skeptics will go to debunk the paranormal though, attacking human perception first and now memory. It's a really desperate ploy to debunk imo..
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Studies have shown this to be false - including the one that inspired this subtopic:
"...studies show that flashbulb memories erode over time just like fading memories..."
Indeed they do. It has been demonstrated time and time again.
A classic case is having a witness watch a video of a car accident, then asking them "from which direction the blue car came".
More often than not, witnesses will inadvertently "remember" a blue car in the screen.
Read up on this. It is fascinating stuff.