Can you have out of body experiences?

kingius

First Post
You've told us a (very) little bit about out of body experiences. Would you be so kind as to link one article discussing some research on the matter?

This has been intentional so as to prompt further enquiry by people on their own terms rather than on mine. My own reading on this has been in book form and not via internet forums or linked articles, though I dare say there could be value in approaching the subject form that angle as well. Cutting the 'wheat' from the 'chaff' could be problematic. You can take that as being that because I have not provided any that there therefore isn't anything if you wish, it would certainly be easy to argue that, though if you perform a search of your own you'll learn that this isn't the case. Don't take my word for it, go look.

The current scientific establishment will not accept this kind of evidence despite there being less (or no) evidence for many of the outlandish theories which are currently very popular, but that is not to say in the future it will be so. Science will not tolerate close mindedness in the long term or it would not survive. The only reason the church did with such an approach is because it was 'heresy' or 'blasphemy' to speak out against it and the inquisition and so on.
 

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True story - the body of work in 'science' is many and varied. It contains, among other things, theories which cannot be tested, never mind repeated, without jumping billions of years into the future (or the past). Much of what is accepted as canon is speculation expressed through mathematics. Quite how parallel universes are accepted, for example, when they are not provable in any way, when paranormal phenomenon like out of body expreience has a huge body of research and evidence to back it up... is what is called a /double standard/.

You'll never agree to this, despite it being true, so this is an utterly pointless discussion.
Parallel Universes are not accepted at all. They are still only the level of hypothesis. There is one way to interpret quantum mechanics that says all the possible quantum states do happen - in different universes. But there is no way to test this with our current knowledge, it doesn'T make any predictions indistinguishably by what alternate interpretations (like the official Kopenhagen interpretation about collapsing wave functions means).
It might be accepted in mainstream media as a cool thing to tell stories about - but on the science level, it's not something that is "accepted".

We cannot replicate the big bang. But the theories involving the big bang make predictions we can test with current observations. Not everything we can actually pull off in a lab, which we would find preferable - but we can still make predictions. Basically, one prediciton of these theories is the big bang - but there are other predictions, and we can gain confidence.

That also means, by the way ,we do not need, strictly speaking, have to test paranormals in the lab. We just need a meaningful prediction the presence of paranomal/psychic acitivities makes and observe if the prediction matches the observation. FOr example, if you say: "Because precognitive abilities exists, there must be people that never lose on horse races" and we can check horse racing statistics and see if we find someone that qualifies. But of course, there are two problems with this particular prediction:
- There are alternate explanations for someone that constantly wins horse races. Your hypothesis is no better than those.
- You can always claim "We just haven't found it yet". What you really want is something falsifiable. (Basically - if we measure X, then my theory cannot be true.) Something like: "A person that was born under the sign of Scorpia from parents born under the sign of Lion must be prophetic and on every New Years Eve, he will predict the next 3 horse races correctly". If that persons succeeds, we gain confidence in your hypothesis, and if we can do it enough, it might be the (first) precognition/astrology theory! If it fails, your hypothesis is debunked. You get back to the drawbing board and figure out where you went wrong. If your theory works well enough, you might look for other predictions it makes and see if those are also confirmed - every confirmation adding confidence, but every failure meaning that you need to reexamine the theory and evidence and see what went wrong.


Paranormal activity is not some new, fancy belief no one has ever thought of before. People believed in magic for a long time, and it was (and may still be) a very wide-spread belief.
All this belief however never produced a fire elemental powered air ship or wizard schools (outside of fantasy novels).
Most people didn't think about atoms and might not even have believed in them, but we found evidence of them and teaching about them is part of regular school courses, and of course, plenty of our electrical power we have comes from our ability to split atoms. Not many suspected or would have believed in tiny organism (or almost-organism) inside our bodies that could make us sick, and yet now we know they exist and use vaccines and antibiotics to make people healthier then ever.

If paranormal powers were "real", I think we would have already had a very good confidence they exist and were using them practically in large capacity.
 

Kramodlog

Naked and living in a barrel
Well, no. The results prove that it works.
Circular logic is... circular, independently of the results of the scientific method.

I can say Earth is round because it is round as much as I want, and I'll be right, it is still ciruclar reasoning.
 
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Zombie_Babies

First Post
This has been intentional so as to prompt further enquiry by people on their own terms rather than on mine. My own reading on this has been in book form and not via internet forums or linked articles, though I dare say there could be value in approaching the subject form that angle as well. Cutting the 'wheat' from the 'chaff' could be problematic. You can take that as being that because I have not provided any that there therefore isn't anything if you wish, it would certainly be easy to argue that, though if you perform a search of your own you'll learn that this isn't the case. Don't take my word for it, go look.

The current scientific establishment will not accept this kind of evidence despite there being less (or no) evidence for many of the outlandish theories which are currently very popular, but that is not to say in the future it will be so. Science will not tolerate close mindedness in the long term or it would not survive. The only reason the church did with such an approach is because it was 'heresy' or 'blasphemy' to speak out against it and the inquisition and so on.

That's not how this game is played. You make an assertion, I want to see proof. If I won't take peoples' word for it that they have had an out of body experience, what makes you think I'll take yours when you say there's proof of it somewhere?

I don't want to google it. You're the one saying it's there, show me.

EDIT: To explain it another way, you're demanding that I make your argument for you. That's unreasonable.
 

Janx

Hero
No. Creation of a theory (scientific) does NOT rely on consensus, authority, et al. All that is required is adhering to the Scientific Method. What you just referenced, is the M.O. of religion and faith. Which is why any real scientist cringes when someone says that X number of scientists agree, therefore it is true.

Given the part you quoted and how you are commenting about a non-quoted part of my post, you are wrong on both counts.

I described in layman's terms the nomenclature used by the scientific community and the generic process they promote scientific discoveries from Hypothesis to Theory to Law. Which IS by peer review and comittee.

Umbran can't do some math and declare XYZ is Law. There is peer review.
There is testing and reproducing of results. And scientists who run specific tests to try to disprove Umbran's results.

There is absolutely a comittee or whatever in his field, that determines what's considered agreed upon
 

Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
What body of research is there? Do you honestly assert that the body of research on this stuff is greater than that on parallel universes? Ok, let's play a game, then:

Umbran: You've told us a (very) little bit about parallel universes. Would you be so kind as to link one article discussing some research on the matter?

Will Scientific American do as a start? I took classes from Alexander Vilenkin in grad school, and he wrote part of this first piece for them:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/multiverse-the-case-for-parallel-universe/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-the-multiverse-really-exist/ (most of this is behind a paywall, but if you're a subscriber...)

And a scientific americal blog on the matter...

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...-insider-tips-for-criticizing-the-multiverse/
 

No or we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Why not? If we had the proof we could still be having this conversation.
What we have instead are vast amount of research into the subject matter,
Do you have any links to this 'research?'
collecting thousands of reports over decades,
The problem with reports is that they aren't necessarily truthful. Sure, you can take it as fact, but that doesn't actually make it fact. I mean, slacked-jawed Jim said reported saw Big Foot having a tea party with Ronald Reagan, would that make it fact?
coupled with out of body experiences being reported in the historical archives...
Do you have a link to one of these historical archives with reports of out of body experiences?

and even into prehistory with myth and so on.
How do we have records and reports before there were records? Prehistory being the time before recorded history, it would seem a bit difficult, wouldn't you agree?
In terms of scientific burden of proof, this is normally regarded as being insufficient. But you have to look at the context to understand why and I'll get to that.
Just curious, but what do you consider to be "the scientific burden of proof?"

Many other things that science accepts has much less evidence for it (or none at all), or may even be utterly unprovable and yet still stands as part of the established body of science. This type of double standard needs to be critically examined because it is a sign that something else is at work and that is an agenda.
Do you have any examples of this?

I reach a conclusion, which to me is obvious as it is shocking; science cannot look beyond the philosophy of materialism no matter what. This is similar to how classical physicists could not get their heads around quantum theory and tried to get rid of it. They weren't very successful in that though, they were dead wrong. That generation of scientists has now died out.
Could you explain how you reach your conclusions?

Todays materialists are hampering scientific progress by claiming that their way of viewing the world is the only true way. To do this they have to misdirect people away from anything that suggests otherwise. They are going to go the way of the old classical physicists because ultimately, the truth about reality itself, like the truth about anything, can only be concealed for so long. Eventually, science finds the truth of the matter, but it will be the mavericks on the fringe that do it, not the establishment.
What other way would you suggest scientist use to prove theories?
 

Janx

Hero
That's not how this game is played. You make an assertion, I want to see proof. If I won't take peoples' word for it that they have had an out of body experience, what makes you think I'll take yours when you say there's proof of it somewhere?

I don't want to google it. You're the one saying it's there, show me.

EDIT: To explain it another way, you're demanding that I make your argument for you. That's unreasonable.

Yup.

I'm not quite sure what the threshold is for when to tell you are the guy who has to supply proof. But there's a slew of generally accepted "facts" that for shorthand, people aren't expected to have to prove. Puppies like to lick. Gravity makes things fall down are probably in that category.

Once you are the guy arguing against a majority or against an expert (Umbran is a physicist), you are probably on the hook for supplying evidence in some basic fashion.

And expecting me to go hunt down your proof, when I already know I am right is not going to get you any points or even sway my position. Heck, I'm more likely to have a bias in how I do my search if I have to FIND opposing evidence to my view.

This is why science uses the "other scientists" method of disproving. I announce a finding. Some other scientist says, "that smells like BS" and invents a test to disprove it. When it works, he publishes it to show the world how I was wrong.

Simple, and effective. And if that other guy was wrong, somebody else will disprove him the same way.
 

kingius

First Post
This discussion has entered the realms of the farsical. Whatever happened to the goal of people thinking for themselves in an enlightened society? I seem to be encountering people who are unable to do a bit of research themselves and seem to want me to do it all for them.

We, as a global society, have got to do better than this. Having other people think for us is not going to get us any further forwards than we are now. We are always going to be targets for manipulation if we cannot seek out information for ourselves and make our own minds up about it. This is because any time we are removed from the source we can be deceived easily. And believe me, this is happening. Heck, don't believe me, but go look for yourself to prove me wrong. Whatever you do, go look.

Replacing one dogma with another is a trap. Merely repeating what others have you taught us to think does not make us clever, though it may fool some. We are an intelligent species, let us not squander that intelligence.
 

Kramodlog

Naked and living in a barrel
I did my research and found proof!

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