Do you believe in the supernatural?

[tarchon]

But I regard a lot folks here as being pretty damned smart, and from a variety of backgrounds. I really wonder if I've sold the world short. I really wanted to hear what makes rational people believe in the fantastic.

Fantastic and supernatural, not the same things.

 

[Umbran]

But I regard a lot folks here as being pretty damned smart, and from a variety of backgrounds. I really wonder if I've sold the world short. I really wanted to hear what makes rational people believe in the fantastic.

The scientific method has me believing in some pretty fantastic stuff. Those bags of chemicals with legs are the most intricate and astounding constructions you'll ever see, period. Your familiarity with the outside of the bag may have bred some contempt, but that's not the Universe's fault. Nor is it yours, really. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Look to the very small, and the very large, and fantastic stuff happens. In the real world, objects do travel between points without covering the intervening space. Cats in closed boxes are both alive and dead. Closed spacetime curves (read, "time travel") are a possibility. The blatancy of an arcane fireball or mind-reading have nothing on the subtlety of the terrestrial biological system. The real Universe is majestic, but sometimes we forget that

 

[WayneLigon]

Nope. I'm just raising questions. These are interesting points for discussion

Well, no, you're trolling. I think most people know what reasonable boundries are in a discussion of this type.

Nope, I don't beleive in what is generally lumped into the supernatural. I think there's a lot of things we haven't discovered the workings behind, but I do think everything has workings that can be discovered and exploited give the appropriate technology.

A lot of psychic powers, I can see some reasonable basis behind (like telepathy; we know brain function is done through electrochemical means, and we know electrical signals can move through the appropriate medium from one place to another). Unfortunately if such things do exist - and almost every bit of evidence we have from reputable sources says that they don't - we haven't discovered the means to detect or reproduce the phenomenon.

I think more than likely we'll come up with a way to create such phenomena and then either embed that into the human genetic system if it proves useful, or have some device that replicates the effect we want.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Is there more to existence than we understand? Yes.

Is the human mind capable of more than we know? Yes.

Are "supernatural" phenomena real? Wee, I generally do not believe in such things, but I am certainly open to being proven wrong, and I do have my own superstitions.

 

[nakia]

[Ghostbusters] Do you believe in U.F.O.'s, astral projection, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography,full-trance mediums, telekinetic movement black and/or white magic, pyramidology, the theory of Atlantis, the Loch Ness Monster, or in general in spooks, spectres, wraiths, geists and ghosts?

Not really. However, if there's a semi-regular paycheck in it I'll believe anything you say. [/Ghostbusters]

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

I do not believe in ghosts, ESP, or telekenitics or telepathy. I do believe in demonic possession... and it terrifies me.

 

[megamania]

[Ghostbusters] Do you believe in U.F.O.'s, astral projection, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography,full-trance mediums, telekinetic movement black and/or white magic, pyramidology, the theory of Atlantis, the Loch Ness Monster, or in general in spooks, spectres, wraiths, geists and ghosts?

Not really. However, if there's a semi-regular paycheck in it I'll believe anything you say. [/Ghostbusters]

LOL

 

[Iku Rex]

No, I don't believe in the supernatural. I'm stuck in the real world.

 

[Samnell]

Nope.

No evidence, no belief.

It does, however, make for interesting fiction.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Here's why I started the thread: I grow less and less interested in life. I really envy the sheer joy of a little kid looking out a window for Santa, or the raw terror of hiding under the covers from the boogeyman. I remember fantasizing about when my mutant mind-reading powers would emerge in a few years or when I'd become the world's first superhero and other equally assanine delusions. Now I have pretty much decided we live in a really boring, mundane world, full of bags of chemicals with legs that exist for a brief period of time.

I know people in my life who believe in the supernatural--mostly co-workers--but they're all pretty dumb on the whole, or at least it's clear they are using belief in the supernatural as some kind of buffer of delusion against the horrible notion that there are no great mysteries, no otherworldy forces permeating the world. What you see is what you get.

But I regard a lot folks here as being pretty damned smart, and from a variety of backgrounds. I really wonder if I've sold the world short. I really wanted to hear what makes rational people believe in the fantastic.

Reality is exciting enough. And as soon as something fantastic becomes proven by science it will just become boring again to you. Thats how people are. I'm sure the first time people saw pictures of planets they were utterly amazed but now it's no big deal to most people.
People neeed to learn to appreciate things or just suck it up and deal with it.

There are many mysteries left, many scientist work on trying to figure out these mysteries everyday.