Ghostwatch

[MafiaKirby]

Mr. Terrific is pretty much the only real atheist we see, widespread acceptance of aliens, religions, etc.

And I would add that even there his atheism doesn't really match up to the atheism of people today. While most atheists today would say that, for example, there's no such thing as Ares, Mr. Terrific knows that Ares exists. However, he simply sees Ares as a being of incredible power beyond humanity, but Superman is as well.

It works in a normal fictional setting, because the metaphor is subtext, but in this genre style you take LITERALLY that they are talking about ghosts, which kills the Metaphor aspect.

I do want to point out that at least ghosts are often metaphors in GOOD fictional settings, they're not always good fictional settings though

That said, I think that that may in a certain extent be at least like what I was saying, but I feel like almost 30 years of cultural change have effected what the phrase 'believe them' means in this context. What I think you and I are talking about is 'believe them' as in to give someone the help they need, whereas what I think the person in the documentary really did mean was "Believe that they are 100% right about what they say because ghosts are real." That said, even then, I do feel like 'believe them' would have at least carried 'Believe that they are experiencing weird things and aren't lying to you or something.'

Frankly, I think a lot of the things about the ghost story just didn't work because of the format. They did a good job with faking the realism of the presentation, but both the skeptical character and the believer came off kind of fake. Especially the believer. When you use a mockumentary, the audience assumes much more that everything they don't know is like reality.

I have become more skeptical of the supernatural over time but my big issue is either side treating science and the supernatural as completely separate instead of treating the latter as just a placeholder term for parts of the former not discovered yet. our ancestors thought lightning was magic, who's to say things like ghosts aren't the same way?

I disagree. People in the ancient world didn’t think lightning was magic, they thought that lightning was something controlled by the gods. But a lot of things were treated as controlled by the gods that weren’t treated as magic. A typical pagan household would have a god of the entranceway, and you’d want to give the threshold god some sacrifices from time to time or else you’ll fall over and crack your head. That doesn’t mean you tripping was magic, it was the will of the Gods. Lightning was rather like that.

We treat the Supernatural as different from the ‘natural’ because if it is real, our understanding of the laws of the universe are SO incomplete that we can’t really reach there from here. John Adams couldn’t understand an iPhone, but the understanding of science of the time would have allowed for many aspects of iPhones to exist. We could, so to speak, get there from here, even if we’d be damned if we knew how.

But the supernatural goes beyond the laws of physics of 2020 in a way that an iPhone doesn’t go beyond the laws of physics in 1820. If ghosts are real, we’re missing SOMETHING so big that we can’t really integrate them. And indeed, ghosts may be real, but exist in a way that human beings could never comprehend them the way we can iPhones. That is one possibility for the supernatural.

maybe not the actual scientist part but I've seen it plenty of times by laymen on the internet who wouldn't know if something is good evidence of the paranormal or not because they want to dismiss it.

Yeah but that’s just an example of human biases, and also in no small part an example of how human beings operate on the internet. It’s not uncommon for someone to argue vociferously for something, then change their mind LATER once the interaction is over. Sure some people are dumb, but that’s not really relevant.

And you say people won’t know good evidence of the paranormal, but... There kind of CAN’T be good evidence of the paranormal. Without something done under extremely measured conditions, there’s almost always going to be a reasonable alternative.

Take for example... Aliens. Let’s suppose that tonight, Neil DeGrasse Tyson is kidnapped by aliens, who take him to another planet and show him around, then return him home in the middle of town, rather than his own bed. Let’s suppose that this REALLY HAPPENED. Tyson might then believe in aliens. But if he did so, he wouldn’t do so as a scientist, and he wouldn’t do so because aliens are the most rational conclusion for him to reach. There’s lots of evidence of people mistaking dreams for reality or remembering things that didn’t happen, while there’s a lot less proven circumstances of alien abduction. Even if it happened, it’s still not very good evidence.

that too but I would also still suggest that the supernatural is a Clark's Third Law kind of thing.

Okay, but... Why?

And remember, I BELIEVE in the supernatural. I’m just not sure why you’d assume that we’ll ever be able to figure it out. My cat Pico is very smart. She knows, for example, that when I wake up I am going to get on the computer soon, and will go and turn on the computer for me, and then sit by the keyboard until I use it. She understands that when I’m playing Mortal Kombat, the bug lady with extra limbs is the one I want to win, and will bat at the screen to attack whichever one ISN’T the bug lady.

But no matter how smart Pico is, she doesn’t know what the thing I do with the keyboard is. She doesn’t know why I want the computer on. She can’t follow the cutscenes in Story Mode. I think that, if the supernatural exists, it’s entirely possible that we don’t have the ability to interact with it in ways that can be tracked and measured.

[CrypticMirror]

I'm not sure there is much of a difference between "will of the gods" and "magic".

[YAGWG]

I'm not sure what Chuck's reaction to the mention of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) means?

It's been going since 1882, according to their website (https://www.spr.ac.uk/) and I've seen references to it in videos by Curious World on YouTube and in a book called Our Haunted Kingdom by Andrew Green.

They seem to be a group that looks into psychics & ghosts with a scientific investigation to show whether they are genuine or not.

Also, my parents house has a spandrel formed from what was left of the attic when it was converted to 3 upstairs bedrooms.

[Fianna]

Take for example... Aliens. Let’s suppose that tonight, Neil DeGrasse Tyson is kidnapped by aliens, who take him to another planet and show him around, then return him home in the middle of town, rather than his own bed. Let’s suppose that this REALLY HAPPENED. Tyson might then believe in aliens. But if he did so, he wouldn’t do so as a scientist, and he wouldn’t do so because aliens are the most rational conclusion for him to reach. There’s lots of evidence of people mistaking dreams for reality or remembering things that didn’t happen, while there’s a lot less proven circumstances of alien abduction. Even if it happened, it’s still not very good evidence.

That's more of a general solipsism problem. There's no way to prove that anything is true when you allow the possibility that your perceptions of reality can't be trusted, and that the entire universe could just be a figment of your imagination.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

Mr. Terrific is pretty much the only real atheist we see, widespread acceptance of aliens, religions, etc.

And I would add that even there his atheism doesn't really match up to the atheism of people today. While most atheists today would say that, for example, there's no such thing as Ares, Mr. Terrific knows that Ares exists. However, he simply sees Ares as a being of incredible power beyond humanity, but Superman is as well.

It works in a normal fictional setting, because the metaphor is subtext, but in this genre style you take LITERALLY that they are talking about ghosts, which kills the Metaphor aspect.

I do want to point out that at least ghosts are often metaphors in GOOD fictional settings, they're not always good fictional settings though

That said, I think that that may in a certain extent be at least like what I was saying, but I feel like almost 30 years of cultural change have effected what the phrase 'believe them' means in this context. What I think you and I are talking about is 'believe them' as in to give someone the help they need, whereas what I think the person in the documentary really did mean was "Believe that they are 100% right about what they say because ghosts are real." That said, even then, I do feel like 'believe them' would have at least carried 'Believe that they are experiencing weird things and aren't lying to you or something.'

Frankly, I think a lot of the things about the ghost story just didn't work because of the format. They did a good job with faking the realism of the presentation, but both the skeptical character and the believer came off kind of fake. Especially the believer. When you use a mockumentary, the audience assumes much more that everything they don't know is like reality.

I have become more skeptical of the supernatural over time but my big issue is either side treating science and the supernatural as completely separate instead of treating the latter as just a placeholder term for parts of the former not discovered yet. our ancestors thought lightning was magic, who's to say things like ghosts aren't the same way?

I disagree. People in the ancient world didn’t think lightning was magic, they thought that lightning was something controlled by the gods. But a lot of things were treated as controlled by the gods that weren’t treated as magic. A typical pagan household would have a god of the entranceway, and you’d want to give the threshold god some sacrifices from time to time or else you’ll fall over and crack your head. That doesn’t mean you tripping was magic, it was the will of the Gods. Lightning was rather like that.

We treat the Supernatural as different from the ‘natural’ because if it is real, our understanding of the laws of the universe are SO incomplete that we can’t really reach there from here. John Adams couldn’t understand an iPhone, but the understanding of science of the time would have allowed for many aspects of iPhones to exist. We could, so to speak, get there from here, even if we’d be damned if we knew how.

But the supernatural goes beyond the laws of physics of 2020 in a way that an iPhone doesn’t go beyond the laws of physics in 1820. If ghosts are real, we’re missing SOMETHING so big that we can’t really integrate them. And indeed, ghosts may be real, but exist in a way that human beings could never comprehend them the way we can iPhones. That is one possibility for the supernatural.

maybe not the actual scientist part but I've seen it plenty of times by laymen on the internet who wouldn't know if something is good evidence of the paranormal or not because they want to dismiss it.

Yeah but that’s just an example of human biases, and also in no small part an example of how human beings operate on the internet. It’s not uncommon for someone to argue vociferously for something, then change their mind LATER once the interaction is over. Sure some people are dumb, but that’s not really relevant.

And you say people won’t know good evidence of the paranormal, but... There kind of CAN’T be good evidence of the paranormal. Without something done under extremely measured conditions, there’s almost always going to be a reasonable alternative.

Take for example... Aliens. Let’s suppose that tonight, Neil DeGrasse Tyson is kidnapped by aliens, who take him to another planet and show him around, then return him home in the middle of town, rather than his own bed. Let’s suppose that this REALLY HAPPENED. Tyson might then believe in aliens. But if he did so, he wouldn’t do so as a scientist, and he wouldn’t do so because aliens are the most rational conclusion for him to reach. There’s lots of evidence of people mistaking dreams for reality or remembering things that didn’t happen, while there’s a lot less proven circumstances of alien abduction. Even if it happened, it’s still not very good evidence.

that too but I would also still suggest that the supernatural is a Clark's Third Law kind of thing.

Okay, but... Why?

And remember, I BELIEVE in the supernatural. I’m just not sure why you’d assume that we’ll ever be able to figure it out. My cat Pico is very smart. She knows, for example, that when I wake up I am going to get on the computer soon, and will go and turn on the computer for me, and then sit by the keyboard until I use it. She understands that when I’m playing Mortal Kombat, the bug lady with extra limbs is the one I want to win, and will bat at the screen to attack whichever one ISN’T the bug lady.

But no matter how smart Pico is, she doesn’t know what the thing I do with the keyboard is. She doesn’t know why I want the computer on. She can’t follow the cutscenes in Story Mode. I think that, if the supernatural exists, it’s entirely possible that we don’t have the ability to interact with it in ways that can be tracked and measured.

I don't know, if ghosts and such do exist, can't they be studied by scientists?

and if this means our understanding of the laws of the universe is lacking, can't we just lean more about them, isn't that ongoing goal of science?

again, the fictional example I gave is when the Tenth Doctor explained incantation based magic as another form of mathematics, just using words instead of numbers. and fiction, especially, science fiction, often reflects reality.

[Thebestoftherest]

Mr. Terrific is pretty much the only real atheist we see, widespread acceptance of aliens, religions, etc.

And I would add that even there his atheism doesn't really match up to the atheism of people today. While most atheists today would say that, for example, there's no such thing as Ares, Mr. Terrific knows that Ares exists. However, he simply sees Ares as a being of incredible power beyond humanity, but Superman is as well.

It works in a normal fictional setting, because the metaphor is subtext, but in this genre style you take LITERALLY that they are talking about ghosts, which kills the Metaphor aspect.

I do want to point out that at least ghosts are often metaphors in GOOD fictional settings, they're not always good fictional settings though

That said, I think that that may in a certain extent be at least like what I was saying, but I feel like almost 30 years of cultural change have effected what the phrase 'believe them' means in this context. What I think you and I are talking about is 'believe them' as in to give someone the help they need, whereas what I think the person in the documentary really did mean was "Believe that they are 100% right about what they say because ghosts are real." That said, even then, I do feel like 'believe them' would have at least carried 'Believe that they are experiencing weird things and aren't lying to you or something.'

Frankly, I think a lot of the things about the ghost story just didn't work because of the format. They did a good job with faking the realism of the presentation, but both the skeptical character and the believer came off kind of fake. Especially the believer. When you use a mockumentary, the audience assumes much more that everything they don't know is like reality.

I have become more skeptical of the supernatural over time but my big issue is either side treating science and the supernatural as completely separate instead of treating the latter as just a placeholder term for parts of the former not discovered yet. our ancestors thought lightning was magic, who's to say things like ghosts aren't the same way?

I disagree. People in the ancient world didn’t think lightning was magic, they thought that lightning was something controlled by the gods. But a lot of things were treated as controlled by the gods that weren’t treated as magic. A typical pagan household would have a god of the entranceway, and you’d want to give the threshold god some sacrifices from time to time or else you’ll fall over and crack your head. That doesn’t mean you tripping was magic, it was the will of the Gods. Lightning was rather like that.

We treat the Supernatural as different from the ‘natural’ because if it is real, our understanding of the laws of the universe are SO incomplete that we can’t really reach there from here. John Adams couldn’t understand an iPhone, but the understanding of science of the time would have allowed for many aspects of iPhones to exist. We could, so to speak, get there from here, even if we’d be damned if we knew how.

But the supernatural goes beyond the laws of physics of 2020 in a way that an iPhone doesn’t go beyond the laws of physics in 1820. If ghosts are real, we’re missing SOMETHING so big that we can’t really integrate them. And indeed, ghosts may be real, but exist in a way that human beings could never comprehend them the way we can iPhones. That is one possibility for the supernatural.

maybe not the actual scientist part but I've seen it plenty of times by laymen on the internet who wouldn't know if something is good evidence of the paranormal or not because they want to dismiss it.

Yeah but that’s just an example of human biases, and also in no small part an example of how human beings operate on the internet. It’s not uncommon for someone to argue vociferously for something, then change their mind LATER once the interaction is over. Sure some people are dumb, but that’s not really relevant.

And you say people won’t know good evidence of the paranormal, but... There kind of CAN’T be good evidence of the paranormal. Without something done under extremely measured conditions, there’s almost always going to be a reasonable alternative.

Take for example... Aliens. Let’s suppose that tonight, Neil DeGrasse Tyson is kidnapped by aliens, who take him to another planet and show him around, then return him home in the middle of town, rather than his own bed. Let’s suppose that this REALLY HAPPENED. Tyson might then believe in aliens. But if he did so, he wouldn’t do so as a scientist, and he wouldn’t do so because aliens are the most rational conclusion for him to reach. There’s lots of evidence of people mistaking dreams for reality or remembering things that didn’t happen, while there’s a lot less proven circumstances of alien abduction. Even if it happened, it’s still not very good evidence.

that too but I would also still suggest that the supernatural is a Clark's Third Law kind of thing.

Okay, but... Why?

And remember, I BELIEVE in the supernatural. I’m just not sure why you’d assume that we’ll ever be able to figure it out. My cat Pico is very smart. She knows, for example, that when I wake up I am going to get on the computer soon, and will go and turn on the computer for me, and then sit by the keyboard until I use it. She understands that when I’m playing Mortal Kombat, the bug lady with extra limbs is the one I want to win, and will bat at the screen to attack whichever one ISN’T the bug lady.

But no matter how smart Pico is, she doesn’t know what the thing I do with the keyboard is. She doesn’t know why I want the computer on. She can’t follow the cutscenes in Story Mode. I think that, if the supernatural exists, it’s entirely possible that we don’t have the ability to interact with it in ways that can be tracked and measured.

I don't know, if ghosts and such do exist, can't they be studied by scientists?

and if this means our understanding of the laws of the universe is lacking, can't we just lean more about them, isn't that ongoing goal of science?

again, the fictional example I gave is when the Tenth Doctor explained incantation based magic as another form of mathematics, just using words instead of numbers. and fiction, especially, science fiction, often reflects reality.

It supposed to but it doesn't always succeed.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

also, related, when you go into individual crypid cases, it gets more complicated but since there are presidents of animals though to be myths or extinct being discovered/rediscovered, why is cryptozooalogy still seen as a pseudoscience?

[Thebestoftherest]

also, related, when you go into individual crypid cases, it gets more complicated but since there are presidents of animals though to be myths or extinct being discovered/rediscovered, why is cryptozooalogy still seen as a pseudoscience?

Easy because finding an snake thought dead is a science, meanwhile Cytpozooalogy required such vague nonsense and none answer that calling it science is pointless.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

also, related, when you go into individual crypid cases, it gets more complicated but since there are presidents of animals though to be myths or extinct being discovered/rediscovered, why is cryptozooalogy still seen as a pseudoscience?

Easy because finding an snake thought dead is a science, meanwhile Cytpozooalogy required such vague nonsense and none answer that calling it science is pointless.

What nonsense? most cryptozooligists simply think Bigfoot is a still surviving Gigantopethicus, Nessie is a still surviving pleasuosaur, etc. There is not magical aspects attached to them.

[Rocketboy1313]

I don't know, if ghosts and such do exist, can't they be studied by scientists?

and if this means our understanding of the laws of the universe is lacking, can't we just lean more about them, isn't that ongoing goal of science?

again, the fictional example I gave is when the Tenth Doctor explained incantation based magic as another form of mathematics, just using words instead of numbers. and fiction, especially, science fiction, often reflects reality.

I do not believe in ghosts, there are too many other logical explanations that are more likely than ghosts for me to believe in ghosts. That being said I could see something like a ghost existing.

My line of reasoning is this. Humans have been able to see color for a really long time, but the instrumentation to capture color photographs are less than 100 years old, same with the science that explains what the hell color is.

It is possible that there is some natural phenomenon that is exceptionally rare and can be detected by our senses, but even if the instruments that would be able to measure it exist they are just never around when it happens.

I can imagine a science fiction story set in the near future of space travel where "ghosts" are explained as some kind of energy cloud that sometimes just shows up or can be generated by some mechanism... Which would make for the awesome idea of a "Ghost Canon"!