The Boy Who Lived Before - Documentary about a childs memories of another life

[Randall]

If you would, please explain to me what you mean by non-empirical evidence. Perhaps I am being too clinical with my terms...help me out here.

OK here we go . It took a little tweaking, but I think I've come up with one ( a joke about an empiricist and a rationalist sitting at a bar ) .

Locke and Descartes are sitting at a bar and Descartes asks, "Why do you drink alcohol?" to which Locke responds in a rather slurry voice, "I don't need a reason." and orders another pint. The bartender then turns to Descartes and asks, "Would you care for a drink?". Descartes responds "I think not" and he vanishes.

Be man ...

 

[Jeff Davis]

I was just following the definition you set out --

Michael, I think it would be a good idea to simply look up and learn a little about the subject matter that the forum centers on that you are participating in. If you honestly do not know who Charles Fort is, and what unexplained Fortean Phenomena represents, now would be a wonderful time to start. Possibly then we can continue.

BTW, while you are at it, please let all of us know precisely what UFOs are since it's irrational to conclude that we don't have a clue yet what they actually are. <just shakes head>

 

[Zephyr]

What can be discussed among peers probably should follow a protocol of consensus of terms.

But my mind recognizes no such limits in casual thought experiments, which is the fertile ground for the types of innovations that have led to important discoveries in the past.

Surely one can say "I remain unconvinced" of ideas under discussion without feeling the need to chisel Truth into stone over every point of contention arising.

Kicking around ideas is building sand castles, however intricate the details.

It seems easy enough to brush aside the products of unfocused, undisciplined, or outright delusional thinking without allowing the fear of errors to become an obstacle to exploration.

Just sayin'.









Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk - now Free

 

[Jeff Davis]

What can be discussed among peers probably should follow a protocol of consensus of terms.

But my mind recognizes no such limits in casual thought experiments, which is the fertile ground for the types of innovations that have led to important discoveries in the past.

Surely one can say "I remain unconvinced" of ideas under discussion without feeling the need to chisel Truth into stone over every point of contention arising.

Kicking around ideas is building sand castles, however intricate the details.

It seems easy enough to brush aside the products of unfocused, undisciplined, or outright delusional thinking without allowing the fear of errors to become an obstacle to exploration.

Just sayin'.

What seems odd to me, is a lack of the obvious. Obviously we do not know what constitutes observations with respect for Fortean Phenomena, because as soon as we do know and can demonstrate as much, it stops being Fortean Phenomena.

For example: 10,000 people have sightings of weird stuff. 500 of those 10,000 sightings describe a nearly identical observation, although the described object of those observations remains utterly elusive after decades of critical thought and research that assuredly has leaned in many cases on the best of legitimate scientific investigation. Do we continue making the same mistakes by assuming we are on the right track, pretending that we know what we are looking for, thinking that all we have to do is find facts to fit our beliefs so we can prove them, or do we examine far more closely the powers of our own observations via the study of consciousness and it's relationship to the world we routinely observe?

I think the latter is a far safer bet. I have done my best on this forum to point far greater minds than my own to extremely convincing and cutting edge science in the form supportive Theoretical Quantum Physics/Mechanics. This is extremely real and credible material that is presently being tested and considered by a tremendous segment of the real scientific population.

Still, because of a lack of "consensus", it's referred to as mysticism??? I really don't think so. It's a matter of human nature and I think I'll leave it at that.

Presently I have roughly a little over 40 years into being a fan of UFOs and Fortean considerations in general, albeit, I am not a big ghost fan. It's not that I doubt any of it, it just does not interest in me in the least currently. If after 40 years of nearly identical sightings of Big Foot, UFOs, whatever, and we still don't REALLY have a clue, I'll remain malleable with relation to what I feel are premature conclusions that I may very well never know in my lifetime. That's life, however it doesn't hinder my level of interest in hypothetical imaginings in the least. I firmly believe myself to be both rational and critical in thought, however I am certain, absolutely positive, that while representing archetypical observations, all Fortean Phenomena is presently based on unfounded observationally based truths. Can any of us demonstrate otherwise?

Stating as much, are we not ass deep in the alligators of delusion? Of course we are, and it's darn fun to be!

 

[Randall]

What can be discussed among peers probably should follow a protocol of consensus of terms.

Ageed. Like what exactly does Jeff mean by a "self styled 70s comedian"?
Is that a comedian from the 1970s? Or is it a comedian in their 70s?
If it's the former then it's a compliment.
If it's the latter I'm not so sure.​

But my mind recognizes no such limits in casual thought experiments, which is the fertile ground for the types of innovations that have led to important discoveries in the past.

You mean like when the word unsinkable results in ...​

Surely one can say "I remain unconvinced" of ideas under discussion without feeling the need to chisel Truth into stone over every point of contention arising.

One could say that ... but sometimes the need to chisel is so powerful
it leads one to commit unthinkable acts of truth chiseling ...​

​

Kicking around ideas is building sand castles, however intricate the details.

And here I thought "kicking around ideas" was about building video games ...

It seems easy enough to brush aside the products of unfocused, undisciplined, or outright delusional thinking without allowing the fear of errors to become an obstacle to exploration.

That's exactly right !
The more unfocused, undisciplined, outright delusional thinking you can brush aside,
the less fear of errors you have to become obstacles to exploration.
It's a win-win situation . ​

Just sayin'.

Oh ya sure ... I get it ... it's like ...

 

[Jeff Davis]

...and we all know about the three phases of scientific acceptance. It's 100% ego. Right Ufology?

 

[Michael Allen]

Michael, I think it would be a good idea to simply look up and learn a little about the subject matter that the forum centers on that you are participating in. If you honestly do not know who Charles Fort is, and what unexplained Fortean Phenomena represents, now would be a wonderful time to start. Possibly then we can continue.

BTW, while you are at it, please let all of us know precisely what UFOs are since it's irrational to conclude that we don't have a clue yet what they actually are. <just shakes head>

We are not discussing Fortean phenomena-- but your definition as such. I do not need to really go read up on Charles Fort to know that your definition includes what you consider to be non-fortean phenomena--which is a contradiction. That contradiction will remain regardless of my participation in the homework you have assigned me.

UFOs are "unidentified flying objects" -- nothing more, nothing less. What a UFO is depends on what category of existence is later ascribed to it, whether that means an extra-terrestrial piloted craft, a secret government project, a bird, the witnesses overly active imagination, or some weird "trans-dimensional" entity playing with our heads, or whatever.

An example: Lets suppose there's an object called "transient" which is formally indicated as anything that happens on a measuring tool which causes the reading to suddenly spike and then fall back down to some baseline measurement. This "transient" may be caused by many factors: random electrical discharges in the instrumentation, an actual event picked up by the detector which would further be determined by the type of detector used, whether it be a spectrometer, accelerometer, voltmeter, motion detector, microphone, etc. Such "transients" might even be called "unidentified" by the technicians reading the instruments until further investigation determines the cause.

Now that the picture is in place, imagine if some philosopher came into the room full of thousands of instruments and said, "you don't know what any of these transients are? That must mean you have no idea of the cause behind all these transients." The technicians would respond simply, "well, there are lots of transients for different reasons, some are noise in the equipment, the connections, and others are events that we have found to be relevant in the detection spikes. For each transient there is a chain of causes that we can trace down and investigate and not every transient is caused by the same chain or is even remotely related to another chain. Transient AD1337 was identified yesterday was caused by a small unexpected reflection in the optics of our spectrometer; whereas transient AD1338 was caused by a small seismic event recorded simultaneously by our seismic station and others nearby."

Likewise it isn't as if all of the UFOs have some unified cause that needs to be found in order for UFOs to be "explained." Many UFOs have been explained, and others truly represent something that could only be high-powered craft under intelligent control, still others are made up stories passed from one ear to the next, and even others are exaggerated claims of otherwise normal mundane events--all explanations are related only by the gullibility of those who would like to combine all unknown or mysterious objects seen into one category demanding of one explanation.

Note that each of these possibilities as such are not necessarily related to the other--something that your fortean definition fails to recognize trying to make a concrete metaphysical category out of mystery. Notice I am not putting these possibilities as explanations for ALL sightings... can you find one explanation for all sightings of anything? No, sightings may be related entities or unrelated, and an explanation for one sighting is going to be different from another--to say that its irrational to conclude we don't have a clue is basically just saying we don't have a SINGLE explanation that fits every sighting. This is not a statement of profundity...but of vacuity. There are no such explanations...try explaining the pattern, thickness, and constitution of clouds on every planet in our solar system with ONE explanation and you will see how silly it is.

Precisely what is encompassed by "Fortean" is a matter of great debate; the term is widely applied from every position from Fortean purists dedicated to Fort's methods and interests, to those with open and active acceptance of the actuality of paranormal phenomena, a position with which Fort may not have agreed. Most generally, Forteans have a wide interest in unexplained phenomena in wide-ranging fields, mostly concerned with the natural world, and have a developed "agnosticscepticism" regarding the anomalies they note and discuss. For Mr. Hecht as an example, being a Fortean meant hallowing a pronounced distrust of authority in all its forms, whether religious, scientific, political, philosophical or otherwise. It did not, of course, include an actual belief in the anomalous data enumerated in Fort's work

Source: Wikipedia s.v. Charles Fort

 

[Randall]

...and we all know about the three phases of scientific acceptance. It's 100% ego. Right Ufology?

Perhaps you're closer than you think. According to Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche:

• The ego acts according to the reality principle.
• The reality principle is the ability of the mind to assess the reality of the external world, and to act upon it accordingly.
• The ego comprises the organized part of the personality structure that includes defensive, perceptual, intellectual-cognitive, and executive functions.

So it would seem that acceptance of science would indeed require significant participation by the ego. Would it be 100% participation? Freud might argue otherwise.

 

[Jeff Davis]

The awesome Michael responds: I mean that. I honestly think that you are without a doubt one of the most highly formally educated and intelligent forum members I have ever communicated with. Thing is, your patient with me, and frankly, I find that fact alone entertaining.

Here's the bizarre thing however, in all my experience as an active musician of roughly 38 years total playing time, I have found that at very least, 75% of the well learned, ie, theory taught musicians, (read: not solely/musician community/ear taught musicians), were some of the most useless I have ever played with apart from the assignment of music to read or write. They were left brainers to the max. These musicians, some incredibly endowed with technical, or mechanical skill and ability, couldn't improvise to save their ass and basically contained a real lack of natural musical aptitude. If you threw them in with a bunch of relevant locals and said, "hey, so & so, to give as an idea "who" you are musically, could you "let go" and just basically express yourself for us please?", they would stand there looking at you like you had three eyes or something. And where as many of these guys get monstrous with respect to a real virtuosic technical skill level, they simply lack the inherent right brain mechanics to witness and most importantly FEEL, that big spontaneous musical experience of interacting with other musicians on a:"it's time to tune in and shut down that left half, while we let the right half do the actuating". Pardon the hack job,but wasn't it Darwin that stated something about the true measure of evolutionary survival or success is not one of individuality, but rather one of chemistry. Wherein the sum of the whole, is greater than the sum of each individual. The key being the ability to "collaboratively improvise". This is basic experience.

We are not discussing Fortean phenomena-- but your definition as such. I do not need to really go read up on Charles Fort to know that your definition includes what you consider to be non-fortean phenomena--which is a contradiction. That contradiction will remain regardless of my participation in the homework you have assigned me

OK, we'll dispense with this bs that I created right now my friend, by me first apologizing, not only to you, but all forum members. I am posting while at work so often times I try to get stuff out too fast. UNDERSTAND: That when Jeff Davis states "Fortean Phenomena", that's truly and honestly what I mean. "Fortean" is a concept that I personally first learned about some 20-25 years ago when a friend recommended the "Fortean Times" to me, which I fell in love with instantly.

UFOs are "unidentified flying objects" -- nothing more, nothing less.

Correct! This is precisely my baseline UFO definition and precisely what I have been stating since day one. However, then you go straight to comic book ville,

What a UFO is depends on what category of existence is later ascribed to it, whether that means an extra-terrestrial piloted craft, a secret government project, a bird, the witnesses overly active imagination, or some weird "trans-dimensional" entity playing with our heads, or whatever.

What was it you were stating about empirical evidence now? And this is an "extensive" cataloging of what precisely, mankind's culturally relevant folly attributed to UFOs, or maybe it would be better put, mankind's culturally derived tribute to UFOs? Either way, it's 100% interpretation, hypothesis, and sheer belief based reasoning. What you just described is called attributive culturally relevant context. In all actuality, it represents little more than a temporally narrow monotypic cross section study. It's the same precise arena that mankind has been using to describe the folklore surrounding UFOs since the beginning of time itself. Welcome to the game. Now, on to the parable of the "lost transient". As a fancier of wave files, I know a thing or two about transients.

An example: Lets suppose there's an object called "transient" which is formally indicated as anything that happens on a measuring tool which causes the reading to suddenly spike and then fall back down to some baseline measurement. This "transient" may be caused by many factors: random electrical discharges in the instrumentation, an actual event picked up by the detector which would further be determined by the type of detector used, whether it be a spectrometer, accelerometer, voltmeter, motion detector, microphone, etc. Such "transients" might even be called "unidentified" by the technicians reading the instruments until further investigation determines the cause.

Here, sadly Michael, I must STOP you dead in your tracks. You are simply out of bounds. You cannot place the controlled and the uncontrolled, within an analogous comparison in an effort to reach a relevant conclusion related to variations in the causality of Fortean Phenomena. Sorry.

Likewise it isn't as if all of the UFOs have some unified cause that needs to be found in order for UFOs to be "explained."

Really! I am certain you are prepared to demonstrate the matter for me. Please proceed. Doesn't Occam's Razor tell us to seek the most "likely" or "simplistic" causality first? Again, I am very interested in your ability to demonstrate these variations in Fortean causality. Oh no, here comes the comic book again:

Many UFOs have been explained,

You mean, investigated and found to consist of fully explainable and repeatable cause? Absolutely, of course, after which they are no longer UFOs. That makes them irrelevant to our communication here. So no, UFOs have never been identified due to their inherent nature of being unidentified. That would more or less constitute a complete contradiction of the term and provide us with an irreconcilable failure of logic.

and others truly represent something that could only be high-powered craft under intelligent control, still others are made up stories passed from one ear to the next, and even others are exaggerated claims of otherwise normal mundane events--all explanations are related only by the gullibility of those who would like to combine all unknown or mysterious objects seen into one category demanding of one explanation.

Hi power craft with who executing this intelligent control inside precisely? Remember, we are dealing in scientific method. This will require real evidence so you may require one of those new hybrids to get good enough gas mileage to bring back one of those neighboring star system neighbors. Vallee on the other hand does in fact make a significant contribution (he and others to be certain) to the archetypal passing of generationally derived UFO and abduction folklore.

Note that each of these possibilities as such are not necessarily related to the other --something that your fortean definition fails to recognize trying to make a concrete metaphysical category out of mystery. Notice I am not putting these possibilities as explanations for ALL sightings...

This is a sheer assumption unless you can demonstrate otherwise. Wherein is the established legitimacy of your claim, beyond a belief system? That's not very critical IMO.

can you find one explanation for all sightings of anything? No, sightings may be related entities or unrelated, and an explanation for one sighting is going to be different from another--to say that its irrational to conclude we don't have a clue is basically just saying we don't have a SINGLE explanation that fits every sighting. This is not a statement of profundity...but of vacuity.

Here you just repeat yourself and then rap up by insulting references to the matter as being reduced to a meaningless vacuum. Really.

There are no such explanations...try explaining the pattern, thickness, and constitution of clouds on every planet in our solar system with ONE explanation and you will see how silly it is.

Again, your thoughts are so striped of contextual relevance that they are meaningless in the context of a real pertinent communication between us. We are NOT dealing with a plethora of planets Michael. We are dealing with one, Earth. There is a contextual alignment here in which the human sentient condition yields observations known as "Fortean Phenomena". This should be inescapable due to logic itself.

The only thing silly here is your apparent inability to remain contextually stationary long enough to ponder the depth of that which you evade by altering the contextual relevance of this communication. Please try harder to stay in the realm of context with respect to your analogies.

I MEANT what I stated about you initially Michael. I do respect your intelligence greatly.

 

[Jeff Davis]

Perhaps you're closer than you think. According to Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche:

• The ego acts according to the reality principle.
• The reality principle is the ability of the mind to assess the reality of the external world, and to act upon it accordingly.
• The ego comprises the organized part of the personality structure that includes defensive, perceptual, intellectual-cognitive, and executive functions.

So it would seem that acceptance of science would indeed require significant participation by the ego. Would it be 100% participation? Freud might argue otherwise.

Ufology, you old rascal! You nailed it! That's the 70's styled comedian thing to a "T".

 

[Randall]

Ufology, you old rascal! You nailed it! That's the 70's styled comedian thing to a "T".

This New Age Mystic babe seems to be on Jeff & @Tyger's "vibrational level". She makes
all the nonsense sound almost coherent, and with a little personal tutoring,
it wouldn't take long before there were all kinds of little
Chakras running around the house.

 

[Michael Allen]

The awesome Michael responds: I mean that. I honestly think that you are without a doubt one of the most highly formally educated and intelligent forum members I have ever communicated with. Thing is, your patient with me, and frankly, I find that fact alone entertaining.

Thanks.

Here's the bizarre thing however, in all my experience as an active musician of roughly 38 years total playing time, I have found that at very least, 75% of the well learned, ie, theory taught musicians, (read: not solely/musician community/ear taught musicians), were some of the most useless I have ever played with apart from the assignment of music to read or write. They were left brainers to the max. These musicians, some incredibly endowed with technical, or mechanical skill and ability, couldn't improvise to save their ass and basically contained a real lack of natural musical aptitude. If you threw them in with a bunch of relevant locals and said, "hey, so & so, to give as an idea "who" you are musically, could you "let go" and just basically express yourself for us please?", they would stand there looking at you like you had three eyes or something. And where as many of these guys get monstrous with respect to a real virtuosic technical skill level, they simply lack the inherent right brain mechanics to witness and most importantly FEEL, that big spontaneous musical experience of interacting with other musicians on a:"it's time to tune in and shut down that left half, while we let the right half do the actuating". Pardon the hack job,but wasn't it Darwin that stated something about the true measure of evolutionary survival or success is not one of individuality, but rather one of chemistry. Wherein the sum of the whole, is greater than the sum of each individual. The key being the ability to "collaboratively improvise". This is basic experience.

I certainly sympathize with this experience -- my original major was music: piano performance.

OK, we'll dispense with this bs that I created right now my friend, by me first apologizing, not only to you, but all forum members. I am posting while at work so often times I try to get stuff out too fast. UNDERSTAND: That when Jeff Davis states "Fortean Phenomena", that's truly and honestly what I mean. "Fortean" is a concept that I personally first learned about some 20-25 years ago when a friend recommended the "Fortean Times" to me, which I fell in love with instantly.

Correct! This is precisely my baseline UFO definition and precisely what I have been stating since day one. However, then you go straight to comic book ville,

What was it you were stating about empirical evidence now? And this is an "extensive" cataloging of what precisely, mankind's culturally relevant folly attributed to UFOs, or maybe it would be better put, mankind's culturally derived tribute to UFOs? Either way, it's 100% interpretation, hypothesis, and sheer belief based reasoning. What you just described is called attributive culturally relevant context. In all actuality, it represents little more than a temporally narrow monotypic cross section study. It's the same precise arena that mankind has been using to describe the folklore surrounding UFOs since the beginning of time itself. Welcome to the game. Now, on to the parable of the "lost transient". As a fancier of wave files, I know a thing or two about transients.

Here, sadly Michael, I must STOP you dead in your tracks. You are simply out of bounds. You cannot place the controlled and the uncontrolled, within an analogous comparison in an effort to reach a relevant conclusion related to variations in the causality of Fortean Phenomena. Sorry.

I didn't mean the "transient" example to be a direct comparison of the issue -- but as an analogy. If you look carefully in what I said, there are many elements are are not controlled in the analogy (random events for which later causes are deduced or made explicit through continued investigation and searching). The hypothetical "control room" of a nuclear reactor (e.g. Chernobyl) is a perfect example of how something that is controlled later turns into a chaotic maelstrom of uncontrolled activity. This "control room" with its many technicians monitoring their own subset of instrumentation that they are most familiar with (aspects of the internal designs of the reactor complex they may be experts at) are very much analogous to the way the brain works. Perhaps you might even have an overseer in the room taking a report on all events and issues of the day-analogous to the ego. Far from being a strictly controlled environment (that's wishful thinking, as the disaster should be a reminder), it is a dynamical system of positive and negative feedback loops of information and human/machine inter-activities. I propose this as a perfect analogy for a better understanding of what we may consider to be "Fortean phenomena." As you have indicated in your last post, I won't harp on your previous definition, but will simply say that "Fortean phenomena," as a formal indicator, is the condition for the possibility of it's own distinction from normal phenomena. That definition will fall as the details are filled in as I hope to show later.

Really! I am certain you are prepared to demonstrate the matter for me. Please proceed. Doesn't Occam's Razor tell us to seek the most "likely" or "simplistic" causality first? Again, I am very interested in your ability to demonstrate these variations in Fortean causality. Oh no, here comes the comic book again:

Well, I thought I made it very clear that I was talking about multiple possibilities as explanations for UFOs as an everyday process--true there are UFOs and anomalous events to which later an explanation is found that is sufficient, however that does not mean that the remaining unknowns for which (hitherto) an explanation is yet to be found will all turn out to be the same explanation. A good analogy here. Lets say you have an urn full of thousands of red,blue and green marbles equally distributed and mixed. You draw out 5 marbles and get 2 red and 3 blue; it isn't as if this means that the remaining marbles you draw out will all be green. The activity of learning an explanation for a previously noted weird or strange event is like drawing a marble, you can consider the color as the "explanation" for the event. Likewise the diversity of correct explanations for a given set of formerly anomalous events does not mean that the current set which remain anomalous will have one explanation that fits all.

You mean, investigated and found to consist of fully explainable and repeatable cause? Absolutely, of course, after which they are no longer UFOs. That makes them irrelevant to our communication here. So no, UFOs have never been identified due to their inherent nature of being unidentified. That would more or less constitute a complete contradiction of the term and provide us with an irreconcilable failure of logic.

The problem of course is that you have put your finger directly on the issue of the transience of the label "fortean." Being unidentified is not a nature, but an aspect. It isn't as if a cut diamond is chemically different from an uncut diamond, the "nature" of the diamond not necessarily being that of an accidental shaping or moving it about between beams of light. A light may bring out certain aspects of a cut diamond depending on how it is placed and the color source and intensity of the light, but certainly no one would say that certain aspects are "part of the enduring nature" that shows itself apart from the light itself. We aren't dealing with a contradiction when we move a cut diamond from one light source to the next, but a dynamic interplay between light and diamond. Aspects that changed over time under different conditions aren't "contradictions," but are part of the very everyday averageness of life and experience in general. This is not a failure of logic, but a failure to apply the terms of logic to their proper place.

Hi power craft with who executing this intelligent control inside precisely? Remember, we are dealing in scientific method. This will require real evidence so you may require one of those new hybrids to get good enough gas mileage to bring back one of those neighboring star system neighbors. Vallee on the other hand does in fact make a significant contribution (he and others to be certain) to the archetypal passing of generationally derived UFO and abduction folklore.

Vallee's very interesting studies of the parallels to fairy tales, archetypes, mythologies are certainly worth consideration and should be studied by anyone serious in the field of anomalous phenomena. However I feel that his presentation of the same goes too far in that it fails to bring about the absurdities of the standard social science model (SSSM).

This is a sheer assumption unless you can demonstrate otherwise. Wherein is the established legitimacy of your claim, beyond a belief system? That's not very critical IMO

.

Again, your thoughts are so striped of contextual relevance that they are meaningless in the context of a real pertinent communication between us. We are NOT dealing with a plethora of planets Michael. We are dealing with one, Earth. There is a contextual alignment here in which the human sentient condition yields observations known as "Fortean Phenomena". This should be inescapable due to logic itself.

The only thing silly here is your apparent inability to remain contextually stationary long enough to ponder the depth of that which you evade by altering the contextual relevance of this communication. Please try harder to stay in the realm of context with respect to your analogies.

The only thing silly here is your apparent inability to remain contextually stationary long enough to ponder the depth of that which you evade by altering the contextual relevance of this communication. Please try harder to stay in the realm of context with respect to your analogies.

Again, I think I demonstrated this with the diamond aspect and urn analogies referenced above. I am not saying that the remaining unknowns must necessarily be different, but that they are just as unlikely to have a unified explanation. In any case we wouldn't want to bias our investigation either way. I am not saying that I believe all of them will be different, but that we don't have any grounds for making them all the same. This is not based on a belief either way, it is simply an expectation that the world as it is today has many events with diverse causes, just like the analogy of drawing balls from an urn, there's no reason to expect all anomalous unknowns to suddenly coalesce into some kind of grand unified theory.

In short, Fortean thinkers are looking for some kind of grand unified theory of the paranormal, and there simply isn't one--unless you traverse the sophistical peat bogs, sand traps, and mud pits of the social science model (which incorrectly makes everything dependent on context and ignores what is a unity behind the human evolutionary processes altogether--sadly ironic to say the least). There are many things in human culture that are in context, however there's a thread that brings about something quite profound. Whether or not you are in 1000 A.C.E or 2013 A.C.E, the following are true

"One typically writes with a writing utensil."
"One typically eats with their hands or an eating utensil"
"One typically bites their food with their teeth, if they have any"
"One typically does something quite private with another individual of the opposite gender in order to make more ones"
"One typically cooks or otherwise burns what they eat before they eat it...esp. if its something that would make them sick otherwise"

Sure there's context...but not everything stated or acted out by a human being is completely encased in some hermetically sealed "subjective" egg of pure relativism. How else would we get so much understanding out of our own context as it is today, had it not been directly evolved from a chain of contexts of the thousands of yesterdays prior? And where does one context end and the other begin? Why not link all of them together? It isn't as if a cell in my body is completely divorced from the rest by its own context or even of the genetic information that is millions and millions of years old and in the making. All human bodies are living 3d pictures of a vast genetic eternity as its bases...context notwithstanding, we are the history of our own making.

Here you just repeat yourself and then rap up by insulting references to the matter as being reduced to a meaningless vacuum. Really.

I didn't mean is as an insult--perhaps I could have given better words to express the idea I was going with.

I MEANT what I stated about you initially Michael. I do respect your intelligence greatly.

I certainly appreciate the thought. I realized some of my earlier remarks were unnecessarily condescending.

 

[Randall]

Thanks.
I certainly appreciate the thought. I realized some of my earlier remarks were unnecessarily condescending.

Which one's were those exactly? I must be so desensitized to discussion boards that they zinged right over my head.

 

[Michael Allen]

Which one's were those exactly? I must be so desensitized to discussion boards that they zinged right over my head.

Well, in particular...one statement like "[X] is not an example of profundity, but of vacuity." Which seemed a bit strident.

 

[Jeff Davis]

Thanks.

It's sincere Michael. I knew when I first started reading your input here some year ago or so that you were the real deal. Fast, very educated, and sharp.

I didn't mean the "transient" example to be a direct comparison of the issue -- but as an analogy. If you look carefully in what I said, there are many elements are are not controlled in the analogy (random events for which later causes are deduced or made explicit through continued investigation and searching). The hypothetical "control room" of a nuclear reactor (e.g. Chernobyl) is a perfect example of how something that is controlled later turns into a chaotic maelstrom of uncontrolled activity. This "control room" with its many technicians monitoring their own subset of instrumentation that they are most familiar with (aspects of the internal designs of the reactor complex they may be experts at) are very much analogous to the way the brain works. Perhaps you might even have an overseer in the room taking a report on all events and issues of the day-analogous to the ego. Far from being a strictly controlled environment (that's wishful thinking, as the disaster should be a reminder), it is a dynamical system of positive and negative feedback loops of information and human/machine inter-activities. I propose this as a perfect analogy for a better understanding of what we may consider to be "Fortean phenomena." As you have indicated in your last post, I won't harp on your previous definition, but will simply say that "Fortean phenomena," as a formal indicator, is the condition for the possibility of it's own distinction from normal phenomena. That definition will fall as the details are filled in as I hope to show later.

Believe it or not, I honestly read through and understood where your analogy went. I really appreciated it, but there was a problem, please let me attempt to exlain it.

With respect for these FP (fortean phenomena), they always seem to be observation based events that do not arrise from humanly induced situations. In the case of your analogy, all these possible scientific aberant, or accidental artifacts (anomalous phenomena initially) come about, it is still within a context from which we can draw substantial meaning and relevance as to their possible origin or cause. We have a very finite and definitive environment from which we can launch our anomalous investigations within. With PF, not so much. Here is an example. Bigfoot. How many times have credible (and certainly not so credible!) investigations taken place, wherein searches and hunting expeditions are formed and executed to find the observed phenomena? Have they ever been found, or even observed as a result? I know for a fact that some expeditions have resulted in strong suspicions arrising from local noises heard, gutteral animal noises or screams, trees knocked, or rocks thrown, but I do not know of a single case wherein what I would call a clear substantiated observation of the phenomena took place. You hear about these things showing up in people's back yards. National Parks, etc. They SHOULD be more than abundant with respect to a serious search for them. This is not the case and we find the matter just getting insanely wierder as we read up on all the documentation witnesses claim concerning this phenomena. We have reports from credible witnesses seeing them dematerialize after being shotgunned directly at point blank range. How about them coming from, walking around, or going into, UFOs! We have credible documented and substantiated reports of tracks of the supposed animal simply stopping in the middle of what were large open muddy areas where the phenomena had been crossing. So my quandery becomes, how do we use an anology that takes place within the confines of a lab or a reactor, and arrive at a truly logical analgous comparrison?

Weather phenomena might be a little closer to the heart of the matter, but here's the thing. When weather related phenomena are observed, then latter discovered for what they truly are, they rarely manifest themselves via the initial reporting of nearly identicle observations. They are non archetypical as are our lab/reactor results.

Well, I thought I made it very clear that I was talking about multiple possibilities as explanations for UFOs as an everyday process--true there are UFOs and anomalous events to which later an explanation is found that is sufficient, however that does not mean that the remaining unknowns for which (hitherto) an explanation is yet to be found will all turn out to be the same explanation. A good analogy here. Lets say you have an urn full of thousands of red,blue and green marbles equally distributed and mixed. You draw out 5 marbles and get 2 red and 3 blue; it isn't as if this means that the remaining marbles you draw out will all be green. The activity of learning an explanation for a previously noted weird or strange event is like drawing a marble, you can consider the color as the "explanation" for the event. Likewise the diversity of correct explanations for a given set of formerly anomalous events does not mean that the current set which remain anomalous will have one explanation that fits all.

Again, a problem here arises from a controlled, albeit one that achieves random results, experiment. Of course you are correct. Your logic is perfect. The problem is that when we observe (key word my friend) FP, there is typically zero prep or anticipation involved. It just happens.

A quick observation example. When back in the day, mariners were certain that because they observed a very specific vista or horizon in the distance, that the world stopped there and that all the water plummited over the far edge and that we would do so along with the water if they ventured too far. How was this miss perception corrected? Through the only means possible, experience. We had to go there and find out for ourselves. This is the ONLY reason that I have suggested the study of consciousness as the ultimate answer to mankind's environmentally induced observational limitations with respect to FP.

The problem of course is that you have put your finger directly on the issue of the transience of the label "fortean." Being unidentified is not a nature, but an aspect.

I agree and I disagree. Whereas there is no question that unidentified is an aspect directly relevant to FP, the context of our observations, and their relationship to our environment, may assuredly describe an aspect of nature that we are presently unfamiliar with. So it's both elementarily an aspect of descriptive quality as well as a possible marker in nature that beckons our sentient evolution as a species.

It isn't as if a cut diamond is chemically different from an uncut diamond, the "nature" of the diamond not necessarily being that of an accidental shaping or moving it about between beams of light. A light may bring out certain aspects of a cut diamond depending on how it is placed and the color source and intensity of the light, but certainly no one would say that certain aspects are "part of the enduring nature" that shows itself apart from the light itself. We aren't dealing with a contradiction when we move a cut diamond from one light source to the next, but a dynamic interplay between light and diamond. Aspects that changed over time under different conditions aren't "contradictions," but are part of the very everyday averageness of life and experience in general. This is not a failure of logic, but a failure to apply the terms of logic to their proper place

.

You are 100% correct! (IMO) GREAT lesson, and an even better example because it demonstrates an interactive behavior with respect to observation. What I really want to do Michael is to determine if there is such a observation relationship between our consciousness and it's possible interaction with our universe due to an upsurge of informational relevancy within Theoretical Quantum Physics/Mechanics.

I am simply out of time presently. Will pick up where I left off soon. I have already read the whole post and am excited to do so. I have never even heard of SSSM. That will be fascinating in and of itself.

Vallee's very interesting studies of the parallels to fairy tales, archetypes, mythologies are certainly worth consideration and should be studied by anyone serious in the field of anomalous phenomena. However I feel that his presentation of the same goes too far in that it fails to bring about the absurdities of the standard social science model (SSSM).

Again, I think I demonstrated this with the diamond aspect and urn analogies referenced above. I am not saying that the remaining unknowns must necessarily be different, but that they are just as unlikely to have a unified explanation. In any case we wouldn't want to bias our investigation either way. I am not saying that I believe all of them will be different, but that we don't have any grounds for making them all the same. This is not based on a belief either way, it is simply an expectation that the world as it is today has many events with diverse causes, just like the analogy of drawing balls from an urn, there's no reason to expect all anomalous unknowns to suddenly coalesce into some kind of grand unified theory.

In short, Fortean thinkers are looking for some kind of grand unified theory of the paranormal, and there simply isn't one--unless you traverse the sophistical peat bogs, sand traps, and mud pits of the social science model (which incorrectly makes everything dependent on context and ignores what is a unity behind the human evolutionary processes altogether--sadly ironic to say the least). There are many things in human culture that are in context, however there's a thread that brings about something quite profound. Whether or not you are in 1000 A.C.E or 2013 A.C.E, the following are true

"One typically writes with a writing utensil."
"One typically eats with their hands or an eating utensil"
"One typically bites their food with their teeth, if they have any"
"One typically does something quite private with another individual of the opposite gender in order to make more ones"
"One typically cooks or otherwise burns what they eat before they eat it...esp. if its something that would make them sick otherwise"

Sure there's context...but not everything stated or acted out by a human being is completely encased in some hermetically sealed "subjective" egg of pure relativism. How else would we get so much understanding out of our own context as it is today, had it not been directly evolved from a chain of contexts of the thousands of yesterdays prior? And where does one context end and the other begin? Why not link all of them together? It isn't as if a cell in my body is completely divorced from the rest by its own context or even of the genetic information that is millions and millions of years old and in the making. All human bodies are living 3d pictures of a vast genetic eternity as its bases...context notwithstanding, we are the history of our own making.

I didn't mean is as an insult--perhaps I could have given better words to express the idea I was going with.



I certainly appreciate the thought. I realized some of my earlier remarks were unnecessarily condescending.[/quote]

 

[Randall]

What I really want to do Michael is to determine if there is such a observation relationship between our consciousness and it's possible interaction with our universe due to an upsurge of informational relevancy within Theoretical Quantum Physics/Mechanics.

In other words you want to engage in more quantum woo woo. Your ideas might be perfectly clear within your subjective universe ( the one inside your mind ), while at the same time having little or no connection to objective reality ( sometimes simply called the real world - the universe out there ). Perhaps you should try focusing more on bridging that gap, than making it all sound sensible within your own personal paradigm.

What The Bleep Debunked ( Again )

 

[Jeff Davis]

In other words you want to engage in more quantum woo woo. So far, you still haven't even explained what context you're using the word "universe" in. For example, your ideas might be perfectly clear within your subjective universe ( the one inside your mind ), while at the same time having no connection to objective reality ( sometimes simply called the real world ). Perhaps you should try focusing more on bridging that gap, than making it all sound sensible within your own personal paradigm.

As Chris stated here a few days ago about the unlike button......but, uh, Ah F that, I would hit that SOB in no time flat!

Ufology, you really are a special case, and are most certainly, even though MANY TIMES a very nice and interesting man, by the classic forum definition of the word, you are a sharply provocative, and a not so self assured TROLL .


Wasn't it just you that was speculatively psycho babbling something about making lite of that which you don't, or possibly more accurately, can't, comprehend? Predictably beyond all comprehension, you intellectually diminish (a complete lapse of logic! IMO) to deconstruct matters like that mundane moron Derrida. Stuffy, left brained, crotchety old buzzard.

Utter folly is best shown for what it is, via it's over attempting, high profile, unsubstantiated, repeat performances. Still in yet, it remains the best and boisterous friend of the desperation that accompanies the all too limited mortal aspect of our human life span. Those suffering from as much insecurity, and in real decline due to age, are apparently somehow satisfied to offer up their typified, predictable, repeat glimmer of hope, that is their identity's one small shiny reflecting surface, left on a now mostly dull old feigned ego shield built of self protective obsolescent knowledge. The same one their great mission in life has afforded them. Trapped by the encroaching entropy of their own contentedly full ego's belief system, they shun such growth out of utter instinctual fear, and would rather disregard it as delusion to comfort their diminished human capacity to reach for new and paradigm change incenting scientific opportunities.

Is this the best we can do in an effort to understand new and very real scientific discoveries? What kind of a man, of mighty curiosity for scientific principle are we, when all we can do is repeatedly test those around us with nothing more than stubborn pseudo scientific imaginings based solely on our culturally derived, individually programmed, base belief systems?

Albeit over typified in the human condition, I must say, I admire your tenacity Ufology.

Q; Are their fields of relative Science, recognized and fully supported Empirically, that ARE, Highly Refined and Developed Quantum Physics and Mechanics, SCIENCES, by definition?

A; Yes!

Q; Are their fields of relative Science, recognized and fully supported Empirically, that ARE Highly Refined and Developed ufology SCIENCES by definition?

A; No!

Logically therefore, is it really such a bad idea to suggest legitimate studies in TQP that may greatly impact the study of consciousness?

As an eccentric, and certainly perhaps selfish request, with respect to the forum's context, is it honestly out of line to suggest that such studies may impact our understanding for what is, observed Fortean Phenomena?

My God man, how can you be so cement headed concerning the completely unfathomable and magnificent reality that Fortean Phenomena may represent in relationship to our consciousness experience? We aren't going into woo woo here, just suggesting the unbiased examination of a very critically important, and legitimate, alternate facet of cutting edge SCIENCE guiding such a study. What precisely is wrong with that?

This being in relation to one of the greatest mysteries of all time. Fortean Phenomena. Who cares if it doesn't yield a grandiose unified explanation for all of these matters. Just one would suit me just FINE.

Peace man! And lets try and get a grip on the reality that is Theoretical Quantum Physics and Quantum Mechanics. Stop denying what you yourself are not apparently willing to invest your mind into. I know you could understand TQP if you wanted to, even constructively support and add to it, but you have an aversion to investing the time required. Get over yourself. Please just start defining the matter for what it really is for pete's snake.

I had hoped that people with powerful minds such as your own, containing a priceless wealth of intelligent esoteric Fortean considerations, would relish the group based excitement of using science instead of Keyhoe's Capers in an effort to understand UFOs. That being before we croak. Even if we only scratched the surface of such an avenue to a better understanding, that would be a 100 times better than being happy to have our heads stuck in the sand, the cement, or worse places!

Smile Ufology, Keyhoe loves you, whereas Keel's my buddy. Honestly Sir, we all should encourage each other to shine on no matter how conflicting our views seem to be. That's the least we can do in retrospect to a lifetime of considerable time and effort, appreciating the unknown.

 

[Randall]

As Chris stated here a few days ago about the unlike button......but, uh, Ah F that, I would hit that SOB in no time flat!

What's not to like?

Ufology, you really are a special case, and are most certainly, even though MANY TIMES a very nice and interesting man, by the classic forum definition of the word, you are a sharply provocative, and a not so self assured TROLL .

Accusing someone else of being a troll is a classic troll tactic. The real way to expose a troll is by their slights on people's personality and character. For example, implying that just because they don't agree with you that they must be dim witted or comparing them to someone else of dubious character, or even direct insults. But the more devious troll will generally avoid those. See your next quote below for examples:

Wasn't it just you that was speculatively psycho babbling something about making lite of that which you don't, or possibly more accurately, can't, comprehend? Predictably beyond all comprehension, you intellectually diminish (a complete lapse of logic! IMO) to deconstruct matters like that mundane moron Derrida. Stuffy, left brained, crotchety old buzzard.

Another sign of the troll is failing to address the issues in a rational and coherent manner. In contrast to your remarks and unsubstantiated responses, I've provided examples, links, and in my last post a video that debunked a number of quantum mystical claims, revealing them to be the nonsense that they are.

Utter folly is best shown for what it is, via it's over attempting, high profile, unsubstantiated, repeat performances. Still in yet, it remains the best and boisterous friend of the desperation that accompanies the all too limited mortal aspect of our human life span. Those suffering from as much insecurity, and in real decline due to age, are apparently somehow satisfied to offer up their typified, predictable, repeat glimmer of hope, that is their identity's one small shiny reflecting surface, left on a now mostly dull old feigned ego shield built of self protective obsolescent knowledge. The same one their great mission in life has afforded them. Trapped by the encroaching entropy of their own contentedly full ego's belief system, they shun such growth out of utter instinctual fear, and would rather disregard it as delusion to comfort their diminished human capacity to reach for new and paradigm change incenting scientific opportunities.

Was there some point to that little rant?

Is this the best we can do in an effort to understand new and very real scientific discoveries? What kind of a man, of mighty curiosity for scientific principle are we, when all we can do is repeatedly test those around us with nothing more than stubborn pseudo scientific imaginings based solely on our culturally derived, individually programmed, base belief systems?

That's a rather loaded question. Perhaps you could provide a relevant example?

Albeit over typified in the human condition, I must say, I admire your tenacity Ufology.

Now if I could just apply that tenacity to something useful. But seriously, if my comments are only locking you tighter into your beliefs rather than showing you that there are other ways to look at the issue and to think about them rather than simply dismiss them, then I'm not doing such a good job. Perhaps there can be no resolution. I need reasons to believe in things, and your responses tend to rely on a phenomenological foundation. The two approaches aren't very complimentary.

Q; Are their fields of relative Science, recognized and fully supported Empirically, that ARE, Highly Refined and Developed Quantum Physics and Mechanics, SCIENCES, by definition?

I'll continue this a little later. I have to sign off from the Wi-Fi hotspot I'm at now.

 

[Randall]

To continue from here:

Q; Are their fields of relative Science, recognized and fully supported Empirically, that ARE, Highly Refined and Developed Quantum Physics and Mechanics, SCIENCES, by definition?

A; Yes!

Q; Are their fields of relative Science, recognized and fully supported Empirically, that ARE Highly Refined and Developed ufology SCIENCES by definition?

A; No!

Logically therefore, is it really such a bad idea to suggest legitimate studies in TQP that may greatly impact the study of consciousness?

You'll have to elaborate. I don't know what you mean by "relative science" ( can you link me to a definition ). To me science is either some kind of hard science ( astronomy, geology, etc. ) or "applied science" or something else that's not science. The only "relative science" I can think of would be topics surrounding the issue of relativity theory.

As an eccentric, and certainly perhaps selfish request, with respect to the forum's context, is it honestly out of line to suggest that such studies may impact our understanding for what is, observed Fortean Phenomena?

My God man, how can you be so cement headed concerning the completely unfathomable and magnificent reality that Fortean Phenomena may represent in relationship to our consciousness experience? We aren't going into woo woo here, just suggesting the unbiased examination of a very critically important, and legitimate, alternate facet of cutting edge SCIENCE guiding such a study. What precisely is wrong with that?

Sidestepping the "cement headed" comment, I feel compelled to point out that the video I posted exposed several New Age woo beliefs based on so-called "cutting edge SCIENCE" to be entirely faulty if not outright fraudulent.

This being in relation to one of the greatest mysteries of all time. Fortean Phenomena. Who cares if it doesn't yield a grandiose unified explanation for all of these matters. Just one would suit me just FINE.

Peace man!

OK I'm good with that.

And lets try and get a grip on the reality that is Theoretical Quantum Physics and Quantum Mechanics. Stop denying what you yourself are not apparently willing to invest your mind into. I know you could understand TQP if you wanted to, even constructively support and add to it, but you have an aversion to investing the time required. Get over yourself. Please just start defining the matter for what it really is for pete's snake.

I don't mean to come across as elitist, but those who can actually do quantum physics and quantum mechanics are using math that would take me far too long to study up on and become competent with. For that matter it may even be presumptuous of me to assume I could do it even if I had the time. Perhaps our compatriot here @Michael Allen could work some of the math, but I suspect you're also in the same boat as I am, along with 99.9% of the rest of the world. So let's not pretend either of us actually understands what those physicists do. The best we can do is try to make sense of the concepts that they say are implied by their calculations and experiments.

When physicists or their pop-science writers are explaining their work to us lay people, I seem to be able to understand what they're saying and identify problems with it substantially better than the average person, especially those newer to the subject matter. That is probably because I've followed their endeavors over the years and sifted out what does and doesn't best represent what they're actually doing. So when I make a statement, it's not based on offhanded dismissal or a lack of exposure, or insufficient contemplation ( which is what you're implied more than once ).

I had hoped that people with powerful minds such as your own, containing a priceless wealth of intelligent esoteric Fortean considerations, would relish the group based excitement of using science instead of Keyhoe's Capers in an effort to understand UFOs. That being before we croak. Even if we only scratched the surface of such an avenue to a better understanding, that would be a 100 times better than being happy to have our heads stuck in the sand, the cement, or worse places!

I'm doing the best I can with the resources at my disposal. I've also considered a lot of unconventional ideas. For example, from a cosmological context, I've been a proponent of the computational model since it was considered to be no more than science fiction. Only now is it gaining some serious acceptance among academics. I also don't dispute that strange things happen. My concern is that we don't leap to unfounded conclusions about what those experiences mean. It's fine to hypothesize, but ultimately it's the evidence ( both empirical and rational ) that should provide direction and justification for belief.

Smile Ufology, Keyhoe loves you, whereas Keel's my buddy. Honestly Sir, we all should encourage each other to shine on no matter how conflicting our views seem to be. That's the least we can do in retrospect to a lifetime of considerable time and effort, appreciating the unknown.

Well, I'm not so sure I can encourage people who are vendors of nonsense to "shine on". Not only are they deluding themselves, they're deluding others, and they're the reason for wacky cults like Heaven's Gate, CSETI, Eduard Meier, The Raëlians, and so on. My focus is on sifting out that nonsense from what is reasonable based on the principles of critical thinking. The motto of The Paracast is "Separating the Signal From the Noise". If we're going to embrace every conflicting view all we're going to achieve is so much static that people will start seeing whatever they want to see.

Lastly, returning to your accusation of me being a troll, I'll admit that there are times I may come across as provocative, but that's not enough to deserve being labeled a troll. Trolls don't have a genuine and constructive interest in being on a forum. Their agenda is to cause disruption and discontent at the expense of others for their own amusement. I believe my history on this forum proves that I'm entirely genuine and if my comments are provocative it's purely for the sake of evoking a closer look at the issues being discussed. I openly invite our moderator @Goggs Mackay or any other moderator here to evaluate my participation and ban me if they don't believe that to be true, or if they believe my intent has been to actually hurt anyone in any way.

 

[Michael Allen]

In other words you want to engage in more quantum woo woo. Your ideas might be perfectly clear within your subjective universe ( the one inside your mind ), while at the same time having little or no connection to objective reality ( sometimes simply called the real world - the universe out there ). Perhaps you should try focusing more on bridging that gap, than making it all sound sensible within your own personal paradigm.

What The Bleep Debunked ( Again )

This is a good illustration of the culture of science degenerating into a cult of nonsense. While I don't necessarily subscribe to the extreme nonsense of "What the Bleep do We Know" I think there's a certain truth regarding the interaction of consciousness with our world, this cannot be dissolved easily, and dualistic attitudes (like the one professed in WTBDWK) that underlie the psuedo-scientific or quasi-scientific jargon veneer in the film don't do much to alleviate the confusion. Regarding Jeff's attitudes toward this, I think it would definitely be a good exercise if we are to communicate precisely why this stuff fails to fit that facts and even certain possible truths within the "fortean" world hypothesis.