Truth poll

[ciphergoth]

I should really post this on a Monday but I might as well do it now. A whole bunch of assertions to do with truth that it occurred to me to poll about...

[Poll #1365485]

Comments

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Regardless of the guff or the insufficient attempts to explain/rationalise/etc., I have also had experiences that suggest to me that there are ghosts/spirits/energy/presences/insert your favourite term. These do not prove anything, nor do they suggest anything. But I have had them enough to be convinced that there may be happenings in this world (and therefore 'natural' as opposed to 'supernatural') that we don't yet understand.

Might my (and others') experiences have been ghosts? Who knows?
Might they have been something else that we interpret as ghosts? Perhaps.
Might they never have existed at all? Unlikely, due to the sheer volume and accuracy of the experiences. But still possible.

Absence of evidence does not confirm evidence of absence. And fwiw, I agree that crystal healing is complete guff, unless we're talking about the placebo effect, which is significant.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Er, do they suggest anything or don't they?

I'm fortunate enough to suffer (eh?) from occasional lucid dreams, to the point that I sometimes have to ask if a particular conversation or event actually happened. It's perfectly clear to me, therefore, that the brain has an ample capacity for self-delusion.

Absence of evidence is evidence of absence of something whose presence would be expected to cause evidence. Of course then we chase down a hole where the characteristics of the supernatural conform to fit the absence of evidence - mysteriously, ghosts never bother to do their thing in front of anyone with a camera - and that's an invisible pink unicorn.

The leap from "sometimes weird shit happens" to "sometimes weird shit happens and it's not just the brain playing brain tricks" is a large one; the leap from "well, it _might_ be ghosts", in the sense that there _might_ be a flying spaghetti monster, to "the ghost hypothesis has any actual evidence for it and is worthy of examination" is a huge one.