Looking for Skeptics

[Pixel42]

Pareidolia needs ruling in or out by professionals.

Professional what?

Due to other experiences, I have to dismiss it.

No, you choose to dismiss it. You don't have to dismiss it until you have eliminated it as an explanation by careful testing.

Not every case is Paredolia surely?

Not every case of what? Some patterns that we think we see turn out to be really there, if that's what you mean. But decades of investigation have yet to produce a single documented case of EVP being shown to be genuinely due to communication with spirits.

I would have had the ball rolling 7 months ago. I'd enjoy a cigarette without the verbal warnings, and I certainly wouldn't be eating goats cheese. No offence to goats.

Not sure what you mean by this. Are these things the voices you think you hear are telling you to do/not do?

I really am looking forward to anyone with a hands-on approach.

You're the one that needs to take a hands-on approach. We've told you what you need to do, it's not rocket science.

 

[Donn]

Not every case is Paredolia surely?

Yes, they are; that's the default position.

But if this was "coming from me" I would have had the ball rolling 7 months ago.

Put down your personal incredulity and have another look. Perhaps the ball has long rolled away.

I'd enjoy a cigarette without the verbal warnings, and I certainly wouldn't be eating goats cheese. No offence to goats.

Huh?

I really am looking forward to anyone with a hands-on approach.

You've had at least two very detailed hands-on posts already. Get going.

 

[Cassidy]

flaccon, I'm guessing you are past the point of having to prove anything to yourself - you know what's going on. Isn't your problem, and what you'd like us to address, in how to go about demonstrating what's going on to others?

I think some of the suggestions here will do that. We can tell you what would convince us.

Yes. I'm also past the point of having the spirits prove any further to me, that they are actually communicating, and communicating to others, who are not afraid to hear them out. I like the idea of testing the spirits out with coloured card/envelopes etc, tho' I'd feel like I was insulting their intelligence.

 

[marplots]

Yes. I'm also past the point of having the spirits prove any further to me, that they are actually communicating, and communicating to others, who are not afraid to hear them out. I like the idea of testing the spirits out with coloured card/envelopes etc, tho' I'd feel like I was insulting their intelligence.

Then maybe the best you can do is just keep posting on your website about what happens. Meanwhile, you'll just have to wait and see what the spirits guide you into doing next. If they don't want to be tested, there's not much you can do about it.

 

[wardenclyffe]

Yes. I'm also past the point of having the spirits prove any further to me, that they are actually communicating, and communicating to others, who are not afraid to hear them out. I like the idea of testing the spirits out with coloured card/envelopes etc, tho' I'd feel like I was insulting their intelligence.

I hate to quote myself (post #60 in this thread), but:

"Since they want their message out there, this would be a way to get the whole world to take notice. The test itself might seem frivolous to them, but they'd have to realise that passing such a test would not only be financially rewarding to flaccon (whom they like), but it would make everyone take all their future messages very seriously.

If flaccon could pass the test with the skeptics in the UK, the prize money would allow her to take a cruise ship to Florida to meet James Randi and take his million dollars. No flying necessary.

But I would start with the suggestions about having others listen to the recordings to see if they are hearing the same things flaccon is."

Ward

 

[Quinn]

Pareidolia needs ruling in or out by professionals. It can be suggested here, and I can read up on it. Due to other experiences, I have to dismiss it. Not every case is Paredolia surely?

Flaccon, forgive my bluntness, but this is where you're screwing up. It's the same place many people in your place screw up. Put simply, you are refusing to consider the possibility that you're wrong. When you say "due to other experiences, I have to dismiss it," you are missing out on a painful but crucial truth about human existence: our experiences aren't worth crap. Our sensory input is flawed, our interpretation of that input is easily confused, and our memory of our interpretation of that input is a joke. No one likes to hear it, but it is absolutely true for all of us: things you think you experienced may not have really happened that way.

A perfect example of this is your next line, "Not every case is Paredolia surely?" Well, why not? We know for certain that pareidolia exists and is exceedingly common. So yes, it is entirely possible that every case is pareidolia. It may be a difficult possibility for you to consider, because it would mean you were wrong before. But that is what you will have to do in order to move forward with this.

Until you're willing to consider the possibility that you're wrong, and to engage in ways of testing that possibility, there's nothing anyone here can do to help you.

 

[Mojo]

Also, you might want to Google misheard song lyrics.

My ears are alight.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

My ears are alight.

And

 

[Pixel42]

My ears are alight.

My favourite TV reviewer Nancy Banks Smith apparently spent her whole childhood under the impression that a woman named Good Mrs Murphy was going to follow her all the days of her life.

Here's one of the many O Fortuna videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2NlKBySA9Y

 

[Mojo]

 

[Cassidy]

Professional what?


No, you choose to dismiss it. You don't have to dismiss it until you have eliminated it as an explanation by careful testing.


Not every case of what? Some patterns that we think we see turn out to be really there, if that's what you mean. But decades of investigation have yet to produce a single documented case of EVP being shown to be genuinely due to communication with spirits.


Not sure what you mean by this. Are these things the voices you think you hear are telling you to do/not do?


You're the one that needs to take a hands-on approach. We've told you what you need to do, it's not rocket science.

Professionals; Dr's, Testers. People with knowledge on how to refine the equipment required.

I believe through observation, recognition and private testing, that these are genuine spirit voices in the here-and-now. The voices I hear, are heard by subjects a, b, c, d, e, f.
I think I mentioned in previous posts, they request things, a Bishop mainly. They ask for people by names I've not heard of.

I'm seriously not expecting you to take my word, and vice versa. I think these spirits would pass an EVP test, by asking for a more deserving device themselves.

 

[zooterkin]

My favourite TV reviewer Nancy Banks Smith apparently spent her whole childhood under the impression that a woman named Good Mrs Murphy was going to follow her all the days of her life.

Here's one of the many O Fortuna videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2NlKBySA9Y

Not to mention Richard Wiseman's current favourite, Obama's Elf:

 

[Cassidy]

flaccon:
Pay close attention to the bolded part of Pixel42's message.
When skeptics tell you you are experiencing paredolia, they are not insulting you and telling you you are stupid or crazy. They are merely improving your vocabulary. It would be really irritating to have to write "the well-known tendency of the human brain to find patterns even where there are none" over and over again when talking about human perception. So a word was invented to cover the concept. That word is paredolia.
It's extremely common. It allows us to 'see' faces and bunny rabbits or turtles in clouds. And whether we 'see' it or not is influenced by our expectations. You might not see a particular cloud as being a turtle until someone points out its turtle-ness to you, and then, ping, it jumps right out at you.
Think of the smiley emoticons people use in text. A colon : followed by a close parenthesis ) is not a smiling face, and a semicolon followed by a close parenthesis is not a winking smiling face. But paredolia allows you to perceive it as such.
Even the graphic emoticon I'll get here on the forum by typing isn't really a face, is it? A yellow circle, two black dots, and a curved line. But paredolia lets/makes us see it as a face.
In my job, I have to pick zeros and ones sent with a very small amplitude out of a large signal a very noisy environment. To do that, we use filters that amplify just the part of the signal that the zeros and ones are sent in, and reduces everything else. Because of this, I receive zeros and ones even when I know there's nothing being transmitted. That isn't because the filters are bad. It's because the filters do their job very well. The only waveform that comes out of the filter is something that could be data.
So I have to use additional tests to see if it actually is transmitted data.
Paredolia is like that. We live in a world that presents us with a lot of different stimuli. We've evolved to filter out all the stuff that it isn't important, and to amplify the bejeezus out of anything that might be. The selection process is very good, but as with the signals in my job, that also means we'll get false positives. Data where there isn't any. Faces where there's just punctuation.
In my job, I use things like start patterns that can only happen once in a transmission, and additional 'stuff' bits that occur periodically to break up any accidental occurrences of that start pattern, and additional bits at the end that are mathematically generated from all the data bits in the transmission. If all those things match, there's a pretty good chance the data I receive is correct. It's not certain, but it's very likely. Without the checks, it could be right, but it's more than likely wrong, because if it was likely to be right, I wouldn't need all that filtering in the first place.

Skepticism is kind of like that additional checking beyond just filtering.

Haven't read this yet, I will digest it, but before I do, please know, that I know "Paredolia" is not meant to insult me. I understand what it is, but I cannot dismiss whats happening, and believe Paredolia is the answer, when I can clearly recognise "sentences" and voices with recognisable tone. I would opt for Paredolia if wasn't for such obvious EVP.

 

[Mojo]

Haven't read this yet, I will digest it, but before I do, please know, that I know "Paredolia" is not meant to insult me. I understand what it is, but I cannot dismiss whats happening, and believe Paredolia is the answer, when I can clearly recognise "sentences" and voices with recognisable tone.

Non sequitur.

 

[Cassidy]

Flaccon, forgive my bluntness, but this is where you're screwing up. It's the same place many people in your place screw up. Put simply, you are refusing to consider the possibility that you're wrong. When you say "due to other experiences, I have to dismiss it," you are missing out on a painful but crucial truth about human existence: our experiences aren't worth crap. Our sensory input is flawed, our interpretation of that input is easily confused, and our memory of our interpretation of that input is a joke. No one likes to hear it, but it is absolutely true for all of us: things you think you experienced may not have really happened that way.

A perfect example of this is your next line, "Not every case is Paredolia surely?" Well, why not? We know for certain that pareidolia exists and is exceedingly common. So yes, it is entirely possible that every case is pareidolia. It may be a difficult possibility for you to consider, because it would mean you were wrong before. But that is what you will have to do in order to move forward with this.

Until you're willing to consider the possibility that you're wrong, and to engage in ways of testing that possibility, there's nothing anyone here can do to help you.[/QUOT

I've been very helped, and thank u for the post.

 

[Pixel42]

Professionals; Dr's, Testers. People with knowledge on how to refine the equipment required.

No refinement of equipment is required. Anyone can use the scientific method to test the claims you're making.

I believe through observation, recognition and private testing, that these are genuine spirit voices in the here-and-now. The voices I hear, are heard by subjects a, b, c, d, e, f.

The English lyrics of O Fortuna are heard by anyone who listens to it, especially if they're suitably primed.

I think I mentioned in previous posts, they request things, a Bishop mainly. They ask for people by names I've not heard of.

I understand that's what you think you hear, but I think I hear "This octopus, let's give him boots" when I listen to O Fortuna.

I'm seriously not expecting you to take my word, and vice versa. I think these spirits would pass an EVP test, by asking for a more deserving device themselves.

There's only one way to find out.

 

[TjW]

Haven't read this yet, I will digest it, but before I do, please know, that I know "Paredolia" is not meant to insult me. I understand what it is, but I cannot dismiss whats happening, and believe Paredolia is the answer, when I can clearly recognise "sentences" and voices with recognisable tone. I would opt for Paredolia if wasn't for such obvious EVP.

Okay. When you digest it, keep in mind that I'm using the filtering in the circuits I use at work not to refer to any electronic circuits that you may be using, but as a metaphor for the perceptual filtering that happens between sound waves hitting your ears and your perception of those sound waves as voice, or non-voice or whatever.

I would expect expression in paredolia to come across much more easily than actual words. I can tell when my kids are fussing in the other room, even if I can't make out the words. So I wouldn't accept "hearing expression" in a voice as evidence that it's not paredolia.

 

[Cassidy]

I hate to quote myself (post #60 in this thread), but:

"Since they want their message out there, this would be a way to get the whole world to take notice. The test itself might seem frivolous to them, but they'd have to realise that passing such a test would not only be financially rewarding to flaccon (whom they like), but it would make everyone take all their future messages very seriously.

If flaccon could pass the test with the skeptics in the UK, the prize money would allow her to take a cruise ship to Florida to meet James Randi and take his million dollars. No flying necessary.

But I would start with the suggestions about having others listen to the recordings to see if they are hearing the same things flaccon is."

Ward

I'm meeting skeptic's for the first time, and I came now, after 20 years, because in my opinion, it is very likely that there is good evidence worthy of an investigation. I'll not be taking a cruise ship to JR, I am only going for the UK prize money, as a way to start having the spirits investigated, identified, tested, and exposed. It isn't about money, it's about positive "Change" It's been good speaking with you all, and thanks for a few eye-openers too.

 

[Mojo]

Not to mention Richard Wiseman's current favourite, Obama's Elf:

Sue Lawley.

 

[Stray Cat]

So now we know that flaccon likes a cigarette, doesn't want to eat goats cheese and keeps insisting that spirits talk to her. She tells us she understands paredolia and yet makes exactly the same mistakes about it that a person who didn't understand it would make.

In fact we've had much more rambling since I pointed out the rambling and still no sign of a clear concise explanation of how sceptics can help, nor any attempt to list the equipment she uses at present, or the method she uses to get the results she claims to get. No one has yet heard a single second of these recorded voices and no attempt has really been made to allow sceptics to hear any of them. Some blurry photos are posted on her web site and these are clearly paredolia. Again no serious attempt has been made to explain how they are different from any of the other thousands of examples on the internet.

Flaccon, unless you start coming up with fact instead of just your (mostly irrelevant) commentary, no one here will be able to help you.
You started this thread in the Million Dollar Challenge sub forum so I'm presuming you were thinking of how to design an objective test. Without facts to build upon, no one can help you to do that.