Looking for Skeptics

[SezMe]

The remaining test is for you to send us one of your old files (the sort of file that the spirits will change) so we can get its MD5 hash. We will send a copy back to you so you can play it on your machine and the spirits can change it. Then you can send the file back to us after it has been played and we can compare the MD5 hash from before it was played, and we can check that the MD5 hash of our original has changed too. If the MD5 hashes change, that will show that something has changed the files and your claim has clear support. If the MD5 hashes do not change, then your claim is not supported.

We have done such tests numerous times. Before proceeding, I would like to ask you for some evidence that doing yet another test will advance this thread one iota.

 

[Slowvehicle]

You brought the Guinness out my nose again!

TY!

 

[Apology]

It doesn't follow that flaccon would get on with the business of leading an ordinary life if we were to begin ignoring her and/or let this thread die. I think flaccon would continue to record and obsess about these "spirit voices", continue to try and convince others that they're real, and even recruit a few more true believers like Scrappy. flaccon's time wasted here != flaccon's time spent productively elsewhere.

Of course I also don't believe it's our obligation to continue to entertain flaccon's delusion in order to discourage or prevent her from spreading it to others. There's no reason why she can't waste time here and also attempt to recruit elsewhere at the same time, so if that were our intent, it would truly be a waste of time. I think the only argument about wasted time that's valid is the argument that skeptics are wasting their time, and when it comes to that argument, each skeptic is free to stop wasting their time by not posting in this thread at any time they want.

 

[dlorde]

We have done such tests numerous times. Before proceeding, I would like to ask you for some evidence that doing yet another test will advance this thread one iota.

I don't recall an example of the last test I suggested. It seems to me this thread can only advance by explicitly showing each claim to be false.

As far as I can see, flaccon has only made one easily tested claim - that spirits can change audio files. We've tested this using MD5 hashes for newly generated files and it doesn't happen.

Flaccon later qualified the claim by saying only old 'junk' files were changed. If she has already supplied one of these junk files and we have tested it using the MD5 comparison as I suggested, I must have missed it - perhaps you could point me to the page where it happened? Otherwise, it's the last test necessary to refute the qualified claim.

I don't think we're likely to get any other clear and testable claim of the paranormal from flaccon.

 

[gunner]

So you didn't hear "ein Reich" and "Regiebüro"

I can also hear something like Regiebüro, but the accent sounds French, or maybe German
As to Scandinavian, the female voice has a "singing" that could sound Norwegian, but I cannot understand any of the words.

...Alfie, get rid of them stones...

 

[abaddon]

You brought the Guinness out my nose again!

Oh. Can I have it?

 

[abaddon]

I can also hear something like Regiebüro, but the accent sounds French, or maybe German
As to Scandinavian, the female voice has a "singing" that could sound Norwegian, but I cannot understand any of the words.

...Alfie, get rid of them stones...

Welcome to the forum, gunner!

 

[HighRiser]

Oh. Can I have it?

Eww...

 

[trustbutverify]

We are feeding her by our continual delusion that she is, in fact, trying to devise an objective test. That she will make a testable claim.

Yea, that's it.

Please suggest a specific test with simple, objective pass-fail criteria which, if failed, would cause you to seriously consider the possibility that you are wrong about ghosts speaking to you through your computer. Thanks.

I'm down to this now.

 

[Maurice Ledifficile]

I can also hear something like Regiebüro, but the accent sounds French, or maybe German
As to Scandinavian, the female voice has a "singing" that could sound Norwegian, but I cannot understand any of the words.

...Alfie, get rid of them stones...

Thanks gunner. Definitely not French or anything Latin. My first impression was that it was English, but with such a regional accent as to preclude any understanding by people like me.

I'm starting to think that way again. I know it's not crucial to the thread, but when I listened, it seems so much as though the words were within reach.

Also, Tracey has stated that it is her voice, but that she doesn't know what she says. I can't resist this type of mystery.

[It's also odd that both flaccon and Scrappy will not answer whether they can speak another language, but I guess it's none of my business.]

 

[HighRiser]

Thanks gunner. Definitely not French or anything Latin. My first impression was that it was English, but with such a regional accent as to preclude any understanding by people like me.

I'm starting to think that way again. I know it's not crucial to the thread, but when I listened, it seems so much as though the words were within reach.

Also, Tracey has stated that it is her voice, but that she doesn't know what she says. I can't resist this type of mystery.

[It's also odd that both flaccon and Scrappy will not answer whether they can speak another language, but I guess it's none of my business.]

Tracey has stated she hears her own voice on the recordings. She's not stated that it is her spirit voice (As opposed to her mundane voicebox.) but I got that impression.

 

[Maurice Ledifficile]

Tracey has stated she hears her own voice on the recordings. She's not stated that it is her spirit voice (As opposed to her mundane voicebox.) but I got that impression.

Well, folks having a spirit voice as well as a mundane one would explain how two living persons heard their own voice among the spirits.

Except there's no such thing.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

No one has explained as to why jsfishers "VolNorm" file has noticeable interferences, including reducing to almost silent at 21 seconds. In the background, the rain fall was heavy and the ceiling fan was whirring away constantly. For what reason did the original file reduce to almost silent at 21 seconds? I think this is a valid point to make.

It doesn't matter.

I mean, yes, there will be mundane reasons why the noise level dropped at the 21 seconds point (most likely a loud enough clonk noise caused an automatic level control to change its range) but that really doesn't matter at all because what we have really good proof for is that those effects were there in the original recording all along.

Only 3 people were involved with this informal test, js, who generated and described the contents of the file, Mr Roberts and myself who received a copy of the file. Mr Roberts and myself heard the "constant" noise that steadily ran from beginning to end. It is fair to say that no one else here has heard the "before & after" effects of that file.

No, that's not fair. What you have is a claimed recollection of what you thought some audio file sounded like over a phone line. What we have is proof that the original file was exactly the same as the file you erroneously thought was changed.

My explaining that I am not actually uploading pre-recorded voices, hence quality loss, gets overlooked.

If what you really mean is that the 'spirit voices' are not on the recordings, then why don't you say that instead of obliquely referring to "quality loss"?

I requested someone send to me a copy of a recording to my email address (on normal volume) no one did, other than Mr Roberts. The results were a success. I checked this again on a new laptop and again the results were a success. Js was kind enough to repeat this method for me, and the results were a success. I feel I am not allowed to test this again in case of being correct.

We have proof that the result was not a success. You can test it again as often as you like.

I was asked to prove that these voices are not paredolia, and I accepted that I cannot prove this, and therefore have suggested (several times) that I can only eliminate paredolia if I stop using the voices as some sort of proof.

If you eliminated the voices, what would you be trying to prove? That a file changed? We have proof that it did not.

Find an objective test where what you think you hear them say can be proved to be correct and to be something you couldn't have known already. That would be real evidence.

If the spirits won't help you with that, I don't believe they'll help you with anything, ever.

 

[Maurice Ledifficile]

Respectfully snipped for brevity.



If the spirits won't help you with that, I don't believe they'll help you with anything, ever.

This.

 

[Pup]

Thanks gunner. Definitely not French or anything Latin. My first impression was that it was English, but with such a regional accent as to preclude any understanding by people like me.

I'm starting to think that way again. I know it's not crucial to the thread, but when I listened, it seems so much as though the words were within reach.

Also, Tracey has stated that it is her voice, but that she doesn't know what she says. I can't resist this type of mystery.

[It's also odd that both flaccon and Scrappy will not answer whether they can speak another language, but I guess it's none of my business.]

Is anyone like me, and doesn't necessarily hear human voices on the recording? To me, it's so distorted that it could be human voices heavily modified, or it could just be random sounds modified to seem sort of like human voices, in the way that R2D2 has a speech-like cadence to his blips, only in this case, it's voice-like syllables strung together in a speech-like cadence.

My knee-jerk reaction was not, "Who was talking during the recording?" but instead, "Why is this recording distorting noise to sound like speech?" That's why I thought of what had been posted earlier about voice recorders that enhanced human speech whether there's speech or not, that EVP listeners liked to use.

I never did hear a budgie/parakeet among the random squeaks and distortions.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Damn, guys! Those of you who've stuck with this thread,... Thwap! (That's the sound of me saluting you!)


I'm afraid it's for naught, but I'm a person who's done battle with Deniers and CTers for years, so I do recognize the importance of putting these things under a magnifying glass for the lurkers and casual readers.

But you're dealing with a True Believer^TM. They're the type who fail their own dousing tests and then blame "negative energy" or people like the infamous DOC, who will cite gobbledygook from magic books as proof of whatever it is they BELIEVE in. flaccon believes in spirits, good and evil. She had a run-in with no less than The Judas, himself! My read on her early history and the concentration on The Church is that she wanted an exorcism and they wouldn't agree to perform one. (I may be wrong, but all signs point that way.)

Now? She's got good spirits, friendly family spirits bringing her wonderful news from the beyond. Of course, it's actually white noise and recording/playback/re-recording artifacts, but after having listened to that crud, surely you can see that flaccon's never going to change her mind. Every time she's been given a file with actual silence on it, the spirits don't come through. Look at the request to Calelb... she needs the white noise because that's where you get the strange effects.

We're over 4000 posts, rapidly heading to 5000. And we still don't have a clear claim as to just what these spirits can do, when and how they will do it, and under what circumstances their "actions" can be replicated. And here's a safe prediction,... when you do, yet again, come up with a seemingly verifiable test that flaccon says will work "every time", the spirits will all of a sudden become uncooperative and "refuse to jump through hoops".

@flaccon,
Try us on this world-changing information. You'd be surprised at the number of heavily credentialed individuals on these forums. (Hell, I worked my way through Tractatus Logico PhilosophiStuff just for the fun of it a few decades ago. If we can figure out Wittgenstein, we can probably handle Reg.) So please stop insulting us with "oh, you wouldn't understand it" and post some of their Change-The-World advice.

 

[SezMe]

It doesn't follow that flaccon would get on with the business of leading an ordinary life if we were to begin ignoring her and/or let this thread die. I think flaccon would continue to record and obsess about these "spirit voices", continue to try and convince others that they're real, and even recruit a few more true believers like Scrappy. flaccon's time wasted here != flaccon's time spent productively elsewhere.

Yes, I agree. I said as much in the post you quoted only in abbreviated form.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Damn, guys! Those of you who've stuck with this thread,... Thwap! (That's the sound of me saluting you!)


I'm afraid it's for naught, but I'm a person who's done battle with Deniers and CTers for years, so I do recognize the importance of putting these things under a magnifying glass for the lurkers and casual readers.

But you're dealing with a True Believer^TM. They're the type who fail their own dousing tests and then blame "negative energy" or people like the infamous DOC, who will cite gobbledygook from magic books as proof of whatever it is they BELIEVE in. flaccon believes in spirits, good and evil. She had a run-in with no less than The Judas, himself! My read on her early history and the concentration on The Church is that she wanted an exorcism and they wouldn't agree to perform one. (I may be wrong, but all signs point that way.)

Now? She's got good spirits, friendly family spirits bringing her wonderful news from the beyond. Of course, it's actually white noise and recording/playback/re-recording artifacts, but after having listened to that crud, surely you can see that flaccon's never going to change her mind. Every time she's been given a file with actual silence on it, the spirits don't come through. Look at the request to Calelb... she needs the white noise because that's where you get the strange effects.

We're over 4000 posts, rapidly heading to 5000. And we still don't have a clear claim as to just what these spirits can do, when and how they will do it, and under what circumstances their "actions" can be replicated. And here's a safe prediction,... when you do, yet again, come up with a seemingly verifiable test that flaccon says will work "every time", the spirits will all of a sudden become uncooperative and "refuse to jump through hoops".

@flaccon,
Try us on this world-changing information. You'd be surprised at the number of heavily credentialed individuals on these forums. (Hell, I worked my way through Tractatus Logico PhilosophiStuff just for the fun of it a few decades ago. If we can figure out Wittgenstein, we can probably handle Reg.) So please stop insulting us with "oh, you wouldn't understand it" and post some of their Change-The-World advice.

...just, um...
Don't salute lots of times in a row, mmmK?

 

[laca]

I don't think exposure to reason and logic makes things worse. But we have solid evidence (100+ pages) that in this particular case, it does not make things better either. I think the greater harm is in the diversion this thread provides. The more time she invests in defending her POV, the less time she has for a real life that includes getting assistance with her "issues", the LEAST of which is parodelia.

I agree, if by "diversion" you mean we should not let her move on from "claim" to "claim" until she acknowledges that the current one is disproved. That would be important, IMO. Until now she hasn't acknowledged any failure, including the most obvious one of the unchanged files.

By her digging in her heels. She knows there are voices there - that spirits are talking to her. The more we yell "parodelia", the more and louder she yells "spirits". ("Yell" in a metaphorical sense.)


Who cares? Hell, I might even agree with her that she has won an resounding victory. Anything that might allow her to leave this alone and get on with other aspects of her life. And, no, we have no idea whether that would happen but we do know that our present approach is not working.

Yeah, Mojo already brought up siege mentality. Like I said, I don't feel the level of animosity would warrant that kind of reaction.

What we do know is that outside of this thread all she ever got was confirmation and that can't be better, even if she does not abandon her beliefs. The one thing she'll never be able to claim again with good conscience is that everyone hears the same voices, words or sentences.

We are feeding her by our continual delusion that she is, in fact, trying to devise an objective test. That she will make a testable claim. For Christ's sake, someone on the previous page asked her to state her claim. That request has been made AT LEAST a couple of dozen times ... to no avail. Now, we have yet another request. I ask you, who is being delusional here?

I don't think for a second anyone here is under the impression that this will result in a clear, concise claim, let alone an objective test. It is quite clear that reason is not having the expected effect. In times like this I remember when House said something to the effect of "you can't reason with religious people, otherwise there would be no religious people". Just substitute whatever woo for religious.

While we're on the subject, you're just as "delusional" if you think that you can get everyone in this thread to just drop it. Hearding cats and all...

 

[laca]

Please suggest a specific test with simple, objective pass-fail criteria which, if failed, would cause you to seriously consider the possibility that you are wrong about ghosts speaking to you through your computer. Thanks.

I'm down to this now.

I've asked this before, no response. Obviously. Maybe if we ask it enough times it will sink in.