Looking for Skeptics

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scrappy said:
pixel can I ask why you assume flacon doesn't take notice?
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Because she's said nothing to indicate that she's taken any of what we've told her on board. She just carries on as if there's no reason to doubt that what she's hearing is spirit voices. As do you.
 
Daylightstar said:
We really have no objective data to conclude either way what this GP (if at all) thinks about flaccon's spirits-charade.

We only have unsubstantiated anecdotes from two characters whose word appears to be unreliable at best ... and a letter, purportedly from flaccon's GP, with content hidden by flaccon.
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Oh, indeed, I quite agree. But the poor old GP, in particular, has been getting utterly panned in this thread with suggestions made that he's not doing his job properly, and I felt like pointing out that it's quite possible, indeed likely, that he is doing it exactly as he should be.
 
sleepy_lioness said:
Again the assumption of bad faith: the GP 'covered his arse'. Perhaps he was just following best practice guidelines and acting, as far as he was able, in flaccon's best medical interest?
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No I wasn't assuming bad faith on the GP's part. Though I see how you could reach that conclusion. Let me rephrase what I meant using your own words,


sleepy_lioness said:
But the poor old GP, in particular, has been getting utterly panned in this thread with suggestions made that he's not doing his job properly, and I felt like pointing out that it's quite possible, indeed likely, that he is doing it exactly as he should be.
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I disagree with others on here that the GP is frantic to meet with flaccon because he is afraid she will go tot he media and there will be some sort of blow back on him. The GP can only advise a course of action to flaccon, he can not force her and perhaps no action need be taken in his professional opinion. I agree with you completely.

I will go even further and suggest that the GP and the church's renewed interest in flaccon's claim are exaggerated at best.
 
sleepy_lioness said:
Oh, indeed, I quite agree. But the poor old GP, in particular, has been getting utterly panned in this thread with suggestions made that he's not doing his job properly, and I felt like pointing out that it's quite possible, indeed likely, that he is doing it exactly as he should be.
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Perhaps the GP is, but we can't really tell.
However, if what flaccon/scrappy are relaying about this GP would be true, there would be some valid reason for concern.
However, I do think we can not blindly trust flaccon's/scrappy's anecdotes concerning this GP, and so there may be a chance there is no GP with questionable conduct.
flaccon's wish to have all kinds of characters support her delusion, may likely cause her to construct this 'support' out of whole cloth.

As always, data is what is required, not anecdotes.
 
Daylightstar said:
Perhaps the GP is, but we can't really tell.
However, if what flaccon/scrappy are relaying about this GP would be true, there would be some valid reason for concern.
However, I do think we can not blindly trust flaccon's/scrappy's anecdotes concerning this GP, and so there may be a chance there is no GP with questionable conduct.
flaccon's wish to have all kinds of characters support her delusion, may likely cause her to construct this 'support' out of whole cloth.

As always, data is what is required, not anecdotes.
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I think this is the case.
 
scrappy said:
Tracey has just given me permission to write what I thought about her appointment with the GP.

I,ve just come back from observing the appointment between the GP and Tracey. I sat quietly in the background. I was brought into the conversation a few times. I did not feel any appeasement from her GP, very the opposite. He knows what he has witnessed, and he knows Tracey does not elaborate or seek attention if she doesn't need any. He spoke with her on a level I have never known before. He also looks forward to her updates. Either way, he certainly understands that something supernatural is happening and needs investigating by the church and not psychiatry. Only time will unfold this situation.
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How do you know what he knows or understands? Are you him, or are you now adding "psychic" to your list of false credits?
 
More from Guiley's Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits, from the entry on electronic voice phenomenon (p. 120 - 121):

[After two decades of research by Attila von Szalay, who believed he heard and recorded his dead son's voice] The EVP remained in obscurity until the unexpected discovery of Friedrich Jurgenson, a Swedish opera singer.... In 1959, Jurgenson tape-recorded bird songs.... On playback, he heard a male voice discuss "nocturnal bird songs" in Norwegian. At first he thought it was interference from a radio broadcast but... [he] made other recordings.... Though he heard no voices during taping, many voices were heard on playback. The voices gave personal information about Jurgenson, plus instructions on how to record more voices.

Jurgenson wrote about his experiments in Voices from the Universe, published in 1964 with a record. In 1965, he met Konstantin Raudive, a Latvian psychologist and philosopher, who was so intrigued by the EVP that he devoted himself to researching it and recorded over the years more than 100,000 voices. Raudive published his research in German in The Inaudible Made Audible, translated into English in 1971 under the title Breakthrough. EVP voices are also called "Raudive voices", named after him.

By the 1980s, thousands of EVP researchers around the world were recording messages from the dead and from more evolved spiritual beings who had once lived as humans on Earth. Many are engineers and electronics experts who have devised sophisticated experimental equipment for capturing the voices. [Various foundations for taping these voices were founded in the 70s and 80s in Germany, the UK and USA.]​

This section is extremely relevant to the discussion at hand. Raudive recorded "more than 100,000 [so-called] voices"; at least two books have been published on the subject; "engineers and electronics experts" have turned their expertise at the perceived phenomenon; and societies were founded for continuing research. None of these efforts has yielded any conclusive proof.

The questions before Tracey, then, are: What qualities distinguish her experiences from any that have gone before? How does she propose to provide conclusive (or even convincing) evidence when no expert researcher working on the same phenomenon -- sometimes for decades -- has been able to do so?
 
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flaccon said:
I do realise that I cannot hand over any evidence via the web. I did try with jsf, and truth is, I did initially hear a constant drone right the way through his recording. He also gave over a brief description of "constant rainfall and a whirring fan noise" All I can say is it altered.
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No, it didn't. We have proof it didn't. Not for the first time I find myself shaking my head ruefully at one of your posts and noting that your recollection does not appear to reflect what actually happened.

To be honest Jack, I deleted whatever was sent to me, I'd given up asking for help here as it was upsetting the spirits.
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Once again this does not seem to reflect the reality. On the 19th you wrote the following:
flaccon said:
I like a gamble Adman. send me a copy of quiet recording via email, and I bet a fiver it alters the original.
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Enthused by learning that you still insisted computer files would be altered on your listening to them, on the very next day I sent you and scrappy two such files. It's a shame you deleted them. If you still believe the files will change on listening, ask scrappy as I'm sure he would happily give you copies.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
flaccon said:
I do realise that I cannot hand over any evidence via the web. I did try with jsf, and truth is, I did initially hear a constant drone right the way through his recording. He also gave over a brief description of "constant rainfall and a whirring fan noise" All I can say is it altered.
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No, it didn't. We have proof it didn't. Not for the first time I find myself shaking my head ruefully at one of your posts and noting that your recollection does not appear to reflect what actually happened.
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Not only did the recording not change, and we have solid evidence of that, I need to again remind flaccon that I did not describe the recording as she says.

Once again, flaccon, I described the ambient conditions under which all three recordings were made. It was raining and there was a sealing fan running at the time of the recordings. Unless I am grossly mistaken, I did not describe in any way what I heard on the recordings during playback. Please, please stop saying or implying otherwise.

By the way, I have since learned a few curious things about my laptop's built-in microphone. It was engineered for video conference use. As such, it has features (both hardware and software) for echo suppression, noise cancellation, and voice detection. From playing around with it and making lots and lots of test recordings, it seems evident the device drivers seek out voice, and may introduce all sorts of odd artifacts when there are no voices to be found.
 
bluesjnr said:
Oh come on Biscuit and Maurice, the GP spoke to Tracey on a level that scrappy has "never known before".

What more could you want?
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I wish her GP would speak to me on a level that I've never known before. Maybe then I wouldn't have my lower jaw hit the ground every time i read a new flaccon/scrappy post.
 
scrappy said:
pixel can I ask why you assume flacon doesn't take notice? flacon takes notice, researches and even sends me links to mull over.
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Then why can't either of you tell me what kind of results would indicate your ghost in the machine beliefs might not be true? Why can't either of you suggest a reasonable test for which a "fail' result would falsify (or at least weaken) the claim?

What's the problem?
 
Daylightstar said:
We really have no objective data to conclude either way what this GP (if at all) thinks about flaccon's spirits-charade.

We only have unsubstantiated anecdotes from two characters whose word appears to be unreliable at best ... and a letter, purportedly from flaccon's GP, with content hidden by flaccon.
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Agreed, but I wouldn't be shocked if a doctor and a priest bought into this nonsense. Most priests buy into the supernatural as a lifestyle, and many medical people seem to be the least skeptical of all science professionals.
 
jsfisher said:
Once again, flaccon, I described the ambient conditions under which all three recordings were made. It was raining and there was a sealing fan running at the time of the recordings. Unless I am grossly mistaken, I did not describe in any way what I heard on the recordings during playback. Please, please stop saying or implying otherwise.
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"ceiling" Gave me a chuckle thinking about the possibilities.
 
trustbutverify said:
I wish her GP would speak to me on a level that I've never known before. Maybe then I wouldn't have my lower jaw hit the ground every time i read a new flaccon/scrappy post.
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I keep envisioning the GP laying on the floor while talking. That would be an unprecedented level of conversing.

Or maybe he stood on his desk.
 
sleepy_lioness said:
I'm a bit bemused, to be honest, by all the people here who insist that the GP and priest should be disagreeing fervently with flaccon and telling her she's deluded or mentally ill and needs treatment. Or even that the GP should be struck off for not so doing. Two points:

1. Weird behaviour and strange beliefs do not necessarily equal mental illness. It might well be that flaccon's right that her GP says psychiatry is inappropriate, and who knows, he might well be right too, according to proper diagnostics. There's a huge range of behaviour and belief that is not considered socially normal or even acceptable, that still isn't evidence of mental illness. If her beliefs are interfering with her life to a strongly detrimental extent the GP might take notice, but otherwise s/he might well be perfectly correct in not attributing flaccon's statements to mental illness. In fact, referring to psychiatry every time a patient comes in displaying beliefs or a worldview at variance with one's own is a great way to be in conflict with medical ethics.

2. EVEN IF the GP or the priest suspect mental illness when they see someone exhibiting delusions, the way to deal with this is not to challenge the delusions directly. All guidelines I am aware of say this. You see what happens in this thread, and myriad like it, when someone who has firm unusual, possibly deluded, beliefs is challenged head-on. The GP needs to establish a relationship with their patient, a 'therapeutic alliance', and to do this s/he has to tread the difficult line between encouraging delusion and not making the patient instantly walk out (and shop around for a more sympathetic doctor). They might even seem to encourage the delusions by finding a way to get the person help that makes sense to them and thus improves their health and wellbeing (for example, I can't help you with the spirits, but perhaps a nice priest might give you a blessing to make sure they can't harm you?). This is hard, and of course many patients come out of such a consultation thinking that the doctor agrees with them, but it has to be done.

As a final point, we only have flaccon's perception of what went on, and what her GP and priest are/were doing. If they are doing their jobs correctly she will feel that there's a door open for her to go and talk to them again, while they are gently pushing her in the direction of ensuring her beliefs don't negatively impact her life. But it's not their job - especially not the GP's - to 'prove' to her that spirits don't exist.
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Great post. I agree.

Basically, if the church can bless/pray/exorcise these "spirits" away, and flaccon is free of them, then the problem is solved.

MarkTwain-Fools.jpg
 
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