Looking for Skeptics

[Aepervius]

Dear Tracey,

This is usually the part where a member either storms off, often getting banned on purpose, or slowly takes the time to ask questions and proceed toward an understanding of what on earth is really happening.

I am sure that I speak for the skeptics on this site (only this once) when I say we would very much prefer that you take the latter route. Here you can make friends and learn much more about the magnificence of the real world.

A world without real magic, miracles and spirits is not the cold world depicted by charlatans. It is a world full of great discoveries, indescribable beauty and love. It is just as awesome as any fantasy world, except that it’s real.

Life can and will be cruel. Indiscriminately. The good suffer. The bad have a ball. Justice is a human product. This only means our job should be to make it as pleasant for all as we can. All we have is each other.

Fantasies can make the cruel world a more welcoming, caring universe. But is that a good thing? Death sucks. Losing loved ones is an excruciating experience for all. But we move on. We move on with great memories and we move on with a new outlook.

This post may be a bit premature, but I want you to know that I find you very charming and this has been my favourite thread ever. I have appreciated your sense of humour and the way you’ve shown you can take a joke. I hope you will stay and I look forward to discussing with you other interesting topics on different threads.

For me, personally, the world makes a lot more sense since I have shed my beliefs in phenomena that have proven not to exist. I see beauty in art, and indeed in the physical world itself, in a much more glorious light. Because the world is ours. We are a part of this universe as much as the stars are. In fact we are literally made of material that was cooked up in the center of stars.

No fantasy can make it better, warts and all.

[I should leave this sort of rambling to poets, but I had this urge to tell you how I felt.]

Love,

André.

Indeed to my point of view it is the people pretending the world is cold without their fantasy which completely miss the beauty of the world.

I have seen the wavering and dancing lights of a plasma, and signs of nucleogenesis in a fusor.

I have built diamond in a methane/dihydrogene plasma on silicon waffer. Beautiful, albeit a tad bit yellowish diamond.

I have seen the heigth and depth of of signals sent billions of years ago by suns.

I have seen incredible alien vista thru a microscope.

I have cryed to the sight of my first wavefunction for an aromatic sulfine.

And lately with my own simulation, recreating a simulated evolution.

The world is beautiful, most of the fantasy I see offered do not come to the heel of the real world. Once you start to understand physic, you cannot ever close your eye to the beauty of our world, be it our scale, be it in the infinitesimaly small, be it the abysmally big scale of the universe.

No really, when I see the small minded fantasy offered by the believer, I do wonder how they cannot see the beauty of the world. Maybe their blindness to that beauty lead them to compensate with a made up one ?

 

[Maurice Ledifficile]

Indeed to my point of view it is the people pretending the world is cold without their fantasy which completely miss the beauty of the world.

I have seen the wavering and dancing lights of a plasma, and signs of nucleogenesis in a fusor.

I have built diamond in a methane/dihydrogene plasma on silicon waffer. Beautiful, albeit a tad bit yellowish diamond.

I have seen the heigth and depth of of signals sent billions of years ago by suns.

I have seen incredible alien vista thru a microscope.

I have cryed to the sight of my first wavefunction for an aromatic sulfine.

And lately with my own simulation, recreating a simulated evolution.

The world is beautiful, most of the fantasy I see offered do not come to the heel of the real world. Once you start to understand physic, you cannot ever close your eye to the beauty of our world, be it our scale, be it in the infinitesimaly small, be it the abysmally big scale of the universe.

No really, when I see the small minded fantasy offered by the believer, I do wonder how they cannot see the beauty of the world. Maybe their blindness to that beauty lead them to compensate with a made up one ?

Beautiful words. ☻

To be fair, physicists and philosophers are way behind the woos when it comes to superficial appeal. The non-believer's world, as beautiful and real as it is, has a poor image consultant, or press agent.

The real beauty of the skeptic's worldview is not found on the cover of the book. It is somewhat buried within the most seemingly boring pages.


It's hard to blame most folks for falling for the lies of the snake oil merchant. Communal reinforcement is our worst enemy when it comes to false beliefs.

 

[Maurice Ledifficile]

Aepervius,

Could you kindly listen to flaccon1 and tell everyone what you hear? A native German speaker's opinion would make me very happy.

 

[Aepervius]

Aepervius,

Could you kindly listen to flaccon1 and tell everyone what you hear? A native German speaker's opinion would make me very happy.

Sure. Do you have the link at hand or should I look into Edited to corect: or calebprime psot history ?

 

[Maurice Ledifficile]

Sure. Do you have the link at hand or should I look into flaccon1 psot history ?

I was going to add it as an edit:

https://app.box.com/alderbank

 

[Sockor]

Flaccon1 at box.com/alderbank

 

[Aepervius]

Aepervius,

Could you kindly listen to flaccon1 and tell everyone what you hear? A native German speaker's opinion would make me very happy.

Just a correction by the way : i am not a native german speaker, I am french.

 

[Aepervius]

Gott im Himmel.

This is very poor quality. I am not sure I would identify the language as german. There is so many noise and distortion.

 

[Maurice Ledifficile]

Gott im Himmel.

This is very poor quality. I am not sure I would identify the language as german. There is so many noise and distortion.

I always thought you were French from some of your posts. Then I saw Germany as our location. Sorry.

Many have listened to it with various settings. I thought I heard a clear German "r" from the first man to speak.

I believe it could be English, but it seems we should pick up more of the conversation...

Thanks.

 

[Aepervius]

Maybe (paraadoilea being a risk):
"Eins , auf die (-ung?). " ETA : ""Eins , auf die dicke? (-ung?). " or maybe "Eins , auf die kleine? (-ung?). "
(inaudible)
"Eins , auf die (-ung?). "
"kein Reis" ??
(...) icolo.
"komm, komm her"

But for all I know I might be compeltely "daneben".

 

[Aepervius]

I always thought you were French from some of your posts. Then I saw Germany as our location. Sorry.

Many have listened to it with various settings. I thought I heard a clear German "r" from the first man to speak.

I believe it could be English, but it seems we should pick up more of the conversation...

Thanks.

Trying to download an open source sound manipulation program "audacity". If I can remove low frequency and noise maybe I might recognize more. Or maybe not.

 

[Maurice Ledifficile]

I'm usually very good at recognizing languages. This has been driving me nuts. I've tried messing with an equalizer, but I don't get anything. I don't expect you to waste much time on it. Thanks for your help.

 

[Aepervius]

Played with audacity around, low pass, noise removal, and so forth, could not get more than the above.

 

[Aepervius]

I'm usually very good at recognizing languages. This has been driving me nuts. I've tried messing with an equalizer, but I don't get anything. I don't expect you to waste much time on it. Thanks for your help.

To be honest I am not 100% persuaded it is german.

 

[Maurice Ledifficile]

Played with audacity around, low pass, noise removal, and so forth, could not get more than the above.

What are the odds it is in German? Regional? Scandinavian? Any idea?

I might track down someone later on and ask, perhaps Tubablubba.

ETA: I see you answered above... Thanks again.

 

[Slowvehicle]

That, funny enough, was an honest question. I am getting frustrated with flaccon's inability to give an honest answer to an honest question. If flaccon keeps this malarkey up, I will likely descend into derision out of sheer self defense.

ETA: I deeply regret wasthing my time on the software flaccon defends, except when she does, but then she does't. The goalposts are rocket propelled at this stage. If I had one regret, It is that she intentionally fomented irritable disagreement and was let away with it.

...it really irritates me when you get disagreeable like that...

 

[HighRiser]

...it really irritates me when you get disagreeable like that...

You brought the Guinness out my nose again!

 

[Sockor]

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

 

[dlorde]

Despite the checksum to the "VolNormInt" file, js did report a "constant" rain & fan noise. When Mr Roberts played me a copy of the file over the phone, it had a steady flow right the way through, as did Alderbanks file. There were no interfernces whatsoever. I finally managed to retrieve the copy that js sent to me via email, and on playback there was significant differences to the file that Mr Roberts had played me. I asked Mr Roberts to check the copy he had, and that too had altered in the same manner. Js then uploaded "VolNormInt" to Box.com, containing the same significant differences. The checksum does not alter if the files are identical, I understand this, and yes the files are identical, but originally there was no interferences on the original, nor the copy of the original that Mr Roberts played to me via land line. Alderbanks upload was identical to what Mr Roberts played me via land line. Jsfishers had significant differences. Wouldn't you say that it is worthy to test this under a more observing eye?

If the files are identical (that is, if the MD5 hash is the same for each and hasn't changed from before the copy was played) after you play the copy, then any change in what you or anyone else hears cannot be due to the files - by definition - because the files haven't changed. If you hear differences, they must be external to the file.

This means the claim that playing a copy of a file on your machine will change both the copied file and the original file has been shown to be false on this occasion. Neither the copied file nor the original file changed when you played the copy. The unchanging MD5 hash tells us that the file contents haven't changed.

So, the reason for any differences that are heard must be found elsewhere; for example, changes in the way the machine plays it back, or changes in the way you hear the sound, or a change in what you recall of the original.

Also, uploading a file will not degrade it. Downloading a file will not degrade it. A digital copy is identical to the original. Very occasionally, files are corrupted on upload or download, but this is usually obvious, and comparing the MD5 hash of the original with the copy will tell you.

I recall that you said that the spirits only change your old (junk?) files, not the new ones, but since you suggested trying this test with new 'silent' files, we must assume you were happy that they would change new files generated by forum members. We have shown that they don't, so there is only one more test to do on the claim that the spirits can change files.

The remaining test is for you to send us one of your old files (the sort of file that the spirits definitely 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.

 

[SezMe]

While I agree that she will almost certainly not succumb to reason and logic, I must wonder... Does exposing her to reason and logic actually make things worse?

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.

How could it be confirming her delusions?

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.)

Isn't it likely that if we stop engaging her in discussion she'll consider that a resounding victory?

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.

But that's my question exactly. How are we feeding the delusion by trying to help her devise a test to confirm or dispel the delusion? Any "feeding" effect must surely be a byproduct of an already malfunctioning thought process.

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 must quickly add that I don't mean "our" or "delusional" literally. We're not all deluded; in fact none of us are really delusional. What I mean is that we're showing too little introspection. File changes, words, sentences, noise, wires, fingers, silence, phone calls, compression, Audacity, etc., etc. are small, mostly irrelevant bushes in the forest that is flaccon's mind.