Looking for Skeptics

[Jack by the hedge]

They shouldn't be in the same room. Passing messages by making small sounds (scuffing a shoe on the floor or whatever) would be quite possible, and if possible would be a far more plausible explanation for correctly identified cards than spirits.

ETA: flaccon, I'm not necessarily suggesting that you would actually do this, just that it is a possibility that needs to be eliminated if the test is going to be able to prove anything.

Ideally, yes, flaccon would not be in the room but could monitor the playback on a speaker in another room where her opinion of the clarity of the voices could be written down without any risk of communicating anything to her daughter.

Realistically though, that needs extra equipment and is not something that's likely to be set up by this evening.

 

[Pixel42]

I know, it didn't even enter my head due to others hearing and recognising speech

Others have imaginations too. They're just as likely to be fooled by pareidolia as you are.

For example I can also see the faces in the BBC article I linked to that those who photographed them saw. Can you? Does the fact that I (and, I'm sure, you) can also see them prove that they're really there?

 

[Cassidy]

To paraphrase my sig:
If I hadn't believed it with my own mind I would never have heard it!



ps: Hoping this new test protocol happens.

I'm excited at this meet, most other witnesses are terrified. Not a lot one can do with terrified people other than ease off fast.

I would not try to spread anything negative. Your sig is good. I didn't have an ounce of belief in the supernatural, it just happened one day.

Your sig is probably the one I would nominate here.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I rather suspect most of the noise within which flaccon hears voices is produced in the output of her laptop. If that is the case then the noise and hence the voices may not be the same each time a recording is played.

I don't think so, because she said that normalising the waveform in Audacity enabled her to hear the voices with the laptop's volume turned down. That means that what she's hearing is in the waveform, not noise in the output.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

...it didn't even enter my head due to others hearing and recognising speech...

They too have imaginations, as do we all. An audio illusion, like an optical illusion, does not cease to be an illusion just because many people experience it.

If the spirits do not wish to cooperate, they will say this clear enough to the tester. Then they will chat about all sorts.

I am certain that Paredolia will be eliminated this evening.

Do be aware that if the voices don't cooperate then that will not rule out pareidolia, no matter how chatty they are. The only way they can rule out pareidolia is if the voices can provide verifiable information which was otherwise unavailable.

 

[Pup]

You missed the one most of us tend to favour;

It's not an illness, but it really is just your imagination playing tricks with you.

I think that's true, but it's not necessarily the only thing.

It's one thing to say: I see a bunny in the clouds. Wow, it looks so real! And there's an elephant! It's hard to believe they're just random.

It's another to say: That means something must be manipulating the clouds to form images to send me messages, and it's scaring my friends and making me miserable but I've got to spend the next few years studying it.

 

[Cassidy]

Others have imaginations too. They're just as likely to be fooled by pareidolia as you are.

For example I can also see the faces in the BBC article I linked to. Can you?

I am astute in every situation. Yes I can be fooled, not for 20 years though.

 

[Cassidy]

I think that's true, but it's not necessarily the only thing.

It's one thing to say: I see a bunny in the clouds. Wow, it looks so real! And there's an elephant! It's hard to believe they're just random.

It's another to say: That means something must be manipulating the clouds to form images to send me messages, and it's scaring my friends and making me miserable but I've got to spend the next few years studying it.

Miserable? blimey I could sing it from roof tops, but that's considered insane. Of course certain people will initially be terrified, but for those who are not, its jubilation.

 

[Pixel42]

I think that's true, but it's not necessarily the only thing.

It's one thing to say: I see a bunny in the clouds. Wow, it looks so real! And there's an elephant! It's hard to believe they're just random.

It's another to say: That means something must be manipulating the clouds to form images to send me messages, and it's scaring my friends and making me miserable but I've got to spend the next few years studying it.

It's clear from her eariler posts that flaccon has been looking for and believing supernatural explanations of things which have perfectly adequate mundane explanations for many years.

 

[Pixel42]

I am astute in every situation. Yes I can be fooled, not for 20 years though.

If I look at those photos in that BBC article in 20 years time I will still see those faces.

 

[Foolmewunz]

I think adequate blinding is going to be a major problem.

Now, don't go bringing Paul Bethke into this. We're having enough trouble setting up a workable preliminary protocol with a relatively normal person!

 

[Cassidy]

Indeed!

Chapter 3 of the Da Vinci Code is about Sophie discovering a key belonging to her grandfather which has a fleur de lys on it and the initials P.S which stand for Princess Sophie / Priory of Sion.

I wouldn't really know about chapter 3.

 

[Cassidy]

If I look at those photos in that BBC article in 20 years time I will still see those faces.

There was no art, and no voices on computer. I had a smatter of evidence which was good enough to confirm we needed Church intervention.

I voluntary approached psychiatry in the early days. I wouldn't allow my children to suffer any possible illness of mine. I voluntary requested psychiatry to rule out such illness, and illness was ruled out. Home monitored and dismissed after 4 months. We were a normal family (and still are) just with a supernatural problem.

It is likely that my daughter started the hauntings 20 years ago, accidentally.

 

[Cassidy]

It's clear from her eariler posts that flaccon has been looking for and believing supernatural explanations of things which have perfectly adequate mundane explanations for many years.

It's very clear to the people directly involved. It's just not clear to those who stand back and analyse.

 

[Pixel42]

There was no art, and no voices on computer. I had a smatter of evidence which was good enough to confirm we needed Church intervention.

What evidence? Nothing you've shared with us suggests such a need.

We were a normal family (and still are) just with a supernatural problem.

You are a normal family (and still are) with the same cognitive biases as the rest of the human race and (for reasons I can only guess at) at least one member with a need to attribute perfectly ordinary phenomena to the supernatural.

 

[Cassidy]

Skype for ordinary conversations is excellent. But where things off camera or off mic are critically important it is inadequate to the task.

That said, if you were able to set up a separate laptop to Skype the whole event, I'd watch no matter what local time was.

I think Skype is an excellent idea.

 

[Cassidy]

What evidence? Nothing you've shared with us suggests such a need.


You are a normal family (and still are) with the same cognitive biases as the rest of the human race and (for reasons I can only guess at) at least one member with a need to attribute perfectly ordinary phenomena to the supernatural.

Well I can only assure you that "illness" was ruled out long ago.

 

[Cassidy]

Earlier in the thread you dismissed one of my suggestions by saying that the noise of birds outside your window would make it impossible to make a new recording in front of another person. What's changed?

The spirits reminded me I can pull out a quiet recording, and they will speak through that one, instead of battling the bird noises.

 

[Cassidy]

Yet it wasn't obvious until you interpreted it. Right.

I didn't interpret it, it was an obvious sentence.

 

[Pixel42]

Well I can only assure you that "illness" was ruled out long ago.

Happy to accept that, since I never thought that illness was the explanation of anything you've told us either.

Loads of healthy people manage to convince themselves of the existence of the supernatural, because they misinterpret experiences which have perfectly adequate mundane explanations. We get several a year here. There's another one (Robin1) busy posting in the GS&P subforum right now. The only thing unusual about you is that you're a little more articulate than most.