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'Paranormal' battery draining

cj - your friend is doing an interesting analysis, and it'll be interesting to read the results, but it's important to heed the comments about having to explain something that is not demonstrated. This is one way skeptics can end up looking like goofs - when the original testimony is a complete fabrication, rational explanations have to be pretty far fetched.

There is something called the fagot principle that has been endemic in paranormal research from the beginning. The name is derived from a bundle of twigs. Each twig is easy to break, but a bundle of twigs is unbreakable.

In the convoluted world of paranormal investigation, a collection of individually crappy anecdotes or testimonials somehow become 'evidence' when they're combined under the slogan "where there's smoke there's fire". Skeptics don't accept this - evidence is about quality, not quantity.

So, the categorization of testimonials is interesting from an academic standpoint, but an investigation would require a much more hands-on approach, and unfortunately, 99% of the time, there isn't enough information to formulate any naturalistic explanation. You're just left with "I dunno."
 
I think my lightbulbs are being blown by psychic forces! They don't seem to last as long as they should. I paid a priest a very reasonable fee to drive away the evil forces, but my bulbs keep blowing.

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? The truth is out there.

Batteries are strange things that seem to have a little memory cell in them that recognize when you will need the battery most, and therefore when to fail.

Cold weather does have an affect, I think. So does the way you charge a battery initially. And finally, age. I guess the genies in the battery that make electricity get tired after a while. My remote phone won't hold a charge for more than five minutes, and it's only six years old.

On the other hand, my previous cell phone would die after a couple or three days of not charging. The new one I have will do six or seven days. Technology strides across the landscape.
 
...then falls down a hole.

Call me a cynic, but I'm convinced all computer peripherals have a hidden clock chip that causes the thing to fail the day the warranty expires.
 
There's probably no comparison between a camera battery and a forklift battery, but with forklift batteries we used to talk about a "surface charge", which made it appear as if the battery were fully charged, but which would be used up almost immediately.

This is probably due to the fact that forklift batteries are always oriented the same way, unless there is a horrific accident. In that case, batteries are the least of your worries.
 
blutoski said:
cj - your friend is doing an interesting analysis, and it'll be interesting to read the results, but it's important to heed the comments about having to explain something that is not demonstrated. This is one way skeptics can end up looking like goofs - when the original testimony is a complete fabrication, rational explanations have to be pretty far fetched.

There is something called the fagot principle that has been endemic in paranormal research from the beginning. The name is derived from a bundle of twigs. Each twig is easy to break, but a bundle of twigs is unbreakable.

In the convoluted world of paranormal investigation, a collection of individually crappy anecdotes or testimonials somehow become 'evidence' when they're combined under the slogan "where there's smoke there's fire". Skeptics don't accept this - evidence is about quality, not quantity.

So, the categorization of testimonials is interesting from an academic standpoint, but an investigation would require a much more hands-on approach, and unfortunately, 99% of the time, there isn't enough information to formulate any naturalistic explanation. You're just left with "I dunno."
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Absolutely, and well said. And that pretty much is exactly the point of the research, following up an article of mine from the JSPR from July 1996 I think, in which I argued that purported hauntings were assessed based upon the supposed "collective value" of the testimony, rather than treating each single incident as a separate item to be assesed on it's own merits.

That is what she did - collected a huge mas of data submitted from the public about one location, which appeared on the face of it to suggest a "haunting", then showed ho the story has developed and how individually almost every experience would be quite mundane. Her over all conclusion is that there is no reason to believe the place is "haunted" at all - as when one actually looks at the individual testimonies, no such hypothesis is needed.

I think I have my article somewhere. I'll email it if you are interested. The batteries are just one instance of this sort of thing occurring there. :)

cj x
 
cj.23 said:
I think I have my article somewhere. I'll email it if you are interested. The batteries are just one instance of this sort of thing occurring there. :)

cj x
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I’d say the batteries by themselves would count as multiple instances, though. What I mean is, what exactly are the people claiming short battery life saying? Is it that devices with fully charged batteries consistently fail within minutes of being activated, or that it seems like some batteries in some devices seem to fail earlier than the user subjectively feels that they should, based on their recollection of when the batteries were last recharged or replaced? Is there any sort of consensus on the subject at all?

An individual is only going to notice batteries going bad in a device that’s being used. If the device is being used to look for ghosts in a haunted house, one would expect the batteries to die (no pun intended) in a “haunted” location. I’d say it’d be more strange if the batteries in a favorite “ghost bustin’” flashlight didn’t cross over in a cemetery or and abandoned asylum.
 
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