What does demon possession mean to you?

[Darkforbid]

Defense of what? You're the one defending the paranormal. I'm simply observing there's no good evidence for it.

I'm quite happy to allow that Randi's track record isn't all sweetness and light, but so what? It doesn't follow from this that eg telepathy is a real phenomenon. You need that repeatable experiment I mentioned, that soundly based demonstration. As far as I'm aware there isn't one, but feel free to show me I'm wrong.

Obviously I'm a better proof but this one is good: WATCH: Spooky video has convinced leading scientists that 'telepathy exists'

Also many sceptics refuse to accept Chi is real. Something a few yoga classes can correct

scepticism in many cases is willful denial

 

[David J]

A lot of people in here are busting on my choice of words "medical ignorance". Ok fine. Let's say demon possession is synonymous with medical ignorance for the time.

Let us define what a demon is in the first century. Does it entail some sort of physical description, i.e. can have an appearance like angels? It would probably look unsightly, but that's irrelevant, it has appearance.

If so, they arrived to wrong conclusions. I shouldn't call it ignorant, how about idiotic?

 

[blü 2]

They are essentially information. Am I correct? A virus is essentially genetic information and meme is cultural information. You can't really say that either is truly a life form but they seem to have a life of their own. They just spread and spread and spread and spread

I've had problems with the word 'information' in this sense back to when it was first coming into fashion in contexts like this. It seems to have a range of meanings, from the obvious one, information is what informs, and a brain or brain-like thing is what can be informed in this sense ─ to Shannon's 'information theory' in communications and later elsewhere ─ to another word for data about the state of some defined part of a system in physics ─ to an undefined extension of that notion to imply a kind of underlying intelligence to the universe (which seems untenable to me).

So if we're talking about data, can we please call it/them data? And if we're not, could I please enquire as to the definition we're using?

 

[blü 2]

Obviously I'm a better proof but this one is good: WATCH: Spooky video has convinced leading scientists that 'telepathy exists'

Also many sceptics refuse to accept Chi is real. Something a few yoga classes can correct

scepticism in many cases is willful denial

When the material in that article is the subject of another article published in a reputable journal of science, I'll read it. Meanwhile I won't read it at all, because the site makes it a precondition that I allow them to show me ads, and I don't accept that condition.

 

[Audie]

But like any other conclusion based on empiricism and induction, nothing protects it from further information that refutes it, or greatly alters our understanding of it.

And it's always seriously possible that someone knows something I don't.
But on the other side, the military would be all over it, as they were in the sixties ─ the weapon-potential would be colossal.
If we can limit it just to scientists, that might be a step in the right direction!

If the military of any nation could step on it,
they sure would.
I think it would escape, though.
Kind of like "remote viewing"; they talk about it
on the radio.

And of course it could exist out there, in secret
but, in that case, nobody here knows a thing about it.

 

[The Reverend Bob]

So if we're talking about data, can we please call it/them data? And if we're not, could I please enquire as to the definition we're using?

Data is fine.

 

[Audie]

Obviously I'm a better proof but this one is good: WATCH: Spooky video has convinced leading scientists that 'telepathy exists'

Also many sceptics refuse to accept Chi is real. Something a few yoga classes can correct

scepticism in many cases is willful denial

As soon as you start talking about "proof" in science,
you start losing credibility, even if your topic were
not woo woo.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Nope

Yes. In order for science to explain something using science, the existence of that something needs to be observed, and testable. Telepathy meets neither of those requirements.

What you may have seen means nothing in terms of science. People believe they have seen lots of things.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

What would be needed first would be some
demonstration that it is real.

Awful hard to study things that dont exist.

Apparently not in the minds of some people.

 

[Audie]

Apparently not in the minds of some people.

Soons they SHOW it exists, then there will
be something to study.
Kinda like chupacabra and batboy, that way.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

That's the scientific proof lie:

For any scientific proof the how it happens needs a full explanation, I saw telepathy repeated many times would not cut it, you need the how

Ah, the scientific proof claim. I dub thee Sir Bedivere, he who is wise in the ways of science.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Soons they SHOW it exists, then there will
be something to study.
Kinda like chupacabra and batboy, that way.

Yeah. You know it. I know it. Apparently there are lots of people that do not have a clue about it.

I believe in the great chocolate-flavored-banana-aardvark-dog-cat-kangaroo beast that roams the night in the mountains of time, appearing to weary travelers from out of nowhere and disappearing back whence it came, leaving no evidence of its existence behind. Science can explain that. A completely hilarious misunderstanding of science.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

As soon as you start talking about "proof" in science,
you start losing credibility, even if your topic were
not woo woo.

I like the term "woo". This forum maybe the first place I have seen it used. It like the flavor of the word and the imagery it brings to mind.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Soons they SHOW it exists, then there will
be something to study.
Kinda like chupacabra and batboy, that way.

I think we all know that chupacabra and batboy both possess unique biological senses that allow them to detect and avoid recording devices and credible witnesses. This is the main reason that they cannot be shown to exist.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

They are super stupid. So easy to fool!
In China, you can fool demons who might
harm your boy, by dressing him as a girl.

Is that really the reason they dressed him as a girl or is that just the story they are sticking with?

 

[QuestioningMind]

In the modern day, I ask this sincerely.

It's a phrase that's so common in the books I cringe every time I hear it. It's clearly a sign of medical ignorance.

Anytime I hear anyone talk about demonic possession it indicates to me that I'm talking to someone who is extremely ignorant and gullible.

 

[blü 2]

Data is fine.

Thanks for the clarification.

So if I've understood, then the statement is,

['Virus' and 'meme'] are essentially data. Am I correct? A virus is essentially genetic data and meme is cultural [information as something that informs?]. You can't really say that either is truly a life form but they seem to have a life of their own. They just spread and spread and spread and spread​

I wouldn't put it like that.

First, a virus is indeed a real thing, and any particular example will be composed of particular atoms in particular patterns, and those patterns of atoms may be part of greater arrays of patterns that form (for example) a functional sub-unit, and so on.

But I think in practice a great many of those data won't be used by the person deciding whether this is a virus. Instead particular parts, and structures, and functions will be more relevant, as may the responses of the entire collection to particular external stimuli.

So while it's true that the virus can be reduced to its atoms and the particular relationship of each atom to its neighbor or neighbors, my guess is that this'll be relevant regarding the entire virus only in rare and extraordinary circumstances.

A meme is different in that it's not 'information' in the sense of an aggregation of physical data, but rather information in the basic sense, input (seen or read or heard as words, or as music, or both &c) that informs a brain. And it will have the quality of being a meme, not from any predefinable quality that it has of itself, or even how the receiving brain reacts to it, but whether an unspecific number of other brains also react in the same way to it. So unlike the virus, which is being judged on its physical attributes, if not raw physical data then conceptually grouped blocks of data, the meme is only a meme because it has a particular effect on a 'sufficient' number of people.

 

[Darkforbid]

As soon as you start talking about "proof" in science,
you start losing credibility, even if your topic were
not woo woo.

I said I'm a better proof not scientific proof but as it goes 'Meanwhile I won't read it at all, because the site makes it a precondition that I allow them to show me ads, and I don't accept that condition.' is willful denial

 

[Audie]

Ah, the scientific proof claim. I dub the Sir Bedivere, he who is wise in the ways of science.

thee she

 

[Audie]

I said I'm a better proof not scientific proof but as it goes 'Meanwhile I won't read it at all, because the site makes it a precondition that I allow them to show me ads, and I don't accept that condition.' is willful denial

So proof that is not proof excerpt in imagination.
If you cannot do scientific proof of your woo, you have
zero, and no further talk has any value except
as hot air.

And no, that is not willful denial, though you may
choose to see it so.

The learned doctor professors who would not look
through galileo's telescope, sure. That is denial.

The willful denial going on here, concerns those who
deny it that despite centuries and thousands, nobody
has ever ever ever been able to prove they can do woo woo.