No I don’t put much stock in anecdotal tales as evidence for extraordinary claims and I won’t comment on individual anecdotal claims as that tends to upset people but show me the evidence and it’s a different story.
I’ve never been a YEC, I have nothing against them or their ideologies other than that their ideas contradict the evidence yet they want to present them as if they are actually valid.
You don't accept anecdotal evidence yet you say "show me the evidence." I've given some criteria in earlier threads here for accepting some anecdotal evidence as valid. Where is the logic in dismissing all of it out of hand? What if even one report out of 100 is honest, accurate, and shows that something interesting is happening?
YEC claims are in a different league. They tend to be made by people who are either ignorant of science or in denial. I am neither and I do not claim that anything classed as paranormal contradicts physical laws. I think it's entirely possible that we simply don't fully understand yet how the world works and that a greater understanding would comfortably contain many of these phenomena.
Have you looked at just how weird some of the findings of Quantum Physics are? They make ghosts look positively ordinary in comparison.
I read a book by a quantum physicist last summer in an attempt to learn more. I learned some basic quantum physics in high school chemistry. My mind doesn't quite work that way but I do my best. I accept information at face value from people who
do understand these things, but I also think that even the most brilliant minds in the world don't understand a lot yet. The astronomy podcast I listen to touches on quantum physics from time to time and one of the podcasters is a professor of astronomy. She says that many people don't take quantum physics as their physical science course at uni because it's just too weird. Yet, this field is getting at the fundamentals of how everything works. I truly wish I had a scientific brain so that I could learn about this myself. Heck, we don't even understand how gravity works at a quantum level.
My point being, why do things like telepathy and ghosts have to be so unbelievable? I could be equally incredulous about how we get from quarks and gluons to the physical macroscopic world. No one can explain that. No one can tell me precisely how a quantum stew becomes that table and that chair and me (though of course I know about atoms and chemical bonds). Yet I accept this because that's what scientists tell me, even though sometimes the only existing evidence comes from mathematics. I don't see why something like telepathy is so outlandish either, especially since the explanation for that might well lie in the quantum world as well, who knows?
What is EMF?
If you are talking about magnetic fields all you need is a volt meter (about $20 from most electronic stores) and a coil of wire (about $5 from the same store) and a few minutes to wind a coil onto a toilet roll or similar former. Then set it up somewhere and watch the readings as your ‘ghost’ passes or does whatever it does.
Yes, I mean electromagnetic fields.
I don't know enough about this to know which frequencies to monitor. I also imagine that you'd have to have the kit set up for a long time in one place, along with video recorders, in order to get some readings when a phenomenon was occurring. Unfortunately, weird things seem to happen to electrical equipment with unusual frequency in haunted locales. I've had it happen to me -- newly bought or charged batteries suddenly drained. Odd electrical faults that rarely occur, suddenly occurring. I know exactly what you'd say, LOL -- a handy get-out clause for why people don't get results. Personally I think that ghosts are partially an electromagnetic phenomenon and maybe this is linked to electrical malfunctions too, it would be interesting to find out more about this. As you can see, I'm full of curiosity, but sadly I don't have the practical mind to be able to put some gadgets together and investigate myself. I wasn't even taught how to change a plug at school; I suppose they thought "girls don't do those things."
About Sheldrake: note that I have not said anywhere that I "believe in" morphic fields. I don't know enough yet about his ideas to really say anything one way or another. That's why I bought his book. It requires a lot of concentration and no insult to him, but I couldn't manage it at the time and kept falling asleep LOL. I will try again when I get the time. I accept quite readily that the phenomena on which his ideas are based are very probably real. But is this a good explanation of them? I honestly don't know, and I'm quite willing to say "I don't think so" once I learn more. However, we don't currently have any other explanation for any of these things so why rule it out without evaluating it?
For a list of the phenomena which Sheldrake thinks would make a good test of the morphic fields idea, see
Seven Experiments that could Change the World. The idea I had about studying the synchronisation of flyings ants was loosely inspired by the termites experiment. Whether morphic fields is the answer to all of these or not, aren't they intriguing?
Which telepathy protocols of Sheldrake's were you reading, and can you tell me specifically what you thought was wrong? Was it "the sense of being stared at"? That's the one I had an in-depth discussion about last summer, when I had more time, and I typed some passages from one of Sheldrake's books. I have quite a lot more info about that one than "dogs that know," and discussing the latter would probably require asking you to listen to a podcast featuring Sheldrake and his critic Wiseman. We could talk about "the sense of being started" at instead if you want. I believe his protocols were impeccable and the experiments have been repeated many times in other countries, and the results have consistently been statistically significant, but I'm certainly willing to listen to what you have to say about them.
