Thorough Light pattern analysis
Offline Light patterns appears all around the world in last years. They appear on the place regularly for minutes, hours or days, and then suddenly stop appearing there.
Two weeks ago, the light patterns appeared in a city not far from here, and a co-worker of local self-development club took a photographs of them. I will now show you a few of these photographs and show why this case of light patterns can't be a normal reflection of sun light in windows. It seems that many of these cases are reflections from windows, but doesn't behave as a reflected light.I will try to provide some scientific comments on this.
Place: Czech Republic, city of Novy Jicin (the street and number is obscured because of privacy purposes)
Time: it appeared regularly from 6:00 - 7:30 AM, in three days, 9, 10 and 11 of August 2008.
The sunrise time for 10. 8. 2008 is 5:22 AM.
The place:
[img=http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/6414/lpatternsiteqn7.th.jpg]
Exact time: (to show you, that it was really photographed early in the morning)
To display this for yourself, download the package of original photographs below, get a program like Irfan View, have the EXIF info plugin installed and then display the image properties.
As you see, the wall on which the light patterns appeared, is shaded by the building itself, and several blocks of flats around. This is why the sun can not shine there by any means, until about 8 AM. The sun simply wasn't yet on the sky.
The woman who photographed this, initially considered this effect as a reflection from windows, but then she realized, that the sun was still low in that time.
She also observed the light patterns to disappear immediately in one second, while the sun was still shining. The patterns appeared only for these three days, in that time, never before and never after.
Exactly the same thing is observed all around the world, the place stays the same, but the so-called "reflection" is suddenly not there.
The original photographs (with the pictures above) can be downloaded here:
light_patterns.zip
It's not an english file hosting, so if you don't know what to do, click at the link, and below there's a picture of numbers/letters which you're supposed to write into a rectangle next to it. Then click at the orange button just below.
Total number of the photographs is 16, I picked 4 of them, they're very similar.
If this case of light patterns convinced you or not, it will be greatly welcomed if you can provide any materials about your own observations. Most helpful would be, if someone would stand directly in front of the light pattern. The photographs and people's reports suggests that not, but a direct experience would be the best. If you ever happen to see these light patterns, first do it and then go for a camera, please.
These light patterns are unpredictable. Though there are theories about how a difference in temperature inside and outside can bend the glass, the patterns appear independently on a number of windows, sun position, time of the day, state, city/suburb, temperature, weather, year season, and so on. The only dependent variable seems to be this historical period since 1997.
Here's a very interesting quote from this web page, with promised scientist's opinion:
http://www.cdk.si/grz/sv_krogi_e.htm
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How to explain this phenomenon?
There has been no satisfying scientific explanation for this phenomenon so far. Certain theses, however, occur:
- circular reflection is due to the concave surface of a windowpane; the form X in the middle of the circle is due to the interference caused by the light reflection
A scientist's - physicist's comment:
The concavity of a windowpane would have to be considerable, a few milimetres, depending on the
distance of the reflection and size of the glass sheet, what is not observed in practice. Forces, which would cause such bending deformations, e.g. due to the pressure against the window frame, would have to be very strong. The next issue is, that sheets of glass are not completely flat but slightly wavy, what normally adds to further dispelling of light. The result is that, normally, there is no clear reflection at longer distances anymore. This 'waveness' of windowpanes is not uniform, but random (it originates from solidifying of glass) and it is therefore unlikely that this would cause any straight interference. At the same time the sunlight is not coherent enough to cause coherence on such a large scale (its coherent length is 1 micrometer), so that all internal structures inside circular reflection can, from a physical point of view, be caused by mere focussing of light.
Our comment: this thesis raises at least three questions for which there are no answers yet: (i) why would the concave surfaces appear in such masses just lately (ii) why would light circles appear in some cases as reflections from some windowpanes only and sometimes as reflections from all windows of a building (iii) why there appears, if a windowpane's surface is concave, an additional form, in most cases a bright X, in the centre of a round reflection? Furthermore this thesis does not consider reflections in the form of a rhomb or an octagon.
- the phenomena are projected by reflectors
Comment: everyone can see for him/herself, that the phenomena occur due to the reflection of
sunrays from ordinary sheets of glass.
- the creation of the phenomena is similar to that of crop circles
Comment: people having experiences with both phenomena do report on similar subjective and energetic effects as with the crop circles. With their brilliance, beauty, simplicity and uniqueness they create a sense of awe and excitement.
We would very much appreciate any comments from your part on this phenomenon. We also invite you to investigate it and its background. The nature of photons and other subatomic particles is still partly a mystery for science today, so any research of these phenomena may contribute to discovery of new laws which are active in the world around us.
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Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
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Not this shit again. This has already been explained overly thoroughly in this thread here.
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Ok, you obviously didn't read a single thing I said so here's a pretty picture version instead. You can even colour it in if you want.
Now, due to not being at home I can't upload this image to my own host so I'm hotlinking directly from the site. If the image doesn't show for anyone, simply go to the original website and you can see it (and the article) there. In fact, go to the website anyway luminon. It might hurt a braincell or two, but it could double your IQ at the same time.
The website is livescience.
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But your willingness to choose ignorance does insult me, as I said before.
I have been. Yet to see any from you.
Oh my fucking god. You have GOT to be fucking kidding me, right?
Lets try again with the pretty diagrams shall we? Ok, here's a rectangular mirror with points A, B, C and D marked for your convenience. You do remember what rectangles are from Sesame Street, don't you?
Now, when you bend a mirror either through air pressure, heat, or just plain force on the middle of it these will be the deepest points.
Here I show some rough depth lines. Remember, this is all done in MS paint to make it as simple for you as I possibly can.
When you shine a directed light source at a concave object, the can converge at a certain point and then disperse again. Lets place our wall at that point while we're at it.
One of the results of the concaving of the rectangular window as well as the object being reflected on to being at the right angle and distance away therefore, would be a concentration of light as depicted by the red area of this picture.
And there you have those "mysterious" X's of yours. Grade school physics here, mate.
I don't know if you can remember back far enough to me mentioning points A, B, C and D - it may have been too long ago. Anyway, I labeled some points on the original rectangle. Points B and D will be shallower, they will not be angled in as much as points A and C. Therefore, they will not concentrate light as much as points A and C. This will create a rounding affect as depicted in purple here.
Well fuck me dead, it's that damned circle you're so fond of. So what happens when we combine both of these affects as you would get from a rectangular piece of glass being bent and reflecting sunlight. The blue shown here will be the original shape of the glass but you won't see that in the reflection. No, you will see the purple shape, and then much brighter the red shape.
Your mysterious light-ish circles with very bright X's in them, explained. Now, that wasn't hard was it?
The circle can't clearly be seen in the livescience picture because the conditions weren't quite right for that to be obvious enough in the pictures - but I assure you it is there.
If you read the livescience article, only a few millimeters bending is needed. They also mentioned the glass being heated by the sun which causes it to expand. The pressure differences don't need to be massive to have an affect, especially combined with the expanded glass.
Not all buildings are flat, distances between the buildings will affect this as well as small changes in the angle of the windows.
Lets adjust that focus point picture of mine and put the wall further away.
Now lets put it closer.
Well I'll be damned, too far away or too close and the light is too disbursed to create those patterns. The further away it is the less concaved the window needs to be. The closer it is the more concaved it needs to be. The building doesn't have to be right across the street. What you need is sunlight, a concave surface, AND an object the correct distance away to catch the focal point.
Have you ever played with a magnifying glass? Ever tried to make paper burn with it? You need to keep adjusting how far away the magnifying glass and paper are until you get the light focused enough on a small point. Same thing here.
Which they do. Next time you hear of these things appearing, if the following day is going to be sunny as well then go to that point an hour before hand and you'll see them form up. These photos were all taken at times when they were at or near their best.
Clouds. Clouds don't cover the entire sky all the time, they can be quite small. The sun may be shining where you are and most other things you can see, but blocking the building causing the reflection. There's many other things that can block it as well as the sun moves (perspective wise) through the sky.
So you're saying when you walk past a building, shop window or a car you have NEVER seen a reflection in the glass? Most of the light goes through, but some is reflected.
Edit: You've shown in plenty of posts that you have received the education required to explain these lights. You've shown that you do have the knowledge to do so. The only reason you can't is that you choose not to. The fact that you choose not to, it just leaves me flabbergasted. There's a VERY logical and simple explanation, one simple enough that a grade school kid could understand it, but instead of thinking logically about it you purposefully choose to go right out on left field and declare "NUP! GOING TO STOP THINKING ABOUT IT COMPLETELY AT THIS POINT FOR NO GOOD REASON! GOD DID IT! END OF STORY!
Organised religion is the ultimate form of blasphemy.
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I was going to say, it has to be a reflection from somewhere west of that building .... catching the sun that is coming from the east...reflecting...
seems pretty common sense to me.
Slowly building a blog at ~
http://obsidianwords.wordpress.com/
Loonynon, you've already won a wingnut award this month, you can't get two. Pace yourself.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
One thing that's always missing in this particular brand of "thorough analysis" is an overview of conditions, masked by nice maps and pictures of what the "analyst" is focusing on.
As Thingy rather completely pointed out in a post you obviously refused to read - twice! - this "phenomenon" is 100% explainable by regular, every day, no metaphysics, plain reality physics. All that was necessary to see where the light was coming from was to get a proper overview of the scene.
Plus, we have a similar "light pattern" thing here in my city. A large plate glass window on a shop here casts light against the side of a courthouse in the late evening in the summer. The interesting thing is, if the shop is running their air conditioner, there is no pattern to it. If they aren't then the light looks like a big X like the light patterns in the pictures. Why is this? Because the air conditioner is a swamper, meaning it's pushing air into the building, causing the window to bow ever so slightly outward, making it into a convex mirror. When the air conditioning is not running then the window relaxes in its frame, forming a concave mirror. Just as described with such completeness in Thingy's post.
So, why did I not bother to point this out and instead mock you? Well, as a behaviorist I long ago recognized a pattern of behavior from you. Once you've chosen a conclusion you stop paying attention to facts and start constructing "alternate interpretations" for new facts. Even if those interpretations are pure, unadulterated denials. (That would be a reference to your claim that windows don't reflect.)
There is no point at all in trying to get you to see reason.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
There is a difference between free thinking and freethinking.
Free thinking (two words) is letting your mind wonder aimlessly to where ever in a goaless manner by fantasizing; sort of like an LSD trip.
Freethinking (one word) is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that beliefs should be formed on the basis of science and logic and should not be influenced by emotion, authority, tradition, or any dogma.
You have not applied the scientific method nor have you used logic.
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
Heyyyy, isn't there s'pposed ta be a kitty picture with that???
Seriously though, thanks for the illumination, thingy !
Luminon, you're killing me. The classic, direct reflection producing an X and a circle is so easy to demonstrate that I can't even fathom why this persists as a mystery to you. Thingy has gone well beyond the call of duty to explain in detail how simple reflection is not only the simplest, but the most probable explanation. There is no mystery here at all.
Help me out, here. If you can find these light patterns happening, take lots of pictures and note the position of the sun. Now draw some straight lines from the sun to the surfaces in question. (The light could conceivably reflect off of more than one building, remember.)
There are plenty of legitimate mysteries to uncover, but this isn't one of them. I encourage you to read up on optics - it's a fascinating area of study.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
I should probably post again the quote, because you seem to not read it, but it's important.
All right, the list of why it's unusual phenomenon.
1) the patterns on photographs are anomalous, because there wasn't the sun on the sky yet, so there was no way it could be reflected. We discussed it with the woman who photographed it, and it was obvious.
2) it remained there for three days always in that time when the sun was too low on east.
3) it disappeared in one second. Clouds aren't that fast. It also never appeared there before or after.
Generally,
4) As it's written in that quote, the reflections wouldn't keep such a coherence on a longer distance. The reflection would ampifly itself and lose on luminosity greatly, unless the other building is in the point of focus. A mere window reflection can't have a coherence nearing a laser beam. The fact, that it occurs so frequently and worldwidely, is amazing.
5) the reflections are unpredictable by date, time, sun position, temperature, season of year, number of windows around, and a geographic position. (of course, not counting a natural, regularly present window reflections which JillSwift mentioned) The only criteria for their occurence seems to be
a) sun shining
b) time period since 1997 till today, in increasing frequency.
6) there are photographed reflections in a rhomb and octagon shape.
7) the reflections doesn't often match a number and positions of windows they're supposed to be reflected from. They're so notable, that people remembers that never such a thing was on their wall.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
This is getting pathetic.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Word to that.
This is just the same mind-numbingly inane thread, plus some random quotes about personal incredulity from apparently desperate, grasping people. Casting the explanation into greater question, which was unsuccessfully attempted here, doesn't push us toward a preferred explanation; especially one that, due to the very singularness of its definition, cannot be considered scientific. That is, if such a "miracle" can be reliably duplicated in ways that preclude the staggeringly obvious reflection explanation, we might have something to discuss. But the moment we explain it, it ceases to be a "miracle" because a miracle is, by definition, an argument from ignorance and something not explained. So there's no way of scientifically proving a "miracle," because the evidence would end up being a lack of explanation, which precludes it being scientific.
Skipping the details and hidden assumptions offers a comfortable "explanation", from which, unfortunately doesn't lead a further way to development. This price is too high. We end up with a worldview, where everything is separated, and with dozens of seemingly unrelated problems, just because we skipped the details, which connects them all.
Wow, I should write an essay about it.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
"- circular reflection is due to the concave surface of a windowpane; the form X in the middle of the circle is due to the interference caused by the light reflection"
This statement alone reveals someone who has no credible understanding of the behavior of light and reflection.
Apart from anything else, any effect involving interference and white light would produce all sorts of color effects, like the reflections from thin films like soap bubbles.
Any further explanations from that source lack any credibility.
EDIT: deflection of a 6 foot pane of glass to produce rough focussing 200 feet away would be about 1 millimeter which would require very modest pressure difference on that size surface. The deflection required for a focus is proportional to the square of the size of the glass - for a 3 foot pane, focus at 200 feet would require about a quarter of a millimeter, at 100 feet less than a 1/8 mm.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
If these sentences mean something, I don't know what. They sound like straw-manning and rhetoric.
For some reason I'm reminded of the Black Knight from Monty Python and The Holy Grail.
Saying what it's not doesn't answer anything; and you haven't even established that small point. You need an alternative explanation that doesn't reject the idea of explanation on principle.
You mean to push the definition of what constitutes knowledge, more like. We're in no danger of knowing everything (or even being certain of the actual--as opposed to practical--legitimacy of knowledge), but it seems you know little enough that you want to tear down the idea of knowledge until its wreckage settles somewhere at your level.
Straw-manning again. Like Presuppositionalist, the only argument you'd stand a chance against would be one of your own.
What mindless dreck.
Indeed. The world could use the lulz.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
It is easily explained by common, "mere reflection" physics. Thingy demonstrated that.
Glass can easily curve to several millimeters central displacement. Plastic even more so. The reflection of the camera in the window in your pictures strongly suggests the building right across the way has windows of exactly the right shape and type to produce that kind of reflected light shape.
Here's the real science way to look at that:
The only missing piece is the actual testing. I wish I could travel there to actually do the testing for you. I doubt anyone who wants those spots of light to be something special can be trusted to make the necessary observations.
The half-baked opinion of even a so-called scientist that the windows would not be sufficient to make that kind of shape counts for nothing. Why? Because the evidence is against him.
So, dear-heart, no one is discounting anything out-of-hand, there are solid reasons not to assume there is anything else going on there besides glass reflecting sunlight. Unless you can provide real evidence of something else, there is no reason to continue.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Curious why Liminon makes such a thing abot the time and the fact that the sun was low in the sky.
That is precisely what we would need to produce reflection from one vertical wall onto another. It would be much harder to explain if the sun was NOT low in the sky.
This further reveals that Luminon has no grasp of really, really basic aspects of this whole thing.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
New stuff which is already refuted by everything I've already posted.
That is because, as I already stated in my replies to you in the other thread some of which I pasted above, it is not DIRECT sunlight. It is REFLECTIONS.
When the sun is low in the sky it is the best time for this kind of thing to happen, otherwise the reflected light points to the ground and there's too much other light being disbersed from other objects. When she says the sun was not yet in the sky, any bet that means it wasn't high enough for her to have direct sight of it but the building behind her was in its direct path.
If we look at google maps, comparing the shadows of the building doing the reflection to the one near it, the one reflecting (blue) has a longer shadow therefore we can conclude it is taller than the ones with the black rooves. The trees near them are taller still.
Not conclusive, but to be conclusive I would need someone to go there and take many more photos of the area so we can get a better idea of the surroundings. This article of yours, just like all of them, purposefully leave out vital pieces of information and word things in such a way as to give a false impression of what the surrounding conditions were.
Now lets move on to some of the other pictures from your site that back up what I have been saying all along. The yellow reflections are of windows that had the concave shape, right next to ones (red) that didn't get the concave shape.
Clever wording by the website to misconstrue the real surroundings. "wasn't in the sky yet" could simply mean not high enough for the person to have direct sight of the sun, as I stated earlier. Things taller than the person like oh, say, a building, could easily have had direct line of sight to the sun. The photo clearly shows it was beyond sunrise, there was definite sunlight around, just not direct sunlight of the area being photographed which is one of the contributing factors to this happening via reflection.
Did it remain for three days as you're saying now, or only last for a minute or two as you said earlier, and happen at the same time for three consecutive days. The sun doesn't follow the exact same path year round and this affect also relies on other factors to get the window pane bent by the right amount.
Actually, they are. You're confusing direct light with ambient light. Clouds aren't fast enough to make ambient light dissapear that fast, but all that was required was enough cloud cover to stop that direct bit of light that was reflecting.
It wouldn't keep its coherence for 20 meters? That's the distance from the wall where the light pattern appeared to the building behind it that created it. Just look at the google maps picture above.
Due mostly to the right conditions required to create the concave shape in the glass. It could easily cause the shape to be convex as well. They only appear in places that are decently shaded as too much ambient light drowns it out. They've been happening since long before '97, just your idiot conspiracy theorist nutbag friends didn't latch on to the affect prior to that date.
There are windows in many shapes and sizes. OMFG! O.O
Until you actually look at where it's coming from then it matches perfectly as is shown in the livescience link in my first post in this thread.
Yes, it is quite personal. You attract dumb fucks who refuse to see things for what they are, who prefer to take a leap of illogic rather than follow the logical steps to a conclusion that any 5th grader could see and understand.
Organised religion is the ultimate form of blasphemy.
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Luminon , LOL. Isn't "everything" a "phenomenon", every atom, every wave of energy? I dig your enthusiasm and awe and kindness. I have my personal most amusing mysteries of wonder, "time" being top of my list, but it all comes down to the same "ONE" thing, that all is 100% connected, or as I like to say "g-awe-d", or like WOW, WTF is dirt? !!!
Atheism Books.
It is not interference. It is warped reflections. Interference would just give you some colors.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Loonyman, you oughta try rational skepticism. All you need to do is not jump to loony conclusions, and instead explore the more likely natural explanations. If you think there aren't any, that's your failure.
For example, in this very thread people have shown you the natural explanation. Accept it. and Please, for the love of Wilma, stop trying to convince skeptics that magical thinking and woo logic are valid lines of enquiry. You come off looking reeal silly.
Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first.
Betty was cuter.
Organised religion is the ultimate form of blasphemy.
Censored and blacked out for internet access in ANZ!
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I am awful at physics, but Thingy's post was very educational and entertaining- so thanks Thingy, I learned something new, and your effort has not gone to waste
@Thingy:
Has anyone ever told you you're brilliant? Because so far that's all I've gotten from your posts. I agree with Yaerqav in his post above, your explanations were very well written. I especially liked the MS Paint diagram
.
@Luminon;
Hey yeah, you know what else is a recent (relativly) miracle in human history? Having really tall buildings with very pure glass windows in them. Hmmm, maybe its a coincidence.
I'm sorry if I sound snooty, but so far all you've done is bring this up, state that you have unswavering faith in it, and then repeatedly try and insult the intellectual honesty of the people who have tried to explain it rationally. Considering Thingy provided another example with a perfect solution and you responded with an insistance that it MUST have been photoshop from those evil Atheist Bastards just trying to kill your world view. That is not Freethinking OR Free Thinking, it is confirmation bias, which I'm fairly certain you've already had thrown at you in this thread, but you just ignored it, so here I go, except mine is bigger
.
YOU HAVE CONFIRMATION BIAS!
Now then, do I have your attention? Either way, it is certainly possible that the picture from LiveScience was indeed photoshopped, but lets look at this rationally using the Okham's Razor.
Hypothesis 1: Supernatural Occurance, everything in science is apparently wrong or at least can be wrong at a whim. This does nothing to explain how it happened other than 'it happened'. This also does nothing to explain why, with unlimited power, god has decided to paint pretty light show pictures on buildings instead of say, save people's lives or something, cure cancer, something useful.
Hypothesis 2: SEE: Thingy's posts. While a decently complicated bit of physics, does not require that we spontaneously add an entirely new and otherwise unproven entity or branch of physics.
#2 is clearly superior for the simple reason of it is possible to explain it in its entirety with our knowledge now. Yes, I mean that. When it can be explained in its entirety with our knowledge now it is always initially superior to something which requires something new, it is only through mountainous piles of evidence that 'something new' is accepted as fact over something that is not new. This is why Einsteinian Relativity replaced Newtonian Relativity, it had huge piles of evidence to support it. Your 'idea' has no evidence to support it whatsoever, it is just one big argument from ignorance. Seriously, your posts so far have amounted to 'I don't know how this happened, but I know it couldn't have happened the way you say, because Goddidit.'
Demanding evidence to support a claim, while sticking with what we already know until that evidence arives is not 'close-mindedness', no more than embracing every new-age fad that comes onto the street is 'open-mindedness'. The first is just intelligent and practical, while the second is being an impressionable twit. Being Open Minded does not require that you accept every new possibility, only that you hear them out. And we did hear you out on this, apparently twice. Given that we can refute it based on simple physics and a modern understanding of the world, there is no reason to believe this is some supernatural occurance.
Also, when you make a bogus probability assessment like "Its too improbable to have happened naturally, so Goddidit", back it up with the probability calculations and the numbers you used to get there okay? Otherwise, don't use it.
When you say it like that you make it sound so Sinister...
Just another in a long line of "Weird shit happens so God" posts.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
I would like to respond to point 8 again, this time with a cooler less frustrated head. I am leaving my original post in tact as it has been a while since I posted it and Luminon (and others) have most likely already seen it by now so there's no retracting it.
You, your family, and your friends rely a lot on personal experience for a lot of these "miracles". This is just about the worst thing you can do. There's a very specific reason why science relies on instruments, measurements, testing, and attempting to make predictions based upon what has been learnt on these measurements. It is because personal experience lies to us, our own body lies to us. It is why we use thermometers to measure the tempterature rather than just our skin. It is why we use speedometers to measure the speed we're going rather than just our eyes.
Just look at the face on mars thing a few years back, when looking at that same area under different lighting conditions it looks nothing like a face. It's hard to believe it's even the same set of mountains, but it is. Our minds are set to recognise patterns, faces, structures, something familiar. It's why ghosts have been "seen" by so few people, it's our mind playing tricks on us in the dark, nothing more.
Placebo's work in the same way, by getting the mind to play tricks on us. That is why so many people swear by placebo's such as homeothapy and new-age "medicine". At most pheremones(sp?) get released that temporarily make the person feel better, and that's it. This is why such medicines are yet to stand up under testing. All they do is make our bodies lie to us while in the background the body continues to do as it would do anyway. Sometimes the body would make us better anyway, other times not.
If such things did stand up to testing, science would willingly embrace them in excitement and work to strengthen them, build upon them. Seeing as they don't then it isn't even considered science. Same with Intelligent Design and what ever else you want to name. It's not a big conspiracy as ben stein et al would have you believe, just a severe lacking in anything provable and testable by those putting forth these so called "alternatives".
Organised religion is the ultimate form of blasphemy.
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Luminon sent me the following private message. I don't see why it was in the private message system. In my humble opinion it should be a reply in this thread and therefore I am posting it here. I will respond to it later.
Organised religion is the ultimate form of blasphemy.
Censored and blacked out for internet access in ANZ!
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Luminon is writing so much woo-woo nonsense that I am at a loss of how to respond. Ghosts, 'calibrated' senses, spirits that help you meditate....I don't even know where to start with all of these things. I will try to hit some of the main points here:
Not at all. When Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit it did not take decades or centuries to accept this amazing new device. He turned computing on its head, and was welcomed for it. When Edward Jenner created the first vaccine people started using it immediately. No one waited decades or centuries to accept this revolution in medical technology. If someone has the evidence to back their claims up, then scientists welcome the new information. They welcome it even if it is different and groundbreaking.
Then collect evidence of such phenomena. Collect all the evidence that you can for it and make your case that it is real. Until you do that, you will need to accept that skeptics will universally reject your claims. And just so we are all clear: feelings during mediation, sensing spirits and 'calibrated' senses don't count as evidence.
If you have clear, unambiguous and unedited photographs of ghosts that you take regularly, then why haven't you shown them to everyone and proved the existence of ghosts once and for all? In fact I would love to see some of these photos. That counts as evidence. Unless of course you just have photos of lens artifacts and/or small white spots like some other 'ghost' photos I have seen.
What logical process are you referring to? It is unclear in that sentence.
Just so we are all clear: feelings you get while meditating are not proof of anything. Even if I felt new things while mediating, that does not make them real. Just in the same way that I could take peyote and feel new things, they still aren't real. Your extraordinary proof will have to be something independent of your feelings and thoughts. Get some physical (ie. non-imaginary) proof of your claims or you will be dismissed as a woo-woo new-age believer. Just as I reject claims of "I feel that Jesus loves me," I also will reject claims of "I feel a spirit visit me while I mediate."
I beg to differ.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
Cue even more outrageous crap from the "atheist" who believes in just about every bit of crapology beloved of the ignorant and confused, except the Abrahamic god apparently.
This guy is either the world's greatest wind-up merchant or a "plant" sent in by devious theists to sabotage the site. Of course he could also just be the world's biggest thick. The jury's out ...
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Maybe I should formulate a definition of "Irrational discussion" forum section, which won't fulfil the purpose of this website, but also won't be in conflict with it. Rational folk may officially declare a distance from what would be discussed there.
I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that this time of accepting a new invention depends on a size of paradigm shift it demands. When people already knew of microorganisms, it was quite believable, that they can be weakened by heat, and then given to an immunity system as a training dummies. Or, when a properties of semiconductors were discovered, then it wasn't so unbelievable, that they could be so small.
But the heliocentric system was something, what required people to change the way how they see the world itself, not as it seems, but as it is, from a small hints. As for the bacteries, nobody believed, that anything living could be so small, for people they were invisible, and invisible things doesn't exist, as we know. And today, people can't imagine, that Tesla put into work a forms of energies, which are unknown, and literally "imaginary" in a couple of senses of this word. For example, the 'imaginary' part of the electric current. There is also no development link to what Tesla did, and contemporary electrotechnics, he did it all from his head, and there are some seemingly senseless things an engineer must precisely build, in order to follow Tesla.
Second factor may be, that our old paradigm seems to be enough for everyone, and there is no need to break it down by some new, wild theories. And further, science doesn't usually work blindly. It is directed by market forces. We could have a free energy in many forms long ago, but it is unacceptable, because the lack of need for the industrial energetic infrastructure, and business with energy, would put our society into chaos. Not that I would care, but the heads of finances and industries certainly cares. Everyone wants a free energy, but nobody wants to take care of a many millions of people dependent on the paid energy.
Shortly said, some changes goes easier than others. Important changes may not always have a convincing evidence outside of their domain.
I do it, I do it, I do it. Unfortunately, it has a form of anecdotal, verbal or text record, like a personal testimony, or an instructions to send a person on a survey to his/her past lives, effectively and correctly. The researchers, tools for research, and subjects, are all people of various qualities. In order for a skeptic to be convinced, he/she must become some of that, become involved, and affected by this process, must be taken "into the club", so close to the process, that the results becomes obvious. If everything goes well. Some factors, like if the person is taking a psychopharmaceuticals, may completely disable his/her abilities for some time. This is the most common problem, any other are rare.
The practical results are a changes in life of client/subject. They are various, from seemingly small, to very profound, and the person must subjectively evaluate them, to give an objective testimony. For example, is a dependence on smoking or alcohol measurable, and a power, needed for this particular person to get rid of it? Is a happiness of marriage or relationship measurable? Only for the two people involved, and maybe for the one person who helped them. Not for an outsider. And what about a feeling of having a sense, a direction in life? You get the idea... So, if a skeptics should have a will to become involved in it, there must be a mutual respect on both sides. The skeptic shouldn't consider all such people a crazy woo-woo magicians and mumbo-jumbo-doers, who should thank him for showing an interest for it. On the other side, the researchers shouldn't consider the skeptic to be a close-minded person, locked within his small ideologic box. There is also other danger, don't make the demonstration too profound and embarrasing, otherwise there's a risk of skeptic's revenge, in a form of a bad public testimony.
If everything goes well, the skeptic may actually bring new ideas out, and search for a way how to employ them outside of their domain. I know about one such a scientist, originally from here, living and working in USA, researching a consciousness and brain.
Yes, subjective experience doesn't make it real. I know that, this is why we reach a degree of objectivity. In fact, objectivity is nothing but a set of identic or similar subjective experiences. When a group of scientists reads a digits from a machine, it is a subjective experience, just like when a group of meditating people has the same vision. There is a good reason to believe, that all of them saw the same thing.
Humans aren't standardized. There is a lot of qualities in which they may vary a lot, but the law of attraction of similar people allows us to gather enough of them to do these tests. The main purpose is of course to meditate, the experiences are exchanged before or after. So, herding a meditating people isn't necessarily like herding a cats, the groups attract a roughly similar people, (which takes years) but if a skeptic tries to gather some strangers for tests, then it will be like herding a cats. As I mentioned, the senses of a group are similarly calibrated. There's still a lot of variation, but we're able to have an interpersonal phenomenon. I have it quite easy, I was always naturally sensitive. This kind of meditation is like operating a machine which demands a constant attention to work properly, and I can sense very precisely for a beginner, how this process goes, and what my operations does. But, there are some people, who aren't naturally equipped to do that, to sense what is happening. It's like a cooking without taste, smell, sight and hear, just following the instructions and otherwise sitting still. We have a woman in our group, who didn't feel anything during the meditation. Nothing, she just sat there and focused, and the meditation had an effect, she just didn't feel it. For me, it's often like having a big, pulsating iris-like hole into the depth of my head where my forehead is, which pupms a stream of warm energy back and forth (besides other numerous tactile, audio and visual effects). But the woman didn't feel anything. It took three years of blind, confident meditation before she started to feel what others in the group feels. I don't know if I'd have the patience. A great respect belongs to those, who managed to overcome their little personal box, and expand their senses beyond what they've been dictated to be true and false.
Btw, it is well known fact, that if you think intensely about a body part, there becomes an increased blood flow. Believe it or not, but I'm able to feel centres inside of my head, which seems to be the epiphysis and hypophysis. (but also others which physically aren't there, like the one mentioned above) It temporarily affects a consciousness, when these glands are stimulated. This kind of activity is natural and leads to a development of personality. A person gaining a control over the body in this manner is like an owner of a great house, who after many years starts to unlock and explore more rooms than the one he lived in. This is also why most of meditation methods may be dangerous. (fortunately not the one I perform, this is a masterpiece in a meditation catalogue)
It is slightly unnerving, that even a godless, hard-boiled atheist may get so outraged, that he goes on a crusade of tar and feathers. Here it's sometimes like being arrested, "all you say may be used against you". I can't even write certain things, because they suggest a silly hidden meanings and I can be sure, that they would be quickly noticed and used against me. Is that really how atheists, the supposed bringers of truth and rational enlightenment wants to present themselves? How there is any difference from the fundies, who gets crazy when someone makes fun of Jesus by a silly t-shirt?
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
"In fact, objectivity is nothing but a set of identic or similar subjective experiences."
Having an experience doesn't = knowing what caused it or what it was. Other people having the same experience and jumping to the same false conclusions isn't objectivity. An example of this can be seen in Dan Dennet's "magic of consciousness" series on youtube when he discusses magic tricks, de ja vu experiences and optical illusions.
Go to any church and you will find multitudes of people who have "experienced" jesus touching their hearts. Is this the objective truth?
Your posts, Luminon, are intellectually barren, and although I don't think you personally are an idiot, I think you've been duped into an extraordinarily idiotic way of thinking.
I and many others would like you to keep your woo to yourself. Please. I don't care if you do or don't learn how to apply critical thinking to your line of inquiry, (as you obviously haven't, or you wouldn't be saying shit like "objectivity is nothing but a set of identic or similar subjective experiences" ).
I never read your entire posts, because they're too long and they hurt my brain, (which is sensitive to stupid), and seeing as I know you're going to disagree, don't bother replying.
Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first.
Please don't tell me that you are comparing your woo-woo nonsense to Tesla or Galileo or Leeuwenhoek. Also you are dead wrong on the bacteria part. It took a matter of days for the Royal Society to confirm and accept the existence of bacteria. Let me repeat that: it took the Royal Society a few days to go from thinking that no living thing is microscopic to thinking that bacteria exist and live within us. When you have evidence to back up your claims scientists will bend over backwards to accept them. The following book excerpt will give an illuminating example on that fact:
From Antonie van Leeuwenhoek:
You are mixing up the value of root -1 with make believe. Imaginary numbers and those spirits that you believe in are two different kinds of imaginary.
Some advice for the future: when discussing something with skeptics, do NOT bust out your crazy conspiracy theories. There is no such thing as free energy. The laws of thermodynamics won't allow it. Even if there was a way to make free energy, someone would patent it and be the richest man on earth. The first person to get that patent would be the Bill Gates of energy. Also no one cares about destroying obsolete industries. When PC's came out they destroyed the careers of countless secretaries. Being able to type up your own reports ended millions of jobs. But oh well, no one will even miss them and our economy is better for it. People would have that same attitude if free energy is ever invented. Not that the phrase 'free energy' is even coherent mind you.
Saying you only have anecdotal evidence is saying that you have no evidence at all. Just like a theist who claims that they have 'felt' Jesus's love, your personal testimonies of 'feeling' spirits are worthless. When Van Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria, he did not submit a report claiming that he felt they were real. He submitted a report saying that they can be observed physically. Since he had no other evidence than his word for that claim, it was rejected for a few days until the evidence could be gathered to support it. Automatic rejection of wild claims that lack evidence is reasonable. But of course, once the unambiguous evidence comes in to support the claims they may no longer be rationally rejected.
On the contrary, the skeptic should. Once you talk about your spirits and group visions in meditation the skeptic needs to denounce your lunacy and call you what you are: a believer in crazy woo-woo magic.
I wouldn't worry about that. If your only 'evidence' is feelings and visions you will never overwhelm a skeptic to the point of embarrassment. Perhaps you need to clarify what you mean by profound evidence. In my book your claims about feelings and visions don't count as evidence at all.
Reading digits and seeing mystic visions are too different for this to be an apt comparison. When I take a reading from a hardness tester, it is fundamentally different than people seeking out visions in group meditation. I think we would both agree on that. The subjective act of recording digits is fundamentally more trustworthy than the subjective act of receiving visions.
Oh, Wotan save me from this one. The law of attraction? Is there any new age nonsense that you won't buy into? Do you believe in crystal energies also? Just to make sure I get what you are saying: you mean the law of attraction like The Secret, right?
Is it your Ajna or Sahasrara chakra (sarcasm)? I was actually joking when I mentioned peyote, but I see that peyote use is rather calm and sensible compared to what you are into.
It took your cult three whole years to indoctrinate her? You do know that there are books describing how to indoctrinate people into cults. You should look one up, it will make brainwashing newcomers so much easier.
And we will continue to not consider that possibility. I think there is a 0% likelihood that you are saying the truth. If you want to prove me wrong then present your compelling evidence for belief. Or failing that, entertain us with more stories of your visions and spirit friends and pulsating energy channels that reside in your forehead.
I just want to finish by saying that I'm not trying to be mean. I don't want to troll your threads or anything like that. I just think you are very delusional. If you kept your fantasy world to yourself it would be fine. Convincing others to believe in your lunacy is where the unacceptable actions start.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
That is something else that I forgot to mention. Luminon seemed to be attacking objectivity as a way of validating his subjectivity. If he can not rise up to our standards then apparently he will try and drag our standards down to his level. It is like a creationist trying to lower the standards of science so that his magical beliefs can slip by.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
You are a compulsive liar luminon. I had made no such appeal in this thread prior to your resorting to private messages, so there was no "wish" of mine to be "respected".
You lie to us all the time. You lie to yourself all the time. You have probably been lied to all your life by people who you are not yet intellectually or emotionally ready to accuse of the crime, if you ever will be. When confronted with the fact that you live a lie you lie even more. You consort with liars. You allow liars to validate the lie that is your life, since the lie that they have the right to do so is an easier pill to to swallow than the prospect of having the whole web of deceit which is your mind unravel.
Unlike others here who adopt a conciliatory tone towards you, or who make the mistake of trying to appeal to whatever "reason" might still lurk in the quagmire of untruths and bullshit that is what remains of your intellectual faculties, I have no respect for either your self-assumed intelligence or personality.
You are too stupid to realsie how stupid you are, and too rude to merit forgiveness for the constant trespasses you make on this site. You spew bullshit where reasoned debate hopes to flourish, and you do with the gay abandon of a rudderless sileage spreader in overdrive.
If you truly "respect" my "wishes" (though alas this too is another lie, I know) then you will restrict your comments to regions of the site where delusional fools have free reign to vent their spleen if they wish, and you will develop the good manners to realise when you have insulted the intelligence of your fellow site members sufficiently and therefore refrain from repeating the crime ad infinitum.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Btw, aren't you a bit obsessed with the act of lying?
Btw, do you also think, that in a discussion on a certain topic, only "rational" opinions are allowed? If atheists discuss ghosts, is it supposed to be like "yeah, I think they doesn't exist, just as 50 people before me" ? What's the point in starting such a discussion, then?
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
"Such a concentrated amount of lies is highly improbable. Find a better hypothesis, there must be a simplier solution. A lie must have a motive. Huge amount of lies must have a huge amount of motives. And where are these? "
One doesn't need a complicated or nefarious motive for lies. For lies to oneself in particular, the motive can be "It makes me feel better/takes less effort to believe the lie (even though I know it for what it is)".
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
And what is crazy, and what not, is very, very relative. Sometimes I might not guess what is and isn't normal for you guys here.
Gotta go, will continue later.
1) it saves a time, which would be otherwise wasted on the long paragraphs, like the "you are a liar" rants. For the purposes of discussion, the premises should be considered automatically true.
2) with the truth, you don't have to remember what you said. Being incoherent in a longer discussion is, what usually exposes a lie. Police interrogators knows that, when they let the criminals repeat a testimony over and over.
3) a value can be transferred through the internet communication only by the truth. Lie has no value, because it has no relation to a real world, where the values are.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
I'm taking your lack of irony here as evidence then that you are one of the worst liars I have ever come across.
How can you not understand that you are ill?
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
It is a common enough illness that Luminon can find others who support such delusions. Being able to be around other woo-woo believers will reinforce Luminon's beliefs and prevent Luminon from thinking that he (she?) is ill.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
Belief is not able to cause a perception, however, a perception is able to cause a belief.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Belief can cause or at least alter perceptions.
Any type of stupidity can give rise to a belief. Misinterpretation of data gives rise to many.
Sensory perception can, as you say, also give rise to belief. But if the explanation for what has been perceived is influenced by a belief which arose from misinterpretation of data previously, then it means doodleysquat. The rationale is dishonest. The implications drawn are dishonest. Worse, the promulgation of the belief is doubly dishonest and the defence of that belief even more so.
You are not well luminon. You have bought into a mindset that is grounded in dishonesty. Since both the perpetrator and the victim of the dishonesty is yourself you will probably never see it. But I, and almost everyone else who suffers your bullshit here, can.
Most here choose to be conciliatory towards you. I do not. I have seen the damage that people like you can do to others who are impressionable or vulnerable. What they need is affirmation of their ability to think critically and reasonably. What they don't need is your brand of crap which both undermines and attempts to obliterate their chances of employing their critical faculties. Every time you commit yet more of it to this website you subvert and distort, with an ease that should even worry you, the principle on which this website was founded and by which most of its contributors live - a respect for and adherence to the truth.
You are a liar. Whether you know it or not is immaterial. You have other faults too which have become apparent, but this is the overriding one. Sort it out and come back later. Or use exposure to rational people to sort out the mess you're in. Just stop with the constant insertions of copious bullshit in the meantime. It's tedious, disruptive and insulting to the rest of us. But worst of all in the context of where you're indulgng yourself in your arrogant pursual of propagating crap, it is a potential contributor to this website's demise.
Wise up.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
100% wrong. My example of "I can feel Jesus' love" holds true for this. People with certain beliefs get altered perceptions from them. Some people have told me that God speaks to them, in actual words in their head. These auditory hallucinations (which is a kind of perception; albeit a crazy kind) are caused only by their beliefs. You crazy perceptions of feeling spirits and feeling energy pulse in your head is exactly the same as someone feeling the Holy Spirit within them. Your beliefs directly lead you to perceive certain things. This is why scientists use instruments to measure things. My eyes can fool me, the spectrometer can not.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
This is not what I mean - this contains too much of hidden assumptions. I meant the perception in a state of tabula rasa.
In this case, the reason, why a belief is not able to cause a perception is, that a perception precedes the belief. Belief simply doesn't exist before the perception. Not even the disbelief.
This is definitely my case. I had very similar opinion on some things if you'd ask me today, just as if you'd ask me 15 years ago. My perception is inborn, and I don't really know when I realized it, I first had to learn that others aren't like that. Then I learned, that some people are.
My perception is exactly like yours or anyone else's, plus something more. This something formed my deep conviction, that there is always something more and there's always possible more than we could even imagine. Remember the first Clarke's law:
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
I had already seen a lot of so-called "impossible", thus I'd use this word very carefully and I suggest you too.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Then I suppose you should not have written it.
There is no such thing as a state of tabula rasa. Maybe if you are talking about a three year old's perceptions you could say it is in a state of tabula rasa. By talking about beliefs we are automatically not talking about a state of tabula rasa. Also lots of people are simply told what to believe by those around them. So not everyone even bothers using their own senses or thinking to find out what they should believe. They just find some group to spoon feed them easy answers.
On one hand I don't like to accuse you of woo-woo nonsense every time you post something. On the other hand every post you make contains woo-woo nonsense. So I guess that once again I will call this one as it is: woo-woo nonsense. What is this extra perception that you have? Is it what you use to feel spirits and pulsating energy fields in your head?
I never even used the word 'impossible.' If I had used it, then maybe this comment would have made sense. Did someone else use the word 'impossible' and I just missed it?
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India