Lets Talk About Things Science Cannot Explain

[BAYLOR]

Let's start with the well worn well used Shakespeare Quote

" There are more things in heave and Earth Horatio then are dreamt of in your philosophy"

" We can also use Ocam's Razor " The simples explanation is usually the correct one"

What do you think are top mysteries that science has no real explanation for ? This one is wide open.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Wow, that's quite a wide remit.

Right, I'll start: STENDEC

 

[BAYLOR]

How about hauntings and things that go bump in the night?

 

[Brian G Turner]

It's worth noting that, until very recently, the laws of physics said that bumblebees were too heavy to fly, and that fish should not be able to swim at the speeds they were observed moving with. It took advances in the mathematics of turbulence to explain both.

Sometimes, the biggest mysteries are under our noses.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Funny how since almost everyone got a camera in phone that sightings of Bigfoot, Yeti, UFOs, ghosts etc have gone down.
But more videos and photos of meteors etc.

 

[HanaBi]

ESP/Deja Vu, perhaps?

 

[Venusian Broon]

Funny how since almost everyone got a camera in phone that sightings of Bigfoot, Yeti, UFOs, ghosts etc have gone down.
But more videos and photos of meteors etc.

Actually I'd argue sightings of UFO's have gone up (reported ones even that is) but invariably 99.9% of them are Chinese lanterns, speeding gulls, reflections that the taker never noticed when they took the picture at the time (a classic!), or some other mundane source* - however to take a good picture of a tiny spot of light in the sky with a mobile phone is pretty difficult, which shows you how good the human eye is. For example, I tried to take a picture of what was clearly a Chinese lantern getting blown to the NE really quite high up in the atmosphere - must have been a good 300 metres+ up (which then got extinguished and plummeted down to earth leaving a bit of a trail of smoke like it had been shot down.) Camera on the phone couldn't pick it up at all.

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* Apparently Walthamstow, which is basically next to where I live is a 'UFO hotspot' with many 'sightings'. However I know for a fact that the main European traffic for Heathrow comes in above my head, takes a duck down to the Millennium Dome then the planes straighten out to land at Heathrow (done it plenty of times myself whilst in a plane). So I'd hazard a guess that quite a few of these sightings are in fact Heathrow traffic. (See David Bowie who saw UFO's while living in London that - in his words "They came over so regularly we could time them. Sometimes they stood still, other times they moved so fast it was hard to keep a steady eye on them". Yep I'm pretty sure you could time them, otherwise they'd be late for arrivals at the airport....)

 

[Dennis E. Taylor]

You mean, "can't explain yet." As Brian Turner points out, things that formerly were unexplained are now explained. Every year, more things get discovered/explained.

The thing about ghosts/paranormal and UFOs and yetis, is that the system is on their side. All they have to do is provide ONE irrefutable case, and they're golden, regardless of all the "failed" claims. Yet they haven't. Of course, the next step is to invoke conspiracy.

Personally, I'd love for some of that stuff to be real. ESP? Extraterrestrials? Life after death? Woot! Bring it on! But I'm pragmatic enough to understand that my desire does not determine reality. So I'm still waiting.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

ESP? Extraterrestrials? Life after death?

ESP: James Randi just retired but offer is still open
ET: Maybe there are. Have they visited us already? Only People that prefer money or fiction to facts believe it.
Life After Death: Hard to see how the living can know. There is a simple experiment ... We all EVENTUALLY get to know the answer to that one. "Not Life as we know it, Jim." Obviously. As McCoy would have said. So in one sense the answer is obviously no. Do we as personalities, remembering what we used to be persist after death? A question unlikely to be answered by science.

There is no point in trying to explain what has never been shown to exist, or explain in physical terms something with no physical manifestation.

 

[Allegra]

Telepathy
Genius
The power of music
The intelligence of African grey parrots

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Telepathy: Can't explain because never been demonstrated.
Genius: Can't explain because we have no adequate agreed definition of Genius
The power of music: Can't explain because we have no method of measuring "emotion", "appreciation", "beauty".
The intelligence of African grey parrots: Can't explain because we have no adequate agreed definition of Intelligence. What ever it is, why have Crows got more and many much bigger brained animals including some primates less?

 

[kythe]

How about: Why people continue to believe superstitions and other non-truths even when presented with strong evidence to the contrary? On a related note, why do emotional experiences affect people so much more strongly than facts?

 

[BAYLOR]

How about: Why people continue to believe superstitions and other non-truths even when presented with strong evidence to the contrary? On a related note, why do emotional experiences affect people so much more strongly than facts?

Because we're human beings not vulcans?

 

[Stephen Palmer]

How about: Why people continue to believe superstitions and other non-truths even when presented with strong evidence to the contrary? On a related note, why do emotional experiences affect people so much more strongly than facts?

This is probably the most important question anyone could presently ask. It's astonishing to note how little general acceptance there is of any theory of human emotion. But, of course... how many psychologists, especially the early ones, are men. Even a brilliant man like Erich Fromm once referred to the "basic needs of man" to be "food, water, shelter and females" (I'm paraphrasing slightly). He was brought to book about that in the 1960's.

 

[Venusian Broon]

How about: Why people continue to believe superstitions and other non-truths even when presented with strong evidence to the contrary?

An interesting question. Personally I believe that Science and scepticism is how we will learn more about the universe and its mysteries, but I would have to frankly admit that this means that, for all the 'interesting questions' I can only ever get a contingent truth - for as soon as I get a set of observations that break the laws I really must discard the old laws and formulate a new view of the universe.

(One could argue that the new laws must 'incorporate' the old laws in some manner - for example, in conditions we live in, Einsteinian General Relativity must produce a Newtonian world...but in a very deep and real sense an Einsteinian Universe is nothing at all like a Newtonian Universe.)

And I believe (there's that word again) that in the future new observations will alter our views on the universe.


Such belief is really just as without foundation as any other belief and I'd probably use similar sorts of arguments to justify it as any other free standing philosophical system.

 

[Mouse]

Life After Death: Hard to see how the living can know. There is a simple experiment ... We all EVENTUALLY get to know the answer to that one.

If there is nothing after death (which is what I believe, and which is why I go ghost hunting - because I want to be proven wrong), then no, we wouldn't get to know eventually. We wouldn't be "knowing" anything, cos we'd just stop.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Well, if the answer was positive, you'd know. Otherwise not. I agree. Sloppy engish agran

 

[BAYLOR]

If there is nothing after death (which is what I believe, and which is why I go ghost hunting - because I want to be proven wrong), then no, we wouldn't get to know eventually. We wouldn't be "knowing" anything, cos we'd just stop.

On Ghosts, many of the stories can be explained away rationally , but all of them? I just don't think so. There are just too many such stories which tells me there is something to them .

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Ghosts could exist and be nothing to do with dead people.

 

[BAYLOR]

Ghosts could exist and be nothing to do with dead people.

Ever see the photo The Ghostly Airman ?