Which of the following paranormal phenomena do you think is the most plausible. Not necessarily that you believe in it, but that you think it has a better chance of being a real phenomena than the others presented.
Most plausible paranormal phenomena
- Thread starter LitmusDragon
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It's hard to say since I don't really believe in any of them. I voted for sea or lake monsters, although if I could cross out the words "or lake" I would. I am also assuming that "monster" can mean some rare undiscovered species of shark or squid that lives at very low depths; not plesiosaurs or anything that looks like the Lock Ness creature.
There is an enormous amount of both physical and circumstantial evidence for Bigfoot. No there HAVEN'T been any bodies found but there has been unidentifiable DNA found that seems to come from an unknown primate and the detail and complexity of many of the tracks found, including biomechanically accurate weight distributions for a body load upwards of more than 800-900 pounds of body weight and microscopic details such as dermal ridges and visible sweat pore,seems to make only one of two possible choices likely: either a great number of thee tracks are being hoaxed by people with astonishing artistic skill and an extremely advanced knowledge of biomechanics and anatomy (as well as being able to extrapolate out with accuracy much larger and heavier than normal variants) or there are real creatures leaving these traces.
I cry "invalid question"
Which is the most plausible paranormal phenomena?
Aliens visiting the earth
Not "paranormal". If it is indeed happening, it's perfectly normal.
Bigfoot
Again, not paranormal. If bigfoots exist, they're part of biology.
Sea or lake monsters
See: Bigfoot
Living dinosaurs or similar creature
Thre are living dinos, we call them birds.
-or-
See: Bigfoot
ESP, Psychics, Remote Viewing
Now THIS would be paranormal, and is highly implausable.
Ghosts
Now THIS would be paranormal, and is highly implausable.
The only two paranormal things on this list are equally implausable.
Which is the most plausible paranormal phenomena?
Aliens visiting the earth
Not "paranormal". If it is indeed happening, it's perfectly normal.
Bigfoot
Again, not paranormal. If bigfoots exist, they're part of biology.
Sea or lake monsters
See: Bigfoot
Living dinosaurs or similar creature
Thre are living dinos, we call them birds.
-or-
See: Bigfoot
ESP, Psychics, Remote Viewing
Now THIS would be paranormal, and is highly implausable.
Ghosts
Now THIS would be paranormal, and is highly implausable.
The only two paranormal things on this list are equally implausable.
I'm going with UFOs. As unlikely as it is, it's the more likely one on the list considering the very high chances of there being other civilizations out there.
Yeah, but you have to weight that against the low probability of interstellar flight. Sublight takes so damn long to go ANYWHERE, that no alien is going to fly around Mexico City for an hour and then go home. Especially because relativity tells us that time dilation will mean the Aliens won't really have a home to go back to since 100,000 years had elapsed during their 10,000 year journey, so they'd probably be looking to stay for the duration.
The other counterpoint is the possibility that practical superluminal (FTL, Warp, call it what you will) technologies exist. Barring a revelation in Alcubierre warp theories, the amount of energy needed to send a flying saucer the size of most purported objects (let's say 50 feet) fast enough to travel 5,000 light years in a reasonable human time-frame (say, 5 years) is more energy than our Sun will emit in its lifetime. Again, are you going to commit the resources of a star to a 30 minute tour of a British airbase?
Oh yeah, superluminal travel would probably require whole new types of matter that likely don't exist with properties that are pretty much impossible.
I vote sea monster. I still doubt they exist, but I'd give it 100:1 odds. Next is living dinosaur, (I define as any reptilian species that's as big or bigger than a Komodo dragon) at 1000:1. Big foot is 10:000:1, sorry Leonard Nimoy, you were had. Aliens visiting earth within, say the next 10,000 years, are in the area of 100,000,000:1, contact with aliens via radio is 100,000:1.
Now, psychics exist. Full stop. However, they're best called by another title: con artist. They pitch falsities that prevent people from properly dealing with emotional losses or uncertainties. You can throw Ghost Hunters in there too. Those people are idiots, but conniving idiots.
I was thinking the same thing.
I am going with sea or lake monsters but I thinking only 'sea monsters'. We have really only explored a small part of the world's ocean so I think that there is a good chance of their being some large unknown creatures waiting to be discovered.
Oh no, I do. But it's more likely, to me, that an alien civilization has mastered FTL methods of travel, or have crazy-ass generational ships, have crossed interstellar distances and picked out one planet out of the trillions out there to visit that it's likely there's a loch-ness monster, bigfoot, or ghosts.
The extreme unlikliness of UFOs just means that the cryptozoology and spirits are just that much more impossible.
Woah-ho there, skippy.
In multiple clinical trials, it has never demonstrated with any consistency above chance.
Yeah, can't say I've ever seen or head of any credible "lab work" that's been done to suggest that remote-viewing has any basis in any form of reality.
I voted Bigfoot. The woods are big- if an ape wanted to hide from us, it could probably do it. The mountain gorilla was thought to be a myth until less than a hundred years ago, and it had a comparatively smaller area of wilderness to hide itself in than the range that Bigfoot is supposed to have.
Bigfoot is also the only example on the list for which there is compelling (though not conclusive) physical evidence.
Has James Randi's prize of $1M for the demonstration of paranormal phenomena ever been claimed and won? I don't think so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi#The_One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_Challenge
I voted for birds as the living descendants of dinosaurs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi#The_One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_Challenge
I voted for birds as the living descendants of dinosaurs.
If Randi's prize had been claimed the "paranormal phenomena" aspect cited by the OP wouldn't exist--it would then be a NATURAL phenomena or occurrence and it would be unnecessary to SPECULATE on its PLAUSIBILITY because it would have already been DEMONSTRATED as confirmed.
Man, talk about someone NOT with the program here . . .
It's a rhetorical question.
That's based on the assumption that there's life out there, but that isn't provable by what we know today. Among other things. By what we know today, Bigfoot, monsters, and dinosaurs are far more plausible. This is simply due to the fact that we can prove that life exists today on Earth.
Any extension of that life, however unlikely, is still more plausible than a chain of unproven assumptions: that life exists elsewhere in the universe, that it's intelligent, that it wants to visit us, and that FTL travel is possible so that it can do so.
Which is more plausible -- something that requires a single leap of logic, or four leaps?
That there's other life out there is an unproven fact. The universe is simply too big and too complex for there to not be.
If it's unproven, it's not a fact.
Okay, suppose I give you that one. Now you just have to get around intelligence, FTL, and a reason to come here. Three logic leaps as compared to my one -- is yours more plausible yet?
