Do you believe in Black Magic?

[drunkenmaster]

lol, firstly things couldn't sound any more like Dolph's housemates know just how superstitious he is and wind him up constantly by hiding and then leaving said things in weird places. sneaking in, unplugging stuff then hiding. Jesus, get some common sense.

AS for the science part of things, what it would seem to me is you are trying to say your view on science is what everyone should believe.

WHen you get down to the very deep theory of science there is nothing there except small parts we can't predict the models for yet as we don't have the technology. IE we can guess where an electron around an atom is likely to be at any given moment, but we can't see it(yet) and as we can't every pinpoint its exact location we can't make 100% accurate predictions as to what will happen next. the whole theory of seeing into the future is the idea that if you knew the state of every thing in the universe at any given time you could predict what would happen next. The point being, at the moment we simply can't do that. we can know where a single atom is, but we can't yet know where the electrons are at any given point. this seemed to be what you were getting at, but trying in instill the idea that this unknown quantity means we don't know why something does what it does and this gives it an aura of non sciency faith needing mumbo jumbo.

Then you go on to tell us because we weren't told this thing at a young age its a shame as only you know it.

Sciences exact reason is to explain why things happen, it uses guesses and predictions only to prove that we knew what would happen and why in the first place, thereby proving a theory. You're acting like predictions is all science is, predictions are only a part of science, used to then confirm idea's/theory's leading to knowledge of what and why something will do.

Funnily enough with all the people around who swear blind they have experienced something "paranormal", ghosts, weird phenomina, well, firstly not a single person i've ever met personally has claimed this. only people on tv shows, and people on the internet. yet i've never experienced anything at all, in 25 years and no one i've ever met in that time has remotely come close to experiencing anything like this. I can repeat/copy a scientific experient to test out a theory for myself and prove theorys rather than take them as gospel, yet i can't prove the existance of something paranormal. ALl the people that say, castle x is haunted, yet you go to castle X and nothing and so on and so on.

THeres the gullable, and the non gullable, the gullable WANT to believe before anything happens, look for anything remotely difficult to explain and come up with something amazing to explain it. THeres people who see this gullability and think its bloody funny to laugh at it, those are the people that push the glass on a "WEEGEE" board and insist they aren't.

 

[yantorsen]

because "evil" doesn't exist.

I don't think everyone will agree with that.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Science is not the sole provider of truth, it's not even a provider of truth, it's a provider of prediction. To take it to be more than that requires faith.

this is exactly it, you've decided science doesn't provide answers but that you need faith for the answers. Predictions aren't the end result of science. for a theory to be Proven to be TRUE, you come up witha theory on whatever, based on your theory you come up with a test that using your theory should be able to predict the outcome and this prediction needs to be accurate and repeatable. you perform the test, you get results if they match up to the predictions then you have a proven theory.

you're ignoring all of that and claiming science is just predictions and everything else needs faith, thats complete tosh.

 

[Gilly]

I don't think everyone will agree with that.

Agree with it or no, it is the truth. Evil is a human concept and nothing more.

 

[yantorsen]

Agree with it or no, it is the truth. Evil is a human concept and nothing more.

What makes you so sure of this?

 

[Dolph]

lol, firstly things couldn't sound any more like Dolph's housemates know just how superstitious he is and wind him up constantly by hiding and then leaving said things in weird places. sneaking in, unplugging stuff then hiding. Jesus, get some common sense.

What housemates? There was only me and my partner living there.

AS for the science part of things, what it would seem to me is you are trying to say your view on science is what everyone should believe.

WHen you get down to the very deep theory of science there is nothing there except small parts we can't predict the models for yet as we don't have the technology. IE we can guess where an electron around an atom is likely to be at any given moment, but we can't see it(yet) and as we can't every pinpoint its exact location we can't make 100% accurate predictions as to what will happen next. the whole theory of seeing into the future is the idea that if you knew the state of every thing in the universe at any given time you could predict what would happen next. The point being, at the moment we simply can't do that. we can know where a single atom is, but we can't yet know where the electrons are at any given point. this seemed to be what you were getting at, but trying in instill the idea that this unknown quantity means we don't know why something does what it does and this gives it an aura of non sciency faith needing mumbo jumbo.

That's not it at all. You can have science that appears almost perfectly predicitively accurate, yet we know the mechanism has to be wrong. Furthermore a mechanism only has to be predictively accurate to be scientifically valid, and unless you have faith in reductionism, you cannot guarantee that the simplest explaination is the correct one.

Then you go on to tell us because we weren't told this thing at a young age its a shame as only you know it.

I'm not the only one who knows it, however most of those who put they faith in science do not know it.

Sciences exact reason is to explain why things happen, it uses guesses and predictions only to prove that we knew what would happen and why in the first place, thereby proving a theory. You're acting like predictions is all science is, predictions are only a part of science, used to then confirm idea's/theory's leading to knowledge of what and why something will do.

Predictions are all that science is, the mechanisms and equations are just part of that process, not the other way around. Everything in science is based purely around predictive accuracy, irrespective of whether it is factually accurate, because predictive accuracy is science's concern, it's what the whole method was built for.

If you want to take predictive accuracy to indicate knowledge of the universe, that's fine, but understanding what the results will be is not the same as understanding how something works, especially when your method is tailored exclusively towards accurate prediction.

Funnily enough with all the people around who swear blind they have experienced something "paranormal", ghosts, weird phenomina, well, firstly not a single person i've ever met personally has claimed this. only people on tv shows, and people on the internet. yet i've never experienced anything at all, in 25 years and no one i've ever met in that time has remotely come close to experiencing anything like this. I can repeat/copy a scientific experient to test out a theory for myself and prove theorys rather than take them as gospel, yet i can't prove the existance of something paranormal. ALl the people that say, castle x is haunted, yet you go to castle X and nothing and so on and so on.

THeres the gullable, and the non gullable, the gullable WANT to believe before anything happens, look for anything remotely difficult to explain and come up with something amazing to explain it. THeres people who see this gullability and think its bloody funny to laugh at it, those are the people that push the glass on a "WEEGEE" board and insist they aren't.

And there are people who can't take uncertainty and throw their faith into the scientific method because the bible is now out of fashion for the 'rational' and 'logical' people.

 

[badbob]

What makes you so sure of this?

What makes you so sure there's a entity behind "evil"

 

[titaniumx3]

Theres probably very little readily observable evidence and scientific theory in support of such things, but that's nothing new is it? Given the current state of our scientific theory and the bizarre nature of the universe that is slowly becoming more and more apparent to us, who is to say that something as ridiculous as black magic may actually have some subtance in a yet to be understood aspect of our universe?

Maybe mere "thought" has more to it than simple chemical reactions and electrical signals in our brain; maybe it is inextricably linked to the underlying universe around us? If something as bizarre as quantum entaglement is a very real phenomenon in our current understanding, I don't find too big a stetch of the imagination to believe in something as "silly" as the phenomena described in black magic.

 

[Dolph]

this is exactly it, you've decided science doesn't provide answers but that you need faith for the answers. Predictions aren't the end result of science. for a theory to be Proven to be TRUE, you come up witha theory on whatever, based on your theory you come up with a test that using your theory should be able to predict the outcome and this prediction needs to be accurate and repeatable. you perform the test, you get results if they match up to the predictions then you have a proven theory.

But a predictively accurate theory does not have to be factually truthful. You're doing exactly what you've accused me of, decided what science is to you and then backing it up. Your above argument agrees with everything that I've said with the exception of the conclusion that you have reached, which is that predictive accuracy means a model is true, and it doesn't. You can come up with a theory that perfectly matches the data and have the actual believed mechanism be entirely incorrect, you just may not find out about it for a long time. Look at Relativity and quantum mechanics. Both are predictively accurate virtually all the time, and yet the two theories are fundamentally incompatible with each other.

you're ignoring all of that and claiming science is just predictions and everything else needs faith, thats complete tosh.

I haven't said it's all just predictions, just that hypothesis and mechanism design is ruled by the tennants designed to ensure simplest predictive accuracy. As you have said yourself, a scientific theory is 'true' (which is a totally inappropriate word in a scientific context anyway, you're looking for proven or accurate) when it's predictions match observed data. How is that not focussing primarily on prediction, rather than explaination? The explaination is a means to the prediction, not the other way around.

 

[drunkenmaster]

What housemates? There was only me and my partner living there.

That's not it at all. You can have science that appears almost perfectly predicitively accurate, yet we know the mechanism has to be wrong. Furthermore a mechanism only has to be predictively accurate to be scientifically valid, and unless you have faith in reductionism, you cannot guarantee that the simplest explaination is the correct one.

I'm not the only one who knows it, however most of those who put they faith in science do not know it.

Predictions are all that science is, the mechanisms and equations are just part of that process, not the other way around. Everything in science is based purely around predictive accuracy, irrespective of whether it is factually accurate, because predictive accuracy is science's concern, it's what the whole method was built for.

If you want to take predictive accuracy to indicate knowledge of the universe, that's fine, but understanding what the results will be is not the same as understanding how something works, especially when your method is tailored exclusively towards accurate prediction.

And there are people who can't take uncertainty and throw their faith into the scientific method because the bible is now out of fashion for the 'rational' and 'logical' people.

You said WE, not partner, even a partner counts as a housemate, first sign of a good argument is fighting on a point that wasn't clear and wasn't relevant to ANYTHING, in the first place.

Secondly, just wrong, so very very very wrong. There are completely different things you are talking about here. there is a basic prediction method, throw a ball at a wall 10 times predict the angle or return, woo a prediction thats NOT at all what science is.

Theorys aren't simply based on what happens, ie scientist gets 3 chemicals, predicts what will happen when throwing them together, boom result all done. thats not science. What you would do is know the molecular formula of the chemicals, work out which might interact with each other and give reasons why. For instance, which links have double bond links, are they stronger than other links, will it be oxidised or dehydrated and so on. its not a random prediction its a prediction based on many facts, many many facts. then again the outcome can be 100% accurate predicted.

I really have no idea what you are on about, you're talking as if there is simply no method, no accurate data, you are going on and on about science just being predictions and thats it. Just nothing remotely makes sense.

AS for your last point, no there is no uncertainty. I haven't randomly ever found things unplugged that i didn't unplug, or can't be explained "oh did you unplug the kettle, cos if you didn't maybe it was a ghost, oh, yeah it was you, ok then". Nothing i've ever seen is remotely even close to unexplainable. What i'm saying is that in 25 years i, nor anyone i know has ever come across anything remotely paranormal, except in books, and tv. Maybe that is a pretty good indicator of where those ideas come from.

AS for the bible now being out of fashion, its not, the more gullable people fell for it then, and they fall for it now. There was less scientific knowledge around then as there is now, and less proof against almost everything writen in the bible so even lots of the gullable people can't bring themselves to believe it.

i think i saw a think recently that says 5-10 years ago 70% of the uk said they were christians/religious, and its down to 50% or so last year, and of them only 7% actually go to church. Religions a nice way to believe that everything will work out ok and life doesn't suck or is pointless. Hell i wish i did believe in god, as the fact that life sucks and is pointless wouldn't get to me so much.

EDIT:_ i didn't really get into your first real statement, you can have science thats almost right but proven wrong, yeah thats called the PROCESS of finding the right theory, just because one theory isn't correct(99.9999999999999999% of all theorys will be incorrect) doesn't mean , well, anything. this proves the point more. we create a theory based on ideas and use them to try and prove what the process mechanism is, if we know the process/mechanism is wrong or the prediction isn't accurate, the theory isn't proved. we use predictions as a method, to prove theorys on the process's in science, not the other way around. a completely accurate prediction repeatable in different experiments usually(some can only be proved in limited ways) can/will prove a theory. i really just can't

 

[Yas786]

Im guessing by your handle - "Virdi" - that youre indian. The raw/rotted meat in a plastic bag is a common thing that indians do to other indians.

Is your uncle successful/rich/happy?

If so, someones probably jealous of him and trying to spook him. Chuck the stuff away and dont think anything of it.

Exactly what i was going to say, im pakistani by origin and at first i never believed in all this black magic/voodoo crap but after having a few things happen...i have no doubt that such things exist.

 

[yantorsen]

What makes you so sure there's a entity behind "evil"

I never said there was?

 

[drunkenmaster]

As you have said yourself, a scientific theory is 'true' (which is a totally inappropriate word in a scientific context anyway, you're looking for proven or accurate) when it's predictions match observed data. How is that not focussing primarily on prediction, rather than explaination? The explaination is a means to the prediction, not the other way around.

Again here you miss the point, predictions aren't pulled out of thin air. theorys are made based on rules and process's and trying to understand the entire process of whats happening, ON THIS THEORY a prediction is made for an experiment design to prove it. nothing is focussd on the prediction, the explanation is not a means to a prediction it IS the other way around. a prediction is made based on an idea, to prove an idea. you aren't proving a prediction you are trying to prove the idea the prediction was made from. if you can't understand that theres simply no hope.

I also haven't decided what science is for everyone that is what science is. Scientific theorys are disproved all the time as we are able to see new things, sometimes people will get the mechanism wrong but the prediction right through pure luck, but no ones looking for the prediction, important theories are most often, especially if someone finds something that seems correct, massively looked into, tested in everyway people can think of, often for years, longer even and we try to disprove them by running multiple differeing experiments. we DON'T take a single prediction as confirmation, as scientists we make many different predictions from the same theory in different situations to try our best to disprove it. at a certain point if you can only prove it, it becomes an accepted theory. It may get disproved in the future once different methods are found to test the theory. but again the prediction is a means to prove a theory, no one tries to prove a prediction, its illogical.

AS for relativity and chaos theroy, they have MANY assumptions built into them that are said to be guesses, no one thinks they are "true" yet, no one thinks they are definately the main theory, they can't be, they aren't even designed to be used in all situations. They are the theorys that help explain a lot in certain situations but they aren't finished. maybe we just haven't got the right theory yet, or maybe we aren't at a stage of technology/existing knowledge to make an all encompassing theory yet. Neither are mutually exclusive, as neither are complete, or claimed to be complete theories.

we spend years making theories, sometimes decades, sometimes lifetimes, they are the explanations, theorys aren't predictions , they are based on scientific knowledge and normally use existing knowledge to explain a bigger "process", using this theory we design an experiment. before the experiment we make a prediction so the outcome can be compared and see if the theory makes sense or not. then you do the experiment, get results and compare. the end goal is to prove the THEORY not the prediction, and in proving the theory you have the explanation as the theory's point is to explain how and why something happens. saying science is all about the prediction and not the theorys explanation is just beyond, silly.

using the word "true" ISN'T inappropriate, the truth of any situation chages based on those viewing it and the knowledge they possess. something can be true one day and not true the next day, month, year, decade or a millenia later it was True that the world was flat once upon a time, its now not true. Its not a black and white word, its not different to using the word proven or accurate as again, both those change in the exactly the same way, base on the same criteria.

 

[titaniumx3]

dp

 

[titaniumx3]

Again here you miss the point, predictions aren't pulled out of thin air. theorys are made based on rules and process's and trying to understand the entire process of whats happening, ON THIS THEORY a prediction is made for an experiment design to prove it. nothing is focussd on the prediction, the explanation is not a means to a prediction it IS the other way around. a prediction is made based on an idea, to prove an idea. you aren't proving a prediction you are trying to prove the idea the prediction was made from. if you can't understand that theres simply no hope.

Observe -> hypothesis -> prediction -> observe and compare -> improve hypothesis -> .... and so on untill a required degree of accuracy is achieved.

The rules and processes you speak of are all created from the "hypotheses" generated in the above procedure. A hypthesis is created to predict; the prediction can then be used to either improve the hypothesis (based on comparisions with observations), but can also be used for other purposes.

 

[Hellsmk2]

I lived for three years in a house with all the classical symptoms of a haunting. (Note at this point I'm not getting drawn into the causes, only the observations). We regularly had items go missing and turn up again, usually sat in the middle of the coffee table or waiting for us by the front door when we needed them. I have been alone in a locked house using the PC and the connection has died, go out to the landing (just outside my bedroom door) to find every cable unplugged from the router, and other similar experiences.

I lived for a house for two years with my missus. Quite frequently we would wake up and the most random pieces of equipment EVER would be sat on my bedroom floor. The most random of which were the toaster and a microwave.

My girlfriend was quite freaked out and was convinced it was a "ghost." I must admit, for a while I did wonder myself. Turns out it was me doing it - in the days after a particular long and harsh binge session I was sleep walking and doing all sorts of strange things.

 

[Naffa]

I believe in Leprechauns. I have proof of their existence.

All I can say is... I wanna know where the gold at.

 

[.Kencs]

Do you believe in Black Magic or spells?

Do you think there are people out there, that have the power to put a spell on you for example?

Simple answer...No!

When they *cast a spell on you* it is then believed to be true because you look out for the signs. For example. If someone puts a spell on you to be ill, your constantly thinking your ill, therefore making you feel ill.
Thats my theory anyway

 

[Dolph]

Observe -> hypothesis -> prediction -> observe and compare -> improve hypothesis -> .... and so on untill a required degree of accuracy is achieved.

The rules and processes you speak of are all created from the "hypotheses" generated in the above procedure. A hypthesis is created to predict; the prediction can then be used to either improve the hypothesis (based on comparisions with observations), but can also be used for other purposes.

Exactly my point. Furthermore, the rules are created either from previous applications of the process and the observed results, or assumptions made either by the method itself, or as part of the model.

Again here you miss the point, predictions aren't pulled out of thin air. theorys are made based on rules and process's and trying to understand the entire process of whats happening, ON THIS THEORY a prediction is made for an experiment design to prove it. nothing is focussd on the prediction, the explanation is not a means to a prediction it IS the other way around. a prediction is made based on an idea, to prove an idea. you aren't proving a prediction you are trying to prove the idea the prediction was made from. if you can't understand that theres simply no hope.

Are you denying that the sole way to judge whether a theory is accurate is predictive accuracy? We take observations that lead to the development of the hypothesis, then make predictions, then take more observations to see if our predictions are accurate compared to the observations.

The scientific method is designed around this fundamental idea that you seem unable or unwilling to grasp, and it uses approaches geared towards this idea (Application of Occam's razor, the need for a defined cause and effect relationship in order to facilitate investigation under the method, repeatability and so on).

May I ask if you have a scientific education?

I also haven't decided what science is for everyone that is what science is. Scientific theorys are disproved all the time as we are able to see new things, sometimes people will get the mechanism wrong but the prediction right through pure luck, but no ones looking for the prediction, important theories are most often, especially if someone finds something that seems correct, massively looked into, tested in everyway people can think of, often for years, longer even and we try to disprove them by running multiple differeing experiments. we DON'T take a single prediction as confirmation, as scientists we make many different predictions from the same theory in different situations to try our best to disprove it. at a certain point if you can only prove it, it becomes an accepted theory. It may get disproved in the future once different methods are found to test the theory. but again the prediction is a means to prove a theory, no one tries to prove a prediction, its illogical.

In science, would a more complex model with the same predictive power be promoted over a simpler one, assuming the mechanisms were indistinguishable from the data available?

And again, you are focusing too much on one side of the issue. A theory is just as much a description of the prediction as the prediction is the proof of the theory. The prediction being accurate does not demonstrate that the theory is correct, only that it is predictively accurate, which ever way you look at it.

AS for relativity and chaos theroy, they have MANY assumptions built into them that are said to be guesses, no one thinks they are "true" yet, no one thinks they are definately the main theory, they can't be, they aren't even designed to be used in all situations. They are the theorys that help explain a lot in certain situations but they aren't finished. maybe we just haven't got the right theory yet, or maybe we aren't at a stage of technology/existing knowledge to make an all encompassing theory yet. Neither are mutually exclusive, as neither are complete, or claimed to be complete theories.

That's a big part of my point. All scientific models have many assumptions built in to them, there are assumptions applied as a matter of course by the method itself, and those assumptions are designed to make a specific result (namely accurate prediction) easy to achieve. Faith in the method will make you blind to this though. It's worth noting that at no point have I said that science is bad, or not useful, it's absolutely the best thing we have for what it was designed to do. It's just not the be all and end all of understanding the universe, because it was never designed to be.

we spend years making theories, sometimes decades, sometimes lifetimes, they are the explanations, theorys aren't predictions , they are based on scientific knowledge and normally use existing knowledge to explain a bigger "process", using this theory we design an experiment. before the experiment we make a prediction so the outcome can be compared and see if the theory makes sense or not. then you do the experiment, get results and compare. the end goal is to prove the THEORY not the prediction, and in proving the theory you have the explanation as the theory's point is to explain how and why something happens. saying science is all about the prediction and not the theorys explanation is just beyond, silly.

A scientific theory is the simplest explaination for what we observe, and it provides this explaination by predicting what we will observe under the same conditions, and developing the simplest possible mechanism to describe the process. This is an important point, Science describes the simplest way something could have occured, not how something did occur.

using the word "true" ISN'T inappropriate, the truth of any situation chages based on those viewing it and the knowledge they possess. something can be true one day and not true the next day, month, year, decade or a millenia later it was True that the world was flat once upon a time, its now not true. Its not a black and white word, its not different to using the word proven or accurate as again, both those change in the exactly the same way, base on the same criteria.

Truth in science has a specific meaning that isn't the same as using true or true in a general context, seeing as we're not in an exclusively scientific discussion, use of the word true is going to lead to challenges. Scientific truth means that it's true within the confines of the scientific method, rather than it's a universal truth, so outside of that context, it has no more validity than any other belief (unless of course you have faith in the scientific method to the point where you equate scientific truth with 'the truth'). Furthermore, scientific truths tend to be very specific, and mathematical in nature rather than with regards to the mechanism. mavity is a scientific truth, we know exactly what observations we will make due to the effects of mavity, but we don't know how they work yet, and the part that is truth does not even remotely claim that we do, it simply describes the prediction.

 

[Mr.Clark]

Honestly, I can't see how any rational human being in a modern Western environment could possibly believe in black magic. So my answer is a resounding "No".

Yes, but I can't see how any rational human being can believe in the claims made by religion, but they do.

I don't believe in black magic, white magic, pink magic, god magic or any other sort of magic.

Maybe that's why I like Derren Brown - he does all this cool stuff, people go "oh, magic", and he replies "nah, it's a trick. Look..."