I just want the magic back, oh and Nesse is a salamander now

a reply to: Puppylove

Personally i don't imagine a Salamander(a cold blooded animal) would fare very well considering the Scottish climate.

a reply to: shivam13

Magic was never meant to be taken literally.

The term was being used as a synonym for mystery and wonder. I was being colorful and artistic.

a reply to: andy06shake

I was just posting the idea, wasn't mine. I think someone earlier posted something that showed that the climate was not as hostile to salamanders as it first seemed.

a reply to: Puppylove

Have you ever been in Loch Ness? Even paddling the water is down right freezing, personally i dont fancy any poor Salamander chances however big it may be. Scottish weather can be considered near subarctic for a significant proportion of the year.

a reply to: Puppylove

Yeah, feeling pretty stupid now.
Still, on that context, my reply fits somewhat. In most cases, a magic/mystery for one person is pure science for the other one.
Of course there are many unexplained thing and yes, I would like the answers for them.
Some people likes mysteries and some their answers, I fit in the later category. If there is no answer, then we should try to find one.

originally posted by: Puppylove
That we haven't seen, elsewhere in the universe? That's pretty closed minded. That you haven't seen and hasn't been proven to the satisfaction of disclosed science, is a much safer way of putting that.

All it takes is one single human to see a single alien craft somewhere, whether it's ever proven or not, for that statement to be wrong.

Even if that craft was nothing more than a lone drone of an alien nature.

In the same way believers jump to the fantastic, the skeptics, immediately presuppose, in statements such as yours, that it's anything but the fantastic if it's occurred at all. Both are approaching things with a bias.

It's called Occam's Razor. The theory with the least amount of assumptions is most likely the correct one. It is an assumption that alien technology has visited this planet since it hasn't been proven definitively yet. That is why skeptics default to the mundane. That's not to say that that is always the case, it is just the safest explanation to default to.

Is like anthropomorphizing animals. Both assuming something an animal does is the same as it is for humans, and assuming something an animal does is not the same as it for humans, are both biased assumptions to approaching the question.

It has been proven animals share many emotional traits with us, including with dogs especially, the ability to feel love. For a long time it's been said to never anthropomorphize an animals behavior. That's a dangerous road to take, because it presupposed that nothing an animal does and feels is the same as ourselves.

When it comes to the fantastic, the skeptics often begin from the equivalent of the never anthropomorphize, while the believers choose to always anthropomorphize. (this statement is hyperbole and not meant to be taken literally as in all skeptics or believers all the time)

The best way to be is open minded but not to the point everything falls out your skull. Too far either direction, and one has reached too much bias.

The best way is to be open minded but always skeptical. Don't ever get your hopes up, because if you do, it will be harder to let go if proven wrong. Never assume anything without evidence.

I was born in 1965 and grew up in southern NJ reading about Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Yeti and especially the Jersey Devil. Even now, at 50 years old, I miss that feeling of believing in something beyond reason and possibility. Something mystical and magical existing in a world that so often makes you face the same, sad realities every day. Now...it is almost all conspiracy, government and control. More of the real world monsters instead of the ones from my youth that never really hurt anyone.

No wonder some people still hope there is a God.

a reply to: shivam13

I'm not sure any of us are referring to magic in the literal sense.

At least I wasn't.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

The problem is, to really get an answer one needs to look at multiple possibilities. Yes Occam's Razor leads you to the most likely answer, but often enough, not always the right answer.

Therefor relying on Occam's Razor, stopping there, and closing oneself off, and not considering other possibilities is likewise closing oneself off too many truths. Because no matter how much skeptics may love Occam's Razor, it was never meant to be a law, it's a generality.

A true scholar, a true scientist, will test multiple hypothesis, not just the simplest one that seems most likely.

Point being, assuming the simplest answer is right, or assuming the most convoluted answer is right, are both assumptions. While one may be right more often than the other, much like the anthropomorphism thing, relying on it alone is bad for discovering the truth.

The truth comes from looking at a problem through multiple angles.

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: Krazysh0t

The problem is, to really get an answer one needs to look at multiple possibilities. Yes Occam's Razor leads you to the most likely answer, but often enough, not always the right answer.

Occam's Razor is JUST the safest answer given the evidence we have currently collected. That is all.

Therefor relying on Occam's Razor, stopping there, and closing oneself off, and not considering other possibilities is likewise closing oneself off too many truths. Because no matter how much skeptics may love Occam's Razor, it was never meant to be a law, it's a generality.

Skeptics don't do that.

A true scholar, a true scientist, will test multiple hypothesis, not just the simplest one that seems most likely.

Point being, assuming the simplest answer is right, or assuming the most convoluted answer is right, are both assumptions. While one may be right more often than the other, much like the anthropomorphism thing, relying on it alone is bad for discovering the truth.

The truth comes from looking at a problem through multiple angles.

Skeptics are MORE than willing to consider an out there hypothesis, but if you want them to take it seriously, you need to provide some convincing evidence for it outside of your imagination. I certainly am willing to entertain such things (provided the objective evidence can be produced). If tomorrow, someone bags and tags a Bigfoot, I will be one of the first to admit I was wrong in my disbelief. I'm just not going to waste thought power on considering it if there is no evidence to support the hypothesis.

After all, I could say that giant guinea pigs that are kept at bay by Peruvian flute music are secretly trying to take over the world. You can't say it isn't true because you can't disprove a negative and using your arguments, you have to consider the hypothesis as a possibility. (10 points if you know where I got that reference from )

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Well there were once something that fits the description of giant guinea pigs so you never know...

Oh and South Park of course.

a reply to: Puppylove

You get 10 points and a star. Don't spend it all in one place now.

never mind

a reply to: Puppylove

You accidentally engaged the zoom feature for touchpads. I do it all the time on my laptop's touchpad. It's rather annoying and because of it, I usually plug an actual mouse into the laptop and disable the touchpad. Keep hitting ctrl and the plus key (if you go too far, the minus key zooms back in). Or if you have an actual mouse plugged in, hold ctrl and scroll the mouse wheel. OR use the touchpad by holding ctrl and scrolling with the touchpad.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Yeah I figured out how to do it with a regular mouse I plugged in. Thanks though I now know even more about WTH just happened.

a reply to: Puppylove

One thing to think about. When people use '___' "the spirit molecule" there are reports of many people experiencing the same races and environments. Couple that with aliens/deamons whatever, I think there is something to think about there.

There is far more to this life journey than what we can see with our eyes and know with our brains