A thought about proof..., page 1

I can't help noticing that many people here seem hung up on proof. Not that I wouldn't enjoy seeing a crystal clear photo, or watching some amazing video, but what would it prove? I had a career as a graphic designer, known as being able to do just about anything you like with Photoshop. I could show anyone I know an old school photographic print, replete with accurate graining, defocusing and lens artefacts, and they would dismiss it because they know that I know how to fake photos (a 16 megapixel 'copyneg' is high enough resolution when outputting to a 35mm film-writer to recreate all the individual grains of silver halide, allowing me to add whatever I want before producing a standard photographic print). If they were shown this same picture by their grandma they would probably be utterly convinced and make a fortune from picture rights after fleecing her out of its possession. The point is that they would accept it as 'proof'. They are not judging the evidence supplied, but the person supplying the evidence. The criterior on which the evidence is judged changes.

Some people want proof that would 'stand up in a court of law'. All this means is that the 'proof' has simply to be convincing enough to convince 12 randomly selected people. Perfect proof does not exist. Even scientific standards of proof leave plenty of room for misconstruance, as (I was going to say evidenced....ahem!) suggested by some of the ludicrous things the scientific community has convinced itself of over the years. 'Scientifically proven' facts are actually few and far between. They (scientists) are generally cagey about using the term, but even so, all it means is that, given a limited set of conditions (enough to approximate reality but few enough to comfortably ignore chaotic factors) an experiment will be repeatable, if those conditions are recreated. Ask yourself what proof you really have that electrons exist. Or even the atoms that contain them, or the molecules atoms supposedly form. You've never seen one, thats for sure. Not a photo or a video. You believe what some scientist or other has said on the subject. Even some scientists will never talk about proof. Particle physicists aren't even sure they exist, merely that its probable that they do.

Here's an interesting example of the potential difficulties with our particular area of interest. In 2000, a scientist obtained the permissions necessary to conduct the first trials of '___' (di-methyltryptamine) since the late 60's. He administered 60microgram doses to hundreds of subjects and recorded their experiences. For those who don't know, '___' is made in the Human brain, as a neurotransmitter that seems to be used during dream states. When taken externally, in the microgram range, it hits after 5-10 minutes, after which time you leave normal reality and go.... somewhere else. An hour later, you are back to baseline, as if you hadn't taken a thing. Its non-toxic, and impossible to OD on. If you take too much you have the trip but don't remember it. Now, in this study, something like 62% of the subjects reported classic alien abduction experiences. Some saw greys. Some were subjected to painful examinations or medical procedures. Some got the full on cosmic guidance bit. Now what we need to ask is: what does this study 'prove'? The answer? Well, the scientist, Dr. Rick Strassman (his book "'___' - The Spirit Molecule" is fascinating) chose to postulate that this was the answer to the whole abduction phenomena: People were having infarctions, or coming across magnetic field anomalies that overcame the blood-brain barrier with adrenalin causing a huge flood of '___', triggering a '___' 'episode' which the subject takes to have independent reality, because he obviously hasn't taken any form of drug. Nice hypothesis, but you could just as easily say that the experiences were real, but they required '___' to break the mind free from its normal operating mode in order to be aware of the experience.