Fictional questions for the skeptical • Non-Gaming • General Non-gaming • Eurogamer.net

MetalDog 11 Apr 2011 21:20:05 24,076 posts
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This is fiction research, nothing more. I'm not out to persuade anyone of anything, or start an argument. I'm just tossing story ideas around in my head and mining the brains of some skeptics will be fruitful to the endeavor. This pertains purely to 'spooky' activity.

Since it's a sliding scale, let's say that 1 is the mildest of skeptics and 10 the strongest.
Likewise, let's say a 1 on the activity scale is seeing things out of the corner of the eye, temperature drops, etc and 10 is bleeding walls and your name being spelled out in the body parts of your strangely dead comrades.

What I'm interested in, is how skeptics believe they would react when faced with paranormal activity at various points on the scale.

How much would it take to make you think you might be witnessing something paranormal? What would have to happen?

Would you be quicker to believe yourself in a state of mental incapacity, sooner than credit any activity as paranormal, or would you remain firmly in the 'I don't know what it is, but there's a scientific explanation' camp while actively dealing with the phenomena?

If you could be moved to accept something as paranormal, how would that change you?

As events move from mild to extreme, what would be your prime emotional responses to a) the activity and b) other people's differing opinions as to what was behind it? I imagine that some skeptics would get increasingly angry as the activity heightened and increasingly enraged by other people deciding it was paranormal in nature - but I don't think this would be anything like a universal response and I'm interested in alternatives. That response in particular seems born out of fear and I don't want all my stubbornest fictional skeptics to remain skeptics only because they are afraid of the alternative - that would be bullshit.

Thanks in advance for any useful responses.

phAge 11 Apr 2011 21:24:15 25,487 posts
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If the skeptic is only a skeptic (and not just an insecure douchebag), he or she would probably change his/her opinion of the likely explanation as Ockham's Razor gor sharper (i.e. as the un-paranormal explanation got increasingly unlikely). If that makes any sense.

Personally I'd be scared shitless if I started to suspect that ghosts/an afterlife/whathaveyou did in fact exist.

ronuds 11 Apr 2011 21:27:57 21,781 posts
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I'm very skeptical and I've had a few iffy experiences myself.

It would probably take a ghost right in my face in order for me to change my mind.

Those who do believe don't upset me. And those who took my past experience as "definitely paranormal" didn't upset me either. I looked for a scientific explanation myself and found it.

King_Edward 11 Apr 2011 21:38:01 11,470 posts
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It would take something pretty extraordinary to make me believe in ghosts. Some of my friends claim to have seen things and a couple even believe they live in haunted houses. But I just put it down to attention seeking.

Psychotext 11 Apr 2011 21:41:03 70,652 posts
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I don't think you could convince me. At anything beyond say... a three, I'd assume I'd gone batshit mental and check myself into the nearest looney bin.

At no point would I be likely to believe what had actually happened.

DFawkes 11 Apr 2011 21:41:27 32,791 posts
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I'm not really skeptical, more just logical. If I saw a ghost I'd happily believe it so far as believing in the supernatural goes, but at the same time if a ghost were to appear, why to me? I'd more likely just assume I had a mild hallucination.

mal 11 Apr 2011 21:44:51 29,326 posts
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It's a difficult question to answer when framed as it is - how much evidence of the afterlife would you need. To the skeptic, these unexplained events are not evidence of anything until they become convinced. Until then they are merely what they are - unexplained draughts or unlikely coincidences concerning the body parts of his/her recently fallen comrades.

Khanivor 11 Apr 2011 21:44:57 44,800 posts
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I think my immediate reaction and my opinion of what happened would be quite far apart. If it were a 10 on the shitter scale I'd probably shit myself but even if it was most intense experience I don't think I'd be more inclined to attribute a paranormal explanation.

If it could be shown that a paranormal explanation was a stronger fit than anything else then I'd be quite chuffed. And looking forward to someone figuring out the explanation that would then become the new normal

sunjumper 11 Apr 2011 21:47:22 3,548 posts
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I'll give it a try.

I would rate my self an 8 very sceptic but not so much as to be a total hardliner as I believe them to be not much better than the believers. Being to dogmatic is hardly ever helpful.

In general I would probably ignore mild phenomena from the 1 - 3 scale because these can be easily explained away.
Seeing scuttly things from the corners of my eyes? Propbably to little sleep and/or to much coffee.
Good or bad omens happening and something fitting following them? Pure chance which only appears significant because of the timing.

Midling phenomena 4 - 7 would arouse my curiosity. Something wierd is obviously happening and I'd like to know what is happening. Supernatural or not something is is clearly going on and I'd like to know more. There is going to be a rational explanation to it all.

Really strange shit 8 -10. Depends. How scary is it? There is a great chance that when confronted with demons breaking into reality from strange dimensions to feast upon the now not so immortal souls of my friends I'd be to busy screaming and hiding under a stone to be to worried about wether everyone is being murdered by real demons or pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.

If I was calm and I do tend to stay icyily calm in the face of disaster (remind me one day to tell you the story about my burning lab coat) or there was no immediate danger I would be very interested in the source of the phenomenon. If strange things were happening for quite a while and the wierdness was mounting I would be more open to allow for a 'supernatural' explenation, if it was just one very strange event I'd be trying to figure out who would go through such great lengths to achieve such an effect and how they pulled it off.

In case of the nines and tens I think it would be rather easy to to test if anything 'mystical' was happening. (Is that really blood? Is that human blood? Can I go and have a look at the DNA finger print to see whose blood it might be etc...)

With sufficient evidence I'd also believe a 'supernatural' option but having the opinion that anything that can be actually proven is hardly supernatural. Black swans didn't exist until we discovered them etc...
These events would make me enormously curious and I would try to approach them in a scientific way.

tldr what DFawkes and Khanivor said.

Khanivor 11 Apr 2011 21:52:58 44,800 posts
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Also, having done lots of hallucinogens in my life something would have to physically affect me for me to believe it was anything other than the product of my mind. If I saw a raging demon I would be scared yes - I'm only an animal, after all - but I wouldn't think it was real simply because it was a fucking demon. Now, if that demon cut my leg off and breathed fire which scorched the room I was in I would immediately become a believer.

Alter my physical world and we can talk, basically

MetalDog 11 Apr 2011 21:56:49 24,076 posts
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@mal
Yeah, it's tricky. I figure if I throw a detailed scenario out there it will just become an exercise in explanation and counter explanation when what I'm really interested in is the internal workings of these things. Where people lean, how soon and why.

Let's say, for instance, you're working somewhere out of the way - oil rig, the artic, Staines - and you see someone that cannot possibly be there. There are scales with this too, of course - it might just be really unlikely that they're there, or it might be actually impossible, like if they're supposed to be long-time dead. Also, how much contact you have with them would slide things about on the scale. Seeing from a distance and losing track of them would be quite massively different than if they were right in your face, touching you and then vanished while you were looking at them.

@phAge - what would be the main source of the fear in a situation for you if you started to think the whole ghosts and afterlife thing was real? The lack of working knowledge to tackle the danger (or even effectively gauge it?) or something else?

@sunjumper
That's very useful, thank you!

@khanivor
Aren't there drugs that can produce physical sensations or is it limited enough that you could tell the difference between 'I think my leg's been chewed off' and 'ah, my leg really has been chewed off?'

phAge 11 Apr 2011 22:01:31 25,487 posts
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MetalDog wrote:
@phAge - what would be the main source of the fear in a situation for you if you started to think the whole ghosts and afterlife thing was real? The lack of working knowledge to tackle the danger (or even effectively gauge it?) or something else?

Don't know, tbh. My best bet would be that I seem to like to be in control of events (which is why I hate going to the dentists, as I can't very well just up and leave), and realising that the paranormal does in fact exist would mean that there were "bigger things" than me out there, that I couldn't possibly start to control.

That, and too many shitty horror flicks.

Youthist 11 Apr 2011 22:04:40 14,724 posts
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Sceptical isn't it?

MetalDog 11 Apr 2011 22:07:03 24,076 posts
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I just went with the spellchecker's verdict - but I suspect the spellchecker is American. Es tut mir leid.

ronuds 11 Apr 2011 22:08:13 21,781 posts
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My spell check gives thumb's up to both. :/

Khanivor 11 Apr 2011 22:08:27 44,800 posts
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MetalDog wrote:

@khanivor
Aren't there drugs that can produce physical sensations or is it limited enough that you could tell the difference between 'I think my leg's been chewed off' and 'ah, my leg really has been chewed off?'

If I find myself sitting in a prosthetics dept two months after my demon attack I'm gonna figure it's real. Plenty of drugs can make on 'feel' physical effects, so I'd need something which actually made them happen. Make me feel like I'm flying, and well shit, I can do that with a pack of fags, a quickly drunk twelve pack and running up a flight of stairs. Transport me across a river without a bridge and I'll be reappraising my beliefs.

That paranormal activity never involves such physical effects hardens my skepticism, (minor wounds don't count).

Deleted user 11 April 2011 22:14:39

MetalDog wrote:
Let's say, for instance, you're working somewhere out of the way - oil rig, the artic, Staines - and you see someone that cannot possibly be there.

I once saw a chav shopping in Waitrose.

skuzzbag 11 Apr 2011 22:15:16 5,950 posts
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Ketamine can do all these things for you in large doses.

Khanivor 11 Apr 2011 22:20:48 44,800 posts
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StarMagic wrote:
That's not really a good comparison. When you do drugs you know messed up shit is going to happen, and you feel weird and it's temporary. I think MD is talking about in the normal day to day activity, if you have a paranormal experience doen't mean you've been drugged.

You're not getting what I'm trying to say: because I have plenty of first-hand experience of my brain making all kinds of incredible things 'happen' I'm going to be even more resistant to notions that fantastical things must have a fantastical explanation. I believe that the same basic mechanisms in the brain that are activated by certain chemicals are the same ones that are involved in paranormal experiences.

Many drug-related experiences occur because our brain already has the receptors to accept certain molecular substances. In other words, our brains have the equipment installed, just waiting for a signal.

MetalDog 11 Apr 2011 22:37:13 24,076 posts
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Have you seen the mechanical elves?

Khanivor 11 Apr 2011 22:39:21 44,800 posts
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/googles

/none the wiser

No?

MetalDog 11 Apr 2011 22:56:33 24,076 posts
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These things.
Never taken anything stronger than chewing on Salvia and that just made me feel like I was made out of lead and think about what a distracting effort breathing was.

Psychotext 11 Apr 2011 22:57:03 70,652 posts
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meme wrote:
I once saw a chav shopping in Waitrose.

That was probably me.

Seriously, any time I go to an "upmarket" supermarket it always manages to be after I've been working at the allotment / doing some decorating so I'll be in tracksuit bottoms and a baseball cap.

mal 11 Apr 2011 23:08:00 29,326 posts
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MetalDog wrote:
@mal
Yeah, it's tricky. I figure if I throw a detailed scenario out there it will just become an exercise in explanation and counter explanation when what I'm really interested in is the internal workings of these things. Where people lean, how soon and why.

Hmm, I get your point, although ultimately I think it's either going to resolve to you asking when people would flip, or people telling you when they would, with detailed examples.

However, I tend to think I'd be unlikely to change from being skeptical in the moment, but instead reconsider my positition in a later moment of reflection - although I'm probably just romanticising my skepticism. And that doesn't alter what would happen if I was in a situation where I needed to decide one way or the other and didn't have the luxury of taking a moment of cold reflection on the situation. When I am spooked out by something, I do tend to seek out those moments of calm rationality to reassure myself though.

Khanivor 11 Apr 2011 23:10:00 44,800 posts
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MetalDog wrote:
These things.
Never taken anything stronger than chewing on Salvia and that just made me feel like I was made out of lead and think about what a distracting effort breathing was.

I only took DMT once. During that trip I experienced time folding in on itself. I thought I was hearing the answers before the question had been spoken. The hills also turned into quilts of colorful meshed gears and after the trip a week's worth of camping at the Megadog festival had been washed away and I felt reborn. Incredible.

Never seen any mechanical elves at any point in my life. Also resisted listening to any more of the shite that comes of of McKenna's mouth than could be helped during the 90s.

My initial drinking experiences did in the idea of duality for me. Drugs really put the final nail in the coffin of the paranormal, along with any other belief that owes a large part of its mandate to seeing/hearing things.

So to further answer the original question, there's a good chance I'd believe I was having a hardcore flashback, (something I've never had in the popular sense, but have had in terms of physical effects re-manifesting themselves, albeit at a reduced intensity. This has bled over into the mind, but not in seeing things but rather feeling 'a bit weird'.)

Personally, I'm skeptical of 'those kinds of things' for a variety of reasons more solid then the fact I was munted way too often but those drug experiences cannot be easily dismissed.

VCLXI 11 Apr 2011 23:14:33 283 posts
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It would take a lot to convince me of any paranormal activity. I'm of the notion that when you are dead, thats it. You're dead. I don't remember anything before I was born and I think our lights well and truly do go out when we're dead.

If I thought I saw a ghostie apparition then, because I don't personally believe in these things, I'd be scared shitless for a bit and then try to rationlise the situation and put the activity down to trick of the light or my mind was playing a trick or just convince myself that what I saw was just a sort of day-dream.

I think most people would do the same wouldn't they?

Salaman 11 Apr 2011 23:38:45 24,162 posts
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Well I was just reading the op and my PC rebooted itself.

sceptic: 6-7
this reboot creepy factor: 2

I'm sceptical it was anything other than a random reboot.