Doug's anomalous experiences

Most of us who have been conversing with Doug for years know him to be considered and honest - I very much doubt whether there could be any way that assessment could be challenged, even by the resident skeptics. It seems to me that the default position of ideological skeptics is to go to delusion or faulty memory. If that can be countered, then the next step is to suggest outright lying. I have to wonder why that should be. If this were an equally unlikely event but involving something more mundane, nobody would question Doug's state of mind, his ability to remember or his honesty. 

I've been thinking recently about the William James argument about the single white crow:


I've always thought of that quote as one of the best arguments for the proponent position - after all, we know there are any number of "white crows" to be found out there. Lately, however, it has occurred to me that the white crow argument plays directly into the hands of the deniers. This is because of the use of the word "prove" in the James quote. It is notoriously difficult to prove anything outside of mathematics. 

Any evidence of a paranormal nature requires personal testimony which can always be challenged. Even if the person making the claim is demonstrably genuine with a history of honesty and accuracy, some part of the evidence will be open to criticism. We saw this in the Pam Reynolds case debated at length on the Skeptiko forum. Some truly breathtaking suggestions about how Pam could have heard what she heard or had seen what she saw were put forward in all seriousness as providing enough doubt to dismiss the parapsychological aspects of the story and return it safely to the realms of materialist realism. Likewise, it would not surprise me to see a skeptical response to Doug's shoelace story involving contrived trickery perhaps employing fishing line, pulleys and hooks. There you go, another one explained - chalk another win for skepticism.

The point I am trying to make is that skeptics have realised that James was right but his use of the word "prove" gives them the only weapon they need to dismiss every reported case: doubt. However unlikely or untenable, if you can introduce doubt you have demolished the claim. So the real strength in the evidence for the paranormal is not in the convincing nature of the individual cases but in the fact that there are so many convincing cases. It is not the existence of a single, pure white crow but the existence of a multitude of white crows with a few dark spots.

It boils down to how one assesses the evidence imho. That includes personal testimony. One doesn’t have to form a decision about the truth or otherwise of scenario absolutely (and as you rightly say that’s usually almost impossible). In my experience that can be quite a subjective process and everyone looks at it differently depending on their own experience and preconceptions and also about how well they know the person reporting the experience and the circumstances. 

To attempt to demolish evidence as opposed to presenting potential explanations isn’t scepticism really,  cause that means one has already formed an opinion and is looking for evidence that supports it.

For the record, I think Doug is telling the truth as he recalls it. Could it have been a paranormal event? Certainly it could. Was it? I don’t know but Doug’s opinion is based on direct personal experience so for myself, I don’t know what it was and wouldn’t like to speculate.

To attempt to demolish evidence as opposed to presenting potential explanations isn’t scepticism really,  cause that means one has already formed an opinion and is looking for evidence that supports it.

Agreed. Not skepticism if some of those potential explanations are excluded a priori.

I very much doubt whether there could be any way that assessment could be challenged, even by the resident skeptics. It seems to me that the default position of ideological skeptics is to go to delusion or faulty memory. If that can be countered, then the next step is to suggest outright lying. I have to wonder why that should be. If this were an equally unlikely event but involving something more mundane, nobody would question Doug's state of mind, his ability to remember or his honesty. 

This appears to be an argument from incredulity, which then becomes an ad hom and finally rests on some sort of straw bed. Why do you doubt that it could be challenged? How would you counter "delusion or faulty memory" as a possible explanation? Furthermore, why would you expect that mundane claims would receive the same response as incredible ones? Why would anyone care about mundane claims enough to question them? And what do you mean, "an equally unlikely event but involving something more mundane"? Like being dealt a particular hand of poker? What would be an equally unlikely but mundane event on par with shoelaces dancing?
I am not in any way saying that I don't believe Doug, and I appreciate his original post greatly, but this post comes off as ideological to me, and since I always wince when I read proponents doing exactly what they condemn skeptics for doing, I thought I'd point it out. Thanks again to Doug for sharing this memory and experience. Very interesting!

[Ninshub]

It's almost an embarrassment to share it because I believe so many proponents have been conditioned to think that when it comes to objects moving, macro-PK involves simple, mostly straight-line motion. The startling variety of complex but totally fluid movements my brother and I witnessed in this incident is so far removed from what is usually reported in the literature that I fear some proponents will have a hard time accepting the account.

I don't know the literature enough, and nothing comes to mind, but I do find myself wondering if there may have been reports of poltergeist activity that included objects moving as wildly/complexly as these.

I did post a full response to Berkelon but decided to delete it because Doug should expect discussion of his experiences rather than of my reaction to skepticism of his (and other such) experiences. I'll also delete my earlier post which prompted Berkelon's post.

I did post a full response to Berkelon but decided to delete it because Doug should expect discussion of his experiences rather than of my reaction to skepticism of his (and other such) experiences. I'll also delete my earlier post which prompted Berkelon's post.

Thanks for being so considerate, Dave. However, I would prefer to allow minor digressions during the time between postings of my accounts. If those digressions start overwhelming the thread, I can always move them to a new thread outside of the Personal Experiences folder. In this way, a level of discussion can be maintained that serves nearly everyone.

If you find this reasoning agreeable, let me know that it's okay for me to restore your deleted posts.

I've long suspected that there are other accounts out there that are as bizarre as this one, but their experients either modified the reports to make them appear less bizarre, or simply withheld them from the public eye over fears of embarrassment and ridicule. Something along the lines of a file-drawer solution.

It turns out that my suspicion about the suppression of over-the-top bizarre accounts may be accurate. In this recent (02/24/2019) Paracast interview of philosopher and scholar Michael Grosso, Grosso states unambiguously (at 3:05) that:

I have had weird PK experiences, some of which I don't even like to talk about online, or publicly, because they do sound a bit weird.

He then proceeds to describe one of his weird experiences.

Very interesting Doug. You know what you saw so I certainly wouldn’t accuse you of lying. 

Could you be mistaken? It’s possible of course and it’s possible that you either misremember it or missed some mundane cause at the time but as with a lot of reported phenomena I think it’s best for the reader to keep an open mind. Very curious experience indeed. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for posting your concern, Obiwan. I suppose the probability of my having missed a subtle, mundane cause at the time of the incident will necessarily always remain non-zero, but I believe I was a conscientious enough observer to effectively rule out a physical cause for the phenomenon.

As to whether I later misremembered one or more details of the experience...all I can say is that I did query my brother about his observations at the time of the incident (as well as a few years ago), and found that they substantially agreed with mine. In addition, I can't for the life of me envision a scenario in which both my brother and I saw something other than what we assert and mistook it for dancing shoelaces.

[Ninshub]

The only mundane explanation I could plausibly come up is that you father or whoever slipped you acid or something, but then that wouldn't explain the two of you having the same hallucination!