How do you feel about the PsiQuest Forum?

As for the skeptics, reading back I feel like there's more hostility towards them than what there should have been, and that's at fault of some of the members here. Skeptics are important, and in their absence we need to be more critical of what info we get. But at the same time, like Stan said up there, a lot of the time nothing new was being brought to the table. A lot of zombie tennis. The only time I ever saw any new skeptical points I never heard of was when there was a report about how an NDEr potentially saw a target in an old report, but the colour was so inconclusive that it couldnt be said whether it was accurate or not.

I tend to agree, I've certainly poured scorn rather than polite and reasoned argument on some sceptical views. But the older I get, the less inclined I am towards outright aggression. But I don't claim to be without faults!

Sometimes there is a very personal aspect to all of this. Though we can dissect and critique research studies or articles and ideas, I've always been very self-protective when it comes to personal experience. Sometimes what has happened to each of us is not really possible to explain fully, we can only draw a thin outline. But it may be something we have built our life upon.

In that respect I can understand Brian, it is not fun to have something which is part of one's own essence given a hard or dismissive reception. I do offer apologies to you Brian since I've not always been considerate.

Maybe that is the reason for this forum's existence. The wider world, though not necessarily intending harm, doesn't always give a warm welcome to some of the ideas we discuss here. It feels good to be able to talk openly about things.

As for religion, I've learned plenty of value and in the past pondered much more deeply on different ideas. Nowadays it is simplicity which I'm drawn towards, and what I really believe probably can't be said, it's more a feeling, something wordless.

It feels good to be able to talk openly about things.

How very true this is. 

Part of my reasons for holding this poll was to see how much influence the hidden threads might have on people. There is no doubt that some people, you included, seem to have opinions which might appear to threaten these threads. I sympathise with your position, you make it relatively easy for me to do so. 

I will admit to being very disappointed, even shocked when I realised I was the only one of the original members here that didn’t appear to want this forum to be strictly about PSI/Science. I have and will probably always feel that these topics are not stand alone. Is it selfish of me to want somewhere where I can ‘talk openly about things’ ? Yes, it probably is. Even though I’d feel lost if I had no place left where I could do so. 

I have voluntarily left or been banned from my previous places I visited. Facebook, Skeptiko, and Pprune. Twitter has it’s good sides, and I don’t post original tweets that often, mainly retweet posts I think worthwhile. I don’t regret any of my choices where these places are concerned. My banning was from Pprune, a forum I used to really feel part of in my days as an aviator. In my head I had moved on a long time before my ban. The people there didn’t feel like ‘friends’, or more accurately, colleagues, any longer. To be honest, in many ways, they never have, but always will remain so.

So the truth is, leaving Skeptiko was not that difficult, because a bunch of us felt the same way and we settled here instead. And if I were to lose both my ‘friends’ here on SciQuest and my freedom to express myself at the same time, it would be a difficult thing to do. And I would lose both, because my heart would no longer be in the forum. So should I remain a thorn in peoples sides, or give it up?

It’s bothering me.

Part of my reasons for holding this poll was to see how much influence the hidden threads might have on people. There is no doubt that some people, you included, seem to have opinions which might appear to threaten these threads. I sympathise with your position, you make it relatively easy for me to do so. 

From my individual perspective, I wouldn't use the word 'threat' in relation to the hidden forums. I don't feel threatened by them. Nor do I bear any ill-will or wish any harm to that area. I know to some it is not satisfactory, but if the present arrangement is at least workable then that's good as far as I'm concerned.

I wouldn't use the word 'threat' in relation to the hidden forums. I don't feel threatened by them.

I used ‘threat’ in the sense that I feel the hidden forums are under some level of threat - from my own conscience too, besides others. Basically there’s not much love for them.

So should I remain a thorn in peoples sides, or give it up?

Easy answer from my vantage point: Remain.

Easy answer from my vantage point

 
I think something big would have to happen to get me to leave the forum completely, it’s more about if there’s any point in retaining the hidden threads, when I’m the only one here that really thinks that they are worthwhile or belong here. It’s like we all have children, the topics on the forum. Unfortunately, my kids are drug addicts and trouble makers, but they’re my kids, and I can’t give them up, no matter how others see them. 

The community is mostly sympathetic, but a few would like to see my kids in jail or rehab! 

Stan, I've never considered you a thorn in anyone's side. I've always thought of you simply as a friend. Occasionally I think there might have been misunderstandings amongst us, but that's just life - unless we could all develop perfect telepathy, which isn't the way this world works. We just have to rub along together as best we can.

I visit and lurk quite a lot, but I've no energy or time to research the topics discussed these days. For example, all this new interest in UFOs is fascinating, but it's something I've never really looked into and now I've no idea where to start. (Apart from the UFO forum right here, of course)

[Laird]

I chose "other", but why?

Because I happened to stumble somewhat accidentally (synchronistically?) upon Skeptiko, which affirmed in somewhat more disciplined terms than I had had access to before then my innate understanding that "weird stuff sometimes happens" and that it can't just be casually written off. It was obvious to me that when for some of us things went sour at that forum, it was worth starting an alternative - but I had never claimed and still don't claim any expertise or even wide reading in the subject matter of those forums; in fact, I am practically illiterate in the psychic literature.

I have, then, simply taken on a role as a sometime (though awfully limited) "defender of the faith", "provider of communication infrastructure to the faithful", and "resident counter-critic and generally argumentative chap".

Though I might be seen as a forum regular, as might be implied by my post count, I don't feel that I contribute much original to the forum's content, but rather augment its content with what I hope is critical inquiry, more or less explicitly, although somewhat randomly, and not much of late, especially since the very sad departure of Chris, whose mathematical and statistical expertise I for one greatly miss, even recognising that I had an inadvertent role to play in his abandoning of our board.

So.... how does "other" express how I feel about Psience Quest? I'm a guy who's always been convinced of the existence of the paranormal despite a huge lack of research into same, but who wants and hopes to provide the technical infrastructure for others to express their own research findings - whether formal, informal, or personal.

Since Laird just mentioned various angles of approach to these topics, including statistical analysis and formal research, as well as things like personal experience, I was reflecting on something I'd experienced many years ago. If I hadn't written it down, it would probably be forgotten by now. I did describe it in a letter I wrote to a friend more than forty years ago which would probably be the most accurate rendition, but I don't have access to that and it likely no longer exists. I did cover it on this forum under the subject heading "Time", which was a reasonable attempt at accuracy. One of the things which strikes me now is that those were experiences on very gradually waking from sleep, it was a continuous and uninterrupted transition from full sleep to full waking alertness. I don't see any way what happened could be mistaken or 'confirmation bias', it just seems to fit under the heading "weird stuff happens".

At that time I read what I could find in laymen's books on various phenomena, which I recall included the work of J. B. Rhine. Many years passed, I didn't study these things at all for years, they remained at the back of my mind, but not actively researched. At long last, someone invented the internet and I fired it up and searched for what I hoped would be updated news of the great progress made during the course of the decades. I was in for a shock. The first few articles I found, much like present-day wikipedia (but I must have been reading some other source) seemed to suggest that the whole thing had fizzled out, it had all been a mistake and no 'weird stuff' really happened at all. It didn't make sense. Stuff which I knew to be fact from my own experience was very much out of favour.

That really is a good justification for the existence of this forum. In order to provide at least some sort of voice, and a place to discuss those things which are not given proper consideration elsewhere.

Now I'm aware that the phrase "those things which are not given proper consideration elsewhere" could mean almost anything, my own focus is around things to do with consciousness, and often those things which I feel enrich our existence, such things as beauty or love, rather than just quirky oddities which might just be passed by with a reaction of 'so what?'.