Preserved Topic: Weird things that science can't explain...

Weird things that science can't explain...
Ever happened to you?
Strange things
Premonitions
Deja vu
Anything, tell me about it!

waiting.....

bowel movements, the urge to take a leak, awareness?

Er...yes!
That's exactly (not) that, i've been waiting for,vogonpoet!

How about evolution? or the beginning of the universe??? that can not be scientifically tested. Cookie for me?

. . .

Awareness hasn't been explained by science. (good one ~vp~)

Science cannot explain *why* a seed suddenly begins to grow when planted.

Now I think I have one that might be closer to what you were looking for. My uncle was a test pilot for his entire career and he did it even after he retired. Anyway, I asked him whether he had ever seen any UFOs. He wouldn't say that he saw aliens but he did tell me a fascinating story.

He was flying a cargo plane one day and he tracked 3 blips on the radar traveling far faster than anything he knew existed. The real kicker is that while maintaining this speed, he saw them make a virtual 90 degree turn all at once and then they shot off and out of range of his instruments.

I would call that unexplainable.



[This message has been edited by Bugimus (edited 03-03-2002).]

Bug: doesnt any form of seed need a catalyst to start growing?

i.e. A plant seed needs to be watered, or a human seed needs to be fertalized?

(a plant seed needs to be fertilized also I guess -doh!- heh)

point being, a seed is just a seed until it has an external effect exact a chemical/biological reaction on it?

*looks dazed*

::edit:: talking about human seeds (eggs) I guess thats all they are til they are born. (reliant on sperm and the womb for existance/survival?)



[This message has been edited by vogonpoet (edited 03-03-2002).]

Actually vog in asexual reproduction (such as fungii) seeds aren't externally fertilized.

And I believe what Bugs was saying was that science still has no explanation for the tangential donning of "life". A seed is just an inanimate object (even asexual) so whatever factor the bio-orgo-chemistry brings, it's still unknown how to describe "life" outside of that term.


So far anyway.

undoubtedly DG, the unexplainable (considering eventually all chemical/biological events will be scientifically explained) is surely then the pre-cursor to life? As in, as far as 'we' know, life only comes from prior life? New life is heriditary, so what came before the very first life? Thats unexplainable imho

science can't explain a thing.
It's by, before all, admiting it's inherent refutability that it gained the position of prevailing system in the observation (using whatever mean) of what we can imagine (using again whatever mean).

That's the main difference between what we call science and what we call religion.
Problem is, both are surrounded by fogs of misunderstanding, one created by accident, other intentionally.

note: by reading the previous posts it seems that biology and physic understanding are not one of an asylumite's strong perks <- sarcasm detected?

glad you noticed


[This message has been edited by Arthemis (edited 03-03-2002).]

It's an open universe! There is no god!

Arthemis, can you explain *why* life occurs? I can't wait for you to enlighten us who are so weak in the areas of biology and physics.

eyezaer:

quote:

---

How about evolution?

---

Darwin will be most disappointed!! I really don't want to go down this path but check here:
www.talkorigins.org/

It all comes down to the question of whether science offers explanations. It offers hypothesises (sp?) for testing against the evidence - if, in the case of things like plate tectonics, the theory works so well with the evidence then we might be able to move to a position where it seems to offer a reasonable idea on how things actually work. Personally I'd put evolution in the same category as plate tectonics but I'm sure others will differ.

This is rare though and usually we are shuffling towards an answer (often down dead ends). If you want clear cut/black and white answers to questions then it might be time to consult your oracles, holy men, astrologers, seers, etc.

An interesting topic I'm sure but getting away from the spirit of the thread (which is about personal tales of encounters with the paranormal - which might include vp's bowel movements!!).

To address that then apart from the odd dream (which I mentioned in InI's thread which, while obviously a dream, touched on aspects of the paranormal and in other contexts might have been judged to be paranormal) then nothing - to my great disappointment.

Emps

It would take more than 10000 posts to explain you that there is no real explanation, dear bugimus

furthermore, i would never, and probably will never, consider myself capable of doing it

www.randi.org

Actually, I can tell you why. I can't prove it though That's the cool thing about religion... it offers answers. Oh but there's that little concept involved called faith.

Arthemis, I like what the great Randi does. A lot. I think he performs a valuable service by pointing out charlatans and scams that take advantage of gullible people. I've posted his million dollar challenge here a couple of times myself.

Emps, I think Darwin would be disappointed but more with the most recent fossil record data. Darwin predicted that the fossil record would reflect a gradual and steady line from less complex to more complex life forms. What we are finding now is that it looks more like a step function. So now that's got some scientists courting the cataclysm ideas again. Niles Eldredge and Stephen Gould came up with a clever theory to explain this called "punctuated equilibrium".

As far as I can tell the theory of evolution as it stands now has some serious problems, but it's the best we've got thus far. We need to go with it until something better comes along.

back to the title's subject..
<warning>aspects of my personal life follow!</warning>

my mom is a recovering addict, so was her boyfriend. both heroin users. my mom's been clean about 5 years and 2 months now (thankfully). her boyfriend had been clean for about 3 years. so anyway, I had this dream once.. my family and i went to visit my mom's boyfriend. he lived about 40 miles away from us.. well, when we got there.. he was lying dead on his bed..

ever since that dream (i'd say about a year ago?) i always had this weird feeling that.. it wasn't just a dream.. some sort of odd premonition..

well, on october 30, 2001.. my mom went to his house... and he had died of a heroin overdose.

[This message has been edited by Raptor (edited 03-05-2002).]

some say that has to do with a subjacent ability in our subconscious to meausure probability of events to a non thinkable level of complexity.

amazing none the less

Aaaaaaachuuuuu! ~sniff~ how about sneezing with your eyes open? Does that count?

Cheers!

-

How about every time I walk out into the bright sunlight, I sneeze? There is a direct correlation but some people don't believe me.

Arthemis, that actually makes good sense. I think I would favor that explanation for Raptor's story too.

reitveld:
well...doing that, wouldn't be very smart...probably your eyes would jump from the orbits...

Actually Bugs that isn't as uncommon or unexplainable as you may think.

Photosensitivity is quite common, and manifests itself in many forms. The most common is a tearing of the eyes from released saline in the tear ducts. This occurs when the sensitivity causes "pain" (neurons reacting to the light and firing) in the eyeball itself, and the body's defense mechanisms naturally try and wash away the offending "particles" (we read the pain in the same way we'd read something touching the lens).

Tear ducts are notoriously tied in with the nasal passages, due to location, and their defense mechanism relations to the filters at the entrance to the nasal cavities (sinuses). Those filters (sort of like little villii) are partially responsible for the sneeze reaction, by relaying the message to the central nervous system that there are particles that need to be expelled from the passage.

Hence the sneeze.

However if the tear duct reactions cross over with the nasal defenses.......ultimately you can trigger a sneeze by stimulating the tear ducts, or just "hurting" the eyes.

Wanna watch it work in reverse? Pull out a nose hair....and watch those tear ducts work bay bee.


hehe


: : pixelflo : :

ICQ:# 10237808

Cool info, DG. I should print that out and hand it to my friends the next time we walk outside and I start sneezing.

Here is another one that some people don't believe. I'm sure some of you can hear television sets, right? Well, some people don't believe me when I tell them that I can. For instance, you're just about to retire for the evening and the tv is on a blank channel and you just know it's on because you can hear the high pitched whine.

I thought EVERYBODY could hear that...
Really? There are some people who can't?
Wierd.
mobrul

Yup, I know several who think I'm making it up.

Yeah, that happens for me with anything electricity at all.

I think it just has to do with higher wave frequency sensitivity, and "hearing" the waves put out by the electromagnetic fields.



: : pixelflo : :

ICQ:# 10237808

I can hear that too; funny thing is, in the past I didn't know I could hear it, but I subconciously learned to go upstairs whenever the TV was turned on, and I'd always end up walking upstairs right when someone was starting to play nintendo or something. I couldn't figure out why that always happened.

i'm with mobrul. i thought *everybody* could hear that! now you've got me wondering if I'M weird or if they are!

*sighs and adds another thing to the "odd things about me" checklist*

the sound thing is fairly normal - my mum's monitor squeals like a castrated piggy, and my mum can hear it, but her boyfriend doesn't have any idea what we're on about.
generally speaking, people lose their hearing in old age, starting with the extremeties - so the high pitched sounds, barely audible, usually go first.

which is why i'm suprised peter can hear any of it, the old fart.




- - r e i t s m a - -
(tifkab)

heh - another wierd thing that i don't get:

farts.
the buildup of gases in the digestive system is fully comprehensible to me, but okay, try this:
cup some water between your two hands (or just imagine), then try and expel the air in there - through the bottom.
see the problem?


- - r e i t s m a - -
(tifkab)

Arthemis: could you explain me a little thingie?
You said: "science can't explain a thing."
Well...if it doesn't, it means that DarkGarden's explanation about Photosensitivity isn't a valid one? If science can't explain a thing...what the hell was that, some stupid idea that someone with nothing better to do, invented?

Not meaning to step on Arthemis' toes...

Ashite, maybe Arthemis would have done better to say something like 'Science can't explain a thing, definately.'
The whole idea of science is to search for the truth (knowing we'll never totally know everything there is to know about everything). The scientific method is a method by which one can interrogate the world while constantly keeping in mind that everything we knew yesterday could have been wrong.

Some theories (like gravity, for instance) have been around for so long, the equation works, *everything* seems to fit so nicely, we call it a 'law' and accept it as fact.

On the other hand, some theories (like gravity, for instance) exist for a long time, are tested over and over again...then some trouble maker like Einstein comes along and says, "you know that gravity thing that has been around for hundreds of years...that you thought you completely understood? It's wrong. Gravity REALLY works like this..."

That's what science is all about. Making hypotheses, testing them over and over and over again. Nothing is ever so certain that it is irrefutable. Some things are close...but as Einstein showed us, we can't take even the easiest things for granted.

And about DG's explanation not being valid...
It's valid until someone comes up with a better theory, tests is sufficiently, and presents it. If the tests hold up we shall all declare DG's explanation wrong and begin looking at the new explanation. That's science.

mobrul



[This message has been edited by mobrul (edited 03-07-2002).]

We have two computers in our dining room (lounge #2), one belongs to my dad, and the other belongs to me. I can hear them being turned on (the high pitched whine) from the other end of out housae, through several walls. I can even tell the difference between mine and my dad's (cause my dad's is faster, so mine has a lower pitch).

bugimus, that has a little to do with the person.
let's say that we weren't so fragile to ultra-violet radiation... that, in evolution terms, would make us able to see it.
But we can't. what we call visible light is what we can see, were we not audio visual beings, there would be no concept of visual light. So, if you have a perception for hearing higher/lower than average (dont know which is the case in a tv set, but probably lower) that would basically mean dip to those who couldnt hear it.
There is another factor, if the emited sound waves are not "waved", but "squared", it will cause a prolongued drum effect in our auditive system, allowing those who are more sensitive to hear non hearable low frequencies blah blah

Reitsma, if your digestive system is always full of water, then I'd say you have a bigger problem than the mystery of gas.

wes - if my example isn't realistic enough for you, then i suggest you attempt the same exercise with a handfull of shit instead of water.


- - r e i t s m a - -
(tifkab)

Just fell off my chair! ROTFL!

buncha - that was the funniest thing i have read all week. thanks for the laugh, i needed that.

Science cant explain how a bee can fly or why we sleep. whats that all about then?

~We're not here for long, we're here for fun~

Don´t bees have wings?

I thought science had explained why we sleep something about recharging and getting ready for another day.




"Faith: not wanting to know what is true. "- Friedrich Nietzsche

Yes bees do have wings but science has proven they are too small to allow the weight of the bee to fly and science has shown the brain activity is the same whether we are asleep or awake and that the body can recharge just as well from resting while awake.

~We're not here for long, we're here for fun~

2 words.

urban
myth

We sleep cause our brains need rest duhhh

edit: with the exception of some...

[This message has been edited by InSiDeR (edited 03-12-2002).]

hmmm, the brain never rests, even when asleep it still runs all the bodily functions and when dreaming its more active than when awake. now imagine what we could get done if we didn't need to sleep. . . . .

~We're not here for long, we're here for fun~

Not a whole lot. I find that a good rest allows me to get more done than when I try to do something nonstop. It seems our minds need that rest more than our bodies do. I've seen documentaries where they study sleep deprived people and the most ordinary and mundane tasks become impossible for them.

Lightning

I love that science has yet to comprehend the mechanics of it.

Regarding the function of sleep--

From the science perspective -
REM sleep is not present in all animals that have a brain and nervous system. There is a point at which it appears in the chain of progression from less complex to more complex creatures. I believe a type of anteater is the cutoff point where REM sleep begins... specificly, this organism is the most complex animal that does not utilize REM sleep. The interesting part is that the ratio of brain mass to body mass undergoes a change from Non-REM to REM animals. Basicly, with the addition of this type of sleep, brain mass is reduced. Apparently, REM sleep was a response to the need for more intelligence capacity while constrained by a limited brain size. Without it, and the speculated extra processing power that it allows, the our heads would likely be the largest parts of our body...

And from the philosophical/religious-

An interesting theory from a religious text I once read... Based somewhat on Jungian psychology, which favors a group subconscious, this author added a divine element. Every human contributes to the divine, though on a deeply subconscious level that almost always defies comprehension. Given that sleep deprivation invariably results in madness, and that as a person ages they are increasingly confronted with progressively deeper losses, this person speculated that perhaps in the deepest reaches of slumber, the mind has a tiny glimpse of the divine. This fleeting glimpse might serve as a reminder to the subconscious of the possibility for good, and be a source of continued sanity, as well as a source of the will to live.

Of course, it's only a theory. And one that I think science would have a difficult time proving.

Indeed...in my opinion, sleep and dreaming aren't used to recharge the body or mind, but to allow the brain to sort things out, and get it's gray matter organized for another day. Thast's why people's barins are more active when they're asleep, when you enter the REM cycle and start dreaming, the mind goes back over enverything it saw, head, tasted, smelled and touched during the preevious day, and sorts it out, categorizes it, and allows you more processing space for the next day.

As you go through the day, mountains of sensory data come into you mind, and it all collects uip in big piles, and takes up room, and until the shit shovelers of the mind can come in while you're sleeping and move it to where it's supposed to be. If you don't sleep, it continues to mount up until it clogs up the areas that control the output for even the basic functions, and you just can't think. If you leave it to long, the braijn starts sorting it while you're awake, and that's where sleep deprevation hallucinations come from.

That and the black pills

Anyhoo...that's my OPINION, I'm in no way say that it is right

Tend to agree with you there, I read somewhere that memories are transferred from short-time to long-time memory while we sleep.

Yeah we just finished studying sleep and dreams in psychology. GODDAMN IT IS INTERESTING!!!!

Basically our brain sorts out short term memorys into long term memory. It does this by dreaming. Dreams are a way of getting rid of useless memories. Why do you think we dont remember our dreams when we awake!? This is because the memory is no longer there. Sometimes our brain realizes that it needs that memory and so it quickly stops dreaming. This is when we do remember the dream.

When I was young, I slept in this back bedroom. One night my mattress lifted up and this bloody huge hand grabbed my right foot. It had really long fingernails. As I awoke, the hand pulled itself back under the mattress.
Hmmmmmm..........what else is there......thats happened.
I saw this plane or something in the sky one night and I saw some some of light hit it and bounce off, dont know whether it is was bird or not, have no idea.
I was Church one Sunday and looked up and I swear I saw like a bit of cloud swirling around the altar and saw like the tip of God's toe, Im pretty sure it was his foot I saw!
I saw like these 5 or 6 lights all travelling in a distinct pattern across the sky. It was REALLY WEIRD.
Yeah I do to hear the TV thing and that. What I reckon is weird is that how deja vu occurs. I had it yesterday and it was really freaky.
What causes deja vu?
What causes crop circles?
Why do we only occassionally see ghosts and not all the time and why do we not see them in public places like shopping centre. Does this infer that ghosts are scared of the living? If ghosts have been seen to go through walls and that sort of thing them how are they able to pick things up like poltergeists for instance?
Why do men love breasts so much?
What is the purpose behind the g-string?
Why does ball lightning occur?

Talking of sneezing, I heard the other day that you when you do you actually have a minor orgasm.
*wonders off to the kitchen cupboard and grabs the pepper*

-=Luxo Jr.=-

Doin' wierdassed animations since 1986

Oh, i didnt notice someone making me a question....

answer: No, i meant it just like that, literally. not that it's just a matter of perception to that sentence, but it.... could start there.

Ball lightning is (supposedly) a phenomenon caused by the superheating of air until it becomes plasma, that plasma is them encased by the sreally strong magnetic field of the lightining bolt that caused it...but that's justo ne of the theories.

Also supposedly, crop circles are supposed to be caused by an invisible kind of tornado, which touches down in certian areas. The massive pressire of it is what causes the 'crop' to bend and break, the circular rotation is what lines them all up in a particular direction, and hte burning is caused by air friction.

supposedly

Skaarjj: An awful lot of crop circles are made by human beings (particulalrily damning are the cases that were declared to be genuine and unreproducible by humans which were then shown to be made confortably in one night by a few people, some planks and a bit of board or a cheap lawn rollwe!!). Although the plasma/tornado theory is one put forward by a few cerealogists it doesn't have much credence even in their ranks (which seems balanced between human and ET influences) - ranking, as an explanation, just above the hedgehog theory. I believe there was a video produced which seemed to show some kind of plasma effect although I'm not sure how that currently stands.

I still think ball lightening has some interesting aspects which we still are far from understanding and massive ice falls (or, lets be honest, many of the rains of objects) still can't be comfortably fitted into current theories.

Emps

Hmmmm........interesting how those supposed invisibe tornadoes create some of the most astounding patterns and layouts?........strange too they only happen in certain places, like Britain and that. And not much anywhere else

-=Luxo Jr.=-

Doin' wierdassed animations since 1986

I was thinking about this topic this morning and wondered if science can explain why we get sick? We know how a virus attacks our system but can we explain why some people get sick and others don't? You can take a room full of people and expose them all to ebola for instance and it kills 80% (i think that's the rate) but what about the 20%??? What makes them immune?

If you're tlaking aobut the desert patterns that they have somewhere, like the gigantic humanoid figure that they have somewhere in america or something (or is it africa? I dunno), that is in no way supposedly related to crop ciles, and if you are also talking aobut that galaxy pattern, that was proven to be man made.

Oh, and to they're only happening in certain places, cna we say the words differnet climatic conditions boys and lamps? It' slike saying, 'oh...why don't we get tsumanis in the middle of Lake Eyre', or 'Why don't we get cyclones in Victoria', becuase the weather considtions are just right in those areas to create the large swirling column of air, but not have a big enough updraft to suck things up, and draw cloud down to create the visdible funnel effect.

A lot of this sort of thing has to do with chaos theory.
The basics of the theory (and there is no way I am going to do this justice):
Everything could be accurately predicted by science...even a coin flip...if one had enough information.
The problem is, there is so much information no human (and currently no computer) can process all of it. So, an element of 'chaos' appears. That is, we can't describe it in any other way so we call it chaos.
Like the 'random' number generator of JS...chaotic. Not truly random (as there is a very predictable algorithm), but to those who don't know the algorithm, it is indeed chaotic. Same with most of these 'random' things in life. There is an algoithm, it is just so complex we can't figure it out.

In the case of illnesses there are several factors:
strength of immune system
strength of the particular virii that infect a particular person
...and probably 15 million other factors that a biologist doesn't even know about. Indeed, the very nature of studing something often changes its characteristics and responses. If we did know it all, we could predict who would get sick and who wouldn't...or the result of a particular coin toss...or even our own moods. Instead we just use statistics.

Chaos theory is really neat stuff...at least as far as I've read about it (very little.)
google search = chaos theory

mobrul

Mike Myers. Now that is something science can't explain.

No seriously. He is just so completely weird. He makes Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker look normal.

"...And let it be known that all men are created equal, although some men are created more equally than others."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

But seriously, if you want something science can't explain, I'm it. There's absolutely no explanation for me. That is all.

"...And let it be known that all men are created equal, although some men are created more equally than others."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Evolution is an observable phenomenon (sp?). Get a bacterian and a big microscope. Watch it assexually reproduce for a while. After a while not all of the bacteria will have the same DNA even though they came from the same great great grandparent. Point mutations occur in the DNA. (read: sometimes mother nature screws up mitosis) and the bacteria start to become a little diverse. Now introduce a virus that is lethal to the bacteria. If one of the bacteria has a mutation that makes it resistant to the virus and the rest don't the ones with the mutation will be the only to survive. Thats all evolution is: Change. A lot of people assumesevolution is against creationism and that just wrong. But anywho, my point is Evolution is observable and explainable by science.

Sleep on the other hand I don't think they've explained yet, but I don't keep up this stuff that much.

Schitzo

[This message has been edited by Schitzoboy (edited 04-18-2002).]

Nevarr: Couldn't REM sleep be a side effect of more effecient brain wiring instead of the cause of it?

Schitzo

One night I drempt that we ran over Kermit the frog with a car, and killed him, all this hair gushed out of his body. I was a big fan of the muppets so I woke up crying (I was 12 by the way). The wierd thing was that the next day I heard on the news that Jim Henson had died. That was among the strangest experinces of my life.




Maskkkk

- Face the Present

Those are the kind of coincidences that really make one wonder. Hmm... poor Kermie.

Science, REM, crop circles, life - it's all someone else's imagination, and no one is the wiser! Wait until "someone" wakes up and everything ceases to exist.

Yep, actually you're all in my imagination. So for your own sakes keep them meds coming and keep me sedated!





What does it mean?

One of the QI_GONG practicer had ever used only one of his finger to upside-down.
Can you believe it ?

i love beatles

Ah, you mean the standing upside on your fingers. I thought I heard that no living practitioner had mastered the one-finger technique yet. I could be wrong, though. Or is this something that has happened recently?

There's a lot of weird stuff here in Korea, too, like people climbing up ladders made of knives--with bare feet, of course.





What does it mean?

Uhhh...sorta like a cheese grater if you slip...ouch! Well, I've seen someone chop stones with just his bare hand...and I don't mean bricks....real stones, about the size of ones fist...and they even showed it in slow motion...I don't think that has been explained by modern science yet...

Great. You had to go and mention slipping on the knife ladder. Now I've got these truly horrific images in my mind, and they're not going away!

When it comes to those who harness the power of "ki" (The "qi" that vanvanta mentioned above), there's a whole bunch of crazy stuff that they can do. I imagine breaking stones would be one of them. Thinking about that sort of stuff hurts my brain.





What does it mean?

Science can't explain why I look so sexy.


[This message has been edited by galaxal (edited 05-03-2002).]

suho1004:I heard that one monk who is name is haideng can do this by his 2 fingers
.I cant imagine it and doubt it .but some said it was true.

i love beatles

I heard the same thing. With all the weird stuff I've seen, though, I can't dismiss it as fiction. I wouldn't be surprised if it were true.





What does it mean?

Being able to hear electrical devices has been explained by science - its called the Frey Effect and its study is called electrophonics. Electromagnetic radiation heats up your skull and causes little explosions which you can hear (it might also explain Wakkos) see:
www.google.com/search?q=%22frey+effect%22
http://users.hunterlink.net.au/~ddcsk/gelphonx.htm

Emps

I'm not a big believer in the metaphysical, more
of "seeing is believing" type of guy, but there
are exceptions, for example, i truly think that
we reincarnate, yeah, reincarnation is for real.
in fact, just the other day I saw a little old lady
turn into a driveway.