The second example kind of feels like the Third Man Factor.
Comment on Can a reasonable person genuinely believe in ghosts?
ToxicWaste@lemmy.cafe 23 hours ago
ghosts are like religion: can neither be proven nor disprofen. what do you even consider a ghost? i do faintly believe in spirits:
when i am sitting at the grave of my grandfather, it does feel as he is around somehow. is that because i miss him and wish he is still with us? likely…
a friend of mine recently lost her father. they are both accomplished mountaineers. on a solo tour, she told me, she heared her father’s voice reminding her to be careful - while not paying attention during a dangerous passage. was it her father reaching out? was it her subconsciousness taking the persona of the father? we will never know…
in the end it doesn’t matter in the slightest, what these feelings of ghosts or spirits really are. if our ancestors keep watching out for us, that is great. if our subconsciousness keeps watching out for us, while taking on different personas, that is great. life goes on the same - even if it all was just imagination.
Timecircleline@sh.itjust.works 20 hours ago
ToxicWaste@lemmy.cafe 9 hours ago
thanks! didn’t know there is a name for it
brad_troika@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Isn’t it irrational to believe in things that cannot be proven or disproven?
ToxicWaste@lemmy.cafe 8 hours ago
it is not irrational, to observe (or experience) something and not being able to explain it.
i do not have any reason to assume my friend is a liar. so she heard her fathers voice. how or why she heard it we will never know, as she was not hooked up to a brainwave scanner or similar.
apparently we have different people from different times having experienced similar things. thanks @Timecircleline@sh.itjust.works for pointing to the Third Man Factor! so i would say it is quite reasonable to believe something can happen to us humans in extreme situations. is it just our imagination? quite possible! especially considering the more extreme stories mentioned in the wikipedia page surely drove those people to or past their individual limits. but that brings me back to my last paragraph: it doesn’t change anything or even matter. those voices, or whatever they where helped those people survive extreme situations and live to tell the tale. whether it was a deceased loved one, a valkyrie from norse mythology, friendly tree spirit, their subconsciousness wanting to survive, … or just hallucination due to thirst/starvation/exhaustion.
the effects didn’t change. so whatever the cause is, shouldn’t change my, your, or anybody else’s life
brad_troika@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I agree, and that’s where I would stop, I can’t explain it, I don’t know what this is.
I think in general it matters what we believe to be true or not, you might think that in a certain situation believing a false thing can result the same (or better) way than not believing but beliefs are not restricted to certain situations and will inform our decisions elsewhere, maybe with more dire consequences. A quick example would be mediums who pray and scam grieving people out of time and money.
ToxicWaste@lemmy.cafe 6 hours ago
mediums are a completely different thing, as they peddle a ‘wonder product’. claiming things without proof and asking for money. but that modus operandi is not restricted to non-science. radioactive underware was a thing…
i am talking about people who did experience something and how they choose to interprete that experience for themselves. if you ask me, it was most likely their body and mind being pushed across certain borders - which made them feel things that where not actually there. if you asked me about my grandfather, i would tell you that he is most likely not here or there and it is just my imagination. but it gives me a little bit of comfort to at least allow the possibility that he is somewhere.
those are all personal choices about personal experiences, which do not affect anybody. but if someone start selling a product or even a religion. they crossed a line and are (trying) to affect other people.
TheDoozer@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Seriously. There is no reason to believe in something that not only isn’t proven to exist, but can’t. That argument could be applied to nearly anything.
Vampires? Can’t prove they don’t exist, so may as well believe in them.
Fairies? Same.
Flying spaghetti monster? Prove it doesn’t exist.
Like, I don’t want to know people’s religions, and I’m not so arrogant as to think I have all the answers, but I just can’t stand the “you can’t prove XXXX doesn’t exist” argument.