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IBM Targets UFOs, Ghosts, and Goblins With Search Tool
coondoggie writes "IBM wants to help you find out if UFOs are real. Well, sort of. With UFO sightings seemingly on the rise, Big Blue is teaming with The Anomalies Network to offer UFO Crawler, a new search engine specifically tuned to search for information about the paranormal, unexplained or just plain bizarre. The search tool employs IBM's OmniFind Yahoo! Edition enterprise search software and the UFO Crawler should help users precisely target and gather information from relevant sources, including thousands of documents and files collected in the vast Anomalies Network archive, as well as multiple global resources across the Web on topics such as such as ghosts, conspiracy theories and extraterrestrials."
Presumably the most stealthy plane form is a saucer. The idea of many is that these flying saucer sightings are nothing but X-projects. I don't see why this isn't likely to be the case.
The search tool employs IBM's OmniFind Yahoo! Edition enterprise search software
Nothing new here, you always had to be a real "YAHOO!" to believe in UFO's anyway.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Let's make a TV Show out of this!
While I understand that this is probably good for pageviews and thus revenue, do we really have to encourage these people?
That's what they want you to do!
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Sure, it might be interesting. But why isn't IBM devoting resources to actual space research? Or even something more earth based?
--Thomas J. Owens
I'm sitting here on the couch watching X Files thinking that this may have made Mulder and Scully's job a bit easier...
Honestly. I'm a skeptic of religion because it proclaims that some invisible "being" is responsible for our world. There's no physical evidence to back that up (I don't want to start a debate here though, this is just my opinion). For the EXACT SAME REASON I feel like UFO's, extraterrestrials, ghosts, poltergeists, etc. are all not real. Nothing to really back it up. Am I the only skeptic or do people actually believe in this ish?
IBM is actually seriously interested in this? Is there actually any money to be made? Its not April 1st is it?
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
... that goatse and/or tubgirl will be included in their "just plain bizarre" section?
Perception is the thin dividing line between reality and fiction.
lol.
Integrated Bullshit Management
I'm a trained Ufologist and I'm thinking I would NEVER trust a search engine from IBM - that would be like giving me a UFO search engine written by the US gov't. I *KNOW* where the files I need to see are - they are in gov't bldgs at Area 51 and I don't need a search engine to tell me that.
a "gray" abducting camels
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Hmmmmm, a searchable "Wall of Weird", cool.
IBM is sure getting word of mouth advertising out of this for their 'tuned search engine' services.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
UFOs exist, that is a fact. A UFO is by definition an unidentified flying object. Hundreds of cases of aerial objects that can't be immediately identified have been reliably documented (and by qualified observers).
What you choose to "believe" or not believe is what UFOs represent. If your position is that it would be irrational to assume these represent alien spacecraft, then the correct statement would be "you always had to be a real "YAHOO!" to believe UFOs were alien spacecraft."
My faith in humanity is restored, temporarily.
For the first time in my life, I'm seeing a crowd that doesn't wonder if Egyptian hieroglyphs, crop circles, and the Xbox 360 all have the same origin. (link)
Good luck, IBM. I don't think even Blue Gene could beat that video game.
Rob
http://search.ufocrawler.com/search/
Can someone explain to me why google maps has a high-resolution image that is about the size of a trailer home somewhere in the middle of Chad? This one spot we can almost count the hairs on the camel. But anywhere beyond there we can't see squat for squat.
Google maps doesn't even have satellite images this high res for my own neighborhood!
you could just go to a reputable source and do your own research:
http://www.bluebookarchive.org/
No zombies or esp, just government docs about ufo's.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
-Tom
- They are (U)nidentified;
- They are (O)bjects;
- They (F)ly.
Who wouldn't agree that people frequently see flying things that they can't identify? Only CRAZY people wouldn't agree.when the Christians are raptured
lots of time and expense.
The work has already been done.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
What you've identified are clearly "U OFs." There is at least one in every state.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
God made the Universe: Ok then, so where did God come from? Well He's always been there... So if God has always been there why can't the Universe have always been there? Nope, God existed before everything else.
The Universe was created by the Big Bang: OK what was there before the Big Bang (ie. where did all that energy come from)? You can't ask that, because the concept of time is meaningless before the Big Bang.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Presumably the Flying Spaghetti Monster's appendages are saucer shaped. The idea of many is that these flying saucers are nothing but the ends of his noodly appendages. I don't see why this isn't likely to be the case.
...to recap yesterday's stories, thanks to IBMs keen sense of prioritization of providing tools to researchers:
...,
...,
...,
AIDS has been erradicated,
Alzheimers is now a thing of the past,
Global Warming has been brought to a halt,
clean drinking water is available to everyone world-wide,
all forms of cancer are treatable with a pill that tastes like skittles,
Iran and Israel together brought democracy to North Korea,
What a great, new idea!
http://paranormal.newsbot.gotdns.org/
...Project Big Blue Book!
I'm a scientician with a BS in ufology! We should team up!
I recently got DSL ==\^_^/==
A use for the wi-fi I installed in my aluminum hat!
Absence of proof is what all scepticism is based on. When you investigate 9,000 cases of reported UFO sightings, or reported "miracle healers", or "psychics", "fortune tellers", "dowsers", and "honest politicians", and EVERY SINGLE ONE turns out to be a fraud, does it really make sense to believe that case number 9,001 will turn out to be the real deal? Not bloody likely. You, like many other people before you, have raped the phrase "absence of proof is not proof of absence". It absolutely does not apply in the way in which you are attempting to use it. Being a skeptic means demanding proof. Believing things on faith alone is religion, not scepticism.
...what the queers are doing to the soil?
It was big, blue and incredibly lost.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
"The Doctor"
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Just about every result could be resolved with this.
Wanted: witty unique signature. Must be willing to relocate.
The funny thing is, i see people here that laugh at the subject, when they are really the naive ones. I don't live in a box, or bubble. I welcome change, and i'm not afraid of it. Your bad jokes and unhealthy skepticism do not change the facts. These objects are real, and there needs to be a formal study and open discussion about it in the scientific community. It's not about little men from mars, and many people who lack research skills or the desire to solve the greatest mystery in the history of the human race love to categorize it as such. It's about solving the energy problems that are destroying this planet and thousands of lives each year. It's about learning the true history of this planet and of the nature of the human species. It's about turning the military industrial complex on end, and showing people that technology can also be used to further our species by revolutionizing the medical field and energy grid, instead of creating weapons for taking innocent lives and devising unjustifiable wars that only serve to make the government another dollar, and only serve to set our evolution back even more. You sit and watch CNN and debate over petty political problems, when disclosure of this information would solve many of these childish wars and scandals that you love to hear about on the nightly news. I won't touch on the Fisher Price physics that you learn in your public education systems, and the silly notions of comets with frosty tails and labeling stars as a nuclear furnaces. Wake up and smell the cardboard your life is conveniently packed and secured in. Or maybe you enjoy the security of what that cardboard keeps in, or Out of your life.
This is going to sound crazy; I'm sure to be marked a "troll" and all that, but the truth...just so you can hear it...is that *almost* all these anomalies are demons. Some are just the unknown, but most are much more.
Yeah, I know; I felt the same way when I heard the concept. Fairy tales, nonsense and bullshit. I've learned differently.
I think it was 1996-97 or so, my buddy and I were working late a Lee Lumber. I forget the task at hand, but we'd come downstairs to "the floor" where we could smoke, maybe we had eaten, I don't remember. But I DO remember the sound of a Christmas tree in a cardboard box, being pulled across a tiled floor with dirt on it. Very crisp sound; very genuine. Being the only ones there at 3AM, and being in a the large city of Chicago, we called the police. They brought dogs...I remember learning that night that a German Sheperd CAN, in fact, bite through a commercial-quality doorknob, 'cause he hung there by his tooth, and hole is probably still in that doorknob.
Hearing sounds like that isn't unusual; it happens, rarely. Eventually I forgot.
In 2005 I was guarding a bank building, a new one, here in Evansville. Several guys did it, but again, only two people in the building when I heard this noise in a stairwell. I considered steam pipes, thermal expansion, *everything* that could make that noise...the Christmas tree in a cardboard box...but what was making the noise was just above me, on the the other side of the concrete landing. Something made the noise. Repeatedly. And it would quit before I got to it, every time.
I talked to one of the guys there; most of us were ex-military and such- a good team. Jerry was a Navy surgeon, knew an astronaut...a joy to talk with. He's also a Chaplain now. When I told him about the anomaly, he told me, as if prescribing a way to get barnacles off my boat: "Oh, well the next time you see that, say this: 'In the name of Jesus Christ, I rebuke you!'. I didn't believe it, but it was worth a shot.
A week or so later I'm in the stairwell again and I hear the noise. I was nervous and trying to THINK the words to say, and the noise stopped. Hmm. Fluke?
Another week or so, in a similar situation, I remembered the words well enough to say'em. When I did, before the words could echo completely off the walls, the sound stopped. I got chills.
I got chills because, if this were some "natural" means, like steam, or heat-expansion or whatever, it would have stopped on that second, anyway. But there are 86,400 seconds per day; what are the chances of me doing this twice, at the same time? (86,400x86,400) 7,464,960,000 to 1.
I asked Jerry why this happened. How can *words* do anything about an anomaly? It turns out that just as angels are here, there are demons, too; neither side can break out into the open, or it violates the test. The "test" is why we know nothing about the day before our birthday- nothing to sway us toward, or away from God. It's gotta be fair. And using His name gets his immediate attention, which is why it's bad to use as an expletive.
Since then I've seen other demons, figuratively. Idea outside my character, suggestions of things to do, that aren't me. Sure, there's things I like, but there are things I'd NEVER consider, yet the idea pops into my head...very seductive. This is how we'er led into misery.
So throw your stones, call me an unenlighted bigot homophobe misanthrope...but these things are true. And they exist to distract your attention from the ONE THING THAT MATTERS in this life: finding your way to God. Ever notice how much time people spend chasing UFOs? Ghosts? The Bermuda Triangle? These distractions are called "the occult"- that which distracts from your intended fate.
Find your way home. That's why we're here. And I hope you do.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
UFO sightings are not on the rise. If you have the opportunity to hang around the right circles, you'll notice that a _lot_ of persons believe they saw UFOs, ghosts and things like that. Sometimes they just want attention but often they really believe it. What has changed is that major news agencies repport those sighting. I think they figured that their credibility is not a stake anymore.
Okay, you seem to have missed the *entire* point of the previous post. You are basing skepticism on the probability of an even occurring. Congratulations, thats what I was suggesting. There has to be a way of separating the higgs boson from the tooth fairy. And absence of proof isn't enough. .
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
It is quite apparent that after tagging the wildlife INDEED comes back to normal life. It is quite apparent that so called "abductee" (sic) never return to normal life. So it does not seem comparable. Also for kicker, many of that wild life animals are not able to recognize reflection of themselves, while only a few other can (human and a few apes within that group, and a few mamals). I will not say that it proves that animals are mindless, but it is a big hint on that your argument is not that good.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
none of the skeptic will deny that there are indeed unidentified sky phenomenon, looking like objects, and sometimes being objects. What the skeptic deny is that you "believer" make the jump to alien-spacecraft, angel sent from God, flying unicorn or whatever you believe in without evidence whatsoever. Face it what pass as evidence by Ufo=aliens people is laughable at best. We got better photo of faery during the 19th century. Heck that funky hoax of bigfoot get better film and photo. And do not get me started on all the obvious hoax.
Skeptic also welcome change. But only when there is evidence of it. I would welcome Alien , if there was not so many evidence that no alien intelligent being whatsoever were on earth for the period where I lived and was self-aware. I like sf like many geek. But I will not put blinder on my eyes for the sake of my imagination. Reality take a step over imagination. And do not get me started on the so called abductee : the mind like to play a lot of trick on memory and human are poor at observation (memory : try the various study on memory and recalling event witnessed, and the amplification of thereof; witnessing : try the guorilla basket ball video study).
As for the rest ofyour appeal to "pity". We are only human. We have fault we have good side. Get over it. No God, No angel, No Alien will come to save us. The saving has to come from inside us. If we can't we will be destroyed or seriously deminished sooner or later. And it will be our own fault. And if we save ourselves it will be our own greatness. I would rather have us responsible for our acts, than babysitted. This is the price of freedom.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
There's a difference between "absence of evidence because we haven't looked" and "absence of evidence even though we've spent years looking".
I've dealt with a couple of weird and scary situations, too.
There absolutely are monsters out there. No question.
Invoking Christ is a help; he's a very positive and helpful being dedicated to helping our world, and he's not the only one. Linking him to religion, however, can be very limiting. He was just a very enlightened fellow and the religion which sprung up around him is rather bent and has its own problems. It has often been used to inflict great misery upon the world. Christ is an entirely service-to-others oriented person, and so it doesn't matter who asks for his help. The fact of the matter is that the church and churchy-people are the ones who most often ask. He'll help anyone, but I'd be surprised if he would endorse much of the limited and downright backwards thinking embodied by the religion started in his name.
Demons, however, are not 'demons' as such. They are just severely service-to-self oriented beings which live on other planes and which have access to ours for purposes of feeding on our spirit energy. Fear and anxiety are food sources, and so they have a lot of nasty ways to inflict misery.
Some of them are like wild animals or sharks. Mindless and automatic. Others are very intelligent and are often indeed associated with UFO's.
Being in the physical plane, we actually have a lot of power over our own immediate lives; an ephemeral being of a lower order (sharks) must either possess a mind, whisper to a mind, or manifest directly, all of which are difficult and energetically taxing. UFO types, by contrast, use technology and organized efforts and thus have a great deal of power. Abductions are possible. Individual ephemeral entities must do their 'thing' through personal means, and in such cases, a healthy, mentally secure person is normally very difficult to overcome. Drugs, fear, greed, exhaustion, depression and low self-esteem lower one's resistance and open up channels to manipulation, but for the most part, this is our reality, and we have a lot of power here one on one. It's the UFO types which cause the big problems which are affecting our world and history; which are making Human culture one giant experiment/feeding ground. --They have the power to pluck you out of time and space and directly tinker with your mind. To them, we are lab rats and we have about as much power to stop them directly as lab rats. Since they function from a vantage point where time as we understand it is a spatial vector, to them any point of our history can be entered and exited at will. Religion and indeed, most of history is a highly manipulated affair. As the 'end of the world' approaches, (from our perspective), they are aiming to make the harvest rich indeed!
I also know guys in the military. The kind without identities and have the sort of training which most people think only exists in X-Men comics. The top levels of the military are fully aware of how this works, and they're more into population control working for the aliens than anything else. They don't believe there are any other options, or they are selfish types. They have chosen to work against humanity. We see the result of this every day in our world. The current war and the control measures levied upon society are direct results.
There ARE, however, other options. Since souls do not die, every incarnation is simply an opportunity to learn further through experience. This is an opportunity to further align yourself with the Service-to-others polarity. The more you shine and follow your inner light, the more you tip the scales. This planet, when it changes, is going to be either predominantly self-serving or other-serving. After the shift, all those of the losing side leave. --Like being in a room filled with very negative people when you are a positive person; you feel sick and you need to get out. And vice versa. Same with movies you cannot stand to watch. Each way of existing creates its own harmony, and if you don't fit, you are repelled. Right
a slim one. Think about our own oceans. We really don't know what happens in the deepest cracks, yet we've been searching for years in the ocean. I think you'd have a difficult time arguing that we've explored more of space than our own oceans.
Br. But still, you are introducing a concept know as 'probability' into the equation which is a good thing. Its not merely the lack of evidence, but the time spent searching for evidence as well. That is a step in the right direction for the discussion.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Unfortunately, none of the logical conclusions you present here have any validity whatsoever given that the starting information is far too fuzzy to offer anything solid enough to start from.
For example. . .
the likelihood that any intelligent lifeform smart enough to develop an economical method of traveling interstellar distances within a reasonable timeframe would have any desire to come to Earth is exceedingly low.
What are you basing this assumption on? Isn't it more likely that if said lifeform exists, and if they are here, then perhaps there is something that they know which you do not? You cannot use your human perspective to assume what an alien life form would think of as reasonable or desirable. In fact, there are many indicators that time and space do not exist in the same way for the UFO aliens as it does for us. A simple factor as that throws off all such assumptions as yours.
And even if they did, it further stands to reason that they would either interfere with us outright, or be completely undetectable, that any experiments they performed would not be half-assed jobs that left people running around with partial memories chatting about it, and they would certainly not be allied with, much less occasionally overpowered by, the US government/military.
No, it does not stand to reason. If it is happening as people report, and there are many excellent reasons to believe that it is, then is it not more logical to think that there is something you are overlooking than it is to think that the entirety of the last sixty years of observation and research is mistaken? If you dig enough, you will indeed, find many reasonable answers which will fit into your questions like puzzle pieces.
You need to research this subject a lot more, because your questions are entirely valid. But that does not mean they do not have answers. They do. --And it's fun to learn what they are! The universe is a far more amazing place than many people realize.
-FL
Oh. That behavior. How disappointing.
What were you? The kid in the classroom who was smarter than the other kids because he had a natural bit of IQ which was a shave or two above the rest of the pack, --but who refused to participate along with the other kids and so instead whenever somebody built up the courage to speak, you'd make some disparaging remark to shut him/her down and make the rest of the class laugh? --And all in order to hide your own screaming lack of self-confidence.
Or is there some other reason you're behaving with such text-book nastiness? There's the age-old natural desire to punish those who dare think anything but group-approved thoughts. (Because the group is never wrong or ignorant.) Is it that simple?
In any case, ridicule is the hallmark of the ignorant and fearful when they lack an actual argument to deal with something which upsets them. Often they don't even know why something upsets them. They don't bother to question why their knees are jerking.
It would be a good idea to work on that part of yourself.
-FL
I wonder if that thing can figure out what was flying around over the desert in New Mexico: http://www.omninerd.com/2007/02/25/articles/71
When you understand your disbelief in other gods, then you will understand my disbelief in yours.
While it's an absolutely valid claim that I cannot generalize my motivations to an alien psychology, in the solution space of the possible outcomes of life's evolution and development to a technologically advanced level, basic common strictures like the scarcity of material resources, the difficult of interstellar travel, the evolutionary superiority (or even necessity) of observer-oriented goal systems, and the trend towards maximization of informational 'thought-space' for minimal mass-energy budget is going to have generalized effects for the average civilization.
No. You are doing it again. --You are assuming that alien beings have human limitations, human technology and exist in the same physical reality that we do. You are essentially assuming that you are dealing with humans, or at the most, Star Trek aliens, (humans in costumes). This is a very narrow view of the possibilities available, and indeed, the probable reality. UFO's are almost certainly not nuts and bolts technology, at least not in the sense a human engineer might grasp.
The second major logical fallacy here is that in support of a claim (that UFOs have visited Earth) I should assume that unknown other information exists that these hypothetical aliens know and which would cause them to seek to come to Earth, and that this is a reason to believe in these visitations in the first place! This is both circular and baselessly assumptive.
Leave for a moment the question of arguing over what you should believe, (it makes little difference to anybody but you), and look over the logic again. There's no fallacy there. --All I'm saying is that if the alien presence is real then the aliens automatically know more than you do about their motivations in coming here. This is by no means an unreasonable assumption. Just because you can't imagine a reason does not mean there is no reason. In fact, there ARE reasons of which people are aware. You simply do not know what they are because you've limited yourself to your current logical bubble.
No, assuming unspecified evidence that I don't have a) exists, and b) proves your claim, is NOT more logical. Look at it like a scientific claim, or a legal case: The vast majority of UFO reports are based solely on unverified eyewitness accounts, frequently by highly unreliable individuals. Those that aren't, or that are based on larger numbers of witnesses, have equally coherent explanations that require fewer assumptive leaps - natural phenomena and military testing, primarily. Ockham's Razor. Moreover, most of the particularly major or famous examples have been shown to be hoaxes. And this doesn't even begin to cover the issue of totally baseless derivative conspiracy theories... Simply put, using a string of unspecified assumptions to conclude from limited evidence of low reliability that lifeforms of unknown origin and evolution used ridiculously advanced technology to travel to a world self-evidently beneath them for unknown reasons or motivations is ludicrous.
You're telling me that you think your opinion trumps sixty years worth of observation and research? I see. The problem is that many, if not all of your factual claims in the above paragraph are false.
I refer you to Richard Dolan's book which contains, among many things, a series of documented witness accounts. However, when sifting through the available accounts he could include, (using the FIOA), Dolan, thinking much as you do, that he should discount any witness testimony from anybody in the civilian sector. It only deals with sightings made by military officers, pilots/air traffic controlers and police officers, all of whom are generally hired with a thought to their mental stability and reliability as people. They were also the ones who kept documents of their encounters. Secondly, Dolan discarded single-person encounters. All the accounts in his book involve multiple-witness events. --And even
... a way to hone in on appropriate anal probing!
Just wondering...do you actually know any physics? Because your meaningless pseudo-scientific quasimystical terminology is really quite entertaining. What are these higher dimensions? Can you describe them mathematically? Is there any theory (in the scientific meaning, not the hypothesis-synonymous one) or evidence to support their existence?
First of all, you really need to drop the nastiness in your tone. Ridicule is a means of attempting to control another through the attempted application of shame and guilt. It is hardly the embodiment of the scientific mind you appear to champion. While I believe emotions are important, ridicule is for those who do not know how to approach the unknown without fear. It speaks volumes about the perpetrator.
Secondly, no I am not a scientist. I do, however, have a fairly strong awareness of physics and I always maintain the kind of approach to life which allows me to ask enough of the right questions to understand those who are scientists. But no, I cannot debate in terms of high numbers and formulea. Can you? If I were to present the kind of maths you are requesting, could you make sense of them? In case you can, I can submit this fellow's work. . . I have had the opportunity to converse with him through email on the subject, and I believe him to be, for a variety of reasons, a man of sound mind and high intelligence.
I can also talk at length about my understanding of how the universe works, but I am not certain it would be much use to you as you would need to have a collection of experiential building blocks which I am assuming you do not have. --That of experiencing energy and spirits and similar to the point where you cannot deny the existence of something 'more' than is covered by conventional, public arena science. The problem is that those who live in closed, safe boxes where only the 'acceptable' experiences are allowed to affect you, (and this is quite possible), the full scope of reality goes unnoticed.
Ah. I see. These higher-dimensional beings who don't obey the laws of physics are emotivores that have engineered human development to provide a source of negative vibes to feed on...this is interestingly reminiscent of Scientology. Once again, is this merely wild hypothesizing or is this back up by anything? And can you provide any scientific definition for this "higher reality" and how or why "feeding on pain" is the primary form of sustenance there?
Good lord, I'm no Scientologist! The more you learn about this area of knowledge, the more you realize just how dangerous the Scientology movement is. As per your question, entities channeled from the non-corporeal end of the existence spectrum offer a rich source of information with regard to the whole subject of how reality works beyond our own experience of it. But it is a source closed off to those who refuse to look at or acknowledge such things. Here's a link anyway to one such source, in case you are interested. . . There are several others.
Yes, and once those other factors are known, they are added to the set of relevant observations, the question is reevaluated, and the new least-assumptive theory is formulated. This is merely the reapplication of the same principle given new evidence. What you can't do is assume the other factors exist with no reason to think so, and use this as a reason to believe that the current theory is false and propose an even wilder, more assumptive theory on the basis of evidence that isn't proven or specified.
This is wonderful, but many people misuse Occam's razor to shoot down ideas before they have been properly evaluated. "Based on my limited knowledge, Occam's Razor says X is unlikely, therefore I will not bother considering X." But what if X happens to be real? Then ignoran
First of all, you really need to drop the nastiness in your tone. Ridicule is a means of attempting to control another through the attempted application of shame and guilt. It is hardly the embodiment of the scientific mind you appear to champion. While I believe emotions are important, ridicule is for those who do not know how to approach the unknown without fear. It speaks volumes about the perpetrator.
Hmm. There are people and situations for which/whom that's true, but this really isn't one of them. Rather, it's a result of history - the number of people who have used and believed in pseudoscientific mysticism to blow smoke across a real argument and win, not by rigorous logical and evidential means, but by confusing the issue with semantic smoke and mirrors, is really uncountable in my experience. This is in internet discussion forums, real life, etc. So, you'll forgive me if the time interval before I get fed up has gotten shorter over the years.
Secondly, no I am not a scientist. I do, however, have a fairly strong awareness of physics and I always maintain the kind of approach to life which allows me to ask enough of the right questions to understand those who are scientists. But no, I cannot debate in terms of high numbers and formulea. Can you? If I were to present the kind of maths you are requesting, could you make sense of them? In case you can, I can submit this fellow's work. . . I have had the opportunity to converse with him through email on the subject, and I believe him to be, for a variety of reasons, a man of sound mind and high intelligence.
Hmm. I know enough to get through at least some of the abstracts. The concepts are digestible, though most of the detailed math is beyond me. Thanks for the link, though - this is the physics that I really find interesting. But my question is not how this proves that other dimensions (n the scientific meaning of the term) exist, or that there are other universes - I already believe those things. The place I falter is where you jump from 'a theory that explains some questions about the observed universe posits the existence of a limited number of microdimensions' or 'there are multiple coexistent vacua or branes' to 'this universe includes some other "plane" which is inhabited by conscious entities of specific attributes that visit and interact with our "plane" on a regular basis'.
Good lord, I'm no Scientologist! The more you learn about this area of knowledge, the more you realize just how dangerous the Scientology movement is.
Heh. Trust me, no belief in the paranormal is necessary to understand that Scientology is a dangerous ideology incorporated into a fraudulent criminal scam that's led to multiple deaths under suspicious circumstances, invented by a late-20th-century scifi writer who died in a gutter while on the run from charges of grand larceny and fraud.
As per your question, entities channeled from the non-corporeal end of the existence spectrum offer a rich source of information with regard to the whole subject of how reality works beyond our own experience of it. But it is a source closed off to those who refuse to look at or acknowledge such things. Here's a link anyway to one such source, in case you are interested. . . There are several others.
Interestingly enough, the foreword actually involves a lot of stuff with which I am familiar - chronophysics and general relativity are two major areas of interest. And while I'll be the first to admit that there is nothing precluding the formation of CTCs (closed timelike curves) under extreme gravitational conditions or the effective simulation of superluminal-velocity movement, and that this has enormous implications for the causal structure and origins of the universe, a) these implications are so remote and higher-level that [observable] direct impact upon present-day humans in unlikely, and b) there remains no proof that these things, regardless of their theoretical possibility, actually ex