Knowing When To Walk Away.

When engaged in a conversation with someone on a point or points on which we have different views, I try to stick with it, giving the other person as much of a chance as possible to make their point and, hopefully, teach me something, while also trying to make my views and their bases clear. There are times, though, where this is impossible and one has to learn to walk away.

I was involved in an online conversation with a MySpacer on two different subjects. One of them was the presence of "ghosts" or "spirits" in historic buildings (the other was about evolution). The conversation began when I saw this person tell someone else that historic buildings are "notorious" for being inhabited by spirits. Well, since I happen to know a bit about historic sites, have spent much time at them, and have expended a great deal of time, energy and money to help preserve these sites and their history for the good of all, I felt as though I needed to jump in.

I noted how I had a much greater than average exposure to historic sites and their histories, including cemeteries and places where deaths had occurred (including my own 95-year-old house in which at least one person has died) and places that have been tied to ghost stories (SEE NOTE), and that neither I nor anyone that I knew in the field had ever experienced anything not explainable by the physical world. While this is not a scientific study, my level of exposure and network of others with high exposure to these sort of sites lends a much greater statistical significance to my anecdotal reports than someone whose experience and information base is limited to TV and the internet.

In addition to the results of my personal experience, historical research, and discussions with others in the historic field, there is no physical evidence for the spirit world. Yes, there are things that are "unexplained," but that does not mean that they are not explainable. Many things that we now understand quite well were unexplainable for many years: radiation, DNA, fire, viral diseases, etc. Many of these sorts of things were given supernatural explanations, yet we know now that they are easily explainable.

Naturally, my arguments based on fact and reason did not deter the individual. I, and all of the other people I know in the field, were dismissed as not being "in tune" with spirits and I was also hit with the "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" falsity. Let's use an analogy here, as I did in my response: Suppose I tell you there is a 12-legged cat in a certain room. If you go in the room and find no evidence of a 12-legged cat or any evidence that a 12-legged cat was ever there, what would be your conclusion? That you weren't "in tune" with 12-legged cats? While I wouldn't fault you for saying at an absolute level that there might theoretically be a 12-legged cat in there, I would think that you were dead-fuck-nuts if you acted like there was a 12-legged cat in that room whenever you were there and told other people there was a 12-legged cat in there. For all practical purposes, I would consider you much more sane if you acted as if there was no 12-legged cat in the room, even if you took a quick look around whenever you walked in that room.

She ended that post by claiming that her belief in demons and ghosts and such did not make her any less "intellectual." Well, here's the definition of "intellectual" from the Merriam-Webster dictionary (the bold italics are my emphasis):

Pronunciation: \ˌin-tə-ˈlek-chə-wəl, -chəl, -shwəl, -chü(-ə)l\

Function: adjective

Date: 14th century

1 a : of or relating to the intellect or its use b : developed or chiefly guided by the intellect rather than by emotion or experience : rational c : requiring use of the intellect

When one asserts that something exists because of their experience and/or anecdotal information, when rationality points to its nonexistence, one is being exactly the antithesis of intellectual. There were other misdefined and undefined terms, no references to materials that might provide a basis for her assertions, and gross evidence of an ignorance of some of the subjects being discussed.

My conversations with these people are sometimes almost identical with some conversations I have with my sister, who has a developmental disability. Example: She likes to close blinds during the day and open them at night. I have tried over and over to explain to her that people can see in at night when the blinds are open and the house lights are on. She accuses me of lying when I tell her this. I have even taken her outside at night and showed her, but she still insists I am lying and, in fact, gets nastier and more insistent that I apparently have some evil agenda. This is what it is like to talk to some people who, you would expect, do not have the same limitations as my sister.

It reminds me of Monty Python's dead parrot skit:



No matter how dead you show the parrot to be, they just make stuff up, misuse terms, and say stuff that has no meaning. It is annoying, and a waste of time. While I don't like to walk away from a conversation, if it has no potential for productivity, then I need to learn to walk away.

It is a shame that people believe in baseless BS when there is a wonderfully beautiful and complex world of reality around them. While I feel bad for them, I need to learn that I can't "save the world" and that some people are just destined to live out their lives in a fantasy world. The best we can hope to do sometimes is to control the amount of damage such people do to the world around them.

XXX

NOTE: Two of these sites, which have been the subject of "real ghost stories" (an oxymoron) on TV, happen to be ones where I am generally recognized as the leading authority on their history. On one of these shows, the "haunting" was confirmed. I have not seen the other yet.