Why we can't measure spirit
 

I've had enough spiritual experiences, which defy rational explanation, to believe in these things. I used to think that the world would be a better place if we could somehow quantify and measure spirit, spiritual force and so-on. I'm not sure if I still believe that though. I've grown a bit more cynical over time.

My initial opinion was that if we could measure spirit somehow, it would convince more people to be religious etc. Lately I think the opposite might happen. If people could somehow measure spirit that would mean they could effect it. People would declare that "spirit" is just another material and mechanical thing; they would try to find ways to make money off of it, they might build guns that shoot spirit or weapons that try to destroy someone else's spirit. Really, it may be for the best that these things are off-limits and even imperceptible to most people.

What do you guys think?

Maybe it is something that cannot be detected with everyday instruments?

Or it doesn't exist and is a trick of our consciousness

I want to believe the first statement and dearly hope the second isn't true

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but think about for-profit fortune tellers, many televangelists and so-on... people try to make money off of the spirit all the time. If there was a machine that could reliably measure it or a machine that could somehow change it, it would probably be big business. Spiritual things may be best left to a vanguard which can be trusted to work with them in proper ways. This may also be why various conceptions of enlightenment are said to increase someone's spiritual power, such things move us further away from a for-profit conception of the spirit.

Another thing I realized at one point though is that spiritual growth is a "for-profit" thing, it's just not about material profit. But if you are going to bother with such things than you want the spirit which is to say that it is still a form of profit in at least some senses of the word.

So how can we ever know if its real or not??

If you have enough spiritual experiences of the right kinds then you will know personally that it's real. Whether you have these experiences is probably related to how much you want it and how hard you are willing to try. Of course there is the problem with psychology which says that we imagine our spiritual experiences. I read an article which scanned the brains of people who had spiritual experiences and it said that the frontal lobes would shut down during some of them, so that the person would feel like the experience was coming over them, but other parts of the brain would remain active which would facilitate other parts of the experience. Does this disprove the experiences? Who knows. It wouldn't disprove mine. But when people start talking about brain mechanics, every memory becomes fair game for criticism and the bottom line is you have to decide for yourself what you believe in.

The brain is a terrible thing at times:wink:

If we COULD record paranormal phenomena convincingly beyond all doubt then we could rule out the brain but until then.....

If these phenomena are real then they must have an objective existence so must be capable of at least some scientific capture of data.

As long as they remain ONLY subjective the possibilities of imagination, hallucination, dream, wishful thinking even at worst fraud cannot be totally ruled out

Apparently people like Tesla were engaged in means to capture this; I deeply yearn for the day something is captured convincingly

Somebody like myself who has had no previous experiences and others like me would really value this

Not necessarily. If you ascribe some kind of intelligence to spiritual things, it seems possible that they don't want to be found or that they can't be directly measured for some reason. There are plenty of things in physics that are entirely theoretical and can't be objectively measured.

Yes it is, lol...

No matter how 'convincing' it is, it will never be 'convincing' enough, my friend. That's the sad story behind it all.

The only one who is 'convinced' it's beyond the realms of subjective analysis, is the subject themselves and everything else just becomes an 'argumentum ad populum' even if they exist in the minority of one and nobody else believes them.

For example, play an EVP to a skeptic and they will tell you; 'I heard nothing'.
Now, is there a way to prove they actually heard nothing beyond just 'taking their word for it'?

What if there are 4 people in a room and a 'ghost' decides they only want to appear before two of them? How can the two who saw, prove they saw? but more important than that, how can the two who didn't see anything prove they didn't see anything?

This is why there will never be any information that can ever be 'convincing beyond all skeptical doubt'.

Nikolas Tesla tried it, Thomas Edison tried it, Konstantin Raudive tried it, Ernst Senkowski tried it, Frank Sumpton tried it....and now, I carry on this tradition and legacy.

All 'evidence' is just simply inadmissible and that's just how it is in the paranormal vs scientific world.

I have witnessed technology that can interact with spirit, like a structured light sensing camera running motion capturing software or an RF receiver running on constant intermediate frequency.

Yes, people are making money off it - looks @ Bill Chappel, Steve Huff and Anthony Sanchez.

I've also been trying to 'measure spirit' but all my attempts have been pointless, because they are just as at home in the infra-red spectrum as they are on the FM band.

My guess is that they are made of energy outside our perceived electromagnetic spectrum, but they can interact with it and influence it in many ways.