Ever since I was a little boy I have wanted to see a ghost. Now being a fully fledged skeptic I begin to wonder about these things. For years I had been watching shows like "ghost hunters" and "fear." Hoping to catch some sort of a glimps of these things through my television set. It has occured to me thogh throughout my time watching these that I have never seen one peice of evidence displayed on these shows that is rock solid. That I could take to anyone and say, "here look a ghost." Over the last couple of years I have learned about things like pattern recognition and how our brains tend to make us believe things that are untrue quite easily. Take religion for example. There was a time in my early years of life that I believed in god, and not only that, but believed in aliens, ghosts, and a lot of the supernatural. What people do not understand is that once you actually study and analyse these things and how they relate to the way the mind works. You begin to realize that a lot of this is just a mind that has interpreted the universe in such a way that these things seem like they could be real. Of course with my studies in Physics, Biology, and my personal research into certain areas of neuroscience, I have been able to uncover some of this mystery and realize what my brain is capable of making me believe. A person can be the most intelligent person you have ever met, but there brain works just like everyone elses therefore they are also very capable of being mislead down a path of believing in things of the supernatural. What we must do is begin really analyse and take a look at these certain areas. A man who has always promoted the idea that we should start analyzing hard eveidence rather than anictodal, or any type that can be tampered with is one James Randi, a man that I have tremendous respect for and whom I strive to be similar too. He has taken the psychic phenominon and exposed it for what is really is. He is the host of the "million dollar challenge" where by any psychic who can demonstrate that there power is real will be awarded one million dollars. No psychic has claimed the price yet. Silvia Brown apparently accepted the challenge, and for some reason we never heard the results. It is apparent that she backed out. My mother always believed in people like Silvia Browne and John Edward who have made there living by claiming that they can speak to the dead. James Randi never claims that these people are "fake" he only states that these people hve not been able to present there powers in a controlled double blinded test, and until they can do that we will not take them as real.
I am glad that I have switched my thinking to a more scientific process, for it allows to distinguish what is real from what is nto quite easily. I think that everyone should think like this and I do think that eventually this will happen, because in any case, science will always win because we explore things based on real evidence whereas the other side of the argument will never be able to produce it unless it is actually legitamite. Throughout my life I will try my best to help others to be critical thinkers and I hope in time others will do the same.
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