I watched Carrie Poppy's TedTalk on (as you can see above) a scientific approach to the paranormal. She starts out telling a story of how she thought that there was a ghost in her house, and how in the course of trying to get rid of it, she comes across a forum of "skeptic" ghost hunters. By "skeptic", she means that they try to come up with a scientific explanation for every case they're given. The forum helps her reach the conclusion that there was no ghost; she in fact had carbon monoxide poisoning, and she was able to call someone to fix the leak that very easily could have killed her. She goes on to talk about "inner" and "outer" truths- "outer" truths being ones backed up by historical facts, and "inner" truths being more personal truths. Toward the end, she talks about how the group she now works with, similar to the skeptics, tests peoples' claims about having paranormal abilities. By testing these people, they are able to determine that they don't have some sort of special abilities, but give them the opportunity to get help because there is something going on in their heads.
In this Talk, Poppy uses her own personal experience- her story- to provide real evidence that science can explain away claims of the paranormal. If she had just said that "ghosts aren't real, there's always a scientific explanation for everything", people likely wouldn't have been as willing to listen and to believe her. However, she starts with the story instead, and gives a real account of how science explained a "ghost" and actually ended up saving her life. She actually mentions at one point that since she'd told people that there was a gas leak in her house, that it was likely that no one would still try to argue that there was a ghost. Leading with the gas leak would have left no reason to believe there was a ghost to begin with, and her story wouldn't have been nearly as interesting or convincing in terms of her point.
Part of what struck me about her approach to this Talk was how her initial statement seemed to be meant to instill fear in her audience. We always think of ghosts as this far off thing, and then she says she was haunted and all of a sudden we go OH NO. It becomes so much more real, and that makes it much more scary. She builds this fear in her audience by telling about her own fear and her physical discomfort worsening. She also manages to keep it after the resolution of the ghost aspect by including that the gas leak (her "ghost") could've killed her very soon if she hadn't called when she did. This takes the fear from creepy psychological paranormal threat to a wow-she-could've-died, much more realistic fear.
Upon first impression, Poppy's claim that science can explain away any paranormal claim is somewhat questionable. However, she later explains how her experience led her to work in that same field, meaning that her information was no longer grounded in a singular experience but in extensive experience and research.
Poppy spirals up her Talk in a rather quick and abrupt way. She starts out telling this story, and ends the story by saying that the problem ended up being something completely different. She switches to talking about her work, which is related to the original story, but then delves into her idea of "inner" and "outer" truths, which she doesn't explain in relation to her original story but explains them in such a way that her audience is able to make judgements for themselves. I think she intentionally left that open-ended so that people actually have to think about what parts of paranormality we (as a society) make out to be "outer" truths and what would be considered "inner" truths- I even wonder if the entire concept would be an outer truth claim, similar to how she said Jesus rising from the dead was an outer truth claim. Many believe it to be true, but we still don't know.
To be honest, I chose this Talk because when I skimmed the list, it was the only one that stood out. However, it was also because the idea of the paranormal is both fascinating and terrifying to me. It's interesting to hear stories about ghosts and other things, but at the same time it's comforting to know that there is a way to explain everything in a way that is not a ghost.
This really made me think! It is very interesting to me that a carbon monoxide leak could seem like a ghost in her home, but it is good that she figured it out when she did! This really makes me wonder if there truly is a scientific explanation for everything. This one instance it ended up not being paranormal activity, but what about the cases that there is this activity? Or does paranormal activity not exist? I'm not one to believe in ghosts, but that does not mean that there are not cases out there that can make me wonder. This is truly an interesting story that, as you said, makes you realize what is an inner versus outer truth and if there is always an explanation.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you watched this TedTalk, because I saw it on the list and it caught my attention, too! You mentioned that the speaker grabs the audiences' attention with her paranormal story, but abruptly ends it by saying there was an entirely different root of the problem. While I think that is an effective technique, I've found that many TedTalks are misleading in that sense, which ends up being moderately disappointing. Who is at fault for that disappointment--the audience, for being naive, or the speaker, for being misleading? As an empiricist, I like to think nearly everything can be explained using logic and science. I find it so interesting that there are "ghost hunters" who are doing the same thing, especially because that type of practice is generally associated with knowing by faith. Something else reminiscent of TOK is the whole "inner" versus "outer" truth concept. All in all, you did a fantastic job of comprehensively recapping the talk and balancing that with analysis.
ReplyDeleteGreat talk, great analysis! Wonderful job of balancing your opinion with critical analysis- I love thinking about how this can connect to storytelling as well!
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