I have had a lifelong fascination with the unexplained and the unexplainable, the unknown and the unknowable. I’ve always been fascinated by the difference between the elements, i.e. can the unknown become known, or is it truly and completely unknowable? Can the unexplained ultimately be explained? It seems to me that there are, in Universe, some things which are totally unavailable to human apprehension. Since our conceptual ability is limited by our physical capacity, our truly vast brainpower is obviously still ultimately inadequate to hold the totality of reality. Though our brain’s capacity is seemingly vast, Universe is undeniably even more vast. So, I don’t find it implausible that we might encounter things that cannot be fully known; that being said, it also stands to reason that we might encounter things that could be known but will require a great deal of effort, a long and arduous pursuit, to understand with any degree of completeness. We are remiss when we too lightly dismiss a puzzling event as inexplicable; it behooves us to make great effort before such dismissal. Likewise, we cannot rush to employ Occam’s Razor too quickly, especially if we find ourselves restricting our attention to only certain details in order for the Razor to satisfy.
For those unfamiliar, Occam’s Razor is the philosophical proposition that, all things being considered being equal, the simplest explanation is usually correct. That’s a bit of a gloss; actually, Occam proposed that the simplest explanation was the most likely. A fine distinction.
So I have prefaced this consideration of an enigma with a bit of my personal inclinations, and a little discourse on human capacity and a powerful philosophical and investigative tool. I hope I have not bored you.
The question at hand is popularly known as the Dyatlov’s Pass Incident; I am amazed that it has taken so long for this to come up on my radar. I came across it when idly surfing the ‘web, just poking around looking for enigmas to entertain myself with. Here is the wikipedia link, a good introduction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass
I have followed every link in this article, even those in Russian, which I unfortunately cannot read. I mined those entries for maps and pictures, and there are some things buried in them not found in English language articles.
So I have chewed on this enigma for about a week and half so far, and find I cannot go long before my mind returns again to puzzle over the evidence and try to consider all possible scenarios. I have spent hours reading every thread of discussion and considered every proposal presented and as of today still feel the best explication I can believe is that Some Damned Thing happened to these people, Some Damned Thing set into motion actions which are difficult to understand and which seemingly contradict themselves within any particular proposition.
(Author’s note: I capitalize Some Damned Thing to suggest the distinction made by Charles Hoy Fort, to characterize a mysterious agency; I will probably start abbreviating it as SDT, for the sake of brevity and ease my poor typing fingers.)
This post thus prefaces what I hope will be a lively discussion. I will be following up with further posts to consider the various scenarios proposed and their ability, or lack, to satisfy Occam’s Razor. At this point, my Razor proposition is:
“Nine people died under mysterious circumstances; there are things in Universe beyond our ken; ergo Some Damned Thing happened on Feb. 2, 1959 in the area now known as Dyatlov’s Pass.”
It remains to see if we can render this SDT knowable.
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Over the years I've looked into many of these unexplained events. For the most part they remain unexplained because they were never true to start with.
ReplyDeleteTake Area 51. Because the government released a news story saying they recovered a flying saucer , which wasn't true, a myth sprang up of epic proportions. There is no evidence anything weird ever happened there, and except for that news story and a weather baloon, never has been.
Remember the Amityville Horror movie? It was based on a "True Story" that turned out to be totally false. The author faked it all to stimulate interest. That house still exists and no one who ever lived it reported a single haunting.
I suspect there's a lot of the Dyatlov's Pass incident totally fabricated as well. The whole thing could be made up actually. We're dealing with people who are making money writing books. When all you see on a topic are looters and the fringe believers it's usally a sign something is bad wrong. I smell that here.
It's possible some people died and the Russians were so incompetent they didn't bother to investigate. If they didn't want to go up there in horrible conditions they'd just wrote it off as "Unknown Force". Then the looters smell money so they begin the process of making up stuff until it snowballs into UFO sightings, Bigfoot, and who knows what else.
The other possibly is the Russian Government killed them for some reason. They would of course fabricate a story about unknown forces, no footprints, etc, in that case.
I suspect if it's ever solved you'll find out the facts provided aren't really facts at all. The real events were never recorded, and once uncovered, would show the case to be simple indeed.
I think all those are valid observations, at first glance. I like to initially approach these things in the mindset of a "true believer" (exercising systematic suspension of disbelief) and just suck in every bit of information I can. Then I start thinking critically and begin the process of refuting my "belief". It's a fun experiment, and sometimes one runs up against something that just keeps twisting under the analytical knife. This is beginning to look like one of those things. While I don't recommend exhaustively pursuing every bit of discussion on this to someone not given to that practice as entertainment, I will be periodically discussing some of the arguments that address this event, weighing their power to explain or failures to do so, and of course the ultimate veracity of evidences, such as they might be. Some of us really go for this stuff...if you find it boring, let the header be your cue and waste no time on that post. I still value your input; remember, I'm not REALLY a true believer, I just play one on TV!
ReplyDeleteI'm only slightly familiar with the Dyatlov case so don't pay any attention to me. I've never looked at it closely.
ReplyDeleteThere are some unexplained things that seem to be valid. One are Ghosts. Every culture on earth has some mythology about them. The bible mentions them. They are seen by wide sections of the population who have no reason to lie and who don't profit by them. When something is that pervasive, and has been since recorded history, you have to give it some credibility.
I suspect the answer may lie in quantum physics. The brain works on a quantum level we are just begining to understand. Quantum particles exibit very unusual actions including seeming to be in two places at once, and somehow knowing what quantum state they will obtain in the future. Most ghosts seem to be like a broken record, going over an action in an endless loop. Walking up stairs over and over, or standing in a corner. There is one famous film from a civil war battlefield where men are seen rushing to a spot, then immediately replaying to rush there again.
Time and space mean different things on a quantum level. Who knows what our brains are picking up when they see a "Ghost". It could be something from the past that only exists on a quamtun level and isn't supernatural at all.
I wholeheartedly concur. It's interesting to note that the majority of "ghost" phenomena are associated with specific places; one would think if some sort of "spirit" was trying to make contact with the living, the association would be with specific individuals. Of course, sometime the phenomena are associated with both a specific individual AT a specific location.
ReplyDelete