Quizzes & Puzzles10 mins ago
Psychic Feelings
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Do you believe that - maybe even have examples of - some people can somehow sense what you're thinking or feeling even if they're a long distance away and haven't seen in you in a long while?
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I don't think people who believe that psychic powers exist do want a scientific answer, if that answer undermines their belief that their senses and memories are infallible. They want the answer that there is some mysterious thing to which they have or could have access. Well, they may have, but the jury is still out on that one and likely to be so for a very long time.
Jom, and you also said //I don't think people who believe that psychic powers exist do want a scientific answer, if that answer undermines their belief that their senses and memories are infallible.//
In other words, rather than acknowledge that their senses and memories are fallible, they choose to believe otherwise. What is that is not delusion?
In other words, rather than acknowledge that their senses and memories are fallible, they choose to believe otherwise. What is that is not delusion?
//that makes all deluded. //
It does indeed!
//It can explain a lot of things but not things that it cannot detect or measure or count or classify or are so rare that no patterns in their occurrance are evident. //
In instances like this, where there is so much anecdotal evidence, science should at least have the grace to say it doesn’t know, but it doesn’t do that. It says it doesn’t happen.
It does indeed!
//It can explain a lot of things but not things that it cannot detect or measure or count or classify or are so rare that no patterns in their occurrance are evident. //
In instances like this, where there is so much anecdotal evidence, science should at least have the grace to say it doesn’t know, but it doesn’t do that. It says it doesn’t happen.
jomifl; When you are in a hole it's best to stop digging. I have given a list of demonstrably verifiable and unaccountable facts about homing pigeons, and you say I know very little about them. As to my claim that the brain is the most remarkable object in the universe, you refute this, but when I ask for an example of something better, all you can say is something may exist(obviously), but you don't know what it is, hardly a compelling argument. You really do sound confused.
I think the "delusion" such as it is can apply equally well to both sides. There was an experiment a few years back (1995) where (in the paper's own language) believers and disbelievers in the paranormal were shown what was actually a "magic trick" show of telekinesis. Unsurprisingly those who believe in TK thought that this was a paranormal event, and those who did not believe in TK didn't, and on told that it was a trick the believers tended to "misremember" parts of the video to compensate.
I don't think much would have changed had it been a genuine case of paranormal abilities -- those who did not believe in such would have been just as likely to refuse to believe even after being told, or "misremember" crucial details and so on.
So we are all in some way blinkered against challenges to our beliefs, and the only things that we are left with are personal accounts (with all the flaws of selective memory, "eye of the beholder" and so on) and raw data from those who believe that it is worth trying to seek for scientific evidence for the paranormal.
Individual accounts such as daisy's and Mrs. O's in this thread are interesting, weird and remarkable. Are they also unusual, or could they have happened anyway just by random chance of several billion people living billions of lifetimes, many of whom might have some weird "luck" in a spooky feeling coming true?
I don't want to dismiss all such accounts, but they can only be the basis for further research rather than a radical change in anyone's opinion of this. So we are left with the raw data gathered over the last century or so. And it just doesn't look promising. This are, remember, people who are convinced that the paranormal is a phenomenon worth investigating. So we would expect their published papers to tend to show positive indications of the paranormal. They do, but even with this "publication bias" the statistical margin is barely above significant.
All indications point to this being little other than random chance. I have no problem with believing that some people just get lucky. I do think that's all it is.
I don't think much would have changed had it been a genuine case of paranormal abilities -- those who did not believe in such would have been just as likely to refuse to believe even after being told, or "misremember" crucial details and so on.
So we are all in some way blinkered against challenges to our beliefs, and the only things that we are left with are personal accounts (with all the flaws of selective memory, "eye of the beholder" and so on) and raw data from those who believe that it is worth trying to seek for scientific evidence for the paranormal.
Individual accounts such as daisy's and Mrs. O's in this thread are interesting, weird and remarkable. Are they also unusual, or could they have happened anyway just by random chance of several billion people living billions of lifetimes, many of whom might have some weird "luck" in a spooky feeling coming true?
I don't want to dismiss all such accounts, but they can only be the basis for further research rather than a radical change in anyone's opinion of this. So we are left with the raw data gathered over the last century or so. And it just doesn't look promising. This are, remember, people who are convinced that the paranormal is a phenomenon worth investigating. So we would expect their published papers to tend to show positive indications of the paranormal. They do, but even with this "publication bias" the statistical margin is barely above significant.
All indications point to this being little other than random chance. I have no problem with believing that some people just get lucky. I do think that's all it is.
Regardless of this particular issue, we should not reject anything of hand without any thought whatsoever. I've tried to explain that I have not done that, that I have thought about it, and that it's only after such research that I've come to my opinion. The charge of being "blinkered" or "arrogant" I reject, but it's still important to watch out for that. In this at least I agree with Naomi's point.
The disagreement is, or seems to be, over whether or not it's fair to say that in this case Scientists have been blinkered. I don't think that's fair -- again I refer to the vast body of evidence and studies out there that show no effect beyond what you what expect from pure chance. And these studies are not all conducted by sceptics either (why would they waste their time?) but by those who think that there is something in it. And still they find nothing. I think it is this, rather than just blinkered opinion, that is causing Scientists as a whole to disagree with such claims.
The onus is on such people to show that there is something real behind this that is beyond random chance.
The disagreement is, or seems to be, over whether or not it's fair to say that in this case Scientists have been blinkered. I don't think that's fair -- again I refer to the vast body of evidence and studies out there that show no effect beyond what you what expect from pure chance. And these studies are not all conducted by sceptics either (why would they waste their time?) but by those who think that there is something in it. And still they find nothing. I think it is this, rather than just blinkered opinion, that is causing Scientists as a whole to disagree with such claims.
The onus is on such people to show that there is something real behind this that is beyond random chance.
""All indications point to this being little other than random chance. I have no problem with believing that some people just get lucky. I do think that's all it is.""
Nothing wrong in that jim, it's those who categorically state without doubt that although nothing of the sort has happened to them...it just does NOT happen - full stop. In fact go so far as to say those it happens to are deluded or not telling the truth or imagining things, all of which I've heard in the past. I prefer to know what I know and let others choose their version, until it happens to those concerned it's not going to be believed of course.
Naomi is as usual correct when she wrote, "" In instances like this, where there is so much anecdotal evidence, science should at least have the grace to say it doesn’t know, but it doesn’t do that. It says it doesn’t happen."
Nothing wrong in that jim, it's those who categorically state without doubt that although nothing of the sort has happened to them...it just does NOT happen - full stop. In fact go so far as to say those it happens to are deluded or not telling the truth or imagining things, all of which I've heard in the past. I prefer to know what I know and let others choose their version, until it happens to those concerned it's not going to be believed of course.
Naomi is as usual correct when she wrote, "" In instances like this, where there is so much anecdotal evidence, science should at least have the grace to say it doesn’t know, but it doesn’t do that. It says it doesn’t happen."
As I have said earlier when going through this thread, it seems to be an argument between the Logical Positivists and the Mysticists, with a few genuinely puzzled folk thrown in. I don't know what 'psychic' means but I know that 'paranormal' is something not accounted for (yet) by scientific study, e.g. my facts about homing pigeons.
Would it not be a good idea to remove the word 'psychic' (meaning outside the domain of physical law) from the debate and concentrate only on the 'paranormal', after all most of what we accept today was at one time considered to be just that.
Would it not be a good idea to remove the word 'psychic' (meaning outside the domain of physical law) from the debate and concentrate only on the 'paranormal', after all most of what we accept today was at one time considered to be just that.
Perhaps Science doesn't "know" 100%. But that's placing a higher demand on scientific knowledge than usual. The usual degree of certainty required is about 99.9999%. There is them always room for doubt but eventually that doubt becomes "just for the sake of it" rather than than having any logical basis. I've been trying to say that I don't think Naomi is correct is your quote. Scientists have looked at this, and the most reflective quote of their opinion is probably this one, of Carl Sagan's:
"The late Carl Sagan included telekinesis in a long list of "offerings of pseudoscience and superstition" which "it would be foolish to accept (...) without solid scientific data" though even highly improbable claims may possibly be eventually verified. He placed the burden of proof on the proponents, but cautioned readers to "await—or, much better, to seek—supporting or disconfirming evidence" for claims that have not been resolved either way. (source: wikipedia quote from Carl Sagan's book ' The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a candle in the dark', pp 208-212).
Anyway, I don't think that you are deluded and I do wish that people would stop being so emotive and labelling about it. And if someone finds a quote from me where I did that then I'll save time later by apologising in advance.
"The late Carl Sagan included telekinesis in a long list of "offerings of pseudoscience and superstition" which "it would be foolish to accept (...) without solid scientific data" though even highly improbable claims may possibly be eventually verified. He placed the burden of proof on the proponents, but cautioned readers to "await—or, much better, to seek—supporting or disconfirming evidence" for claims that have not been resolved either way. (source: wikipedia quote from Carl Sagan's book ' The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a candle in the dark', pp 208-212).
Anyway, I don't think that you are deluded and I do wish that people would stop being so emotive and labelling about it. And if someone finds a quote from me where I did that then I'll save time later by apologising in advance.
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