Seraphim

By Secular Pinoy

Of course! Isn't this a Filipino Forum?

My reply : Nani ... I thought this forum is set in some Western country.

Actually I've seen your posts before. Corgan invited you here, right? Does he still post here?

My reply : Corgan? He probably lurking around here somewhere, jumps in and out whenever he feels like it. Yes, he invited/challenged to me to come here (and last I heard, he was regretting that move).

Your friend seems to be saying that one must accept the paranormal to see the proof of the paranormal. I hope you see the circularity of his recommendation.

My reply : No ... I believe he was referring to development of such abilities rather than as a proof to a 3rd party. I believe he was telling me that a person who suspect he or she has such abilities must first accept it (as part of him or her) so it will develop naturally.

Selamat malam! (Is dat korek?)

My reply : Yes, correct. It means Good Night in Bahasa Malaysia.

By Answerer

I'm open about the existence of psyhic abilities, of course, I hope such abilities could be put in the context of science so that we can undestand them better.

My reply : That makes the two of us. Maybe with some scientific background, people like my friend could be a bit comfortable showing it in public. He doesn't even shows his friends who is close to him for a few years and only reason I found out was by accident ... fight (sparring) with a mind-reading opponent was no something I could call fun ... too much like an X-Men spinoff.

by Jan Haugland

I don't think your psychological analysis is universally valid. Sure, that could be the outcome in some cases. However, it is just as likely that such a person would use his or her powers in a way that made people feel comfortable, and certainly would want to be his or her friend.

My reply : I wasn't talking in universal term, I was referring to my friend and relating his point of view and fears. For some who lived as long as I had with a label "freak", being accepted could mean a lot of things ... even if it means denying something that born with you.

A person could use his or her power in a comfortable way? Trust me pal, when you go to a person's face and tell him the his own true feelings and intentions, that makes that person VERY uncomfortable. No one like to hear the truth, only what they wish to hear.

You are talking about what would be an extreme, eh, dare I say superpower. Even if a person having these powers would be tempted to hide them, they would be tremenously effective. In fact, if there existed such people, they would rule the world.

My reply : What exactly does a 7 yr old want to do with ruling the world? You think bring everyone to your knees will make them love you? Worse you get is fear ... and trust me, fear and hatred is not something a sane person could like to "see" in eyes of others.

Conspiracy theory of the day: they are ruling the world.

My reply : I doubt it ... the world won't be in such a mess if people could understand each other by heart.

By Lobstrosity

Seeing the future requires that information travel backwards in time. No mechanism for this has been even remotely postulated, current physics, which works exceedingly well, forbids this, and no one can provide any evidence that they have been able to see the future. Furthermore, have you even begun to fathom the paradoxes that would arise from such a thing? The most reasonable conclusion to draw at this moment: it is impossible to see into the future. If you claim otherwise you are making an extraordinary claim and that will require some sort of extraordinary evidence (not some David Copperfield type stunt). The default position is clearly to assume that this is not possible.

My reply : Correction ... "seeing" the future doesn't need you to travel anywhere.

Take a role of a dice for example - you have 6 possible outcome and the actual outcome is 1 so the chance of you getting the result is simply 1/6. By observing the person who throws the dice (whether he is lefthanded/righthanded, whether he have habit of throwing toward the edge of the table etc) you could increase the chance of possibility of getting such result.

In my "example" however, all this "calculations" was somehow precalculated in a person's subconscious mind to the point that only the result is available and not the actual working process. Thus ... resulting in what appeared to be prediction of the future.

Reading minds means that our thoughts actually transmit information outside of our brains in a way that is detectible by another structure in our brains or on our bodies. No one has postulated any mechanism for this to occur and furthmore no reasonable mechanism is evident.

My reply : I don't think it is that hard to explain ... we have several working models of machines for the past a few decades which "mind reads" all the time and it usually sits in your living room. I was referring to TVs and Radios.

Thoughts is simply interaction of millions of brain cells which work similar to a computer. Energy flows through the circuit board and the circuit board does what it supposed to do by allowing/disallowing the current to past (ON or OFF status). In similar manner is the brain. The brain access its database - memory where it gathers data, adds it to whatever data its reseptors gives and produce new data. What if another "brain" could detect this flow of information?

Lastly, I do not see why we would even possess such an ability. What is the point? How does it benefit us? We evolved to speak for a reason: to communcate our thoughts to others. We already have a way of communicating our thoughts. It doesn't make sense to me that we would also evolve the ability communicate our thoughts a second way and have this communcation be so bad as to be nearly indetectible by all. Once again, let's take the default possition and assume it is not possible until someone can clearly demonstrate otherwise.

My reply : Yes, we evolve the ability to speak ... but are we all speaking from our hearts?

Basically, apply these kinds of arguments to all forms of psychic behavior to know where I stand on everything. Telekinesis--that's just pointless. We have the ability to move things. It's called "hands." Why do we need the ability to move them with our mind, especially when that ability is so weak that only five people in the world claim to be strong enough to move a paperclip with it. By what mechanism is a force being produced? If telekinesis were possible, I guarantee you that other organisms on this planet would have evolved to exploit the ability. You'd see some species catching prey with its mind. Humans would also have mastered the technique by now. Think how useful that would be for commiting crimes! Humans are resourceful and would not let such an ability go unmasterd.

My reply : Can't say much about telekinesis since I have not come across anyone (in the past 30 years) who claims to have such powers. My sensei (martial art instructor) once said that his master could drop another person simply by point his finger (Jedi technique I guess) but my sensei didn't demonstrate it. Maybe IF I felt the impact of whatever "energy" he used, I could somehow make a logical assumption of it.

Which 5 people you are talking about?


So, are you saying that one has to suspend reason, in order to 'develop' these abilities?

I would imagine so!

My reply : No ... I'd said one has to accept such ability to exists within him to have it develop naturally. If he could find logical assumption of why such thing exist, better so.

By Undercurrent

And this happens to all of the people with this ability? Never once has the young boy overcome his childhood to use his ability to conquer nations? Never once has the card playing brother said, "shit, he's wierd, but I can exploit this" and grown up to make a killing on the stock market?

My reply : Sorry ... I guess that boy wasn't Sephiroth of FF7 ... (sorry, personal joke).

What use of a nation to a 7th year old? If he did conquer a nation (assuming of course he became THAT powerful in short time), what use it is to him? As for his brother ... not sure about him, maybe the brother is kindda of type who "loves" the kid too much to exploit him ... such thing do exist you know.

To say that your story has never happened ever is implausable, but to say that there is any siginificant number of psychics who have all been kept quiet by social rejection is ludicrous. After all, computer geeks face social rejection all the time, but at least of decent fraction of them grow up to exploit the benefits of computer geekdom (big salary) anyway.

My reply : Not sure about computer geeks ... I mean, they earn more in one month than any good-looking guy could earn in a year and which girl couldn't fall for a guy like that? They may look different, but making big for themselves will reduce that problem.

As others have pointed out, the large number of americans who noisily trot out their claims of psychic power, denies the claim that there is some massive social stigma against phychic claims. I suspect the only reason why an adult "psychic" would keep quiet would be because they are frauds with a good scam in a small market, and are anxious to avoid the critical examination that greater attention levels brings.

My reply : Can't say much about America or its people ... most I see of them is from what I get from TV, several people who comes to my company and so on. But I can understand about this scam thing ... even in Malaysia, we have various "holy men" (known as Bomohs) who claims remarkable feats to fool the public.

By Tabula_rasa

Thanks ... I will listen to it when I have a chance.

Seraphim

By Mad Kally

I wish they had all got together and warned us to evacuate the WTC and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001..

My reply : Something cannot be helped ...

By JenniferD

I think it's totally bogus. I was raised atheist, but my mom had (has) a powerful belief in the super-natural, and she is convinced that she has a psychic connection with me and with her sisters. It took me a lot of time with critical thinking to work out my issues with this. The antecdotal evidence was everywhere.

My reply : Oh yeah ... you reminded me of a very interesting subject. There was a several cases where a mother could "sense" when her children is in danger or had accidents. She usually have this odd feeling (like she ate too much chilli and its reacting inside her stomach, at least that what I descripted from what I heard) and knows that something happened to her child. What you think of that?

Mad Kally

I hope that's just an expression of speech. The heart is a pump.

Seraphim

I hope that's just an expression of speech. The heart is a pump.

My sigh : ...

What I meant by that Kally, ARE we all saying what we trully wish to say?

I had meet several people who compressed everything thy felt inside to a point they blow up on other people's faces only in wrong times (which usually make things very worse).

Mad Kally

I can't speak for anyone else, but when I say something it is exactly what I truly wish to say.

Seraphim

I can't speak for anyone else, but when I say something it is exactly what I truly wish to say.

My reply : Same here ... bet you PO several people when they hear something which they do not wish to hear ... (at least I had).

Like you said. not everyone will speak what they feel. Not very sure how this applies to mind reading, but maybe it has something to do with the need to understand another while having the need of having someone else understands you ... doesn't it make sense?

Mad Kally

Should I lie to prevent people from hearing what they do not wish to hear? That would be wrong.



To be honest it makes no sense at all. Maybe we have a language barrier? I don't know.

Kally

Seraphim

by Mad Kally

Should I lie to prevent people from hearing what they do not wish to hear? That would be wrong.

My reply : To you it is wrong, but to them, telling the truth in their face is wrong. No one likes the truth, especially if it is a bad one.

To be honest it makes no sense at all. Maybe we have a language barrier? I don't know.

My reply : Never mind ... maybe I'm not very good at descripting it by words. It was easier for my friend since he could understand when we talked face to face.

Answerer

Hey guys, could the psychic abilities like sixth sense, foretelling and mind-reading (if existed) be connected to the quantum process that have existed in our minds?

As far as quantum physics is concerned, it doesn't rule out the possibility of having existing abilities.

Lobstrosity

Wait, could you be a little bit more detailed? I'm not really sure what you're even talking about, though I suspect maybe you're referring to the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox. Quantum physics isn't some new mystical thing that suddenly justifies all sorts of weird events in life.