Lobstrosity

This isn't seeing the future, this is making predictions. This is using psychology or physics to try to figure out what will happen. Some people are better at it than others but in general it doesn't work so well. I was talking about people who actually claim see the future--people who aren't actually present to witness the intial conditions of an event. Also, I think the dice thing is bullshit. The human brain doesn't perform those kinds of calculations. It's not structured that way. Anyone who can do that sort of thing can also multiply 432091903280 by 39012380532 in their heads in a fraction of a second (after all, isn't that the sort of thing they're doing in order to predict the precise forces the die will be subjected to?). Next time you see someone claim to have these powers, ask them to do a "simple" multiplication problem like the one above in their heads. If they can't do it, you know they're full of crap.

What are you talking about? I'm not talking about communication here, I'm talking about reading minds. How do TVs and radios read minds? I feel like I'm missing something.

Yes, I know what thoughts are. You still haven't explained anything, though. The crux of my argument is based on how another brain would detect this information. First of all, how is the information getting out of your skull? How do the details of your thoughts get transmitted? Second of all, assuming you can answer that, what then receives this transmitted information? Yeah, it's all a great "what if," but it's nothing more than that. What if we're all being controlled by a giant slug on Pluto? Thirdly, why do we still even bother to speak to each other if we have this other ability to communicate? Clearly if it's possible to read minds, why don't we do all our communication that way? Verbal communication is actually detrimental to our survival because it requires the throat to be constructed in such a way as to make choking easier. Why have this needless risk when you could just talk with your mind?

To me the idea of mind reading is on par with the idea of creating a LAN by just putting a few computers next to each other and just hoping that they will communicate. Forget that they are actually designed to pass data through specific channels...let's just hope one processor can tell what the other processors are doing somehow.

I just made up a number. I've heard a few people in the past claim to have telekinesis. Most will use their "minds" to move needles across the table or bend spoons. Sadly people like James Randi can demonstrate how this is all accomplished by sleight of hand, thin pieces of string, or some other deception.

Lobstrosity

Exactly, this is something believers in psychic abilities don't realize. It's human nature to notice and remember that which is bizarre, strange, or coincidental. Similarly, we very quickly forget about things that are ordinary, expected, or understandable. If we didn't our minds would be full of all kinds of junk. Think how many "events" happen to us each and every day. How many of those are too weird explain? I will hear people tell me that for them proof of the existence of psychic abilities comes from the two or three "psychic" experiences they've had in their life time (or even on the two or thre "psychic" experiences they've heard other people describe having). But here's the key: how strange is it to think that one might experience two or three odd coincidences in their lifetime? The Gaussian distribution of random events tells us that ever so rarely something will randomly happen that's quite unexpected and strange. You might flip a coin 100 times and get heads. You might be thinking about someone right before he calls. These random events do have a finite probability of happening and over the course of your lifetime you're bound to encounter something like this probabilistically speaking. At the end of the day all you'll remember is that one weird thing and not the countless number of mundane things that have comprised the rest of your past.

Just like in Jen's example, how many times do you think about someone without their calling right after? Would you even remember doing so? Probably not. However if one of those times that person just happened to call, you'd think "wow, I'm psychic" instead of the more appropriate "wow, that was a coincidence." You'd remember that one time as an example of your psychic powers, all the while forgetting the thousands of times you thought about someone who didn't call.

As for people who claim to have sensed the troubles of distant loved ones, I think that's a mixture of perhaps coincidence and hindsight. How many times did the person feel slightly "strange" or "ill" while nothing was wrong with family? Would they even remember it later? Maybe after finding out that something was wrong that person re-analyzed their feelings and falsely remembered feeling strange, or mentally turned a small fart into memories of agonizing pain so that they could feel some special psychic connection. I actually think hindsight plays a huge part in most of these cases.

Answerer

Well, I never said quantum physics justifies all sorts of psychic abilities, I only said that it never ruled out the possibilities of the existence of those abilities. And I will continue to be a skeptic in this aspect.

Lobstrosity

But how would it rule them out? Nobody's even postulated how they would physically work, so no existing theory can possibly rule them out (besides the Theory of No Psychic Powers--or TNPP for short). GR doesn't rule them out. Superstring theory doesn't rule them out. Quantum chromodynamics doesn't rule them out. I could probably go on, but I'm sure you get the point.

Jan Haugland

Not at all very hard to explain, and it's basically what we should expect.

A significant number of mothers go around being worried about their children a lot of the time. If nothing bad happens, as it does most of the time, she forgets about the bad feeling. When something bad actually happens, once on a blue moon, as it's bound to, she remembers that she "sensed" this danger and it confirms her belief she has some sixth sense.


- Jan

...who rants and raves every day at Secular Blasphemy

john_e

If you want to see a theory of how these kinds of abilities could work, try looking up Tom Bearden's (cheniere.org, I think), or KeelyNet. Mad stuff.

Freaky stuff you might like to investigate would include the random number generator anomolies on 9/11. And why the navy didn't use frequencies in the 5-10Hz band for underwater communication.

Surely the electro-magnetic signatures of the brain could be read by something? That seems to be a perfectly sane possibility. Given that you can theoretically kill someone by phase-locking onto their brain's EM activity (about 500Mhz), then cancel it out (peak-trough), I don't see why you couldn't read it.

Why shouldn't the TV comparison be valid? You can't prove the signal exists until you tune the TV. They pick up EM waves, so do our brains...

I would provide links, but it just makes people lazy

Lobstrosity

The idea that the human brain can affect a random number generator is pretty silly if you ask me. In experiments I've heard of, experimenters have sat subjects down at a computer and told them to try to make the numbers, say, higher than a given value. Then after a while they look to see what the average is. The stupid part of the experiment is the notion that simply thinking "higher than four" is enough to have your brain interact with complex computer hardware in just the right way as to make it produce results higher than four. How the hell does your brain know what transistors to influence? Where did this innate knowledge of computer processor design come from?

And john, our brains don't pick up EM waves. Our retinas--specially designed cells in specially designed sensory structures--pick up EM waves and convert those into electrical signals. And yes, the EM signatures of the brain can be read by something wrapped around the head or something that immerses the head in an incredibly powerful magnetic field. The problem is that the electrical signals in our brain don't produce radiation. The produce incredibly weak fields that die off as a function of 1/r². You would need to be fantastically close to even hope to detect them. Furthermore, how would you reconstruct the signal to decode the original thought? How would you know which neuron produced the given field you were detecting? Wouldn't you need knowledge as to how far away the individual was, what his height was, how he was oriented relative to you, etc?

All I can say to this is bullshit. I'm not even sure what you mean. How are you giving a frequency for the brain's EM activity and what exactly would you cancel it with? What are we talking here...hooking up a + and - lead to some guy's head and then driving a oscillating voltage through there at a specific frequency?

Mad Kally

Please explain how a TV or radio reads your mind. It sounds all too familiar to me, but not anything to do with psychic ability. Does the TV or radio say things to you?

Ensign Steve

I think that is just more anecdotal evidence. Until the results can be duplicated in a test situation, under the scientific method, I still say that it is bogus. I can give you HUNDREDS of examples of times where my mom and I have "read each others' minds" but it is simply coincidence. The rest of my post, which you snipped off, explains a couple of the reasons I was able to reconcile my doubts on that issue.

Jen

john_e

Lobstrosity ,
Chill. I did mention that that stuff was only theory: I'm trying to evaluate some physics based on the existence of "5th dimension" EM waves based on Kaluza-Klein theory, but I'm at the point of giving up: they're lossless, space-time independent, faster than light. A little hard to comprehend.

Just to clarify, the "phase-lock" theory was that, based on Bentov's work, the body has 5 vibrational patterns, as does the brain, which is at about 488Mhz. You would sample this frequency, run it through a unity-gain amplifier, then retransmit the signal phase-shifted by 180 degrees. Which is a pretty big ask. If you happen to rig one up yourself, tell me what happens