Why do you visit this site?

[FreeChile]

By visiting this site, I hope that someone can kick me in the genitals and therefore pop my head out of my but. As payment, I will do the same onto others.

In addition, I do not share the illusion that my head will be popped as such or that having it popped this way will result in a different me from what I am. Grant it I may breathe a bit clearer as a result.

Why do you visit this site?

[IIRichard]

Originally posted by FreeChile
By visiting this site, I hope that someone can kick me in the genitals and therefore pop my head out of my but. As payment, I will do the same onto others.

In addition, I do not share the illusion that my head will be popped as such or that having it popped this way will result in a different me from what I am. Grant it I may breathe a bit clearer as a result.

Why do you visit this site?

#1 Entertainment

#2 Fresh Air - I visit a lot of Woo sites to see what the enemy is doing

[El Greco]

99,9% of people I daily mingle with, consider God as a given. They don't even think (or care) that intelligent design and evolution might be incompatible. Sundry crooks practice alternative medicine without a single public prosecutor going after them. There's no newspaper or morning TV show without astrological predictions.

We're living in the Dark Ages and sometimes this forum seems like a window to the future.

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by IIRichard
#1 Entertainment

#2 Fresh Air - I visit a lot of Woo sites to see what the enemy is doing

Interesting!

Who is your enemy? Maybe I can hold him while you slap him? If he happens to be my enemy too, that is.

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

To discuss with intelligent people.

To learn from them.

To urge Critical Thinkers to combat the dark ages that are showing in the form of teaching ID and a president who believes there are "forces of good and evil".

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by El Greco
99,9% of people I daily mingle with, consider God as a given. They don't even think (or care) that intelligent design and evolution might be incompatible. Sundry crooks practice alternative medicine without a single public prosecutor going after them. There's no newspaper or morning TV show without astrological predictions.

We're living in the Dark Ages and sometimes this forum seems like a window to the future.

I wouldn't say the world is in the Dark Ages just because of that!

I heard about a guy who spotted the real Elvis the other day.

I am not so sure evolution and God are so incompatible. It seems they are both very intelligent designs. And both have co-existed as long as man has been aware of himself.

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by El Greco

We're living in the Dark Ages and sometimes this forum seems like a window to the future.

Can you be any more dramatic? Really..

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by jzs
Can you be any more dramatic? Really..

I take it you're here looking for the muse. Why are you here?

[farmermike]

Besides the social contact,why do people go to church?Maybe to be affirmed by likeminded people.Spiritually challenging the logically challenged.

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by El Greco
99,9% of people I daily mingle with, consider God as a given. They don't even think (or care) that intelligent design and evolution might be incompatible. Sundry crooks practice alternative medicine without a single public prosecutor going after them. There's no newspaper or morning TV show without astrological predictions.

We're living in the Dark Ages and sometimes this forum seems like a window to the future.

I quite agree. We see more and more superstition, and it gets more and more accepted. Partly because so much pseudo-scientific babble seems very convincing to a lot of people.

There is no difference between a psychic down the corner and a guy in a lab coat. But it is exactly the same thing: They peddle the same superstitious crap. It is just dressed in different clothes.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by FreeChile
I wouldn't say the world is in the Dark Ages just because of that!

Neither did El Greco. What he did write, however, showed two examples of uncritical acceptance of beliefs. But before we have a dialogue on whether or not another Dark Age is possible we need first to agree on what a Dark Age is. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.

[IIRichard]

Originally posted by FreeChile
Interesting!

Who is your enemy? Maybe I can hold him while you slap him? If he happens to be my enemy too, that is.

"Enemy," refers to Woos in general. Specificly to people who want to waste time, talent, health and money with pseudo-scientific bilge. I am particularly offended by health fraud as that is killing people, harming children and wasting resources.

[ma1ic3]

Hmmm...... there is a lot of skeptic forums out there. And others that just have a lot of skeptics. I suppose what sets this one apart is it's the JREF forum. And Im really fond of the JREF.

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by BillHoyt
Neither did El Greco. What he did write, however, showed two examples of uncritical acceptance of beliefs. But before we have a dialogue on whether or not another Dark Age is possible we need first to agree on what a Dark Age is. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this. Part of this would be to identify some differences between that period of history and now to see if in fact there are significant differences. I'm afraid to cover that here may bring gloom into this thread. Would you like to start another thread to compare the Dark Ages to our present Light Age and perhaps also to the Future Enlightened Age you alluded to before?

[Jorghnassen]

To procrastinate by wasting time on the net. What else could it be?

[RandFan]

Originally posted by FreeChile
By visiting this site, I hope that someone can kick me in the genitals and therefore pop my head out of my but. As payment, I will do the same onto others.

In addition, I do not share the illusion that my head will be popped as such or that having it popped this way will result in a different me from what I am. Grant it I may breathe a bit clearer as a result. Ok FreeChile,

I have read some of the other threads. I find this post interesting considering the "limits of thinking" thread.

To answer your question, I come to JREF seeking knowledge and to test my world view. Since I have been here I have modified a number of my positions.

I no longer am enthralled with ID and HPC (though I do find such concepts intellectually stimulating). I no longer think that the tradition of marriage should exclusively be between a man and a woman. I have moved more towards a libertarian view point from a more conservative one. I am more likely to question things and think critically. Hopefully I have not become a cynic. I have come to find the phrase "Seacreast out" as being trite though I'm not sure how much the JREF influenced this decision.

[NoZed Avenger]

Originally posted by FreeChile
Why do you visit this site?


I heard someone was giving away free chili.


N/A

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by NoZed Avenger
I heard someone was giving away free chili.Good one!

But you're delusional. There's no such thing as free chili in this world.

[NoZed Avenger]

Originally posted by FreeChile
Good one!

But you're delusional. There's no such thing as free chili in this world.


Curse the dark forces that keep chili in chains and subjugated to the whims of a totalitarian state, away from the sweet air of freedom!



Although in hindsight, I am not sure that juxtaposing "setting chili free" with "sweet air" was really a good idea.


N/A

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by RandFan
I no longer think that the tradition of marriage should exclusively be between a man and a woman. I am coming up with a double-blind test to address the issue of homosexuality, which is a bit related to this. This is just a rough draft. So we can get all creative with it.

1. Get 2 males and 2 females together as the subject of the experiments.
2. Place blinder's on all of them.
3. Randomly have the subjects perform oral sex on each other and record the results.

Of course, you are free to lie to the subjects to nullify readings that may be observed as a result of the placebo effect. Like telling a guy that a woman is going to do him when in fact a man will.

But please, let us not explore this here. We may bring too much excitement into this thread and I would not want this to overshadow the "limits of thinking" thread.

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by NoZed Avenger
Curse the dark forces that keep chili in chains and subjugated to the whims of a totalitarian state, away from the sweet air of freedom!

Although in hindsight, I am not sure that juxtaposing "setting chili free" with "sweet air" was really a good idea.
N/A it wan't di state that tooks the chili. it wos d cows. That's why theis produce so much medane.

[RandFan]

Originally posted by FreeChile
I am coming up with a double-blind test to address the issue of homosexuality, which is a bit related to this. This is just a rough draft. So we can get all creative with it.

1. Get 2 males and 2 females together as the subject of the experiments.
2. Place blinder's on all of them.
3. Randomly have the subjects perform oral sex on each other and record the results.

Of course, you are free to lie to the subjects to nullify readings that may be observed as a result of the placebo effect. Like telling a guy that a woman is going to do him when in fact a man will.

But please, let us not explore this here. We may bring too much excitement into this thread and I would not want this to overshadow the "limits of thinking" thread. Oh, I agree. I don't think this is the place to explore this subject. However I must say that I think I would know the difference between performing oral sex on a man as opposed to a woman. ;)

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by RandFan
Oh, I agree. I don't think this is the place to explore this subject. However I must say that I think I would know the difference between performing oral sex on a man as opposed to a woman. ;) You're right. This may only be used to test getting woody and not giving it. In any case, my wife suggested the following additions.

4. Knowing very well how homophobic I've been in the past, she suggests that I be one of the subjects.
5. That she be allowed to tape the whole thing for future reference.
6. That the results including the videos be available to the public for their own scrutiny. Like on the INET or someplace.

Suffice it to say, she tested the limits of my open-mindedness with all this.

[Throg]

Originally posted by FreeChile
You're right. This may only be used to test getting woody and not giving it. In any case, my wife suggested the following additions.

4. Knowing very well how homophobic I've been in the past, she suggests that I be one of the subjects.
5. That she be allowed to tape the whole thing for future reference.
6. That the results including the videos be available to the public for their own scrutiny. Like on the INET or someplace.

Suffice it to say, she tested the limits of my open-mindedness with all this.

Can I suggest that all participants should be required to wear fake beards to avoid any possibility of the stubble differential invalidating your results.

[Z]

I visit to keep my mind from atrophying in the daily hum of domestic life. Same reason I avoid television... I want my mind to work for a living, not veg out in a pool of ignorance and intellectual poverty.

Since I also believe in many woo things, I come here to understand some of what I believe, to challenge my own belief, and - maybe - to finally find a believer who has a sensible, logical answer, a defendable 'woo', something skeptics can't dissemble.

I also come here to keep lifegazer in check by assuring that his posts are never countered by reasoned argument.

[Kaylee]

LOL, I saw your post Zaayrdragon and had to respond as I could have almost written it myself. I basically stopped watching TV since about 1999. Every once in a while I go over to a friend's or borrow a set for the purpose of watching something, like lets say the presidential debates, but that’s about it. Most of the stuff on the air would make anyone's brains gangrene.

I didn't use to believe in anything "woo", but a few years ago I started getting some unusual experiences. I ruled out hallucinations so I've no choice, I believe in psionic abilities -- or at least the physical empathy variety of it. I can't explain it, but I don't have a problem relying on and believing in my senses. What a shame I didn't end up getting a predicatable, reliable and testable variety of psi, I'm sure I would enjoy becoming a millionaire. ;)

Don't know who lifegazer is, but I guess I will find out. I came to the JREF by accident -- one of my online acquaintances was getting grilled (unfairly IMHO) in one of the threads so I registered so that I could post some support. Then I started reading some of the Science and Philosophy threads and decided to stay. Lots of interesting folks to learn from around here. And it is nice to get other points of view. I've just developed a new appreciation for how much of religious history I was unaware of, and I'm sure I will get some other eye opening insights as well.

Nice meeting you the other day in the Lucid Dreams thread -- it was a good "conversation".

[Throg]

Originally posted by Shera

I didn't use to believe in anything "woo", but a few years ago I started getting some unusual experiences. I ruled out hallucinations so I've no choice, I believe in psionic abilities -- or at least the physical empathy variety of it.

If it's not too intrusive, could I ask what do you mean by "physical empathy". I am familiar with empathy both as a psychological concept with some distinctly conventional science explanations, and as a Star Trek-type paranormal ability but I have never hear of "physical empathy". If you would prefer me not to offer any conventional explanations for the phenomena (assuming I know of any) then that's fine but I am curious as to what exactly the phenomena are. Thanks.

edited for truly atrocious typing

[Kaylee]

Not at all. Physical empathy means physically feeling (vs. emotionally feeling) what other people feel, or sometimes what they are doing. For example I sometimes feel chewing motions and my tongue tingling when someone else is eating. I have felt someone else's pink eye (slight eye infection.)
I've even felt it when someone spilt water on themselves.

I never heard of this either until many months after I first started experiencing it. I didn't know that other people had experienced this and came up with this label for it.

[Throg]

Originally posted by Shera
Not at all. Physical empathy means physically feeling (vs. emotionally feeling) what other people feel, or sometimes what they are doing. For example I sometimes feel chewing motions and my tongue tingling when someone else is eating. I have felt someone else's pink eye (slight eye infection.)
I've even felt it when someone spilt water on themselves.

I never heard of this either until many months after I first started experiencing it. I didn't know that other people had experienced this and came up with this label for it.

Thanks. Unless you're talking about experiencing this at a distance with no way of knowing about the state of the person with whom you are empahsising there is no need to posit a paranormal explanation for this at all (I can't bring myself to use the W-word). I'm sure I recall coming across this sort of phenomenon when I was studying psychology years ago. I'll dig out the books an see what I can find, if you like.

[Kaylee]

originally posted by Throg
Unless you're talking about experiencing this at a distance with no way of knowing about the state of the person with whom you are emphasizing there is no need to posit a paranormal explanation for this at all
Yes I am. Also, while I'm experiencing it I almost always don't know whose state (I like that expression, thanks ;) ), I'm picking up. In the very beginning that's why I thought it might be a strange sort of hallucination that I've never heard about before. But I found that frequently enough I would later walk by people who were directly experiencing the state I was picking up on, or had just picked up. Or they had just experienced it -- for example I walked by a restroom while a woman was walking out, and the right side of her skirt was soaked -- the same place where I had experienced the wetness sensation. So that's why even though I can't always identify whose state I'm picking up, I don't believe it’s a hallucination.

I'm sure I recall coming across this sort of phenomenon when I was studying psychology years ago. I'll dig out the books an see what I can find, if you like.
If you have the time, I'd like to read about it. Thanks!

(I can't bring myself to use the W-word).
LOL. I'm not a fan of that word either, nor of paranormal. But I admit that "unusual experiences that I can't explain for the life of me" is a bit of a mouthful. ;)

[Throg]

Originally posted by Shera
Yes I am. Also, while I'm experiencing it I almost always don't know whose state (I like that expression, thanks ;) ), I'm picking up. In the very beginning that's why I thought it might be a strange sort of hallucination that I've never heard about before. But I found that frequently enough I would later walk by people who were directly experiencing the state I was picking up on, or had just picked up. Or they had just experienced it -- for example I walked by a restroom while a woman was walking out, and the right side of her skirt was soaked -- the same place where I had experienced the wetness sensation. So that's why even though I can't always identify whose state I'm picking up, I don't believe it’s a hallucination.

Hmm. Doubt I will have anything on sympathetic (if my memory isn't deceiving me that was the term used for this sort of thing in psychology) replication of the physical states of persons with whom you are not in direct contact. If I were in your position I would want to try to rule out the possibility that the sensations are unrelated to the apparent cause. The problem as I see it is that "frequently" and "later" are very elastic terms such that it does not seem, at first glance, particularly susrprising that given a sensation of chewing or wetness you would frequently come across somebody within a short but undefined time-frame who's state is apparently identifiable with the sensation you experienced.

Since you are of a sceptical frame-of-mind, perhaps you would be interested in gathering some experimental data. What I suggest is that you buy a small pocket diary and carry it around with you for several weeks (perhaps longer, depending on how often exactly these events occur). Whenever you experience a sensation with no apparent contemoraneous origin, write down the time and as concise a description as you can of the sensation. If and when, at some later point you encounter the apparent cause of that sensation, write down the time and as concise a description of the state of the "cause" as you can. Once we have a decent body of data to consider we can look at whether there is in fact a pattern here or whether this is just a case of our minds doing that old Rorschach thing. My initial thoughts are that we are going to want to see how elastic the time-frame is, how rigorous are the criteria by which sensation and causal agent for the sensation are being matched and whether there is a statistically significant relatioship between your experience of one of these phantom sensations and it's (retroactive?) cause.

[Alkatran]

Originally posted by Shera
Yes I am. Also, while I'm experiencing it I almost always don't know whose state (I like that expression, thanks ;) ), I'm picking up. In the very beginning that's why I thought it might be a strange sort of hallucination that I've never heard about before. But I found that frequently enough I would later walk by people who were directly experiencing the state I was picking up on, or had just picked up. Or they had just experienced it -- for example I walked by a restroom while a woman was walking out, and the right side of her skirt was soaked -- the same place where I had experienced the wetness sensation. So that's why even though I can't always identify whose state I'm picking up, I don't believe it’s a hallucination.


If you have the time, I'd like to read about it. Thanks!


LOL. I'm not a fan of that word either, nor of paranormal. But I admit that "unusual experiences that I can't explain for the life of me" is a bit of a mouthful. ;)

Think about this: All of a sudden your eye starts to itch. It's either:
(a) A small speck of dust is in your eye
(b) Someone somewhere has horrible eye problems and you are 'feeling' this

The problem is that no matter what you feel, there is someone else probably feeling it.

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by Alkatran
Think about this: All of a sudden your eye starts to itch. It's either:
(a) A small speck of dust is in your eye
(b) Someone somewhere has horrible eye problems and you are 'feeling' this

The problem is that no matter what you feel, there is someone else probably feeling it. This does not explain her feeling wetness on her body when in fact she has not gotten wet.

[Throg]

Originally posted by FreeChile
This does not explain her feeling wetness on her body when in fact she has not gotten wet.

FreeChile, it is hardly an for a person to feel wet when they have no gotten wet. We often confuse localised changes in temperature - up or down - with the sensation of wetness. I am sure you can think of examples of inaccurate perception of any form of simple sensation. To paraphrase the Beatles, "there's nothing you can feel that can't be felt."

[Kaylee]

Quotes from Throg's post are in bold.
My response is in blue .
&FYI:My smilies are not being accepted in this forum.

Hmm. Doubt I will have anything on sympathetic (if my memory isn't deceiving me that was the term used for this sort of thing in psychology) replication of the physical states of persons with whom you are not in direct contact.

Sorry I didn't see anything related to empathy or physical empathy when I googled under sympathetic. But that term reminded me of another one that I've come across in my reading: compathy. Perhaps that is the term you were thinking of? It seems to be a term coined by a Janet Morse. An abstract on one of her articles is at:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9354974&dopt=

Per the abstract she defines compathy as:

"Compathy occurs when one person observes another person suffering a disease or injury and experiences in one's physical body a similar or related distress. Thus, compathy is the physical equivalent to empathy."

She seems to have done most of her research on nurse/patient relationships. When I have a chance one day, I'd like to read her articles in the professional journals and make sure that none of the cases she describes are similar to mine -- where the physical empathy occurs before there is any observation or contact through any of the "5 senses". Just for curiosity's sake.

If I were in your position I would want to try to rule out the possibility that the sensations are unrelated to the apparent cause.

Hmm, I assume you mean I should try to rule out that my sensations are unrelated to my being aware of the apparent cause (through the usual "5 senses") before I start feeling the sensations?

I agree, and I did that informally shortly after I first started experiencing physical empathy.

The problem as I see it is that "frequently" and "later" are very elastic terms such that it does not seem, at first glance, particularly susrprising that given a sensation of chewing

Reasonable. And since eating is so common I wouldn't blame anyone for doubting any conclusions drawn around this activity.

or wetness

Well I do disagree with you on that one. Most of the people I come across can stay pretty dry. ;)

you would frequently come across somebody within a short but undefined time-frame whose state is apparently identifiable with the sensation you experienced.

Since you are of a sceptical frame-of-mind, perhaps you would be interested in gathering some experimental data. What I suggest is that you buy a small pocket diary and carry it around with you for several weeks (perhaps longer, depending on how often exactly these events occur). Whenever you experience a sensation with no apparent contemoraneous origin, write down the time and as concise a description as you can of the sensation. If and when, at some later point you encounter the apparent cause of that sensation, write down the time and as concise a description of the state of the "cause" as you can. Once we have a decent body of data to consider we can look at whether there is in fact a pattern here or whether this is just a case of our minds doing that old Rorschach thing. My initial thoughts are that we are going to want to see how elastic the time-frame is, how rigorous are the criteria by which sensation and causal agent for the sensation are being matched and whether there is a statistically significant relatioship between your experience of one of these phantom sensations and it's (retroactive?) cause.

Well, I've done something similar informally in the past and I wouldn't mind repeating this again. However, I think that it would be difficult to come up with anything that would be conclusive or meaningful to a reader. I agree with you that from a scientific point of view, my personal conclusion has weak points. A reasonable person could argue that I may be periodically experiencing very odd forms of hallucinations and because I've been able to logically connect some of these sensations to what other people have physically felt, I came up with an erroneous conclusion. While I haven't done any readings in the area of hallucinations yet, my guess is that more sucessfully replicated experiments have been done in that area than in psionics, so therefore most skeptical people would assume that I am experiencing hallucinations and not physcial empathy. I understand that, but based on my personal experience I don't agree with it. I also understand that from a scientific impartial point of view, I'm not considered an impartial party. ;)

Anyway, the biggest problem with my conclusion, from a scientific viewpoint, is that I don't see how it can be definitively falsified, partially because I live in a very densely populated area in a large city.

However on a personal level, I have satisfied myself to the point where I'm not concerned about my sanity, at least not any more than I was before this whole thing started ;). But I'm doubtful that I would be able to come up with a set of notes, let alone experiments, that would mean anything scientifically. Which is why I have avoided using words like theory and hypothesis in describing my conclusion.

In certain situations I think it is difficult to upgrade personal experiences to a scientifically proven theory. I just don't see how its possible in this case.

Ultimately, on a pragmatic and personal level, I don't believe it matters. If it's real it's not particularly useful (although interesting at times :) ). And if it's not real, it’s a stable and managed condition.

On an esoteric level, weak psionic abilities scientifically proven might offer another window into how our universe is built. And I have discussed with other people in psionic chat rooms that this is probably the only value that most weak psionic abilities have to offer.

Just curious, how did you happen to become interested in this area?

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by Shera
LOL, I saw your post Zaayrdragon and had to respond as I could have almost written it myself. I basically stopped watching TV since about 1999. Every once in a while I go over to a friend's or borrow a set for the purpose of watching something, like lets say the presidential debates, but that’s about it. Most of the stuff on the air would make anyone's brains gangrene.

I didn't use to believe in anything "woo", but a few years ago I started getting some unusual experiences. I ruled out hallucinations so I've no choice, I believe in psionic abilities -- or at least the physical empathy variety of it. I can't explain it, but I don't have a problem relying on and believing in my senses. What a shame I didn't end up getting a predicatable, reliable and testable variety of psi, I'm sure I would enjoy becoming a millionaire. ;)

Don't know who lifegazer is, but I guess I will find out. I came to the JREF by accident -- one of my online acquaintances was getting grilled (unfairly IMHO) in one of the threads so I registered so that I could post some support. Then I started reading some of the Science and Philosophy threads and decided to stay. Lots of interesting folks to learn from around here. And it is nice to get other points of view. I've just developed a new appreciation for how much of religious history I was unaware of, and I'm sure I will get some other eye opening insights as well.

Nice meeting you the other day in the Lucid Dreams thread -- it was a good "conversation". Perhaps you'll be the one to win the JREF challenge. What you explain here may be verifiable. For example, as a test, you could visit a hospital or some place where they give injections or perform extraneous physical activity (like a gym) to see if you can sense these "empathies" more frequently. If so, a test can be designed which isolates you in a room and various subjects in an adjacent room. The subjects receive vaccines at set intervals and your task would be to say when.

To strengthen the empathy, you may first meet all the subjects for a brief period of time.

If you indeed have these sensations, self-examination should give you some assurance but also note that self-examination can be very deceiving, as this can also become self-deception.

To lessen the possibility of self-deception, have a friend take you to some of these places blind-folded. The idea is for you to guess what place you are in by the nature of the “empathies�. Naturally, don’t tell your friend why he or she is to take you there and have him/her take you to an inactive area of the place like the parking lot or a desolate hallway. Your friend should also take you to places where you don’t expect to feel anything and some times tell you that you are in a hospital or a gym. If your powers are very strong, then you should be able to tell him "No we're not!"

You could get very creative with this.

Two side questions on this, which you may want to ask yourself:

1. What is the scientific implication of the existence of this phenomenon?

2. What is the spiritual or mystical implication of this phenomenon?

I'll leave these questions up in the air for you to figure out.

[Kaylee]

Originally posted by Alkatran
The problem is that no matter what you feel, there is someone else probably feeling it.
Yes -- it's a very difficult idea to prove. I agree.

Originally posted by Throg
FreeChile, it is hardly an for a person to feel wet when they have no gotten wet. We often confuse localised changes in temperature - up or down - with the sensation of wetness.

We do?? Is that based on personal experience or research? Just curious, really. I don't think I have confused wetness/dryness with temperature changes…

Originally posted by Throg
To paraphrase the Beatles, "there's nothing you can feel that can't be felt."
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah … :)
That was a great band!

[FreeChile]

The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is one half of the autonomic nervous system; the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) is the other.

The sympathetic nervous system activates what is often termed the "fight or flight response" of the body.

I read the above on Wickipedia searching for sympathetic. I also remembered this from High School biology class.

[Kaylee]

Originally posted by FreeChile
Perhaps you'll be the one to win the JREF challenge.
o_O O_o

LOL!

FreeChile, believe me, there is nothing that I would like better.

I've given up trying to figure this out. Let me give you an example. One time I felt like I was choking. I couldn't understand it . Then later I saw that someone was crying and she was extremely upset, to the point that she was ... literally all choked up.

I've been to funerals, emotional ones, since I gotten this thing of a good friend's relative and a relative of mine. Nada.

This thing is just totally unpredictable. I could go on with examples... but... since it doesn't look like I'm gonna win the million I need to go back to work. :(

If anything changes, believe me, I'll apply. Thanks for taking the time to come up with the ideas though, they are good! Unfortunately what I experience is really random. I'm just glad I have the ability to tune it down after I start sensing it. And I'm also glad that I've never felt more than one person at a time.

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by Shera
Yes -- it's a very difficult idea to prove. I agree.

We do?? Is that based on personal experience or research? Just curious, really. I don't think I have confused wetness/dryness with temperature changes…

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah … :)
That was a great band! Another question. Are you able to feel such things at a distance, like talking to someone on the phone or in some other way?

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by Shera
I'm just glad I have the ability to tune it down after I start sensing it.How are you able to "tune it down"?

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Originally posted by Throg
Since you are of a sceptical frame-of-mind, perhaps you would be interested in gathering some experimental data. What I suggest is that you buy a small pocket diary and carry it around with you for several weeks (perhaps longer, depending on how often exactly these events occur). Whenever you experience a sensation with no apparent contemoraneous origin, write down the time and as concise a description as you can of the sensation. If and when, at some later point you encounter the apparent cause of that sensation, write down the time and as concise a description of the state of the "cause" as you can. Once we have a decent body of data to consider we can look at whether there is in fact a pattern here or whether this is just a case of our minds doing that old Rorschach thing.

Yes. Excellent. This is what EVERY individual confronted by "anomalous data" should do, always. Great job.

[Throg]

Originally posted by Shera
[

[COLOR=darkblue]Sorry I didn't see anything related to empathy or physical empathy when I googled under sympathetic. But that term reminded me of another one that I've come across in my reading: compathy. Perhaps that is the term you were thinking of? It seems to be a term coined by a Janet Morse. An abstract on one of her articles is at:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9354974&dopt=

Per the abstract she defines compathy as:

"Compathy occurs when one person observes another person suffering a disease or injury and experiences in one's physical body a similar or related distress. Thus, compathy is the physical equivalent to empathy."



This is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of but it was most definitely referred to as sympathetic distress when I did my degree. What's in a name though?

Well I do disagree with you on that one. Most of the people I come across can stay pretty dry. ;)

Fair point. If you are repeatedly coming across wet people then we have to look at the possibility of a whole new type of unusual ability. :s.

most skeptical people would assume that I am experiencing hallucinations and not physcial empathy

Sceptics shouldn't assume anything and I certainly don't mean to imply that you are experiencing hallucinations. At the moment we simply don't have enough information to know what you are experiencing.

I also understand that from a scientific impartial point of view, I'm not considered an impartial party. ;)

No, but in practical terms you're the only one in a position to gather the data. Formalised self-report is often used in medical diagnosis and the protocol I suggested will guard to some extent against the dangers of subjectivity. Really, the idea was that by following such a scheme you would at least have given yourself a chance to falsify the theory that there is something paranormal going on and thus to see whether it's worth spending time on further investigation.

Anyway, the biggest problem with my conclusion, from a scientific viewpoint, is that I don't see how it can be definitively falsified, partially because I live in a very densely populated area in a large city

I would tentatively suggest that it can be falsified if you discover that you have more occasions where a sensation occurs without a corresponding explanatory event than seems to be the case or you discover that in order to make the connections the time-frame has to become extremely elastic (perhaps you could start by specifying a time-limit within which the "explantory event" must occur for you to allow that it is connected to your sensation). If after keeping your diary for a few weeks there still appears to be a paranormal phenomena then we have to think about a more rigorous test. At some point, we may have to devise a test rigorous enough to pass the Randi challenge. Given the implications for the model of causality that underlies modern science I think it is unlikely we will reach this stage but if we do can I have a cut of the million dollars?

Alternatively, you may find after several weeks of keeping the diary as I suggested that there is no relationship between your sensations and the people who seem, at the moment, to be the cause. At that point we would consider what other explanations there might be.

However on a personal level, I have satisfied myself to the point where I'm not concerned about my sanity

No reason at all you should be. Even if you turn out to have got it all wrong, being wrong doesn't make one insane. Thinking one is never wrong probably does.

But I'm doubtful that I would be able to come up with a set of notes, let alone experiments, that would mean anything scientifically

You could not come up with anything conclusive but you could come up with something that could tell us never or not we should investigate further.

In certain situations I think it is difficult to upgrade personal experiences to a scientifically proven theory. I just don't see how its possible in this case

It is certainly possible but it would be more involved than the protocol I suggest, the purpose of which is largely to see if it is worth getting more involved.

Ultimately, on a pragmatic and personal level, I don't believe it matters. If it's real it's not particularly useful (although interesting at times :) ). And if it's not real, it’s a stable and managed condition.

True, from a personal point of view it would really be about satisfying intellectual curiosity.

On an esoteric level, weak psionic abilities scientifically proven might offer another window into how our universe is built. And I have discussed with other people in psionic chat rooms that this is probably the only value that most weak psionic abilities have to offer.

That in itself would seem pretty huge to me. We can always use more windows into the universe and science. But, if you genuinely have an ability to sense the state of other human beings at a distance and before it happens that is huge. It would fundamentally change the world.

Just curious, how did you happen to become interested in this area?

You wrote an interesting post and I became interested. The truth is that I am interested in pretty much everything but most of all interesting people having interesting experiences whether they turn out to be world-changing or not.

[Throg]

Originally posted by Shera
We do?? Is that based on personal experience or research?

Research. Did you know we also often confuse hunger and thirst? Our brains can be little scamps at times.

Just curious, really. I don't think I have confused wetness/dryness with temperature changes…

That's the problem though, because we confuse them we don't know we've confused them.

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Originally posted by Shera
I agree with you that from a scientific point of view, my personal conclusion has weak points. A reasonable person could argue that I may be periodically experiencing very odd forms of hallucinations and because I've been able to logically connect some of these sensations to what other people have physically felt, I came up with an erroneous conclusion. While I haven't done any readings in the area of hallucinations yet, my guess is that more sucessfully replicated experiments have been done in that area than in psionics, so therefore most skeptical people would assume that I am experiencing hallucinations and not physcial empathy. I understand that, but based on my personal experience I don't agree with it. I also understand that from a scientific impartial point of view, I'm not considered an impartial party. ;)

I wouldnt call them "hallucinations", merely unrelated phenomena, that has been "causally linked" with some form of meaning.

Originally posted by Shera
However on a personal level, I have satisfied myself to the point where I'm not concerned about my sanity, at least not any more than I was before this whole thing started ;). But I'm doubtful that I would be able to come up with a set of notes, let alone experiments, that would mean anything scientifically. Which is why I have avoided using words like theory and hypothesis in describing my conclusion.

Fair enough!

Originally posted by Shera
Ultimately, on a pragmatic and personal level, I don't believe it matters. If it's real it's not particularly useful (although interesting at times :) ). And if it's not real, it’s a stable and managed condition.

There should be more people like you in this forums ;-)

[Throg]

Originally posted by FreeChile
The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is one half of the autonomic nervous system; the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) is the other.

The sympathetic nervous system activates what is often termed the "fight or flight response" of the body.

I read the above on Wickipedia searching for sympathetic. I also remembered this from High School biology class.

Not the only way that our nervous system is divided in psychology/neurology but a perfectly valid one in terms of the funstionality that dichotomy is intended to expose. Also one of the many different uses of the word 'sympathetic' in psychology.

[Kaylee]

Originally posted by FreeChile
Another question. Are you able to feel such things at a distance, like talking to someone on the phone or in some other way?
I don't know what my distance limit is.

I don't think I've picked up on information on someone through physical empathy while talking to them on the phone. From what I've noticed, when I do pick up on someone's state via physical empathy -- I'm not directly focusing on them but instead on something or somebody else.

How are you able to "tune it down"?
Using a variation of the "focused attention" aka concentration meditation technique.

[Kaylee]

Originally posted by Throg
Sceptics shouldn't assume anything and I certainly don't mean to imply that you are experiencing hallucinations. At the moment we simply don't have enough information to know what you are experiencing.
Originally posted by Bodhi Dharma Zen
I wouldnt call them "hallucinations", merely unrelated phenomena, that has been "causally linked" with some form of meaning.

Here's a definition of a hallucination from Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinations
A hallucination is a false sensory perception in the absence of an external stimulus, as distinct from an illusion, which is a misperception of an external stimulus. Hallucinations may occur in any sensory modality - visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, or mixed.
I think this is a dichotomous situation, and IF the sensory information I'm picking up is false -- then I think it would have to be called a hallucination.

Back to Throg
I would tentatively suggest that it can be falsified if you discover that you have more occasions where a sensation occurs without a corresponding explanatory event than seems to be the case or you discover that in order to make the connections the time-frame has to become extremely elastic
I'm not sure. Other people that I have chatted with online have said that they don't believe there is a distance limitation to psionic abilities. This is a very difficult statement to falsify.
I do agree with you about the time-frame though.

One of my first physical empathy experiences was that I was feeling someone working out while I was in the office. I did not track it down to anybody. Months later I had an injury that I needed to follow up with a few sessions of physical therapy. It was only then that I learned there were two very small gyms tucked away on the block where I was working. Was I hallucinating or was I picking up someone at random in one of those gyms? I don't know how to answer that question with scientific methodology.

At some point, we may have to devise a test rigorous enough to pass the Randi challenge.
I do like yours and FreeChile optimism!

Seriously I don't think my type of psi is testable because of the falsifibility difficulty.

I can think of other types of psionic abilities that would be testable because they could be tested for falsifibility. Those types would include telekinesis or perhaps someone who could do physical empathy at will.

Given the implications for the model of causality that underlies modern science I think it is unlikely we will reach this stage but if we do can I have a cut of the million dollars?

Ah, you were teasing. Ok, I feel better now. :)

No reason at all you should be. Even if you turn out to have got it all wrong, being wrong doesn't make one insane.
Oh, I should have put in a smiley -- sorry! Actually I had learned at about that time that I had first started experiencing this, that hallucinations alone are not enough to deem someone insane. Which I thought was very interesting… and still am surprised about … Anyway, after I got over the shock of learning about physical empathy firsthand, I felt like myself, like I always had … so I figure I am as normal as I've ever been. ;)

That in itself would seem pretty huge to me. We can always use more windows into the universe and science. But, if you genuinely have an ability to sense the state of other human beings at a distance and before it happens that is huge. It would fundamentally change the world.
O_O

Ah, seriously, I actually don't think it would change the world. I do think it would incrementally increase our understanding of the world. I think the challenge is to get agreement among the scientific establishment upon whether weak psionic abilities are worth testing, and if they are, how testing methodologies can be agreed upon.

In this forum I keep reading that there has been no successful repeatable tests in psionics. I find that hard to believe, but I still have a lot of reading to do in this area. Probably about 50 years worth as this isn't my day job unfortunately … lol.

BTW just to clarify, I think I've sensed the state of other people from a distance without the benefit of my other 5 senses. I don't think I've ever done this before their state happened.

You wrote an interesting post and I became interested. The truth is that I am interested in pretty much everything but most of all interesting people having interesting experiences

Originally posted by Bodhi Dharma Zen
There should be more people like you in this forums ;-)
Aw shucks, I'm blushing!!!

Seriously, I'm glad I stumbled across this forum. I've enjoyed my 2 months and the people I met here, plus I've learned quite a bit. :)

edited for attempted clarity

[Kaylee]

Originally posted by Throg
Research. Did you know we also often confuse hunger and thirst? Our brains can be little scamps at times.

originally posted by shera
"Just curious, really. I don't think I have confused wetness/dryness with temperature changes…"

That's the problem though, because we confuse them we don't know we've confused them.
Any links? Just cuz I believe in psi doesn't mean I'm not a skeptic! lol!

Seriously, I'd appreciate references if you have them.

I have heard about the thirst/hunger confusion from one of my friends before, but I'm not convinced. In England I bet you are bombarded as much with food advertising as we are in the USA. Plus in the States you can not walk a block or drive a mile without seeing some food somewhere, (usually junk food). And eating is fun after all… ;)

I think it would be fun to know if any tests for thirst/hunger confusion have been limited to any of the following groups of people:

* those use to drinking the recommended gallon of water a day
* or who have consistently and easily managed to maintain their appropriate weight even lets say after the age of 40 (these people theoratically could prove that they had remained sensitive to hunger and thirst differences despite environmental influences...)
* or any demographic that has not been bombarded with food advertising if such people exist.

And of course I would be interested in reading about tests that show that people have confused temperature changes with wetness sensations.

Wouldn't it be funny if I was the first person to hallucinate an illusion? ;) LOL

Edited because I mumbled something... ;)

[Throg]

Originally posted by Shera

I think this is a dichotomous situation, and IF the sensory information I'm picking up is false -- then I think it would have to be called a hallucination.


Not necessarily, it could be that there are external causes other than the ones you have identified. Neither is it the case that mis-interpretation of sensory information would normally be categorised as a hallucination (as in temperature change = wet,for instance.)

One of my first physical empathy experiences was that I was feeling someone working out while I was in the office. I did not track it down to anybody. Months later I had an injury that I needed to follow up with a few sessions of physical therapy. It was only then that I learned there were two very small gyms tucked away on the block where I was working. Was I hallucinating or was I picking up someone at random in one of those gyms? I don't know how to answer that question with scientific methodology

There really is no scientific way to investigate what has already happened to you but I would suggest that you are jumping to conclusions here. Let's suppose that you do have this extraordinary ability. What makes you think you were picking up on someone working-out in those particular gyms rather than someone who was working out in a completely different gym on the other side of the world? Is there any limit to the number of possible explanations for what could have caused the sensation if you can experience across unlimited distance? Were the sensations you felt so specific to the particular activities one can only get up to in a gym that you can be sure that is what you felt?



I do like yours and FreeChile optimism!

I like to think of it as open-mindedness and I think you underestimate my cunning when it comes to designing a good experiment.

Ah, you were teasing. Ok, I feel better now. :)

I really wasn't. I think I've been quite open about the fact that it seems unlikely to me that you are experiencing what you seem to be experiencing. That doesn't mean I'm 100% certain I'm right - I'm a sceptic, I don't do 100% certain. Nor am I making fun of you or suggesting experiments which I think are a waste of time. I'm interested in what you are going through on a purely social level (you are a person talking about an interesting and baffling experience), on a psychological level (what is really going on here) and on a lottery-ticket level (there's very little chance it's going to turn out you really do have such an ability but what if you do?) Oh and I'm deadly serious about my cut of the million, too.

Ah, seriously, I actually don't think it would change the world. I do think it would incrementally increase our understanding of the world. I think the challenge is to get agreement among the scientific establishment upon whether weak psionic abilities are worth testing, and if they are, how testing methodologies can be agreed upon.

I have to strongly disagree with you there. At the very least it would necessitatie a re-evaluation of the way our sensory apparatus work, at most the way physics model the Universe. It is precisely this type of consideration that causes science to be extremely dismissive of paranormal claims - because even the very minor claims have profound consequences for the best models of the universe we have. Without strong proof, it makes no sense to turn established, rigorously tested science on it's head. That is precisely why I think it is important that people who do perceive themselves to be having paranormal experiences do their best to confirm/disconfirm them. You wouldn't be just doing it for you but for the world. Drum, roll, fanfare etc. Seriously, though it is important. Look at it this way, if you keep the pocket diary and it turns out nothing paranormal is really going on, you need never tell anyone, just let the whole thing drop. If something paranormal does still seem to be going on, then let us know because while your ability might not be useful to you, the implications of such an ability may have use to all of us.



In this forum I keep reading that there has been no successful repeatable tests in psionics. I find that hard to believe

Unless of course, it turns out that psionics just don't exist, which isn't to say nothing is going on, just that things aren't always what they seem. Of course, if you find any examples of succesful tests, please let us all know.

Probably about 50 years worth as this isn't my day job unfortunately

I know the feeling.

Seriously, I'd appreciate references if you have them

Now you're asking me to do some work. Still, I asked you to do some. How about you promise to keep the diary for two weeks and I'll break my vow of laziness and find the references? What do you think? Am I a manipulative bastard?

In the meantime, as far as I recall, though, we don't actually have any moisture sensors in our skin, it's all done by temparature sensors and clever but fallible processing of the sense data by our brains.

I have heard about the thirst/hunger confusion from one of my friends before, but I'm not convinced. In England I bet you are bombarded as much with food advertising as we are in the USA. Plus in the States you can not walk a block or drive a mile without seeing some food somewhere, (usually junk food). And eating is fun after all… ;)

I don't deny that advertising has a big influence on making us all eat too much along with that nasty but nice insulin spike that goes along with all the really good junk food. The thirst/hunger confusion is independent of that effect though and is really down to the fact that there's a lot of functional overlap between the neural structures in our brains responsible for "telling" us we're hungry and thirsty. Whoever designed our brains used really cheap components and re-used bits for multiple purposes wherever possible.


I'll go an think about digging out some references while you think about whether you can promise to keep the diary (you could be really mean and promise then not do it, of course, but then I would cry.)

[FreeChile]

We take for granted the fact that our bodies perceive continuously. This continuous perception is also highly parallel or independent. Also, we underestimate how attentive our body is. There is no off-switch except perhaps at death.

Perceptions are continuously being recorded as experiences. This is also happening independently. That experience is immense. There is vast amount of information maintained there all the time. It is not like the computer where there is a need, due to capacity limitations, to overwrite memory.

This knowledge and ability makes our bodies immensely intelligent, enough to form scenes when we dream and hallucinations when we are awake.

All the computers in the planet put together do not compare to the intelligence of the animal body. This includes super-computers. We are just beginning to notice this in the field of nano-technology.

[Throg]

Originally posted by FreeChile
We take for granted the fact that our bodies perceive continuously. This continuous perception is also highly parallel or independent. Also, we underestimate how attentive our body is. There is no off-switch except perhaps at death.

Perceptions are continuously being recorded as experiences.

This is by no means certain and is still argued about in psychology. The evidence is inconclusive. There are most certainly apparent gaps in our experience, in our memory of the world. Whether these apparent gaps in experience represent real gaps or merely times when experience was recorded unconsciously is impossible to ascertain. How does one reliably confirm the existence of records of unconscious experience covering to cover all those times when there is no conscious experience for one or other of our sensory modalities? I have not come across a way and remain agnostic as to the question of continuously recorded experiences.

It is not like the computer where there is a need, due to capacity limitations, to overwrite memory.

Human memory does not store information in the same way as a computer memory but there is reason to believe that there are limitations to it's capacity. There is a limit to both the number of neurons in a human brain and the connectivity of individual neurons both theoretically and observably. More significantly, the same physical locations in the brain appear to be used to encode multiple memories with the upshot that while new memories do not overwrite old memories they do alter them, obscure them, merge with them. This makes our memories both more useful in many ways and less reliable than the sort of "perfect" literal memory of a computer.

This knowledge and ability makes our bodies immensely intelligent, enough to form scenes when we dream and hallucinations when we are awake

A fine example of one of the advantages.

All the computers in the planet put together do not compare to the intelligence of the animal body. This includes super-computers. We are just beginning to notice this in the field of nano-technology.

No they don't in terms of the things our brains do well but neither do we compare well to the cheapest personal computer in terms of what they do well.

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by Throg
This is by no means certain and is still argued about in psychology. The evidence is inconclusive. There are most certainly apparent gaps in our experience, in our memory of the world. Whether these apparent gaps in experience represent real gaps or merely times when experience was recorded unconsciously is impossible to ascertain. How does one reliably confirm the existence of records of unconscious experience covering to cover all those times when there is no conscious experience for one or other of our sensory modalities? I have not come across a way and remain agnostic as to the question of continuously recorded experiences.When I say perception I mean the sensory activities of touching, hearing, seeing, etc. I am strictly speaking in physical or mechanical terms and not the interpretation elements of seeing a color or hearing a sound or tasting sugar. Also, when I talk about experience, I am talking about memory. I did not want to use the word memory because it tends to confine this activity to a particular place, like the brain, which is what you seem to have confined memory to.

In the context of Shera’s experiences, it is mostly the unconscious elements of this that I am trying to emphasize.

For example, sitting here in this room, I notice that there is a fan going on all the time. I can feel it blowing, I can see when I look for it, and I can hear it. I can’t think of a moment I have not heard it blowing, or a moment I have not felt this chair pressed against my back, or a moment I have not seen objects in front of me. All this I can sense simultaneously, as I perform other activities like composing this reply. If I were to dream about being in this place tonight, have a hallucination about it, or be hypnotized, I would probably reconstruct many of these experiences, even those I did not play close attention to.

Can you please elaborate on the evidence you mention?

[Throg]

Originally posted by FreeChile

For example, sitting here in this room, I notice that there is a fan going on all the time. I can feel it blowing, I can see when I look for it, and I can hear it. I can’t think of a moment I have not heard it blowing, or a moment I have not felt this chair pressed against my back, or a moment I have not seen objects in front of me. All this I can sense simultaneously, as I perform other activities like composing this reply.

That's an interesting example because there does appear to be a certain amount of "cycling" going on as far as sensory experience goes. Your brain is not handling input from all of the numerous sources of sensory input all of the time. Subject to prioritisation, there is a sort of round-robin system in operation (one of the more plausible explanations for the conscious/unconscious divides, I recall was that the conscious experiences are the high priority ones of which the average brain can cope with 7 +/-3 at any one time). Your tricky old nervous system fills in the gaps, much like it does with the images in a movie or a flick-book animation so that it seems like your receiving constant input from all your senses.

If I were to dream about being in this place tonight, have a hallucination about it, or be hypnotized. I would probably reconstruct many of these experiences, even those I did not play close attention to

The problem with hypnosis is that there is no way to determine which experiences you have genuinely retrieved and which ones you have unconsciously fabricated. This is the "false memory" problem and the real kicker is that while it has been demonstrated to exist (in cases were physical evidence has directly shown that a memory recovered under hypnosis could not have been true) there is no way in general to know what proportion of memories recovered under hypnosis are real.

Can you please elaborate on the evidence you mention?

Yes, I've been pretty lazy about that but it is time consuming digging out studies. How about you pick one piece of evidence a day for me to elaborate/provide references and I'll try not to let them pile up? Let me know where you want me to start.

[Kaylee]

Originally posted by Shera
I think this is a dichotomous situation, and IF the sensory information I'm picking up is false -- then I think it would have to be called a hallucination.


Originally posted by Throg
Not necessarily, it could be that there are external causes other than the ones you have identified. Neither is it the case that mis-interpretation of sensory information would normally be categorised as a hallucination (as in temperature change = wet,for instance.)

From what I've read, that is considered an illusion.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion
An illusion is a distortion of a sensory perception. Each of the human senses can be deceived by illusions, but visual illusions are the most well known. Some illusions are subjective; different people may experience an illusion differently, or not at all.

I don't believe that's what is occurring in my situation. Incidentally, according to Wikipedia, hallucinations (false sensory perceptions vs. distortions of sensory perceptions as per the Wikipedia definition that I posted yesterday) are common, even after excluding mental illness or drug use as a cause.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinations
However, studies have shown that hallucinatory experiences are common across the population as a whole. Previous studies, one as early as 18941, have reported that approximately 10% of the population experience hallucinations. A recent survey of over 13,000 people2 reported a much higher figure with almost 39% of people reported hallucinatory experiences, 27% of which reported daytime hallucinations, mostly outside the context of illness or drug use.


Back to Throg
There really is no scientific way to investigate what has already happened to you

I agree. At least not in an inexpensive or nonintrusive way.


but I would suggest that you are jumping to conclusions here. Let's suppose that you do have this extraordinary ability. What makes you think you were picking up on someone working-out in those particular gyms rather than someone who was working out in a completely different gym on the other side of the world? Is there any limit to the number of possible explanations for what could have caused the sensation if you can experience across unlimited distance? Were the sensations you felt so specific to the particular activities one can only get up to in a gym that you can be sure that is what you felt?


Well I have worked out on machines in gyms and continue to lift light weights at home. These particular sensations felt like the ones a person would get working out specific muscles with a weight machine. But we are repeating old ground here, others and I have already discussed that my conclusions are impossible to test and falsify. That is certainly what I believe and it's what I said in these posts several times.

I ask a lot of questions on this forum and its fair for me to be asked a lot of questions in return. But, and please don't take this the wrong way, I will ask that any new questions be on new territory and not on ones already asked and answered. Your honor, I protest, the witness has already been asked and has answered the question! ;)


Originally posted by Shera
Ah, seriously, I actually don't think it would change the world. I do think it would incrementally increase our understanding of the world.

Back to Throg
I have to strongly disagree with you there. At the very least it would necessitatie a re-evaluation of the way our sensory apparatus work, at most the way physics model the Universe. It is precisely this type of consideration that causes science to be extremely dismissive of paranormal claims - because even the very minor claims have profound consequences for the best models of the universe we have.

[Warning!!!! Purely Speculative Mode Starts]
Does science really have so much of our understanding of the world nailed down? Particularly in how people think, learn and remember?

Here's a cut and paste from my post in another thread:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=1870837552#postid1870837552
Other reasons why I find Sheldrakes theory of morphic fields interesting is because he used it to explain why certain experiments have shown that people learn heavily used languages more quickly compared to lightly used or artificially created languages of the same complexity. He also used it to explain why successive generations of rats would learn how to use the maze more quickly than their ancestors, or even rats in an earlier generation from a different gene pool (but same type) and different lab. This link
(http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-moreonmorphgnicflds.html) summarizes some of the experiments he had described in his books (Specifically exps. 1, 2, 3, 6 & 7) (For the record, I have no comment on the hosting site, I didn't not read or review anything they have to say except for the descriptions of the 5 experiments I listed above, which looks like an accurate recap of how Sheldrake summarized them.)

Assuming Sheldrake's summary of these experiments are accurate, his morphic fields hypothesis warrants being rigorously tested. If tested and proved, I think it would bring an incremental understanding to our world, not a fundamental change. Psionic abilities could probably be worked within a morphic field hypothesis without too much trouble.

[Warning!!!! Purely Speculative Mode Ends]

[I]Originally posted by Shera
Seriously, I'd appreciate references if you have them

Back to Throg
Now you're asking me to do some work. Still, I asked you to do some. How about you promise to keep the diary for two weeks and I'll break my vow of laziness and find the references? What do you think? Am I a manipulative bastard?
Heh, you would have to do far worse to be a manipulative bastard by my standards. For many years I've worked with people whose breakfast of choice was homos sapiens.

Feel free to provide references or not as you like. Despite your amazing number of posts (227 as of this one), I see you have only been here for a week. (Welcome by the way, :) ) Wow! How do you write so many so quickly!? Well, I guess you save time by not providing references (I'm sorry, I couldn't resist, lol.)

Seriously, from what I can tell its standard at JREF to provide references for any assertions that are not personal stories. The punishment, if one chooses not to do so, is that your assertions are reduced to ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE, a truly harsh price to pay; and I'll leave it to you to decide if you want to pay it… :)

Well you have suggested that I keep a diary. What would it prove (in my situation) and where would it go? I value my anonymity and we already discussed that if I have physical empathy it's not a falsible version. So what would be the point?

Incidentally, this is my 9th post on this topic (my unusual experiences) which represents a whopping 13% of my posts so far and I'm a little bemused by this. I didn't join JREF to try to persuade anyone that weak psionic abilities exist nor to win a million dollars. I joined to help educate myself in various areas like some of the sciences, Cartesian dualism vs. materialism philosophies, and hopefully soon statistics. I'm finding that reading other peoples reactions and critiscms in these areas is very helpful for that. Just an fyi…

[Throg]

Originally posted by Shera
From what I've read, that is considered an illusion.


Yes, but that's not the same as a hallucination.



Well I have worked out on machines in gyms and continue to lift light weights at home. These particular sensations felt like the ones a person would get working out specific muscles with a weight machine. But we are repeating old ground here, others and I have already discussed that my conclusions are impossible to test and falsify. That is certainly what I believe and it's what I said in these posts several times

They are really not impossible to falsify. If you keep a systematic record but find no systematic relationship between cause and effect then that would be falsification. We could also, once we specify a time-frame, perform statistical analysis to establish, at a given level of confidence, whether or not a relationship exists.



Does science really have so much of our understanding of the world nailed down? Particularly in how people think, learn and remember?

I suppose it depends on what you mean by nailed down but I would say essentially yes. For how people think, learn and remember, try the psychology section of your local bookshop. You might start with "Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour by Richard Gross". It's a nice thick book which gives a good overview of psychology, is fairly easy to read without a deep background in psychology and has hundreds and hundreds of references to other books on psychology and relevant studies. I must buy myself a new copy.

Feel free to provide references or not as you like. Despite your amazing number of posts (227 as of this one), I see you have only been here for a week. (Welcome by the way, :) ) Wow! How do you write so many so quickly!? Well, I guess you save time by not providing references

I write so many so quickly because I am a good typist, have only just found the forum and I am spending far too much time here. I do indeed save time by not providing references; it's been ten years since I finished my degree and I no longer have any of my books or references so it is a non-trivial exercise finding those references again. Lazy? Yes, but I've already copped to that. Any lazier than not keeping a brief systematic diary for a few weeks in an attempt to disconfirm that you possess a paranormal ability? I estimate the workload to be roughly similar. Thanks for the welcome, by the way.

Seriously, from what I can tell its standard at JREF to provide references for any assertions that are not personal stories. The punishment, if one chooses not to do so, is that your assertions are reduced to ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE, a truly harsh price to pay; and I'll leave it to you to decide if you want to pay it…

I find the accusation does not impact me on a personal level one way or the other. Might I suggest, however, that in the absence of references you could treat what I say as alternative philosophical explanations; logical possibilities to show "it ain't necessarily so." You could, of course, find references for what I have said with a web-search almost as easily as I could given the descriptions of the phenomena I have provided. This cannot be done for a great deal of paranormal claims because no scientific studies exist to be found.

Well you have suggested that I keep a diary. What would it prove (in my situation) and where would it go? I value my anonymity and we already discussed that if I have physical empathy it's not a falsible version. So what would be the point?

I do not see how keeping a diary for yourself impacts at all on your anonymity. I have addressed what could be proved and the issue of falsifiability above. There is a point only if you care about the truth or falsehood of your current beliefs. If they are purely articles of faith then there is no point at all.

I'm not trying to be critical of you as a person in any sense, nor to destroy your beliefs. I am just trying to answer questions you raised to the best of my abilities. Without doing too much hard work of course. My offer stands, I will go to the trouble of reconstructing the reference material I no longer have if you will agree to the diary - which you may of course keep entirely to yourself.

[FreeChile]

Shera, if you are interested in probabilities, here is an interesting set of videos on-line on the subject. They deal with different areas of that subject. They are from Dartmouth University.

Chance (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/index.html)

[FreeChile]

Shera said

Incidentally, this is my 9th post on this topic (my unusual experiences) which represents a whopping 13% of my posts so far and I'm a little bemused by this. I didn't join JREF to try to persuade anyone that weak psionic abilities exist nor to win a million dollars. I joined to help educate myself in various areas like some of the sciences, Cartesian dualism vs. materialism philosophies, and hopefully soon statistics. I'm finding that reading other peoples reactions and critiscms in these areas is very helpful for that. Just an fyi…Isn't it interesting? How a thread asking a simple question "Why do you visit this site?" leads to a discussion of this nature. I don't mean to say we should not be discussing psionics here. I am simply pointing out this oddity. We are all trying to protect something. We may have come here for some other reason, but in the end, we revert to that need for self-protection. I'm gonna check out that new thread on beliefs to see what it says about this tendency.

[FreeChile]

Originally posted by Throg

That's an interesting example because there does appear to be a certain amount of "cycling" going on as far as sensory experience goes. Your brain is not handling input from all of the numerous sources of sensory input all of the time. Assuming there is cycling or round-robin as you say, it implies nothing about the continuity of memory nor about the continuity or independence of the sensory perceptions. This is simply a catching up issue. The activities of memory can never catch up to the sensory perceptions. So they capture frames like movie cameras.
Subject to prioritization, there is a sort of round-robin system in operation (one of the more plausible explanations for the conscious/unconscious divides, I recall was that the conscious experiences are the high priority ones of which the average brain can cope with 7 +/-3 at any one time). Prioritization implies importance. How does the body know that one experience is to take precedence over another? You hear a sound and it is converted in some way, let’s say into electrical impulses. At some point it reaches your round-robin system. How does this system know that this sound is more important than any other sound or that it is more important than a particular color? I don’t think you mean to say this the way you said it. You may want to re-write this sentence.Your tricky old nervous system fills in the gaps, much like it does with the images in a movie or a flick-book animation so that it seems like your receiving constant input from all your senses. This is just the way the information is represented, in frames. The video recorder and player are always moving once you press the button. This is the continuity I am talking about. The recorder needs to capture everything in its sight. If it didn’t, it could not give context to the objects of focus.The problem with hypnosis is that there is no way to determine which experiences you have genuinely retrieved and which ones you have unconsciously fabricated. This is the "false memory" problem and the real kicker is that while it has been demonstrated to exist (in cases were physical evidence has directly shown that a memory recovered under hypnosis could not have been true) there is no way in general to know what proportion of memories recovered under hypnosis are real. The same is true of ‘conscious’ life. There is always an element of interpretation, fabrication and selectivity. Add to that the problem of the sub-conscious or irrational arising from time to time. Yet in both cases, there is the use of memory: the images of any (true or false) experience could not be created or articulated without this memory. The image or story itself may all be inconsistent. But elements from that image come from the memories.Yes, I've been pretty lazy about that but it is time consuming digging out studies. How about you pick one piece of evidence a day for me to elaborate/provide references and I'll try not to let them pile up? Let me know where you want me to start. The evidence is not always essential. The problem is, when evidence is used in support of some statement, it is better to have that evidence or at least paraphrase the theories supported by the evidence. This way certain assumptions can be analyzed.

[Kaylee]

Note: All quotes, unless noted otherwise, are from Throg's post timestanped 03-30-2005 08:59 AM GMT, some of which are also from earlier posts.

Other quotes from different posts are timestamped within the post below.

Originally Posted by Shera
From what I've read, this is considered an illusion.

Originally Posted by Throg
Yes, but that's not the same as a hallucination.
Yes, that's what I've been saying. :)

--

Shera:
Well I have worked out on machines in gyms and continue to lift light weights at home. These particular sensations felt like the ones a person would get working out specific muscles with a weight machine. But we are repeating old ground here, others and I have already discussed that my conclusions are impossible to test and falsify. That is certainly what I believe and it's what I said in these posts several times

Throg:
They are really not impossible to falsify. If you keep a systematic record but find no systematic relationship between cause and effect then that would be falsification. We could also, once we specify a time-frame, perform statistical analysis to establish, at a given level of confidence, whether or not a relationship exists.

I had mentioned the gym machine in an earlier post as an example of an occurrence that explains why my conclusion is impossible to test and falsify.

As we had discussed before:

Throg - 03-29-2005 10:52 AM GMT:
I would tentatively suggest that it can be falsified if you discover that you have more occasions where a sensation occurs without a corresponding explanatory event than seems to be the case or you discover that in order to make the connections the time-frame has to become extremely elastic

Shera - 03-29-2005 10:52 AM GMT:
I'm not sure. Other people that I have chatted with online have said that they don't believe there is a distance limitation to psionic abilities. This is a very difficult statement to falsify.
I do agree with you about the time-frame though.

One of my first physical empathy experiences was that I was feeling someone working out while I was in the office. I did not track it down to anybody. Months later I had an injury that I needed to follow up with a few sessions of physical therapy. It was only then that I learned there were two very small gyms tucked away on the block where I was working. Was I hallucinating or was I picking up someone at random in one of those gyms? I don't know how to answer that question with scientific methodology.

Your suggested method for how to falsify does not falsify my conclusion, but a different conclusion. The conclusion that the method you recommend assumes (I believe) that this phenomena is limited to picking up the state of people within in a few feet and within the same room. I disagree.

--

Shera:
Does science really have so much of our understanding of the world nailed down? Particularly in how people think, learn and remember?

Throg:
I suppose it depends on what you mean by nailed down but I would say essentially yes. For how people think, learn and remember, try the psychology section of your local bookshop. You might start with "Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour by Richard Gross".

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll look for the book.

Since you believe that science has essentially determined how people think, learn and remember --- I assume then, that you can offer an alternative theory to Sheldrake's hypothesis of formative causation and morphic fields that Sheldrake uses to explain the cases of accelerated learning listed in his books, some of which are also listed on this web page: http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-moreonmorphgnicflds.html? (Specifically experiments 1, 2, 3, 6 & 7) ?

( My quote that you had responded to had gone on immediately to say:

Shera: (03-30-2005 05:22 AM GMT)
Here's a cut and paste from my post in another thread:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread....ostid1870837552

Quote: (JREF doesn't allow for embedded quotes)
Other reasons why I find Sheldrakes theory of morphic fields interesting is because he used it to explain why certain experiments have shown that people learn heavily used languages more quickly compared to lightly used or artificially created languages of the same complexity. He also used it to explain why successive generations of rats would learn how to use the maze more quickly than their ancestors, or even rats in an earlier generation from a different gene pool (but same type) and different lab. This link
(http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-mo...phgnicflds.html) summarizes some of the experiments he had described in his books (Specifically exps. 1, 2, 3, 6 & 7) (For the record, I have no comment on the hosting site, I didn't not read or review anything they have to say except for the descriptions of the 5 experiments I listed above, which looks like an accurate recap of how Sheldrake summarized them.)
)

--

Shera:
Seriously, from what I can tell its standard at JREF to provide references for any assertions that are not personal stories. …

(BTW, I later edited in a smiley to the end of that paragraph. You responded so quickly, I don't think you saw it. I'm not a fan of smileys -- they seem so high schoolish, but they do help get around the fact there is no voice tone to hear in forums)


Throg:
I find the accusation does not impact me on a personal level one way or the other. Might I suggest, however, that in the absence of references you could treat what I say as alternative philosophical explanations; logical possibilities to show "it ain't necessarily so." You could, of course, find references for what I have said with a web-search almost as easily as I could given the descriptions of the phenomena I have provided.

I shouldn't have to! lol When one makes an assertion that what one says has been lab tested and perhaps even lab replicated, they are really the only ones to know which particular reference they saw that they used to come up with their understanding. Expecting someone else to undertake a research to try to find what the first party may have read is, in my opinion, inefficient at best. I already work hard to make it as easy as possible for anyone to verify what I think I understand based on what I have read. Many other people in this forum do the same: if they assert it, they cite it.

You may be the exception to the rule, but I have found out the hard way that it usually isn't worth it to do other people's work for them even if one has the time. (And didn't mind doing the other person's scut work, ah hem.) Time is a scarce commodity these days... :(

--

Throg:
I do not see how keeping a diary for yourself impacts at all on your anonymity. I have addressed what could be proved and the issue of falsifiability above. There is a point only if you care about the truth or falsehood of your current beliefs. If they are purely articles of faith then there is no point at all.

Ah, the diary issue. I suspect that I was annoyed that it seemed to me that you had assumed that I did not keep careful note of everything that was occurring when I first got these unusual experiences.

The comment "there is a point only if you care about the truth or falsehood or your current beliefs" I simply regard as a poor attempt at manipulation.

This might be a good time to sum up my personal attitude about this -- just for clarity's sake.

As posted earlier:
Shera: 03-28-2005 3:35 PM GMT
Ultimately, on a pragmatic and personal level, I don't believe it matters. If it's real it's not particularly useful (although interesting at times :) ). And if it's not real, it’s a stable and managed condition.

In addition, shortly after I first experienced this, I spent some time thinking about what it meant to me to frequently experience something significantly different that others don't -- regardless as to whether it was real or not. This is what I came up with: One could argue that most people make an effort to fit in with others on some level. To demonstrate the same social mores, to talk knowledgeably about whatever happens to be fashionable at the moment, etc.

Considering that I don't find these experiences to be particularly useful and since they are not similar to what most people experience, I treat it accordingly. I rarely mention it with the following exceptions: a few very close friends (and then just a few times, to fill them in on something that was new to me), some new acquaintances that I had met on line via psionic web sites, and now, this forum. I don't obsess about it either, although it had triggered an interest in attempting to learn more about some of the sciences and what some non-western cultures have to say about this area. I allow this a certain amount of time per week, and that's it. Life goes on, and other aspects of life are very interesting too ;). (Keeping that in mind, I will probably have to cut back on my posting time here {sigh}.)

--

However, there is no harm in keeping a brief diary. Most of the time I experience this while working in the "zone", and obviously I have an easier time finding causality if I'm working in a large open area with no privacy and lots of "traffic". That does not describe my situation for the next couple of months (estimated). If there is still interest, I'll take it up then.

[Kaylee]

Originally posted by FreeChile
Shera, if you are interested in probabilities, here is an interesting set of videos on-line on the subject. They deal with different areas of that subject. They are from Dartmouth University.

Chance (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/index.html)

Thanks FreeChile! I didn't have a chance (bad pun intended) to watch them yet, but I took a look at the titles. They look interesting and I'm looking forward to watching them!

[Throg]

Originally posted by FreeChile
Assuming there is cycling or round-robin as you say, it implies nothing about the continuity of memory nor about the continuity or independence of the sensory perceptions. This is simply a catching up issue. The activities of memory can never catch up to the sensory perceptions. So they capture frames like movie cameras

Then it's not just a catching-up issue. Information is lost and can never be reliably recovered just like the information lost in-between the frames of a movie.

Prioritization implies importance. How does the body know that one experience is to take precedence over another? You hear a sound and it is converted in some way, let’s say into electrical impulses. At some point it reaches your round-robin system. How does this system know that this sound is more important than any other sound or that it is more important than a particular color? I don’t think you mean to say this the way you said it. You may want to re-write this sentence

Not at all. I specifically avoided identifying what is or is not important because it is subjective. A particular stimulus will be given a consistently high priority by the brain of one person and not another. The obvious example is the sound of one's name, which almost always gains high priority. Think about being in a noisy environment when someone says your name, you tend to immediately become conscious of and focus on them. The system "knows" this particular sound (your name) is important merely because it has been trained - through experience - to regard it as important.

This is just the way the information is represented, in frames

No it isn't. Consult a biology text book on the way light and sound are presented to your eyes and ears. There is no discontinuity at this level . Discontinuity arises at the level of transducing and processing.

The video recorder and player are always moving once you press the button. This is the continuity I am talking about. The recorder needs to capture everything in its sight. If it didn’t, it could not give context to the objects of focus

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. If you are trying to relate it to the idea that all the information that is out there is captured then the video camera is a poor example because, just as with a movie camera, information is lost between frames. If you are trying to relate it to the way the eye gives context to information then the analogy fails again. The video camera captures whole frames by virtue of the optical properties of film (or photoreceptive cell in a digital camera). Your eye, by contrast, constructs each "frame" by taking multiple focal rapidly decreased detail around the focal point and interpolating them (this is the reason for saccadic eye movements), resulting in loss of information and the introduction of false information even in those frames of visual information which you do capture.

The same is true of ‘conscious’ life. There is always an element of interpretation, fabrication and selectivity. Add to that the problem of the sub-conscious or irrational arising from time to time. Yet in both cases, there is the use of memory: the images of any (true or false) experience could not be created or articulated without this memory. The image or story itself may all be inconsistent. But elements from that image come from the memories

I absolutely agree so long as it is understood that by memory we mean our story as we have created it rather than an accurate record of what actually happened.

The evidence is not always essential. The problem is, when evidence is used in support of some statement, it is better to have that evidence or at least paraphrase the theories supported by the evidence. This way certain assumptions can be analyzed

Agreed, though I have done my best to paraphrase the theories. If you point out any specific inadequacies I will try to do better. My offer to find references for any particular evidencial statement I have made at the rate of per day still stands. Sorry I can't do better but, appearances to the contrary, I do have a life to attend to.

[Throg]

Originally posted by Shera
Your suggested method for how to falsify does not falsify my conclusion, but a different conclusion. The conclusion that the method you recommend assumes (I believe) that this phenomena is limited to picking up the state of people within in a few feet and within the same room.

Nothing in my method assumes or requires this. The only assumption/requirement is a limited time-frame. Explain why my method requires geographical proximity.

I shouldn't have to!

You don't have to but you are asking me to do a significant amount of work for no conceivable personal gain. I offered an exchange.

You may be the exception to the rule, but I have found out the hard way that it usually isn't worth it to do other people's work for them even if one has the tim

It's really not my work to do. I did the work years ago and I see no reason to do so again. If I still had the reference to hand that would be a different matter but not having them to hand it really is not much easier for me to find them than for you. You are the one who wants to understand these phenomena, I already did the work to understand them and I do. Given what I have said, you can either try to find the references on the basis of my descriptions (which is essentially what I would have to do) or you can not bother. It depends on how serious you are about wanting to understand, I suppose. The Gross book is, in any case to start, it was sort of the centre-point for my degree and will lead you to references to much of what I have described. Since there is no benefit for me in doing the work you ask of me on your behalf, it would seem irrational for me to do it, don't you think? Low-cost altruism is one thing but I am not a free research assistant.

Time is a scarce commodity these days

exactly.

Ah, the diary issue. I suspect that I was annoyed that it seemed to me that you had assumed that I did not keep careful note of everything that was occurring when I first got these unusual experiences

You have said as much in a previous post.

The comment "there is a point only if you care about the truth or falsehood or your current beliefs" I simply regard as a poor attempt at manipulation

This was certainly not my intent. I rarely employ manipulative methods and never so clumsily. I was merely trying to make the point that if it really doesn't matter much to you whether or not you actually have some sort of minor (from your point of view) paranormal ability then it isn't worth the time and effort to find out. I took you to imply in the very part of your previous post you proceed to quote, that you implied this to be the case. You seem to imply this again in the summing up in your position here. If it doesn't really matter to you then it doesn't. It's your preference, your choice and I don't think it's anybody's business but yours. It would not be my preference or choice but that is my business. Really, I took an interest in your story that is all and did my best to provide information that seemed relevant. I have no more claim on how you wish to spend your time than you have on mine.

If you do get round to keeping the diary then I would certainly be interested to hear the results. From my point of view, recording of the time of the occurences seems to be absolutely essential if you intend to use the diary as a serious investigative tool. Either way, I wish you the best. Incidentally, I extend the offer I made to FreeChile to you. If you want to choose one statement I have made per day I will do my best to do your work for you and find the references. That's indpendent of the diary thing. There should probably be a smilie in there but I dislike using them too.

[Kaylee]

Shera:
Your suggested method for how to falsify does not falsify my conclusion, but a different conclusion. The conclusion that the method you recommend assumes (I believe) that this phenomena is limited to picking up the state of people within in a few feet and within the same room.

Throg:
Nothing in my method assumes or requires this. The only assumption/requirement is a limited time-frame. Explain why my method requires geographical proximity.

Your method assumes access by at least some of the "5 main senses", shortly after any occurrence of physical empathy, to the possible source. If the possible source is not accessible, then the occurrence has the possibility of getting falsified for false reasons. :)

--

On the subject of supplying citations for claimed assertions --

Throg:
… you are asking me to do a significant amount of work for no conceivable personal gain. ..
It's really not my work to do. I did the work years ago and I see no reason to do so again. If I still had the reference to hand that would be a different matter but not having them to hand it really is not much easier for me to find them than for you. You are the one who wants to understand these phenomena, I already did the work to understand them and I do. Given what I have said, you can either try to find the references on the basis of my descriptions (which is essentially what I would have to do) or you can not bother. It depends on how serious you are about wanting to understand, I suppose.
Yes, I do ask people for citations for claimed assertions. When I do so, I don't consider that I'm asking people to do work for me, I consider that I'm asking them how they arrived at their opinion. The quality of information on the net and probably even in the professional journals vary widely. Depending on the field, hypotheses and opinions may vary considerably. IMHO, to expect someone to understand how you arrived at your beliefs without providing your sources is usually not realistic.

I need to get the best use out of my time, so quite frankly I will always follow up on areas that I have citations for first. I always treat cited materials more seriously and tend to be more skeptical of uncited information; I learned to based on past experience. And since my reading list (with citations) is getting lengthier and lengthier with every passing month -- I don't expect to run out of reading material any time soon.

Other people on the forum have expressed their opinions on the importance of providing citations -- some much more adamantly than me, and probably everyone more eloquently than me. If you haven't read other people's opinions on this area yet, I'm sure you will soon. :)

Throg:
I wish you the best.

Thanks, you too. ;)

[Throg]

Originally posted by Shera
Your method assumes access by at least some of the "5 main senses", shortly after any occurrence of physical empathy, to the possible source. If the possible source is not accessible, then the occurrence has the possibility of getting falsified for false reasons. :)


I see. I understood you to be originally suggesting that your explanation of the phenomena was evidence-based. Now you appear to be suggesting that even where there is no evidence (and no possibility of evidence) you presume that your sensations are caused by some distant (to some degree) source. That presumption is, indeed, untestable.

Yes, I do ask people for citations for claimed assertions. When I do so, I don't consider that I'm asking people to do work for me, I consider that I'm asking them how they arrived at their opinion

Two separate questions. I arrived at my opinion by spending three years attaining a degree in Psychology with all the hard work and research that involved. Asking me for citations I no longer have, is asking me to do work (and in fact repeat work) for no personal gain.

I need to get the best use out of my time, so quite frankly I will always follow up on areas that I have citations for first. I always treat cited materials more seriously and tend to be more skeptical of uncited information

Of course a dishonest person could provide you with reams of spurious citations that provide no actual support for their position. As I have previously suggested, absent citations, you can always treat any assertion based on it's internal logic. This will not prove an true assertion to be true but it will often prove a false assertion to be false. Furthermore, you can compare it to your own citationless assertions (or those of others) and ask the question, is there any intrinsic reason to choose one as a model of truth over the other.

Other people on the forum have expressed their opinions on the importance of providing citations -- some much more adamantly than me, and probably everyone more eloquently than me. If you haven't read other people's opinions on this area yet, I'm sure you will soon.

I'm sure I will but opinions are only as important as their supporting logic.

[FreeChile]

Shera,

I also wouldn’t discount the possibility of your nervous system having fabricated the whole thing, including the entire scene with the wet individual leaving the bathroom. You seem to need to believe in this paranormal ability. Therefore it would not be terribly difficult for your nervous system to create what you need. Going from there to an ability to heal, to project chi, to communicate with the dead, among other paranormal abilities is not very far.

Here’s something I offered as an alternate physical explanation to someone who asked about his teacher’s ability to project chi.Chi Power (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53305&perpage=40&pagenumber=2)Previously By FreeChile

Why does it always hurt a lot when the doctor says "well, this is gonna hurt a bit"?

Let me try to offer an alternate physical explanation.

My guess is that using our thoughts in meditative or visualization techniques, we are able to have physical effects in our bodies--just like we do when we decide to walk or perform some other physical activity. Now the thing is that these activities are unnatural or unusual to the functioning of the body. So they create disturbances similar to panic or anxiety attacks, to put it in psychological terms. These attacks may result in all sorts of hallucinations or delusions or visions.

If you want to feel heat in your legs, stay out in the freezing cold without shoes for a long time. First you feel cold—and no, this is not a suggestion. If this does not help, your nervous system adapts signaling you that it is hot. Eventually, you stop feeling your feet and frost byte settles in certain areas. So this may all be part of a survival mechanism controlled by the nervous system.

It is similar with hunger. After a couple of days without eating, the hunger goes away and you can last 60 days. Later on, the nervous system may again send signals, such as muscle spasms or twitching, and eventually hallucinations, sometimes of food like in the cartoons where you may see a person with a body of a roasted chicken (or a mirage in the case of water deprivation in desert situations). For some individuals involved in religious worship, they may even have mystical experiences. But this is again the nervous system telling them “You’re gonna die mother�.

Yet another example is sleep. If you stay horizonal for a long time like I've done watching TV, you may experience a distancing from the set and a trance-like sensation. Does this mean you are having an out-of-body experience? What may be happening is that the fact that you are in a sleeping position may be sending a signal to sleep. However, your desire to continue watching the set has the nervous system confused. So to satisfy both, it adapts by keeping you in a sleep-awake state, similar to those cases where you dream and in your dream you dream that you wake up but you're still dreaming. Waking up to a dream is possible because the dream may be so good that you really don't want to wake up; but it may be time to wake up because you may have had enough sleep or the alarm is about to ring. So the nervous system adapts by giving you both.

The ability of the body to radiate heat should not be so mysterious. Simply think of a fever. Isn’t that also a survival mechanism meant to fight threats to the body? We don’t find that to be so impressive!

One final note. Many of the sensations we experience may also be conditioned since birth. Meaning that we’ve basically learned what hot, cold, hunger, thirst is. Of course, there are physical requirements of the body. But the sensations themselves may be experiences we’ve learned in time. They’ve become wired into our neurons and this may be how in times of danger, the nervous system will attempt many possibilities to keep us safe. Also Previously by FreeChile:

Figure this one out.

A true believer would believe he has passed a double-blind test [my thanks to Telos for this one], therefore winning the JREF challenge.

[Gr8wight]

Originally posted by FreeChile
Why do you visit this site?

I was really hoping to get the chance to kick someone in the genitals.

[Kaylee]

Originally Posted by Throg
I understood you to be originally suggesting that your explanation of the phenomena was evidence-based. Now you appear to be suggesting that even where there is no evidence (and no possibility of evidence) you presume that your sensations are caused by some distant (to some degree) source. That presumption is, indeed, untestable.

I think that the many previous posts over the past week have stated this thoroughly and repeatedly (underlines added for emphasis):

Shera 03-27-2005 5:52 PM GMT
What a shame I didn't end up getting a predicatable, reliable and testable variety of psi, I'm sure I would enjoy becoming a millionaire.

Alkatran 03-28-2005 01:49 PM GMT
Think about this: All of a sudden your eye starts to itch. It's either:
(a) A small speck of dust is in your eye
(b) Someone somewhere has horrible eye problems and you are 'feeling' this

The problem is that no matter what you feel, there is someone else probably feeling it.

Shera (responding to Alkatron 03-28-2005 3:52 PM GMT
Yes -- it's a very difficult idea to prove. I agree.

Originally Posted by Throg 03-28-2005 09:58 AM GMT
The problem as I see it is that "frequently" and "later" are very elastic terms such that it does not seem, at first glance, particularly susrprising that given a sensation of chewing or wetness you would frequently come across somebody within a short but undefined time-frame who's state is apparently identifiable with the sensation you experienced.

Shera (responding to Throg ) 03-28-2005 3:35 AM GMT
Reasonable. And since eating is so common I wouldn't blame anyone for doubting any conclusions drawn around this activity.

Shera 03-28-2005 3:35 AM GMT
I think that it would be difficult to come up with anything [diary] that would be conclusive or meaningful to a reader. I agree with you that from a scientific point of view, my personal conclusion has weak points. A reasonable person could argue that I may be periodically experiencing very odd forms of hallucinations and because I've been able to logically connect some of these sensations to what other people have physically felt, I came up with an erroneous conclusion.

…

from a scientific impartial point of view, I'm not considered an impartial party.

…

Anyway, the biggest problem with my conclusion, from a scientific viewpoint, is that I don't see how it can be definitively falsified,

….

I'm doubtful that I would be able to come up with a set of notes, let alone experiments, that would mean anything scientifically. Which is why I have avoided using words like theory and hypothesis in describing my conclusion.

In certain situations I think it is difficult to upgrade personal experiences to a scientifically proven theory. I just don't see how its possible in this case.

Bodhi Dharma Zen (responding to Shera) 03-28-2005 4:51 PM GMT
I wouldnt call them "hallucinations", merely unrelated phenomena, that has been "causally linked" with some form of meaning.

--

And when responding to my statement:
"But I'm doubtful that I would be able to come up with a set of notes, let alone experiments, that would mean anything scientifically. Which is why I have avoided using words like theory and hypothesis in describing my conclusion."

Fair enough!

Shera 03-28-2005 4:12 PM

This thing is just totally unpredictable.

---

…what I experience is really random.

Originally Posted by Throg 03-28-2005 14:48 PM GMT
I would tentatively suggest that it can be falsified if you discover that you have more occasions where a sensation occurs without a corresponding explanatory event than seems to be the case or you discover that in order to make the connections the time-frame has to become extremely elastic (perhaps you could start by specifying a time-limit within which the "explantory event" must occur for you to allow that it is connected to your sensation). If after keeping your diary for a few weeks there still appears to be a paranormal phenomena then we have to think about a more rigorous test.

Shera (responding to Throg ) 03-29-2005 10:52 A GMT
I'm not sure. Other people that I have chatted with online have said that they don't believe there is a distance limitation to psionic abilities. This is a very difficult statement to falsify.
I do agree with you about the time-frame though.

One of my first physical empathy experiences was that I was feeling someone working out while I was in the office. I did not track it down to anybody. Months later I had an injury that I needed to follow up with a few sessions of physical therapy. It was only then that I learned there were two very small gyms tucked away on the block where I was working. Was I hallucinating or was I picking up someone at random in one of those gyms? I don't know how to answer that question with scientific methodology.

Throg (responding to Shera) 03-29-2005 2:00 PM GMT
What makes you think you were picking up on someone working-out in those particular gyms rather than someone who was working out in a completely different gym on the other side of the world? Is there any limit to the number of possible explanations for what could have caused the sensation if you can experience across unlimited distance? Were the sensations you felt so specific to the particular activities one can only get up to in a gym that you can be sure that is what you felt?

Shera (responding to Throg ) 03-30-2005 07:22 AM GMT
Well I have worked out on machines in gyms and continue to lift light weights at home. These particular sensations felt like the ones a person would get working out specific muscles with a weight machine. But we are repeating old ground here, others and I have already discussed that my conclusions are impossible to test and falsify. That is certainly what I believe and it's what I said in these posts several times.

Throg 03-30-2005 08:59 AM GMT
They are really not impossible to falsify. If you keep a systematic record but find no systematic relationship between cause and effect then that would be falsification.

Shera responding to Throg 03-31-2005 5:37 AM GMT
I had mentioned the gym machine in an earlier post as an example of an occurrence that explains why my conclusion is impossible to test and falsify.

As we had discussed before:

Throg - 03-29-2005 10:52 AM GMT:
"I would tentatively suggest that it can be falsified if you discover that you have more occasions where a sensation occurs without a corresponding explanatory event than seems to be the case or you discover that in order to make the connections the time-frame has to become extremely elastic"

Shera - 03-29-2005 10:52 AM GMT:
"I'm not sure. Other people that I have chatted with online have said that they don't believe there is a distance limitation to psionic abilities. This is a very difficult statement to falsify.
I do agree with you about the time-frame though."

"One of my first physical empathy experiences was that I was feeling someone working out while I was in the office. I did not track it down to anybody. Months later I had an injury that I needed to follow up with a few sessions of physical therapy. It was only then that I learned there were two very small gyms tucked away on the block where I was working. Was I hallucinating or was I picking up someone at random in one of those gyms? I don't know how to answer that question with scientific methodology."


Your suggested method for how to falsify does not falsify my conclusion, but a different conclusion. The conclusion that the method you recommend assumes (I believe) that this phenomena is limited to picking up the state of people within in a few feet and within the same room. I disagree.

…

Most of the time I experience this while working in the "zone", and obviously I have an easier time finding causality if I'm working in a large open area with no privacy and lots of "traffic". That does not describe my situation for the next couple of months (estimated).


Throg 03-31-2005 5:54 PM GMT
Nothing in my method assumes or requires this. The only assumption/requirement is a limited time-frame. Explain why my method requires geographical proximity.

Shera 04-01-2005 3:15 AM
Your method assumes access by at least some of the "5 main senses", shortly after any occurrence of physical empathy, to the possible source. If the possible source is not accessible, then the occurrence has the possibility of getting falsified for false reasons.

(In other words, to really spell this out, there are zero chances of verifying this in a private office with no windows and no visitors.)

[Kaylee]

Originally Posted by Shera
Yes, I do ask people for citations for claimed assertions. When I do so, I don't consider that I'm asking people to do work for me, I consider that I'm asking them how they arrived at their opinion.

Originally Posted by Throg
Two separate questions. I arrived at my opinion by spending three years attaining a degree in Psychology with all the hard work and research that involved. Asking me for citations I no longer have, is asking me to do work (and in fact repeat work) for no personal gain.

I don't regard it as two separate questions. Explaining your credentials does not explain how you arrived at a specific belief. If that were so, there would be no difference between any practicing psychologists' approach and methods in how they go about treating their clients. OTH, when asserting that people confuse temperature changes with wetness sensations, I would hope that this was based on specific research or experiments.

Feel free not to provide citations. But then the information offered is frequently not much better than an anecdotal story due to imperfect recall or other reasons. I personally find it very annoying to have this type of "evidence" regarded as highly as a cited and specific source, and even more annoying to have it regarded as thoroughly addressing the issue. This is not a personal attack, just an observation made based on experience with many people.

Originally Posted by Throg
Furthermore, you can compare it to your own citationless assertions (or those of others) and ask the question, is there any intrinsic reason to choose one as a model of truth over the other.

I cannot regard this as an intellectually honest comment. Within this thread I had invited you to offer an alternative hypothesis or theory to Rupert Sheldrake's hypothesis of formative causation and morphic fields which he has used to explain 5 cases of accelerated learning written up in labs by other scientists. As for my personal experiences, I have been very careful to say that I cannot and do not have a scientific explanation for them and I have not presented them as anything more than personal experiences -- so I don't see how my posts can be regarded as an assertion.

[Kaylee]

Originally Posted by FreeChile
I also wouldn’t discount the possibility of your nervous system having fabricated the whole thing,

As I said before, I don't.

You seem to need to believe in this paranormal ability.
Not particularly. As I said before, it's just one of two possibilities that I have considered as an explanation for the unusual experiences that I have been having. The other possibility I have considered is an unusual form of hallucination.

I just like exploring possible causes for unusual experiences (including my own), and while I think weak psionic abilities are a strong contender, I don't feel irrevocably bonded to any particular causal candidate. :)

Therefore it would not be terribly difficult for your nervous system to create what you need.
That is certainly an interesting idea. However, as I said before, I knew very little about the concept of psionic abilities before I had my first unusual experiences. I didn't believe in it, I wasn't looking for it, and it wasn't even on my radar screen.

Going from there to an ability to heal, to project chi, to communicate with the dead, among other paranormal abilities is not very far.
More interesting ideas. I guess it won't surprise you if I say I disagree? Some of those ideas are extremely distant from experiences that some think (not just me) may be weak, uncontrollable and random psionic occurrences.

BTW, FWIW -- I dislike the term paranormal. I think that anything that occurs is a result of a cause, although sometimes it takes scientists a while to discover the cause. I no doubt expressed that badly, but I hope my meaning is clear.

Here’s something I offered as an alternate physical explanation to someone who asked about his teacher’s ability to project chi.Chi Power

Yes I caught your original post. Interesting ideas. Because of some of the ideas you mentioned, you might be interested to know that Lawrence LeShan suggested in his book "How To Meditate" (1st Edition) (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316880620/qid=1112419421/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/102-3623696-3194553?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) ) that mediation could lead to psionic type effects (I'm sorry, I don't recall the exact word he used, and I have since returned the book). He described that as an unfortunate side effect of meditation -- hallucinations -- and suggested that they be ignored. (FWIW, the only evidence he offered was anecdotal. :))

This is a very interesting area to say the least.

Edited to fix link.

[EHocking]

Originally posted by FreeChile
I wouldn't say the world is in the Dark Ages just because of that!

I heard about a guy who spotted the real Elvis the other day.

I am not so sure evolution and God are so incompatible. It seems they are both very intelligent designs. And both have co-existed as long as man has been aware of himself. Evolution does not need guidance, nor intervention to exist. It is quite the opposite of the religious need for a god to design and run things.

I see no compatibility between the two. All I see is an attempt by religious groups to blur the boundary between the two by insisting that, the fact that the theory of evolution is such a good model to explain the nature of being, that proves it *must* have a guiding hand in it - thus ID was invented.

[Throg]

Originally posted by Shera
I cannot regard this as an intellectually honest comment. Within this thread I had invited you to offer an alternative hypothesis or theory to Rupert Sheldrake's hypothesis of formative causation and morphic fields which he has used to explain 5 cases of accelerated learning written up in labs by other scientists. As for my personal experiences, I have been very careful to say that I cannot and do not have a scientific explanation for them and I have not presented them as anything more than personal experiences -- so I don't see how my posts can be regarded as an assertion

I said right at the beginning that I don't know enough about Sheldrake or morphic fields to do so. How much more honest can I be?

[ilk]

Originally posted by Throg

That's the problem though, because we confuse them we don't know we've confused them.

As far as it's worth, I can corroborate the whole cold/wet thing. Cold towels always feel wet to me regardless of how dry they are.

[turtle]

Originally posted by FreeChile


Why do you visit this site?

I visit this site to be entertained. Also:

to keep up on what the enemy is up to

ideas and resources

Great new fodder for my website:D

[Dr Adequate]

Originally posted by turtle
I visit this site to be entertained. Really?

How's that working out for you?Originally posted by turtle
You're a worthless piece of dung. Give it up *******. Yeah, that's right, I said *******. OOOOOooooooo, will this mean JREF will ban me? Or put me on moderation? That's what you want, of course. Well, I ain't too worried, dog breath, since the mods here seem to do precious little about bad behavior. If they did, you would not be allowed to continue with your crap. Buzz off, you vile filled trough of puke. You have nohting better to do, sad. So sad. It's a Sat. night, why are you here instead of going out and having a good time? Or did you already pay her off and she left? Take responsibility. Oh, sorry, forgot. You're a socio- path so you are incapable. Okay, I'm gone. YES, it's true, another woo has hit the road, and you all can sit around in a big circle, holding hands and singing your "The Woo is Dead" song. What a bunch of sick loser smug twits. You are so totally to laugh. I notice, by the way, you all hang around here together in a bunch, or go out trolling pure woo forums. I rarely ever see any of you in forums where it's balanced. (whenever any of you come over to one of those forums, the only ones who get put on moderation or booted off are the likes of you. Gee, can't imagine why! :rolleyes: I know you won't heed my advice to not respond to this post, because you have a mental disorder and can't help yourself, but you'll only be congratulating each other since I won't be here to read your twisted sick posts. YOU are the liar, Dr. A, not me. A sick, twisted, sociopathic, thug of a liar. Hey, since I'm psychic, I know what you and a few other twits in here will be saying: "I whined about being a victim," despite the ineptness of the mods and continued lack of responsibility you've shown. "the woo couldn't take it, she ran away" not realizing I have a life, you pond scum swill of worm bile, and have no more time to waste in this pathetic forum of "critical thinkers," and who knows what other lies. But, you being a LIAR nothing less is expected.

[turtle]

Originally posted by Dr Adequate
Really?

How's that working out for you?

Hey, quite nicely thank you! For example, you're right on cue! :D

[pyewhackett]

Originally posted by FreeChile

Why do you visit this site?

In the hope of, one day, having my very own jref avatar!!!



Karen.

[farmermike]

Originally posted by Gr8wight
I was really hoping to get the chance to kick someone in the genitals.
Actually I've doubled over in what I've percieved as pain after seeing someones grandfather getting accidently slammed in the groin with a baseball bat on America's funniest home videos.Pertaining to this thread,does it count for anything?

[Kaylee]

Originally posted by ilk
As far as it's worth, I can corroborate the whole cold/wet thing. Cold towels always feel wet to me regardless of how dry they are.

Thanks for sharing your experience ilk. Just curious, does the towel actually feel wet to you, or just damp? Or does that vary?

I decided to try this also by putting a paper towel in the freezer. When I took it out later, it felt cold and just a touch damp. After thinking about it, I realized it should be damp. I have an extremely old refrigerator (probably about 25 years old) and at a bare minimum it has a thin layer of frosty ice in it at all times. Even if it didn't, refrigerators uses condenser coils so I would expect the air to be more humid in the refrigerator and probably even more so in the freezer. New refrigerators use condeser coils too, so I would expect that a new freezer would have produced the same result.

I tested this some more by putting the paper towel back in the freezer and leaving it in over night along with half a sheet of very thin paper (but on top of the towel, not on top of the iced over surface or a frozen container). The towel was even more damp the next day (this morning) and the paper was damp and curled up also. I think the humidity caused it to curl up. The other half of the paper that I hadn't put in the freezer was still flat, which helped prove that it wasn't my imagination.
(I had expected the paper to get translucent and to be able to use that as proof that anything put in a freezer would get damp. But I think the fact that it curled is proof enough.)

If it was still winter I would also try leaving a towel outdoors on a day when the humidity was very low. Oh well, there's always next winter. :( I can't think of any other way to chill a towel. (Except of course by soaking it in very cold water, but that wouldn't be helpful for this experiment...)

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally posted by Bodhi Dharma Zen
To discuss with intelligent people.

To learn from them.

To urge Critical Thinkers to combat the dark ages that are showing in the form of teaching ID and a president who believes there are "forces of good and evil". Ditto.

[ilk]

Originally posted by Shera
Thanks for sharing your experience ilk. Just curious, does the towel actually feel wet to you, or just damp? Or does that vary?


I would say damp more than wet.
As far as alternate causes go, I had considered the possibility that water had condensed onto the towels due to a drop in temperature in the cupboard where they are stored, but due to lack of condensation on surfaces in the cupboard I doubt this is the case.

[Brickroad]

I lurk at this forum because it is endlessly entertaining and occasionally educational. Just a shame I never have anything to add to the discussion. =)

[Garrette]

Can you believe it?

Brickroad is yapping again! Man, I wish he'd either stop talking so much or at least say something useful.

---

btw: I post here because I have to constantly refute the drivel that Brickroad spouts.

That, and it's fun sometimes.

And educational sometimes

[Throg]

Originally posted by Brickroad
I lurk at this forum because it is endlessly entertaining and occasionally educational. Just a shame I never have anything to add to the discussion. =)

I think you just did. Those are certainly two of my reasons for visiting the forum as well.

[Kaylee]

Originally posted by ilk
I would say damp more than wet.
As far as alternate causes go, I had considered the possibility that water had condensed onto the towels due to a drop in temperature in the cupboard where they are stored, but due to lack of condensation on surfaces in the cupboard I doubt this is the case.

Interesting. But I will have to table my own hands-on experiment til next winter...