And there you go, leaping from proprioception to paranormal. Proprioception can and is beeing studied.
That is, cautiously approach each experience, make a best guess about what is going on, and always be self-critical and prepared to revise assumptions.
Such as undertanding that there is no way you could feel what is going on inside your bones. If you feel marrow and think that this feeling reflects reality you are almost certainly deluding yourself.
For example, it is possible to change the focus of the eyes so that it (subjectively) looks like an object has moved, but really it is in exactly the same place.
I have good control over my eyes and focus change does exactly that, shifts the focus--things get blurry or sharp, I have no idea how you can interpret that as movment of the object I can't see. Unless you mean disalignment (I find it next impossible to shift focus without disaligning), but that is actually eye movement. And interpeting an object splitting into two semi-transparent ones as movement doesn't seem all that likely as well.
And most of those who have developed a minor `paranormal' ability don't really understand how it works, and fail to realise that the mere presence of someone who strongly believes that their talent is NOT real can disrupt it; thus allowing themself to be put in a situation where a sceptic can proudly trumpet that they are deluded after all.
You make the asumtion that the ability is real and adjust your explaination acordingly. Cognitive bias is a credible explaination for minor "abilities" and can be obectively observed. Subjectively too for that matter, if you take to care to take a close look at how your thinking works. Furthermore extraordinary physical and mental skills can be performed for an audience of disbelievers, the asumption that "paranormal" skills are learnt by a compleatly different mechanism is both illogical and counterintuitive.
That isn't to say that telekinesis isn't possible: my experiences in the past 6 months have led me to believe that it, and many other things that the scientific community dismisses out of hand are very real.
And my experiences all through my life have led me to drop such unsubstained beliefs. I have learnt much the fallablity of my senses, memory and reasoning.
Mind you, there have been cases where talented individuals have been subjected to intense scientific scrutiny and come out completely vindicated. Strange how the scientific community has a collective amnesia about such cases.
I expect you can name some.
When you think about it, trying to convince the scientific community that `paranormal' (what a stupid name: everything happens in accordance to natural laws; scientific laws are just best approximations) phenomena exist is a complete waste of time and energy.
I agree on both counts. Everything that happens is natural, but I suspect my reasoning on why it's a waste of time trying to convince scientists that what is called paranormal exists as described.
Can you feel pressure where your feet and buttocks are touching the ground and chair?
Yes.
Can you feel the location of your individual fingers?
Yes.
Finger digits?
Why repeat the question?
What about toes?
Yes.
Toe digits?
Why repeat yet another question?
Can you feel your eyes as distinct orbs?
Yes.
Open and close your eyes. Can you feel any muscles expanding and contracting?
Yes.
Can you feel the air fill your lungs as you breathe in?
Yes.
Can you feel your heart beating?
Yes.
Can you feel the location of any other organs in your torso?
The stomach.
Can you feel blood moving about your body?
Can you feel the location of any individual bones?
Some.
Can you feel the marrow inside your bones?
No.
Here's my question: how do you determine which feelings come from actual sensory data, what is made up based on other data and what is a mix of sensory data and gueses based on other information?
Re:How James Randi helped me see the light
on
Virtual Worlds and ESP
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
About 15 years ago I became interested in philosophy and eventually came to the conclusion that although science is the most usefull and productive philosophy we have ever invented it is still ultimately based on the faith that what we perceive via our senses is in fact the "real world".
If this were true double-blind experiments wouldn't exist.
That kind of discovery sounds exiting to me. I don't think you can judge about the transparency and peer review of an experiment that hasn't yet happened.
You want to ask yourself, are you fighting for a belief thats every bit as non-rational as the beliefs in psychics and spoon benders?
1. I'm not fighting for anything, just commenting.
2. The lack of audits (are there none? would you to pay for them?) at JREF does not make not believing in paranormal phenomena non-rational.
Yup, and happily for jolly jim, he has latched on to that neatly.
Are you delibratly avoiding the point? Why don't I hear about psychics who are able to demonstrate their powers, but are beeing denied a test by Randi?
Jump? That was my whole point in the first place. Why turn away people who could demonstrate phenomena compleatly unknown to science just because you might have to give them the money you stashed away just for that (hihgly unlikely) event? I also believe that they would profit on the whole venture if they indeed found someone like that. Think of the books, documentaries and what not.
What do ISO standards have to do with this!? Is there an ISO standard that describes how to look for the paranormal? Or do you mean the Bureaucracy Standard (ISO 9001)? Where are the hoardes of psychics that have been denied the million because of hurdles set by the foundation (as opposed to hurdles set by nature). Most media loves the paranormal, not to mention stories aboout wronged people...
I don't think it's out of context. I was responding about your suggestion (all through the thread, not just in the quote itself) that they only publish the poorly supported and crazy applications. Further I don't think they have a balanced perspective, they have an agenda against pseudoscience, but they do appear honest. I'll let the wikipedias of this world deal with NPOV and Randi with psyhics.
Why is it that every time someone brings up the paranormal UFOs get tossed into the heap like offhand jokes.
True, true unlike the paranormal UFO are well documented.
And if there is intelligent life and it managed to survive and thrive only 1000 years beyond ours, they could if they wanted travel interstellar maybe even intergalactic distances?
Oh sorry, you weren't talking about Unidentified Flying Objects at all! What you actually meant are space ships that have travaled incredible distances only to play hide with us? Ships that are not detectable with sophisticated devices, but get regulary observed by the naked eye? Yes?
And as I have pointed out to these others, and I will continue to point out, nowhere that I can find does it say that all applicants are posted publicly.
Of course nothing would stop the applicant to post it. If he had a sound procedure he could make the test with some other scientists and publish the results.
I mean look at the cases which are posted. The ludicrous and the credulous are pilloried and sensationalised.
And when we stepped outside, all the boars would look up from their troughs behind the fence, the one we had selected would run off into the bush, and the others would continue eating. We used to joke that they had a wire tap to our kitchen. It happened over and over. Now, I don't really think that any of the boars had telepathy, since I don't buy into that crap. But what if they did?
Telepathy or body language, take your pick. If you are still not sure toss in some selective memory for good measure.
A genetically engineered veggie is no healthier or safer than eating the steak [..]
Has all genetically modified food been shown unhealthy or something? Or may it be that you have turned of your brain with irrational fear? What we have actualy have to look out for are dangerous things poduced as a side effect of specific genetic modifications, not some imagined nastienes found in all modified food.
I didn't think I needed the smilie after the "or so I heard". I guess I was wrong.
I missed the "or so I heard", not that it matters--you stated that "in most cases" keeping a 20 year old car saves energy.
I suppose the logical answer would be "less than the cost of the car".
Other things that go into the price of a new car are wages, R/D costs and a profit margin. Also note that cars don't disapear after they stop running, parts are reused, materials are recycled.
So the question becomes, do you spend more on fule for your car, than you do on buying your car(from new:).
That is a different question where other factors, such as comfort, also play a role.
Slashdot Mirror
Has your friend ever tried to read a newspaper in one of his "travels"?
Here's my question: how do you determine which feelings come from actual sensory data, what is made up based on other data and what is a mix of sensory data and gueses based on other information?
That kind of discovery sounds exiting to me. I don't think you can judge about the transparency and peer review of an experiment that hasn't yet happened.
Jump? That was my whole point in the first place. Why turn away people who could demonstrate phenomena compleatly unknown to science just because you might have to give them the money you stashed away just for that (hihgly unlikely) event? I also believe that they would profit on the whole venture if they indeed found someone like that. Think of the books, documentaries and what not.
What do ISO standards have to do with this!? Is there an ISO standard that describes how to look for the paranormal? Or do you mean the Bureaucracy Standard (ISO 9001)? Where are the hoardes of psychics that have been denied the million because of hurdles set by the foundation (as opposed to hurdles set by nature). Most media loves the paranormal, not to mention stories aboout wronged people...
Are you saying that only academics can get exited about scientific discoveries?
I don't think it's out of context. I was responding about your suggestion (all through the thread, not just in the quote itself) that they only publish the poorly supported and crazy applications. Further I don't think they have a balanced perspective, they have an agenda against pseudoscience, but they do appear honest. I'll let the wikipedias of this world deal with NPOV and Randi with psyhics.
A million for a high profile scientific discovery doesn't seem much at all.
Way to miss the point.
Cinelerra is quite stable these days and not too difficult.
I'm can't wait to read your explaination of the difference between digital audio and binary data.