(LH)"I gather that you are basically uninterested in, let's say, tarot, psychic healing, interplanetary visitors, and so on."
(Bill D)"oh, NO! You do me a grave injustice, Little Hawk! I am fascinated by all that stuff! I have read seience fiction for 50 years, and LOVE the idea of telepathy, aliens, psychic abilities, etc...I tried for YEARS to 'do' things and 'see' things and understand why they might work. I can't tell you exactly why I was so stubborn and wanted proof before I believed, but that's the way it is."
Great, Bill. That is cool. I was fascinated by stuff like that long before I believed in any of it too. I took great pride in knowing that I was smart enough to know that all that unscientific, unproven stuff wasn't real! (up till I reached my 20's) Maybe this means that the experiences that you need as personal proof for you are right around the corner...or maybe not. :-) Depends, like I said, on your personal path in life...and that is chosen freely by you. You are the master of your destiny.
My wording in that last post was poorly chosen, perhaps. I think what's more important is what you believe, rather than what you are interested in. What I mean is, people interpret life according to their beliefs. They are always finding evidence to support their beliefs, and that can make them open to some things, less open to others, and totally oblivious to still others. I am surrounded by people who are oblivious to things that are obvious to me...when I talk to them about it, they just stare at me blankly or dismiss the whole matter as "unimportant" or "weird" or whatever....which means it doesn't fit their beliefs or priorities. That tells me much more about them than it does about the subject of discussion. It tells me what they believe in. Try talking, for instance, to a fundamentalist Christian about reincarnation. :-) It won't be a very fruitful discussion. Talk to a Hindu or a Buddhist about it, though, and he knows immediately what you are speaking of and you can have a great time discussing the possibilities and different ideas about it. Talk to an uncommitted but open-minded and curious person and you can again have a great discussion.
(Bill D) "and I must say, Winona Ryder and the lottery are not exactly comparable situations to aliens and telepathy! Real people DO meet and date Winona and win the lottery...real people SAY they have been in a flying saucer and read the minds of their Aunt Sadie, but they can't do it reliably under controlled conditions."
What???? Real people date Winona???? Gosh, I... Well, I just... IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!! Waaaah!
No, no, not a good counterpoint, Bill. It's entirely comparable. Real people DO experience alien encounters and telepathy, and far more of them, I think, than have ever dated Winona Ryder or ever shall. You just don't think they do, that's all, and there's nothing I can do about that whatsoever. (grin) The aliens are not willing to submit to our petty schedules and laboratories in order to provide you with "reliable proof under controlled conditions". Why the hell would they? Did Samuel De Champlain allow the beavers to study him in a cage? As for telepathy, God knows, there have been enough controlled studies by now to provide some empirical evidence for that, but what the heck...people will still believe it or not believe it according to their intial prejudices on the matter. They aren't interested in evidence unless it backs up their established viewpoint. I think you will find a good deal of that attitude in the world of professional science too...often because Big Money is involved.
And about the Universe being "kind and generous, in that it usually provides people with more or less what they are looking for...either consciously or subconsciously."
Well, that's just good psychology, Bill. Ask any psychiatrist or therapist worth their diploma whether people's conscious and subconscious expectations tend to bring them what they focus on in life... It doesn't matter whether you choose to personalize "the Universe" or not, it still happens anyway. Thus it says in the Bible "Seek and ye shall find". Negative thinking usually yields negative results...and the seeker finds precisely what his imagination sought for him. Same goes for positive thinking. If you're deeply afraid of things, they tend to come up in your life. If you deeply love things, they tend to come up in your life. Ever noticed that in yourself or anyone else?
The World is not a series of accidental phenomena. It's interactive, just like a well-written computer program. You gotta play the game intelligently and wisely to yield good results, but you are allowed to play it as badly and incompetently as you desire, of course. One sees quite a bit of that.