BS: You and your ESP

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 12:17 AM

I watched the video, and it 'seems' to show some startling abilities. I am still not sure whether the remote viewing of a 'facility' shows absolute connection or not. I'd like to see 10-15 repetitions with different types of locations chosen each time. *I'd* like to choose some locations.

In the last part, where heartrate is measured during the presentation of various images, the narrator keeps assuring us that it IS happening and that certain responses are ahead of the actual visual, 'proving' that some subjects are 'seeing' in the future. Well...I'd like to hear some analysis by respected skeptics in this area who know more details of the test parameters. To me, simply stating that "by golly, they done it!" is a bit premature.
   I get the impression that most, if not all, of these experiments were undertaken by folks who were not neutral about what they expected to find. *IF* the researcher is looking for and expecting success, it is quite common to unconciously slant the test to obtain the desired results.

I do still remain open to possibilities...but as I have noted before, I want it all to BE true, and I don't want to 'bite' on a flawed test. I still assert very strongly that emotional/psychological 'belief' can cause one to ...ummmm... lower the standards of proof? to miss little flaws? to make mistakes about interpretation of statistics?

   I have watched various tests for 40 years...from the Duke experiments in card reading to the silly 'levitation' films of the Yoga bunch..(the Maharishi?)... and I have seen SO many shown to be flawed. This was at least interesting and worth studying.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 11:39 PM

Bob, thanks for the video link!

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 11:28 PM

Ah, jeez, Billdarlin'...it might not seem like *home* without your comments! (I know, I can't have it both ways, now, can I?)

(I know there's a budding/brooding metaphysician in there somewhere...the one who crafted a very special wooden heart for a friend in need, etc.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Amos
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 10:01 PM

Watch the video. It doesn't even go into the Swann/Puthoff series which was even more dramatic. But itmakes the point more plainly and clearly.


A

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 09:42 PM

CIA Remote Viewing Program...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eu0YSEHmTY

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 08:00 PM

"...it would be nice, just once, for those of us who do have some belief, to be able to have a discussion without naysayers/skeptics/etc. weighing in."

Point taken...and I have avoided a number of threads just for that reason. I have also made a few comments, then left some threads. It has become a pretty standard practice for serious 'prayer requests' and discussions involving religious beliefs among believers(usually Christian) to be held in appropriate forums.
I do note however, that in ALL discussions in a public forum, it is assumed that all points of view are fair game as long as they avoid personal insults and other direct bad manners. There are several ways to have 'controlled' discussions...one as simple as a Mudcat private chat room.
I realize planning a time is not as easy as just opening a thread and adding to a list, but with several thousand folks likely to see the thread title, any thread that approaches controversial topics is almost certain to get both sides of the debate. It is possible to make a request early on...like the diet/weight-loss thread... to ask for no extraneous remarks, but hard to enforce.

Donuel's opening post was a pretty general set of 'opinions' about a set of supposed phenomena, and comments about the phenomena had already begun before I poked my remark in.

This IS a delicate matter, and deserves some thinking about. It's strange, because I actually feel like I am in a minority about metaphysical beliefs, and I have had a strong concern for many years about exactly what leads some to accept, some to deny, and some like me to just 'doubt'.

I shall attempt to restrain myself as best I can.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 06:27 PM

Are they actually communicating criticism or are they just failing to thrive?

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: SINSULL
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 06:15 PM

"Plants aren't judgmental the way humans are. "

Mine are. I am constantly being criticized for overwatering underwatering too much sun too little sun...the list goes on. I have asked them to move out but so far no go, SIGH

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:54 PM

The thing about plants is that they'll still do their best even if they're not being properly taken care of, but they might not be able to express themselves as fully in form as they would like to if conditions were better. Plants aren't judgmental the way humans are.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:50 PM

I should have simply said that the limbic lobes are not full of neurons. They are certainly surrounded by them. The sound processing thing was fascinating.

The universe within our body communicates by free floating proteins/hormones, electricity, chemicals, vibration and things I don't yet know. We communicate to the outside universe with light, motion, vibration, chemicals, electricity and perhaps wavelengths yet unkown.
I will reaserch some more for limbic influence on vision as well.


I have been enjoying all of Bee's contributions with great anticipation...well up until she said "I'm taking my ball and going home". I get to feeling that way too and discovered it was not called for 99% of the time. Its probably some vestige of a past emotional response to rejection.

I need to do some cartoons about plants complaining much the way we do. "He doesn't even listen, I'll be damned if I bloom for him!"

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Amos
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:25 PM

You gotta differentiate between subject and object universes. Bills hard-core data structures are rigorously accurate for statements about the object universe--things commonly perceived, or perceived in common. The things to which numbers and empoirical processes apply.

But Kat, and a number of others herein, are talking about a wealth of adventure and experience in the universe of the knower. This is a field about which empirical science has yet to make a dent in explaining or even scoping out. The space of possible knowing is as big as all imagination, which is large indeed; and the degrees and kinds of experience available are as yet uncounted. Furthermore a lot of those experiences map remarkably well across the bridge into the commons and the material playing field. They do not behave as uniformly as material particles do, and it has not yet been really seriously tried to figure out what the universal constants in the field of knowing are. I am sure,for example that degrees and qualities of communication and "affinity" states would probably number among them.

In my view it is far braver and more honest to admit such experiences if they occur and simply allow there are large territories which are terra incognita, than to insist such territories could not be there because they don't look like what you are used to measuring and weighing.


A

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Amos
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 03:55 PM

Ectoplasm doesn't show up as well in artificial light; but since the Ghostbusters are supposedly using highly scientific instruments, so what? I think it is just for dramatic effects.


A

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 02:19 PM

Bee, my apologies if my words made you feel that way. I have read your words with great interest and hope you will continue to post. I guess I am a little on the offensive/defensive because, in the past, we have had some really ugly, nasty postings from certain types who have put down anything those of us who might believe have posted. You and Bill are certainly not in that category. It's old history which has made me gun-shy, so to speak. I will say, though, that it would be nice, just once, for those of us who do have some belief, to be able to have a discussion without naysayers/skeptics/etc. weighing in.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Bee
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 12:43 PM

Well, I certainly hope it is possible for all of us to have different opinions on such matters without becoming angry about it. I try (perhaps not always successfully) not to ridicule people who have different views of the world than I do. OTOH, I don't see why I should have to hold my peace and say nothing regarding my own views while others may say what they like.

Twice already on Mudcat, on two different subjects, I have been seriously chastised for expressing and defending my own views, and I can see a similar situation could develop in this thread. So I shall withdraw, since I'm still feeling a little burned.

No hard feelings, I hope.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 12:43 PM

Something else is going on which we have not yet scientifically explained.

Yes!

As to the lighting, dunno...maybe ghosts aren't used to electric lighting? Or, they interfere with the electric impulses of the phenomenon which is being monitored?

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: SINSULL
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 12:41 PM

I have spoken of other events in my life which have mystified me - usually to contempt. My personal opinion is that none of this is supernatural. Something else is going on which we have not yet scientifically explained. That includes ESP, hauntings, things moving on their own, etc.

But while we are on the subject - does anyone watch Ghosthunters? And can anyone give me a rational explanation for turning out all the lights before "investigating"? Mrs. Murphy says that she sees a shadow regularly crossing her path in the living room in daylight. So why turn the lights out?

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 12:09 PM

A large part of what I do for folks, usually via the phone, sometimes through writing, is based on my ability to really listen well and intuitively. Oftentimes, when I phone someone whom I *feel* needs a phone call/listener/help, they will answer with surprise and say something like "I was just thinking about calling you!" This has happened too many times for too many years to say it is just coincidence. It is something, an ability, I have cultivated through paying attention, meditation, study, and allowing myself to *feel* what some people may brush off as nothing. Whatever one chooses to call it, I know, from direct contact with those I help, that it is consistent and more than just a good friend calling for a visit.

As to some of the other things mentioned in this thread, I have seen/sensed ghosts, the newly departed, spoken to and listened to my houseplants (gardenias love being next to crown of thorns, if I remember rightly), and my pets.

BillDarlin' knows we will never agree and that it pisses me off that we have never been able to have a discussion on such things without naysayers and/or ridiculers, but he also knows I still luv'im.:-)

kat

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 10:50 AM

Bill D: It's all up to you...

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 10:36 AM

some years back I owned a rather fine ESP Telecaster.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Paul Burke
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 10:22 AM

I think you'll find that the limbic system is pretty well understood in terms of many of its functions, and that it's VERY well connected by neurones. It's worth reading some of Oliver Sacks' books on neurophysiology.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Stu
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 09:30 AM

"I have noted that the largest and most mysterious area of the brain is the limbic area in which seemingly nothing is connected by neurons and only empty (fluid filled) space exists"

Sounds more like the Arachnoid Cyst in the Middle Cranial Fossa I was recently diagnosed with . . .

I think the limbic system is a little more than a fluid filled hollow as it is made up of a number of distinct structures - a quick pike on Wikipedia explains it all quite well.

I developed tinnitus earlier this year and the limbic system plays a big part in how your brain interprets the tinnitus signal as it acts as a subconscious processing house that is tied closely to the autonomous nervous system. In the case of sound, it's the limbic system that decides if the sound indicates the presence of a threat (and subsequent activation of the fight/flight response) or whether it's benign and your brain never even lets you know you heard it.

Powerful it is.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 09:02 AM

Strike that strawman thing, it doesn;t make sense today. I think I misinterrpteted somthing.






My friend Larry used to say everything has already been said.
He's dead now.

No matter how many books there are on a subject, a new writer has an opportunity to speak s particular person's language whereas the books already written may not.

The art of asking might interest a business person, a religious person, a seeker/dreamer, a gardener etc.
The effect of certain foods and the answers they give you from the inside out is always popular.
Anyway I will look at some examples from the book list above.

lil Books like the Secret or anything by Richard Bach have their value -- even if its only to the income of the author.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: jacqui.c
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 09:00 AM

A few weeks ago, when we had bought a 1940 Chevy, I asked Kendall if we were going to give the car a name, as we had done with the Model A. He agreed that she needed a name but, when I asked if he had one in mind, he said not really.

I had already had a name floating around in my mind for about 24 hours. I didn't know what had made me think of that name when I first saw the car, as there was no connection to the name in my memory. I wasn't going to mention this particular name as it sounded a bit silly.

However, when Kendall and I had that conversation I blurted out "How about Dolly?"

Kendall turned sharply and barked "What made you think of that name?"

I was concerned that I had hit on some trigger point, some reason why that name caused such a reaction. Turned out that he was thinking of the same name, with no connection in his past to the name. Neither of us is able to think of a reason why we both chose such a - to us - obscure name.

We do, on a lot of occasions, tend to know what the other one is thinking, but a lot of that could be put down to thought processes following some sort of trigger point. I do think that it is more than that. The incident with the car, however, is more difficult to explain away.

By the way, a few days later the latest hurricane was named Dolly.:0)

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: John O'L
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 01:53 AM

What is "attention", and why do we constantly think of it as something we "put out"?

One starts to suspect an active component when it seems to elicit what seems to be a response. I wouldn't be surprised if some kind of communication was involved.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 12:45 AM

Pernicious smartass!

:-D

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 12:44 AM

Badass punk.

;^*

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 12:42 AM

>>The emotional state that I was referring to is wishful thinking. If someone tells me that what I know I have experienced is wishful thinking, I know that it is they who are engaging in wishful thinking.

That's just wishful thinking. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 12:17 AM

On the subject of writing a book, unfortunately for me, I guess, others have already done that, and they've done an excellent job of it in my opinion...

Behaving As If The God In All Life Mattered

Perelandra Garden Workbook

Perelandra Garden Workbook II

More here...

http://www.perelandra-ltd.com/

(I've been to this garden twice. It's in Jeffersonton, Virginia, and holds open houses from time to time.)


Also...

The Findhorn Garden

More on Findhorn

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 12:03 AM

The emotional state that I was referring to is wishful thinking. If someone tells me that what I know I have experienced is wishful thinking, I know that it is they who are engaging in wishful thinking.

The kind of energy that is used for inner perceptions is the same energy that is the building block of all life and all creation - life force energy. The plants are not just giving it off... they are that energy. The part of me that is sensitive to and that perceives that energy is my own energy field. My energy field, in this kind of application, could be considered like another sensory organ. I don't know what part of my brain interfaces with my energy field in order for me to be able to process this information into a form that is usable to me. But since we humans are considered to be not using a large percentage of our brains, I guess there's plenty of space in there for this function.

I don't think it's an adaptation. I think it's an integral part of our existence as aspects of creation. I would say that humans are probably the only life form that is largely unaware of this ability. I would also say that humans used to be aware of this ability, and it probably accounts for the very high success that humans have had with plants throughout most of human history. It's only recently that humans have been having difficulty understanding what plants need, and this is because we are attempting to impose our will on plants regardless of what their real needs are.

Most famine is not a result of problems understanding what plants need, but rather a lack of control over weather. The potato famine was a product of monoculture, and an over reliance on one crop for sustenance, which is always a bad idea. This is a recent innovation and is a product of our turning away from our inherent connection with nature.

Life force energy is certainly identifiable to those who perceive it. However, there was a time when it was not possible to identify the forms of energy that we are currently able to identify using technology, because there was a time when we didn't have that technology. The lack of a technology at the present time that can identify life force energy isn't proof, or even an indication of non-existence of this kind of energy. It is simply an indication that the technology for detecting and identifying it does not currently exist.

Like humans, plants are a physical expression of consciousness. All consciousness knows what it needs. We humans cover up our natural perceptions with our intellects, so we think we need to consult with experts in order to know what we need. But the rest of creation does not fool itself in this way. However the mineral I was talking about was not to be used for the benefit of specific plants. It was used for a different purpose.

Plants do know what they need for optimal health, however. Or rather, the consciousnesses that the plants are a physical expression of know what the plants need for optimal health. So I might, for instance, on any given day, ask my pepper plants if they need a dose of chicken manure tea that day. If I want the bugs to not eat all of the baby watermelons (this was happening for a while), I might welcome them into the garden and ask them to please not eat all of the baby watermelons (they stopped doing that after I asked them). If we work with nature instead of working against it, nature will welcome our cooperation and we can work together for optimal results.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 11:42 PM

Amos I can fairly speculate that your #1 refers to me since I do hold the persona of creative inventor, master hypnotist, artist and speculator of ideas that are outside the mainstream. It is a persona or mask no less true than Bill's Philosopher mask or John from Kansas holding the persona of a mastery of facts with distinction. The persona I refer to is a construct we hold most dear and refine with as much excellence as we are able. Yet it is still a mask, much like the conscious mind that is the point man for our unconcious mind.

The oft times feeble interpretations of Freud were but a creative attempt to define a deeper understanding. We can do much better today by not being so narrow minded.
Amos while you made a straw man to burn regarding remote shared experience at a distance I would only say that the phenomenon does not behave as you say it does but rather it behaves in its own unique collective way. Poeticly, it is more like a scent in the wind that we all can smell if we are outdoors at the time.
[insert New Jersey joke here]

The prophets or oracles of days past are the same as people today. The difference is that today they are our science fiction authors or creative medical researchers who fit your #1 catagory well. We no longer have to say that God did it, to avoid being burned at the stake for being the devil.
The writer for National Geographic said that no one ever predicted the Internet. He is wrong. Jules Verne wrote of an information network and other communication machines that we could today refer to by brand names.

In short my comment about esp is that it is wonderful for the small stuff...and don't sweat the big stuff ;)
I found that one needn't reach for the big stuff, it usually reaches for you.

Kudos Amos for the line;
"While we have no problem with an artist phrasing a line of music in a way that blows us out of our skulls, we seem entirely prejudiced against the notion of anyone else being able to sense that event when we experience it. In my view this is very narrow-minded and unrealistic. There are more ways to know than in your philosophy, Horatio!!"

The linear minds who feel the need to safeguard their layer of expertise may be narrow minded in the way you suggest but it is as much self defense as narrow mindedness.





Carol you are well suited to write "The Art of Asking".
Your experience would create this much needed book with an organic beauty only you could do so well.

Bob thanks for the youtube. The new age brand names bother me. It was just grade school self hypnosis 101.

------------------------------------

Hey my Limbic system cosmic antenna idea fits nicely into a novel I have been dreaming up.

THE GREATEST CON ON EARTH

It is about how the true nature of the human mind is so powerful, that the manipulators in society need to perpetuate the biggest con on earth by convincing you of your powerlessness.

Preface

Physicists have calculated that the heat to mass ratio of the human body, burns hotter than the Sun. Medical researchers have measured the electric potential of the human mind to have the power of the solar wind, if the mass involved were equal.
The collective nature of mind power is suspected by some to be the single most critical factor to be controled or destroyed by the handfull of people who need to exploit it for treasure and pleasure.
Imagine what happens when we move the magnifying and distortion lenses a bit in the opposite direction. Instead of being incineratd like ants in thier magnifying glass, it is turned against the organization called....

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 11:15 PM

"...the phenomenon of knowing when one is being stared at. Right, Bill?"

Ummm...no, sorry Ebbie. I have of course turned around and found myself the 'object of attention', etc....but I can't ever remember 'knowing' first. I don't even 'know' when I'm about to get a phone call, or when company is coming.

I have reached for the phone and had it ring and discovered the person I was about to call was calling ME.....maybe 3 times in 50 years. Usually nothing happens....but that is not nearly so interesting and memorable, huh?
There is a VERY well documented process in human psychology of tending to 'connect' events that occur contiguously in time & space. Sometimes they are actually related, and sometimes not. (We learn that touching a hot stove with a bare hand usually leads to unpleasant results...and with that set of events we can even explain why...but to a 2 year old it is ONLY a 'happens'...without a notion why.) But if we walk under a ladder and soon thereafter spill some paint, we wonder if they are related.
Now it may well be that walking under ladders has certain built-in dangers, and stories of 'bad things' happening to those who walk under ladders may be well-founded....but walking under a ladder and then getting bad news in a phone call is streching the idea....and spilling paint 'may' be totally irrelevant.
   Still, human nature WANTS an explanation, and avoiding ladders becomes an attempt to avoid bad news. Of course, if you are juggling 47 different presumed connections, you can 'explain' almost any event by referring to one or more prior acts or events. (I don't know how many cracks I stepped on as a kid, and my mother's back was fine until she died.)

So..... when *I* turn around and find someone looking at me, I shrug...it may be that I sub-conciously noted that someone else was look at the person staring at me...or I heard something...or maybe I just guessed right. We remember when we guess right, and don't keep track of when we don't.

Now, *if* someone can reliably make detailed predictions about stuff they seem to have no way of knowing..like SINSULL and impending death.. it is worth investigating, but that 'may' have been a few coincidences. Since it no longer happens, there is little we can really say or examine.

Anyway....all that and the implications of all that are why I leave these posts in threads - to urge folks to examine their own motives, evidence and thought processes.

...and...*sly smile*...,Bob Ryszkiewicz - I have no chairs against and doors in my mind. I AM open to ideas...with decent proof. The opposite of blocking doors is throwing open ALL the doors and giving credence to anything that stumbles in. There have to be some rules & standards.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Amos
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 10:45 PM

These recent posts raise an interesting point. What is "attention", and why do we constantly think of it as something we "put out"? This notion goes all the way backs to the ancient Greeks who actualy speculated that vision was generated from the eyes, as an outflowing willful act; and subjectively, it often feels that way whether we are "putting attention on" things of the world or postulated objects in the imagining.


A

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: John O'L
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 10:08 PM

When driving slowly through a town or shopping centre I may spot someone of interest on the footpath and be consciously aware of them. Maybe they are walking funny, or wearing something odd, maybe it's a good looking woman, it could be anything that catches my attention. I can't tell you how many times over the years - hundreds, maybe thousands - that person has turned around and looked directly into my eyes. More often than can possibly be put down to coincidence. As I've said before, if it's coincidence then that word needs to be redefined because it's more common that it ought to be.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 08:58 PM

I expect that even skeptics believe in - because they have experienced it - the phenomenon of knowing when one is being stared at. Right, Bill?

When I was the caretaker of a house museum and lived on the third floor I sometimes stood at a window and watched people as they passed by. Some of them were at a fairly great distance; the path outside the lawn led to a staircase (Juneau has many outdoor staircases) and I often continued watching them until they went out of sight more than a block away.

Some pedestrians were obviously aware of being viewed. Many of them looked all 'round; some of them even stopped in their tracks. I have frequently said that the people who 'felt' my eyes are the ones I want to know. Anyone can 'send'.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Amos
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 08:21 PM

It seems pretty clear that there are two entire ranges at play here -- the sensory and those computations that can be traced to patterns of sensory piickup -- and the realm which includes what is broadly and generally thought of as " imagining ", which includes, itself, two spectrums of phenomenology.

1. The realm of projected imaginings, where the individual knowingly projects images of what has not been in order to fool around with possibility, or entertain oneself, or avoid something distasteful.

2. The realm of "detected" imaginings in which an individual opens their attention to layers of reality that cannot be ascribed to ordinary sensory inputs -- such as, for example, the water in Carol's squash, or the stress in a distant loved one's thoughts facing an emergency or catastrophe. The evidence for such things can almost only be anecdotal, because of several factors hat have been discussed ad absurdum in these threads.

The problem with these two realms of the "imagined" universe, the postulated versus the detected, is that they spill into each other frequently, and the discipline of sorting out the one from the other is not known or widely practiced in our culture. So you get overlays and dub-ins and confusion between perception and generated realities. It is as much a mistake to say it is all projected imagination than it would be to assert that the pink elephants dancing on teacups one dreamed about were material objects.

WHile we have no problem with an artist phrasing a line of music in a way that blows us out of our skulls, we seem entirely prejudiced against the notion of anyone else being able to sense that event when we experience it. In my view this is very narrow-minded and unrealistic.

There are more ways to know than in your philosophy, Horatio!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Bee
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 07:44 PM

Carol, thanks for attempting to explain in the face of severe skepticism.

Wrt your closing comment: "People who want to project their own emotional state on me and tell me that I am engaging in wishful thinking are themselves engaging in wishful thinking." - I personally don't include any negative or positive emotion with inquiry of this sort. I think my intellectual position is clear. I am not 'emotional' on the subject of paranormal or supernatural things. I am interested and skeptical, that is all.

Of course, what you describe naturally raises lots of other questions. What kind of energy are the plants using/giving off to communicate? What part of your brain is sensitive to this energy?

If humans have evolved to have an ability to sense what plants need, then that would be a very useful adaptation, and should have been a factor in human evolutionary success, yet given the propensity for humans to starve for lack of knowledge of plant requirements (slash and burn agriculture, potato famine, countless other examples can be found), evidence of such an adaptation is lacking.

Sources and kinds of energy are usually identifiable - electricity is a kind of energy which is produced in several known ways (including biologically), for example.

Why would a plant 'know' in the first place what mineral it needed to flourish? Plants have evolved to propagate mostly by sending seeds by wind, by sticking to mobile animals, by surviving ingestion by mobile animals. Their strategy is not 'to find a good place to grow', but to send out many seeds, sometimes enhanced by a food packet, or likely to be dropped with a packet of animal fertilizer, so some of them will by chance land in a good place to grow, or at least good enough to propagate again. Plants would not have a 'need to know' what constitutes a good place to grow. Or so I would logically expect.

These are the kinds of questions your description gives rise to, and I think they are valid. Your experience, of course, is your own.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 06:12 PM

Hi Kids: O lawdy, lawdy. Why me? What force propels me to put this stuff in front of guys like Bill who have a chair put up against the door that should be open within his mind? I dunno, I must be WACKY BANANAS!!! (Nice teapots, by the way 'ol mate) All's ya gots ta do is watch the breath coming in and out of your nose, or concentrate on the heart. If another thought pops in your mind, tell it to go away. That you have decided what thoughts you would like to entertain, and for how long, and thus the journey begins...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9tBxaNQFcg

bob

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 06:05 PM

ummm...Jeri..I think I agree with what you said.(well, except for the "knee-jerk" part!) At least I like the phrasing! I DO think a lot of "ESP" is merely noting contiguity of events and making unconscious connections. We DO understand the basic process, if not all the details.

As to your bet..*grin*...you lose on both counts. Perhaps you were 'picking up' the latent residual emanations from the blue jeans I wore yesterday and the beer I had late last night. Purty complicated stuff...

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 05:28 PM

And by the way, my friend, who was a much more experienced gardener than me, and even despite the fact that she was the on who had asked me to communicate with her garden, was very skeptical about what I told her about the squashes. She had a lot of difficulty believing what I had told her until all the squash blossoms fell off without producing any squashes.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 05:24 PM

Inner senses (non physical senses) are inner seeing, hearing and feeling. They're non physical because they don't use the eyes, ears, or nerve endings in skin in order to allow one to perceive something. Just because some people haven't developed their latent inner senses doesn't mean that those who have are experiencing "wishful thinking". Blind people can't perceive what sighted people can, and they might think that what sighted people can perceive was wishful thinking if they were in the majority.

The kind of gardening I practice involves active communication with nature. I ask nature questions, and nature gives me answers. Because the consciousnesses that express themselves in plant form don't have mouths and vocal chords with which to communicate, they have to communicate in a way that is more natural to them, which is with energy.

Several years ago, a friend asked me to find out from her garden how all of the different plants were doing. Everything looked great, but after asking the questions and allowing the answers become apparent to me, I told her that the squash was in trouble. I told her that the roots of the squash were in water, and it was causing problems, even though it didn't look like there were any problems, and even though there were other plant that were in good shape that were in the same part of the garden.

Sure enough, all the blossoms fell off the squash plants and didn't produce any squashes. She moved the squash plants to higher ground and they did just fine.

A few years later, I was asking about what kind of mineral would be helpful to put in an area in which I was working with the energy (trying to make it nicer). I was shown a kind of mineral that I had never seen before. I asked what it was called, and I was told apatite. I had seen apatite before, but I had never seen any that looked like what I was shown. (This is what I had been familiar with, and this is more like what I was shown.) I was inclined to disbelieve what I had thought I had been shown, thinking maybe I had imagined it. But I contacted the company from whom I used to buy minerals, and I described what I had been shown. I asked them if there was any kind of apatite that looked like that, and they told me that there was - Brazilian blue apatite.

I don't have any more emotional investment in getting information this way than I do getting it using Google. It's just a tool like any other, and that's all that matters to me. People who want to project their own emotional state on me and tell me that I am engaging in wishful thinking are themselves engaging in wishful thinking.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 04:52 PM

I enjoy being a skeptic.
It provides a solid starting point for viewing an ever changing universe. Then after enough changes, I select a new vantage point to take in the view. etc

After esp testing, which provided no known pattern recognition, I finished as high as second place and as low as 36th out of 100 people. While I don't hold that the test indicates anything meaningful, I have found that when I make carefree whimsical comments to people face to face I am most likely to strike a nerve or create a "woo woo' feeling of coincidental (secret) knowledge that some people have found unnerving.



Amos don't worry about breaking the rules of FTL or energy conservation theories. In a holographic multi dimensional universe the spooky action at a distance of lightyears in our 3 dimensions is but an "angstrom's hair" away in a dimension that unites all points in space\...or holographicly speaking the two particles share the same source point of information no matter where they are.

But I have been far more radical in imagination than that...

I have noted that the largest and most mysterious area of the brain is the limbic area in which seemingly nothing is connected by neurons and only empty (fluid filled) space exists. I don't see those lobes of fluid as being merely a shock absorber as some have theorized. I have imagined it as the organic bubble chamber of the natural particle accelertor of the cosmos. A place where partical waves are intercepted. Then interpreted by a very large internal surface area of the central mind.


(twilight zone music ensues)

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: bobad
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 04:16 PM

Reading this thread gave me a déja vu experience.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Jeri
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 03:46 PM

Bill, I really hate getting in between a guy and his knee-jerk reactions, but seriously... if what we call 'ESP' involves recognizing patterns or at least processing what we perceive and 'knowing' things because our brains make some unconscious association, it's not magic. It's just something we don't yet understand yet.

(I'll bet you're wearing blue jeans right now. Maybe drinking a beer, but I'm not sure about that.)

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: GUEST,Ravenheart
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 03:42 PM

I think the important thing is to go with a good local, independent ESP, because if you wind up with a big corporate ESP, you may find yourself thinking of nothing but expensive things to buy, and your dreams may be hacked.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Bee
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 03:41 PM

To be precise, Les, whenever supernatural phenomena are carefully examined, either nothing of significance or a natural phenomenon is sometimes found - crop circles, for example: people make them. Still, some people are so married to the 'alien' origins of crop circles that in the face of point-blank reality they refuse to believe the more complex circles are human-made.

I do not comprehend more than the very fringes of physics. However, I have noticed that actual physicists often become very exasperated with the supernatural woo that gets attached to their findings.

Carol, in all seriousness, what are you describing when you say 'the non-physical senses'? Physical senses include touch, sight, hearing, taste, etc. What are these 'other senses'?

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 03:35 PM

"...doing any work to develop them."

I suppose you can guess what my attitude would be to that. I don't consider the comparison to playing the guitar relevant: we know what a guitar is and what 'good' guitar playing sounds like - and a guitar sound can be replicated 'almost' at will. ESP abilities, if they exist, don't work like that and cannot be shared and demonstrated...only referred to and evaluated by hearsay.

In that light, I strongly suspect that much "working to develop them" involves 'believing' until one is convinced that something is happening. Wishful thinking is a very powerful force. People see it in others, but deny it in themselves.

I realize this attitude of mine doesn't disprove anything: it is merely MY way of keeping an open mind and requiring more than 'reports' from others.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 03:11 PM

Nothing 'supernatural' has been shown to exist. When ever 'supernatural' phenomena are carefully examined nothing of significance is ever found.

That's it really. Searching for support from the edge of theoretical physics, which many physicist dont really understand, is rubbish.

Shame but their it is

L in C

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 01:51 PM

Just the fact that some people insist on using terms like "supernatural" to describe what is really perfectly natural, I think demonstrates my point. Everyone has these abilities. But if anyone thinks they can use them while they are also at the same time trying to prove they don't exist, they will be disappointed.

And just because everyone has them in a latent form, that doesn't mean that everyone can do it without doing any work to develop them. Everyone has the ability to play the guitar, but most people have to put some effort into developing their ability to play the guitar before they can have success playing the guitar. It's no different with the non-physical senses.

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Amos
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 01:40 PM

The quantum entanglement hypothesis? I think it has been throughly verified.

I don't have time to track down the stories, but they were all "ooo-ah!" over the notion that the experiments indicated the workability of instant matter transportation a la Star Trek.


A

Subject: RE: BS: You and your ESP
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 01:36 PM

Amos... ummm...yeah. What you said.

(actually, I am not sure such a hypothesis needs debunking. It needs verification. "The burden of proof is on the assertor")(yes, I'm aware of some of the recent postulations of the guys following up on Feynman, etc.)

Carol C. - It doesn't "make me uncomfortable"..I'd LOVE to have such abilities, but I guess I wasn't wired properly. ☺ (I also didn't get the wiring setup that urges young boys to drive a car at 90MPH)