BS: Telepathy. Experience? Explanation?

Subject: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 05:46 AM

Donuel said in a recent thread, "There are rational explanations."

I disagree. There is no known way that thoughts can be directly transferred across any distance, and if there was how could they be directed to one specific brain hidden among millions?

And yet most people believe that they have experienced it.
If it does indeed exist could it be taken as evidence that we are more than just physical entities?

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Stu
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 06:15 AM

It doesn't exist. There is not one single scrap of empirical evidence for the existence of telepathy, just hearsay. Unless someone can point us all towards a peer-reviewed paper in a scientific journal that proves us sceptics wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 06:18 AM

Here's the null hypothesis: it's complete and utter bullshit.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Stu
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 06:35 AM

Surely a better null hypothesis would be that it exists?

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 06:59 AM

case closed, you have all proven your point exquisitely. proving non existence succeeds again. We should all celebrate another cohesive victory of the closed mind society. You guys won't even agree on measurement let alone mass phenomena. I do not have your well defined scientific telepathy but I predict you will prove what you set out to prove. ;^/ Isaac Newton would be so proud of you.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: akenaton
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 07:09 AM

Donuel, I am of a mind to agree with what you said on another thread, that civilisation has robbed us of many of our natural senses, but that is purely an opinion from someone who has experienced mental telepathy several times.....on one occasion proved to a third party.
I have no religious belief but the religious aspect is as valid as any other on this issue.
To say the matter is "bollocks" illustrates ignorance....one has to have had the experience to hold a valid opinion.
I would just add that all my experiences of MT have involved very high stress levels from the person giving out the message.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 07:30 AM

I personally do not know anyone who can coherently describe the Higgs Field let alone a mind field. Yet there are eminent minds who accept the existence of both. Why should a cultural bias determine broader belief? If you have never known of a Global Consciousness Project over the decades, certain opinions are moot.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Stu
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 07:40 AM

Will all respect Donuel, that post verged on incoherence. Are you suggesting that we should not be skeptical when presented with unsupported and unsubstantiated claims or statements?

Also, you can't prove something doesn't exist; if you think telepathy does exist (and it would be great if it did, along with bigfoot, Nessie and ghosts), then the onus is on you to prove it and convince the skeptics. That's how science works. It's really that simple.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 07:44 AM

"To say the matter is "bollocks" illustrates ignorance....one has to have had the experience to hold a valid opinion"

Do you have to had held your hand in a fire to know it will be burnt?

Do you need to do this in order to hold a valid opinion?

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: DMcG
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 07:47 AM

There is, in my view, a deeper question but it is worth looking at what we know and dont know.

There is no known mechanism it could work by. That is true, but it is a statement about our knowledge and imagination, not about the existance.

How it could select one brain out of millions? Again, that is about us, in the main. I cannot understand how a bat's navigation works in the presence of many thousands of others all echolocating away. How an individual bat navigates is fine. How the bat works out its signal in the midst of all the other noise I don't understand. But they do.

There have been many hundreds of unbiased scientific attempts to detect telepathy, which have all failed (As well as many more biased attempts). So I think it is pretty clear that either thwre is something inhwritantly limiting about a scientific trial or it is something that cannot be invoked "on demand".

So for my part I am confident it does not exist, but I would be cautious in being too definite about that, because the deeper question is how do we determine knowledge. The scientific method is by far the best we have ever come up with but I do accept it may have a limit in its applicability that we dont fully understand.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 08:51 AM

So far no one has looked at or read about the evidence or data I suggested, however they give opinions while wrapped in a scientific flag based on their level of information/ignorance. While data suggests there is a coherence effect as a result of mass consciousness, independent of our shared notion of time, there is no direct link to the man made invented term called telepathy which I have never used.

I sense the phenomena of shared consciousness is not only quite different from what people suggest as telepathy, it is a profound and accidental phenomena born from an extraordinary evolutionary survival benefit.

Like long strong legs, not everyone has them.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Stu
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 09:30 AM

"While data suggests there is a coherence effect as a result of mass consciousness"

Reference?

Stu the Ignorant.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 09:38 AM

one has to have had the experience to hold a valid opinion.

The "experience" does not validate the opinion - or anything else, for that matter.

"Here's the null hypothesis: it's complete and utter bullshit. "

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 10:00 AM

Saying Donuel's post "verged on incoherence" means the same thing as "I didn't quite understand what he said".

All scientific discover begins with a question. If you're saying one shouldn't ask the questions, you don't appreciate science any more than the uber-religious.

Saying "Do you have to had[sic] held your hand in a fire to know it will be burnt?" isn't pertinent. You trust other people's opinions and experience if you know it will be burnt. You're saying exactly the opposite, as in they've told you your hand might be burnt, and you've replied "bollocks".

I've known people who've claimed to have experienced telepathy. I never have, or I've never identified it as such. It certainly doesn't happen on purpose, so it isn't likely its existence will ever be able to be verified and tested. I think that's what bothers some people most, but there are many things that can't be verified and tested. Many things that HAVE been proven to exist are not proven by direct observation, but by observing what they affect, and one has to know where to look. We average folks don't have what's needed to detect and quantify things.

When you tell people to not ask questions, you're blocking. The lack of anyone's ability to investigate things doesn't disprove their existence.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 10:12 AM

The lack of anyone's ability to investigate things doesn't disprove their existence.

Nor does it prove - or even suggest - their existence.   ;>)

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 10:17 AM

Well I think that, ultimately, everything is potentially testable and verifiable or debunkable. We may currently lack the understanding or expertise, but we can predict that the testability will one day be possible. I pronounced my null hypothesis, which is the challenge in science to bring forth your evidence. If you propose something for which evidence is entirely lacking then you're not very interesting. If the thing you propose has been deliberately put beyond scientific enquiry, then you're a scoundrel. Supernatural deities fall into the second category along with flying spaghetti monsters and fairies at the bottom of the garden, and telepathy treads the perilous tightrope between the two. We can be kind and simply say that those who harbour any of these notions are suffering from delusions. The real world is already so marvellously complex and beautiful and intriguing in its magic. If that isn't good enough for you, then you must be missing out somehow.

By the way, Newton believed in alchemy.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 10:17 AM

Exactly the point I was making Jeri.

Can I suggest you read Ake's post of 07.09 "To say the matter is "bollocks" illustrates ignorance....one has to have had the experience to hold a valid opinion"

I was merely pointing out you don't have to experience putting your hand in a fire to know it will burn. I can hold a valid opinion without doing that.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Stu
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 10:41 AM

"Saying Donuel's post "verged on incoherence" means the same thing as "I didn't quite understand what he said"."

You are correct, I didn't understand. I have zero objection to asking the question, that's what being a skeptic is; question everything and keep an open mind. As you say, every scientific investigation starts with a question, but you have to formulate that question carefully.

I'm not dissing anyone's belief in any of these things; I believed them myself for a long, long time and all opinions are valid. I have seen UFOs (2010 in the US), had 'psychic' experiences, still visit Glastonbury for the spirituality of the place (not the mystic tat anyone though, which is a shame in a way), heard voices in streams, had a set of Zener cards and seen strange mists in the local forest in broad daylight.

However, I have questioned my own ability to reliably report these occurrences; how objective was I being at the time, what was my frame of reference and the context of these observations? How was I feeling at the time? Ask the uncomfortable questions. I just don't believe hearsay anymore as it's proved so utterly unreliable. That's certainly not to say people are dishonest, but we assign explanations to things we experience and don't understand to make them understandable.


"I think that's what bothers some people most, but there are many things that can't be verified and tested."

Not at the moment for sure, but I remain optimistic we will do one day. There's much that remains unknowable and those if us that put faith in science as being the best system of enquiry into the nature and fundamental truth of our universe stick with it, we'll get there. In the meantime, religion and new age bilge can fill the void, as it has done over the centuries.

It's odd how people who are skeptical of things like ESP, ghosts or bigfoot are portrayed as being unable to understand any other person's viewpoint simply because they disagree with it. It's a familiar trope but it fundamentally misunderstands what many of us are about; we just want to know the truth and go about it the best way we can, using a system devised by countless minds over millenia. If that's ignorance, then count me in. I'm as full of shit as anyone, but like many scientists I know, I'm trying bloody hard to learn.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 10:48 AM

Stu as you said "Will all respect Donuel? that post verged on incoherence. Are you suggesting that we should not be skeptical when presented with unsupported and unsubstantiated claims or statements?
Also, you can't prove something doesn't exist; if you think telepathy does exist (and it would be great if it did, along with bigfoot, Nessie and ghosts), then the onus is on you to prove it and convince the skeptics. That's how science works. It's really that simple."

Stu
I care not for respect (there is no respect due) or whatever onus your agenda demands. But to improve communication and correct reading incoherence, think of my posts as a concentrated essential oil that could be expanded into an entire bottle of eau d'toilet or an outline that could be expanded into a chapter, but I do not care to work that hard or dumb things down.
You can not prove non existence which was my intentional barbed point.

As I wrote "If you have never known of a Global Consciousness Project over the decades, certain opinions are moot." -do your own google-

I also wrote my explanation for the shared consciousness phenomena, "I sense the phenomena of shared consciousness is not only quite different from what people suggest as telepathy, it is a profound and accidental phenomena born from an extraordinary evolutionary survival benefit. Like long strong legs, not everyone has them."



I will go waaaay out on a limb and even name the brain structure in which a receiver mechanism may reside based on reasons it would take several chapters to explain. You could legitimately ridicule this conjecture once you understood the many issues involved and studied the emerging facts.
The brain structure is located at the interface with the Limbic Vesicles and connected to the amygdala.

What and where is the transmitter? I do not think there is one. I think it is inherent in a quantum field itself.

This could be debated but I do not think I have a reasonable debating partner here by the tone of some posts. So far there is no quality ridicule. So I respectively defer to PM if there are those who are still curious.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 10:49 AM

Maybe somebody will try to prove molecules exist, based on what's available to them in their homes. (No, don't)
I think I must be a mass-less particle (I've been reading). Steve, you fail to take time into consideration. Many things aren't testable at the time someone asks the question.
How long was it between when someone posited the existence of molecules and proof of their existence? Telling people, before molecules were able to be observed, that the question of their existence shouldn't be asked, because the answer "has been deliberately put beyond scientific enquiry" is a little bit anti-science. And messed up. The methods to test theories often are found because of the questions.

That doesn't mean they will NEVER be questionable. People who are afraid of questions without answers are just as superstitious and anti-science as deists.

They are still afraid to admit they can't know...now.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: akenaton
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 11:25 AM

I think the answer to this Jeri, is like the origin of the universe....we do not NEED to know.....and never will know.

Raggytash many have a valid opinion about his burnt hand based on the crumpled skin, blisters etc, that he will have seen in photos :0(, but he has no valid opinion on something which he has never experienced or recognised. My most vivid experience left me shaken and changed my life forever.....though I still do not have the courage to commit to belief in God.
It involved someone very close to me emotionally,and an horrific accident under extremely stressful circumstances.

I told my wife what I had felt, in detail and within hours the circumstances of the accident were verified by the police and everything which I had told her proved correct.
I think the horrific stress involved had something to do with the telepathy as an action of mine had unwittingly contributed to the accident. I don't think there will ever be any way of testing for these phenomena.....we have lost too many of our senses. Animals have retained senses which we humans are completely ignorant of.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 11:26 AM

Stu wrote far more objectively while I was still writing the previous post. Good for you Stu. My opinion has massed from bits and pieces over 5 decades and is still evolving. A good skeptic admits we can each of us be wrong about something but we don't have to stay wrong.

Few people have had decades to devote attention to esoteric matters without the distraction of religion or time wasting jobs. It is not without sacrifice or defeats but it can be fun for some.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 11:30 AM

Failed to take time into consideration?

"Well I think that, ultimately, everything is potentially testable and verifiable or debunkable. We may currently lack the understanding or expertise, but we can predict that the testability will one day be possible..."

Care to tell me how that fails to take time into consideration?

The delicious appeal of science is that enquiry is never-ending. If humans go on for another million years there will still be unresolved mysteries, and that's how it should be. Your molecules example doesn't stand up. No-one suddenly come up with a wacky, unsubstantiated claim that "molecules exist." There were all sorts of pointers already in place in the study of the behaviour of chemicals. Clues to be pieced together, in some cases clues that didn't present hemselves as clues until a brilliant mind unlocked them, tests available to provide corroboration. The whole of our accumulated knowledge about the particles of matter has been gleaned from scientific enquiry, the gathering of evidence, a stepwise process full of checks and balances. Inventions of human imagination that trump the laws of nature can't go through that process. There is simply nowhere to go. One hundred percent of the burden of proof falls on the shoulders of the propagators of those notions. Crowing that I can't prove that you're wrong is tedious, boring and a waste of time. I don't WANT to prove you're wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 11:35 AM

I have never seen a molecule but I know they exist. The basis of your argument is unfounded.

PS I have experienced what some may term telepathy. I put forward the idea that before we could communicate verbally it MAY have been possible for humans to communicate by other methods. A sense, or ability, we have lost, that on occasion resurfaces.

However I have no proof that telepathy exists nor do I have any proof of my "experience" of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: akenaton
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 11:48 AM

You have been told that a molecule exists, I have experienced telepathy.
Additionally, the burnt hand was YOUR argument.

The religious(supernatural) view which was put forward by Keith in the form of a question, is as valid as your supposition that telepathy is a lost sense.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 11:55 AM

Have you been at the drink today.

I supposed no such thing. I wondered if such a thing was possible.

The basis of your argument is unfounded because you do not have to experience something to know whether or not it is true.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: akenaton
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 11:58 AM

In the case of telepathy you DO, because no one can show you or explain the phenomenon.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 12:07 PM

Very good points by Jeri.

What I have not answered is the Experience part of the question.
What we feel feels discrete but could be something else. A veteran may feel on going mixed feelings but it may be a conflict of obligation, regret and guilt. Feelings may not be what they seem but they are none the less important. Knowing beats GI suicide.

That being said the feeling of knowing something you are not told is ubiquitous. Culturally American people hum the twilight zone theme when describing something they feel they should not be able to know.
It seems this phenomena is being accepted more readily but slowly.

Describing the color red to a blind from birth person may be helpful.
Describing a Symphony to the deaf may be helpful but it is not the experience. To describe knowing beyond the norm does not work well.
If it did Tesla would have explained more of how his mind worked.
He seemed bad at that to me.

These guarded stories should be told. Steve and Greg may not have any but you may and that is OK.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 12:18 PM

btw I have seen electron microscope images of molecules, even atoms.
So have you. Its the time we live in.
Steve are you talking about time regarding the time we live in or knowing something before it happens?

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 12:27 PM

Steve, sorry if I picked the wrong one of two opposed points of view in your earlier post. (The one with "scoundrel" in it. Or maybe I misinterpreted that as being a bad thing.)

Don, I don't understand a lot of stuff, but I'm ok with that. A lot of people are uncomfortable with not being able to know. I have this theory that answers are the ends of roads, and it's the questions that make for journeys. Once we find all the road ends, there's no longer a reason to travel. So not knowing is a GOOD thing. Not ASKING is death. Thinking you have all the answers is the same as not asking. That's what some religious zealots do. So end of game, for them.

But I think we can tend to forget what we can't explain, so personal experiences with Weird Shit may be among those things. I remember big weird things, but definitely not little, everyday occurrences, such as worrying about someone for no particular reason, and later finding out they broke their arm. May be a case of making memory fit facts, so it's not real.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 12:31 PM

We do know that information is passed between entangled particles in a kind of telepathy, but not how it is achieved.
Does that make it "complete and utter bullshit" Steve?

Both Rag and Ake have experienced telepathy.
Does the absence of an explanation for their experiences make them just bullshitters?

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 12:43 PM

No professor. I was very careful to say I had experienced something that others MAY term telepathy.

I did not say I had experienced telepathy.

Please get your "facts" right.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 12:46 PM

"it MAY have been possible for humans to communicate by other methods. A sense, or ability, we have lost, that on occasion resurfaces.
"

My mrs still does...
most mornings as she is waking and just about to get out of bed,
she communicates by smells.... putrid stinky smells...
crudely communicating to me a reminder of what she eat the night before... 😣

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 12:58 PM

These guarded stories should be told. Steve and Greg may not have any....

Never said the stories shouldn't be told. Question is, should they be believed without any evidence.

I think not.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 01:15 PM

I didn't say it was bullshit. I said that the null hypothesis is that it's bullshit. If there are claimants that telepathy is a true phenomenon, the burden lies entirely with them to show that the null hypothesis isn't true. To do that, they must present evidence. Saying that you saw or experienced something is not in itself the kind of evidence that makes it over the bar in science.

The problem with telepathy is that it is firmly embedded in popular mythology. I'm not really interested enough to find out, but I'm thinking that whole books have been written about it, and we have the internet to add grist to the mill. Such tomes would undoubtedly capture the imagination of many people who love to suspend disbelief (quite a good thing to do occasionally). It's quite possible to persuade yourself that something you've experienced fits nicely with something you've read about which fired up your imagination. Nowt wrong with that. We're human beings, not Spocks. I definitely saw ball lightning one late evening in the early 1980s. I was on my own getting the cat in. Stone cold sober. I hadn't a clue what I was seeing, but on looking it up afterwards I discovered that it exactly fitted in all respects the phenomenon which had been described by many other people. I tried strenuously to discover If anyone else had seen it. No joy. Only me. Now the thing is I hadn't known anything about ball lightning. I didn't go out looking for it having read about it in books or New Scientist. I was an innocent abroad. Anyone who tells you that they can do telepathy has almost certainly read all about it. I'm not interested in it but even I've read all about it. The powers of suggestion are mighty. None of this negates the claims. But it does require that a mountain must be climbed in order to acquire plausible evidence. I have a slightly less lofty mountain to climb with my ball lightning because it is at least a phenomenon that has some scientific credibility. But equally I could have made the whole thing up in order to grab myself a moment in the limelight. I don't expect anyone to believe a word I've said about it. Not because I'm humble but because I wish to act rationally. It's ironic to me that people who claim far less feasible experiences often expect everyone else to take them on board straight away. Raggytash wouldn't do that, I know that. The other bloke, however, does not enjoy the same degree of required diffidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: robomatic
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 01:26 PM

If 'telepathy' means intentional communication from one brain to another of complex messages without means of speech, then reading and telegraphy constitute valid definitions of telepathy.

If one goes beyond that and requires the communication to be some sort of 'radio' communication between brains without the requirements of energy or the limitations of time or distance, I think it is possible to prove that such communications do not exist. One can set up a scientific experiment with controls and proceed as with any other experiment. I'm pretty sure there are no documented scientific experiments that have been recognized by respectable scientific institutions.

If one is convinced by personal experience of having intuitive knowledge or hunches, that is human. I've experienced them and witnessed others experience them. But it ain't science and it ain't telepathy unless you personally define them as such, and then how far can you take it? Can you convince others, repeat the performance, investigate the phenomena in a rational matter?

How many times are the words "I'm NOT a mind reader" uttered compared to the words "I AM a mind reader."?

I'm tempted to utter the vainglorious words: "Case Closed" but I know damn well it ain't.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 02:16 PM

Well I agree with that, with the caveat that science can't really "prove" that telepathy is false. After all, it could be that it simply doesn't happen during your experimentation. In biology we always have to factor in that the mere setting up of the experimental conditions can interfere with the process we're investigating. It's what makes us biologists so philosophical. 😉 The comparison with radio, etc. (which I know you weren't making), is a false equivalence. It will of course be one of those that will be seized on by telepathy zealots as it gives them what is, in their eyes, a legitimate real-science parallel. Poor wee things...

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 02:23 PM

"But I think we can tend to forget what we can't explain, so personal experiences with Weird Shit may be among those things. I remember big weird things, but definitely not little, everyday occurrences"

oy is that ever the truth.



Have you ever told a child the truth but they choose to completely ignore it? Maybe its because the question/myth is so juicy and delicious that the mystery is forever better than the truth will ever be.

I remember what the mystery of music was like. Music Theory never lived up to the mystery.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 02:55 PM

We all like to be fed so try the link. It is not a be all end all link, it is not even 1% of the beginning, it is not confirmation of any such nonsense as telepathy. It is only an empirical path for better understanding. If you get as far as the facts you should start to see how shared consciousness is a credible path.

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 03:30 PM

The religious(supernatural) view

The only thing religion has to do with the supernatural is that it hijacks people fears of the unknown to gain power over them. I have not been religious for many a year but I think there are many things that we do not yet understand. They have fuck all to do with religion. The supernatural will eventual become the natural. As Steve says, there are enough marvels in nature without making them up and the best is yet to come. If we don't blow up the world first.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 03:59 PM

Go look up what a Higgs field is. I did. It's really close to what a friend of mine thinks of as God. (Thanks for inspiring me to look, Don.)

The supernatural explanations, the deity, the magic gets classified that way because, if we can't find real explanations, we make them up. Humans love stories. It's part of what makes us humans, and mythology binds us together. Stories aren't bad, until people start refusing to see other possible explanations. Otherwise, they make the world rich

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 04:04 PM

Rag,
No professor. I was very careful to say I had experienced something that others MAY term telepathy.
I did not say I had experienced telepathy.
Please get your "facts" right.

I did get my facts right. In the JFK thread on 1st November you stated,
"I have experienced "telepathy" which I found disconcerting."

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 04:14 PM

But Jeri, we make up "explanations" that are themselves infinitely more inexplicable than the things they're supposed to explain. To me, that's irrational.

'Maybe its because the question/myth is so juicy and delicious that the mystery is forever better than the truth will ever be."

This is never true. The reality of the world and the universe beyond, the real truth, is so magical that stories and myth pale beside it. All you have to do is be curious and look. And ignore people who try to sell you dead-end explanations which are no such thing and which are intended to stem your curiosity.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: akenaton
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 04:30 PM

"It's ironic to me that people who claim far less feasible experiences often expect everyone else to take them on board straight away. Raggytash wouldn't do that, I know that. The other bloke, however, does not enjoy the same degree of required diffidence."

You may not be surprised to learn Steve, that I do not give a flying fuck what you believe or disbelieve.
I know what I experienced and relayed to my wife,
that to my mind is, if not proof, a verification. That is sufficient for me, sufficient to pull me up short and concentrate the mind.
I do not know what the phenomenon is and suppose that it will be impossible to prove.....but I know one very important thing,   it happened and was verified.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 04:33 PM

You obviously do not understand the common use of parenthesis.

No surprise really.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 05:56 PM

He also doesn't understand what "verified" means.

Wot I said:

"It's ironic to me that people who claim far less feasible experiences often expect everyone else to take them on board straight away."

Akenaton has just beautifully confirmed that by turning very nasty as soon as someone calls him out for peddling bullshit.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 06:44 PM

Being taken on board Steve's good ship Culture Club is no prize. Particularly when facing the out of context quirky quotes of Cpt'n Narcissus.
I am just a Lighthouse and I see few ships steering into Heuristic Harbor. Of course its takes time to study and safely navigate. Take care. Migrating sandbars fool even the best of pilots.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 07:04 PM

Translator's note, please.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: bobad
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 07:11 PM

A list of prizes offered to anyone who can provide scientific evidence of paranormal abilities including a list of the prizes claimed: Wikipedia

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 07:26 PM

The motive for providing scientific evidence can't be a money reward. Simple as that.