BS: Telepathy. Experience? Explanation?

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 07:34 PM

I took on challenges but they were a rip off. I was taken on board a certain former Prince of England yacht docked in Rochester to locate an unnamed item somewhere on board. My very first question was "Is it bigger than a bread box"? I was only told -No questions-. I found the task untenable but still toured the yacht with my hands in my pockets. The unnamed item was a ring inside a bread box in the galley.

It was my grandmother who demonstrated exacting abilities.

Steve if you need a translator, ask a woman.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 07:46 PM

My English is generally good enough to obviate the need for a translator, regardless of of your obscurantist meanderings which at the very least demand the kind of mental processing that the amazing spectrum of nuance of our language is supposed to neutralise. Just give it to us straight. I know you can do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Nov 17 - 09:45 PM

Of of?? Ignore ignore.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 02:48 AM

I keep thinking of an elephant's ability to hear sounds below the range of what a human ear can hear and the dog's ability to hear sounds above what a human ear can hear.

Now, granted that these phenomena are testable and verifiable but what about the days before it was accepted as fact?

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 03:59 AM

Rag,
"I have experienced "telepathy" which I found disconcerting."

There is no dispute about what telepathy means, only if it exists and how.
What is the special telepathy that you have experienced and how does it differ from the telepathy under discussion?

You are just not happy appearing to disagree with Steve about anything, and would rather deny your own experience than be different.
Man up.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Iains
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 04:18 AM

For my twopenn'orth I think the subcosncious can process disparate sources of information and allow two+two to make "five." Some may interpret this ability as telepathy.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Raggytash
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 04:23 AM

The difference is professor is that I do not know if telepathy or "telepathy" actually exists.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 04:30 AM

Different language once again. It is perfectly clear to me (and I suspect most people) what the parenthesis meant. Standard use of English. The difference between working from home and "working" from home.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 04:46 AM

Raggytash and I had a fair amount of disagreement in the folk club thread and we were not afraid to air it. That was an insulting remark, Keith. You never express any disagreement with members of your tribe here, though quite often their rants and insults must have you clenching your manly buttocks.

Thing about the hearing, Ebbie, is that the pointers to a perfectly scientific explanation were already there. We knew the structure of the mammalian ear and we understood the relationship between frequency and pitch. There was no need to go beyond science to solve the question. It was a matter of intelligent minds piecing together real clues. In order to "prove" telepathy you have to make assumptions to do the heavy lifting that go beyond the laws of nature. One day we may find that we didn't completely understand the laws of nature after all, and that there is a means by which animal tissue can both transmit and receive information across the ether without vision or sound. I'm a bit surprised that such an obvious-sounding phenomenon hasn't been teased out by now, that's all. Like Raggytash, I'm on the fence when it comes to the veracity of telepathy. However, in my case, from the telepathy side all you can see clinging on are the tips of my finger nails. I'm a bit like that with deities and fairies too.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Stu
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 04:48 AM

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

The way humans interpret phenomena they can't understand is partly cultural and also perhaps due the way we've evolved. I was at a zoology conference recently where this was discussed in relation to bigfoot and lake monsters, it's not a new idea and has been floating around for donkeys years but is still interesting and applies to many unexplained phenomena.

Firstly: Cultural. Two thousand years ago, when a bunch of desert tribesmen in the middle east witnessed an event in the sky they described it in terms they understood; wheels of fire. The same event witnessed two millennia later would have been described in different terms: UFO's. Then: telepathy, now quantum fields. Twenty years time: something new.

Second: Evolutionary. In evolutionary terms, we're all still wired for life on the plains and forests of Africa. Our limbic system is on constant alert for predators and we are programmed to see patterns (pareidolia)... many societies have a long history of seeing hairy folk in the woods, beasts in lakes etc.

Now as the man said: I want to believe. Truth is, we are talking about a wide variety of different processes both physical, cognitive and mental that require a very broad range of skills to objectively record and analyse. Luckily we have such a system, but it requires evidence.

Donuel: That link is interesting, but I'm unconvinced (that said, I don't understand the methodology at all so that's surprising). An alternative view here: http://skepdic.com/globalconsciousness.html All seems a little suspicious to me, but I'm used to dealing with fossils and rocks which have a certain physicality about them ;-) I'll read a bit more later.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 05:16 AM

Interpreting a true phenomenon in terms you could understand is a normal and rational thing for us humans. Wheels and fire really do exist. You can bet that the bloke who came up with that one had mates who were only too happy to pick holes in his notion. They bore the germ of the null hypothesis. Which is precisely how we progress. Take another one, a dragon eating the sun during a solar eclipse. Well it did look like the sun was gradually having a chunk taken out of it, there was little understanding of space and the distance from us of the sun or of its dimensions, and dragons, fantastical as they were in Chinese mythology, were still bilaterally symmetrical beasts and recognisably reptilian. We were making big stretches in order to explain things in those cases but we were still clinging to familiar ideas, no matter how tenuously applied. Rationality was being severely pulled about but it clung on. With deities, fairies and telepathy we have made huge jumps beyond the rational. We have no means of investigating or explaining the phenomena we have invented (pejorative intended). Human imagination and the unending quest for knowledge is at the very centre of our human-ness. Science has made the progress it has by keeping its feet on the ground, standing with arms akimbo and sternly frowning on anyone throwing in the irrational. That'll do me for now.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 06:08 AM

Rag,
The difference is professor is that I do not know if telepathy or "telepathy" actually exists.

You clearly do believe it exists, but now you are afraid to admit it in case Steve is cross with you.
You said you had experienced it, finding is disconcerting.
You conjectured about how it might have come about;

"Before we could communicate verbally we MAY have had further senses than we one's we acknowledge today, sight, sound, vision, taste, and touch.
Is it possible that before we learned to communicate by these methods we had further abilities that because we no longer use them have deteriorated to the point that they only become apparent on rare occasions."

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

" 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."

The quote is correct, it consists of the last three sentences from Steve's post.....6th Nov   1:15pm.

The implication being, that I expect everyone else to agree with me regarding the phenomenon of "Mental Telepathy", which I put in parenthesis to acknowledge that everyone may not agree with that designation. As I said, it is of no interest whatsoever to me whether Mr Shaw agrees or disagrees.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 06:19 AM

Steve for a guy who repeatedly says he doesn't care about this subject, you are animated. I have said there is no classic telepathy but there is shared consciousness. I have given links to 20 year old ongoing scientific experiments in measuring coherence around mass events. I am not here to convince anyone of anything nor is that proof of anything Stu.

Almost 60 years ago I was in an experiment with the drug Telepathine.
It worked with descriptions of photos between 2 people.
Feedback from others reinforced that there is such a phenomenon.
I still think it is something else.

And Steve, no I can not turn off dyslexia but I can hide certain aspects. I will not hide. Why do you and Robo have discomfort with this factor? You can't help making fun of the different because you see your way as the best way.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Raggytash
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 06:28 AM

Do you really not understand the word MAY.

Do you really not understand the word possible.

Do you really think Steve is "cross" with me and even if he was do you think I would give a monkeys.

PS I would think Steve, like myself, had a good chuckle at that. so thank you from us both. If you wonder how I know Steve had a chuckle, he told me ....................... "telepathically"

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 07:02 AM

I knew you were going to say that...

:D (tG)

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Raggytash
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 07:24 AM

Yes, you probably did, but that has nowt to do with "telepathy"

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 07:40 AM

Rag,
Do you really not understand the word MAY.
Do you really not understand the word possible.

Yes. You were offering an explanation of how telepathy as you experienced it "may" "possibly" have evolved, so that now it " only become apparent on rare occasions."

What now only becomes apparent on rare occasions Rag?

Last week you clearly believed that you had experienced telepathy.
Now that Steve is ridiculing anyone who takes telepathy seriously you pretend not to.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 08:06 AM

I believe there are some things that we cannot currently explain using our current scientific models. We will be able to eventually. One of these could be what some people refer to as "telepathy". Please note the quote marks. To those of you who do not understand it indicates that I am using someone else's terminology. Just like Raggy did on the other thread.

I have no worries what Steve or Raggy will say because I know they are reasonable human beings and they speak the same language as most people on here. I do have issues with those who go out to pick fights and create issues out of nothing so they can be the centre of attention and get people to jump through hoops. There is no point in progressing these points any further so I do hope that no one expects me to explain what most people already understand.

I suggest that everyone else on the thread observes the same guidelines and ignores the man behind the curtains trying to pull the strings.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Raggytash
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 08:15 AM

Re-read my posts professor and this time read exactly what I said and not what you think I said, please try not to reinterpret my words.

Having said that I knew you would try........ Wow I must be "telepathic"

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 08:20 AM

I am not ridiculing anybody. I've put forward some carefully-considered points explaining why I think that belief in telepathy is irrational. I'm agnostic about telepathy but that doesn't mean I'm astride the fence with my nuts impaled on a top nail. I've left open the possibility (remote in my opinion) that new laws of nature may be discovered that would bring telepathy into the tent, but first we need corroborated evidence that it seems to happen at all, and I haven't heard of any. Someone coming on here telling me that it's true because he's done it is not good enough for me by a long chalk (especially considering that the man who claims it has a history here of spouting multiple delusions). I specifically told you that you don't have to believe a word I say about ball lightning and I don't expect you to, though there is far more corroboration for it than there is for telepathy. And akenaton, you got all sweary and nasty when I demurred at your claim.

Donuel, having dyslexia doesn't oblige you to meander around and write in riddles. Mrs Steve dealt with dyslexic children for many years so I'm not completely ignorant of its effects. I suggest we move on from that one.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 08:34 AM

I think there are things we know that we don't know how we know. Take the crossword puzzle phenomenon - you are stuck on some corner, you go away, you come back, it's obvious, because your brain has kept working on it without you. There are ways to know things about people that they don't know how you could have known it, yet nothing supernatural occurred.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Ed T
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 08:48 AM

An intresting "ideas" article on consciousness and quantum mechanics.



Consciousness, some science ideas ?

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 09:19 AM

Steve do not tell me how to be.
Steve you are a sieve.
What ever does not pass through your prejudiced screen
you reject by the dictates of your narcissistic bigotry.
You are not the agnostic you claim to be.
You are culturally and psychologically biased.
Your science based filter is pathetic at best.

I do hope you take this in the friendliest spirit intended.
Afterall this could describe many.
Being we centered is more illuminating than self centered.
As you say, Shall we move on now?


When a person asks the same question for many decades there are bound to be emerging answers. I have told you what they are so far but you can not even recall because you do not care. So I suspect your agenda is less open minded than Stu.

btw Iains 2+2=5 is closer to my thinking.


Steve's requested dumbed down translation;

While I do not expect you to change a whit remember there is nothing special or desirable, as you say, to coming on board your boat or being allowed in your tent etc. We are each of us just one of many.
I see only a few people continuing to educate themselves.
Steve you believe you already know it all and have not educated yourself one step beyond what you already believed. You have crashed into your own old drifting mindsets.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 09:21 AM

You clearly do believe it exists,

Now The Professor has the power to read minds! That's almost like telepathy, innit?

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 09:25 AM

Ed - Excellent!

That's what I am talking about.
There are even quantum structures in our nervous system that have only recently come to light.
While we do not know the whole story this is THE promising path.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 09:27 AM

There, Donuel! You said all that clearly enough, didn't you? I knew you could do it!

Just a tad defensive, perhaps....? 😂

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 09:33 AM

Things we don't know how we know
quote Mrrzy

Ain't it the truth.
Trust in the unconscious
Its more genius than the rest of us.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 09:35 AM

Snobs were never my cup of tea steve.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 09:42 AM

I love your new-found clarity, Donuel.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 09:44 AM

I guess you have all grown tired of the subject, and are simply fighting now. If it stays personal, the thread likely will get closed. I was enjoying it until it started being about various posters. Oy.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Explanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 09:45 AM

That is an interesting article, Ed. We're quite a long way from the heart of the matter though.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 09:50 AM

drift 1.1

There are means to allow the unconscious mind to do your writing for you.
It is usually more poetic.

Dreams also allow some unconscious imagery to surface.
I remember a dream at the age of 24 in which I encountered myself at my current age. I was struggling with dyslexia at the time.
My older self was dressed in white and said "I'm surprised how you got here" younger self;"What can you tell me"?
I said, "YOU know more than you need to know!."

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 09:55 AM

We are closer to the heart of the matter than ever regarding 'explanation'.

or Ex[lanation.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Ed T
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 10:08 AM

What I liked about the article I linked, is that no claim was made which could close minds to future research, (as the field matures). Ideas like this-outside of traditional thinking, but linked to cutting-edge science, often stimulates big steps in scientific research.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 10:09 AM

Good science and lots of frustration in there, Ed.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 10:13 AM

reprise:

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.
dh

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 10:48 AM

We all have 2 fluid filled vesicles at the center of our brain that is roughly 10% the volume of our brain. That is an enormous structure especially when compared to a dog which >1% but dolphins and whales are closer to us and exclusively have very large acoustic 3D vision centers in the forebrain.

This fluid emptiness in our brains is not a shock absorber, it is a sense organ listening to the universe like Whales listen to the sea.

Quantum tubular sense 'pick ups' reside at the fluid-brain interface and have nerve fibers that connect to the Amygdala half way before the sight centers in our brain. It is central to our foresight.

The quantum field requires an emptiness in contrast to somethingness to be sensed. This is oversimplified for consumption but I hope you get the idea.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Ex[lanation?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 10:53 AM

Anybody seen the movie The Gift, I think it was called, about a woman who knows her smalltown people really, really well, so she can do the Psychic thing just by intuition, but she dresses it up for money. Along comes a crime and the cops come to her for help finding the body and she has to say No, I've been faking all these years...
...but then it turns out she WAS psychic! And she starts getting flashes of where the body is, and all kinds of shenanigans ensue! Great movie, and that is how I think it works, when it appears to work.

I had a really good friend in college who often shared a mind with me, we would have the same dreams though we weren't sleeping together, or suddenly simultaneously remember something and whirl around as we were walking away from each other, and so on. Nothing supernatural, we just knew each other really, really well.

On the other hand my twins shared a mind when they were small... One baby cried and fisted his stomach, the other farted, the first stopped crying and writhing. Whose stomach ache was it? Also I could set them as schoolchildren to rock-paper-scissors and they would do the same shape, over and over again, for over half an hour, reliably. It was a great way to have some time of my own, find something they cared about who did it, and get them to pick one that way. They have outgrown it. But it WAS there, the communal/hive mind. Especially since one had motor deficits and the other was motor-gifted, they would do stuff together that took the brains of one and the brawn of the other, when they were preverbal. We called them collectively The Beast. They once took their playpen apart, moved it to another room, and put it back together, with them in it, before they were 1. They could not have colluded or collaborated, but they worked as a team.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Explanation?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 11:19 AM

Wow

One day the word telepathy will become as quaint as the word ice box and will fade away. Until then we can extend our senses with acceptance and training of our senses.

I feel bad for people without a sense of smell as well as those without foresight or shared consciousness.

I have said before that I stand in awe of the human who has maximized every sense we are capable of. no Steve it isn't you ":^)

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Explanation?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 11:51 AM

One of the interesting phenomena of experimenting with strong opiated cannabis and magic mushrooms back in our late teens,
was the point of doped stupor when vision / perception with eyes open of shut
started to focus and fragment into pixelated / pixilated cell-like patterns within patterns within patterns..... etc.. etc...
until slumping into stoned dreamy oblivion...

At best they were extrordinarily fun explorative 'trips'... but to where and how far....????

At worst, we were witnessing from the inside the scary withering and death of our young bright brain cells as they fried and popped into burnt out particles...????

But back in the 1970s, prevailing counter culture guides to better alternative lifestyles
convinced us of the essential requirement for drug experiences to expand minds and open up consciousness...

irresepective of irresponsible and negligent long term effects on our young developing minds...

Now, after an adult lifetime of diminished intelligence, I count the costs rather than the benefits...

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Explanation?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 11:54 AM

The fact that acid increases apparent psychic phenomena weighs in favor of it being your brain being smarter than you.

This ties into religion. If you are better at predicting things because of superior intuition, and you don't know what intuition is and neither does anybody else yet, both you and everybody else may think that your predictions are supernatural, rather than intuitive, in origin.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Explanation?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 11:54 AM

Wait... we say Icebox.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Explanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 12:26 PM

I've never taken any of those naughty drugs, not even cannabis, ever in my whole life, not once. I smoked like a chimney until I was 26 then suddenly stopped, 40 years ago now (I know the exact minute on the exact date) and not one whiff of any nicotinic substance has passed my lips ever since. I do like my booze, though, but never until the sun's below the yardarm. I suppose alcohol is a bit mind-altering, though at least it's a graduated thang.

I'll stick to the baby steps of real science, Donuel. I do enjoy leaps of imagination myself but I always try to strictly recognise where they overstep the bounds of science. Ed's article was full of expressed frustration and humility. And real science without uncalled-for assertions. And the best way I know of maximising all my senses is to go outside where there are trees and birds and insects on a sunshiny and breezy summer's day, lie on my back in a patch of flowers and yield to the beauty of reality, all truths universal. I want to attain the nuttiness of the truly sane (thanks to Lawrence D. Hills for that exquisite idea). Mrs Steve thinks I've achieved the nuttiness. One more step...

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Explanation?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 12:47 PM

Greg,
Now The Professor has the power to read minds!

No, just words.
Rag said he had "experienced" "telepathy" and been "disconcerted" by the "experience."
Also he suggested why "telepathy" may " only become apparent on rare occasions."

But that was last week.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Explanation?
From: Raggytash
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 01:10 PM

No professor, yet again I said I had experienced (note no parenthesis) what other people may term "telepathy" not telepathy.

At no stage have I ever said that I have "experienced" or even experienced telepathy.

I cannot recall saying I was "disconcerted" by it but can't be arsed to go back and find that particular post, and if I had been disconcerted by it I do not think I would have used parenthesis.

Are you really so simple that you cannot differentiate the things everybody else can.

Don't bother to reply I already know the answer.

BUGGER !! There I go again I must be telepathic!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Explanation?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 01:13 PM

Tobaccoo *is* a naughty drug, dude.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Explanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 01:37 PM

Well that's true, but when I said "naughty" I was thinking more of the illegal ones. When it comes to naughty in the broader sense, as in seeing people off, tobacco has no rivals. It's changing in some countries. Good thing too.

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Explanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 01:42 PM

What about deja vus? Do they count as great mysteries, up there with telepathy?

(And I'm not doing the accents as I don't want to see any more spurious question marks).

Subject: RE: BS: Telepathy. Experience? Explanation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Nov 17 - 01:43 PM

What about deja vus? Do they count as great mysteries, up there with telepathy?

(And I'm not doing the accents as I don't want to see any more spurious question marks).