What about those nasty little psychic things?

Ok, we've talked about the beginnings of the universe, and discussed in depth the philosophies concerning creationism and natural progression. I'd like to read your views on ESP and the like. To get the ball rolling, I'll toss my own beliefs out there for the world to pluck apart. For what they're worth, here goes:

I believe that each of us is born with certain gifts from our creator, and that some of these gifts include the ability to perceive events related to us or unrelated to us in the past, present, and future, across long distances, or right before our faces. I believe this is a gift from our creator, not some trained thing or magic skill. I believe each of us has this gift, but that the vast majority of us never learns to use it, or only learns to use it in a limited capacity.

As a child I used to dream things, then find myself suffering 'deja vu' the next day. It took several years of this happening before I finally remembered a dream which happened the next day. Sometimes the things I dreamt were right on the money, other times they were way wrong, but they all had things in common - the setting, the fact that I was to make a choice and that the choice I made influenced the outcome directly, bad or good. I would dream past making one of the choices available, and see the outcomes from it. To this day when I find myself in that 'deja vu' situation, I try to recall what the outcomes were from the choice I'd made in my dream, and then act accordingly - if the results were bad, I made a different choice, if they were good, I made the same choice.

Everyone has the 'Aunt Edna' out there who can dream/envision something catastrophic regarding their family from over 1000 miles away. Is this bull or real? What about the spoonbenders of the world? (There is no spoon... :D) I've heard it alluded to in films and in military experience that there was experimentation along these lines by our government - does anyone know the results?

Please, tell your beliefs, tell your stories, and help enlighten the class.

Hi l3lacklce,

Dreams and images are two separate things...to have so-called ESP you do not need to be asleep...

Dreams...are very particular to the individual...when I was in deep religious and philosophical study I used to dream words...I would see myself as if I were hovering over myself and I would watch myself write words I had not yet seen or written...and I would make a point to write them down as soon as I woke...as much as I could remember...
and even though the words I copied from my dreams seemed to make sense...I thought I would test my dreams...and I temporarily stopped studying and the dreams went as fast as they arrived...for all intense purposes this is the definition of divine inspiration...
anytime you are in deep thought on a conscious or sub-conscious level your dreams will reflect that, and the writers of old would, of course, mistake that for being led by their god...when in fact they were being led by themselves...there is no difference between being led by your mind while awake or while sleeping...it is still your mind that is conjuring up the images...being very spiritual and superstitious they mistook their own writings for that of some superior being...

as for dreams that come true...that again is a reflection of your own mind working...if you dream of Aunt Edna dying or a river flooding ( which I did once ) you were not really dreaming as much as thinking while asleep...and when you wake and hear that Aunt Edna died your mind thinks that is what it dreamed...when you probably were only dreaming of your own mortality...but your mind sees a connection...

our mind is deceptive...we are prone to illusions, seeing shadows, earth looks flat, the sun orbits the earth, we are walking upright...our mind can be taught to see the earth as round but it still seems flat...we no longer see the earth as flat because we have taught our mind that it is round...do you see the exact same shade of orange that I do....or do I see green and you see orange but we both identify that color as being orange because that is the name we were taught to associate with that color? does that metal feel exactly as rough or smooth to you as it does to me?
the mind is not a perfect thing...it needs to be trained to think correctly...that is to say as correctly as it is able to be trained.

As for spoon bending, ESP, and palm reading, and the like...there never has been conclusive evidence to prove that they ever happened or exist or have any validity at all...and many times it has been proven to be an illusion...there is a guy who levitates himself a few inches off the ground in front of people in the street...and it has been proven that it is an illusion.
The studies in the old Soviet Union where people were levitating cups and making pencils roll on their own have been noted as parlor tricks...even the guy who has his own show about talking to the dead refuses to prove that he's not a fraud by refusing to exercise his so-called talent during interveiws...he will only display his talent on his own venues outside of independant scrutiny.

I see no reason to believe any of it...the mind decieves itself, as stated above, it is easy for others to decieve it too...it is very prone to manipulation!

Eg ;)

Well...I think ...being the animals that we are...we all have natural instincts...gut feelings.

I also believe that some people use this instinct..trust it...and are better attuned to the energies around them then others.

Also that we are tied into the natural rhythms of the earth..the seasons, tides, moon sun planets...as we are apart of it.

Mother Nature is a powerful and awesome being, energy...or how ever you want to define it...
providing us with these gifts.

I also believe that some people are naturally better at things the others...these others have talents of their own.

I have a quote in my office...again I do not know where I got it from...I used to cut and paste from email...into one large favorite document...and have a collection of them.

"When stupity is no longer fatal...evolution ends"

and another one

"Natural laws have no pity"

As for psychics......there are alot of frauds out there....but I do beleive there are some people who are more in tune with the energies around them...giving them the ability to have a deeper insight into their surroundings and events.

As for bending spoons...or levitating.... :rolleyes:

MLF

If someone could really do any of that, I would think that they would have claimed the million dollars James Randi has been offering for quite some years "to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event."

http://www.randi.org/research/index.html

Today ESP is for the most part is a sham. But someday we will figure out how to warp electromagnetics and use the air to bend a spoon. But it will be a fundamental structure of nature, like the bond between atoms that does it. Not some clown who can speak to persons beyond the realm of the material plane. As for dreams and an experience of being in a place you have never been then recognising it with a sudden sense of awarness... that happens all the time. To predict an event in your mind that has not traspired would mean that time travels in more than one direction. I take the coincidence view. If I stand in a basketball court and toss the ball to a hoop from way across the room. Once in a while, my lack of skill will get a hit, a swoosh. Once in a while something we percieve or interpret swooshes into reality. Non of this is conclusive, there is much unkown. But the Psycic network is not the answer. ;) And this is not something answered easily. It's like philosphy, it takes a constant dialog to work through.

Yes I do have some form of ESP, although I think it left me long ago as a kid.

I used to do thing for my mother while she was only thinking of them, like getting the sugar or opening a drawer for her; but that could be explained by just reading nonverbal signs.

When I was 5, though, I was walking through downtown Amsterdam with my family, and we passed by a house. I stopped, looked at it, and told everyone that my great grandmother lived there. At that time she'd been dead for 20 years. Nobody I was with even knew she had once lived there. They had to ask family. I've never been able to explain that.

Now as far as spoonbending, I do think that it's *theoretically* possible. Electromagnetic waves can affect matter, and our thoughts produce electromagnetic waves. Therefore our thoughts can affect matter.

Maybe you saw a photo of Granny Stiek's house once. Oh wait they all look the same in Amsterdam. :) Well I am glad I am not the only one eating his own head.

Heh. We all eat our own heads every day - killing billions of brain cells with every single thought. One full rack of greenies (100% of what i can give) to the first person who can tell me what movie and scene that particular phrase came from... and it won't take esp to figure it out either :D

Quote:

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If someone could really do any of that

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If they did win the 1 million dollars I would highly doubt that it would change anyones mind ...

So what's he trying to prove ???

Egaladeist ... sounds like you've read a lot of Sigmund Freud ...

Sounds like something Fry would say, but that's not a movie.

nope, it's not a Fry quip and comes from a long time before futurama (assuming that's the fry you're discussing)...

Yep same Fry..... why does SpaceBalls come to mind even though I haven't a clue what scene.

LoL you're way off, but same decade at least. Let me go ahead and spill it since we're 19 hours into the game now:

The Breakfast Club. In the opening sequence, where they're showing lockers, it's written on the outside of a locker near Bender's locker. (bender's was the one with the guillotine that read 'open this locker and die, fag')

Christ. I saw that 1 time when it was in the theater. Lol.