ginjawarrior
Well-Known Member
my psychic powers are tingling...
i predict rose ingores relevance of this and quickly skips onto a new line of nonsense that is "definative proof"
About Those Beliefs You're Ashamed of Holding..
- Thread starter Padawanbater2
- Start date
i predict rose ingores relevance of this and quickly skips onto a new line of nonsense that is "definative proof"
mindphuk
Well-Known Member
Some people continue to believe in spite of all of the evidence to the contrary. I would like to believe, but as a magician, I have performed and watched stunts that put the majority of 'true' psychics to shame. Funny how the best psychics in the world can't even give a demonstration that is better than an admitted tricksters like Derren Brown or Keith Barry.
ginjawarrior
Well-Known Member
the worst thing is theres people out that the believe that derren brown isnt even faking it. pretty scary really
Heisenberg
Well-Known Member
There is nothing wrong with providing links for context and further explanation. If you were to be swayed by my arguments simply because of a smug tone and impressed by the number of links, I would have yet another reason call you a sloppy thinker.
I never claimed to have irrefutable evidence for crop circles being hoaxed. I simply showed that humans can do this and are doing this and it was never a phenomena until humans started doing it. I find it unnecessary to believe some sort of supernatural force decided to step in at some point and mimic humans. Without any evidence, we must favor the null hypotheses, which in this case has elevated to a reasonable explanation. We have one theory with supported, replicable evidence and others with no evidence or real explanation. I simply don't see any reason to favor the supernatural explanation, and you certainly haven't given any. The best you can put forth is saying "I don't understand how humans could do this". That is evidence that you don't understand, and nothing more. I don't fully understand the natural explanation of how the sun manages to be a seemingly perpetual ball of flaming gas, but that doesn't mean I should go looking for a supernatural explanation. In support of your explanation you sighted a video that is a well known hoax, which causes me to wonder about your ability to research and evaluate evidence before you decide on a belief.
If there is one thing that is rudimentary to critical thinking it is that the human experience can not be trusted to determine valid conclusions. When you say you will trust your own experience no matter what anyone says about it, it reveals your true nature; you favor your beliefs over any evidence. If one is to trust the human experience, we must be aware of the well documented, well understood mistakes of logic, perception and memory that humans are sure to make, as well as applying reasonable doubt. Note that reasonable doubt is not the same as general distrust. There are hundreds of papers and experiments documenting precisely what these human vulnerabilities are. Not only are people easily fooled by others, they are extremely adept at fooling themselves.
You engage in the truest sense of ignorance by cherry picking only what you want from experiences and evidence to back up your presumptions. It has been well demonstrated that someone who is interested in the truth first looks at the evidence and then decides on an explanation. Although you are willing to hear oppositions to your belies, you are not willing to pay attention to them, and only consider them to the point of finding a reason to dismiss them.
Ultimately you can not explain why you favor supernatural explanations over natural ones, except to say that the natural ones do not make sense to you. When you point out why they don't make sense, it comes across as a person who simply doesn't understand the information, and not just someone with an open mind. In other words, your views do not seem genuine.
People who seek the truth learn from both books and experience. Critical thinking is the result of a trained mind and can be applied to all aspects of thinking, including creative, emotional and spiritual thinking. It is an approach to interpreting the world; skepticism. It is in fact a systematic way of carefully and thoroughly observing nature while using consistent logic and standards to evaluate the results. What part of this do you have a problem with? Is it being systematic, being careful and thorough, or having consistent logic and standards? To abandon critical thinking is to embrace ignorance, negligence, and inconsistency, since these are all things skepticism addresses.
It seems that others are addressing your further links, and as I have not had a chance to follow them before being sleepy, I will withhold any comments for now.
rosecitypapa
Active Member
No, I never said he is lying. As a fellow hypnotist, I respect him highly. It's just that his video did not sufficiently explain the phenomenon to me, based on my on experiments.
My favorite Derren Brown videos are the ones where he gets a stranger to hand over his wallet and keys not once but twice on the street, the one in the mall where he gets everyone to unconsciously raise their hand and the pick up one with the three women in the club.
Personally, I understand beliefs to be like a warddrobe. Accumulated over time, themed or mismatched and easily exchanged like a shirt.
But only if one is willing to have a belief, rather than a belief having them.
Skepticism or True Believer? Either label creates a limitation that skews sensory information into a perpetual worldview.
mindphuk, that's a great debunk! Good on ya!
Now that we established that the video is an illusion, I'm not going to talk about my experiences with the psi wheel, I did my own experiments but had the wheel under glass from across the room,.. let's just say I'm keeping an open mind. Does that mean I'm dismissing your debunk? Of course not.
As for proof in psychic powers, I think using a test group of psychics and correlating their predictions on winning lottery numbers would be way more practical.
mindpuck, willing to take on a scientific explanation why a razor's edge gets preserved when placed within a pyramid?
How about dowsing or water witching?
ginjawarrior
Well-Known Member
rosecitypapa
Active Member
You are right you did not, however you implied it with the following:
To which I'm still waiting to see the evidence for the above circle. What's so sloppy about wanting to see evidence for your claim?Saying 'I can not understand how humans could make crop circles' does not mean humans aren't able to do it. The 'crop circles being formed' video is am admitted hoax, as are the first ever recorded (complex) circles. Doug Bower and Dave Chorley confessed to making over 250 circles in the 70's and 80's. If you look at the history of crop circles, complex patters didn't show up until these two started making them, and they got more complicated each year after. Isn't it odd that a mysterious force felt the need to step in and mimic hoaxers?
Here is an example of a circle that was created by men overnight. This photo is not in dispute; it was planned and made by men who are pointing to no mysterious force as an explanation.
In fact, here is an entire website documenting the groups who do these circles, who sell books and guides on how you can do it to. They document circles being made. So again, just because you can not fathom how it could be done by humans, doesn't mean it can't.
Actually, I'm being a pretty good sport here, making an evaluation, posting links, soliciting others opinions, and re-evaluating, in the face of criticism. But with the crop circles, the jury's still out. No definite proof by any of the evidence that you've brought to the table that proves beyond a reasonable doubt what you say here;
You said something earlier,
This idea of whether to favor extra assumptions is very useful.
Pardon, but my experience of the phenomenon is evidence. If I didn't have the experience of firewalking and refuted your explanation I would say your statement is true. However, I do have evidence of my experience (unburned feet) that supports my belief.
Walk your talk. Go firewalk without any mental preparation beforehand and show me your evidence.
That's funny, imho, with that statement, you are the kettle calling the pot black.
My friend, now you're just being inflammatory,... we were having such a civil discussion.
EDIT: The question was never put to me but I'll answer it. However I'll frame it a slightly different way. I favor inquiry over explanations. I favor living in a question that have the possibility of expanding my knowledge base and worldview irregardless if the explanations are based on the scientific method or not. The natural world contains phenomenon some of which we understand, some of which we do not and most of which we have not even formed the questions for.
My worldview is inclusive with the central premise being that we are fundamentally a blended being, one that is informed by the the outer world where I exist as an individual identity and an inner world where there is no "I". This inner world, this inner experience is the basis by which I focus my thoughts. Ultimately, why do some thoughts feel good and others do not?
To illustrate my point, back to the topic of this thread, "About those beliefs you're ashamed of holding". In other terms; thought and the corresponding emotion. It's useful to go the other way. Feel. What does it feel like to be in your body right now? Ok, if it's not so good, then I propose that there is an underlying thought that is out of integrity with what one truly desires. What's more important is to just simply think a better feeling thought. And right there my friends is the difference between being subject to one's circumstances or having true freedom.
I've got no problems with critical thinking at all. I embrace it.
To think is not the same as feeling. If you think you can apply thinking to feeling then I suspect you also aren't very successful with the opposite sex. If you think you analyse spiritual inspiration, that somehow to me is missing the point. I understand that you state you can apply critical thinking to these domains but that's like a person with a hammer thinking every problem is a nail.
I'm sure you've had the experience of 'being in the zone' that star athletes claim. What is so difficult about viewing the natural world with natural laws as simultaneously understandable and mysterious? What is so difficult about being so 'in the moment' that there is no thought?
Fail.
ginjawarrior
Well-Known Member
ok so whats the relevance of you bring to the table a video deliberately made by a skeptic to fool people then??
it might have been a good video but its purpose was to show how people get fooled so very easily....
rosecitypapa
Active Member
I admit, I was fooled by the video but not easily. That author did quite a bit of preparation. It was my intention to use as proof since I have no videos of the phenomenon of myself doing it. I've done the experiment, with glass bowl and put it across the room. I get inconsistent results. Sometimes the wheel moves when I focus my intention, other times it does not. Sometimes I can get the wheel to move slower or faster, stop or change direction. The wheel doesn't move at all though without some attention on my part. But it's all super inconsistent. I haven't used a hair dryer to test the quality of my seal, so that's the next step.
I first learned of the psi wheel in the that Frontiers of Science by Stine book (which has some interesting and quite puzzling machines). So even though the video is a hoax and claimed social experiment (which I thought was brillant), it does not refute my own conclusions and continued explorations in strange phenomenon. To be clear, I've concluded that all the scientific explanations are valid in the right circumstance but I don't know really what's at work here.
EDIT: Imho, just accepting a scientific explanation as the only possible explanation would curtail an otherwise interesting field of inquiry.
I'm an artist, explorer, inventor, tinkerer and hound dog. I prefer to live in questions rather than in answers, it's more fun and entertaining, plus it gets better mileage with the chicks!
ginjawarrior
Well-Known Member
then why add a psychic label to it?
Heisenberg
Well-Known Member
Indeed, you are consistent with this statement in all your responses. You like exploration, but you prefer not knowing to knowing; ignorance over knowledge. Your goals are not understanding and aptitude, but fun and entertainment, and apparently, pussy. When you ask what's wrong with this attitude, the answer is of course, it leads to false belief in silly phenomena like fire walking and crop circles, and makes you gullible to hoaxes. You covet the mystery simply for the sake of feeling wonderment, and avoid controls that would address factors of human experience since you seem to feel that without unfiltered human experience the knowledge is meaningless. This is a true appeal to ignorance. In the end if this improves your life and makes you happy, then that's great for you. For most of us, the limitless of ignorance might be appealing, but we refuse to except ignorance as a reason to hold a belief, or as any sort of worthy position. It is never prudent to ignore answers for the sake of living in questions.
rosecitypapa
Active Member
Wow, must of touched a nerve. Now I'm perceiving that you are being judgmental, insulting and calling names. Thank you for such a stellar demonstration of an enlighten pov. <sarcasm>
From wiki:
Walk your talk their buddy, your self-righteousness is off putting. Imho, you've got quite the blind spot. In conclusion, I respect your opinions, and your worldwiew however your communication skills have room for improvement when you are pushed up against the very standards you hold to others.
Padawanbater2
Well-Known Member
Yes, the term 'ignorant' can be offensive, understood. The way Heis was using it to describe your approach to this subject was simply an observation. I myself am ignorant about tons of things. You are ignorant about unanswered events... or what you perceive as unanswered... Your ignorance clouds your judgment and you end up with beliefs that you can't sufficiently justify or explain. If you can't justify or explain it, why do you believe it?
rosecitypapa
Active Member
Because a belief is simply a thought that has been thought repeatedly. So far, it appears that I'm the only one willing to look at my own beliefs and in the context of this thread, when presented with new evidence, admit to validity outside my normal pov.
Firewalking, video demo of science guy walking uninjured with no injury. Although persuasive, from my own experience, jury still out.
Crop Circles, video hoax proven yet still no proof of complex circles made by artists, so jury still out.
Bacterial Flagellum, acknowledgment of new info.
Psi Wheel, video hoax proven, yet from own experiments, jury still out.
Pyramids and razor blades, no one's taken this one on yet.
Dowsing, no ones' taken this on yet either.
mindphuk
Well-Known Member
A 1948 study tested 58 dowsers' ability to detect water. None of them was more reliable than chance.[17] A 1979 review examined many controlled studies of dowsing for water, and found that none of them showed better than chance results. [18]
In a study in Munich 1987-1988 by Hans-Dieter Betz and other scientists, 500 dowsers were initially tested for their "skill" and the experimenters selected the best 43 among them for further tests. Water was pumped through a pipe on the ground floor of a two-story barn. Before each test the pipe was moved in a direction perpendicular to the water flow. On the upper floor each dowser was asked to determine the position of the pipe. Over two years the dowsers performed 843 such tests. Of the 43 pre-selected and extensively tested candidates at least 37 showed no dowsing ability. The results from the remaining 6 were said to be better than chance, resulting in the experimenters' conclusion that some dowsers "in particular tasks, showed an extraordinarily high rate of success, which can scarcely if at all be explained as due to chance ... a real core of dowser-phenomena can be regarded as empirically proven."[19]
Five years after the Munich study was published, Jim T. Enright, a professor of physiology and a leading skeptic who emphasised correct data analysis procedure, contended that the study's results are merely consistent with statistical fluctuations and not significant. He believed the experiments provided "the most convincing disproof imaginable that dowsers can do what they claim,"[20] stating that the data analysis was "special, unconventional and customized." Replacing it with "more ordinary analyses,"[21] he noted that the best dowser was on average 4 millimeters out of 10 meters closer to a mid-line guess, an advantage of 0.0004%. The study's authors responded, saying "on what grounds could Enright come to entirely different conclusions? Apparently his data analysis was too crude, even illegitimate."[22] The findings of the Munich study were also confirmed in a paper by Dr. S. Ertel,[23] a German psychologist who had previously intervened in the statistical controversy surrounding the "Mars effect", but Enright remained unconvinced.[24]
More recently a study[25] was undertaken in Kassel, Germany, under the direction of the Gesellschaft zur Wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften (GWUP) [Society for the Scientific Investigation of the Parasciences]. The three-day test of some 30 dowsers involved plastic pipes through which water flow could be controlled and directed. The pipes were buried 50 centimeters under a level field, the position of each marked on the surface with a colored strip. The dowsers had to tell whether water was running through each pipe. All the dowsers signed a statement agreeing this was a fair test of their abilities and that they expected a 100 percent success rate, however the results were no better than chance.
In a study in Munich 1987-1988 by Hans-Dieter Betz and other scientists, 500 dowsers were initially tested for their "skill" and the experimenters selected the best 43 among them for further tests. Water was pumped through a pipe on the ground floor of a two-story barn. Before each test the pipe was moved in a direction perpendicular to the water flow. On the upper floor each dowser was asked to determine the position of the pipe. Over two years the dowsers performed 843 such tests. Of the 43 pre-selected and extensively tested candidates at least 37 showed no dowsing ability. The results from the remaining 6 were said to be better than chance, resulting in the experimenters' conclusion that some dowsers "in particular tasks, showed an extraordinarily high rate of success, which can scarcely if at all be explained as due to chance ... a real core of dowser-phenomena can be regarded as empirically proven."[19]
Five years after the Munich study was published, Jim T. Enright, a professor of physiology and a leading skeptic who emphasised correct data analysis procedure, contended that the study's results are merely consistent with statistical fluctuations and not significant. He believed the experiments provided "the most convincing disproof imaginable that dowsers can do what they claim,"[20] stating that the data analysis was "special, unconventional and customized." Replacing it with "more ordinary analyses,"[21] he noted that the best dowser was on average 4 millimeters out of 10 meters closer to a mid-line guess, an advantage of 0.0004%. The study's authors responded, saying "on what grounds could Enright come to entirely different conclusions? Apparently his data analysis was too crude, even illegitimate."[22] The findings of the Munich study were also confirmed in a paper by Dr. S. Ertel,[23] a German psychologist who had previously intervened in the statistical controversy surrounding the "Mars effect", but Enright remained unconvinced.[24]
More recently a study[25] was undertaken in Kassel, Germany, under the direction of the Gesellschaft zur Wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften (GWUP) [Society for the Scientific Investigation of the Parasciences]. The three-day test of some 30 dowsers involved plastic pipes through which water flow could be controlled and directed. The pipes were buried 50 centimeters under a level field, the position of each marked on the surface with a colored strip. The dowsers had to tell whether water was running through each pipe. All the dowsers signed a statement agreeing this was a fair test of their abilities and that they expected a 100 percent success rate, however the results were no better than chance.
Heisenberg
Well-Known Member
Other than a subtle ad hominem attack of me and my point of view, you did not address any of the points I made. I was simply exploring the implications of your statements. To say "I trust my own experience over anything anybody else says about it" is the same as saying "I favor my beliefs over any evidence presented to me". To say "I prefer living in questions rather than living in explanations" is, in addition to a false dichotomy, the same as saying "I prefer living in ignorance rather than knowledge". When I say ignorant I mean either unaware or purposely ignoring, and never do I mean stupid. You seem to be generally favoring the appeal of mystery and rejecting answers because they diminish the mystery. That is a true appeal to ignorance. Which is not to say you are ignorant (we are all ignorant) but that you are pointing to ignorance (ignoring evidence) as a valid way to find truth. What you perceive as self righteousness is exasperation from the contrast of you claiming to be even minded, while falling for the most basic of tricks, whether they be others tricks or tricks of your own mind. The reasons you then give for favoring ignorance is entertainment, fun and women. None of these are proper motivations for reaching the truth. I have no problem with you criticizing my standards, I in fact asked you what part of my standards you have a problem with. You should have no problem with me criticizing yours. Indeed you should criticize them yourself (as I do mine) as they have, evidently, lead you to believe in several well known hoaxes. It only takes the most elementary of research skills to uncover these tricks. I am not saying you are too dumb to understand, I am simply saying that you do not apply yourself, and have trained your mind to be careless rather than careful.
DelSlow
Well-Known Member
I am a skeptic myself when it comes to supernatural phenomenon, but could it be possible that only certain people can see/feel that kind of stuff? I ask because I know people who can feel/see things that I can't. The only reason I think there is a side of truth to the crazy shit I hear is because I have seen pictures of some strange stuff.
And none of the people I know run any kind of "supernatural-ghost-tour" type gigs. So does it really make sense to lie about paranormal stuff? Other than those ghost-hunter guys who obviously want ratings.
And none of the people I know run any kind of "supernatural-ghost-tour" type gigs. So does it really make sense to lie about paranormal stuff? Other than those ghost-hunter guys who obviously want ratings.
Padawanbater2
Well-Known Member
That's the thing man, these days, a picture just isn't enough evidence to conclude anything scientific. You need something more. I don't think these people are lying, as you said, what reason would they have to lie? They're lowering their standards of proof for unexplained/able things in favor of, essentially, best guess.
Heisenberg
Well-Known Member
I think it would be possible that some people could be more intuned with the paranormal than others, but I think those interactions with the natural world would still leave some evidence. People lie about ghost stuff when they have motivation. That motivation could be money or fame, or simply the desire to tell a good story. People don't always lie about ghost experiences, many are quite genuine, but still fall victim to mistakes of perception, memory and reasoning. Then there are some cases where a person is as careful and vigilant as possible and still has an unexplained experience, but there is no validity to the assumption that these can be explained by ghosts, beyond a guess.