Paranormal, Unexplained & Strange Phenomenon
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nudeyorker
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If from where I'm sitting I could not see my partner cooking dinner in the kitchen I would swear he had an account here. You two would get along like two peas in a pod!
Well, if the transmission of information (that is not available by any known means at the time and that is subsequently proved to be true) is the criterion of reality, then we would have to look at particular cases to establish any conclusions.
You are correct in the following respect: the record of psychics and mediums in solving crimes is as good as the record of supposed experts in "criminal profiling." Where you go wrong is in the fact that the appearance of successful detection by these methods owes to combination of (1) the vagueness and banality of the hypotheses and (2) such cognitive biases as Texas sharpshooter fallacy and confirmation bias in identifying successes. Unless you enjoy being fooled, you might want to look into the matter more skeptically.
There was book published years ago by someone {actually 2 authors if i remember} either working at stanford or SRI. {stanford research } I still have it around somewhere. It got a lot of press when it was released and i remember seeing the author interviewed on the pbs news show.
The author claimed that experiments at SRI had proved the existence of remote viewing among other things. They had someone in a room describe the location of various subjects some close by, some further away. There also published the results of the profits they made in either the stock market or the silver market using some other abilities. The problem is that we now know some of these studies or results were used to have the russians or chinese waste their time and money. I don't know if this fits in that category. The chinese claim they have subjects who can transport solid objects through walls. The department of defense is skeptical but they have to follow through. There is too much at stake if any of this is real.
The author claimed that experiments at SRI had proved the existence of remote viewing among other things. They had someone in a room describe the location of various subjects some close by, some further away. There also published the results of the profits they made in either the stock market or the silver market using some other abilities. The problem is that we now know some of these studies or results were used to have the russians or chinese waste their time and money. I don't know if this fits in that category. The chinese claim they have subjects who can transport solid objects through walls. The department of defense is skeptical but they have to follow through. There is too much at stake if any of this is real.
Then there is Our Lady in Guadalupe.{Mexico} The Virgin Mary appeared in guadalupe in about 1490 and supposely left a SELF protrait of herself on tilma fiber. This kind of fiber normally breaks apart in a matter of weeks. Everyone has seen this image but most people don't know what exactly it is and that it changed the history of this half of the globe. It is the national symbol of mexico.
The church had until the 20th century realized only one general miracle { the one in france }. Then in the 20th century it realized fatima and guadalupe { after what amounts to a 500 year investigation }. I believe it has approved a 4th general miracle that happened in france recently. It is probably the toughest process known to mankind. The church cannot be wrong in these matters. It would cause unlimited damage. The church works on faith and much of that would be destroyed if any of these miracles would be exposed as hoaxes.
From the moment the image{painting} appeared it has subject to intense studies by both artists and scientists. As far as i know no one has been able to explain how it was created or why it has remained in perfect condition for 500 years. Some artists have embellished it so there are traces of oridnary substances. But samples of the origin image were given to nobel prizes winners in physics and chemistry who reported it wasn't paint and were unable to indentify the substance. A steady steam of scientists from bell , ibm , cal tech , MIT{about ten years ago - i don't know their conclusions } have ran tests on the image. The ibm researcher used ditigal enchancement and other computer techniques to look for any trace of human involvement. He concluded this image was not done by human hands. A bomb directly underneath it destroyed half the church but it was undamaged. A hole was burned in it but supposely it repaired itself. This image has a long documented history and still remains a mystery. There is a book titled " The Miracle of Guadalupe " written by a team of scientists and a swarthmore art professor which published the results of their testings of the image. Its very technique.
The church had until the 20th century realized only one general miracle { the one in france }. Then in the 20th century it realized fatima and guadalupe { after what amounts to a 500 year investigation }. I believe it has approved a 4th general miracle that happened in france recently. It is probably the toughest process known to mankind. The church cannot be wrong in these matters. It would cause unlimited damage. The church works on faith and much of that would be destroyed if any of these miracles would be exposed as hoaxes.
From the moment the image{painting} appeared it has subject to intense studies by both artists and scientists. As far as i know no one has been able to explain how it was created or why it has remained in perfect condition for 500 years. Some artists have embellished it so there are traces of oridnary substances. But samples of the origin image were given to nobel prizes winners in physics and chemistry who reported it wasn't paint and were unable to indentify the substance. A steady steam of scientists from bell , ibm , cal tech , MIT{about ten years ago - i don't know their conclusions } have ran tests on the image. The ibm researcher used ditigal enchancement and other computer techniques to look for any trace of human involvement. He concluded this image was not done by human hands. A bomb directly underneath it destroyed half the church but it was undamaged. A hole was burned in it but supposely it repaired itself. This image has a long documented history and still remains a mystery. There is a book titled " The Miracle of Guadalupe " written by a team of scientists and a swarthmore art professor which published the results of their testings of the image. Its very technique.
The claims of the efficacy of remote viewing have, so far as I know, always turned out to exhibit the pattern that I described in the case of psychic detection: the remote viewer offers a drawing, or the psychic a description, that is so vague that there is no defined limit to the range of states of affairs that could count as agreeing with it. Once the target is identified concretely (the criminal culprit in the case of detection or the scene or object in the case of remote viewing), it is easy to identify it with the drawing or the description in retrospect. But no criteria of correctness were ever fixed before the match was made. The results show no difference from what mere guesswork would produce: what appearance of a accuracy there is comes from retrospective interpretation of the results to conform to the target. Again, I refer to the Texas sharpshooter fallacy.
Michael Shermer has a video that shows very clearly, through his participation in a supposed remote-viewing training session, how the illusion is effected: part 1, part 2. The particularly revealing moment is in the second part, when, after the target object has been revealed, the instructor retrospectively selects and interprets the drawings produced by the trainees in a fashion that conforms to it.
Penn and Teller did a pretty good show on ESP (video; go to 7:00 for the topic of remote viewing). One important point that they make is that the use of supposed psychic detectives not only lacks a record of success ("No psychic detective has ever recovered a missing child. You will find no cop in America who will tell you that the case was finally broken by a psychic detective"—Mark Klaas, father of murder victim Polly Klass, around 5:30 in the video), but it abuses the trust of the those close to the victims of murder and abduction, produces false leads, and wastes the time and resources of police departments.
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You may be right. I don't know. It'll take a lot of reading and research to find out and even then who knows ? If i find the book i can provide more information. But this isn't penn and teller. This is SRI one of the leading think and research tanks in the world. There is no comparsion. Who do you think is doing the computer and scientific research in this country. Not penn and teller. Your other sources may be more qualified.
One more quick point i forgot to mention about the image of the Virgin Mary. In the 20th century a researcher found what he thought were tiny images in her eyes. Not believing what he saw he kept his discovery a secret until 50 years later when some physicians examining the eyes confirmed his discovery. They might be invisible to the naked eye. I don't know. But they are positioned exactly where they would be found in live eyes and show the same 3-D effect live eyes show. The 3-D effect was only discovered recently { last 100 years }. How anyone could have painted images that tiny on tilma fiber in exactly the position they would be found in live eyes and having the 3-D effect no one knew about until the 20th century is unknown.
Real mediums and phsychic can give you PRECISE descriptions and information. You can't even imagine. Most people,instead,pretend to be mediums but they aren't,so they just give vague descriptions,as you said. But you know,there's no worse blind than the one who doesn't want to see. Even if you lived a paranormal experience of the strongest kind,you'd never believe it...so there's no discussion,actually...
As I answered above,real mediums and phsychics don't provide VAGUE information. Most people,instead,pretend to be psychics when they are not,and these are the ones you are talking about...
A friend of mine,who is an incredible medium,had this visit from a couple who had lost a friend in a car accident the night before. They wanted to know if they could talk to him. He didn't know him,nor the couple,but he gave an exact description,with the details on the clothes he had when he died. Now claim that he had paranoia or that he gave a vague information.
I admit that he is exceptional and not everyone can do the same....most "mediums" wouldn't be able to get this far....but there is something,and though you will never admit,there's something behind science,behind our senses(which are very imperfect),behind reality for how we see it.
Finally,i said they are too subtle for MOST of us,because we are made in a certain way which is functional for our daily life. Don't forget we are animals....the animal that doesn't need to see far,doesn't see far. The animal that doesn't need eyes,doesn't have eyes....and they would claim reality to be what they could or not see,just like most skeptiks do. They can't see far,so they claim reality to be their little world....
I think one should be opened to skepticism and to paranormal...this is not being narrow-minded....because narrow-minded people only keep their perspective as a taken position,that keeps them from knowing what the real world is about...
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To me, souls and such are ridiculous. And being able to detect them even if they did exist is also completely ridiculous, if not more so. You'd have to have another sensory organ/glands just to pick up on it. Maybe that's what the appendix does. 
Also, I wish you would use commas correctly. There is supposed to be a space afterward. It makes reading things easier.
Also, I wish you would use commas correctly. There is supposed to be a space afterward. It makes reading things easier.
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Snobbery? It's grammar. It's not my problem if you consider even mildly proper grammar snobbish. It's about legibility, it's just easier to read because it's part of the rules of the language I happen to read. It makes a difference to the brain. Spaces signify separations of words. Did you know that if you take a word and jumble up all the letters except for the first and last letters, that most people can still quickly read what the word is? Of course it would get annoying, and there are words that without context you wouldn't be sure what they were. The point is spaces are important.
Well, it is curious that none of the ones who have been subjected to tests with scientific controls have been real ones. Perhaps you are not aware that the James Randi Educational Foundation offers a prize of $1 million to anyone who can prove paranormal abilities? From the Web site (bold type mine):
You would think that the genuine psychics and mediums would be moved to get that prize; but apparently the offer only attracts the false ones.
It's funny how you reach that conclusion on the basis of so little information. You are right to this extent: if I had one experience of, say, someone with no apparent access to certain facts stating them on the basis of supposed psychic abilities, I would not be convinced that he or she had such abilities, and would want to know more about what happened. That is far from being "blind": that is proportioning the strength of one's belief to the evidence. To credit the person with psychic abilities is not insightful; it is simply credulity, which is every bit as serious a deficiency of cognitive functioning as is dogmatic rigidity.
Carl Sagan, I believe, coined the maxim that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That is to say, the more strongly a claim clashes with what is known about how things work in nature, the heavier is the burden of proof on the claimant, because the more established science has to be overthrown. Further, when there is already a superabundance of evidence concerning human credulity and how beliefs in paranormal abilities can be generated by natural causes, it is only reasonable to regard any new claims with suspicion.
Is it possible that there are people who with the ability to perceive things—really, reliably perceive them and not just guess at them—without the mediation of vision, hearing, and the other senses? Yes, it is possible, in exactly the same sense as it is possible that if I leap off a building I shall float gently to the ground. But it is not a wise bet.
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- Icky,
Calboner, thank you very much for typing out all this. I wanted to do it myself, but I lack the time and writing skills to put my words down in a way that is clear and concise.
If you don't already know about it there is a fantastic podcast called the The Skeptic's Guide to The Universe that talks a lot about skepticism, the latest science news and other interesting subjects. It's very funny and enlightening.
If you don't already know about it there is a fantastic podcast called the The Skeptic's Guide to The Universe that talks a lot about skepticism, the latest science news and other interesting subjects. It's very funny and enlightening.
You are way, way off the mark there. Your reasoning exhibits the fallacy of "where there's smoke, there's fire": if a lot of people believe something, there must be some truth to it. If a lot of people believe in spirits and ghosts and fairies, there must be invisible creatures of some kind that cause them to have those beliefs. Not so. The ways in which human beings reify their fantasies and draw unwarranted conclusions from their experiences are very well attested. Have a look at this list of cognitive biases for a start.
A second point, which I address to everyone here who writes things like "these phenomenon" and "a phenomena":
The word "phenomenon" is singular; the plural form is "phenomena."
If you (I mean anyone reading this) need a mnemonic, just remember "one phenomenon." The same, by the way, goes for the word "criterion" (plural, "criteria").
I read a lot of skeptical stuff, on the Web and in print, but for some reason I don't like listening to podcasts. Thanks anyway.
A good video introduction to critical thinking is Here Be Dragons. The first five minutes or so just show instances of woo-woo beliefs. The exposition of critical thinking only starts around 6:00.
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