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Post by JayUtah on Jan 22, 2008 23:33:05 GMT -4
Are such failures proof that paranormal phenomena don't exist? No, of course not. But given the colossal number of demonstrable fakers among the claimants, and not one person who has yet proven his claimed gifts, it's obviously prudent to suppose that a claim has a higher probability of being fake than of being genuine.
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Post by Ginnie on Jan 22, 2008 23:46:31 GMT -4
Are such failures proof that paranormal phenomena don't exist? No, of course not. But given the colossal number of demonstrable fakers among the claimants, and not one person who has yet proven his claimed gifts, it's obviously prudent to suppose that a claim has a higher probability of being fake than of being genuine. I wouldn't be surprised at all if some supernatural/psychic phenomena existed. But as you said, there are so many fakers out there who deceive the public that it tarnishes everyone else. I suspect that any person who does experience phenomena out of the normal doesn't talk about it much. I find it easier to believe in ESP than in God. I don't have a logical explanation for that.
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Post by Count Zero on Jan 23, 2008 0:05:58 GMT -4
Monday's xkcd is appropriate. I have no trouble believing in gods. Although I do not rule out ESP, I do subscribe to Niven's Law of Psychic Powers: If such powers exist, they must either be too weak or too unreliable to be of any practical use - otherwise they would have made more of an impact on human history by now. Einstein had an interesting observation on ESP: He said he would have an easier time believing in it if there was an observed distance effect (i.e. attenuating with range).
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Post by Data Cable on Jan 23, 2008 2:06:17 GMT -4
...and gets whacked in the face!!good one Buzz This is the most sensible thing I've yet seen altair say.
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Post by nomuse on Jan 23, 2008 3:44:17 GMT -4
Monday's xkcd is appropriate. I have no trouble believing in gods. Although I do not rule out ESP, I do subscribe to Niven's Law of Psychic Powers: If such powers exist, they must either be too weak or too unreliable to be of any practical use - otherwise they would have made more of an impact on human history by now. Einstein had an interesting observation on ESP: He said he would have an easier time believing in it if there was an observed distance effect (i.e. attenuating with range). I call this the "teleporting rabbits" problem. If the kinds of "psychic" or "psionic" powers as described in various forms of wish-fulfillment literature are based on a naturally evolved and scientifically explicable biological mechanism, then they should respond to evolutionary pressures. Rabbits would evolve the ability to teleport away from danger, wolves the ability to telepathically track them and mesmerize them into submission, birds would use telekinesis instead of energy-expensive wings, and so on and so forth. Even if these powers are extraordinarily weak, this still opens up a potential ecological niche to be exploited -- the one lizard that can aport the moss on the bottom of the rock, say, or the one bird that can pyrokinetically heat the one shrub that has discovered a commensual ally to let it get around waiting for the next forest fire before it can spread its seeds. I did puzzle out one answer that I thought might be good enough for a short story. I hereby offer it without any strings attached (I've been too busy to write, the last few years). Assume that very early on these biological mechanisms were developed, with certain specific and limited talents. Presume also that the defenses against these talents (basically, mind shields) as so simple to evolve and ask so little of the organism in return that there is essentially no evolutionary pressure to keep them from continuing to exist even when the mind-controlling predators have given up on that strategy. This gives you a situation where a significant part of the natural world is still acting in some way to suppress these psychic powers. And it is only by going far away from other living things (oh, let's make this simpler -- from other living organisms with sufficiently complex nervous systems to have been involved in this predator-prey relationship) that one might observe some of these effects. It still leaves unexplained how finesse and control and the rest of the neural wiring could have evolved to any complexity and still be present in modern humans. But anyhow!
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Post by ineluki on Jan 23, 2008 10:13:50 GMT -4
The people on this website think that evidence is everything,its not ,because absence of evidence is not evidence of abscence!! Great, we can accuse altair4 of all the crimes we want. Just because we have no evidence, doesn't mean he didn't do it. Seriously altair, may I recommend a different forum where your theories (and your writing style) are better appreciated www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/01/23/08/pg1
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Post by AtomicDog on Jan 23, 2008 10:43:30 GMT -4
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jan 23, 2008 11:59:39 GMT -4
I call this the "teleporting rabbits" problem. If the kinds of "psychic" or "psionic" powers as described in various forms of wish-fulfillment literature are based on a naturally evolved and scientifically explicable biological mechanism, then they should respond to evolutionary pressures. Rabbits would evolve the ability to teleport away from danger, wolves the ability to telepathically track them and mesmerize them into submission, birds would use telekinesis instead of energy-expensive wings, and so on and so forth. Not if using psionic powers of this sort is actually more draining than other means of escape. If it requires a big brain that you won't be using all the time then it wouldn't make evolutionary sense to develop such powers. Only human beings, who have made their brains evolutionary assets, would be able to develop sufficient brain mass to make psionic powers an evolutionary benefit.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Jan 23, 2008 18:10:34 GMT -4
That would apply if there were a threshhold brain size for psionic effects, in which case it would be worth concentrating the search for those effects on animals that have larger brains than humans, such as pachyderms and cetaceans.
If there is no threshhold brain size, but the effect increases with brain size (which seems reasonable) then, if possession of any psionic ability confers an advantage, especially the ability to achieve something not otherwise achievable (again, not unreasonable) then psionic ability itself will be a driver for an evolutionary increase in brain size, and we would expect to observe a number of psionic species in various niches.
That we don't detect psi elephants, whales, or anything else, rather underlines Niven's view.
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