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Clamping my "devil's advocate horns" firmly back on my head, I would say that amusing as this link is, it falls short as any sort of scientific proof.

It could be argued that all that is established by the chart is that the phenomena in the list from remote viewing to hexes are not sufficiently understood to be of commercial value.

It could also be argued that, for example, drug companies are already making sufficient of a killing to ensure that they throw their considerable weight against any form of alternative medicine.


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I've just found the post I referred to in which I was looking for a scientific explanation. I am re-posting it here in the hope of getting a scientific response.

Some 40+ years ago I was driving at about 3am on my second consecutive night without sleep. Strangely I didn’t feel tired, I seemed wide awake and everything appeared normal until I entered an area of street lighting. I then began to hallucinate. Nothing strange about that, in view of my lack of sleep, but this is the odd bit.

Walking towards me, on my side of the road, on the pavement (sidewalk) I saw two young women. I saw them very clearly, even now I could tell you what they were wearing. They were talking and laughing; when they were just a few feet away, the one on the outside turned her ankle on the curb and lunged out in front of the car. I braked hard, but there was no one there. Later, I discovered that a young woman had been killed on that exact spot, in precisely the circumstances I saw. She was hit by an Army vehicle towards the end of WW2.

No mysticism! Let’s have a scientific explanation.
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"An infinite, unchanging reality exists hid behind the illusion of ceasless change." Bhagavad Gita.


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Bill, I could give you a few examples from my own experience. In fact, a few years ago, I posted details of a similar one in order see what kind of response I could elicit. One regular poster, who considered himself a scientist, sort of wiped the floor with me. No else responded - and little wonder.

As far as I know there is, as yet, no explanation in terms of known science that satisfies the people who have these experiences, myself included. Personally, I'm pretty sure that will change at some point in the future.

Having said that, the fact that one has momentarily gained knowledge of events - be they past, present, or future - by mysterious means, might inspire an unjustified confidence that all kinds scientifically inexplicable hocus pocus are real and reasonable.

I do take your point, and I'm with you in the knowledge that these things happen; but it's essential to maintain a strong scepticism and a scientific approach, without which the flood gates are wide open to self-deception, not to mention charlatans and profiteers.

P.S. I mentioned elsewhere that two people I've known, of high intelligence, claimed some kind of clairvoyance. There was another person, a good friend and work colleague, perhaps remarkably also a woman, who could take herself to a quiet place and 'see' what her mother was doing at the time. Incidentally, she too was no intellectual slouch, having degrees from Cambridge.


"Time is what prevents everything from happening at once" - John Wheeler
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Quote:
the fact that one has momentarily gained knowledge of events - be they past, present, or future - by mysterious means, might inspire an unjustified confidence that all kinds scientifically inexplicable hocus pocus are real and reasonable.


I agree completely, but I also think the opposite perspective needs to be maintained. Just because there is a lot of hocus pocus out there does not necessarily mean that everything for which we cannot find a scientific explanation is necessarily hocus pocus. From your last post, I guess you are already in that camp.


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I have experienced both hallucination and delusion and the hallucination was brought on by lack of sleep. It was extremely real and it took me some to realize it was not. Poor memory of events - that you remember something very well does not mean that you remember it correctly.

Intelligence is irrelevant. Nobody is so smart they can't be fooled - not matter what they think they say. We don't see things correctly the first time and we don't recall things correctly - particularly when we're under stress. This is not a function of intelligence, or honesty, or sanity. It's function of being human.

Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLGXrviy5Iw

The woman wasn't lying and wasn't stupid. She was mistaken. But *WE* are stupid, if accept eyewitness testimony at face value - no matter how strongly believed and no matter how honest the claimant. It's a sensitive subject.

http://www.alternet.org/story/153864/eye..._id?page=entire

Of course other processes can affect the brain ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/1...5bEQ_story.html

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Yes, Bill, it's the camp that acknowledges (a) the importance of the scientific method as the most rational and effective means of discovering truths about the physical world, (b) that scientific knowledge regarding how the universe works is incomplete, has far to go, and may perhaps remain incomplete no matter how far it goes, (c) - and to the point - that there are events concerning one of the great mysteries, i.e. consciousness, that are not yet accessible to proper scientific analysis.


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The Enlightenment....


And... On a more personal note: Paranoia (often mistaken as reason) strikes deep.

Originally Posted By: redewenur
(c) - and to the point - that there are events concerning one of the great mysteries, i.e. consciousness, that are not yet accessible to proper scientific analysis.
If we change accessible to acceptable would be just as correct..


I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey, but then I turned myself around!!




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And putting on *my* DA horns:

Considering lots of people make lots of money from remedies that don't work (homeopathy, faith-healing, antivaxx approach to preventing autism, facilitated communication), the cartoon could much more easily be explained by ineffective marketing.

Lots of people make lots of claims - many of which are thoroughly inconsistent. This was the standard in philosophy for a long time.

I was reading Descartes' "Discourse on Method" a few months back and came across this:

"I shall say nothing of Philosophy, but that seeing it hath been cultivated by the most excellent wits, which have liv’d these many ages, and that yet there is nothing which is undisputed, and by consequence, which is not doubtfull."

Brilliant observation but, of course, in the very next chapter he went on to give his own version of a proof of God's existence, one that I refer to as "that argument than which nothing more inane can be conceived."

This is not to say that Descartes was stupid after all, but brilliant people stay stupid crap all the time.

One of the things about science is the reliance on *PHYSICAL* explanations for *PHYSICAL* evidence and phenomena. It's not sufficient to have "good reasons" to say that something is science. We need recourse to the evidence. Science as a cultural phenomenon doesn't answer all questions and doesn't pretend to. That, of course, doesn't mean that when questions are outside the purview of science that we are intellectually justified in accepting answers without evidence.

Of course, the practice of science does require some assumptions - but those assumptions are few and necessary to have a thing called science. We can't, for example, prove the existence of reality. We have to assume it.

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The contradiction of the human instrument to assume within science, and yet alternately dictate the mechanical instrument of measure outside of the human instrument as superior and more accurate, is in itself a comedy.

On another note, the majority assumption seems to weigh more heavily on the determination of reality when the group that assumes is self prescribed as superior to other groups of thought and practice.

Dogma is dogma...


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Sour grapes. Most people see and acknowledge the benefit of actual science, even when they don't understand very well what it is. The obscurantists meanwhile sit on the sidelines, speak gibberish, node sagely, and play with their feces.

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Originally Posted By: TheFallibleFiend
Sour grapes. Most people see and acknowledge the benefit of actual science, even when they don't understand very well what it is. The obscurantists meanwhile sit on the sidelines, speak gibberish, node sagely, and play with their feces.


Conversely, some scientists acknowledge the reality of that which they do not have a manufactured instrument for, while engaging the human instrument with an open mind.

Some (of a less adventurous nature).... like to play with others feces, because their own has become too familiar.


It's all relative...


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Ah, well, in any distribution of ability or understanding of any population (including scientists), there are always a few at the far left of the distribution that obscurantists can pin their egos on.

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In any distribution of abilities or understandings within any population (of labeled groups or individuals), there are always a few within the distribution, that prescribe idealisms to claim a title of righteousness... That is ego.

It's all relative...


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"But, like, yea, man, I know guys who have PhDs who agree with me and it's just ego that says that all the other scientists know more than my scientists!"

Some few in any distribution make little contribution other than words and confusion.

Here's a good video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MHAO4JE0G0

Informative and hilarious - particularly in the first 9 minutes.

Gibberish is not an argument against actual science.

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Everything within the relative... is subjectively, relative.

One can pursue the absolute box or the absolute within all boxes.

Life is a discovery of self.
Unless one worships that, which is a product of life.

Exclusivity is nothing new when it comes to righteousness or dogma as ego.


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Facts are so inconvenient.

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And they are always changing...


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Originally Posted By: TT
And they are always changing...


I guess that was just a burst of sarcasm. Would you agree that facts don’t change; it is only our understanding that changes?


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Both...
for instance.
If you learned chemistry or biology in high school, you were probably taught that there are six chemical elements known as the “building blocks of life.” They are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus. These components make up the chemical composition of DNA and without them, life isn’t possible…or at least, we thought it wasn’t possible.
Scientists discovered a bacteria species living in a salt lake in California that was missing one of the building blocks of life, phosphorus, and instead had arsenic in its place. For some people, this might not seem like such a huge deal, particularly considering that arsenic is very close to phosphorus in its physical and chemical properties, but it’s a huge deal to scientists who suddenly saw a massive expansion in the scope of potential living things. It really makes a difference in intergalactic research, since the discovery opens up whole new planets as potential life-supporting ecosystems.


In the extremest case, quantum mechanics may mean that there are no true facts at all in the universe, only a set of self-consistent but mutually-inconsistent explanations.


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