Regarding Psychic Phenomena.

by Blueblades 35 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  dilaceratus

  Metatron: If you really have outstanding critical ability, why aren't you making money with it?

  This is just outrageous. Rather than baselessly attempting to lure others in with dreams of mysterious knowledge and idle, ever-changing fantasies of wealth, longevity, and power, what AlanF, Abaddon, and a few other regular posters consistently offer to readers of this forum is the applied methodology of sustained, careful research and analysis by which any sort of claims may be weighed for honesty, reproducibility, and factual value-- whether these claims are the uninformed speculation and unprovable assertions of the WTB&TS and other creationists, or get-rich-quick schemers.

  That this approach requires focus and investment in time and energy from both the authors and the readers, and cannot be communicated in sound bites, aphoristic analogy, anecdote, or leading questions, is useful not only to understanding the very bases of the topics they address, but as general lessons especially applicable to those who have spent significant time in the company of fundamentalists (and other crackpots who have yet to join the "reality-based" nineteenth century).

  That rationality and science are not panaceas may be disappointing to those hoping to swap one speculative faith for another, but exactly to the point.
• 

  AlanF

  dilaceratus wrote:

  : . . . the company of fundamentalists (and other crackpots who have yet to join the "reality-based" nineteenth century).

  Man, you crack me up!

  AlanF
• 

  Abaddon

  metatron

  Intuition and psychic effects are part of a scale, a spectrum. To speak of them as "entirely different" clouds the matter.

  How can this be true?

  First, you are presupposing there is such a thing as a genuine paranormal effect. Please prove this.

  Secondly, whilst you are free to disagree, you grounds for disagreement do not address the functional difference between intuition - subconscious manipulation of known data - and paranormal claims that means someone has manipulated unknown data.

  As to intuition and matters of critical judgement, I say this: if any of you esteem your powers of critical judgement , then POST YOUR PICKS! I see lots of people posting here who claim all sorts of superior knowledge and judgement - which relative to Watchtowerism - is not too great an achievement.

  If you really have outstanding critical ability, why aren't you making money with it?

  LOL. Fallacy. And a chip on your shoulder; "I can't prove my claims about a paranormal, but if they're so clever why do they not fulfil my definition of being clever".

  I claim no knowledge of financial markets. I have no capital with which to play with in financial markets having recently purchased a home. Even if I did have money to play with in financial markets, I really don't have much interest in it.

  I've made posts about stock picks that hardly anyone responds to.

  Why do you assume other people should be interested in your picks, or indeed any picks?

  I know little about you other than what you posts; given you frequently believe in stuff you can't prove (no ad hom, I can prove this in thread after thread after thread after thread so deny away, it doesn't change the facts) I would want audited accounts of your stock investments before I acted on any picks of yours.

  Your argument metatron is equivalent to 'if you are so clever, why don't you gamble and share your techniques with us'.

  A presupposition (see a pattern?) that people should be interested in gambling, and that if they aren't it is a sign any other claims of cleverness are false.

  Now, why don't you actually prove something about the paranormal instead of distracting from the fact you can't by making a fallacious argument?

  Warlock

  You seem to miss the point old chap. It's not about YOU or YOUR office, unless you believe you are the only person ever to experience stuff like that.

  It is about the fact that your claim and others like them by loads of other people, including those of supposed experts in the paranormal who stake out places to record paranormal activity, have never once be proven to be evidence of the paranormal. By all means show me this statement is wrong.

  But as no one else has ever proven it I make the entirely reasonable assumption that you can't either, and that the lack of proof in ANY instance of a paranormal claim is likely an indication that the claims are mistaken.

  You can believe there are paranormal explanations for what happened. Other people would act differently, like this guy;

  http://www.meta-religion.com/Paranormale/Ghost/ghosts_created_by_low_frequency.htm

  More evidence that ghosts have quite boring explanations if you actually try to find scientific explanations before assuming it is ghosties;

  http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/08/1062901994082.html?oneclick=true

  More;

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4564383.stm
• 

  Gill

  I can understand why people would mock Psychic Phenomen.

  However, my own experience is that there is some ability that probably all of us have that tells us that something is not right or has happened. Call it a disturbance in the force if you like but, it happens.

  I knew when my Aunt died. Half an hour later, after I had an immense sense of loss, I received a phone call telling me she had died.

  A couple of weeks ago, I knew 'someone' had died. I said so much to my husband and kids. Two hours later I had a phone calling telling me a relative had died that morning.

  I knew when my uncle had died unexpectedly. Similar scenario.

  I never watched TV in the day. On the day of 9/11 I knew somehting was wrong and switched on the TV to see another plane crash into the second tower.

  In 1997, we were still JWs. Sunday mornings we never watched TV as we had morning meetings. I felt the need to switch on the TV and the news was that Princess Diana had died.

  I could go on, but I think you get the drift. However, I don't think this is a just me thing. I really believe we all 'feel' but just are too busy sometimes to take any notice unless we are used to listening to our 'feelings.'

  People 'feel' and some are in tune with their feelings more.

  I feel sure there is a scientific explanation for most paranormal activities. But some people just KNOW!
• 

  metatron

  Oh, thinking that people are interested in making money is a mere presupposition? Is thinking that

  people enjoy breathing air or thinking about sex also to be dismissed as presuppositions? Too many

  exceptions? Too general? Not precise enough?

  Perhaps I am in the company of some who are too noble to be interested in such? or would it be that

  they are too cowardly to see their reasoning abilities tested openly and exposed? I can't say,

  because no one provides me with proof. And I'm not telepathic enough to judge otherwise.

  Outrageous? In what way? Suggesting that abilities are better deployed than an atheist equivalent

  of debating whether Adam had a navel? Why not invest and tell us accordingly?

  As to ESP, I had a dream that advised me to invest in EGOV. I didn't, it went up and I didn't make

  money. I had a dream that impelled me towards a gambling stock I never heard of and made about

  20% ( well above index return). I had another dream that sent me to another stock I never heard of.

  I made a couple hundred bucks quickly. Cryptoamnesia? A psychic message? I don't know. Is it so

  horrible to call it "psychic"? And further, if a person gains a dramatic new idea ( the Eureka

  moment) can we really say that it is merely a rearrangement of existing knowledge, when in fact

  its dramatic context makes it 'new knowledge' that no one else perceived? Are we really so advanced

  so as to apply reductionist ideas to intuition .. with any certainty of how it really works? Or do we

  make materialist presuppositions about it and walk away?

  None of this proves anything to anyone ....except me. I will not ignore "messages" or intuition

  or whatever just because Randi or CSICOP or Shermer or whoever thinks ill of it, if I'm making money

  on "it". Neither will I limit intuitive moments simply because the information can't be precisely linked

  to facts I already "know". Nor will I avoid crossing streets with traffic when intuition tells me it's OK

  and I don't have a laser rangefinder/calculator at hand.

  And it is this artificiality of reasoning that impells me to ask for direct confirmation of (profitable)

  reasoning ability.

  metatron
• 

  Warlock

  Warlock

  You seem to miss the point old chap. It's not about YOU or YOUR office, unless you believe you are the only person ever to experience stuff like that.

  It is about the fact that your claim and others like them by loads of other people, including those of supposed experts in the paranormal who stake out places to record paranormal activity, have never once be proven to be evidence of the paranormal. By all means show me this statement is wrong.

  But as no one else has ever proven it I make the entirely reasonable assumption that you can't either, and that the lack of proof in ANY instance of a paranormal claim is likely an indication that the claims are mistaken.

  If you were not here when it happened, then how can I prove it?

  Maybe I should have put it in a jar.

  Warlock