VFF: I wish to deal with some very specific issues from your recent post.
Meanwhile I still contend that the...perceptions of organs and tissue or of pain that I perceive when I see other people are on the same level as other impressions that form on their own in people's minds due to other things and association. Like when you look at a food and perceive as if you could taste it, or when you hear a familiar music you perceive the image of a memory, while that taste and that image are not as clear as what you perceive for real and you maintain a clear distinction between what is perceived directly from the outside world around you and those that appear merely in your own mind.
bolding in this and subsequent quotes mine
You have repeatedly stated that you think everyone has thoughts, images or music that they can't control interjecting into their minds. What basis do you have for this?
When I look at a piece of fried chicken (but can't smell it) I don't "taste" it, though I may remember that I like fried chicken. (When I can smell it, of course, I can nearly taste it because the majority of gustatory sensation is scent, not flavor.) If I hear a song that was my ex-husband's favorite, I may think of him, but I don't visualize him. To try to reconstruct a memory at that level requires focus and concentration, trying to resurrect it. Why do you say that "everyone" has these pseudo-real perceptions intruding into their thoughts?
VisionFromFeeling said:
I realize that many people experience association to other things all the time in their life, seeing or feeling things around them produces automatic association that make us feel or see other things, and these are the kind of things that most of us keep private and have no reason to express to others.
Another example of your supposition that other people experience "3-D, rotatable" models of, say, parties they went to. No? But your Perceptions meet that description. You are calling very different mental activity analogous.
Now, on to misrepresentations and outright lies:
VisionFromFeeling said:
I am fully prepared to accept the results of the investigation. My objective is to find out the truth behind the perceptions and their actual accuracy. I am prepared to find out that the actual accuracy is not after all as high as the accuracy has appeared to be in the past. For instance people might have been lying to me or simply mistaken about their health leading to a false impression of correlation but not due to me.
These two bolded sentences cannot both be true. If you are prepared to accept that the actual accuracy is not high, you must be open to the possibility that self-deception, faulty memory, selection bias and other issues that would indeed be
due to you. Failing to include your own contributions to the perceived results is failing to seek the truth. I'll put this next statement in big type:
Not all systemic testing errors are deliberate, even though the tester may be responsible for them.
Your refusal to blind your 'study' protocols to any contribution unintentional bias on your part might make to apparent success is one of the things the skeptics here have been consistently calling you on. Yet you ignore them.
VisionFromFeeling said:
From the way in which I have conducted this investigation so far I see no reason for concern for my mental well-being. I have contacted two skeptics groups and taken in all of their advice and been fully conforming to their suggestions regarding how a test of my claimed experience should take place. And according to the suggestions of these skeptics I am now conducting a study into my experience.
The two bolded statements are demonstrably not true. You modified UncaYimmy's protocol into something that he has repeatedly stated is not his design and that he does not want his name associated with. You have ignored, pooh-poohed, belittled, or denied the validity of or need for, numerous suggestions of what and how to test. It is within your rights to design your own "study" or "test" protocol; but to say you are "fully conforming" is just a bald-faced lie. Contacting a couple of skeptic forums (in USA and the UK) and taking what scraps of comment you think can be construed to support you is not "taking all of their advice", nor is your proposed study according to skeptics' suggestions. That's baloney, Anita.
VisionFromFeeling said:
I have noticed no delusional behavior on my part. And by the way, I did not make two incorrect perceptions on the recent study with one of the skeptics ... A lot of the upset on this thread comes, I believe, from the deliberate intent to find something negative against me and from actual misinterpretation of what was said and done on my part.
Please note how the unbolded portion of the quote contradicts the bolded statement. When there are, say, 15 people pointing out that--and how--you made incorrect perceptions in your study, and you vigorously deny it, that's certainly not rational. I can see that you have not countered the arguments of those who demonstrated that they
were incorrect perceptions. Repeating the same rationale over and over--sometimes by the paragraph--when it has already been demonstrated to be faulty is not something scientists, or reasonable people, do.
I am not a psychologiest, but I know that one of the things about delusional states is that the person
cannot tell they're delusional. So statements like the first one are useless. What you could do, is go talk to a counselor at the health service of your school, and share your Perceptions and the frustrating experiences you have had on this Forum with them. If the counselor says, "No, you're fine, they're just out to get you," that would be important information. But that's having a trained professional look at you, not looking in the mirror.
By the way,
Thank You for altering your website as I requested. Since the request was public, I think the thanks should be, too.
Just my thoughts, as usual, MK