Paranormal detection

[Belz...]

It's amazing how you can detect the exact location of someone when he/she calls your name, think of it this way.

You can't "detect the exact location" of someone who calls your name. You can only approximate it, because the human ear can't tell between all possible locations. You use other senses, primarily sight, to zero in on the person.

And locating people that way uses tools we know exist. Yours do not. In fact, yours uses things we know don't exist.

I'd appreciate it if you do read all the posts ,i don't have time to answer the same questions again !.

If that happens then just point to the appropriate post.

 

[Lrrr]

and this is why I'm saying it's self-evident

There is nothing self-evident about this. How do you know that the person was not staring at you at all. Instead you drew their attention with your (potentially sudden) movement of turning around. They then make eye contact with someone who is now suddenly staring at them, get nervous because they don't know who the person is and don't know why they (meaning you) are staring at them. It would only be natural for them to avert their eyes.

How would you remove this scenario in your protocol?

 

[reason1]

You can't "detect the exact location" of someone who calls your name. You can only approximate it, because the human ear can't tell between all possible locations. You use other senses, primarily sight, to zero in on the person.

you got me...a slip... happens because i didn't think carefully about how i'm going to present my respond, even more i shouldn't respond to anything off-topic.

And locating people that way uses tools we know exist. Yours do not. In fact, yours uses things we know don't exist.

off-topic .

 

[reason1]

There is nothing self-evident about this. How do you know that the person was not staring at you at all. Instead you drew their attention with your (potentially sudden) movement of turning around. They then make eye contact with someone who is now suddenly staring at them, get nervous because they don't know who the person is and don't know why they (meaning you) are staring at them. It would only be natural for them to avert their eyes.

How would you remove this scenario in your protocol?

Hi,
well...your scenario will take much more time than mine.
in mine,it will be a reflex on my part followed instantly by reflex on part of the staring person.

 

[Lrrr]

Hi,
well...your scenario will take much more time than mine.
in mine,it will be a reflex on my part followed instantly by reflex on part of the staring person.

I disagree. I have done this many times. For whatever reason, my eyes have been drawn to someone I don't know in a crowded place, we make momentary eye contact and I *reflexively* look away because 1) I feel uncomfortable making prolonged eye contact with someone I don't know; and 2) I don't want them to think I am staring at them. I'm pretty sure this is not an experience unique to me.

The eye contact and subsequent turning away was not caused by either person staring at the other. How does your protocol eliminate such a scenario, even if the only reason a person looks at you is because they see your movement?

 

[Kariboo]

in mine,it will be a reflex on my part followed instantly by reflex on part of the staring person.

Which is not paranormal and therefore not applicable for the MDC.

If you want to receive the million dollars you have to prove that you can do something that 1) cannot be exlpained by natural causes 2) that cannot include trickery 3) that cannot be done with the same succes rate by anyone else.

It is up to YOU to design a protocol that makes sure the above cannot explain what you are doing. So far you have not done so. It is not that you have to believe yourself that what you do is paranormal. You have to convince other people that that is the case.

 

[Moochie]

The problem reason1 has raised is he doesn't think the ability will work if the person is told to stare as part of a test. In effect, reason1 wants the starers to be unaware a test is even being conducted.

reason1 will not accept any protocol that is conducted in a small room, with a limited number of people or even with people who are staring based on, say, the flip of a coin or the roll of a die.

reason1 is adamant that the test has to be in a public place with people who are staring because they want to stare and for no other reason, leaving the door wide open for confirmation bias.

Surely reason1 must be coming to the realisation that he would not be able to pass a controlled test. I don't mean this as an attack, but there are just way too many loopholes in reason1's claim, and I don't think there is a way around it purely based on his categorisation of staring into 'active' and 'passive' staring.

Pretty much agree with your summation here. reason1 has figured out something most people already know--if you turn around and look at people who are behind you, some will look (or be looking) back at you. Human nature. I fail to see where any "paranormal ability" comes into it, even slightly.


M.

 

[Lanzy]

Is this why the challenge is going away? Too many people taking perfectly normal actions and trying to prove they are paranormal?

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

It's really very simple, reason1

If you can feel someone is staring at you, and say out loud: "Jeniffer (Or whoever), you are staring at the back of my neck right now" before turning around, and then hearing the person behind you say "Wow! How did you do that?" then you have paranormal powers.

Otherwise, you're just deluding yourself.

 

[Moochie]

Is this why the challenge is going away? Too many people taking perfectly normal actions and trying to prove they are paranormal?

Your guess is as good as mine.


M.

 

[GzuzKryzt]

Hi,
well...your scenario will take much more time than mine.
in mine,it will be a reflex on my part followed instantly by reflex on part of the staring person.

you got me...a slip... happens because i didn't think carefully about how i'm going to present my respond, even more i shouldn't respond to anything off-topic.


off-topic .

and this is why I'm saying it's self-evident

to Lanzy : thank you for being objective, it really undoes some frustrations.

to Belz... : at least read my own posts ok ?

It's amazing how you can detect the exact location of someone when he/she calls your name, think of it this way.


I'd appreciate it if you do read all the posts ,i don't have time to answer the same questions again !.

well...actually this is very true, i will not accept any uncontrolled protocol that doesn't even demonstrate my claim which is "I can detect when people stare at me" not "i can detect when people look at me from behind".
I don't know why some people still don't get that, but if it is because of some confusion, i will restate the whole claim in my detailed post.




I'm sorry... i thought you said "Why Are you wearing an ugly hat?"



I don't catch them returning my gaze, i catch them avoiding my gaze, while in normal situations they shouldn't (as you stated)

are you being sarcastic ? , i don't mind it though



man... did you read this post :


i will not be able to respond to you if you don't read all the posts !

Hi Ward,
I'm sure that there will be some testers eager to find out how I'm going to cheat (if i could) and that counts as active staring ,but wait a little for more details

"ugly hat" ?



I didn't think it is either, i don't mind objective attacks though.




I know, i meant i was trying to figure out how my claim is confirmation bias as skeptics say.

This is going nowhere towards a clear-cut claim and a clear protocol.

Reason1, I have asked the following question what seems like a gazillion times. I will explain why and then ask it again.

The only way to do a relatively simple controlled test which is fair to you and the tester is for you to bring someone to the test whose staring you can detect.

One obvious reason for you to supply that person is to ensure that you do not excuse a failure by saying "The person supplied by the tester stared the wrong way."

If you bring a person to which you believe you are connected to - and vice versa - it should give you ideal test conditions.

Reason1, do you have someone you trust - a friend, a relative, a life partner - doing the "staring" the way you need it to detect it?

I dare to say that otherwise there will be no test.

 

[Uncayimmy]

Is this why the challenge is going away? Too many people taking perfectly normal actions and trying to prove they are paranormal?

This is why I was asking Reason1 to describe the events that led to him believing he had a paranormal ability. We took his statement at face value, but it seems pretty clear that there was more to it. My guess is that he is doing something perfectly ordinary and drawing unfounded conclusions that something special is happening. The way he phrased his statement means something different to him or so it would seem.

That's not to knock Reason1 or anyone else here. Learning how to state the claim can be tricky, even if it's not paranormal. For example, I'm a bass player. If I say, "I play bass" how might someone test that?

Ask me to sight-read some sheet music and play it? I'll respond that I don't sight read well at all.

Give me an upright bass and ask me to play scales? I'll respond that I actually play electric bass.

Throw in some smooth Jazz CD and ask me to play along? I'll say that I'm really not into Jazz.

And yet it's pretty obvious I can play bass:
www.azwebpages.com/download/JimOnBass/LemonSong.mp3

I could revise my claim and/or state a verification test along with it. I might say, "I can play a four-string electric bass in that given time to listen to a rock/blues song five times and being allowed to jot down notes, I can play the bass line from that song with 90% accuracy."

If instead of making a paranormal claim we were judging musical claims, most reasonable people would believe me to have a legitimate musical claim.

So what is Reason1 really saying? It sounds like to me that when in a public situation he gets a "feeling" that someone he cannot see is looking directly at him. When he turns his head suddenly to catch this person in the act, there is usually someone in the general vicinity who reacts in a way he believes confirms his impression.

If the above is correct, then from the perspective of a paranormal claim, I would have to say it's not paranormal but ordinary. Others have explained why. Now, if he added that when he repeats the same activity when he does not sense someone looking at him and subsequently does not detect the same reaction, we're a little farther along. However, there are still several hurdles to overcome to conclude that something extraordinary is happening.

If we overcame those hurdles, then we'd still have the same issues of how to design a controlled experiment. The unconscious versus conscious staring this would be very difficult to overcome, but given a very elaborate and expensive test design, I think it might be possible. I wouldn't even consider such a thing without further understanding why there is even a difference. In fact he has not demonstrated how he even knows the type of stare he's getting. For all he knows some of the stares could be deliberate.

Perhaps a thread in General Skepticism could answer the question, "Is this [details here] paranormal?" might be a good step.

 

[GzuzKryzt]

Reason1 doing one of the simple self-tests proposed here would go a longer way than any discussion.

 

[reason1]

This is going nowhere towards a clear-cut claim and a clear protocol.

Reason1, I have asked the following question what seems like a gazillion times. I will explain why and then ask it again.

The only way to do a relatively simple controlled test which is fair to you and the tester is for you to bring someone to the test whose staring you can detect.

One obvious reason for you to supply that person is to ensure that you do not excuse a failure by saying "The person supplied by the tester stared the wrong way."

If you bring a person to which you believe you are connected to - and vice versa - it should give you ideal test conditions.

Reason1, do you have someone you trust - a friend, a relative, a life partner - doing the "staring" the way you need it to detect it?

I dare to say that otherwise there will be no test.

Reason1 doing one of the simple self-tests proposed here would go a longer way than any discussion.

Hi GzuzKryzt,
since you are the most demanding here i shall answer your questions first :
regarding getting trusted/promised starers :
Man....I've already answered these questions in my argument in page 2 !.
My argument was that getting someone to look at me intensively from behind is NOT staring.Trusted/promised starers are even less of a choice here, these will be consciously trying so hard to stare at me so i can detect them and this (again) is NOT staring. moreover the trusted starers will have a less reason to stare, they know me very well. When you keep staring at something,you will get bored at some moment and if you see this thing again you will likely not stare at it.
OK ?

 

[Uncayimmy]

Reason1 doing one of the simple self-tests proposed here would go a longer way than any discussion.

Longer way than what? Asking him the same three questions every few hours like you did yesterday? If he attempts and fails a self-test, he's demonstrated to himself that a particular test he was told to do doesn't work for his "ability." If you told me to go grab an upright bass and sight-read some charts, I would fail. I would, however, still believe I could play bass.

A reasoned discussion evaluating what he experiences could teach him not only how to properly examine this particular experience but many, many others, both his own and that of others. As drawn-out and convoluted the VFF thread was, several people, including VFF to a limited degree, commented on how much they learned about examining things critically.

He needs to understand why the self-tests suggested are good ideas. In fact if John Q. Public was able to examine things properly in the first place, there would be little need for the MDC. If your goal is anything other than teaching, then leave him alone. He'll never get the academic credentials or media presence anyway. If he does manage that, let him negotiate the challenge protocol on his own. If he manages that, he'll fail anyway.

 

[Lrrr]

Trusted/promised starers are even less of a choice here, these will be consciously trying so hard to stare at me so i can detect them and this (again) is NOT staring. moreover the trusted starers will have a less reason to stare, they know me very well. When you keep staring at something,you will get bored at some moment and if you see this thing again you will likely not stare at it.
OK ?

So there is no way to do this in a controlled setting? Then I would say there is little chance that the JREF would accept your application. Before you respond that your proposed protocol of having you sit in a public place waiting for random people stare at you *is not* a controlled environment. The people that walk by are not controlled, who is staring at you vs. who is responding to you towards them is not controlled and where people are staring/looking (is someone staring at you or the cute blonde girl at the table next to you; is the person looking at his wife and you happen to be in direct line of sight) is not controlled. If you don't understand this, I don't know how this can continue.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Man....I've already answered these questions in my argument in page 2 !.
My argument was that getting someone to look at me intensively from behind is NOT staring.

So now we're getting picky on semantics? So someone looking at you intensively is not staring at you? What is it then? Intensive looking? Fixated Observing? Come on, man. Don't insult our intelligence.

If you can't do this in a "Controlled Experiment", you're wasting your time and ours.

 

[fromdownunder]

But..but... they are not staring at me in a staring way, as I mean staring, they are staring at me in a staring way that I do not mean when I use the word staring.

When I use staring, I mean what I mean by staring. And if people stare at me that are not stariing at me then I can't detect it. So I must win the challenge, because I define staring the way I want to, nobody else can understand how I know the difference, so the default position is I am right regardless of what any test shows.

People staring at me that I can detect are staring. People staring at me that I cannot dete4ct are not staring at me. I win.

What an utter waste of bandwidth this thread has become as potential development of a protocol. It does retain however that certain sense of wonder that one has when looking at the work of somebody who appears to be self-delusional.

Reason1. all you have done is defined staring as something that you see.

Norm

 

[Foolmewunz]

reason1,
GzuzKryzt is trying to find a way for you to get beyond an impossible test. What you are saying is that you have a definition for staring that others do not have.
So the first thing is that you have to give a precise and coherent definition of what you think staring is.

Most of us would go by something similar to this:

stare (stâr)
v. stared, star·ing, stares
v.intr.
1. To look directly and fixedly, often with a wide-eyed gaze. See Synonyms at gaze.

You've added a condition, see? Your version would include, "with some sort of emotional interest and without having been instructed to do so".

If that is truly a cornerstone to your claim, then we would have to come up with a protocol and scenario which included the ability to be able to focus on all the people in the area to detect whether they were staring before you turned and pointed them out.

Let's say, .... a mall setting. You're at a table in the food court. Thirty or forty customers in the food court, people behind the counters selling things and another flow of about two hundred people walking by over the twenty or thirty minutes. How in the heck are we to be able to get zoom cameras on every one of those faces to see if they were actually staring at you before you turned and looked or if they focused on you because you were turning to look at them?

It's just not possible.

If your proposal is that you can detect random staring (only) and not specific staring, then you have to think up a scenario that would allow that and that would not be impossible, financially or technically, to control. The "public space" scenario has to be dismissed.

Please be specific. Is the above underlying premise what you're claiming (including the very important limitation that it must be random)?

 

[reason1]

Is this why the challenge is going away? Too many people taking perfectly normal actions and trying to prove they are paranormal?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Which is not paranormal and therefore not applicable for the MDC.

If you want to receive the million dollars you have to prove that you can do something that 1) cannot be exlpained by natural causes 2) that cannot include trickery 3) that cannot be done with the same succes rate by anyone else.

It is up to YOU to design a protocol that makes sure the above cannot explain what you are doing. So far you have not done so. It is not that you have to believe yourself that what you do is paranormal. You have to convince other people that that is the case.

Pretty much agree with your summation here. reason1 has figured out something most people already know--if you turn around and look at people who are behind you, some will look (or be looking) back at you. Human nature. I fail to see where any "paranormal ability" comes into it, even slightly.


M.

from the perspective of a paranormal claim, I would have to say it's not paranormal but ordinary. Others have explained why.

I disagree. I have done this many times. For whatever reason, my eyes have been drawn to someone I don't know in a crowded place, we make momentary eye contact and I *reflexively* look away because 1) I feel uncomfortable making prolonged eye contact with someone I don't know;

I will not be making any eye contact with anyone, I'll be pretending that I'm reading a book

and 2) I don't want them to think I am staring at them. I'm pretty sure this is not an experience unique to me.

I think they will be sure that you are staring if you reflexed your head away by more than 45 degrees.

Now, if he added that when he repeats the same activity when he does not sense someone looking at him and subsequently does not detect the same reaction, we're a little farther along.

No... i don't make reflexes at people when i don't sense any staring

The unconscious versus conscious staring this would be very difficult to overcome, but given a very elaborate and expensive test design, I think it might be possible. I wouldn't even consider such a thing without further understanding why there is even a difference. In fact he has not demonstrated how he even knows the type of stare he's getting. For all he knows some of the stares could be deliberate.

So now we're getting picky on semantics? So someone looking at you intensively is not staring at you? What is it then? Intensive looking? Fixated Observing? Come on, man. Don't insult our intelligence.

Let me restate the definitions for your convenience:
Staring is when you look at something intensively because you desire to do so, and that involves the conscious and the subconscious levels.
Looking at something intensively for the sake of demonstrating a test is NOT staring (acting/passive), and that involves only the conscious level, you don't have any desire, subconscious motivation or curiosity to do so,it's boring and doesn't happen in normal every day life.

Got it ?...is this still insulting to your intelligence Ron_Tomkins ?

It's really very simple, reason1

If you can feel someone is staring at you, and say out loud: "Jeniffer (Or whoever), you are staring at the back of my neck right now" before turning around, and then hearing the person behind you say "Wow! How did you do that?" then you have paranormal powers.

Otherwise, you're just deluding yourself.

Yea..I can do what you've described,but under the following conditions:
1. Jeniffer is not testing my para-ability
2. i know she is the only person around me
3. "you are staring at the back of my neck right now" should be "you are staring at me right now"

Perhaps a thread in General Skepticism could answer the question, "Is this [details here] paranormal?" might be a good step.

I hope the mods reopen my thread there.

He needs to understand why the self-tests suggested are good ideas.

If you can't do this in a "Controlled Experiment", you're wasting your time and ours.

In my argument in page 2 I've proved that the suggested protocols are uncontrolled and allow cheating (although elegant in every other aspect).
why some people still insisting in accepting these protocols while the suggesters themselves don't disagree with my proof.

He'll never get the academic credentials or media presence anyway.

although off-topic, If you take a look at some posts after my argument in page 2, you'll notice something unusual and shouldn't happen in this century, which is :
skeptics on the defensive !
I'm sure i'll be getting pretty good media/academic attention for that only .

he'll fail anyway.

off-topic