Hello from a non-skeptic

[Nonpareil]

Am I?

Yes.

http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/pghost27.htm

This is not evidence. It is simply a site that repeats your claim. It does not provide a list of details or information regarding the objective facts of the murder.

You are making a bare assertion.

 

[SezMe]

You do realize that we're not some multi-headed hydra with a single purpose of bringing you down, right? We are all separate people, with separate minds. There is no grand plan to "beat" you or "drive you away".

Uh-oh. Mirrorglass didn't get the memo. I tell you, the cracks in the invincible armor of the NWO are showing up all over the place. We're doomed.

 

[Garrette]

This is not evidence. It is simply a site that repeats your claim. It does not provide a list of details or information regarding the objective facts of the murder.

And this is a large part of the problem, imo. It actually appears to me that Charles is sincere and is attempting to present his beliefs in a manner he considers rational, but like many believers he is handicapped by his starting point: Belief in his sources.

Charles, your source about Poole is not only questionable in general, but factually wrong in the specifics. Dig deeper before accepting such claims.

If you are skeptical of my claim (as you should be), then do the research to answer these three questions about the Poole case:

1. Did Holohan have any bearing on solving the murder? If so, what specifically? (This is what you need for a home run)

2. Did Holohan tell the police anything that they did not already know before she told them? If so, what specifically? (This is what you need for a double)

3. Did Holohan tell the police anything that she could not have known or discovered through mundane means? If so, what specifically? (This is what you need for a single)

Don't rely on a newspaper article for your answers. Don't even rely on Batters' notes, though they should be part of your research.


ETA: Just to make it clear, I already know the answers, having researched the Poole case long ago and refreshed myself on it recently. Those answers won't support your case.

 

[Loss Leader]

You say that what was said to me concerning my wife's pregnancy and Lady Di's death was either random chance or a lucky guess and claim that it means the case is closed? Sorry, not quite convincing enough to me who experienced such events as well as so many others...

That is not all that was said. You are ignoring the most important part of what has been said: These two examples, even if true, provide insufficient data to determine that they were produced paranormally. We have no idea how many guesses were made over how long a period and we have no idea how many were hits, weak hits, or misses. Thus, we cannot conclude anything about these guesses.

Now, some guesses, taken out of context, might be evidence of some sort of paranormal ability, for example if I were to predict Saturday's lottery numbers with complete accuracy. The possibility of my prediction being right would be about 1 in 14 million. If I hit all 6 numbers, possibly no more evidence of my abilities would be necessary.

However the two examples you chose had much lower odds. The chance of just the Queen Mother dying in that week were, as I showed, about 1 in 200. That's 70,000 times more likely than winning the lottery. The chance of a woman of childbearing years in a stable relationship that has produced children being pregnant? I don't know those odds but they're probably better than winning the lottery. The reason I know that is that the birthrate is somewhat higher than 1 child for every 14 million people.

So, we ask ourselves is there any way these predictions could have been right without being paranormal. The answer is: YES. They could have been right by chance, you could be misremembering, you could be giving credit for a hit when it really wasn't.

The only way to rule this out is to put the guesses in context. So far, you have refused to even consider doing so. You have not talked about how many guesses were made, how many were recorded, how many were unequivocably right, or anything else. You certainly haven't even come close to agreeing to any sort of experiment where human judgment is removed from the equation (by, say, picking cards from a standard deck or recording several lottery guesses along with dates).

You just keep telling us that we're refusing to consider your evidence. You should consider that two data points is not sufficient evidence of anything.

Would you give your children a drug that had only been tested on two people? If not, you already understand the rational way to approach any claim. You just have to apply it to yourself.

 

[SezMe]

You say that what was said to me concerning my wife's pregnancy and Lady Di's death was either random chance or a lucky guess and claim that it means the case is closed? Sorry, not quite convincing enough to me who experienced such events as well as so many others...

You keep repeating this even though it is wrong. How do we know that? Because YOU told us the original prediction was NOT about Di's death. Please stop repeating falsehoods.

 

[AdMan]

You do realize that we're not some multi-headed hydra with a single purpose of bringing you down, right? We are all separate people, with separate minds. There is no grand plan to "beat" you or "drive you away". Some people here wish to ridicule you, some wish to engage in honest conversation, some wish to convince you of their view and some just hope you'd clarify yours. Everyone is acting according to their own goals, and any "tactic" you perceive is nothing but your own illusion.

There is something most of us have in common, of course - namely the habit of not taking unlikely claims at their face value. I understand it can be frustrating when people don't simply believe all your stories and marvel, but that simply is the way this place works. None of us get away with unsubstantiated claims - heck, if there's any room for opinion, even substantiated claims get a lot of heat. That's the beauty of this place, if you honestly like re-examining your beliefs.

But if you merely wish to preach from a pedestal, to show those silly skeptics a thing or two, then you better bring in the big guns, because stories of a foretelling that sort of came true ten years ago and it was far too accurate to be fake but I won't say why ain't gonna get you nowhere.

As to being "as rude as we possibly can".. mister, you've seen nothing yet. For a paranormal claimant thread, this is still an extraordinarily clean one. Although of course you have moved on to insulting the community and skeptics as a whole, which usually is a sign of impending doom.

I like this too. Well put.



(You think he'll buy the "there's no grand plan to beat you" bit?? )

 

[majamin]

Ah, so the tactic is not to beat a newcomer to exhaustion, but to make use of mockery and sarcasm and be as rude as you possibly can in the hope that he/she will go away. Well done...

You must be ignoring all of the posts that explain, in a sincere and honest way, that you have not demonstrated compelling evidence of your claims, and those that tried to explain alternate possibilities. You have also dodged all attempts at presenting any kind of tangible data to your "chance alone could not explain this" and "the proportion of these events make it impossible to be anything else" arguments. Any time you attempt to explain anything by invoking terminology (chance, etc.) that mathematics and science has a profound understanding of, you are required to apply this knowledge in a correct manner. We're still waiting.

 

[Olowkow]

Originally Posted by Charles Boden
Ah, so the tactic is not to beat a newcomer to exhaustion, but to make use of mockery and sarcasm and be as rude as you possibly can in the hope that he/she will go away. Well done...

No. Quite the contrary. Most of us are very disappointed when a particularly active and eloquent antagonist is banned or leaves in a huff. The vulgar and incoherent jerks, not so much, though they do make for some interesting chew toys for a while.

The sequence is extremely predictable though, in most cases. It's a lot like playing chess...the principal purpose of the game is not to cause your opponent to resign, but to accomplish a checkmate. If you can't win your argument, you will leave because you have been bested, or because you have dishonored yourself, not because you have been mocked or treated unfairly.

Again, you can report any personal attacks to the mods. Many of us have lost good friends to the "ban hammer". You may want to "lurk a bit moar" and see the quality of minds you are pitting yourself against, before claiming the role of victim.

 

[Pixel42]

Ah, so the tactic is not to beat a newcomer to exhaustion, but to make use of mockery and sarcasm and be as rude as you possibly can in the hope that he/she will go away. Well done...

In this thread you have shared with us your beliefs and the evidence that has convinced you of those beliefs. In particular you have expressed your belief that some people can predict the future more often/accurately than would be expected by chance and given your reasons - your perception that mediums you have known were right more often than would be expected by chance, and the Poole case.

It has been patiently (for the most part) explained to you that, because of the brain's inbuilt cognitive biases, such perceptions are unreliable, and that this is why anecdotal evidence alone is wholely inadequate to form the basis for any belief, let alone one that flatly contradicts everything that humanity's best minds have discovered about how the world works over the past couple of centuries. These biases are the reason the scientific method had to be invented, and careful application of it has shown that claims of paranormal abilities based on such perceptions invariably turn out to be mistaken. As for the Poole case you appear to have given undue credence to highly biased and exaggerated reporting of it, but even if that reporting is accurate there are more plausible explanations than paranormal powers.

Understand that we get, on average, a couple of posters a month who come here to share their supposedly superior knowledge and understanding with us poor close-minded sceptics (see the Nostradamus thread for the most recent one before you turned up). Most are barely coherant so your articulacy is a pleasant change but you are otherwise in no way unusual, and there is certainly nothing new in the information you have presented. It is the height of hypocrisy for you to berate us for failing to reconsider our beliefs in the light of new information when not only have many of us previously done just that (for the record I am also a former believer) but you are the only participant in the thread who has actually been presented with any new information which might reasonably be expected to cause them to reconsider their beliefs, so you are the only person who is wilfully refusing to do so.

 

[Alice Shortcake]

Charles, as was pointed out to you at the very beginning of this thread, the "psychic" who made what you interpreted as the Diana prediction was quite probably thinking of the very elderly Queen Mother. Diana's death shortly afterwards may have seemed like an impressive confirmation of the prophecy, but look at it another way: what are the odds of ANYONE not wearing a seatbelt and being driven at high speed in a city centre by a drunk driver being killed in a crash? Less than astronomical, I'd guess.

And I'd love to hear more about the Jacqueline Pool case and why you find it so convincing. Perhaps you could start another thread devoted to this?

 

[Charles Boden]

Pixel, your last reply, and that of others since my last post, is what I was referring to as "being objective", so I thank you all for that. Much more pleasant to read some coherent argumentations than a bunch of BS posts attacking my grasp of the English language or repeated attempts of mockery. Thank you.

I am by no means simply disconsidering the replies that make use of coherent counter-argumentation, and your considerations are perfectly valid. Had any evidence to this date passed scrutiny 100%, we might not even be having this debate right now. But as I said, lack of "100% proof" to this present date does not necessarily mean "proof of non-existence".

Someone here mentioned that they felt sorry for my children if I they came to believe in what I believe. I would rather they believed in the possibility of reincarnation and the evolution of the Soul than a belief in nihilism, which does leave life a bit meaningless, does it not? So we come, live, love and die and that's it? And if an asteroid should come and end life in this little planet of ours and end civilization, that's it? How sad...

Had I the means to do so and provide you all with "proof", I'd go for that million-dollar-prize you all keep talking about, but serious mediumnity and serious spirituality would not touch it, and like you all I am instantly suspicious of anyone who makes use of, ok, "alleged mediumnic powers" to make money. In my view this is not what "true spirituality" is all about.

I have not once claimed here to have any "special powers", so I don't know where that one came from. All that I have are personal experiences and the knowledge of some cases that do indeed seem to me beyond what would be expected by "random chance" or any other justification mentioned here, and it is the combination of them all that took me to the conclusion that "nihilism" is not true either.

I'll present my own experiences in detail, as requested, starting from below, and if we continue this debate in an objective and respectable manner, fine, I'll carry on. Certainly there will be nothing "new" to you all, but perhaps a reinterpretation or re-evaluation of such phenomena (ok now?) might be a healthy approach for starters.

I gave the beginning in a previous post here, referring to my childhood memories. In my next post I'll mention the episode with the Ouija when I was 15 years old. I have quite a good memory, so the questioning as to details of what I remember being "muddled up" is one that I cannot consider as a "valid" one. And by all means, get four people together whom you know and trust, skeptcis like yourselves perhaps would even be better, experiment for yourselves a few times and see for yourselves if anything of relevance happens. Any reference to previous testing in which you were not present yourselves to me is not counter-evidence but hearsay (sp?).

 

[Charles Boden]

At the age of fifteen, my teenage friends and I went through a fad phase of doing the “Ouija Board” at each others’ homes. A simple procedure by which we would use a small liqueur glass turned upside down upon the centre of a table, in the middle of a circle formed by the letters of the alphabet written on small pieces of paper, the words “yes” and “no” and the numbers from 0 to 9.

Upon the upturned glass, four of us would place our index fingers and then begin to meditate that a friendly spirit should communicate with us. Obviously, more often than not, nothing of any greater importance or interest ever happened; but one night, when my friends and I were gathered at my parents’ home while they were away for the weekend visiting some relatives in the state of São Paulo, the outcome was entirely different.

We prepared the table and took our places. Four of us placed our index fingers upon the glass while the others sat around waiting and watching. There was a natural excitement and anxiety rushing round the dining-room table. After meditating in such a way for about ten minutes, one of our friends made the usual request that, if there was a spiritual entity present in the room, it should move the glass to where the word “yes” was written on one of the pieces of paper.

Initially, nothing happened, but upon repeating the request for the sixth or seventh time, the small liqueur glass finally wavered, moved slightly, and then suddenly slid quite rapidly and smoothly towards the piece of paper with the word “yes”.

Shaken, as we all were, but trying to hold his firm, one of our friends then asked: “Are you related to anyone in this room?” The glass again slid to “yes”.

“Could you go in the direction of the person you are related to?” was my friend’s next request, and the glass slid in the direction of a cousin of a friend of ours, who had been sitting at the table just watching us without neither he nor his cousin having their finger on the glass.

Only naturally, in the eternal disbelief that reigns upon us all, we asked our friend’s cousin to change his position at the table while we covered or closed our eyes, asking him not to let us know where exactly he would be positioned. The same request was made for a second time, and, despite the fact that none of us who had our fingers on the glass knew what position our friend’s cousin had taken at the table, the glass nevertheless moved towards him again.

“Could you tell us your name?”, was our next request and, when the glass began to spell out the name L-u-i-z F-e-l-i-p-e, our friend’s cousin, who had by then gone completely pale, broke into tears, begging us to stop. Unknown to any of us, the glass had spelled out the name of his eldest brother, who had died six years earlier, shot in the head at a bar in the city of Recife, in the state of Pernambuco, while having a drink with his girlfriend. An innocent victim, our friend and his cousin later told us, of a shoot-out in which he had had absolutely no participation.

When both my friend and his cousin finally managed to calm themselves down, as likewise we all also had to, we proceeded to question Luiz Felipe throughout a night that was to be one of the most memorable moments of our lives. From eleven at night until four in the morning, when he finally said it was time to leave, we spent the entire night asking him several questions, which were answered with such wisdom and sensibility that, even as I remember them today, could not possibly have come from involuntary muscle movements caused by the subconscious minds of a bunch of irresponsible teenagers.

Often we tried to “test” Luiz Felipe in an attempt to verify if what was happening could truly be a spiritual pheno-menon or if it was not merely the result of some obscure power of our brains, perhaps some form of activity of our subconscious minds causing the involuntary muscle movements that made us unconsciously move the glass.

One way by which we tried to test Luiz Felipe was by drawing the symbols of a triangle, a circle, a square and a cross on four small pieces of paper, which were subsequently crumpled into small paper balls. Having shaken them between the palms of my hands, I then asked one of my friends to pick one out.

“What is the figure on the piece of paper in his hand?” I asked, and, surely enough, the glass slid upon the table forming the figure of a cross; the same figure, of course, which was on the piece of paper in my friend’s hand.

At times, Luiz Felipe would form a spiral with the glass at a speed so fast that we could hardly keep up with our fingers. When we asked him what that spiral meant, he spelled out: “friendship”. Certainly none of us in our small group of immature teenagers would have or could have devised such an interesting symbolism, much less could we have managed to rotate the glass into a spiral at such a speed and smoothness without any of us noticing that another was doing so. There was certainly no skilful magician amongst our small group of friends.

Those who argument against mediumnity, spiritual communications or instruments such as the Ouija claim that such movements are caused by involuntary muscle activities and that spiritual communications are either an illusion or a farce. All I can say as a fact is that none of my friends, at least not consciously, moved that glass that night. We were all equally shaken, impressed and in awe at all that had happened, at Luiz Felipe’s precision in his answers and at his literally supernatural wisdom, which was totally incompatible with that of a group of young teenagers such as ourselves. Independently of who substituted another who had a finger upon the glass, which we all did when our arms would get tired from sustaining the same position, the coherence and individuality of the persona who was giving the answers always remained the same.

In Brazil, there is a spiritualist line known as Christian Spiritism, or Kardecist Spiritism, whose philosophy is based on the foundations laid by Frenchman Allan Kardec’s compiling of mediumnic spiritual messages in the five books he published from 1856 to 1862: “The Book of Spirits”, or “The Spirits’ Book”, “The Gospel According to Spiritism”, “The Medium’s Book”, “Heaven and Hell” and “The Genesis”.

Although predominantly a Catholic country, Brazil has enjoyed a religious freedom and amalgamating of races, cultures and, consequently, of religions, which is unparalleled in almost any other country in the world. There is the mixture and blending of the cultures and beliefs of the native indians of Brazil; the beliefs, customs religions and traditions brought to the continent by the Negro slaves from Africa, as well as their music and their rhythm, such as the Samba; there are the Protestant and predominantly Catholic influences of the Portuguese colonizers, all intermingled in a separate but yet uniform pattern of spiritual and religious beliefs. The same Brazilian who might go to mass in a Catholic church on a Sunday morning can also be found playing the drums on a Monday night at an African Candomblé Spiritualist centre.

A few days before the night with Luiz Felipe, I had been walking through a park after school, looking at the stands of a book fair that had been set up in the square, with literature for all tastes and preferences, when I came upon one such stand on which I saw a book hanging at its side, held in place by a metal peg, with the inciting title of “The Spirits’ Book”. Filled with curiosity, I picked it up and flipped through its first pages, then looked at the price written in pencil on its inside cover. Digging into my pockets, I saw that I had enough money to buy it, so that same night, when I lay down in bed, I opened the book, still intrigued by its enigmatic title, and began to read the first questions formulated by Kardec and their replies, which Kardec alleged to have been given, as he explained in the introduction of the book, by spiritual entities of greater enlightenment, of the many that, again as alleged by Allan Kardec, replied to the questions he had elaborated via the use of different mediums from different locations and using different mediumnic techniques - psychography, or “automatic writing”, in particular: - -- What is God?
“The Supreme Intelligence. The Primary Cause of all things.” - And what is the Spirit?
“The Intelligent Principle of the Universe.”

- What can you tell us about its source?
“Its source is the Supreme Intelligence. Each soul is an individualization of the Supreme Intelligent Principle, the Universal Consciousness that you refer to as God.”

- Is it given to man to understand the mystery of the things that are occult to him?
“The veil is raised in accordance to man’s greater or lesser advancement, but for a better understanding man would have to possess certain faculties, knowledge and instruments that he currently does not have.”

- Does the Spirit undergo various corporeal existences?
“Yes, we have all had various existences. Those who say otherwise merely wish to keep others in the same state of ignorance in which they find themselves.” - -- Are we to understand then that the Spirit, after having left one body, takes on another? In other words, that it reincarnates in a new body? Is this what we are to understand?
“That is perfectly correct.”

- What is the purpose of reincarnation?
“Expiation, trials, the progressive improvement of humankind. Without reincarnation, where would you find God’s Divine Justice?”
- Are there a limited number of corporeal existences, or does the Spirit reincarnate perpetually?
“In each new corporeal existence, the Spirit takes a step forward in the path of its progress. When it has finally freed itself of all its imperfections, it no longer needs to undergo the trials of corporeal life.”

- What does the Spirit become after its last incarnation?
“A pure Spirit.” I closed both the book and my eyes and lay in bed pondering about those questions and their answers. Not long after this day, I had the encounter with Luiz Felipe.

“Is reincarnation a reality?” I asked him, at one point, influenced by what I had read in the book. The glass moved to “yes”.

“And could you tell me who I was in a past incarna-tion?” I asked.
The glass began to spell out the letters: P-r-i-n-c-e C-h-a-r-l-e-s E-d-w-a-r-d S-t-e-w-a-r-t.

Precisely at four o’clock in the morning, Luiz Felipe said that he had to leave. He spelled out the word “adeus” (good-bye), made the glass rotate into the spiral one last time, and then the small liqueur glass suddenly stopped moving, no matter how hard we tried to get it to move again...

 

[Lothian]

At the age of fifteen, my teenage friends and I went through a fad phase of doing the “Ouija Board” .........[snip].....
Precisely at four o’clock in the morning, Luiz Felipe said that he had to leave. He spelled out the word “adeus” (good-bye), made the glass rotate into the spiral one last time, and then the small liqueur glass suddenly stopped moving, no matter how hard we tried to get it to move again...

Great story. Let me add that to the evidence you have provided so far. Your new running total is ...........zero.

 

[Lothian]

I'll present my own experiences in detail, as requested, starting from below, and if we continue this debate in an objective and respectable manner, fine, I'll carry on. Certainly there will be nothing "new" to you all, but perhaps a reinterpretation or re-evaluation of such phenomena (ok now?) might be a healthy approach for starters..

I have not reinterpretated or re-evaluated the ideomotor effect but feel free to carry on.

 

[Pixel42]

Those who argument against mediumnity, spiritual communications or instruments such as the Ouija claim that such movements are caused by involuntary muscle activities

Yes, it's called the ideomotor effect.

and that spiritual communications are either an illusion or a farce

Very few sceptics here would be so dismissive, I know I wouldn't. I think the fact that our subconscious minds can communicate in this fashion is utterly fascinating and a potential source of much interesting information about how our brains and consciousnesses work. I just don't think there's anything paranormal/supernatural about such experiences, because much careful scientific investigation has been done which strongly suggests there isn't.

All I can say as a fact is that none of my friends, at least not consciously, moved that glass that night.

Which is entirely consistent with the ideomotor effect explanation.

I can understand why this experience was so meaningful for you, I'm sure I would have been equally impressed with it especially when I was a teenager, but I must tell you honestly that what you've described, even if it is remembered entirely accurately and you are correct in your belief that nobody was deliberately moving the glass, is not sufficiently convincing to make me seriously consider the possibility that communication with the dead is possible. The ideomotor effect is an adequate explanation of your, and all, such experiences. That doesn't mean they aren't remarkable - they certainly are - but remarkable and evidence of the paranormal are not the same thing.

 

[Agatha]

.

Someone here mentioned that they felt sorry for my children if I they came to believe in what I believe. I would rather they believed in the possibility of reincarnation and the evolution of the Soul than a belief in nihilism, which does leave life a bit meaningless, does it not? So we come, live, love and die and that's it? And if an asteroid should come and end life in this little planet of ours and end civilization, that's it? How sad...

Sad? No, it's wonderful, a true marvel. We as individuals are here for a mindnumbingly short space of time, and yet in that time we manage to learn, to form attachments, to discover ever more about the universe, to pass on knowledge to the next generation and most of all have the chance to make a difference to the world we live in, and the world we leave behind.

If our civilisation is one day wiped out by an asteroid, we'll still have been here and we'll still have achieved everything we've done thus far. It's quite likely that some life (cockroaches?) would continue on Earth, and although it would be fascinating to observe what would happen, we won't be here to see it so we have lost nothing.

If, in the distant future, another civilisation arises, it wouldn't be the same and they may dig up remnants of our civilisation and marvel at what we did. On the other hand, they might not. It won't matter to us and it won't matter to the universe.

So yes, we come, live, love and die and that's it, and it's flippin' amazing. It's the absolute pinnacle of existence, and every moment of it should be treasured. We are so incredibly lucky just to be here.

What we do while we're getting on with life, that's what makes the whole thing so much more fascinating than any tales of reincarnation or spirits. Making a positive difference to the world grants a person more immortality than any amount of ghosts. When I die, I want to live again only in the memory and love and appreciation of the people I cared for and who cared for me, and those whose lives I touched for good. I want to leave the world a better place, not hang around it forever.

And, erm *steps off soapbox*, read up on the ideomotor effect.

I am sorry if you felt I was having a go at your spelling, I will endeavour to do so more politely if the need arises in the future. I was trying to be helpful.

 

[Aepervius]

At the age of fifteen, my teenage friends and I went through a fad phase of doing the “Ouija Board”

ideomotor effect and other psychological effect. If you want a proof of it, do the ouija board SEEING the board or KNOWING the board position. After that blind yourself (but really).
* bind something on your eye to make you fully blind
* make sure you do not touch the board only the moving plate
* Get somebody neutral to move the board, turn it, in a position you can't guess even by the sound this is the part I think you did not do in your experiment
* repeat your question

=> the result as done before was that only garbage was given back (ETA: and interestingly the reader stopped in the position the participant THOUGHT the board was).

The problem is to do the proper blinding so that one TRULY don't know where the position are and not even GUESS it.

If you get the reader/glass to land on yes/no precisely despite not knowing where it is apply for the million dollar challenge because that would be truly paranormal, and frankly I am extremely doubtful this was properly done.

 

[Pixel42]

Charles, here is a short article on the history and mechanism of the ouija board:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1798/how-does-a-ouija-board-work

Have you ever done what the article suggests, and tried using it blindfolded? I know you said you covered your eyes so as not to know where your friend moved to in the experience you found so impressive as a teenager, but I'm sure you now realise that there would be lots of clues from air currents, noise etc which would let someone at the table know (even if not consciously) where he'd moved to, so that really doesn't count.

I've not tried this myself but I've seen documentaries where it was done and the result was indeed to remove all sense from the messages. On one occasion the board was surreptiously turned around without the blindfolded participants knowledge, which was particularly revealing.

ETA: Ah, I see Aepervius saw the same documentary

 

[Cavemonster]

I have quite a good memory, so the questioning as to details of what I remember being "muddled up" is one that I cannot consider as a "valid" one.

Charles,
I'd like to address the issue of memory.

If you consider the possibility that your memory has "muddled up" some details to be an invalid one, then your memory must not be just good, but superhuman.

We're still learning a lot about memory, but one thing we're finding out is that memory isn't like a neat notebook tucked away on a shelf to be brought out and examined. We re-write memories every time we access them.

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jul-aug/03-how-much-of-your-memory-is-true

Here's a great anecdote which oddly enough helps to show why anecdotes are terrible evidence.

http://astoriedcareer.com/2008/05/false-memory-and-jackie-kenned.html

It's about a man who somehow absorbed his wife's story of seeing Jackie O so thoroughly that he believed that he was there. This is not unusual at all. People do it every single day, even the smartest people with the best memories.

Even people with pure and perfect photographic memories can't see and notice all the details that matter. For instance, imagine you and I were standing in my living room when you mention a recently dead friend and my lampshade starts to move. It's a ghost! If you had been in the room alone, you would leave with perfect knowledge of the event, and you'd be wrong. Because what you didn't see was a small occilating fan tucked away almost behind the curtain. No matter how good your memory and perception, you can't see and remember every important detail. To call your anecdote into question is not to say that you are lying or stupid, but to recognize how flawed we all are as memory machines.

 

[aggle-rithm]

Charles,
I'd like to address the issue of memory.

If you consider the possibility that your memory has "muddled up" some details to be an invalid one, then your memory must not be just good, but superhuman.

We're still learning a lot about memory, but one thing we're finding out is that memory isn't like a neat notebook tucked away on a shelf to be brought out and examined. We re-write memories every time we access them.

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jul-aug/03-how-much-of-your-memory-is-true

Here's a great anecdote which oddly enough helps to show why anecdotes are terrible evidence.

http://astoriedcareer.com/2008/05/false-memory-and-jackie-kenned.html

It's about a man who somehow absorbed his wife's story of seeing Jackie O so thoroughly that he believed that he was there. This is not unusual at all. People do it every single day, even the smartest people with the best memories.

Even people with pure and perfect photographic memories can't see and notice all the details that matter. For instance, imagine you and I were standing in my living room when you mention a recently dead friend and my lampshade starts to move. It's a ghost! If you had been in the room alone, you would leave with perfect knowledge of the event, and you'd be wrong. Because what you didn't see was a small occilating fan tucked away almost behind the curtain. No matter how good your memory and perception, you can't see and remember every important detail. To call your anecdote into question is not to say that you are lying or stupid, but to recognize how flawed we all are as memory machines.

Absolutely! I think the most important thing to remember is that there is no relationship between how confident we are in a memory and whether that memory is true or not. This has been determined through a study where people were asked what they were doing when the space shuttle Challenger exploded just after the event, and again a year or so later. Many of the stories changed remarkably, and the people who got it wrong were just as confident they were right as were the people whose stories didn't change.