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Dowsing by a Skeptic

Slowvehicle said:
Now, tie a string around the tarot deck, tie the other end of the string to your dowsing rod, suspend it over a wee-jee board, and THEN aks it questions...

That should work, bro.
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I think, with that setup, it will ask (and then answer) its own questions.
 
My lucky underpants work much better than dowsing rods. Every time I wear them and go looking for gold, I find gold.
 
marplots said:
Not at all. All that is saying is that if there is such a thing as dowsing (which I don't think any of us is asserting), it has to use one or more of these known mechanisms. Dowsing can only be ruled impossible a priori if you claim it uses properties that violate QFT. That's a type of ruling it out of court by definition.
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That's half of it.

If there is such a thing as dowsing, it would have to use one of the four known forces. There may be other forces (e.g. dark energy) but they do not operate at the scale and energy levels at which we live our lives.

It can't be the nuclear or weak forces; they don't operate at that distance. It can't be gravity; it's too weak. The only possibility is the electromagnetic force, and it can't be that, because if it were we'd detect it with our instruments long before it had any influence on the putative dowser.

For example, I think we can agree that dowsing for strong magnets with ferrous metal rods would work and wouldn't violate QFT.
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Nor would it be eligible for the million-dollar prize.

Using mobile phones to communicate across great distances is not telepathy; vaccines are not homeopathy; the plays of Shakespeare are not his ghost reaching out to touch us across the years.
 
Innocuous said:
To use QFT to disprove extraordinary powers, you must also prove that the extraordinary powers are impossible within the framework of existing (known) forces. That seems like an impossible task - how can you be sure you thought of every possible explanation?
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Because the range of possible explanations is actually very small.

You can rule out the nuclear and weak forces in almost every situation. Gravity is rarely of interest either - the only thing it does is pull towards the centre of mass, which in this case means the Earth.

That leaves the electromagnetic force, and we are very, very good at detecting the electromagnetic force with our instruments. Much less so without them. If dowsing worked, radio and television wouldn't.

Look at the work of Karl Jansky, for example, or Penzias and Wilson. Jansky was looking for the sources of static that affected radio transmissions, and discovered the radio signal of the Milky Way, and created the field of radio astronomy. Penzias and Wilson were looking for noise that was affecting their research into radio astronomy, and discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background.

We have no difficulty studying these things, but the effect of the radio noise of the Milky Way and the CMB on the human body is zero.
 
PixyMisa said:
Using mobile phones to communicate across great distances is not telepathy; vaccines are not homeopathy; the plays of Shakespeare are not his ghost reaching out to touch us across the years.
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Let's try it this way then. I propose that all the dowsers tested so far are subject to the ideomotor effect. Here's my question: Does the ideomotor effect violate QFT?

If the ideomotor effect does violate QFT, then we've demonstrated the limits of QFT do not apply to dowsing.
If it doesn't, then we've demonstrated that dowsing can exist within QFT.

QED.
 
marplots said:
Let's try it this way then. I propose that all the dowsers tested so far are subject to the ideomotor effect. Here's my question: Does the ideomotor effect violate QFT?
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No.

If the ideomotor effect does violate QFT, then we've demonstrated the limits of QFT do not apply to dowsing.
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No, because that's not what dowsing is claimed to be. That may be the explanation for how the claim arose, but it is not the claim.
 
wardenclyffe said:
I've only found him on another forum about spirituality. He seems sincere there and here. I have no reason to doubt him. He seems like a run of the mill dowser who truly believes (or wants to believe) that he can dowse. He's new to it and if he can grow accustomed to doing it, he might be willing to take a real test and maybe win a million dollars. Time will tell. Right now, he can't dectect anything unless he already knows it's there.

Ward
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Ward, Yes that was me on the spirituality forum. I went there searching for answers but got nothing, I felt like like a square peg in a round hole.

You are right in that I am indeed sincere. You are wrong that I can't detect anything unless I already know it's there.

I can give you a good example if you want to hear it, but please bear in mind that I an very new to dowsing so I can't give you 100 examples.
 
poblob14 said:
Well, I watched the video. (Beats workin'.) I wasn't able to watch in very high quality, being limited to my phone, so I may have missed something important. The video did make me want to visit him, to pet his dog. Nice looking dog. A basset or basset mix, I think. It didn't even bite SaskMick when he told it to bugger off. :D

I'll summarize for those who don't want to, or can't, watch it:

First, SaskMick finds a pipe (I think he says a plastic pipe covering a wire) in his yard with the dowsing rods (I assume he knew where it was; we never see the pipe), and marks it with a jar. He then asks Leslie (his wife?) to try to find it (remember, it's obviously marked), and she apparently fails.

He then turns his back and has Leslie walk until he tells her to stop, which he does when the rods move. (The camera remains with his POV; we don't see Leslie walking now, but we see the rods.) Both times, when he turns back she has stopped at the jar.

It should be noted that there is a quite strong wind, which SaskMick comments on during the video.

Each time the rods move, they do so dramatically, almost as if there were some invisible force moving the air swiftly. :) (Actually it appears that the left rod does most of the moving.)

So, in sum, nothing new here. You can skip the video, unless you like dogs.

Edit: Daggone it, Loss Leader beat me to it while I was watching/posting.
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I said there was a plastic pipe with a wire inside that runs form....

Yes I knew it was there. It could easily be found without dowsing. The jar marked the line where the cable ran, it was not the dowsing target.

The point of the video was to show family and friends. It was a spur of the moment affair to show something that I still can't get my head around even now. Me doing just doing basic dowsing was not what it was about.

PS, Slob is the Wife's dog. This is my dog Sten:)

IMG_0579_zpsd1c31c67.jpg
 
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Originally Posted by SaskMick View Post
I asked him what they were made of and he said that they were made of a special metal......
Originally Posted by SaskMick View Post
It is the dowser that does the dowsing, not the rods.
Special metal? Or is it now the dowser is special?



Can you see how you're contradicting yourself?

Orphia Nay said:
Special metal? Or is it now the dowser is special?

:oldroll:

Can you see how you're contradicting yourself?
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I never said the rods were made of a special metal, the plumber who lent them to me said they were special. He was lying.

He was pissed off that I could work his rods at my first attempt better than he could. I saw him outside the post office last week, and gave him a demo right there in the street, he is now more pissed off than ever:)
 
SaskMick said:
You are right in that I am indeed sincere. You are wrong that I can't detect anything unless I already know it's there.

I can give you a good example if you want to hear it, but please bear in mind that I an very new to dowsing so I can't give you 100 examples.
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Please do provide your examples, including the detailed test protocol that you used.

ETA: "Spur of the moment" YouTube videos don't count.
 
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Nakani said:
I think he was looking for a friendly discussion about dowsing and some how ended up here.
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I ended up here as I could not find the answers I was looking for elsewhere, and I have not yet found them here either:( Still, I feel far more at home here than the Hippie type forums I have visited:)

Nakani said:
As for his location, judging by his avatar name I'm guessing he is an Irishman (mick is slang for Irish?)living in Saskatchewan Canada.
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I am English by birth, and now proudly Canadian.

There is a big difference between an English accent and an Irish one. Can you really not tell the difference ?
 
Rat said:
ETA: My father was a Michael (albeit never a Mick). I have never known a less Irish man. It is a common name in England.
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Mick, Mike, Spike. They are all nicknames derived from Michael.

I know a bloke called Nick. but I think that's just his Nick name :)
 
SaskMick said:
Mick, Mike, Spike. They are all nicknames derived from Michael.

I know a bloke called Nick. but I think that's just his Nick name :)
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You come back to the thread and refuse to stay on topic. Don't you realize you're not following the forum rules? You started this thread with claims about your dowsing abilities. Stick to that.
 
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