Hello from a non-skeptic

[Audible Click]

I know you feel overwhelmed by questions so I'll just make a statement. I think that all of the skeptics, including me, that have posted in this thread would be very open to believing in paranormal events. The problem is that there has never ever been ANY paranormal event that has stood up to scientific scrutiny. I'd be thrilled if someone was scientifically proven to have psychic powers but until that happens I will remain skeptical. I honestly don't think that we can convince you to apply critical thinking to your personal experiences and I doubt that you will be able to sway us over to your way of thinking. Having said that, I'd advise that if this thread is of interest to you, relax and answer the questions that you feel like answering. I do appreciate that you were willing to "stand corrected" in regard to the Poole case.

 

[Robert Oz]

Ah, so my memory has been corrupted

Very probably to some degree, assuming you are a human being.

and nothing I encountered is as I remember it

No, some of it may be as you remembered it. Even much of it may be as you remember it. But it isn't necessarily exactly as you remember it.

because I was conned by a very clever system but no one know exactly how it works

Yes, you may have been conned by a very clever system. And, yes, we do know how it works. I have little doubt I could convince people I am psychic. I've given short demonstrations to people in casual conversation about cold reading and there are others on this forum that have done it as well.

Cold reading can be learned. You can even buy books about it. The methods are very well known to skeptics. Watch Derren Brown's performances.

and my memory has played tricks on me.

Very probably to some degree, assuming you are a human being.

So my wife was not pregnant when I was not told that she was. So Diana didn't die seven days almost to the minute after the prediction was made to me. So the medium, or the spiritual entity, didn't know what I had been thinking a couple of days before... Geeeeez...

So the black woman in the video hadn't dreamed of an elevator. So the man in the video didn't almost drown as a child. So the other woman didn't have a collection of photos on the wall of her apartment.

Cold reading, cold reading, cold reading.

 

[Mashuna]

We now know as a fact that the human consciousness, or our intent in observing the reality around us, collapses quantum waves into particles and effectively plays a significant role in the elaboration and creation of our “realities”.

Are you sure about this fact? I seem to recall you had a misunderstanding earlier in the thread around what the observer effect actually meant.

 

[AdMan]

It would be extremely difficult for me, in fact practically impossible simply by describing these events such as they happened, to share them with the same impact and effect that they had upon me when they did - the awe, the confusion between belief and disbelief, the total incapacity and inability to comprehend, the shock and the impact of each word and circumstance. All I can do is narrate them as they occurred, and hope and pray that those who might read this story will at least believe me when I say that such events did indeed happen to me.

Why should we? I would hope that at the very least you agree that memories from a night when you had just been vomiting due to overindulgence in alcohol are highly suspect.

 

[Gao]

Ah, so my memory has been corrupted and nothing I encountered is as I remember it because I was conned by a very clever system but no one know exactly how it works and my memory has played tricks on me. So my wife was not pregnant when I was not told that she was. So Diana didn't die seven days almost to the minute after the prediction was made to me. So the medium, or the spiritual entity, didn't know what I had been thinking a couple of days before... Geeeeez...

Please actually read up on human memory. Unless you're claiming to be a robot or something, the problems of the human. People really do unconsciously alter events in their head and have no idea that they do it. There was an episode of Unsolved History about Roswell where they actually showed this in action.* If I recall correctly, they filmed some hikers and staged an event where they ran into some men in military uniform, who told them they had to leave. A little while later (I think it was like 2 months or something), they interviewed them about the incident, and they described having guns pointed at them, being threatened, and various other things that never actually happened. None of them had any idea that they weren't describing things as they happened. Human memory simply mutates over time, and it tends to exaggerate. Again

*Anyone know where I can find a video of this? I was hoping someone would have it on Youtube, but I can't find it.

"Forgive me for coming up to speak to you like this,” he began saying as he approached me, “but I have seen all that you have been going through here in the region above your eyes. This has never happened to me so clearly. Forgive my asking, but why are you drinking like this? Is it because of that woman who left you? You must not do this. You must be stronger. You must think of your son..."

Honestly, this is the least impressive thing you've shown so far. It's hardly a stretch to guess that a sad looking drunk guy is having relationship problems, and at your age, it's hardly a stretch to think that you'd have a son. This is basic, basic cold reading.

 

[Christian Klippel]

Ah, so my memory has been corrupted and nothing I encountered is as I remember it because I was conned by a very clever system but no one know exactly how it works and my memory has played tricks on me. So my wife was not pregnant when I was not told that she was. So Diana didn't die seven days almost to the minute after the prediction was made to me. So the medium, or the spiritual entity, didn't know what I had been thinking a couple of days before... Geeeeez...

Charles, you know what is really funny? That you have the guts to accuse others of putting words in your mouth, while most of the time it is the other way 'round.

No one ever said that nothing you encountered was as you remember it. Just that parts of your memory are highly likely to be corrupted, as is anyone else's. That's what is meant when people keep telling you that memories are fallible. Fallible does not mean "never correct in anything at all".

People have repeatedly explained to you how that "system" works (hint: it isn't a system). Claiming that no one knows how such things can happen is highly dishonest on your part.

The prediction did _not_ say that Diana was going to die. It was _not_ "almost to the minute" either, far from it. On the contrary, the "prediction" was a vague and general statement. It is your mind that want's to believe it was precise. But it was not.

Yes, the medium did not know what you were thinking. It made a lucky guess, that's all. Same way as some people make a lucky guess in the lottery and actually win millions. Again, how many predictions did that medium make that did not come true? Your constant refusal to answer or acknowledge that question makes one wonder why that is so.

From chapter 8 of my story:

[...snip...]

You start to remind me of VisionFromFeeling, aka. Anita Ikonen, aka. Alenara. Give the forum's search function a try. Big wall of text's with silly excuses and attempts of further blurring the debate was one of her favorite techniques. Constantly avoiding to answer the questions that touched the core of her beliefs, and denying anything that proved her wrong was also a common practice of her.

And i say it again, in different words: If you intend to claim the high horse for you about people putting words in your mouth, you better dare not do the same to others. You know, it makes your debating technique look dishonest. For example, you accused someone to have put words in your mouth, to which i and others have given you the exact quote of your very own post that proved otherwise: That in fact you did say it. And that was only one example. Now do the same and show us where any of us have said what you claimed has been said in the above quoted post. If you can not do so, an apology is in order.

Greetings,

Chris

 

[Olowkow]

I sense that Charles wishes he had not bothered to "shake the all knowing pedestals" and that he may be experiencing the first doubts he has ever felt about the validity of the supernatural. The realization that all the ghosts and goblins are not real should be an empowering and liberating sensation.

 

[carlitos]

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible."
--Albert Einstein

 

[Olowkow]

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven. --Shakespeare

Mae fy hofrenfad yn llawn lysywod.
==Yyogidd Bllerradd

 

[Alice Shortcake]

Charles, I recently discovered that two of my most vivid childhood memories are nothing more than fantasies. They both involve buildings which don't exist and couldn't possibly have existed. I also "remember" my family talking about the death of John Lennon, but the conversation took place in the living room of a house we left a couple of months before Lennon was shot. Haven't you ever had a similar experience? Memory is notoriously fallible. People have spent years in prison because juries were swayed by the eyewitness evidence of people convinced they were telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, only to be released when DNA testing proved their evidence.

 

[Nonpareil]

Ah, so my memory has been corrupted

Corrupted? No. Imperfect? Yes. You are human. Your powers of recollection are not perfect, and are much more subject to outside influence and belief than you might believe.

This is not an insult. It is simple fact. Human memory is almost never reliable except in the broadest of cases. "I saw a plane" is probably correct. "I saw a Boeing 747" is probably not, depending on the situation.

and nothing I encountered is as I remember it

No, a lot of it may be exactly as you remember it. However, some of it probably isn't, and it's the bit that probably isn't that we are concerned with here.

because I was conned

Not necessarily.

but no one know exactly how it works

Depending on the situation, we may indeed be able to tell you exactly how it worked. The Ouija session, for example.

and my memory has played tricks on me.

Yes.

So my wife was not pregnant when I was not told that she was.

Don't strawman, please. I never said that. I said that the prediction made to you is probably not evidence of the paranormal, and since you have not given details on the prediction and the situation in which it was made to you, there is no reason for us to think otherwise.

So Diana didn't die seven days almost to the minute after the prediction was made to me.

No one said that. What we did say - and what is entirely correct, by the way - is that the prediction made to you was so ridiculously vague as to be applicable to almost anything. That it was Diana who died was mere coincidence - any member of any royal family with any kind of distant relation to you (which is somewhere around eighty percent of them) could have died in her place and "fulfilled" the prediction.

 

[Akhenaten]

I sense that Charles wishes he had not bothered to "shake the all knowing pedestals" and that he may be experiencing the first doubts he has ever felt about the validity of the supernatural. The realization that all the ghosts and goblins are not real should be an empowering and liberating sensation.

Since we're doing quotes . . .

The trouble with talking too fast is you may say something you haven't thought of yet.

- Ann Landers​

 

[PetersCreek]

Plenty of time to post tirades against strawmen but not so much to answer questions. Check.

Charles,

For any given event, we can't absorb all the details attendant to it. When details are missing from our perception, we sometimes fill in what we subconsciously expected to see. We may also incorporate details later provided by others, as if we had percieved them ourselves. When describing the event to others, we may add yet more detail with each retelling. This is not to say that you're lying or deluded...and it doesn't really matter how very sure you are of all those details. You're going to leave some things out and add others. It's just the way the human brain works and you are not exempt.

The Problem With Eyewitness Testimony
Physics 3333 / CFB 3333 Eyewitness Testimony
Eyewitness Testimony (several document links)
Eyewitness Memory is Unreliable

The last link contains a remarkable anecdote that suggests just how unreliable our recollection of events can be, especially when they are emotionally charged:

Australian eyewitness expert Donald Thomson appeared on a live TV discussion about the unreliability of eyewitness memory. He was later arrested, placed in a lineup and identified by a victim as the man who had raped her. The police charged Thomson although the rape had occurred at the time he was on TV. They dismissed his alibi that he was in plain view of a TV audience and in the company of the other discussants, including an assistant commissioner of police. The policeman taking his statement sneered, "Yes, I suppose you've got Jesus Christ, and the Queen of England, too." Eventually, the investigators discovered that the rapist had attacked the woman as she was watching TV - the very program on which Thompson had appeared. Authorities eventually cleared Thomson. The woman had confused [the] rapist's face with the face [that] she had seen on TV. (Baddeley, 2004).

 

[SezMe]

Ah, so my memory has been corrupted and nothing I encountered is as I remember it because I was conned by a very clever system but no one know exactly how it works and my memory has played tricks on me. So my wife was not pregnant when I was not told that she was. So Diana didn't die seven days almost to the minute after the prediction was made to me. So the medium, or the spiritual entity, didn't know what I had been thinking a couple of days before... Geeeeez...

And you whine about us putting words in your mouth? Pot, meet kettle.

 

[Audible Click]

And you whine about us putting words in your mouth? Pot, meet kettle.

QFT. This is turning out just like an Anita Ikonen thread.

 

[catsmate]

Oh, for crying out loud... My youngest son was just three months old. The age difference between him and my daughter is of exactly one year and one week (10 May/17 May). Just quite how often does that happen?

I have three elder siblings; their birth dates encompass 106 weeks.

All the time. In some third-world countries it is the norm.

 

[tsig]

Well, there's certainly one way to test that claim. Since this person is so great, please

I'm sure the medium herself would jump at the opportunity. The spiritual entities / spiritual guides she works with would not. In truth it would be even better if a team from the foundation came to Rio and went to encounter this for themselves. I have told you I can provide the address for the spiritualist center I used to take part in.

I did provide another example (that she should have known what I had been thinking a couple of days before concerning the non-existence of God) and will give others, if you will just give me a little more time to do so before jumping down my throat. But that's it, all I can provide you with are personal experiences. Would the foundation be willing to pay my air-ticket so we can test the hypothesis of doing the Ouija blindfolded? Personally I do not think that a true spiritual entity responding should need a medium's eyes to do so.

Ladies and Gentlemen, rather than beating believers to a pulp with your argumentations, in which I am also having to take your word for them, what you really should be saying is not that such phenomena does not exist, but that you don't know the answer to this question because to this date you still do not have the means to test such phenomena..."

Looks like you're going to ask the questions and answer them for us too. Kinda makes the rest of us redundant.

 

[Olowkow]

There is a question that I find hard to phrase.

What if someone predicts something that comes true but never claims to be a medium or any kind of seer? I predicted the banning of the member who was posting in this thread, and sent a PM to another member (who didn't even raise an eyebrow) stating my prediction yesterday. I did not claim I came to this by reading the Tarot cards, or by using a Ouija board...just common sense and reasoning. I am very interested to know if this sort of thing would have been as life changing an experience for Charles as his medium's predictions, or would I have had to claim, a priori, that I was a fortune teller for this to be impressive?

ETA: I'm afraid this may not be clear. If my buddy across the street had told me he had a hunch one of the royal family members was going to drop dead this week, and Diana was in fact in the deadly accident in this time frame, I would later tell my friend, whoaa! you are spooky! He'd probably agree. But, to base one's life decisions on this kind of stuff? Wow!

 

[tsig]

Sorry, but you cannot make this statement. I lived through them. You didn't. I know exactly what happened and what the circumstances were. You don't. I have had to deal with all sorts of presumptions here that are/were not true in relation to what I experienced.

The only difference between us is that I had the opportunity to encounter them. You didn't.

Sorry, but you cannot make this statement. I lived through them. You didn't. I know exactly what happened and what the circumstances were. You don't. I have had to deal with all sorts of presumptions here that are/were not true in relation to what I experienced.

The only difference between us is that I had the opportunity to encounter them. You didn't



It's just as true when I say it.

 

[Apology]

You say that the Ouija example seemed like a "setup by skeptics" to you. Well, isn't that what any experiment is? The experimenter "sets up" the conditions of the experiment in order to test a hypothesis or theory under controlled conditions.

If you don't like the way Penn & Teller presented their experiment, why don't you try the exact same experiment at home? That way, you can pick people that you know are believers, and you'll know for sure that they aren't skeptical. You will know ahead of time that the people you choose would rather see the Ouija Board theory proven to be true rather than false. You'll know that it isn't a "skeptical setup" because you aren't a skeptic, and neither will your chosen participants be skeptics.

I guarantee you that if you perform this experiment the exact same way as portrayed in the Penn & Teller video, you will get the same results, no matter who you have sitting at the table. That's the point of experiments: to eliminate any possibility of biased interpretation of result. I strongly encourage you to try the experiment in your own home with your own chosen subjects.

In addition, please read up a little more on the Scientific Method. All skeptics ask is that any claimant subject their claim to the Scientific Method. If any person is able to demonstrate any type of psi power or phenomena during an experiment using the Scientific Method, and they're able to repeat those results, then all skeptics will accept their claims as true and verified. So far, NOBODY has managed to prove any sort of psychic power or phenomena of ANY KIND under conditions that follow the Scientific Method.