John Edward - psychic or what?

[Garrette]

No. It's the Gish Gallop.

Norm

Gish is a bit more careful not to so carelessly make an indirect admission if that which he is so deceitfully trying to avoid admitting.

 

[Robin1]

So this is an admission that your claim of proof of life after death communication is incorrect?

Garrette, No, I was hoping it would open your eyes to the fact that even you believe there are some things that can't be scientifically proven to your own satisfaction but are indeed real anyway. So some of you beliefs need scientific proof? But not all? That seems biased to me. Checkmate? : )

 

[Garrette]

Garrette, No, I was hoping it would open your eyes to the fact that even you believe there are some things that can't be scientifically proven to your own satisfaction but are indeed real anyway. So some of you beliefs need scientific proof? But not all? That seems biased to me. Checkmate? : )

"Even" me? There's the admission again.

Robin, I long ago stopped claiming the infallibility you claim for yourself. I also stopped claiming I have no unproven beliefs. The two differences are that (1) I admit when I am shown to be wrong (and change my conclusions), and (2) When I have an unproven belief I refrain from claiming it is proven.

So here we stand. Your last two posts are obvious if indirect admissions that your claim of proof is mistaken, though you fail to see it despite having written it. These posts are also obvious attempts to avoid the key questions. The last post is an indication that you do not read or do not understand or intentionally ignore inconvenient facts, i.e., love has been proven.

So, no. Not checkmate. I'm afraid you are barely playing checkers.

 

[pakeha]

...The road to belief in woo is a very easy one, which is why so many millions travel it. It's the road back to reality that's difficult as it requires not just a willingness to doubt something you'd really like to be true, but the capacity to understand difficult (and often counter-intuitive) concepts like probability theory and the effects of cognitive biases. There are many who make the journey successfully however - there are several of them contributing to this thread - so there's hope for you yet. All you really need is strength of mind.

I'll second that and add another important capacity- the one to write off what can amount to huge amounts of money to charlatans.

...Yet John Edwards IS still a fraud, lest that be forgotten.

Yes.

That's ABSURD. The morning of 9/11 I was sitting in my workshop at home watching the news on one television while playing a video game on the second. I watched the first plane's hit as reported with curiosity, when the second hit I quietly shut the TV off, got on my computer and checked what the cutoff age was for re enlisting in the military. ...

Are you quite certain you saw the first plane's hit?
http://rense.com/general17/lie.htm

 

[Pixel42]

The point is that even if batvette's memory is entirely accurate, it's still not evidence of telepathy. The explanation I gave - that his friend unconsciously picked up on the fact that he didn't want her to leave and had an auditory hallucination of him calling her back - is more likely simply because auditory hallucinations are an established phenomenon, and telepathy is not.

Auditory hallucinations are actually surprisingly common, and aren't always a sign of mental illness. When I was a kid I was lying in bed one night and heard someone say my name. I answered out loud - "Yes?" - thinking someone had come into my room, though I hadn't heard anyone come up the stairs, but there was no-one there. I was completely alone. Telepathy never occured to me as an explanation as there was no obvious sender, instead I wondered for years if God had called my name that night. I no longer consider that a likely explanation.

 

[Foolmewunz]

That's ABSURD. The morning of 9/11 I was sitting in my workshop at home watching the news on one television while playing a video game on the second. I watched the first plane's hit as reported with curiosity, when the second hit I quietly shut the TV off, got on my computer and checked what the cutoff age was for re enlisting in the military. (I was one year over) I was hoping I'd finally get to write my name on the nose of the nuke we didn't drop on the Ayatollah when I enlisted in the Navy in 1979.

Your argument is silly. It may as well prove that 50% of us remember everything about that morning.

As I said, your acceptance of the facts as I presented is not a requirement for me to get through my day, but it says a lot when the argument is presented that people offering these stories have augmented them to validate their position. You have to augment them to validate your own.

I accept that telepathy has no scientific documentation. If you think I'm going to let some anonymous person posting under a pseudonym in an internet forum convince me that a very well recalled event should be discarded as just that much confusion in my head you are delusional.

Funny enough you have the easiest position of all to argue: "I don't believe it" until it's your argument people forget how they heard about 9/11.

I don't believe it. Do you forget how you heard about it?

So you recall 9/11 very well? Are your words to be taken at face value, or are you just loosely relating the events of that day? I ask because you're pretty clear in your wording in most posts and do not generally have a problem in clearly expressing your thoughts. Yet, those of us who have been involved in years of debunking 911 Conspiracy Theories can tell you that you have either mis-worded your opening statement, or you have a faulty recollection.

Would you like to re-state it in terms of what you actually were doing and actually saw on the television? And if this seems like a test... well, it is. You have been given numerous links to articles on something that is fairly common knowledge around here - the human memory is very flexible.

 

[batvette]

I'll second that and add another important capacity- the one to write off what can amount to huge amounts of money to charlatans.





Yes.



Are you quite certain you saw the first plane's hit?
http://rense.com/general17/lie.htm

I stated I saw the first plane's hit as reported. i.e; the report of the first plane's hit.
Please don't think word play can make a point when none exists.

 

[Femke]

Ad hominems are not necessary, even when craftily implied.

Each of our human faults can be assumed to be somewhat different. I display more than enough. Including not knowing when to walk away from arguments.

I did not attempt an ad hominem, I genuinely wanted to thank xterra for his/her links to those articles. I knew of them, but I never went through the motions of finding them. And since you steadfastly claimed that your memory is not fallable, while we know that all other humans' are, I added this observation.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

I'm smart enough to remain very aware of my biases while evaluating.

I love it! What hubris!

If we can put together enough people who are smart enough to remain very aware of their biases, we should be able to do away with that pesky "scientific method".

This is not an ad hominem - you may in fact be very smart. But one level above you are those "smart enough" to realize that, no matter how smart one is, there are always conscious and unconscious factors at play when evaluating data and claims and conclusions.

And, let me echo "Resume": what point has Batvette "won" on? I honestly don't remember what you might be referring to.

 

[batvette]

So you recall 9/11 very well? Are your words to be taken at face value, or are you just loosely relating the events of that day? I ask because you're pretty clear in your wording in most posts and do not generally have a problem in clearly expressing your thoughts. Yet, those of us who have been involved in years of debunking 911 Conspiracy Theories can tell you that you have either mis-worded your opening statement, or you have a faulty recollection.

Would you like to re-state it in terms of what you actually were doing and actually saw on the television? And if this seems like a test... well, it is. You have been given numerous links to articles on something that is fairly common knowledge around here - the human memory is very flexible.

You know what I meant. I watched the reports of the first plane hitting. Don't think you trying to trip me up over a word or two is relevant to anything. There are but what, two film clips of the first plane hitting, from amateurs, who would not have had that film available immediately to the news media that morning for anyone to claim they watched the first plane hit. Why would I claim such a thing? And anytime you want to hold your skills at debunking 9/11 twoofers up to mine I'd be happy to play.

Even though I would eventually employ sources what I retain off the top of my head is usually sufficient to destroy most of their arguments.

Here is an interesting figure you could offer me if you know it. Do you have an accurate calculation of what the difference was in released (or absorbed by the building) kinetic energy between the event of 1945 with the B-25 and one of the 767's that hit the twin towers?

Various crude estimates I've seen suggest a number which exceeds 250 times, maybe much more. Variables include how low the loiter speed of a B-25 might be, (below 100 kts?) what the luggage and fuel load of the 767 was, (MTOW is in the 370,000 lb range of the larger version, but they don't fly with full tanks, some estimate 10,000 gallons, which may even be high, but that's 7lbs/gal) etc etc.

Of course it's superfluous when considering the Empire State building was constructed of steel reinforced concrete, not steel, but it shows the level of ignorance employed when they claim that event should show comparable precedent.

(chief architect Robertson went on to informally calculate the damage of a 707 in a similar scenario while in early design phase- which someone erroneously perverted into a 600 mph collision)

It's off topic as hell but if you see we have common ground perhaps that's a good thing.

And yes the question and details within are from memory.

So who here wants to claim they changed their story about where they were and what they were doing that morning? The authors of those articles won't admit that.

 

[Resume]

So who here wants to claim they changed their story about where they were and what they were doing that morning? The authors of those articles won't admit that.

Since you refuse to actually read the link here's an important paragraph. Pay special attention to the highlighted.

What accounts for this unreliability? One factor must be that remembering is always re-remembering. If I think back to how I heard the awful news about 9/11 (climbing out of a swimming pool in Spain), I know that I am not remembering the event so much as my last act of remembering it. Like a game of Chinese whispers, any small error is likely to be propagated along the chain of remembering. The sensory impressions that I took from the event are likely to be stored quite accurately. It is the assembly – the resulting edit – that might not bear much resemblance to how things actually were.

 

[Resume]

I did not attempt an ad hominem, I genuinely wanted to thank xterra for his/her links to those articles. I knew of them, but I never went through the motions of finding them. And since you steadfastly claimed that your memory is not fallable, while we know that all other humans' are, I added this observation.

All others.

 

[Resume]

Garrette, No, I was hoping it would open your eyes to the fact that even you believe there are some things that can't be scientifically proven to your own satisfaction but are indeed real anyway. So some of you beliefs need scientific proof? But not all? That seems biased to me. Checkmate? : )

I remember a guy who when confronted with an inevitable loss while playing chess would sweep the pieces off the board and declare "Checkmate!"

This reminds me of that.

 

[Femke]

I remember a guy who when confronted with an inevitable loss while playing chess would sweep the pieces off the board and declare "Checkmate!"

This reminds me of that.

This thread sounds more like stalemate to me.

 

[Garrette]

That does indeed seem to be the case. I think what Jose Silva was doing was trying to improve the possibility of verifiability. The more we could understand how it could be summoned, the more we could summon and observe it- and that will be difficult because I believe when it happens it is very subtle and very easy to be dismissed as random noise.
What if it happened only once in a person's lifetime? How would you learn to distinguish it from a daydream or even a delusion? Especially if you believed it were impossible?

Sorry for taking so long to reply to this.

I think you are misunderstanding the implication of the existence of the phenomena being indistinguishable from their non-existence. The indistinguishability arises from the fact that the plausible and mundane explanations have not been excluded; if it arose from anything else, it would not be indistinguishable.

 

[Garrette]

I trust you include yourself and your perceptions in that assessment?

So how would an outside and objective observer determine which conclusions of yours are correct and which of batvette's are correct?

Trust his gut.

Somehow I missed this earlier. Sorry about that.

First, it is interesting though not surprising that you did not address the question about including yourself in the group of those who are not perfect. Your analyses so far have all rested on the assumption that you, and you alone, are.

Second, "trust his gut"? Another admission, then. There are no criteria. You have no proof for your conclusions, you have only feeling, fallible feeling. Yet you insist at the same time that you do have proof.

I don't know why I am always surprised and amazed at the lengths to which believers go to ignore fact and evidence and the extent of the cognitive dissonance. It really is fascinating, if only to remind me how much I have done it myself in the past and to prompt me to continue to look for it in my own reasoning.

 

[carlitos]

That was noise, in an effort to push a point which really is pointless.
From a debate POV you should have recognized the epic phail inherent to two articles which attempt to argue people cannot remember what they were doing when the news of 9/11 broke, with both authors accurately describing what they were doing when they heard the news.

What is your evidence that the authors described their experiences on 9/11 accurately? If they were in the norms of the study being quoted, they are likely to be almost half wrong on the details.

 

[batvette]

All others.

What you've not shown is that all humans can not recollect a few events in their life with reasonable accuracy.
I don't claim my memory has perfect retention. The factors you have tried to introduce to dismiss this as bad memory are not the kind of things memory mistakes would comprise anyway. Why would I recall that our relationship never made it to first base and forget that instead she came back with a mutual interest for intimacy that she'd wanted all along, left, but decided to come back for instead- on the same night I thought I'd try a mental trick on her? You've now to change every other detail about the story too, like she came back and we made out on the couch for hours. That's just dumb since the purpose of it was to cause what your theory would require actually had happened!

That's complete bull and it's obvious you're only throwing up any argument you think will stick.

Let's not get away from the fact that neither of those authors or any of you will admit to being in this group of morons who changed their stories about where they were on 9/11. Why would you expect me to concede this as what happened when I remember that morning very clearly?

Polls and research often claim "XX" % of Americans cannot locate Rhode Island or Iran or Japan on a map.

That's NEVER me and if that's you, be it geography or simple long term memory retrieval, whoopee.

Let's finally not forget people are sent to prison for life on murder convictions merely on eyewitness testimony.

 

[Garrette]

What you've not shown is that all humans can not recollect a few events in their life with reasonable accuracy.
I don't claim my memory has perfect retention. The factors you have tried to introduce to dismiss this as bad memory are not the kind of things memory mistakes would comprise anyway. Why would I recall that our relationship never made it to first base and forget that instead she came back with a mutual interest for intimacy that she'd wanted all along, left, but decided to come back for instead- on the same night I thought I'd try a mental trick on her? You've now to change every other detail about the story too, like she came back and we made out on the couch for hours. That's just dumb since the purpose of it was to cause what your theory would require actually had happened!

That's complete bull and it's obvious you're only throwing up any argument you think will stick.

Let's not get away from the fact that neither of those authors or any of you will admit to being in this group of morons who changed their stories about where they were on 9/11. Why would you expect me to concede this as what happened when I remember that morning very clearly?

Polls and research often claim "XX" % of Americans cannot locate Rhode Island or Iran or Japan on a map.

That's NEVER me and if that's you, be it geography or simple long term memory retrieval, whoopee.

Let's finally not forget people are sent to prison for life on murder convictions merely on eyewitness testimony.

What has been introduced is the surprisingly mundane and disappointing fact that memories are not as reliable as we think, even those memories that seem like they must be reliable because they are associated with memorable events and comprise emotionally powerful images. No one here can say exactly what happened; no one is claiming to. That, however, does not diminish the argument. There are myriad variations of what might have happened; your telepathic version is only one, while the remainder are mundane.

And for the record, the reliance on eye witness testimony has long come under attack for just the reasons discussed here -- it is unreliable. Victory is far from won, but the science is still solid.

ETA: In response to your claim that no one has admitted to being in the "group of morons," you are wrong on at least two counts. First, no one except you has called them morons, and given your earlier indignation at what you mistakenly called an ad hominem, it doesn't do much for your credibility. Second, some one in this thread has already admitted that he accepts his memory might be mistaken in regard to 9/11. Add me to that group. I have a strong memory of it, but I may be wrong. Even if I have the general context correct, the details could easily be wrong. Same for the Challenger disaster and a few others.

 

[carlitos]

Ignoring most of the straw men and red herrings in batvette's last post, changing details of a story over time does not make one a moron. It makes one human.