John Edward - psychic or what?

[Resume]

Sort of- or I believe that I called out to her to come back and she did.

Mentally commanded is not a term I would use.

Well maybe you did. Out loud.

 

[dafydd]

Well maybe you did. Out loud.

Or maybe she came back of her own volition and pretended to go along with the telepathy.

 

[carlitos]

now that we know this is your position we'll just dismiss all the scientists.

don't need those guys. we know everything already.

Edit: If you would word that as "no way to be shown to exist with current scientific methodology" I would be happy to endorse that.

I have a problem with implying it cannot exist because we cannot document it with current scientific knowledge.

That's fine.

It doesn't really take much scientific knowledge, though. All a telepath has to do is show a hit rate more than random chance, and they can win a million dollars. I'm not surprised that no "real" telepath has ever come close. How about that guy who taught the classes you took? How was his success rate?

 

[Scopedog]

When I was 14 or 15 years old (I'm in my early 30's now) my father came home from work one evening and walked into the living room and before he even put down his briefcase he smiled widely and said to everyone present (my mother, my sister, and myself) "you won't believe what happened to me at work today!" I immediately said "you had your tie on backwards!"

In reality I'm not exactly sure how old I was when this happened (it was definitely late elementary or junior high school age) and I'm not sure if I was the only one in the room or if my mother and sister were also there (my mother was usually making dinner around the time that my father was due home and the kitchen is in view of the living room so it makes sense that she was probably present). I’m also not sure if he had put his briefcase down or not. However what I remember most vividly is my father’s quoted statement and my response above. Also, importantly, my father would leave for work very early in the morning before I would even wake up to get ready for school so it is unlikely that I would ever have the opportunity to inspect him before he left.

Anyway, he got an astonished look on his face and said "How did you know?" In my mind I had chosen random words in order to be facetious with no expectation that they would have a relationship to reality but it turned out that he had tied his tie so that the part that's supposed to face in was facing out. I suppose if someone says the words "tie on backwards" it could be interpreted in a few ways. The most obvious interpretation to me is that the tie is literally being worn on the back instead of in front of the chest. However the interpretation that the back is facing out also makes sense once you have the random words together with the reality for comparison.

That day and even until now I have always thought this was an amusing coincidence. I believe I have made similar improbably and eerily accurate guesses at least a couple other times in my life and I also thought those were amusing coincidences or educated (consciously or subconsciously) guesses. There are billions of people guessing things billions of times a day so it makes sense that every now and then, indeed inevitably, a guess would accurately reflect a reality.

In a world of billions of lonely and horny and amorous people with perhaps millions of incidences per moment of people desperately wishing they could telepathically communicate their true unspoken desires to someone else it makes sense that just coincidentally it should happen that what someone wants to communicate would also be what is actually perceived and this would happen quite frequently around the world by chance alone. How many times a day does a person fervently desire to renew the attention of someone they are attracted to as the object of their attraction is losing interest or leaving? How many times a day are there two people walking away from each other both feeling this towards each other without even knowing it (craigslist has a section for this called “Missed Connections”)? batvette fervently wanted for someone to come back after they left and tried with all his might to send a telepathic signal. Lets say batvette had never felt this way and never attempted to send a telepathic signal but the other person fervently wanted a telepathic signal to call them back and simply perceived one as an excuse to return. More importantly, since there is no such thing as psychic wavelengths or telepathic communication, it makes sense that batvette couldn't "seal the deal" (aka have sex with the person) since it was only a coincidence that gave him another shot and not some bond of cosmic or supernatural significance.

 

[eerok]

I have a problem with implying it cannot exist because we cannot document it with current scientific knowledge.

When you come down to it, your only evidence for telepathy is that you believe in it. If you didn't believe in it, your understanding of your experience would be different. So what surprises you about the problem that a skeptic would have with that?

 

[Fast Eddie B]

1) I was playing charades once. The person established it was both a movie and a book, that it was 5 words long and that the first word was a number. I blurted "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" - and that was it!

2) My ex and I were playing "You Don't Know Jack" on our Mac. When it got to the final and decisive question, a bug in the program just showed a grey screen. With nothing to lose, I typed in "Japan" as my answer - and it was right!

These were interesting to me at the time, but I'm sure they're kinda boring to anyone not involved. Over a lifetime, what would be really unusual would be if stories like this never happened. We remember the very few hits and don't even consider the HUGE number of non-interesting events that bracket those few oddball occurrences.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

This is a simple question that may be obvious, but...

Is batvette male or female?

I really had been assuming female all along, I guess from the structure of the screen name.

I had pictured one woman telepathically calling another back, in spite of the fact the other woman had a boyfriend - not that there's anything wrong with that!

 

[kerikiwi]

1) it was 5 words long and that the first word was a number. I blurted "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" - and that was it!

6 words

 

[Scopedog]

We remember the very few hits and don't even consider the HUGE number of non-interesting events that bracket those few oddball occurrences.

My mother claims to have premonitions. She worries a lot and whenever something bad happens she says she had a bad feeling about it. Sometimes she'll mention the bad feeling before the bad thing is due to happen. Sometimes the bad thing happens but usually it doesn't. I imagine she has a "bad feeling" about a thousand different things a day. It seems inevitable that she'd be right sometimes just by coincidence and forget all the other bad feelings that didn't result in a bad thing or connect eventual bad things with previous vague bad feelings.

 

[Scopedog]

This is a simple question that may be obvious, but...

Is batvette male or female?

I really had been assuming female all along, I guess from the structure of the screen name.

I had pictured one woman telepathically calling another back, in spite of the fact the other woman had a boyfriend - not that there's anything wrong with that!

He's been referred to as he several times in this thread and has not complained. He could be a female to male transsexual but he's definitely not psychic or telepathic nor has he ever experienced any supernatural phenomenon in his entire life and neither has anyone else. It would certainly be neat if supernatural phenomena existed though.

 

[meg]

Ok, so we've got 4 examples of someone saying they experienced ESP. Two from Robin, and two from batvette. Let's look a bit closer at these.

First Robin tells of wanting a big mac, but ordering something else, and getting a free big mac in the bag.

One has to ask, "what are the odds?" Is this an occurance of such unusual frequency that it could be more than mere coincidence?

So, first, what are the odds that someone might want a big mac at mcdonalds, but order something else? According to this link: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/100-million-dieters-20-billion-weight-loss-industry/story?id=16297197 there are approximately 108 million dieters in the US, which is somewhere around 1 in 3. So what are the chances that someone at McDonalds might want a big mac, but order something with fewer calories? Pretty good, I would say. Perhaps even 1 in 3.

So what are the odds that McDonalds might screw up an order? My own experience with our local McDonalds says this too is fairly common, and Forbes backs this up (http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolti...t-fast-food-chains-for-drive-through-service/) with a number of about 10%.

According to wikipedia, McD serves around 68 million customers per day, so if their error rate is 10%, that means there are somewhere around 6.8 million screwed up orders every day. According to this link: http://money.howstuffworks.com/10-popular-mcdonalds-menu-items.htm#page=9 , the big mac is McD's 2nd most popular item (french fries are the most popular). They sell 900 million big macs per year, which works out to around 2.5 million each day. Using their error rate, that comes to 250,000 screwed up big mac orders every day.

McDonalds spends a great deal of money encouraging people to think about big macs. I would venture a guess that almost everyone who drives up to a McD window for lunch or dinner considers, at least momentarily, ordering a big mac.

So what are the odds that someone might drive through McDonalds, think about their most popular sandwich, and then accidentally get one by error? Just using some rough guesses.. half the big mac errors are freebies, 1/3 of those are dieters..

I would guess that Robin's Amazing Big Mac Phenomenon could happen as often as 40,000 times each and every day.


Similarly, one can ask, what are the odds that a person on a cruise ship might think about drinking a pina colada, (the by far most popular drink served copiously and continuously on cruise ships), and then actually get one for free?

Again, I'm sure it happens WAY way more often than you realize.

Robin thinks these events are unusual occurances, simply because she was thinking about the thing before she got one. What she doesn't seem to completely comprehend is how much effort is made by McDonalds to make you think about big macs, and how much effort is put out by the cruise ship industry to make you want a pina colada.

She's also cherry picking. If someone wanted to test Robin's ability to psychicly summon unordered Big Macs, one would also need to count how many times Robin has gone to McD, yet not received a free sandwich.

People do a lot of cherry picking when they're talking about psychic phenomena. They proudly announce how they were just thinking about x when x called, however nobody counts or even notices how many times they've thought about x and nobody called, or maybe even the phone rang, but it was Sprint offering them a great deal on long distance.

Which sort of leads us to batvette's stories.

I'm not going to spend much time on the story of someone smoking a joint with people who he knew were thieves, becoming suspicious that they might be thinking about robbing him, and then returning to find out that they were. Not much in the way of ESP needed there.

The story of the girl returning did really crack me up, though. Oh batvette, you silly man. Did you really not know that coming back saying something like "I thought I heard you calling me" is right up there with leaving your glove, purse, hat or other item as an excuse to come back and spend another few minutes alone with someone you might be attracted to? It is a tried and true method, used often in romantic novels. The proper romantic answer would have been, "I didn't call you, but oh how I wanted to." Or "I was wishing you would come." And look at her with love in your eyes. Many a romantic novel seals such statements with a kiss that leads to something more..

You, you silly thing, though, tried to flip it on her, and pretend you were some kind of amazing powerful mentalist who could make her do your bidding with nothing but your mind. No wonder she called you a **********.


Another possibility, equally possible, is that you had also been doing some smoking prior to this encounter, and only thought you were quietly activating your superdoopermindwaves, when in actuality, you were calling out loud.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

6 words

I coulda sworn!!!

There goes my "perfect memory" theory.

 

[dafydd]

The story of the girl returning did really crack me up, though. Oh batvette, you silly man. Did you really not know that coming back saying something like "I thought I heard you calling me" is right up there with leaving your glove, purse, hat or other item as an excuse to come back and spend another few minutes alone with someone you might be attracted to? It is a tried and true method, used often in romantic novels. The proper romantic answer would have been, "I didn't call you, but oh how I wanted to." Or "I was wishing you would come." And look at her with love in your eyes. Many a romantic novel seals such statements with a kiss that leads to something more..

That's much too far fetched. Telepathy is much more likely, and pleasantly spooky.

 

[batvette]

your belief is not proof that telepathy exists.

do tell.

 

[Robin1]

Ok, so we've got 4 examples of someone saying they experienced ESP. Two from Robin, and two from batvette. Let's look a bit closer at these.

First Robin tells of wanting a big mac, but ordering something else, and getting a free big mac in the bag.

One has to ask, "what are the odds?" Is this an occurance of such unusual frequency that it could be more than mere coincidence?

So, first, what are the odds that someone might want a big mac at mcdonalds, but order something else? According to this link: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/100-million-dieters-20-billion-weight-loss-industry/story?id=16297197 there are approximately 108 million dieters in the US, which is somewhere around 1 in 3. So what are the chances that someone at McDonalds might want a big mac, but order something with fewer calories? Pretty good, I would say. Perhaps even 1 in 3.

So what are the odds that McDonalds might screw up an order? My own experience with our local McDonalds says this too is fairly common, and Forbes backs this up (http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolti...t-fast-food-chains-for-drive-through-service/) with a number of about 10%.

According to wikipedia, McD serves around 68 million customers per day, so if their error rate is 10%, that means there are somewhere around 6.8 million screwed up orders every day. According to this link: http://money.howstuffworks.com/10-popular-mcdonalds-menu-items.htm#page=9 , the big mac is McD's 2nd most popular item (french fries are the most popular). They sell 900 million big macs per year, which works out to around 2.5 million each day. Using their error rate, that comes to 250,000 screwed up big mac orders every day.

McDonalds spends a great deal of money encouraging people to think about big macs. I would venture a guess that almost everyone who drives up to a McD window for lunch or dinner considers, at least momentarily, ordering a big mac.

So what are the odds that someone might drive through McDonalds, think about their most popular sandwich, and then accidentally get one by error? Just using some rough guesses.. half the big mac errors are freebies, 1/3 of those are dieters..

I would guess that Robin's Amazing Big Mac Phenomenon could happen as often as 40,000 times each and every day.


Similarly, one can ask, what are the odds that a person on a cruise ship might think about drinking a pina colada, (the by far most popular drink served copiously and continuously on cruise ships), and then actually get one for free?

Again, I'm sure it happens WAY way more often than you realize.

Robin thinks these events are unusual occurances, simply because she was thinking about the thing before she got one. What she doesn't seem to completely comprehend is how much effort is made by McDonalds to make you think about big macs, and how much effort is put out by the cruise ship industry to make you want a pina colada.

She's also cherry picking. If someone wanted to test Robin's ability to psychicly summon unordered Big Macs, one would also need to count how many times Robin has gone to McD, yet not received a free sandwich.

People do a lot of cherry picking when they're talking about psychic phenomena. They proudly announce how they were just thinking about x when x called, however nobody counts or even notices how many times they've thought about x and nobody called, or maybe even the phone rang, but it was Sprint offering them a great deal on long distance.

Which sort of leads us to batvette's stories.

I'm not going to spend much time on the story of someone smoking a joint with people who he knew were thieves, becoming suspicious that they might be thinking about robbing him, and then returning to find out that they were. Not much in the way of ESP needed there.

The story of the girl returning did really crack me up, though. Oh batvette, you silly man. Did you really not know that coming back saying something like "I thought I heard you calling me" is right up there with leaving your glove, purse, hat or other item as an excuse to come back and spend another few minutes alone with someone you might be attracted to? It is a tried and true method, used often in romantic novels. The proper romantic answer would have been, "I didn't call you, but oh how I wanted to." Or "I was wishing you would come." And look at her with love in your eyes. Many a romantic novel seals such statements with a kiss that leads to something more..

You, you silly thing, though, tried to flip it on her, and pretend you were some kind of amazing powerful mentalist who could make her do your bidding with nothing but your mind. No wonder she called you a **********.


Another possibility, equally possible, is that you had also been doing some smoking prior to this encounter, and only thought you were quietly activating your superdoopermindwaves, when in actuality, you were calling out loud.

Meg, you have to factor in that I NEVER had that psychological little tug of war while waiting in the drive thru about ordering a big mac before. Ever. And the ONE time I did have that whole debate going on in my brain I just happened to get a free Big Mac in my bag. What are the odds of that? The timing matters and how often I have the thought matters.

Similar story for the pina colada. I had been on the cruise for days and ordered lotsa drinks : ) BUT did not have the whole debate in my mind about how I really should just treat myself to a pina colada until it happened at the bar at bingo and then I won one.

 

[dafydd]

do tell.

I did tell.

 

[dafydd]

Similar story for the pina colada. I had been on the cruise for days and ordered lotsa drinks : ) BUT did not have the whole debate in my mind about how I really should just treat myself to a pina colada until it happened at the bar at bingo and then I won one.

I can detect nothing paranormal in that story.

 

[Resume]

Meg, you have to factor in that I NEVER had that psychological little tug of war while waiting in the drive thru about ordering a big mac before. Ever. And the ONE time I did have that whole debate going on in my brain I just happened to get a free Big Mac in my bag. What are the odds of that? The timing matters and how often I have the thought matters.

Similar story for the pina colada. I had been on the cruise for days and ordered lotsa drinks : ) BUT did not have the whole debate in my mind about how I really should just treat myself to a pina colada until it happened at the bar at bingo and then I won one.

You understand that all 7 billion or so of us experience coincidence?

 

[Foolmewunz]

Meg, you have to factor in that I NEVER had that psychological little tug of war while waiting in the drive thru about ordering a big mac before. Ever. And the ONE time I did have that whole debate going on in my brain I just happened to get a free Big Mac in my bag. What are the odds of that? The timing matters and how often I have the thought matters.

Similar story for the pina colada. I had been on the cruise for days and ordered lotsa drinks : ) BUT did not have the whole debate in my mind about how I really should just treat myself to a pina colada until it happened at the bar at bingo and then I won one.

Sorry, Robin. Like your John Edward story, these both just smack of selective (either accidental or intentional) memory.

I truly think that you and Batvette have to just realize that you believe in what you believe in and that's enough - for you. In a roomful of critical thinkers, nothing you're offering is anything but subjective support. Minor coincidences happen all the time. People who believe in woo will find a wooish explanation for them. People who want hard proof of such paranormal powers or occurrences simply see coincidences... perhaps interesting coincidences, but coincidences nonetheless.

 

[dafydd]

You understand that all 7 billion or so of us experience coincidence?

Years ago I was listening to ''Crow Black Chicken'' on a Ry Cooder album, then I put the radio on and there was a story about a black chicken on the BBC World Service. Then I drove to my family who were staying on a camp site. As I pulled into the campsite a black chicken ran across the car park. It was all coincidence. I'm sure that some of the billions of inhabitants of the globe experienced something like that on the same day. I would never tell that story here as an example of the spooky paranormal. If such coincidences did not occur, that would be remarkable.