New PSI forum

[Lucianarchy]

The dominant belief at this point is that there is nothing that goes anywhere near demonstrating "PSI" even if you could get two peple to agree on what "PSI" is.

I think you will find that there are studies which show that the overwhelming population of the world actually do 'believe' in things like 'esp', 'telepathy', 'spirit' etc,. Certainly, these days there is now increasingly positive scientific evidence which supports the liklihood of these 'psi effects'.

The simplest explanation is that current scientific knowledge does not yet have an understanding of the action.

 

[Lucianarchy]

In other words the more people that believe in Santa Claus the more likely he is to pop into existance.

Those "words" are yours, not mine. At one point in my existence, he most certainly did, not any more though The evidence has swayed my thinking to just see him as a character from folklore. I would say, though, if you have been in the company of his many believers at certain times of the year, you most certainly can still feel the 'magic' his image invokes.

 

[Lothian]

Those "words" are yours, not mine.

Please explain how the logical conclusion of your theory would not lead to the creation of Santa if enough people believed in it. After all you believe if enough people want certain lottery numbers to come up you believe they will. I see no difference. In any case you would not be alone among paranormal believers to hold to the theory that we can make fantasy figures appear through mere belief.

BTW I note you are responding quite rapidly to my posts. Do you still claim to have me on ignore and only quote me because someone PM’d you to tell you what I said or am I now on you best buddy list ?

 

[Lucianarchy]

Please explain how the logical conclusion of your theory would not lead to the creation of Santa if enough people believed in it. After all you believe if enough people want certain lottery numbers to come up you believe they will. I see no difference. In any case you would not be alone among paranormal believers to hold to the theory that we can make fantasy figures appear through mere belief.

BTW I note you are responding quite rapidly to my posts. Do you still claim to have me on ignore and only quote me because someone PM’d you to tell you what I said or am I now on you best buddy list ?

No, you are indeed now my best buddy! I just don't like rudeness, the rest of you, I like. I don't hold a grudge for long.

Re; Santa. I thought I'd already explained that. I'm not very good at explaining things sometimes, sorry

Non believers can still feel the magic of the imagination of the experience of the child believer. If you haven't experienced it, you are missing a treat.

I guess the adult version is 'Mr God', with his white beard etc,.

Did Santa never exist in your own personal history?

 

[CFLarsen]

It is certainly possible that there are other dimensions of existence which human perception has generally not yet percieved.

You didn't answer my questions:

Do you believe in fairies? Yes or no?

Goblins? Yes or no?

That millions of Americans are abducted by aliens? Yes or no?

 

[Lucianarchy]

You didn't answer my questions:

Do you believe in fairies? Yes or no?

Goblins? Yes or no?

That millions of Americans are abducted by aliens? Yes or no?

I think you will find that I did answer your questions, Claus. I said that it is certainly possible that there are other dimensions of existence which human perception has generally not yet percieved.

If that is not acceptable to you, then I am sorry for you.

 

[Lothian]

No, you are indeed now my best buddy! I just don't like rudeness, the rest of you, I like. I don't hold a grudge for long.

Re; Santa. I thought I'd already explained that. I'm not very good at explaining things sometimes, sorry

Non believers can still feel the magic of the imagination of the experience of the child believer. If you haven't experienced it, you are missing a treat.

I guess the adult version is 'Mr God', with his white beard etc,.

Did Santa never exist in your own personal history?

Listen bud, you are really getting me confused now.

With Santa you suggest that the effects only exist in the mind but with lottery numbers you talk about an actual effect. Please clarify. If lots of people believe something does your theory state that it is likely to make it happen or merely that the believers imagine it happens (but doesn’t really).

 

[Lucianarchy]

Listen bud, you are really getting me confused now.

With Santa you suggest that the effects only exist in the mind but with lottery numbers you talk about an actual effect. Please clarify. If lots of people believe something does your theory state that it is likely to make it happen or merely that the believers imagine it happens (but doesn’t really).

My 'psipothesis' says that consciousness forms reality. I am inclined to think it is often invoked through mutually shared symbolic projections. This could account for some UFO's, poltergeist effects, 'ghosts', even the drawing of '911' on the New York Lottery, on the first anniversary of the attack on the WTC in New York.

 

[CFLarsen]

I think you will find that I did answer your questions, Claus. I said that it is certainly possible that there are other dimensions of existence which human perception has generally not yet percieved.

If that is not acceptable to you, then I am sorry for you.

Very well: You think they are possible. What do you base that on?

 

[Lucianarchy]

Very well: You think they are possible. What do you base that on?

My 'psipothesis' says that consciousness forms reality. I am inclined to think it is often invoked through mutually shared symbolic projections. This could account for some UFO's, poltergeist effects, 'ghosts', even the drawing of '911' on the New York Lottery, on the first anniversary of the attack on the WTC in New York.

There do not appear to be many proponents of goblins and fairies in this point in time, but their existence has been reported by people in the past when magical properties were the predominant belief. In the 21c people are more likely to see 'aliens', reflecting the changing nature of symbols in more modern times. If 'aliens' are a projective creation of the human psyche, it could re-present a symbolic alientation of the '(s)elf' of humanity.

 

[Lothian]

My 'psipothesis' says that consciousness forms reality. I am inclined to think it is often invoked through mutually shared symbolic projections.

So to repeat myself. you are saying that if the mass consciousness has a belief in Santa then it forms the reality of Santa.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I would believe your testimony.

You have NO reason to lie and I have no reason to expect you would.

Your experience was obviously profound enough for you to abandon what I would call a logical sceptical path for one that gives more credence to “psi” and its ilk !

I don't think I have abandoned logic. I had to abandon some things I had previously assumed to be true in order to accomodate what happened into the rest of my belief system. For example I am no longer a materialist but I am still a darwinist. Had I abandoned logic I would have been completely and utterly lost.

However you MUST accept that in spite of its profundity, in spite of its reality to you that humans ARE capable of HONESTLY accepting unreality as reality.

Yes, most humans do this.

Off course YOU think it is real..

Sometimes it is unacceptable for us to think WE can be fooled or deluded. It is perfectly normal human nature to THINK we have it right.

Yeah, but that cuts both ways. Deep down you are 99.9% convinced (if not 100%) that I have made some sort of honest mistake! And that is fair enough. Just like you are asking me whether there is a glimmer of possibility that it could all just have been a mistake, I could ask you whether there is a glimmer of possibility that in fact I have made no mistake. But I have several times in this thread also said that I think the world needs both skeptics and paranormalists. I'm not here on a mission to convince anyone who is as skeptical as I was.

You naturally don’t think you have been deluded, hallucinating, dreaming, creating false memories etc… yet all these are REAL FACTUAL reasons for fantastic experiences… they are far more real and likely explanations than the fantastic experience actually being reality.

Depends on how fantastic the experience was, and the context. There are limits to what can be put down to hallucination, especially if you are a person who has experimented with as many hallucinogens as I have. The trouble is that the more fantastic the claim I make, the less likely you are to believe I am telling you the truth. Yet, the more fanatastic what actually happened, the less likely I am able to put it down to hallucination.

I cannot convince your experience was not real.. as to you it was. The only thing you must say does the experience fit into reality outside of subjective experience… if the answer is NO then look for a mundane explanation.. most generally human failing and misperception.

Yes, it fitted, but I had to rearrange some things.

I'll try to give you an example of what I mean. From my perspective, I saw the past altered. From the POV of most humans beings, this is beyond absurd. Even most paranormalists would tell you that the past is absolutely fixed and that events which occured in the past cannot be altered. But why are we so sure of this? Think a bit harder, and you realise that a fixed past is one of those things like the sun going round the earth - it is completely obvious to us, but only true from one very limited perspective. In fact, science tells us that the past is not fixed. Think about Schroedingers cat. According to S, the cat is both dead and alive until you open the box - so here we have an event which lies in the past (the potential death of the cat) which is in a fuzzy indeterminate state until we open the box - at which point the history becomes fixed. The cat thought experiment itself causes many people a great deal of trouble - precisely because it suggests that the past isn't fixed. So when I make a claim that I have experienced something very similar happening to me it isn't contradicting logic or science at all. It is merely contradicting some assumptions we have made about reality which actually turn out to be wrong. I have not abandoned logic, but I have abandoned my belief in a completely fixed past.

 

[CFLarsen]

So to repeat myself. you are saying that if the mass consciousness has a belief in Santa then it forms the reality of Santa.

My question, too.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Ok, perhaps I am going to be foolish enough to jump into the ring.

It is not so simple as "everyone believes in Santa and Santa becomes reality." There are conditions. For example, it does not matter how many people believe in perpetual motion machines, because if perpetual motion machines are physically impossible then they cannot be incorporated into reality without creating a contradiction. For this reason it is incorrect for any new-ager or paranormalist to make claims like "you create your own reality" or "you can have anything you can focus your mind on" (claims some of them do actually make). On the other hand, it is all too easy for the skeptics to throw in lines like "If we all believe in Santa then Santa will appear", because Santa is as impossible as the perpetual motion machine. In bringing up this example you are not demonstrating that the whole idea is ludicrous, you are simply demonstrating it has limits, and the limits are defined by what is logically possible - by that can be incorporated into current reality without creating a logical contradiction.

From the POV of the new ager, everybody creates their own version of reality but these "reality tunnels" are held together into one single logically coherent whole. They don't just have to cohere with each other (everyone believing in Santa) - the whole system is a whole system and it has to be completely self-coherent (Santa can't break the laws of physics or logic).

 

[Lothian]

Ok, perhaps I am going to foolish enough to jump into the ring.

It is not so simple as "everyone believes in Santa and Santa becomes reality." ...For example, it does not matter how many people believe in perpetual motion machines, because if perpetual motion machines are physically impossible then they cannot be incorporated into reality without creating a contradiction. ... Santa is as impossible as the perpetual motion machine.

I fully agree Geoff and the ‘psi effects’ that Luci quotes are just as impossible as the perpetual motion machine.

However Gary Schwartz confirmed to Marc Berard that his theory did mean that Santa etc would come into existence if there was enough conciousness. Luci regularly quotes Gary Schwartz so the natural conclusion is that she agrees with him that the impossible can be created if you just get enough people thinking hard enough.

That she won’t directly answer Claus’s questions or mine confirms in my mind that we have correctly ascertained her beliefs.

 

[scribble]

Ok, perhaps I am going to foolish enough to jump into the ring.

From the POV of the new ager, everybody creates their own version of reality but these "reality tunnels" are held together into one single logically coherent whole. They don't just have to cohere with each other (everyone believing in Santa) - the whole system is a whole system and it has to be completely self-coherent (Santa can't break the laws of physics or logic).

So, Geoff, in what way does God posting messages on your computer NOT violate the laws of physics or logic?

I'm just curious, you know.

 

[CFLarsen]

JustGeoff,

It isn't the skeptics who claim that "If we all believe in Santa then Santa will appear". That's Lucianarchy, and he is the opposite of a skeptic.

Why is it logically impossible that Santa doesn't exist? You point to physical laws, as a reason why a perpetual motion machine cannot exist, but how can people remote view, independent of time and distance? How can they dowse for water, claiming electromagnetic influence, yet these are not tracable? How can they be abducted by aliens? How can they talk to dead people?

Do you believe in something supernatural that is logical and physically possible?

 

[CFLarsen]

That she won’t directly answer Claus’s questions or mine confirms in my mind that we have correctly ascertained her beliefs.

That's true. And, it becomes even more true, the more people believe it!!!

 

[The Don]

Something could be said to come into existence when belief is so strong that all evidence to the contrary is simply dismissed as a hoax or a mistake.

For example, if everyone believed that, say, Jim Carey was a mythical character trying to prove otherwise would be terrifically difficult particularly if those people are desperate not to be wrong.

- Show them his films - they'll say you faked them
- Introduce them to people who've met him - they'll say they're lying
- Introduce them to him - they just won't see him or they'll assume they're giving into the group psyche

Lucianarchy believes that there is no such thing as absolute truth, merely the interpretation of personal experiences (after all, we have nothing else). Whilst this is doubtless correct, many people prefer to consider the type of evidence and soruce as part of their analysis of whether something is "true". Thus, a reliable, expert, impartial person (say an independent vehicle inspector) may be a better judge of whether a car is road worthy than an inexpert (say The Don) or partial, unreliable (the person selling the car) person.

Some people believe that the vast repository of anecdotal evidence is highly significant on the grounds that "they experienced it so they should know". Lucianarchy is not so ignorant that he/she/it says that everyone is a wholly reliable witness but I guess that the volume of evidence is such that some of them must be - aren't they ?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I fully agree Geoff and the ‘psi effects’ that Luci quotes are just as impossible as the perpetual motion machine.

I haven'ty been following all of Lucis posts, so I do not know precisely what has been claimed. If it is physically/logically impossible then no amount of belief will make any difference. However, I have already seen Claus try to argue that all PSI effects are impossible based, only to then base his argument of psycho-kinesis breaking Newtons laws. Many supposed forms of PSI aren't impossible. Many are impossible. But you cannot discount the possible ones by citing examples of impossible ones.