Psychics - Aussie skeptic says it like it is

[AndyD]

I know this is a waste of time, but I'll tell it anyway, Some may under stand. My daughter went to England and stood looking down into a valley cluttered with houses, she was describing how it was to her friend only to be over heard by a local. The local said come with me and took her to a medieval painting of the scene she stated. She had never been overseas in this life time. One for Buzz.

Let me get this straight... Your daughter was in England, looking at some houses in a valley. She described this scene to her friend (who was there with her? by phone? later at home?). Someone (a local of somewhere - England? Australia? Where?) overheard your daughter describing a valley with houses and then showed her a painting of a valley with houses and this is amazing...

1. ...because there's only one painting in the world of a valley with houses
2. ...because there's only one valley with houses in the world and someone painted it
3. ...because she'd never travelled overseas so it's amazing that anyone ever built houses in valleys or painted pictures of them
4. ...because the painting had survived a very long time
5. ...because anecdotes are not usually as compelling as this one
6. ...because your daughter was whispering and the man didn't look like he had good hearing
7. ...because you think it is
8. ...because your daughter followed a stranger who listens in on people's conversations
9. ...because Buzz needs all the help he can get, even if it makes no sense

Please tick the correct answer then explain how this demolished Fitzsimons' call for the public denouncement of "psychics".

 

[Mashuna]

Let me get this straight... Your daughter was in England, looking at some houses in a valley. She described this scene to her friend (who was there with her? by phone? later at home?). Someone (a local of somewhere - England? Australia? Where?) overheard your daughter describing a valley with houses and then showed her a painting of a valley with houses and this is amazing...

1. ...because there's only one painting in the world of a valley with houses
2. ...because there's only one valley with houses in the world and someone painted it
3. ...because she'd never travelled overseas so it's amazing that anyone ever built houses in valleys or painted pictures of them
4. ...because the painting had survived a very long time
5. ...because anecdotes are not usually as compelling as this one
6. ...because your daughter was whispering and the man didn't look like he had good hearing
7. ...because you think it is
8. ...because your daughter followed a stranger who listens in on people's conversations
9. ...because Buzz needs all the help he can get, even if it makes no sense

Please tick the correct answer then explain how this demolished Fitzsimons' call for the public denouncement of "psychics".

Ah, I remember when all this was just fields.

 

[wombatwal]

Ah, I remember when all this was just fields.

Ah, Mashuna, you must be "Full Blood" Welsh.

 

[buzz lightyear]

Ah, Mashuna, you must be "Full Blood" Welsh.

Did you say "full bodied" Welsh.
This is full bodied Welsh!


And if you are as Welsh as this girl Mashuna I will gladly peel your onions under water.

 

[Old Bob]

AndyD & Mashuna, will try to spell it out. My daughter (Australian never been out of Australia) went to England with friend. Looked down into cluttered valley and described (to friend) a medieval scene. Which was over heard by a local who took her to see a very old painting. The painting was exactly what she said. Now if that's not psychic what is? She was remembering a past life. Do you play football Andy?

 

[Brian-M]

Couldn't we do someone slightly more interesting like, say, Dame Edna or even Barry Hall, anything but Fitzy.

Why not do both? We can ask ourselves who would win in a fight. Dame Edna or Peter Fitzsimons?

After all, this thread is already thoroughly derailed, and you seem determined to push it further.

 

[AndyD]

AndyD & Mashuna, will try to spell it out. My daughter (Australian never been out of Australia) went to England with friend. Looked down into cluttered valley and described (to friend) a medieval scene.

Ahh, so when you said she "stood looking down into a valley cluttered with houses", she was actually just looking into a valley and describing something in her head?

Which was over heard by a local who took her to see a very old painting. The painting was exactly what she said.

Exactly? Can you define "exactly" in this instance? Are we talking specific buildings in precise locations, roads, activities?

Now if that's not psychic what is?

Maybe nothing. Is she as inclined to belief as you are? Maybe she post-fit the data as many believers clearly do.

I recall one specific reading on episode one of "The One" (Oz TV) where Ezio De Angelis managed a few correct hits in a row (from the edited version we saw) and said to the woman sitter "you're on fire my sweet!" - a typical throw-away line that has nothing whatsoever to do with fire. The woman replied "we actually did have a fire". Ezio correctly laughed off this correlation since it was obvious he never claimed to have seen a fire. However, in the post-reading interview, the woman said she was amazed how he got so many things right "the new car, THE FIRE and the renovations". She was so desperate to fit the psychic data she was accepting hits where none existed.

There were many other examples of misses and non-guesses being claimed as hits by the sitters in the five episodes. Belief is a powerful drug it would seem.

She was remembering a past life.

Or past movies, or books or paintings. I can picture a valley filled with dinosaurs, it doesn't mean I was around when they roamed Earth.

Maybe she wasn't remembering a past life but was remote viewing the painting, or reading the stranger's thoughts or picking up the energies of the spirits who had lived in that village or maybe she's time-travelled to this place before or maybe her thoughts "attracted" (LOA style) the painting into being or maybe the medieval artist saw into the future, saw her describing this scene then painted it - maybe she's not the one with the gift after all? How do you determine which paranormal possibility to apply when there's no evidence for any of them?

 

[Cuddles]

never been out of Australia ... went to England

Given that you're telling a story about her being in England, how exactly is the "never been out of Australia" part supposed to be relevant? Are you trying to imply that she could never have seen a valley before or something? Since you're claiming that she perfectly described something from several hundred years ago, why would it matter if she'd left Australia before? She could have lived in England all her life and it still wouldn't have been possible for her to have seen it hundreds of years ago. Do you just enjoy stressing irrelevant nonsense as part of your stories, or were you actually trying to make a point and failing miserably?

Ahh, so when you said she "stood looking down into a valley cluttered with houses", she was actually just looking into a valley and describing something in her head?

Well, given that this was England, it's entirely possible that the houses and roads would be in exactly the same place as they were in medieval times. It often seems that many Australians, Americans and people from other recently colonised places don't understand just what it's like living somewhere with a long history. There aren't just a few ruins to remember past times, there are useable, working buildings dating from the Vikings and even the Romans. Medieval is nothing.

Look at valley. Replace road with dirt track. Remove a few obviously new houses. Replace roofs with thatch (if they're already thatch, bonus). Hey presto! Medieval valley.

 

[tyr_13]

I think we are all forgetting a major hole in this being psychic; the guy that led her to the painting. This can't be claimed to be psychic because if she had described a different scene, this man could have just taken her to a different painting that matched what she said.

It is really, really stretching to call it psychic for someone to match a painting to a description.

And no Old, you can't travel to England without hearing a little about it's past, if from no other source than tourists on the plane.

 

[Old Bob]

Well as usual a tiny bit of the story is distorted and possibilities are put forward that sound like OJ court case. If all history is treated the same and I think much is, what a mess. I can see it's no good starting on the hologram reality, which is fun to try to explore, but that's another one of those wacky mind things. Psychic stuff is open to cons, smart guys and dreamers but some is way beyond the so call law(restrains) of the world we think we live in. Consider this, we only see a tiny bit of the light spectrum, same for all the body sensors, what about the rest? More full bodied Welsh pictures please.

 

[arthwollipot]

More full bodied Welsh pictures please.

I think this is the most intelligible thing you've said so far, Bob.

 

[AndyD]

Consider this, we only see a tiny bit of the light spectrum,

Which proves that Fitzsimons has obviously managed to break through that partial blindness and can see frauds a mile off. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[buzz lightyear]

More full bodied Welsh pictures please.

Glad you liked the Welsh girl Old Bob. Her name is Catherine Jenkins and she is more than just.............interesting.

You see my trip is harmonics. I use them the same way the aboriginals did. To enter the outer worlds.
Occasionally I can hit and hold a note like this girl can, and when I do "hallelujah" I can talk to the gods.

So if you want to know what it sounds like when the time gates open just have a listen to this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp2Njyd9678

Anyway I have been chewing over the story about your daughter.

Could be a couple of things.

Maybe the Rupert Sheldrake "collective conscious" thing happened.
Your daughter tapped into a species memory.

Or perhaps time isn't as linear as we would like to think.
Maybe it is layered like Mashuna's onion. So at the right spots at the right time the layers become transparent allowing sight back into the past.

Whatever,.......... it does happen. Unfortunately not on demand, otherwise it would be possible to knock off old Jimmy's million quite easily.

Lord knows I could do with the dough, gotta put a new rear crankshaft seal in my landcruiser.

 

[politas]

AndyD & Mashuna, will try to spell it out. My daughter (Australian never been out of Australia) went to England with friend. Looked down into cluttered valley and described (to friend) a medieval scene. Which was over heard by a local who took her to see a very old painting. The painting was exactly what she said. Now if that's not psychic what is? She was remembering a past life. Do you play football Andy?

Or, like I said earlier, she may have seen a reproduction of that exact painting (or a similar painting by a different artist of the same scene) in a book years ago, and unconsciously remembered it due to the similarities or permanent geography in the modern scene. This seems far more likely than "remembering a past life".

That's not even counting the confirmation bias issue of her description matching the painting "close enough" to be considered "exactly what she said". People's memories aren't good enough to be able to say that unless her description was recorded, and contained a great amount of detail.

I also find it difficult to believe that she described the scene exactly as it would appear in a "medieval painting". Medieval landscape paintings are known for a lack of proper perspective; the technical aspects of drawing landscapes were not considered as important in medieval times.

 

[Cuddles]

Or, like I said earlier, she may have seen a reproduction of that exact painting (or a similar painting by a different artist of the same scene) in a book years ago, and unconsciously remembered it due to the similarities or permanent geography in the modern scene. This seems far more likely than "remembering a past life".

Hell, she could have seen that exact painting on the same holiday. Where exactly was it? In an art gallery? Hidden in the basement with no stairs or lights in a locked filing cabinet behind a warning saying "Beware of the tiger!"? On the wall in a pub? Pretty much every non-chain pub I've been in has pictures of the local area of varying age. Unless she was blindfolded immediately after getting off the plane and was driven straight to that valley, it would be almost impossible for her not to have seen a similar picture.

 

[AndyD]

I also find it difficult to believe that she described the scene exactly as it would appear in a "medieval painting". Medieval landscape paintings are known for a lack of proper perspective;

Actually, I think a lack of proper perspective is a distinct possibility all round in that story.

Frankly, I think Fitzsimons made more sense than anything in that addled and ham-fisted anecdote. See how I dragged in back on topic again?

What's next Buzz? Something about rabbits maybe, or the Arlington National Cemetery? Perhaps a tale about the time you rode a minotaur? (Topics selected from here)

 

[buzz lightyear]

Actually, I think a lack of proper perspective is a distinct possibility all round in that story.

Frankly, I think Fitzsimons made more sense than anything in that addled and ham-fisted anecdote. See how I dragged in back on topic again?

What's next Buzz? Something about rabbits maybe, or the Arlington National Cemetery? Perhaps a tale about the time you rode a minotaur? (Topics selected from here)

Aw shuks, AndyD, I got a whole darn swag of good old yarns.

We might be "off topic" but look what has happened. Your pointless story about Fitzy has turned into an epic.
Even has the moderator stamp of approval via Cuddles participation.

By the way did I ever tell you the story about the time I channelled an interstellar alien pilot. I was in this servo and suddenly I thought "sulphur in the fuel, I can smell sulphur in the exhaust emissions" and................................

 

[Seanrmr]

The sulphur wouldn't have happened to be from the diesel. Which contains sulphur normally not much of a suprirse.

Frankly, I think Fitzsimons made more sense than anything in that addled and ham-fisted anecdote. See how I dragged in back on topic again?

I agree

 

[Old Bob]

Buzz, you drive the right truck, what else is there but a Landcruiser. I had no idea that my daughter would have cheated so much about the medieval scene. Wonder if she even went to England? Do you lot think that's the whole story and the only one on odd things. Sent a private message to you Buzz, have a look.

 

[Brian-M]

I had no idea that my daughter would have cheated so much about the medieval scene. Wonder if she even went to England? Do you lot think that's the whole story and the only one on odd things.

Nobody's saying she's deliberately deceiving anyone. All we're doing is pointing out how easy it is for someone to unintentionally convince themselves of something that isn't true.

She describes what she thinks the valley may have once looked like, and someone overhearing the description shows her a similar painting of how the valley once looked.

That's all fair enough.

But you're concluding from this that she had some kind of psychic connection to the land. We're not trying to say she's deceiving you, only that it doesn't seem in any way psychic to us.

If anyone is deceiving you, it's yourself.