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The VFF Test is On!

Right... so the results of this IIG test will have no bearing on how you perceive that particular incident?
Exactly. Because in that particular experience, I did detect the missing kidney. But I would assume that there is some normal, as opposed to paranormal explanation, and I would know based on the results of the IIG Preliminary failing, that in addition to being a mundane experience, it is something I can not do consistently or repeatedly.

If that's the case, why are you even bothering with the test? If a negative result will not dissuade you of your certainty, and if you are not prepared in advance of the test of the implications it has for the veracity of your perceptions, you might as well not bother.
Once the claim is falsified I will know plenty more about what the perceptions are and what they are not. I will know that they are not the case of a consistently accurate, paranormal ability of perception.

You're starting in the wrong place. You seem to have convinced IIG to test how your powers work without testing whether or not they really exist in the first place. You have given yourself an infinite number of outs, because as you say yourself, you will "keep having perceptions".
How old are you? The IIG Preliminary is checking to see whether there is something there worthy to be tested. But for goodness sakes, volatile! The perceptions are something I experience automatically, they are images that appear in my mind on their own. The perceptions will occur regardless of what I think they are or what I know they are. If I think they are a paranormal ability, then they will appear and occur in the very same way as if I know they are not a paranormal ability. Are you assuming that I choose to have the perceptions? Like when a psychic "chooses" to perform a psychic reading, or to make a reading with tarot cards? My perceptions occur on their own. So they will continue to occur even after the Preliminary and just as before, just as often and just as vividly, only that I will have more knowledge about what they are and what they are not. Do you understand this? Please?

When I use the word "perception", it is not said implying accuracy. The perceptions are just images and feeling. If I say I have a perception of an organ, it does not mean to imply that that perception is also accurate, or inaccurate. It just is. Why so much confusion, volatile?
 
If I fail the Preliminary demonstration, the claim is falsified. It means that the medical perceptions are not consistently accurate. It means that they are not extrasensory perception. The cause for confusion, I think, is that the perceptions will continue to occur. Another source for confusion is that the perceptions will continue to be accurate in many cases at least, but that would of course probably be due to unintentional cold reading that automatically translates into corresponding images... This is complicated. But what it means is that when the claim is falsified, the perceptions are not consistently accurate and they are not interesting. :confused:

I am getting a bit nervous. It's only three weeks left until then.
 
Exactly. Because in that particular experience, I did detect the missing kidney.

So when you said "my claim is falsified", you meant nothing of the sort?!

Why exactly are you bothering with the test, if this is your attitude?

But I would assume that there is some normal, as opposed to paranormal explanation,
There is no normal explanation by which one can perceive a "missing left kidney" by sight alone.

This is precisely the point, and precisely why Joe and I and GeeMack are so pointed about this test. It just gives you outs like this. It does not actually test the substance of your claim at all, and will not dissuade you of what seems to me to be a delusion that you can see inside people's bodies, even if you fail.

You are not entering this as a test of the veracity of your perceptions, and it seems that the test has not even been designed to do this. Instead, you're approaching it as a test of how your perceptions work, which is precisely one step beyond where this test should be starting. Shouldn't you be testing whether or not you really can see kidneys, and not just whether or not your vision of kidneys is "normal" or "paranormal"?

Why so much confusion? Because you use words like "falsify" when you mean nothing of the sort.
 
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Similarly, you can't be sure either that any of what you remember doing earlier today did in fact happen. First of all, if I were prone to having false memories, it would be very likely that friends and family would have pointed out inconsistencies to me in my life before, but that has never happened. I have not once experienced having my memories of events challenged by persons who were there with me and who witnessed events with me. My recollection of things has never been shown to be incorrect in the past, or challenged by people who experienced it with me. That in itself has some significance, although of course that does not provide conclusive credibility to my claim of having detected the kidney being missing.


They were yes/no questions. In your speculation about the various possible outcomes of the demonstration under discussion you said...

I am open for additional alternative explanations besides paranormal perception and synesthesia, however it is not possible that the accuracy in the past would have been all in my mind. And I am certain about that. That's why this is a paranormal investigation.


Your certainty prompted me to ask...

Do you have the professional expertise to make that assessment, or has some professional with the expertise made that assessment?


Since your response above didn't answer the questions, let me simplify...

Yes or no, regarding your statement, "[...] it is not possible that the accuracy in the past would have been all in my mind," do you have the professional expertise to make that assessment?

And again yes or no, regarding that same statement, has a professional with the expertise made that assessment?
 
:cry1 But, I detected the missing kidney! What am I supposed to do with that! That's why it's a paranormal investigation! It's not supposed to be possible, yet, I did it! And it was my strongest perception ever!
 
If I fail the Preliminary demonstration, the claim is falsified. It means that the medical perceptions are not consistently accurate.

These two sentences do not follow. You should be checking whether or not they even happen and are not simply imagined, not simply whether they are consistently accurate.

If the test is just testing whether or nt your perceptions are always accurate, and not whteher they reflect any kind of external reality at all, ever, you've given yourself an out before the test is even taken.
 
GeeMack, has a professional made the assessment that everything you think you did earlier today, did in fact take place or whether it was all in your mind? I did detect the missing kidney, and I am sorry about that because it is too provocative. And there is nothing I can say. I really really did it, and I am *almost* starting to wish that I hadn't. Because you are trying to convince me that it did not happen, when it did happen. I know it happened. It isn't supposed to be possible, but I have these perceptions of internal organs, and they are accurate. Now let's just wait three more weeks and then we can conclude on that, one way or the other.
 
:cry1 But, I detected the missing kidney! What am I supposed to do with that!

Maybe you imagined it. That's what you should be testing.

If you're going into this test presuming that you detected the missing kidney, and are not actually investigating this question at all, the test is pointless. Isn't it? If it cannot tell us, or convince you, if you really can detect missing kidneys or not, it's a waste of everyone's time, especially yours.
 
I detected the missing kidney and so there! I DETECTED THE MISSING KIDNEY! And that's why this is a paranormal investigation! There is no way that particular experience could have been imaginary or constructed after the fact! Just the way it is! Now accept that, and there's only three weeks left until the Preliminary! I am so very sorry that this subject is so provocative and that it turns your whole worlds up side down, but I did detect the missing kidney!
 
I detected the missing kidney and so there! I DETECTED THE MISSING KIDNEY! And that's why this is a paranormal investigation! There is no way that particular experience could have been imaginary or constructed after the fact! Just the way it is!

So what's the point of doing the test?

I'm serious. Why are you bothering flying halfway across the country to carry out a test that will tell us nothing about whether or not your ability to see kidneys exists, nor dissuade you of the notion you have superpowers if you fail?

As a scientist, Anita, might I ask how you would test whether or not you really can detect kidneys (and not simply how accurate you are, or how often, but whether or not you have this ability at all)? And how would you test if your memory of the Dr. Carlson Incident was flawed or not?

There are a thousand explanations as to what's going on here that do not conclude that you have the ability to detect kidneys - False memories, confirmation bias, self-delusion, and many other documented psychological phenomena among them. Why have you not attempted to rule them out, and why is this test not attempting to rule them out? Why are you unwilling to do a test that actually answers the important questions? You should not be interested in the accuracy of your kidney perceptions until you are sure you can detect kidneys in the first place, which is, sadly, a question you seem summarily unwilling to actually investigate in any scientific, dispassionate way.

Frankly, I'm rather astonished that this test is proceeding given that it is manifestly not designed to actually reveal anything at all about whether or not you really can see kidneys inside people.You haven't turned my word upside down at all, because this test will not actually test what for me is the most interesting question, which is whether or not you really can detect kidneys. That's a massive shame.

What would turn my world upside down is a test that would actually examine the veracity of your claims, not just their efficacy. Would that you would do one, though.
 
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As such, this test is valuable, in that it will do what the MDC can not do, convince her that she doesn't have the claimed power. That's my take anyway.

Have you reconsidered this, given recent posts?
 
GeeMack, has a professional made the assessment that everything you think you did earlier today, did in fact take place or whether it was all in your mind? I did detect the missing kidney, and I am sorry about that because it is too provocative. And there is nothing I can say. I really really did it, and I am *almost* starting to wish that I hadn't. Because you are trying to convince me that it did not happen, when it did happen. I know it happened. It isn't supposed to be possible, but I have these perceptions of internal organs, and they are accurate. Now let's just wait three more weeks and then we can conclude on that, one way or the other.


Your evasion, twice, of my actual question is noted. If you're having trouble understanding what I'm asking, let me know.

You were speculating about the possible outcome of your upcoming demonstration, and you made a pretty unambiguous claim followed by, "And I am certain about that." Regarding your statement, "[...] it is not possible that the accuracy in the past would have been all in my mind," do you have the professional expertise to make that assessment? Yes, or no?

Also regarding that same statement, has a professional with the expertise to determine if it might have been all in your mind made that assessment? Yes, or no?
 
I detected the missing kidney and so there! I DETECTED THE MISSING KIDNEY! And that's why this is a paranormal investigation! There is no way that particular experience could have been imaginary or constructed after the fact! Just the way it is! Now accept that, and there's only three weeks left until the Preliminary! I am so very sorry that this subject is so provocative and that it turns your whole worlds up side down, but I did detect the missing kidney!


Did not!


Failure.gif
 
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I detected the missing kidney and so there! I DETECTED THE MISSING KIDNEY! And that's why this is a paranormal investigation! There is no way that particular experience could have been imaginary or constructed after the fact! Just the way it is! Now accept that, and there's only three weeks left until the Preliminary! I am so very sorry that this subject is so provocative and that it turns your whole worlds up side down, but I did detect the missing kidney!
No. Quite frankly: No.

You believe you detected the missing kidney. This is very often a quite shocking relevation to people when such things can be proven to them. Unfortunately, proof is probably not possible in your case, but you must trust me when I tell you that people can have absolute total recall of an incident, ... and be wrong.

This is not as mysterious as it may appear. If you would study how the human brain functions you will find out how it happens. It is a common, and mostly useful property of our brain that it interprets and adapt our perceptions to make them fit our world-view. Unfortunately, it sometimes fools us. It is entirely possible (and I might add, entirely sane) that you may have a precise and comprehensive memory of detecting the missing kidney, and in reality something else may have happened (e.g. that you aquired the information in some other way).

Hans
 
I detected the missing kidney and so there! I DETECTED THE MISSING KIDNEY! And that's why this is a paranormal investigation! There is no way that particular experience could have been imaginary or constructed after the fact! Just the way it is! Now accept that, and there's only three weeks left until the Preliminary! I am so very sorry that this subject is so provocative and that it turns your whole worlds up side down, but I did detect the missing kidney!


There is no way? Wrong. Actually the way it could have been constructed after the fact was, well, Dr. Carlson told you he was missing a kidney after you gave him the once-over, and only then, after that fact, did you make any claim about having perceived it. You detected a missing kidney using one of the most common everyday perceptive techniques available to humans. Someone told you. Now if you could only get the IIG to agree to let you use that same method in your upcoming demonstration. :rolleyes:
 
Frankly, I'm rather astonished that this test is proceeding given that it is manifestly not designed to actually reveal anything at all about whether or not you really can see kidneys inside people.
You're losing me, volatile. The test does, in fact, test her ability to see kidneys. On what basis do you say it does not? The outcome is binary: pass or fail.
 
I detected the missing kidney and so there! I DETECTED THE MISSING KIDNEY! And that's why this is a paranormal investigation! There is no way that particular experience could have been imaginary or constructed after the fact! Just the way it is! Now accept that, and there's only three weeks left until the Preliminary! I am so very sorry that this subject is so provocative and that it turns your whole worlds up side down, but I did detect the missing kidney!

Just like the dowsers you apply critical thinking to, you have no justification to say you detected anything until you demonstrate otherwise under repeatable rigorous tests. For now the most parsimonious explanation is that you took a punt based on a feeling and got lucky.

Enjoy your demonstration and the associated Warholian limelight.
 
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I detected the missing kidney and so there! I DETECTED THE MISSING KIDNEY! And that's why this is a paranormal investigation! There is no way that particular experience could have been imaginary or constructed after the fact! Just the way it is! Now accept that, and there's only three weeks left until the Preliminary! I am so very sorry that this subject is so provocative and that it turns your whole worlds up side down, but I did detect the missing kidney!

My bolding.

Then what are the tests/demos for?
'Just the way it is'?

I think the 'att. trreatment's the lady wishes to latch onto the Californian excursion point to the lady's possible motivations. It isn't the first time I've seen a similar schtick sincere perception inquiry play out this way.

Nor, I daresay, is it the first time for the IIG.;)
 
I detected the missing kidney and so there! I DETECTED THE MISSING KIDNEY!

Well, now that you have added and so there!, and repeated most of it in caps, that makes it so scientifically plausible that it all must be true. You just needed a couple of more "really trulys" to be able to post it in a peer reviewed magazine. Do you need help as to where a "really truly" needs to be added so that a paper will meet peer review?

And that's why this is a paranormal investigation! There is no way that particular experience could have been imaginary or constructed after the fact! Just the way it is!

I assume you are talking about the "missing kidney" which you NOW claim to have seen, but never ever documented until after you were told it was missing. Is the good Doctor really even missing a Kidney, or was he playing a game with you, and how do you know?

Now accept that, and there's only three weeks left until the Preliminary! I am so very sorry that this subject is so provocative and that it turns your whole worlds up side down, but I did detect the missing kidney!

You are starting to sound like a kid in the queue for Star Tours at Disneyland on her first visit, and about to pee her pants. Relax, sniff the flowers, have a glass of Red and relax. My world is upside down (I am after all in Australia) but I do not start countdowns and then start panicking when they are three weeks away, as you appear to be doing. You are the only nervous person here. The rest of us are just enjoying the ride.

And provocative? One word - Ha!

Norm
 
Look! A post for VfF to ignore!

I am open for additional alternative explanations...

You've been offered additional alternative explanations, and you rejected them all.

...besides paranormal perception and synesthesia...
Human beings do not have the ability to see inside the human body. Period. So, if paranormal perception is ruled out by the demonstration, and since synesthesia cannot explain your claimed ability, there is no 'mundane' explanation, except that your mind created a false memory of detecting Dr. Carlson's missing kidney, and you've convinced yourself that it is true.

...however it is not possible that the accuracy in the past would have been all in my mind. And I am certain about that.
It is quite possible. You simply refuse to acknowledge that.

As GeeMack has asked-several times now-do you have the professional expertise to make that assessment, or has some professional with the expertise made that assessment? Yes or no?

I did detect the missing left kidney that time. It was absolutely not a false memory that I would have constructed after the fact.

As GeeMack has asked-several times now-do you have the professional expertise to make that assessment, or has some professional with the expertise made that assessment? Yes or no?

And if you think about it, why else would I be betting my entire claim on that single isolated experience, if it weren't just that compelling?
Well, let's see. The story has now been picked up by several news outlets, and the IIG is lauding you on their website for being a unique paranormal claimant who is willing to put her money where her mouth is, etc, so it's quite possible you are also motivated by the attention.

You know from the past exactly how careful I am with this claim.
You are? Please explain in what ways you have been 'careful' with this claim. You have yet to produce the data from the study. You have not even provided any evidence that Dr. Carlson verifies that he is, in fact, missing a kidney. All you have offered is a detailed description that, quite possibly, is a memory created by your imagination, and "I really, really did!"

This experience was so true and so compelling that if I fail this Preliminary then I have no doubt in my mind that the claim is falsified.
In your view, falsified as a paranormal perception, but not disproven as a genuine experience. What's the point, besides the attention?

As for my other types of experiences, this medical perceptions claim is the only claim that I am seriously interested in investigating. I do intend to team up with a few people and visit supposedly haunted sites and see if I can verify or debunk my experience of ghosts, and if I do find a normal explanation to it, I will be happy to be one of the few or first who actually experiences ghosts, to admit that it isn't reality based at all.
Really? I, Miss Kitty, and Ravenwood have offered solid, factual evidence that your experiences of the ghost of Ben Franklin and Revolutionary War ghosts were not reality based, and you refuse to admit that. It follows that you are saying what you believe sounds good, in order to appear virtuous, without any real intention of following through.

I haven't chosen my experiences, and I am a science student and skeptic so rather than assume that my unusual experiences are reality based, I have chosen to investigate them.
You do assume that your unusual experiences are reality based. You've proven that over and over and over.

I will most likely be putting the migraine healing claim to the test on the same weekend that I have the IIG Preliminary, depending on if California laws permit me to do that. I might be falsifying two claims in one weekend, isn't that nice?
Does that mean you will be contacting the appropriate regulatory agencies in California to clear this migraine healing demonstration with them, or are you just going to wing it?

As for my experience of colors and vibrations, I will continue to experience those whether I investigate or falsify them or not. I will continue to draw inspiration from these for scientific hypotheses in my work. But you will never see me entering into the woo economy. I think I will rather join forces with you all and become an investigating Skeptic. Having personal experience with these things, and having rationally falsified those claims, will probably make me a very good Skeptic indeed.
When have you rationally falsified your claims? You claim synesthesia, but refuse to be tested for it by a qualified doctor. You provide nothing but anecdotal evidence to support your claims. You refuse to systematically and properly rule out other explanations for your claimed abilities. Your claims will never be rationally falsified. You will simply acknowledge that the kidney claim is not "paranormal", but continue with the "I really, really did!"

Similarly, you can't be sure either that any of what you remember doing earlier today did in fact happen. First of all, if I were prone to having false memories, it would be very likely that friends and family would have pointed out inconsistencies to me in my life before, but that has never happened. I have not once experienced having my memories of events challenged by persons who were there with me and who witnessed events with me. My recollection of things has never been shown to be incorrect in the past, or challenged by people who experienced it with me. That in itself has some significance, although of course that does not provide conclusive credibility to my claim of having detected the kidney being missing.

Since your family and friends cannot verify the authenticity of your claimed 'genuine experiences', this point is moot. As GeeMack has asked-several times now-do you have the professional expertise to make that assessment, or has some professional with the expertise made that assessment? Yes or no?

I know how I sat there and was debating to myself whether to write down "missing left kidney" on the questionnaire. I spent several minutes looking into his back and confirming time and time again for myself that his left kidney was not there. I know how I held the pen against the paper, ready to write, and how my logic was telling me that surely I must be wrong because he doesn't seem to be the kind of person who has had kidney problems and had a kidney removed (my knowledge of the subject was not very broad at that time), and my logic was telling me that I would never hear the end of it and that I had been correct in many compelling cases in the past and had to make sure that I could proceed with the investigation for the sake of those past accurate perceptions. My mind was entirely certain that the perception was wrong, but the perception was entirely certain that the left kidney was not there.

Anyhow. Based on anything I know about myself, I did have that perception during the reading. And that is why I am betting my entire claim on that single experience...
And it is entirely possible that Dr. Carlson told you he was missing a kidney,and, since you desperately wanted to have accurately detected something, your mind created this detailed 'memory'. The human mind is a tricky little device.

Before you say, again, that that isn't possible. as GeeMack has asked-several times now-do you have the professional expertise to make that assessment, or has some professional with the expertise made that assessment? Yes or no?

...All I am asking is that you allow me to make this paranormal claim, because, that is what this is.
"Allow" you? No one here has prohibited you from making any claim. It isn't possible for us to do so.

I detected the missing kidney and so there! I DETECTED THE MISSING KIDNEY! And that's why this is a paranormal investigation! There is no way that particular experience could have been imaginary or constructed after the fact! Just the way it is!...

"So there"? What are you, eight?

As GeeMack has asked-several times now-do you have the professional expertise to make that assessment, or has some professional with the expertise made that assessment? Yes or no?

Now accept that...
Why should we accept that when you have not properly ruled out other possible explanations? As GeeMack has asked-several times now-do you have the professional expertise to make that assessment, or has some professional with the expertise made that assessment? Yes or no?

I am so very sorry that this subject is so provocative...
Provocative? It isn't. It's disturbing, but it isn't provocative.

...and that it turns your whole worlds up side down
Wow, giving yourself an awful lot of importance there, aren't you? I doubt anyone's world has even mildly shifted over this.

...but I did detect the missing kidney!
If this demonstration isn't going to change that belief, then what is the point, beyond attention seeking?
 
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