The VFF Test is On!

Vision From Feeling,

Have a friend fill a container with nitrogen, and one with hydrogen. According to dice rolls, they will switch the containers positions while you are out of the room, you mark which is which, leave, and repeat for 20 times.

Please Answer: Why have you not done a simple experiment like this yet?

.............................. Snip, snip ...

Ness36,

We have been down this road so many times, the ruts are approaching Grand Canyon dimensions ...

VFF ignores the fact, that based on her claim, the world should appear shrouded in a green fog ..

Do not expect an honest reply from VFF ...
 
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Skeptical Greg:

I don't expect a useful reply either. I've been lurking on these VFF threads for ages. The more you think about these abilities, the more problems and inconsistencies pop up. It has been a interesting thought experiment for me. : )

Also, potato chip bags and other foods are filled with nitrogen at the factory to keep food fresh. I'm sure the list goes on and on.
 
Not to mention mortified. :)
It was reading those archives that convinced me to register here.

Hokulele linked to VFF's original thread earlier. I'd never read it, so I plowed through the 66 pages, with the links to the ghost story thread (VFF wanted to visit the White House so she could talk to mr Lincoln :eye-poppi), the posts from the FACT group and much, much more.

All in all, the hours spent reading all that showed me the IIG West is to be highly commended for negociating a workable protocol for next Saturday's demonstration.
Six days to go!

Added: thanks for a superb post Ness36.


I nominated Ness36's post for being a worthy contribution demonstrating how far out of her depth VfF seems to be. She somehow reminds my of a precocious child using big words (it doesn't know the meaning of) in order to impress gullible adults.


M.
 
Thanks everyone! I am glad you liked the post.

It is definitely true that people who don't know anything think they know all there is to know about a subject.

Really, the more you learn, the more you realize there is tons more out there that you know nothing about.

I am kind of sad someone studying chemistry is believing all these crazy things. Usually it is the engineers who believe in homeopathy, creationism, etc. ... Just kidding. ;)
 
I think this is just a misunderstanding. Synesthesia would typically be something like an association between names and colours. VFF almost certainly doesn't mean she can see hydrogen gas, rather that the word hydrogen somehow provokes a sensation of redness.

Interestingly, VFF admits that she has never been tested by a professional for synesthesia, and that she has failed online preliminary tests for it.

The truth is there is absolutely no evidence that she even has synesthesia and its unlikely that she does. She uses the explanation to give a rational facade to her superpower claims.

The overwhelming evidence suggests that Anita will fail this test - no evidence has been presented that supernatural powers exist. And when she fails, she will NOT admit that she does not have paranormal powers, she has even stated so in this thread.

Finally, along with everyone else I just have to say - excellent post Ness.
 
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Interestingly, VFF admits that she has never been tested by a professional for synesthesia, and that she has failed online preliminary tests for it.

Actually, she did pass the online test - but it was just that: an online test. The results could easily be jimmied depending on the answers given. Decidedly NOT the equivalent of a diagnosis from a medical professional.

The truth is there is absolutely no evidence that she even has synesthesia and its unlikely that she does. She uses the explanation to give a rational facade to her superpower claims.

Agreed. Anita's descriptions of synesthesia can be found online by anyone doing an in depth search. Again, decidedly NOT the equivalent of a diagnosis from a medical professional.

Anita will likely never allow herself to be tested by a medical professional, because she knows it will prove that she does not have synesthesia. Even if she did, it would not be the source of her 'abilities'. Synesthesia doesn't give one the 'MRI vision' Anita has so often described.
 
Actually, she did pass the online test - but it was just that: an online test. The results could easily be jimmied depending on the answers given. Decidedly NOT the equivalent of a diagnosis from a medical professional.

Interesting, is this a new development? Last time I asked her if she had been tested she simply stated no and that she didn't pass the online tests because her synesthesia, of course, is special. And as you correctly indicate, passing online tests has no relationship to actual medical diagnosis.

I did find it odd at the time since it would be pretty easy to pass those online tests if you really, really wanted to believe you had it. I stand corrected though.

Anita, please provide the link of the online test that you passed for this. I am interested if its a descriptive test (ie, do you see colors in numbers - the sort of thing you could easily lie about if you want to believe like Anita does) or if its actually tests you for the symptoms in ways that one would have to actually cheat/lie to pass if you didn't have synesthesia.
 
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The stance you have taken is antithetical to science, an anathema to scepticism, entirely anti-rational and suggests that you should probably ask for the money back for whatever you've been taught at your university, as it's clearly been wasted. If ever scientist held this mindset, we'd still be living in the dark ages.
If only you knew that it actually happened, oh my what would you say then. Question my credibility as a scientist if you will, but I know when something happens.

And this is why people are constantly telling you that you are making an unfalsifiable claim, despite your protestations to the contrary.
Listen, I really detected that the left kidney was missing during the reading. Anything I do after that, does not go back and delete fact. Sorry guys, I know this is irritating to you because it happened. Oh the frustration and irony, because I actually detected the kidney being missing! What are we going to do!

I'm not generally known to be a liar, although I can't say with absolute certainty that I have never told a lie. My skepticism, such as it is, tends to be towards certain kinds of people, including those who make claims such that were these claims true, would shake my mundane existence to its core.
Don't forget that if it were possible to perceive internal organs with an extrasensory ability, once verified, it would cease to be a paranormal ability and would need to find an explanation. I am sure that electricity and atoms were paranormal claims back in the past. Don't forget that organs consist of vibrating patterns, for real.

but it begs the question, just what is going on in the minds of those who would have the audacity to proclaim to the world at large that they possess an ability that, if proven, would possibly destroy the foundations of the store of knowledge humankind has painstakingly amassed over the millennia?
No, Honey, any new discoveries would add to it. All of science would not be destroyed, but the human perception of the world would be enhanced.

And so, Anita, all I can truthfully say about you, at this juncture, is that I don't feel it is possible to have a rational discussion with you while you insist that experiences we know reasonably well could not have happened, have actually happened to you, and that you can "see" inside of the bodies of others, much like a human X-ray device or what have you.
What on earth would you all say if you knew that it happened? I am having a rational discussion with you, I have acknowledged that we may consider false memory, but I maintain that it happened, because - it did! It reasonably well did happen!

Well, think about it this way. Half of this issue is already true. I do "see" the insides of people's bodies. The question rather is, are those images depicting reality or are they fabricated by my mind?

I consider this claim, and others you have made, to be nonsense, and I'm sure that you understand why I would think that. To my mind, what is of abiding interest is not that you make such claims, but what it is that has happened in your life to bring you to this unenviable position. And it's not that I say with any great confidence that your claims will never be demonstrated in any meaningful way, either, but if I were asked to state what the likelihood of your claims being thus demonstrated is, I would say, unambiguously, that it would be more likely for me to win first prize in several lotteries, many times over, before a shred of evidence for your claims would ever materialize.
There is only one claim, the others are merely descriptions of what else I experience. It isn't nonsense, though, because my claim is based on actual experiences of compelling accuracy in the medical perceptions, and that is why we will have a test. I understand why you think it is nonsense, but you don't understand why I don't think it is, because you have not witnessed it take place yourself. What happened in my life to bring me to this position? I looked at a man and saw that he was missing a left kidney, and he was. Please be patient Hon and see what happens at the IIG Preliminary, before you start talking about winning lotteries.

Oh my goodness... I really detected the missing kidney and what am I supposed to say? Of course I understand that it is valid to bring up false memory, but I actually did it!
 
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Is it possible that in Ptolemy's time, the world really was at the centre of the universe, and when (or shortly before) Copernicus made his observations, the world magically became a satellite of the sun? Of course. We can't prove otherwise.

Is it possible the ether really did exist, but disappeared just the moment before Einstein came up with the idea of special relativity? Yep. It's possible.

Can we say, with certainly, that Jean Beneviste's lab was not at the centre of a shift in the universe and the laws of physics and chemistry that allowed, for one afternoon, homoeopathy to prove effective? No, we cannot.
Thing is, if I were able to perceive internal organs it would cease to be a paranormal phenomenon and it would find an explanation that belongs to the world of natural science. There is so much in this world, and human senses of perception are limited. Just imagine how few of the soundwaves that are there, that we hear, how little of the electromagnetic spectrum we see, or feel, and we try to complement that with scientific instrumentation. You are talking as if the discovery of "vision from feeling" would ruin the foundations of science that we have, but it isn't so. Any contribution to our growing perception of the world is welcomed, because it gives a little more glimpse into what the world is, and as human beings we should not object to that.

What we can do, however, is infer from later experiments that the theories based on results people previously "really, really" thought were correct were flawed, derived from error, coincidence, chance or mistake. Whilst no experiment in the present can directly prove or disprove an observed event in the past, science must and can only operate if we assume as axiomatic that the laws of physics are the same everywhere at the universe, and constant across time. As such, experiments in the present are useful in inferring something about the veracity of observations made in the past. Indeed, the institution of science works in precisely this way, with recent experiments adding weight to or casting doubt on those which have gone before it. If every single experiment was conceptualised in a vacuum - in that its results were relevant only on the day in question and for the specific experimental set-up in hand - then we, as a species, wouldn't get very far. Whilst on a strict epistemological level this approach is really the only sound one, pragmatically it is entirely useless.
I fully understand, just that I did detect that the kidney was missing. Repeated trials can cause past data that are outliers to vanish as all data is averaged together, but as scientists we are taught that we are not allowed to discard outliers from our data tables just to make a better fitting graph. I do admit that the data of detecting the missing kidney in the past was not collected in the adequate way, but in itself it remains what it was. I think you will need to settle on knowing that if I produce inaccurate results on all trials on the IIG Preliminary, then what ever the past experience was, will go away. Please put your faith in the upcoming results, and do not worry about the past incident. I wholeheartedly acknowledge that it was not performed or collected under adequate conditions and that it can never provide support in favor of the claim. The IIG data will hold greater weight.

Anita: What you're doing when you disconnect your prior perception with the results of the IIG test, whatever they may be, is discarding some of the most fundamental philosophical principles which underpin the entire practice of scientific enquiry. I'm astonished that a science student at undergraduate level (and one with a "perfect" GPA, nonetheless) would be not so much willing to jettison the entire basis of the scientific method but seemingly be ignorant of it, and wilfully so.
Don't say that, I am going to fully embrace the results of the IIG Preliminary. You won't allow me to claim that I detected the kidney being missing in the past case, but here you are making actual accusations against me based on your expectations. Please don't accuse me of being a bad scientist or of neglecting data, until I would actually do so with the IIG data. Otherwise it is just your speculations, but ones that are becoming very real in your mind. Isn't that saying something very interesting about human sense of reality? You think things of me that aren't true, and based on things that haven't even happened. And that's worse than when I'm claiming something about a past experience, that very well could have happened the way I say it has.

Do you understand the depth of the conceptual error you're making?
What error? I have acknowledged that it is valid to bring up the concept of false memory, meanwhile I maintain that simply because I would have done something you can't explain, does not make this a case of false memory.

Do you understand the concept of falsifiability? Do you understand that your magic powers are like Russell's Teapot? Have you ever heard of Ockam and his philosophical razor? Do you understand that in making statements as you have done today you have abandoned the very fundamental principles which underpin the practice of science itself?
The paranormal claim is fully falsifiable, since if I fail to produce accurate data on the Preliminary, the claim is proven to not be as claimed. And as for the past case of accurate perception, just forget about it.

And if Occam's razor were always true, we would still live in a flat Earth and many of our most beautiful and complex scientific principles would simply not be acknowledged. The world is beautifully simple in itself, but in the human mind things that we have hard to perceive can seem very complicated, and so we can not let human judgement decide what we think is the simplest answer. Because what we might think as simple or not simple, might not be so for the world at all.

I hope you do, but I also doubt that you do; and I'm beginning to wonder what it will take to hammer these rather basic ideas into your head, as an expensive education clearly has failed to.
The problem here simply is that I maintain that the memory is genuine and not false, and that you will not grant me the right to that.
 
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Interesting, is this a new development? Last time I asked her if she had been tested she simply stated no and that she didn't pass the online tests because her synesthesia, of course, is special. And as you correctly indicate, passing online tests has no relationship to actual medical diagnosis.

I did find it odd at the time since it would be pretty easy to pass those online tests if you really, really wanted to believe you had it. I stand corrected though.

Anita, please provide the link of the online test that you passed for this. I am interested if its a descriptive test (ie, do you see colors in numbers - the sort of thing you could easily lie about if you want to believe like Anita does) or if its actually tests you for the symptoms in ways that one would have to actually cheat/lie to pass if you didn't have synesthesia.

You are probably right - it's hard to remember what the current story is, since Anita changes it from day to day. ;)
 
<snippety>The problem here simply is that I maintain that the memory is genuine and not false, and that you will not grant me the right to that.

The problem here is simply that many of us maintain that the memory is false, and not genuine, and you will not grant us the right to that.
 
Thing is, if I were able to perceive internal organs it would cease to be a paranormal phenomenon and it would find an explanation that belongs to the world of natural science.


That is if you were able to perceive internal organs, but you haven't been able to support that claim with anything other than your say-so. And as mentioned before, since you are a proven liar, your say-so just doesn't carry any weight.

There is so much in this world, and human senses of perception are limited. Just imagine how few of the soundwaves that are there, that we hear, how little of the electromagnetic spectrum we see, or feel, and we try to complement that with scientific instrumentation. You are talking as if the discovery of "vision from feeling" would ruin the foundations of science that we have, but it isn't so. Any contribution to our growing perception of the world is welcomed, because it gives a little more glimpse into what the world is, and as human beings we should not object to that.


Yeah, yeah, and nobody believed Galileo either. Funny, there's a guy who believes the surface of the Sun is made of solid iron, and that's exactly how he justifies clinging to his delusion, too.

I fully understand, just that I did detect that the kidney was missing.


As far as we know, only in your mind.

Repeated trials can cause past data that are outliers to vanish as all data is averaged together, but as scientists we are taught that we are not allowed to discard outliers from our data tables just to make a better fitting graph.


A scientist would have pursued the mundane explanations first and made a vigorous and thorough effort to eliminate them from the mix before claiming some kind of magical x-ray vision was responsible. A real scientist, that is.

I do admit that the data of detecting the missing kidney in the past was not collected in the necessary way, but in itself it remains what it was.


As far as we know, only in your mind.

I think you will need to settle on knowing that if I produce inaccurate results on all trials on the IIG Preliminary, then what ever the past experience was, will go away.


No, it will not just go away, like when you failed that class, that F you got and chose to simply pretend doesn't exist. Real life doesn't work that way. Honest, sane, responsible people don't just ignore their failures and pretend they never happened. They own up to their mistakes.

Please put your faith in the upcoming results, and do not worry about the past incident. I wholeheartedly acknowledge that it was not performed or collected under adequate conditions and that it can never provide support in favor of the claim.


Yet you've never wavered from your stand that it really truly happened.

The IIG data will hold greater weight.


Greater than the simple say-so of a proven liar? I should hope so.

Anita: What you're doing when you disconnect your prior perception with the results of the IIG test, whatever they may be, is discarding some of the most fundamental philosophical principles which underpin the entire practice of scientific enquiry. I'm astonished that a science student at undergraduate level (and one with a "perfect" GPA, nonetheless) would be not so much willing to jettison the entire basis of the scientific method but seemingly be ignorant of it, and wilfully so.

Don't say that, I am going to fully embrace the results of the IIG Preliminary. You won't allow me to claim that I detected the kidney being missing in the past case, but here you are making actual accusations against me based on your expectations.


Nobody is making any accusations based on our expectations. Any accusations are being made based on an overwhelming body of evidence which you have provided.

Please don't accuse me of being a bad scientist or of neglecting data, until I would actually do so with the IIG data.


But given your repeated demonstrations of misunderstanding and misapplication of legitimate science, it's reasonable to say that you are a bad scientist (if by any stretch of the imagination anyone would consider you a scientist at all).

Otherwise it is just your speculations, but ones that are becoming very real in your mind. Isn't that saying something very interesting about human sense of reality? You think things of me that aren't true, and based on things that haven't even happened.


That's called projecting.

And that's worse than when I'm claiming something about a past experience, that very well could have happened the way I say it has.


But the other people present when it supposedly happened disagree with your description, so reasonable people don't accept that it happened the way you say it happened.

What error? I have acknowledged that it is valid to bring up the concept of false memory, meanwhile I maintain that this was not a case of false memory simply because I would have done something you can't explain.


That's not why anyone is suggesting it might be a false memory. They're suggesting that because you've shown a habit of inventing your own reality and ignoring what's really going on in the real world with actual sane people. They're suggesting it because it is one possible mundane explanation for you claiming to have magical x-ray vision.

The paranormal claim is fully falsifiable, since if I fail to produce accurate data on the Preliminary, the claim is proven to not be as claimed. And as for the past case of accurate perception, just forget about it.


Oh given the circumstances, that you only knew the guy's kidney was missing after he told you it was missing, everyone accepts your perception as accurate. But you perceived it with your ears when he said it, same as any old regular person would, and not with some magic x-ray vision.

And if Occam's razor were always true, we would still live in a flat Earth and many of our most beautiful and complex scientific principles would simply not be acknowledged. The world is beautifully simple in itself, but in the human mind things that we have hard to perceive can seem very complicated, and so we can not let human judgement decide what we think is the simplest answer. Because what we might think as simple or not simple, might not be so for the world at all.


The obligatory crackpot reference to the flat Earth becoming round when people began to universally understand it was round, and a little Occam tossed in for good measure. :rolleyes:

The problem here simply is that I maintain that the memory is genuine and not false, and that you will not grant me the right to that.


Oh nobody is denying you the right to maintain that. But allowing you to declare it as true, based on your say-so, with your demonstrated lack of honesty? We're not here to indulge anyone's fantasy. This is, if you hadn't noticed, a skeptic's group, where if you come in with an unsupported claim of having magical x-ray vision, you'd better be able to demonstrate it with rock solid scientific evidence. And that's one thing you've never even come close to doing. So stop whining and deal with the skepticism. You invited it.
 
Hello.

As a member of the IIG I wanted to let you all know that we did a test of UStream this weekend and it looks like we will be able to live-stream the event.

The URL should be: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/vision-from-feeling-demonstration
The event will begin around 11AM Pacific Time.
The Demonstration Protocol will be broadcast on a loop for approximately 15 minutes at the beginning of the event.
We are planning to post the Demonstration Protocol text on the IIG website as well. (I don't know what the URL will be yet.)

Everyone at the IIG is well aware of the interest in this claim and we know that our silence has been a bit frustrating to some people here. Please keep in mind that the IIG has been involved in testing paranormal claims for the past ten years (many tests have been done for the JREF MDC) and we take our work very seriously and have never created "flawed" protocols before and we do not believe that we have done so now.

I will post again with any updated information.

Thank you.

Derek Bartholomaus
Independent Investigations Group
 
Hello.

As a member of the IIG I wanted to let you all know that we did a test of UStream this weekend and it looks like we will be able to live-stream the event.

The URL should be: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/vision-from-feeling-demonstration
The event will begin around 11AM Pacific Time.
The Demonstration Protocol will be broadcast on a loop for approximately 15 minutes at the beginning of the event.
We are planning to post the Demonstration Protocol text on the IIG website as well. (I don't know what the URL will be yet.)

Everyone at the IIG is well aware of the interest in this claim and we know that our silence has been a bit frustrating to some people here. Please keep in mind that the IIG has been involved in testing paranormal claims for the past ten years (many tests have been done for the JREF MDC) and we take our work very seriously and have never created "flawed" protocols before and we do not believe that we have done so now.

I will post again with any updated information.

Thank you.

Derek Bartholomaus
Independent Investigations Group

That is fantastic news about the very real possibility of streaming. Thank you very much for the hard work entailed in bringing this demostration to us live!
 
<words>


And if Occam's razor were always true, we would still live in a flat Earth and many of our most beautiful and complex scientific principles would simply not be acknowledged. The world is beautifully simple in itself, but in the human mind things that we have hard to perceive can seem very complicated, and so we can not let human judgement decide what we think is the simplest answer. Because what we might think as simple or not simple, might not be so for the world at all.


I can imagine an arts student saying something like this just to annoy the science students. As a scientist, Anita, your'e going to make a great folk singer.
 
Hello.

<snippy the good news>


Thank you.

Derek Bartholomaus
Independent Investigations Group


Thanks heaps Derek. I imagine the IIG is quite as much on the edge of its seat as the JREF about the big event, and a live stream will add so much more to the experience.

I know some folks here have expressed some doubts about the overall outcome of Vision from Feeling's odyssey, but I'm sure that the credibility and integrity of the IIG are still held in the highest regard by all of us.

Any qualms expressed here about the solidity of the IIG protocol are only the result of having dealt for so long with an adamant refusal on the part of the claimant to test any of her multitude of claims in a meaningful way.


Cheers,

Dave.
 
You won't allow me to claim that I detected the kidney being missing in the past case, but here you are making actual accusations against me based on your expectations. Please don't accuse me of being a bad scientist or of neglecting data, until I would actually do so with the IIG data. Otherwise it is just your speculations
No speculation is necessary. If your own account of what happened is accurate then you deliberately chose not to record one of the strongest perceptions you have ever had because you suspected it would prove to be wrong. This is proof that you are a very bad scientist indeed, and shows your repeated assertion that you genuinely want to find out if your perceptions reflect reality to be a barefaced lie. Anyone who had the slightest scientific knowledge and integrity would know that a strong perception which turned out to be false is as valuable a piece of data in your investigation of your supposed ability as a strong perception which turned out to be true, and that it was absolutely essential that you record it. Your credibility as a scientific investigator is completely and permanently destroyed by your own account of this incident.
 
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Five days to go.

VFF wrote:
Don't say that, I am going to fully embrace the results of the IIG Preliminary. You won't allow me to claim that I detected the kidney being missing in the past case, but here you are making actual accusations against me based on your expectations. Please don't accuse me of being a bad scientist or of neglecting data, until I would actually do so with the IIG data. Otherwise it is just your speculations, but ones that are becoming very real in your mind. Isn't that saying something very interesting about human sense of reality? You think things of me that aren't true, and based on things that haven't even happened. And that's worse than when I'm claiming something about a past experience, that very well could have happened the way I say it has.

Wrong again, VFF.
Your Perceptionstm in the past have included ghosts, diaphragms and significant 'chemical' differences between whites and African Americans.
As for data already gathered about your claims, you've consistently promised to post it up but beg off, reserving your energy and time to posting up Walls o'Textstm.

In any case, I am most impressed by the IIG's feat and greatly look forward to Saturday.
 
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