Vision From Feeling

[JWideman]

Thing is, Anita, it is extremely unlikely that you have this ability. I'm sure you believe you are seeing things. Ruling out synesthesia or occular defects, we call this sort of thing a hallucination or at the very least imagination. Now, before you say "but...", there's more. Of the hundreds of things you see each day, you've confirmed relatively few. The ones you've confirmed as accurate we can write up like this: people humoring you, cold reading, sheer coincidence, stuff you knew but forgot you knew, and any or all of the above. Those are all FAR more likely than you having an ability unique among humanity.

 

[steenkh]

Could be, but do you think it would include internal organs and glowing gas inside of cylinders ?

No, but certain organ problems could result in skin colouring not noticeable for people with normal vision. I am not saying that this could explain everything, but a cold reader to equipped with enhanced vision could have an advantage that is not immediate apparent.

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

JWideman:
Yes, but, I have failed to dismiss the possibility of an ability. If I were to have no ability of accessing accurate health information that is normally not accessible to human perception, then that should have been releaved by now, although not necessarily. I would have made plenty of descriptions that would have turned out to be inaccurate.

That is why we are headed toward tests now, JWideman. Tests will bring more light into what this is and what this isn't. All I have concluded from the apparent accuracy is that I have not found out that I do not have an ability. And a test will find out. Hopefully. If this is a testable claim.

Let's just be very patient and wait two more days at which I will finally enter a room of skeptics, probably very similar to most of you here, and I have given them full permission to do what skeptics can do to overthrow this so-called psychic. I am all for it. After all I am not interested in delusions, I just want to know why I perceive accurate images and understanding of the health of other people, and why I have failed to be incorrect yet. And why I detect information that should not be accessible to cold reading.

Patience.

ETA: ... I wish I had all of you in one room, and could try psychic medical diagnose on each of you, and see what happens...

 

[Ocelot]

Anita, you keep stating that there's no evidence you don't have this ability. That's not how science works and I would assume you know this, given that you claim to be studying science.

Actually, it's exactly how science works. You come up with a falsifiable theory and attempt to prove it wrong. Once you have made enough of an attempt to falsify the theory and not been able to prove it wrong you may provisionally consider the theory to be true. The very definition of Popperian science.

Whilst Anita is not yet at the stage of having done anywhere near enough to falsify the theory she's approaching it in a scientific manner.

 

[desertgal]

desertgal:
You clear away one misconception, only to bring about another one. When did I claim to be brilliant or all knowing.

"I am a brilliant student..."

Paraphrasing: "I can...medically diagnose people by looking at them...read their thoughts, their feelings, etc...communicate telepathically with creatures I can't see...communicate telepathically with all animals...I can communicate with ghosts...etc, etc..."

Perhaps "all knowing" is the wrong term. You do, certainly, promote yourself as unique among the human race. It isn't a misconception - your statements are here, clear as day, on this forum.

 

[Old man]

Originally Posted by UncaYimmy
We discussed circumcision and breast implants yesterday. What did you do today about this?

What I did? I dropped everything I was doing, didn't even waste time putting my shoes on, and ran straight to a busy street, and within minutes I stood up on a soapbox, and yelled out, "Alright, this is an emergency, everyone stop right there and go nowhere, I am going to look at each and every one of you very carefully, write some things down, after which all men take your pants down and all the women take your tops off - you will be inspected! This is a scientific investigation and your participation is mandatory!" That's what I did UncaYimmy. My research assistants are processing the data and should have the results with you shortly.

Anita, please. UncaYimmy is asking if, while going about your normal daily routine, you happened to ‘look’ at men (and women) and saw evidence of circumcision (or breast implants). He’s not asking if you tried to confirm it.

Originally Posted by Old man
Anita, come on. You’re actually trying to convince us that nobody you’ve ever confided in about this ‘ability’ thinks that it’s “anything special”?!!?!! You live in a strange, strange world.

Don't forget that I am from a humble little town in Sweden. People who've known me my entire life don't think anything about me is unusual, they are used to it. If you got to know me too, you'd probably get used to it too. It's just part of the way I perceive and describe the world I see.

I’m not talking about people who have gotten “used to it”. You claim that no one else you know has this ability. You do realize that people (especially young people) that have extraordinary (but normal) talent (i.e. math geniuses, Olympic athletes) get praise, recognition, even adulation, all of the time, don’t you?

Regarding using a curtain – have you ever been able to detect people behind screens, or in adjacent rooms in the past? If not, I suspect using a curtain will ‘interfere’ with your readings.

Now, on to your upcoming skeptics meeting. I know time is short, but if you do any readings at this meeting, please (as a control) do the first one just like you’ve been doing it in the past (i.e. the vasectomy guy), including getting feedback as you go (I believe that that’s the way you’ve been doing it).

This will confirm that your ability is working. Your test subject should, of course, have listed - in secret, in advance - what his known health problems/conditions are. Also, problems/conditions that are not confirmable WILL NOT COUNT. Then proceed with any ‘blind’ reading that you plan to do.

ETA: Good luck. I really do wish you the best.

 

[Ocelot]

Are we still talking about the vasectomy test here? You do realise that the vasectomy pool cannot be open to any gender or age.

Of course it can. Her claim is she can see reproductive organs, etc. not just vasectomies in men. In that context certainly she can tell if a woman has or has not had a vasectomy...or if a room with no light if anyone is there at all.

I'm not sure why you're having difficulty understanding. If we are talking about the proposed vasectomy test then there are two pools. One is exclusively filled by people who do have vasectomies. That pool by its very nature cannot contain women. There are no women who have had vasectomies.

If you really don't understand this I'd recommend keeping quiet about it.

[

What part of her statement that she needs to be able to see bare skin for her ability to be reliable do you fail to understand?

She has made multiple claims, being able to see through clothes and boxes, etc. between her threads here, her website, Skeptic Groups, protocols....

Rather then summarily dismiss a hood, or a curtian...I'd rather she explain why these options won't work.

Well firstly she hasn't said whether she sees through or around or something else. Your ignornace as to the experience she describes is now verging on the willfull. Your arrogence in demanding that she explain why these options don't work is remarkable. It's clear that she doesn't know and she's been honest about not knowing.

[

I certianly don't assume that it means she's actually seeing through layers of clothes and tissue. I don't see why you should either.

But that is, in part, exactly what she is claiming...here, on her website, with the Skeptic Groups she is "working" with, etc.

No it isn't. You can carry on with your selective quoting and missrepresentations but it just makes you look stupid.

As such I rather you make it clear that in jumping to conclusions without evidence you're not a skeptic. Your simply someone who disbelieves. There's a difference and it's all to do with evidence. You make us look bad.

[

Well I believe that my suggestion also severly limits cold reading opportunites but at least yours is a suggestion that she hasn't already said wouldn't work.

Depending on the size of the hole/screen and the test group.

Yes for some reason you want to include people in the test groupwith other characteristics - age gender that preclude them from have the specific condition being testing for. An idiotic suggestion that would certainly introduce additional opportunities for cold reading.

Anita, I for one won't hold it against you if you put ignorant arrogant idiots like this on ignore. UNfortunately they see their ignorant arrogant questions as entirely reasonable and will draw their own ignorant arrogant conclusions from your doing so.

 

[JWideman]

Actually, it's exactly how science works. You come up with a falsifiable theory and attempt to prove it wrong. Once you have made enough of an attempt to falsify the theory and not been able to prove it wrong you may provisionally consider the theory to be true. The very definition of Popperian science.

Whilst Anita is not yet at the stage of having done anywhere near enough to falsify the theory she's approaching it in a scientific manner.

You have to first have a falsifiable theory. "If I hit my thumb with this hammer, it will hurt" is a falsifiable theory. "If I hold this hammer in the air, a ghost will smack my thumb with it" is not.

 

[Beth]

You have to first have a falsifiable theory. "If I hit my thumb with this hammer, it will hurt" is a falsifiable theory. "If I hold this hammer in the air, a ghost will smack my thumb with it" is not.

She has a falsifiable theory - that she can perceive physical ailments not normally visible to others. She has been testing this theory informally and has been unable to reject it because she feels she has had accurate results. That doesn't mean it's correct and she has acknowledged that and requested help in attempting a more rigorous test. Seems entirely reasonable and scientific to me.

 

[Locknar]

I'm not sure why you're having difficulty understanding. If we are talking about the proposed vasectomy test then there are two pools. One is exclusively filled by people who do have vasectomies. That pool by its very nature cannot contain women. There are no women who have had vasectomies.

If you really don't understand this I'd recommend keeping quiet about it.

Exactly. There are no women that have had vasectomies...thus if VFF were to "view" in a sufficiently blinded test (in which gender, for example, was not readily apparent) she should have no problem in identifying that the test subject has not had a vasectomy.

Remember, VFF is the on that proclaims to be able to do this (ie. detect vasectomies in this case) by being able to "view" in real time inside a human body and see organs, fluid flow, etc.

Well firstly she hasn't said whether she sees through or around or something else. Your ignornace as to the experience she describes is now verging on the willfull. Your arrogence in demanding that she explain why these options don't work is remarkable. It's clear that she doesn't know and she's been honest about not knowing.

Asking (not demanding) why various options won't work is completely reasonable.

If she has tried with a blind fold, with a hood, with a curtain, etc. and not been successful then that is the answer.

No it isn't. You can carry on with your selective quoting and missrepresentations but it just makes you look stupid.

I've done no such thing; I've used her own words (from here, her website, her posts to other Skeptic boards) and nothing more.

As such I rather you make it clear that in jumping to conclusions without evidence you're not a skeptic. Your simply someone who disbelieves. There's a difference and it's all to do with evidence. You make us look bad.

I can see your point; advocating a sufficiently blinded test is obviously out of line.

Yes for some reason you want to include people in the test groupwith other characteristics - age gender that preclude them from have the specific condition being testing for. An idiotic suggestion that would certainly introduce additional opportunities for cold reading.

If done in a sufficiently blinded test setting, not at all.

If not in a blinded setting, then obviously a non-starter and would agree wrt "introduce additional opportunities for cold reading."

Obviously we are not going to agree on this point.

Anita, I for one won't hold it against you if you put ignorant arrogant idiots like this on ignore. UNfortunately they see their ignorant arrogant questions as entirely reasonable and will draw their own ignorant arrogant conclusions from your doing so.

Personal attack; always the hallmark of intelligent debate.

Disagreements aside, I believe there are only two core points; VFFs claim, and design/execution of a sufficiently blinded test protocol - both focused on vasectomies (for now).

 

[Skeptical Greg]

She has a falsifiable theory - that she can perceive physical ailments not normally visible to others.

Well , not really .. ( the falsifiable part ) Because she has already shown a pattern of counting the hits ( which could have been discerned by other means, the least of which , is guessing ) and ignoring the misses ..
Claiming you can observe atomic structures ( at the atomic level ) with the human senses, is neither reasonable or scientific.

 

[Moochie]

Well, VfF gets a pat on the back and a hearty, "Well done!" for remaining calm and composed in the face of relentless "enemy" fire.






M.

 

[Old man]

Exactly. There are no women that have had vasectomies...thus if VFF were to "view" in a sufficiently blinded test (in which gender, for example, was not readily apparent) she should have no problem in identifying that the test subject has not had a vasectomy...

Locknar, you're making a very common mistake typical of people that don't set up experiments - you want to include too many variables. To test +/- vastectomy, the ONLY difference in the subjects should be VASECTOMY. Mixing in sex will only muddy the waters.

You're wrong.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Well , not really .. ( the falsifiable part ) Because she has already shown a pattern of counting the hits ( which could have been discerned by other means, the least of which , is guessing ) and ignoring the misses ..
Claiming you can observe atomic structures ( at the atomic level ) with the human senses, is neither reasonable or scientific.

She may not have gone about falsifying her theory in the most rigorous, scientific way, but that doesn't mean that the theory is unfalsifiable. If she had proposed an unfalsifiable theory, no skeptics group would be setting up a test with her.

 

[Old man]

She has a falsifiable theory - that she can perceive physical ailments not normally visible to others.

Well , not really .. ( the falsifiable part ) Because she has already shown a pattern of counting the hits ( which could have been discerned by other means, the least of which , is guessing ) and ignoring the misses ..
Claiming you can observe atomic structures ( at the atomic level ) with the human senses, is neither reasonable or scientific.

Diogenes, she does have a falsifiable theory - she just hasn't made any real attempts to falsify it. Hopefully, that shortcoming will be rectified soon.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Thing is, Anita, it is extremely unlikely that you have this ability. I'm sure you believe you are seeing things. Ruling out synesthesia or occular defects, we call this sort of thing a hallucination or at the very least imagination. Now, before you say "but...", there's more. Of the hundreds of things you see each day, you've confirmed relatively few. The ones you've confirmed as accurate we can write up like this: people humoring you, cold reading, sheer coincidence, stuff you knew but forgot you knew, and any or all of the above. Those are all FAR more likely than you having an ability unique among humanity.

JW, while you are most likely right, the post you replied to indicates to me that Anita would like confirmation, which a well designed test provides, rather than uncertainty.

Even if the uncertainty is a small value, there may be value to her in eliminating it via a test. Closure, if you will.

DR

 

[Ashles]

Ashles:

I will not involve my university or the faculty in my paranormal investigation unless they express specific interest in participating. And since I know them you might question their reliability.

This story sounds very unlikely.
You told a professor of physics that you had an ability that was outside the current knowledge of science... and he didn't express any interest in investigating this? Really?
I'm sorry but either
1) That story simply isn't true
2) It is a true story but the Professor did not really believe you and was simply humouring you
3) There is no 3

Wave functions are very similar to how I am under the impression of detecting this information.

That makes no sense. A Wave Function is a mathematical tool. It is a probability calculation. how can you 'detect' like a mathematical tool?
And the calculations for any form of complex object would be unbelievably fearsome if you were doing it via QM. Which is why Newtonian Mechanics is, while technically wrong, still a useful shorthand and accurate enough to send probes to Mars.

Lots of claimants pretend to understand Quantum Mechanics. None of them actually appear to in reality - they just like using it as buzz words.
You have demonstrated nothing so far that indicated you have any knowledge of QM beyond it somewhere contains the words Wave Function.

Throwing around the word 'vibrational' is not generating a mechanism or theory.

I would encourage you to perhaps spend more time trying to agree a test protocal with IIG than trying to come up with an explanation. Especially as it is clear you do not currently have enough knowledge about the fields you are referencing to come up with any meaningful mechanism.
Nathan has also pointed this out.

Your degree also seems to keep jumping around as to what you are studying. Optics? QM? Calculus? It seems to develpop a new elective to back up whatever we are discussing at that moment.
The unfortunate outcome is that, for several reasons, the more you post on a variety of non-core subjects (i.e. anything other than results from your testing and the upcming IIG test) the less credible you appear.

If you are genuine then I would again encourage you to concentrate on firming up a protocol with IIG. The meanderings on this thread are getting silly now and adding nothing to finding out whether you really have the ability you claim.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

This story sounds very unlikely.
You told a professor of physics that you had an ability that was outside the current knowledge of science... and he didn't express any interest in investigating this? Really?
I'm sorry but either
1) That story simply isn't true
2) It is a true story but the Professor did not really believe you and was simply humouring you
3) There is no 3

I thought of 2 the moment I read it.

 

[Locknar]

Locknar, you're making a very common mistake typical of people that don't set up experiments - you want to include too many variables.

Quite a leap...

To test +/- vastectomy, the ONLY difference in the subjects should be VASECTOMY. Mixing in sex will only muddy the waters.

I'd argue it depends on the claim criteria:
- "I can detect vasectomy" would open the pool to virtually anything
- "I can detect vasectomy in people" would include both male/female
- "I can detect vasectomy in men" excludes all but men
- etc.

I'm operating under the "people" scenario as, far as I know, VFF has not limited the pool to men only in her claim; rather this seems to be an assumption.

If she has limited the pool to "men only" then I missed it and stand corrected.

If the claim is, or becomes, "in men" then agreed...though that begs a series of other questions.

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

What I want everyone to understand once and for all and without misconceptions is that I have not proven that I have ESP yet, nor have I claimed confidently to believe that I have ESP. What I have said is that there are reasons, and trust me there are, that allow for a further investigation into the possibility of ESP.

I don't see why there is criticism against proceeding toward further investigation. If you can accept that the anecdotal experiences I have listed did in fact occur in the exact way as I have described, then it should be clear why I work on arranging further tests.

If we assume that it is more likely to not be the case of real ESP, then it should make sense to approach this in the way that I have, to put my ability to the test and try to make it fail. The thing is, the ability has not failed yet. So I have completed the first part of the investigation which I can do entirely on my own. I now need to proceed to the next step, by involving skeptics in the investigation.

I propose that the next step, with the skeptics, is to arrange simple tests that do not require much resources or effort in setting up, where the ability is given the opportunity to fail, and a non-ability would be revealed as such. Provided the ability performs well under those tests, we have still failed to dismiss a possible ability and can arrange further tests that involve more work in arrangements, until arriving at a test of scientific standard whose outcome will establish whether there is an ESP ability or not.

I do not agree with much of the criticism against how I have approached my investigation.