Vision From Feeling

[Locknar]

I still think I may have synesthesia until proven otherwise.

It is your claim, it is up to you to prove. You haven't.

And it is unscientific of you to conclude that I do not have multiple forms of synesthesia when I wasn't even able to test for the multiple forms that I claim to experience. You guys are exhibiting the exact behavior you accuse me of, but you just aren't seeing it. I see it but out of niceness I try not to point it out.

In the absence of credible, acceptable proof it is reasonable and scientific to conclude you do not have synesthesia.

 

[Ashles]

Ashles, I must have missed this...can you help me out?

Yes.
It didn't happen.

I'm also confused how this:

My interest in doing a project either at school or in my spare time of trying to apply my ideas of vibrations and waves into conventional mathematics is something I have not begun yet nor would I post it here.

can be ratified with this:

I can do vibrational algebra to calculate theoretical effects in resultant vibration which translates back into real world physical things.

Are these not directly contradictory?

 

[Ashles]

Cuddles:
Ashles, help me out here. At first I used the word "observations" referring to my subjective impressions of for instance the inside of human bodies. After several thread-pages of discussions Ashles and I agreed that to avoid misunderstandings we would use the word "perceptions" to refer to my subjective impressions that have not been proven to be reality based yet. And now Cuddles comes in and wants another word. I am very upset because it is never right. Don't you guys have like a skeptics' language that you all could agree to and tell me about so that we're all speaking the same language? I'm tired of being bullied around like this.

Okay I have to say I do not think I have personally been entirely clear enough about that. I'll put my hands up to that.

I previously stated at one point that Perception implied real external stimuli. I was using that (in the context of the previous posts) to imply the perceptions exist as a layer of processing on top of observations from real world stimuli.
But I don't think that explains it clearly enough. And isn't strictly speaking (which we should be here) accurate.

So I will try harder this time.

"Perceptions" is the correct word.

"Observations" implies detection of real world stimuli.
"Perception" is what is experienced subjectively by a person. It adds the processing of the environment performed (correctly or incorrectly) by the sensory systems of an individual.

You can only Observe what is real.
You can Perceive that which is incorrect or imagined.

To clarify yet further.
In this illusion:

It would be fine to say you "Perceived" that squares A and B were different colours.
You would be incorrect (they are exactly the same colour), but that is due to the nature of your visual system.

But it would be incorrect (within the scope of the strict language we are using here) to say you "Observed" the colours were the same, as it is an incorrect assumption.

PhotoShop could, to all intents and purposes, "Observe" the colours correctly as the eyedropper tool would record the same value for both squares. It obviously doesn't have the same processing as our visual system does.

Similarly someone on drugs may "Perceive" strange hallucinations and creatures.
They would not be able to say they "Observed" them as it is based on no real-world stimuli.

So yes, "Perceptions" is the correct word.

I think the point Cuddles is making is that you are using the word "Perceive" as a simple substitution for "Observe" without the necessary difference in meaning.
That is illustrated in your asking "Is not visual perception of a person a stimulus?".

Cuddles has already explained why that doesn't make sense (actually so did I) but again, to clarify.

You can observe a person standing in front of you. The person (specifically the light reflected from them) is real world stimulus.
You may perceive they have an aura around them.
But the perception of the aura cannot be said to be coming from real world stimulus. The aura isn't real or detectable by anyone or anything outside of your own sensations.

If it were subsequently discovered that you had receptors in your eyes never before encountered by science, that, for example, detected heat eminating from the person, and that was what had appeared to you as an aura, then it would at that point (when demonstrated that the information you detected did genuinely relate to real detectable stimulus) be correct to say you were observing an aura.
(Well, more correct to say you were observing thermal information as we would now know that's what it was.)

My previous reference to Perception was in reference to this claim in which the Perceptions Anita are describing are as a result of looking at people. The stimulus of the person is an observation. What is actually experienced by Anita that is her "Perception", whether it includes real stimuli or anything else not detectable or experienced by anyone else. Or any independent detector.
I think I now see her confusion on this issue. Apologies if any confusion there came from me.

 

[EHocking]

1) A region just below the sternum, 0.0006 m2 area out of the average 1.9 m2 surface area of a man, giving it a chance of 1:3100 to guess it right (Locknar: this does not imply to say that I was guessing, I am just saying what the chances are for someone who does guess!). Correct.

Actually, I don't think one could say the odds were 1:3100. Any description of pain or discomfort where it actually occurred would have been a hit, and people have quite a few aches and pains, if their attention is drawn to it...

All this is post-hoc excuses from vff.
This is the description of her "ability", from her website:

...I see images in my mind of the inside of their bodies. I see organs, tissues, cells, and chemicals
...The images appear on any level of magnification
...in my mind ...images of the atoms that they make, and then into images of molecules, cells, and tissue.
...Anything unusual, especially health problems, are what most often form the images.
...The images that form on their own show health problems in their most appropriate level of magnification, sometimes combining more than one magnification at once.
...This is similar to but beyond magnetic resonance imaging used by the medical field to detect some forms of illness that show as darker areas on a photographic image.
...I do not have to look for diseases, they are already highlighted for me to see, with all the relevant structures and areas of the body shown together.

So all of vff's talk of odds of hitting a general area is pure post-hoc rationalisation of a miss. She claims to be able to SEE THE ORGANS.

It was a miss.
No argument.
Boasts of 100% accuracy of medical diagnoses by vff are similarly contradictory to the evidence provided by herself.

 

[sleepy_lioness]

You know what, I suffer from migraines. They're nasty. They make me feel nauseous, throw up, get very dizzy, and have a thumping headache.

I used to get them a lot, then I learned that I have some control over them and now I rarely get them. I probably wouldn't get them at all (or only very rarely indeed) if I made some more lifestyle adjustments. For instance, if I gave up alcohol altogether, or caffeine, or prioritised exercise some more, or never ever went to bed late or had a lie in.

However, I'm willing to make the trade off: lie ins, the occasional beer, my morning coffee, some sick headaches.

Now, if you were to offer me the chance to prove that I was the most amazing person alive, that I finally, scientifically and beyond doubt could prove I had extra-sensory powers, that scientists would be queuing up to study me, that I'd be on chat shows and in magazines and winning Randi's million and all ... I think I wouldn't mind risking a coupla migraines. Hell, I risk them for the odd beer with my mates.

At the very least I'd be working really hard to find a protocol that allowed me to test my abilities while minimising the headaches and consequent falling off in ability. Come on girl, it's fame, fortune and the ability to go down in history as a major scientific innovator here! Don't let a couple of headaches stand in your way! People have suffered far more than that for science - have you no backbone?

 

[Ashles]

You know what, I suffer from migraines. They're nasty. They make me feel nauseous, throw up, get very dizzy, and have a thumping headache.

Found this on Wiki:

Migraine with aura
The second-most common form of migraine headache: the patient primarily suffers migraine with aura, and might also suffer migraine without aura. The International Classification of Headache Disorders[9] definition is:
Description: Recurrent disorder manifesting in attacks of reversible focal neurological symptoms that usually develop gradually over 5–20 minutes and last for less than 60 minutes. Headache with the features of "migraine without aura" usually follows the aura symptoms. Less commonly, headache lacks migrainous feature or is completely absent [i.e., the aura may occur without any subsequent headache].

Any thoughts?
(Apologies if this has already been raised - it's hard to keep track)

 

[Old man]

Also I never claimed to be able to read photos or video over the internet…

Except for electron microscope imagery. ETA: Which, by the way, gets you stoned.

Originally posted by Ashles:
Anita claimed she could identify chemicals, but then stopped testing when the results were less than accurate.

Stopped when I got headaches and nausea, which were caused by forced effort. Inaccuracy appeared after headache and not before.

Anita, in Post #220, you wrote the following :

Today, Sunday November 16 2008 I had the second cereal test. Several variations of the test procedure were tried before one was found that I was comfortable with. C = Correct trial, F = Failed trial

Test procedure 1
The first test procedure…(snipped)

Results: Very bad. I felt nothing. I made two forced attempts although I hate to guess when I don't feel the answer and both were incorrect.
1) F
2) F
Comments: Were five cups too many? Or did the paper cover stop what ever radiative information is emitted from the bacteria? Or both? (Paper blocks some types of low-energy radiation.)

Test procedure 2
Procedure as earlier but no paper covers.

Results:
1) F
Comments: Am I overwhelmed by the five cups?

Test procedure 3
Procedure as earlier but no paper covers and with a total of 4 samples, one of which has the bacterial supplement.

Results:
1) F
2) F
Comments: Were four cups also too many and overwhelming? Since I have to try to feel all of them. My strategy has so far actually been to "find the heavy vibrations of plain cereal-cups and eliminate those, and then figure out which one is the supplement one". (I don't know why but that is how I had come to do these tests.)

Test procedure 5
Procedure as earlier, no covers, but a total of three cups, one with the bacterial supplement which has been wetted with a drop of warm water.

Results:
1) C
2) C
3) C
4) F
5) C
6) C
7) C
8) C
9) C
10) C
11) F
12) F
Comments: Starting with trial … (words, words, words)… I worried that being so incredibly confident, what if I'd be wrong? That would have been the end of it. But each time I was confident, it turned out to be correct. On trial 11 I wasn't sure and guessed, and sure enough, with a 1/3 chance of guessing it was incorrect. Trial 11 and 12 I was tired with headache and nausea and had to stop.

Kinda puts the lie to this –

“Inaccuracy appeared after headache and not before”

- doesn’t it?

That particular perception consisted of three parts:
1) A region just below the sternum, 0.0006 m2 area out of the average 1.9 m2 surface area of a man, giving it a chance of 1:3100 to guess it right (Locknar: this does not imply to say that I was guessing, I am just saying what the chances are for someone who does guess!). Correct.

Anita, you have prior knowledge of GERD, and how common it is. Claiming that it was a highly unlikely ‘guess’ is absurd. A person who is consciously cold reading will point to his subject’s xiphoid process and say “sometimes you experience discomfort right here”. A person who is subconsciously cold reading will do exactly the same thing, as did you. It is a guess, but it’s a guess about a specific problem, in a specific place, with a very high probability of being right, not “a chance of 1:3100”.

2) Describing the feeling of strain and cramp in this region, out of all the many types of sensations this was a pretty good "guess" (Locknar: I am not implying that I would have guessed). Correct.

See above.

3) Identifying the small intestine as being associated to this health condition. Has not been confirmed as accurate nor inaccurate. In my opinion it is not plausible, nor is it implausible.

Evidence that sometimes someone with some knowledge of anatomy and common health disorders (i.e. Anita) makes mistakes during her cold readings.

Originally posted by VisionFromFeeling:
What ever. I still think I may have synesthesia until proven otherwise.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

Don’t be tearin’ yer hair out, UncaYimmy! You can’t afford it.

 

[sleepy_lioness]

I mentioned migraine only really to illustrate that I know what it is to have sick headaches, yet I still risk them for something as small as a beer: how much more likely would I be to risk them for the fame and fortune Anita would find if she could demonstrate her chemical-identification tests ...

But it's also a possibility that Anita's sensory experiences are caused by some sort of neurological disturbance - I said this earlier. I have common migraine (without aura) but even with that I have sensory disturbances - not only do lights become too bright, but I smell funny things and sounds sometimes get distorted. Even my sight can become grey and blurry round the edges due to the nausea and dizziness, in a bad attack. I can only imagine that an aura is even weirder, and certainly some people have had very odd experiences during one.

There are, however, many possible explanations for Anita's experiences and migraine is only one, and probably not even the most plausible (and I'm not qualified to diagnose at all). Nausea and headache are common psychosomatic symptoms - they could be caused by her body rebelling at the idea she might be wrong and finding a way to stop the test (I know I've certainly felt ill when faced with failure). Or she could simply be making it up. There's no way of knowing. But I do think she should get a proper medical check-up and tell her clinician all she has told us.

 

[Old man]

There are, however, many possible explanations for Anita's experiences and migraine is only one, and probably not even the most plausible (and I'm not qualified to diagnose at all). Nausea and headache are common psychosomatic symptoms - they could be caused by her body rebelling at the idea she might be wrong and finding a way to stop the test (I know I've certainly felt ill when faced with failure). Or she could simply be making it up. There's no way of knowing. But I do think she should get a proper medical check-up and tell her clinician all she has told us.

Where, oh where, did I see this suggested once before?

 

[sleepy_lioness]

Where, oh where, did I see this suggested once before?

I vaguely remembered someone might have said something similar but I didn't feel like traipsing back through 31 pages to look for it ...

Sorry if I plagiarised you

 

[Ashles]

The study will be documented by attending skeptics.

I'm not sure if this question has been asked or answered before -

Who are the skeptics? Are they part of a specific group or organisation?

If I detect ailments that are considered undetectable even to any forms of cold reading

What ailments do you considered undetectable to cold reading?

If you don't actually speak to the person (and neither do they) then I would contend that non-region specific ailments would be pretty much immune to cold reading. E.g. blood disorders.
I assume neither you or the subjects will be speaking. Is that correct?

 

[Old man]

I vaguely remembered someone might have said something similar but I didn't feel like traipsing back through 31 pages to look for it ...

I would have linked to it, but I feel the same way...

Sorry if I plagiarised you

Not at all, friend. Great minds think alike!!

 

[Uncayimmy]

UncaYimmy:
I never get a chance to post in the moderated thread with all the work I have to do here. I will respond to your question in the moderated threat thread (Freudian slip) this evening.

Thank you.

BTW, you are choosing your priorities. It is your choice to not answer in the moderated thread until you are completely caught up here, which apparently hasn't happened in a week. Answer the questions in chronological order. If anybody complains, tough luck.

NOT A TEST! A school assignment in which I perceived information about the chemicals on their own and without having made the choice or effort to do so! So of course no headache or discomfort! Besides it was one or a few perceptions and not tens within a short period of time as was required by chemical identification tests.

See the words in bold and reconcile that with this statement you made:
The other aspects such as chemical identification requires effort and I get headaches

No, I am pushing to test the easiest manifestation of the claim; the medical information in live persons.

Let's put it this way: You're clearly not following the advice of people who have vastly more experience in this arena than you.

Well in several of my anecdotes that took place as described, as far as I know cold reading was not available. The fact that you insist on otherwise is incorrect, perhaps you are hallucinating?

Cold reading is always available when you 1) know the person and/or 2) can see the person.

If the hypothesis is a paranormal ability, then the null hypothesis is not necessarily hallucinations

.
I really don't have the energy to explain how you are not using these terms correctly or in the right context. Suffice it to say I strongly disagree with the above.

Just because I devote hours upon hours to something does not mean that it would be interfering with my life.

Like I said, it's just a definition of interfering. It affects your life, that's for sure. If you take actions based on a delusion, it is by definition interfering with your life. So, if I were told I had delusions but really wasn't acting on them, who cares? If, however, I devoted countless hours in the pursuit of something others believed may be the result of a delusion, I'd get it checked out since *I* would not be able to tell on my own.

Of course I've visited skeptic boards and involved other people. That is how a paranormal investigation takes place.

It's not a paranormal investigation in anyone's mind but your own. The hypothesis on this end is cold reading, confirmation bias, wishful thinking, etc.

And I've invited you many times now to speak with me in a private chat room since I feel that it was much more productive than posting here. I've even suggested that our conversation be made available here for those who are curious, but what if I claimed that you are avoiding my invitation? Are you delusional for avoiding it? Or perhaps you are lying?

Three times in one night, once the next day. We missed each other. I did poke you on Facebook to tell you I had stopped by. It happens.

If you claimed I was avoiding you, I would say that what you have is a reasonable premise considering how fast I usually respond. As for the delusional/lying premises, I have no idea what you're driving at. I don't see the analogy.

We've had our chat now, so relax.

 

[Uncayimmy]

Except for electron microscope imagery. ETA: Which, by the way, gets you stoned.

I volunteer to be the control in this experiment!

Don’t be tearin’ yer hair out, UncaYimmy! You can’t afford it.

LOL! No doubt. If only this stuff would make me *not* want to eat...

 

[desertgal]

I volunteer to be the control in this experiment!

After the incredible patience you have shown in this thread, I think that's only fair. I'll even throw in some munchies.

 

[desertgal]

But it's also a possibility that Anita's sensory experiences are caused by some sort of neurological disturbance - I said this earlier. I have common migraine (without aura) but even with that I have sensory disturbances - not only do lights become too bright, but I smell funny things and sounds sometimes get distorted. Even my sight can become grey and blurry round the edges due to the nausea and dizziness, in a bad attack. I can only imagine that an aura is even weirder, and certainly some people have had very odd experiences during one.

This is certainly possible. I have a friend who developed a rare condition of false bone behind her nasal passages - she continually smelled burning wire, and, when the false bone grew in size, she developed double vision and would often see people or things in her peripheral vision that weren't actually there. (I know a lot of us do that, but it became a continual thing for her because of pressure on her optic region.)

But I do think she should get a proper medical check-up and tell her clinician all she has told us.

I agree. You might want to consider that seriously, Anita. If nothing else, it can't hurt.

 

[Akhenaten]

Aha! When ever I come with additional information, it will always be considered too late!

It's never too late for post hoc ergo propter hoc.

 

[nathan]

You refuse to describe standard current Optical Equipment that might be relevent to this claim?

What we need is some kind of laser!

 

[Ashles]

What we need is some kind of laser!

Frankly, I never thought the request for current relevant optical equipment would turn out to be controversial.
I was just hoping Anita could demonstrate a knowledge of some scientific field. And my request was supposed to be a genuine, straightforward starting point for us to discuss the claim in more technical detail and Optics is supposedly one of her strongest subjects.
But the technical discussion that Anita started never got off the ground in any field.

Right now I am baffled as to what Anita has learned in three years of college science.

 

[desertgal]

...unless in the mind of the skeptic who is fully convinced that I am not studying two B.S. degrees at the same time, that my English is so good that I couldn't possibly be Swedish...

Why do you keep bringing those two things up, ad nauseum? The issue about your college degrees was an honest misunderstanding by an Australian national about the American university system, and it was corrected by another poster almost as soon as it happened. The original poster apologized for the misunderstanding and, after being mocked by you- even though the issue had been resolved-hasn't posted in this thread since. She is not "fully convinced" that you are not studying two B.S. degrees at the same time. She made an honest mistake. Are honest misunderstandings not allowed in your world or something?

The question about your nationality - same thing. It was a negligible issue that was settled almost immediately.

The only person who continually makes those two things an issue here is YOU. None of the rest of us are repeating them as fact.

Jeez. Drop it, already.