Why do you visit this site?

[Kaylee]

Shera, if you are interested in probabilities, here is an interesting set of videos on-line on the subject. They deal with different areas of that subject. They are from Dartmouth University.

Chance

Thanks FreeChile! I didn't have a chance (bad pun intended) to watch them yet, but I took a look at the titles. They look interesting and I'm looking forward to watching them!

 

[Throg]

Assuming there is cycling or round-robin as you say, it implies nothing about the continuity of memory nor about the continuity or independence of the sensory perceptions. This is simply a catching up issue. The activities of memory can never catch up to the sensory perceptions. So they capture frames like movie cameras

Then it's not just a catching-up issue. Information is lost and can never be reliably recovered just like the information lost in-between the frames of a movie.

Prioritization implies importance. How does the body know that one experience is to take precedence over another? You hear a sound and it is converted in some way, let’s say into electrical impulses. At some point it reaches your round-robin system. How does this system know that this sound is more important than any other sound or that it is more important than a particular color? I don’t think you mean to say this the way you said it. You may want to re-write this sentence

Not at all. I specifically avoided identifying what is or is not important because it is subjective. A particular stimulus will be given a consistently high priority by the brain of one person and not another. The obvious example is the sound of one's name, which almost always gains high priority. Think about being in a noisy environment when someone says your name, you tend to immediately become conscious of and focus on them. The system "knows" this particular sound (your name) is important merely because it has been trained - through experience - to regard it as important.

This is just the way the information is represented, in frames

No it isn't. Consult a biology text book on the way light and sound are presented to your eyes and ears. There is no discontinuity at this level . Discontinuity arises at the level of transducing and processing.

The video recorder and player are always moving once you press the button. This is the continuity I am talking about. The recorder needs to capture everything in its sight. If it didn’t, it could not give context to the objects of focus

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. If you are trying to relate it to the idea that all the information that is out there is captured then the video camera is a poor example because, just as with a movie camera, information is lost between frames. If you are trying to relate it to the way the eye gives context to information then the analogy fails again. The video camera captures whole frames by virtue of the optical properties of film (or photoreceptive cell in a digital camera). Your eye, by contrast, constructs each "frame" by taking multiple focal rapidly decreased detail around the focal point and interpolating them (this is the reason for saccadic eye movements), resulting in loss of information and the introduction of false information even in those frames of visual information which you do capture.

The same is true of ‘conscious’ life. There is always an element of interpretation, fabrication and selectivity. Add to that the problem of the sub-conscious or irrational arising from time to time. Yet in both cases, there is the use of memory: the images of any (true or false) experience could not be created or articulated without this memory. The image or story itself may all be inconsistent. But elements from that image come from the memories

I absolutely agree so long as it is understood that by memory we mean our story as we have created it rather than an accurate record of what actually happened.

The evidence is not always essential. The problem is, when evidence is used in support of some statement, it is better to have that evidence or at least paraphrase the theories supported by the evidence. This way certain assumptions can be analyzed

Agreed, though I have done my best to paraphrase the theories. If you point out any specific inadequacies I will try to do better. My offer to find references for any particular evidencial statement I have made at the rate of per day still stands. Sorry I can't do better but, appearances to the contrary, I do have a life to attend to.

 

[Throg]

Your suggested method for how to falsify does not falsify my conclusion, but a different conclusion. The conclusion that the method you recommend assumes (I believe) that this phenomena is limited to picking up the state of people within in a few feet and within the same room.

Nothing in my method assumes or requires this. The only assumption/requirement is a limited time-frame. Explain why my method requires geographical proximity.

I shouldn't have to!

You don't have to but you are asking me to do a significant amount of work for no conceivable personal gain. I offered an exchange.

You may be the exception to the rule, but I have found out the hard way that it usually isn't worth it to do other people's work for them even if one has the tim

It's really not my work to do. I did the work years ago and I see no reason to do so again. If I still had the reference to hand that would be a different matter but not having them to hand it really is not much easier for me to find them than for you. You are the one who wants to understand these phenomena, I already did the work to understand them and I do. Given what I have said, you can either try to find the references on the basis of my descriptions (which is essentially what I would have to do) or you can not bother. It depends on how serious you are about wanting to understand, I suppose. The Gross book is, in any case to start, it was sort of the centre-point for my degree and will lead you to references to much of what I have described. Since there is no benefit for me in doing the work you ask of me on your behalf, it would seem irrational for me to do it, don't you think? Low-cost altruism is one thing but I am not a free research assistant.

Time is a scarce commodity these days

exactly.

Ah, the diary issue. I suspect that I was annoyed that it seemed to me that you had assumed that I did not keep careful note of everything that was occurring when I first got these unusual experiences

You have said as much in a previous post.

The comment "there is a point only if you care about the truth or falsehood or your current beliefs" I simply regard as a poor attempt at manipulation

This was certainly not my intent. I rarely employ manipulative methods and never so clumsily. I was merely trying to make the point that if it really doesn't matter much to you whether or not you actually have some sort of minor (from your point of view) paranormal ability then it isn't worth the time and effort to find out. I took you to imply in the very part of your previous post you proceed to quote, that you implied this to be the case. You seem to imply this again in the summing up in your position here. If it doesn't really matter to you then it doesn't. It's your preference, your choice and I don't think it's anybody's business but yours. It would not be my preference or choice but that is my business. Really, I took an interest in your story that is all and did my best to provide information that seemed relevant. I have no more claim on how you wish to spend your time than you have on mine.

If you do get round to keeping the diary then I would certainly be interested to hear the results. From my point of view, recording of the time of the occurences seems to be absolutely essential if you intend to use the diary as a serious investigative tool. Either way, I wish you the best. Incidentally, I extend the offer I made to FreeChile to you. If you want to choose one statement I have made per day I will do my best to do your work for you and find the references. That's indpendent of the diary thing. There should probably be a smilie in there but I dislike using them too.

 

[Kaylee]

Shera:
Your suggested method for how to falsify does not falsify my conclusion, but a different conclusion. The conclusion that the method you recommend assumes (I believe) that this phenomena is limited to picking up the state of people within in a few feet and within the same room.

Throg:
Nothing in my method assumes or requires this. The only assumption/requirement is a limited time-frame. Explain why my method requires geographical proximity.

Your method assumes access by at least some of the "5 main senses", shortly after any occurrence of physical empathy, to the possible source. If the possible source is not accessible, then the occurrence has the possibility of getting falsified for false reasons.

--

On the subject of supplying citations for claimed assertions --

Throg:
… you are asking me to do a significant amount of work for no conceivable personal gain. ..
It's really not my work to do. I did the work years ago and I see no reason to do so again. If I still had the reference to hand that would be a different matter but not having them to hand it really is not much easier for me to find them than for you. You are the one who wants to understand these phenomena, I already did the work to understand them and I do. Given what I have said, you can either try to find the references on the basis of my descriptions (which is essentially what I would have to do) or you can not bother. It depends on how serious you are about wanting to understand, I suppose.

Yes, I do ask people for citations for claimed assertions. When I do so, I don't consider that I'm asking people to do work for me, I consider that I'm asking them how they arrived at their opinion. The quality of information on the net and probably even in the professional journals vary widely. Depending on the field, hypotheses and opinions may vary considerably. IMHO, to expect someone to understand how you arrived at your beliefs without providing your sources is usually not realistic.

I need to get the best use out of my time, so quite frankly I will always follow up on areas that I have citations for first. I always treat cited materials more seriously and tend to be more skeptical of uncited information; I learned to based on past experience. And since my reading list (with citations) is getting lengthier and lengthier with every passing month -- I don't expect to run out of reading material any time soon.

Other people on the forum have expressed their opinions on the importance of providing citations -- some much more adamantly than me, and probably everyone more eloquently than me. If you haven't read other people's opinions on this area yet, I'm sure you will soon.

Throg:
I wish you the best.

Thanks, you too.

 

[Throg]

Your method assumes access by at least some of the "5 main senses", shortly after any occurrence of physical empathy, to the possible source. If the possible source is not accessible, then the occurrence has the possibility of getting falsified for false reasons.

I see. I understood you to be originally suggesting that your explanation of the phenomena was evidence-based. Now you appear to be suggesting that even where there is no evidence (and no possibility of evidence) you presume that your sensations are caused by some distant (to some degree) source. That presumption is, indeed, untestable.

Yes, I do ask people for citations for claimed assertions. When I do so, I don't consider that I'm asking people to do work for me, I consider that I'm asking them how they arrived at their opinion

Two separate questions. I arrived at my opinion by spending three years attaining a degree in Psychology with all the hard work and research that involved. Asking me for citations I no longer have, is asking me to do work (and in fact repeat work) for no personal gain.

I need to get the best use out of my time, so quite frankly I will always follow up on areas that I have citations for first. I always treat cited materials more seriously and tend to be more skeptical of uncited information

Of course a dishonest person could provide you with reams of spurious citations that provide no actual support for their position. As I have previously suggested, absent citations, you can always treat any assertion based on it's internal logic. This will not prove an true assertion to be true but it will often prove a false assertion to be false. Furthermore, you can compare it to your own citationless assertions (or those of others) and ask the question, is there any intrinsic reason to choose one as a model of truth over the other.

Other people on the forum have expressed their opinions on the importance of providing citations -- some much more adamantly than me, and probably everyone more eloquently than me. If you haven't read other people's opinions on this area yet, I'm sure you will soon.

I'm sure I will but opinions are only as important as their supporting logic.

 

[FreeChile]

Shera,

I also wouldn’t discount the possibility of your nervous system having fabricated the whole thing, including the entire scene with the wet individual leaving the bathroom. You seem to need to believe in this paranormal ability. Therefore it would not be terribly difficult for your nervous system to create what you need. Going from there to an ability to heal, to project chi, to communicate with the dead, among other paranormal abilities is not very far.

Here’s something I offered as an alternate physical explanation to someone who asked about his teacher’s ability to project chi.Chi Power

Previously By FreeChile

Why does it always hurt a lot when the doctor says "well, this is gonna hurt a bit"?

Let me try to offer an alternate physical explanation.

My guess is that using our thoughts in meditative or visualization techniques, we are able to have physical effects in our bodies--just like we do when we decide to walk or perform some other physical activity. Now the thing is that these activities are unnatural or unusual to the functioning of the body. So they create disturbances similar to panic or anxiety attacks, to put it in psychological terms. These attacks may result in all sorts of hallucinations or delusions or visions.

If you want to feel heat in your legs, stay out in the freezing cold without shoes for a long time. First you feel cold—and no, this is not a suggestion. If this does not help, your nervous system adapts signaling you that it is hot. Eventually, you stop feeling your feet and frost byte settles in certain areas. So this may all be part of a survival mechanism controlled by the nervous system.

It is similar with hunger. After a couple of days without eating, the hunger goes away and you can last 60 days. Later on, the nervous system may again send signals, such as muscle spasms or twitching, and eventually hallucinations, sometimes of food like in the cartoons where you may see a person with a body of a roasted chicken (or a mirage in the case of water deprivation in desert situations). For some individuals involved in religious worship, they may even have mystical experiences. But this is again the nervous system telling them “You’re gonna die mother”.

Yet another example is sleep. If you stay horizonal for a long time like I've done watching TV, you may experience a distancing from the set and a trance-like sensation. Does this mean you are having an out-of-body experience? What may be happening is that the fact that you are in a sleeping position may be sending a signal to sleep. However, your desire to continue watching the set has the nervous system confused. So to satisfy both, it adapts by keeping you in a sleep-awake state, similar to those cases where you dream and in your dream you dream that you wake up but you're still dreaming. Waking up to a dream is possible because the dream may be so good that you really don't want to wake up; but it may be time to wake up because you may have had enough sleep or the alarm is about to ring. So the nervous system adapts by giving you both.

The ability of the body to radiate heat should not be so mysterious. Simply think of a fever. Isn’t that also a survival mechanism meant to fight threats to the body? We don’t find that to be so impressive!

One final note. Many of the sensations we experience may also be conditioned since birth. Meaning that we’ve basically learned what hot, cold, hunger, thirst is. Of course, there are physical requirements of the body. But the sensations themselves may be experiences we’ve learned in time. They’ve become wired into our neurons and this may be how in times of danger, the nervous system will attempt many possibilities to keep us safe.

Also Previously by FreeChile:

Figure this one out.

A true believer would believe he has passed a double-blind test [my thanks to Telos for this one], therefore winning the JREF challenge.

 

[Gr8wight]

Why do you visit this site?

I was really hoping to get the chance to kick someone in the genitals.

 

[Kaylee]

Yes -- it's a very difficult idea to prove. I agree.

The problem as I see it is that "frequently" and "later" are very elastic terms such that it does not seem, at first glance, particularly susrprising that given a sensation of chewing or wetness you would frequently come across somebody within a short but undefined time-frame who's state is apparently identifiable with the sensation you experienced.

Shera (responding to Throg ) 03-28-2005 3:35 AM GMT
Reasonable. And since eating is so common I wouldn't blame anyone for doubting any conclusions drawn around this activity.

Shera 03-28-2005 3:35 AM GMT
I think that it would be difficult to come up with anything [diary] that would be conclusive or meaningful to a reader. I agree with you that from a scientific point of view, my personal conclusion has weak points. A reasonable person could argue that I may be periodically experiencing very odd forms of hallucinations and because I've been able to logically connect some of these sensations to what other people have physically felt, I came up with an erroneous conclusion.

…

from a scientific impartial point of view, I'm not considered an impartial party.

…

Anyway, the biggest problem with my conclusion, from a scientific viewpoint, is that I don't see how it can be definitively falsified,

….

I'm doubtful that I would be able to come up with a set of notes, let alone experiments, that would mean anything scientifically. Which is why I have avoided using words like theory and hypothesis in describing my conclusion.

In certain situations I think it is difficult to upgrade personal experiences to a scientifically proven theory. I just don't see how its possible in this case.

Bodhi Dharma Zen (responding to Shera) 03-28-2005 4:51 PM GMT
I wouldnt call them "hallucinations", merely unrelated phenomena, that has been "causally linked" with some form of meaning.

--

And when responding to my statement:
"But I'm doubtful that I would be able to come up with a set of notes, let alone experiments, that would mean anything scientifically. Which is why I have avoided using words like theory and hypothesis in describing my conclusion."

Fair enough!

Shera 03-28-2005 4:12 PM

This thing is just totally unpredictable.

---

…what I experience is really random.

I would tentatively suggest that it can be falsified if you discover that you have more occasions where a sensation occurs without a corresponding explanatory event than seems to be the case or you discover that in order to make the connections the time-frame has to become extremely elastic (perhaps you could start by specifying a time-limit within which the "explantory event" must occur for you to allow that it is connected to your sensation). If after keeping your diary for a few weeks there still appears to be a paranormal phenomena then we have to think about a more rigorous test.

Shera (responding to Throg ) 03-29-2005 10:52 A GMT
I'm not sure. Other people that I have chatted with online have said that they don't believe there is a distance limitation to psionic abilities. This is a very difficult statement to falsify.
I do agree with you about the time-frame though.

One of my first physical empathy experiences was that I was feeling someone working out while I was in the office. I did not track it down to anybody. Months later I had an injury that I needed to follow up with a few sessions of physical therapy. It was only then that I learned there were two very small gyms tucked away on the block where I was working. Was I hallucinating or was I picking up someone at random in one of those gyms? I don't know how to answer that question with scientific methodology.

Throg (responding to Shera) 03-29-2005 2:00 PM GMT
What makes you think you were picking up on someone working-out in those particular gyms rather than someone who was working out in a completely different gym on the other side of the world? Is there any limit to the number of possible explanations for what could have caused the sensation if you can experience across unlimited distance? Were the sensations you felt so specific to the particular activities one can only get up to in a gym that you can be sure that is what you felt?

Shera (responding to Throg ) 03-30-2005 07:22 AM GMT
Well I have worked out on machines in gyms and continue to lift light weights at home. These particular sensations felt like the ones a person would get working out specific muscles with a weight machine. But we are repeating old ground here, others and I have already discussed that my conclusions are impossible to test and falsify. That is certainly what I believe and it's what I said in these posts several times.

Throg 03-30-2005 08:59 AM GMT
They are really not impossible to falsify. If you keep a systematic record but find no systematic relationship between cause and effect then that would be falsification.

Shera responding to Throg 03-31-2005 5:37 AM GMT
I had mentioned the gym machine in an earlier post as an example of an occurrence that explains why my conclusion is impossible to test and falsify.

As we had discussed before:

Throg - 03-29-2005 10:52 AM GMT:
"I would tentatively suggest that it can be falsified if you discover that you have more occasions where a sensation occurs without a corresponding explanatory event than seems to be the case or you discover that in order to make the connections the time-frame has to become extremely elastic"

Shera - 03-29-2005 10:52 AM GMT:
"I'm not sure. Other people that I have chatted with online have said that they don't believe there is a distance limitation to psionic abilities. This is a very difficult statement to falsify.
I do agree with you about the time-frame though."

"One of my first physical empathy experiences was that I was feeling someone working out while I was in the office. I did not track it down to anybody. Months later I had an injury that I needed to follow up with a few sessions of physical therapy. It was only then that I learned there were two very small gyms tucked away on the block where I was working. Was I hallucinating or was I picking up someone at random in one of those gyms? I don't know how to answer that question with scientific methodology."


Your suggested method for how to falsify does not falsify my conclusion, but a different conclusion. The conclusion that the method you recommend assumes (I believe) that this phenomena is limited to picking up the state of people within in a few feet and within the same room. I disagree.

…

Most of the time I experience this while working in the "zone", and obviously I have an easier time finding causality if I'm working in a large open area with no privacy and lots of "traffic". That does not describe my situation for the next couple of months (estimated).

Throg 03-31-2005 5:54 PM GMT
Nothing in my method assumes or requires this. The only assumption/requirement is a limited time-frame. Explain why my method requires geographical proximity.

Shera 04-01-2005 3:15 AM
Your method assumes access by at least some of the "5 main senses", shortly after any occurrence of physical empathy, to the possible source. If the possible source is not accessible, then the occurrence has the possibility of getting falsified for false reasons.

(In other words, to really spell this out, there are zero chances of verifying this in a private office with no windows and no visitors.)

 

[Kaylee]

Originally Posted by Shera
Yes, I do ask people for citations for claimed assertions. When I do so, I don't consider that I'm asking people to do work for me, I consider that I'm asking them how they arrived at their opinion.

Originally Posted by Throg
Two separate questions. I arrived at my opinion by spending three years attaining a degree in Psychology with all the hard work and research that involved. Asking me for citations I no longer have, is asking me to do work (and in fact repeat work) for no personal gain.

I don't regard it as two separate questions. Explaining your credentials does not explain how you arrived at a specific belief. If that were so, there would be no difference between any practicing psychologists' approach and methods in how they go about treating their clients. OTH, when asserting that people confuse temperature changes with wetness sensations, I would hope that this was based on specific research or experiments.

Feel free not to provide citations. But then the information offered is frequently not much better than an anecdotal story due to imperfect recall or other reasons. I personally find it very annoying to have this type of "evidence" regarded as highly as a cited and specific source, and even more annoying to have it regarded as thoroughly addressing the issue. This is not a personal attack, just an observation made based on experience with many people.

Originally Posted by Throg
Furthermore, you can compare it to your own citationless assertions (or those of others) and ask the question, is there any intrinsic reason to choose one as a model of truth over the other.

I cannot regard this as an intellectually honest comment. Within this thread I had invited you to offer an alternative hypothesis or theory to Rupert Sheldrake's hypothesis of formative causation and morphic fields which he has used to explain 5 cases of accelerated learning written up in labs by other scientists. As for my personal experiences, I have been very careful to say that I cannot and do not have a scientific explanation for them and I have not presented them as anything more than personal experiences -- so I don't see how my posts can be regarded as an assertion.

 

[Kaylee]

Originally Posted by FreeChile
I also wouldn’t discount the possibility of your nervous system having fabricated the whole thing,

As I said before, I don't.

You seem to need to believe in this paranormal ability.

Not particularly. As I said before, it's just one of two possibilities that I have considered as an explanation for the unusual experiences that I have been having. The other possibility I have considered is an unusual form of hallucination.

I just like exploring possible causes for unusual experiences (including my own), and while I think weak psionic abilities are a strong contender, I don't feel irrevocably bonded to any particular causal candidate.

Therefore it would not be terribly difficult for your nervous system to create what you need.

That is certainly an interesting idea. However, as I said before, I knew very little about the concept of psionic abilities before I had my first unusual experiences. I didn't believe in it, I wasn't looking for it, and it wasn't even on my radar screen.

Going from there to an ability to heal, to project chi, to communicate with the dead, among other paranormal abilities is not very far.

More interesting ideas. I guess it won't surprise you if I say I disagree? Some of those ideas are extremely distant from experiences that some think (not just me) may be weak, uncontrollable and random psionic occurrences.

BTW, FWIW -- I dislike the term paranormal. I think that anything that occurs is a result of a cause, although sometimes it takes scientists a while to discover the cause. I no doubt expressed that badly, but I hope my meaning is clear.

Here’s something I offered as an alternate physical explanation to someone who asked about his teacher’s ability to project chi.Chi Power

Yes I caught your original post. Interesting ideas. Because of some of the ideas you mentioned, you might be interested to know that Lawrence LeShan suggested in his book "How To Meditate" (1st Edition) that mediation could lead to psionic type effects (I'm sorry, I don't recall the exact word he used, and I have since returned the book). He described that as an unfortunate side effect of meditation -- hallucinations -- and suggested that they be ignored. (FWIW, the only evidence he offered was anecdotal. )

This is a very interesting area to say the least.

Edited to fix link.

 

[EHocking]

I wouldn't say the world is in the Dark Ages just because of that!

I heard about a guy who spotted the real Elvis the other day.

I am not so sure evolution and God are so incompatible. It seems they are both very intelligent designs. And both have co-existed as long as man has been aware of himself.

Evolution does not need guidance, nor intervention to exist. It is quite the opposite of the religious need for a god to design and run things.

I see no compatibility between the two. All I see is an attempt by religious groups to blur the boundary between the two by insisting that, the fact that the theory of evolution is such a good model to explain the nature of being, that proves it *must* have a guiding hand in it - thus ID was invented.

 

[Throg]

I cannot regard this as an intellectually honest comment. Within this thread I had invited you to offer an alternative hypothesis or theory to Rupert Sheldrake's hypothesis of formative causation and morphic fields which he has used to explain 5 cases of accelerated learning written up in labs by other scientists. As for my personal experiences, I have been very careful to say that I cannot and do not have a scientific explanation for them and I have not presented them as anything more than personal experiences -- so I don't see how my posts can be regarded as an assertion

I said right at the beginning that I don't know enough about Sheldrake or morphic fields to do so. How much more honest can I be?

 

[ilk]

That's the problem though, because we confuse them we don't know we've confused them.

As far as it's worth, I can corroborate the whole cold/wet thing. Cold towels always feel wet to me regardless of how dry they are.

 

[turtle]

Why do you visit this site?

I visit this site to be entertained. Also:

to keep up on what the enemy is up to

ideas and resources

Great new fodder for my website

 

[Dr Adequate]

I visit this site to be entertained.

Really?

How's that working out for you?

You're a worthless piece of dung. Give it up *******. Yeah, that's right, I said *******. OOOOOooooooo, will this mean JREF will ban me? Or put me on moderation? That's what you want, of course. Well, I ain't too worried, dog breath, since the mods here seem to do precious little about bad behavior. If they did, you would not be allowed to continue with your crap. Buzz off, you vile filled trough of puke. You have nohting better to do, sad. So sad. It's a Sat. night, why are you here instead of going out and having a good time? Or did you already pay her off and she left? Take responsibility. Oh, sorry, forgot. You're a socio- path so you are incapable. Okay, I'm gone. YES, it's true, another woo has hit the road, and you all can sit around in a big circle, holding hands and singing your "The Woo is Dead" song. What a bunch of sick loser smug twits. You are so totally to laugh. I notice, by the way, you all hang around here together in a bunch, or go out trolling pure woo forums. I rarely ever see any of you in forums where it's balanced. (whenever any of you come over to one of those forums, the only ones who get put on moderation or booted off are the likes of you. Gee, can't imagine why! I know you won't heed my advice to not respond to this post, because you have a mental disorder and can't help yourself, but you'll only be congratulating each other since I won't be here to read your twisted sick posts. YOU are the liar, Dr. A, not me. A sick, twisted, sociopathic, thug of a liar. Hey, since I'm psychic, I know what you and a few other twits in here will be saying: "I whined about being a victim," despite the ineptness of the mods and continued lack of responsibility you've shown. "the woo couldn't take it, she ran away" not realizing I have a life, you pond scum swill of worm bile, and have no more time to waste in this pathetic forum of "critical thinkers," and who knows what other lies. But, you being a LIAR nothing less is expected.

 

[turtle]

Really?

How's that working out for you?

Hey, quite nicely thank you! For example, you're right on cue!

 

[pyewhackett]

Why do you visit this site?

In the hope of, one day, having my very own jref avatar!!!



Karen.

 

[farmermike]

Re: Re: Why do you visit this site?

I was really hoping to get the chance to kick someone in the genitals.

Actually I've doubled over in what I've percieved as pain after seeing someones grandfather getting accidently slammed in the groin with a baseball bat on America's funniest home videos.Pertaining to this thread,does it count for anything?

 

[Kaylee]

As far as it's worth, I can corroborate the whole cold/wet thing. Cold towels always feel wet to me regardless of how dry they are.

Thanks for sharing your experience ilk. Just curious, does the towel actually feel wet to you, or just damp? Or does that vary?

I decided to try this also by putting a paper towel in the freezer. When I took it out later, it felt cold and just a touch damp. After thinking about it, I realized it should be damp. I have an extremely old refrigerator (probably about 25 years old) and at a bare minimum it has a thin layer of frosty ice in it at all times. Even if it didn't, refrigerators uses condenser coils so I would expect the air to be more humid in the refrigerator and probably even more so in the freezer. New refrigerators use condeser coils too, so I would expect that a new freezer would have produced the same result.

I tested this some more by putting the paper towel back in the freezer and leaving it in over night along with half a sheet of very thin paper (but on top of the towel, not on top of the iced over surface or a frozen container). The towel was even more damp the next day (this morning) and the paper was damp and curled up also. I think the humidity caused it to curl up. The other half of the paper that I hadn't put in the freezer was still flat, which helped prove that it wasn't my imagination.
(I had expected the paper to get translucent and to be able to use that as proof that anything put in a freezer would get damp. But I think the fact that it curled is proof enough.)

If it was still winter I would also try leaving a towel outdoors on a day when the humidity was very low. Oh well, there's always next winter. I can't think of any other way to chill a towel. (Except of course by soaking it in very cold water, but that wouldn't be helpful for this experiment...)

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

To discuss with intelligent people.

To learn from them.

To urge Critical Thinkers to combat the dark ages that are showing in the form of teaching ID and a president who believes there are "forces of good and evil".

Ditto.