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In a scene from the 2002 film "Minority Report," Tom Cruise's character helps out a woman (Samantha Morton) who has precognitive powers. Do such powers actually exist, even to a small extent?
Scientists are buzzing over a peer-reviewed study that suggests humans have predictive powers, but it’s too early to predict whether or not the research will hold up.
The 61-page paper, titled "Feeling the Future," was written by Cornell psychology professor emeritus Daryl Bem and is due for publication in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Bem says his experiments support the idea that there really is something to human precognition of events that haven't yet occurred.
You could argue that this is a case of science imitating sci-fi -- particularly considering that precognition provided a key element of the plot for "The Minority Report," a Philip K. Dick short story that was made into a movie starring Tom Cruise in 2002. You might be forgiven if you think this is the latest trick from a professor who used to be a stage magician. But Bem is dead serious about the experiments, and his submission to the journal is no work of fiction.
"My very first publication was 50 years ago in that journal, which would make a nice capstone," Bem told me today.
Bem said each of the experiments described in the paper simply takes a well-known method for testing how sensory input affects the brain's output "and turns it around backwards" in time sequence.
Here are three examples:
- Retroactive recall: One experiment was based on the truism that practice makes perfect. Suppose you set up a vocabulary study drill on a list of 24 words. Then you show the students a 48-word list, including those 24. When you ask the students later to recall as many of the words as they can, it's more likely that they'll remember the 24 from their vocabulary drill. "In my version, we reverse it," Bem said. "We show you the 48 words, then we give you the test, then we give you practice. The prediction is that you will have done better on the test with the words that you were going to practice than the ones you won't practice. And it works."
- Retroactive priming: Suppose you show 100 people a series of pleasant images (like a Hubble space photo) mixed in with unpleasant images (like a terrible car crash). Lots of experiments have been done about the effect of seeing a "primer" word before the image. If the primer word is something like "peace" or "lovely," the subjects will register a pleasant image more quickly than they would an unpleasant image. But in Bem's experiment, the image was shown before the primer word. The experimental subjects registered the images correctly as pleasant or unpleasant roughly 15 to 25 milliseconds more quickly if the images were followed by a primer word that matched the picture's content.
- Precognitive selection: A hundred subjects were asked to predict which of two computer screens will flash up a picture rather than an empty space. They're told in advance that some of the images will be erotic in nature. The computer didn't make its random selection of which images would appear where until after the human subjects made their choice. The subjects correctly identified the future position of the arousing images 53.1 percent of the time -- while the success rate for the non-arousing images was merely the expected 50-50. A separate experiment, involving 150 subjects, came up with a 51.7 percent "hit rate" for selecting preferred images over negative images.
These experiments led Bem to conclude that there's a slight but statistically significant precognition effect, particularly if the person making the prediction is a stimulus-seeking extrovert. Such "stimulus-seekers" recorded a slightly higher success rate on Bem's tests.
Bem acknowledged that a 51.7 to 53 percent success rate might seem very close to what would be expected by chance. "But that's about the edge that a casino has over you, and guess what? They're still in business," he said. "We don't ignore things just because they're 53 percent."
What's the explanation?
Lots of people believe in psychic phenomena, but Bem's findings have attracted more than usual attention because he's claiming a quantifiable psychic (or "psi") effect, and because such claims are being published in a reputable scientific journal.
Outside researchers generally acknowledge that the findings seem sound, but they just can't bring themselves to believe Bem's conclusion. Joachim Krueger, a psychology professor at Brown University, said he remains unconvinced that the psi effect is real.
"I am not only bothered by the lack of a positive theory, but also by the contradictions between psi and ordinary scientific assumptions," he wrote in a Psychology Today blog posting. Precognition appears to run counter to the conventional view that causes precede their effects, he said. (Which reminds me to check in on the status of experiments in quantum retrocausality.)
The way Bem sees it, the weird implications of his results are the most fascinating aspects of the research. "What does this say about the real world, because this stuff violates our notion of cause and effect," he said. "That's the part that totally intrigues me."
Bem told me it's "absurd" that he should be expected to come up with a theory to explain his data. He just knows that the data indicate there's a slight, subtle but statistically solid phenomenon worthy of further investigation.
"The odds against its just being chance are actually 7 billion to 1," Bem said. "In any experiment like this, critics are permitted to come up with alternatives to explain the results of the experiment, and some of those explanations are non-psi. That's fair game. But one thing we're sure of is that these results aren't due to chance."
Are the results reproducible?
Bem acknowledged that the experiments would have to be replicated in order to confirm that precognition is a real effect. Two other researchers, Jeff Galak of Carnegie Mellon University and Leif Nelson of the University of California at Berkeley, have already tried to replicate one of Bem's experiments (the one with the word recall test) and failed to get any significant results.
"Why do we not see any evidence of precognition?" Galak and Nelson wrote in their research paper. "There are obviously a multitude of possibilities for why we failed to obtain a result similar to Bem, ranging from the mundane (e.g., our sample was more heterogeneous than Bem's) to the exotic (e.g., the quantum mechanics that allow for the detection of future events are also contingent on the specific physical features of the original experiment rooms.)
"For the purposes of this paper we really only care about one possibility: Do we fail to detect precognition because precognition does not exist? In answer to this question we emphatically say, 'We don't know. On the one hand, we fail to replicate the effect, but on the other hand, our single failure to replicate is hardly sufficient to seriously undermine an entire paper.'"
Bem said Galak and Nelson went ahead with their trial without having full information about how his own experiments were conducted. They also had their experimental subjects take the test over the Internet rather than in person. When the test is conducted online, "you lose total control over it," Bem said. (Galak and Nelson admit that it's "unclear" how closely their subjects attended to the key elements of the experiment.)
But never fear: Since word about Bem's results got out, he's received dozens of requests for information about how the experiment was done. The experiments are sure to be repeated, and the results from those experiments should confirm whether precognition is for real. Who knows? Some of you may already have a sixth sense about this. Feel free to weigh in with your own premonitions -- or even your plain old opinions -- in the comment section below.
For more about Bem's findings, check out this report from New Scientist and this one from H Plus magazine. But if you want to try replicating his experiments, don't just download the replication packages. Let Bem know so that he can keep track.
Additional unsuccessful attempts to replicate Bem's experiments have come to light, including "Retro-priming et re-test" by Thomas Rabeyron and Caroline Watt; and "Precognitive Habituation: An Attempt to Replicate Previous Results," by Gergo Hadlaczky.
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
Woohoo! First Comment.
I don't see why it would be so hard to believe that precognition could exist given that current quantum theory speculates that anti-matter is simply regular matter traveling backwards in time. This theory is necessary to help explain Hawking radiation, since the radiation occurs when a particle and an anti-particle are created and only one half is absorbed by the black hole, creating a net negative in the total mass of the black hole. Using this theory, these "virtual particles" appear to come into existence together, and are annihilated when they recombine, however all we are seeing is the same particle travelling in a circle in time (forward as the anti-particle until the "recombine" which is simple the event where the particle changes and becomes the anti-particle, which then travels backwards in time to the point where they are first created, which is when the anti-particle changes back into the particle). Since anti-particles travel backwards in time, "effect" would precede "cause" when these are concerned, at least from out perspective. Given this effect, it's easy to extrapolate that events in the future can, indeed, affect the past. However, this leads us to the "deterministic" universe, in which the future is immutable, which would provide a more solid basis for precognition; i.e. it is easier to see a future that is "guaranteed" to occur, rather than one that just "might" occur.
Bem is to be commended for publishing his research. His findings reflect the long established positive results at Princeton and several other research sites. This confirmative work is well detailed in Lynne MacTaggart's excellent book, "The Field." One can only express surprise that people who should be aware of this prior work in the U.S. and Europe seem to be ignorant of its existence. Perhaps this is only to be expected, since pivotal advances in science have always taken quite awhile to become known, then incorporated into the predominant worldview. For the journalist who is currently reporting Bem's work, this is a scoop. But for the well informed, precognition is already confirmed fact, and has been for many years. Beyond this, clairvoyance, telepathy, and several other phenomena have been thoroughly demonstrated by reputable scientists in controlled experiments. Unfortunately, a small number of credentialed scientists, and other, less qualified people have chosen to publish popular books that advocate outdated, materialist worldviews. But this literature only obscures and delays general establishment in the layman's mind of a more accurate understanding of the world we live in. Science has always advanced by correcting its past errors.
You seem to be living in a fantasy world. There have been no verifiable and repeatable experiments that show any kind of psychic phenomenon. Quacks and frauds are not considered "reputable scientists" in the scientific community.
thats an awful long explanation. I am only saying yep this has happened to me too many times "ESP" but it is not something I can turn on or off it just happens.
Was your mother diagnoised with a mental illness
We need verification by another study, preferably several, before we can accept this.
chforbessr
Thanks for the reference to Lynne MacTaggart's excellent book, "The Field." Interesting.
May the "Force" be with you.
PS - Is there really any reason that time travels in only one direction?
In the first experiment, what would be the effect on the observed precognition, if, after the subjects do better on the words they are going to practice, (on a randomly generated basis, unknown to subject and experimenter) the experimenter does not give the practice after all?
They should not do better, I think, because they are not experiencing precognition, as the thing does not occur in the future.
If they do better, (assuming a list of words to be trained is generated but not actually trained), then there is another force at work... and it is not precognition.
I knew you were going to say that!!!!!
Anyone can think about someone they know & later that day run into them.Most of us have experianced this happen at least a few times in our lives.The theory first then prove method is the predomenant means thats been used at this point to manufacture our explanation of how things work on earth or science. It's a verry narrow view & is some what correct.
I see people in the future ignoring your posts because you didn't learn about paragraphs in school. Paragraphs are inviting. Huge blocks of words put people off because all they see is a wall of words.
I am not an expert on experimental design, but we can be sure that this work will be gone over well by both psychologists and statisticians. The hallmark of good scientific work is its repeatability.
Many legitimate researchers have documented experiments showing a statistically significant indication of psychic abilities of one kind or another. The problem is that their research isn't repeatable. Is this because they happened to hit some special conditions? Because they got lucky in the selection of test subjects? Because they included some unconscious bias due to their own belief in the phenomenon?
Similar reports are coming out of cold fusion experiments. Numerous labs have conducted experiments showing that cold fusion is possible. Others, trying to reproduce the effect, have seen nothing of the kind. Still others have found even stranger behavior (complete destruction of mass, with resultant massive surges of radiation). More research and experimentation has refined the criteria needed to produce cold fusion somewhat, by identifying quantum properties of the materials involved, but it's still something of a crap shoot as to whether you'll actually get it or not.
Homeopathy has seen similar results, with some experiments showing significant and identifiable 'chemical' properties present in dilutions which should statistically have not a single atom of the original chemical left in them. Others have shown nothing. Millions of people swear by it, and even show documented evidence of significant medical changes after beginning the treatments (much more than placebo). Other doctors swear they've prescribed it hundreds of times and never once seen any effect.
And we haven't even skimmed topics like the placebo effect (who's mechanics at times defy reason). Needless to say, science still has a long way to go before we've explained everything.
That's not what antimatter is, nor is that hypothesis postulated by actual, modern physicists. Antimatter is just an aggregate of antiparticles. Antiparticles are just particles with opposite electric charge from their corresponding particle, e.g. the antiparticle to the electron is the positron. These particles are real, and some are emmitted during radioactive decay and nucleosynthesis. There is nothing mystical about it, even though it is fascinating. As far as your other examples about telepathy, etc... there is no such thing. Every single peer reviewed study on paranormal activity has found zilch. I have a sneaking suspicion, based upon the inability of other labs to reproduce the results outlined above, that other researchers will find a source of experimental error -- either intentional or through selection bias, etc... -- that will explain this small deviation from pure chance. Always advance several hypotheses to explain data, then rely on Occam's Razor; is it more likely that people are precognitive despite all the thousands of failed tests to show as such, or is it more likely that this guy intentionally or inadvertently skewed his data?
I also would like to point out that this is yet another example of news media sensationalizing scientific (or pseudoscientific) research prior to it actually having been verified, in order to make a story. We see this in the press constantly, from ALH840001 to polywater, to winged bat-men on the moon. It's the fault of being a curious person, I suppose, but the research discussed above just smacks of poor methodology or inappropriate data compilation/reduction techniques.
If there really is such thing as precognition, would some individuals be more adept at predictions than others? It appears the experiment didn't cull out those who may have scored higher to see if that "more perceptive" group did even better on a subsequent test. If the results stay the same with this select group - then perhaps something other than some inherent psychic ability is at work. Randomness in this psychic ability may simply be a randomness in a way that we haven't considered before.
I just briefly touched on this in the item, but Bem did find that "stimulus-seekers" - also known as extroverts or extraverts - seemed to do slightly better, and there's some thinking that there's a linkage there. However, one of the attempts to replicate the study found that extroverts (people who said they were easily bored on a questionnaire) actually did worse.
Of course, and those who have experienced precognition know who we are. Why, I'm not sure.
I was just thinking before I read 2.1 and 2.2 how many were asked if they were aware the knew ahead of time and/or are aware they have a controlled or uncontrolled tap into the the collective unconcious.
My theory into the knouu is that memory in itself is timeless, we collect as we go throughout our lives.
This intracognative ability plus the 100th monkey rule (collective unconcious or extra cognative ability) and fundamintal or concious cognative ability would factor in on a huge number of factors just as complex as behavior itself.
The simple principle we have had a point in our first months of life without the ability to recall a memory, it is our need to know the past to survive in the future, likewise it is behaviorly unsound to know the future as the amount of stressors involved is so high no one would want to know what is going to happen or what they are going to do.
We connect with the collective unconsious everyday while we dream, we share our mindsets with eachother sometimes outside of the normal timeline, we can see what someone else may do or think in the past present or future, since it's on such a random, seemingly chaotic wide scale almost impossible to track.
I've devoted my entire life to understand all of what this is, events in my life forced me to search for solutions to impossible problems enough to become aware of what is usually unconsious. Most people will never realize or be aware of their unconcious ability, the experiment here is if this includes or can redefine in itself what cognative really is.
I state my case that cognative anything is held and kept in a personal timeless space, ie we don't percieve time go by, we observe it go by; we percieve everything else moving and changing even our own bodies, we do not percieve our own awareness in this way, it only moves or changes when we will it to separate from the clock of the universe. We hold our own time, and it passes (or in some cases reverses "deja vu") with our personal understanding of this world/universe/whatever.
Hey time went by fast today, or the day just won't go by fast enough, I felt like I slept forever and it's only been x minutes. I dreamt the future, and it happend. I dreamt I was someone else and the other day I watched it happen to them. These are all related and common to almost all people. Some are just more inclined to connect the dots.
If you repeat the experiment many times and always take the highest scoring individuals from each test group, you should be able to raise the score as the group of higher predictive gets isolated. This assumes that some are more able to have predictive abilities.
My initial thought (redefining randomness) was that we may need to reconsider if our understanding of quantum entanglement can effect "odds." Mabe a small amount of the predictive information is being carried back to the observer via a superluminal effect. If so, our coin flip definition of random may not be so 50-50 after all.
Hmmm.....Do you mean cogn(i)tive? Intracognative isn't a word btw. Your 'theory' is that memory is timeless and we collect it as we go. You also mention the collective unconscious. This sounds a lot like Carl Jung's theories and about a thousand other of his contemporaries. Did you really say "conscious cogn(a)tive ability would factor in on a huge number of factors" wow. You're basically saying that you've had a few amazing coincidences in your life that led you to the cocnclusion that others will never be able to grasp their 'unconscious'. Also, that some are able to 'connect the dots' more than others. You happen to be one of these dot connectors? Good luck with all that!
Bill,
From my research in parapsychology I can answer your question: Yes, psychic ability is not evenly distributed in the general population. There are some people who are better at it and some who are worse.
But it is not a good idea to preselect those gifted individuals for research. The reason for this goes back about 130 years to the Society for Psychical research, which began its investigations into mediumship and related psychic abilities. They found a lot of charlatans and con artists as well as many that they could not explain.
Over the years, some of these charlatans managed to trick researchers. Skeptics instantly jumped on this and tossed out the whole field of research.
Fast forward to the 1950's. J.B. Rhine, in an effort to make the science more respectable, took it into the laboratory where it has remained ever since. (Parapsychology was a pioneer in the use of chance for evaluating statistical outcomes.) Despite lab successes though, he still got no respect. Everyone still thinks of cheating con artist mediums.
Even with 130 years of solid scientific evidence, mainstream science still does not accept the reality of psychic ability, (although pretty much everyone else does. 93% of Americans according to a 2005 Gallup poll.) So it's very important to avoid even the faintest whiff of fraud. Therefore, you will find that very few parapsychological studies use professional gifted individuals.
A large number of parapsychological experiments suffered from the lack of sophisticated statistics in the planning of the studies and in the analysis of results. This did give the whole science a bad name.
Presto:
Conitive, intra-cognative, that is my theory. I determined collective unconscious before I read about Carl Jung, and it is the same determination, the term is implicit to define an aspect of conciousness and not in need of appropriation. It is known that the subconscious is illusive to most and barley accessible to some with varying degree (i.e. autism and other related or similar states of perception). I can only guess as to what you're alluding to the sentence you quote, but it's no different than looking at probability is a factor based on other factors. For the most part that is everything and just stating the obvious that this study is no exception, and the phenomina described still must prescribe to the laws of this universe but cannot be ruled out just because people don't want to take the time to investigate. My connecting the dots in correlation to becoming more aware by lowering the waterline of the conscious/sub conscious iceberg, does not imply that others cannot but that no one takes the time, versus the trama in my life combined with the need to survive leaving my choices limited to expand awareness or die. I have come to know that the same parts of consciousness that have been expanded from subconscious can be attained much as any other skill.
I hope you have better luck with your nitpicking, whatever gets you by I suppose.
For everyone else, great disscussion, I am pleased that the positive dialog, its been a long time coming.
Cinclodefuscus,
Your comment,
Is incorrect in its entirety. Throughout the history of parapsychology scientists have availed themselves of the best statistical analysis available. If you have any doubts about this, read some of the papers of Jessica Utts, PhD in statistics.
You're just repeating a skeptical urban myth. There's no truth to it.
It would seem highly likely that a brain that pulls in a huge amount of information and then filters it might have some background precognition going on. It would also seem reasonable that this like everything else would have varying degrees of success based on the person, i.e., some people might have brains that are better filters of the massive amounts of information coming in therefore be less prone to have precognitive abilities. So it would seem someone who has "weaker" filters or notices more about their surroundings then others might have slightly higher precognitive abilities because they filter less "noise" from their daily experiences. So less psychic and more statistical. It could also be some people have a natural ability to organize information and through and experience begin to natural match patterns in behavior, timing, schedules, body language, etc. and their minds begin to develop a forward prediction of future behavior. In all reality though being that we are electrochemical in nature it would seem fairly plausible that we like any other electrical device is susceptible to interference. Maybe precognition is noise from our surroundings affecting how we interpret or visualize future events. Kind of like picking up TV signals through an antenna. There could be very specific reasons that an "ability" might actually be valid without it being all psychic hocus pocus it could just be a side effect of being an electrical system that has intelligent understanding. Quantum mechanics could be relative here being that we also have electrons and molecules and our organic makeup interacts with our surroundings at a quantum level.
At least there is someone out their doing some interesting work into a what if idea. Would be interesting to find out that maybe we really do have precognitive abilities and that it can be trained.
I think you are "right on" concerning awarness of one's surroundings. I am female and I always have had a pre-congnitive ability translated into intutitvness(sp?). I am rarely wrong on first impressions proving to be eventually valid. I can sense events that do happen before they occurr and I have almost total recall of those as they evolve. I have learned to trust my instincts totally. That may be the answer, in that if it quacks like a Duck - - -; however I have been like that since I was five. Go figure.
totally agree regarding the electromagnetic theory JimmyShade. our brain emits electromagnetic waves and it also processes these waves. perhaps some people have better "receivers" in their brains to decode/understand/retangle/whatever. my long ago girlfriend had a grandma that claimed she sensed danger when my girlfriend or my girlfriend's mom came into danger. her grandma started having this "sense" after she was shocked at a hospital. so, my theory goes like this: shock altered grandma's reception in her brain to be more sensitive to other's electromagnetic signals. but not just any other, it was tied to women related to her. and she sensed danger; which, the brain sends out higher frequency signals when someone is in danger. the grandma didn't know exactly what the danger was, but she also "felt" it or "sensed" it very strongly.
"and it also processes these waves." Where did you hear that nonsense? It is unbelievable how people just assert things that have no basis in reality.
Any waves that the brains might produce would be minuscule and would almost immediately get lost in the sea of random EM waves.
"she also "felt" it" What if she was just paranoid? She/you might ignore all those times that she got that "feeling" and it was 100% wrong but every once in a while she will have a bad "feeling" around a time that is reasonable to you to a random "dangerous" event that might happen to one of two people and you proclaim some sort of supernatural connection. What nonsense.
Please open your mind, start by reading "the gift of fear" the parts of the brain that we don't use are there for something!
To 'seriously 2655283',
Thats funny.....in my psych class, I just watched a video(brain study,with subjects) that showed almost every part of each subjects brain being used at one time or another during certain stimuli. This myth that we only use 15% of our brains (or however it goes) was discussed by some of the researchers and is ridiculous.
I'd like to see some experiments done where the receiver and/or senders are inside Faraday cages. If the results are positive it would elimintae any explanation based on electromagnetism.
I definately filter things statistically and it can come off sometimes as having an ability to sense patterns but I don't think it is psychic. It is just crude statistical analysis that I've learned to do in my head. I just filter it through algorithms I've come up with from prior reading and research. I mean it can be a very useful ability. I suspect most experts have this kind of intuition about their topics but clever non-experts can have it to.
Maybe Grandma was little better grounded than you are...See?? It is quite simple. It is no different than why our cell phones, telephones or any other signals do not get crossed, each has their own identifying pattern...It is a sense just like all senses...Some people have a little more enhanced version of that which you deny. I am so sorry you are so dull that you can not see it...
To me the outcome is a fun, exciting result to contemplate and no more odd than "spooky action at a distance" in which particles "know" what each other are doing instantly, even when separated by vast distances. It also keeps science fresh and in front of the public eye, which we could also use a lot more of.
It is difficult to believe that an event in the future has some sort of detectable signature in the present, unless is lies in the causes of the event.
I look forward to reading of statisticians opinions of Prof Bom's work.
Is this precognition or intuition? Some people are very good at gathering information and making a prediction based on intuition. I"ll admit I do not completely under the science behind the studies, but it seems to me a certain amount of intuition could be an explanation as well. Or is there even a difference?
Skip, intuition and precognition are not the same thing. Intuition is that gut feeling that the person standing in front of you is lying where precognition is the prediction of a future event although intuition might play a part in precognition. Both could possibly be similar in their functioning but intuition for me is that I know something is either off or is going to be good while precognitive would I am aware that my mother is in the process of calling me. The reality of the matter is people need to have an open mind to the possibility and a lot of people won't will call it psychic hocus pocus which there needs to be a differentiation from what is psychic friends network nonsense and real ability to not only sense but accurately predict a future occurrence.
This is just something that the door and conversation need to stay open on and good solid studies produced. Honestly if this stuff were so off base the government wouldn't have spent huge amounts doing remote sensing experiments that actually resulted in some rather scary results with rather high frequencies of success. There is more than likely some remote possibility that being electrochemical we have abilities that we either choose to ignore as science fiction or we have not fully explored as a possibility and if that possibility can be trained it could be good for humanity. Who knows maybe there is a Jedi in all of us or most of us or some of us.
Precognition or premonition is the same thing? I did an experiment on line and I made the image I was staring at appear when I cliked the card below. When I did not focus on the card to appear nothing appeared. I proved it to myself I could do it. tried many times with same results.Is that precognition? I think the people thought of the image they wanted to see, very focused on the screen and influenced the outcome. One possibility. My experience is we have abilities we are not aware of. Mine is premonition and like many other people I had a dream 2 days before 9/11 that we were at war. There is a research site that was collecting all this information for studies I assume. You can tap in the universal consciousness and kind of perceive future events.
Lea-2592281
Dreaming about war is very common just because you and several other people had a dream on war before 9/11 doesn't prove anything.
No, it doesn't prove anything-but you also cannot prove that it was not premonition, can you?
When I was a kid, I had a recurring dream about a house. There were windmill cookies in a jar in the kitchen, the people were always in the kitchen eating spaghetti, at the end of a hallway there was a table with a Rainbow Brite doll on it, and in the basement there was a room filled with bags and bags of toys.
The summer after my 3rd grade year, I went to stay with my Aunt and my cousin. One day we went to her other grandparents house and they lived in the house I had been dreaming about! My cousin didn't believe me, so she took me in the basement and asked me what was in a particular room. I told her-it is filled with toys. I still remember how shocked she looked.
I still don't have any explanation for the dreams I had, all I know is that these things do and can happen.
The statistician would ask: How many time have you had that same dream? And how many people on 9/9 dreamed that we were at war?
No i cant prove it wasn't a premonition, in fact i'm in the gray area when it comes to the telepathic/psychic powers of humans (in fact im working ona what if paper to see if early or primitive humans had telekinetic abilities that helped them survive the wild) but dreams on war is to much of a gray area itself to use as any kind of scientific point, now if we prove that people have premonitions then the people with lets say a premonition or psychic licence (like a governmental one) then maybe we could take there dreams as advice but till then dreams are random stimulus your brain gathers through-out the day and tries to make sense of it when you sleep and/or subconcous activity that can ether have no meaning or is something about yourself that you may be concerned with. (please excuse my spelling)
If you believe any of this, check out James Randi for his million dollar challenge. No winners yet.
Yeah I've checked it out, I was thinking about taking the guy up on his challenge. To prove that someone is psychic, personally I think the guy is a psychic and is just waiting for someone to prove he is by being psycic themselves. But what do I know, I have reason to suspect every person is psychic, maybe that's my stimulus seeking side, Lol
What are you waiting for? Don't you already know the out come, that you will win the million dollars? Don't you want to be a millionaire? Unless,.....you're full of it.
Ricky Bobby, I am positive that indeed, "something dramatic" will happen, somewhere in the world, on 12/13/2010...actually, many "something dramatics" will take place, just as they do, moment by moment, throughout the day, every day, throughout recorded history and into the future...Does this make me psychic,too? I certainly hope so!
Randi's challenge has been thoroughly and completely debunked. There is a million dollar challenge for skeptics as well. All they have to do is prove that the evidence for psychic ability is no good. And there is a hundred thousand dollar challenge for anyone who can prove that Randi's challenge is legit.
This is a well researched blog post on the challenge:
http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/randis-million-dollar-challenge/
@craig99
What a complete bogus lie. Although, Randi has never published a paper, he is very well known for being a critical skeptic by scientists and is very much aware of how the scientific process works. Your source for example states that the experiments are done just by him, which is a lie. Although he sometimes carries out the experiments himself, he gets experts in the field to conduct proper experiments with proper controls or at least advise him on how to do so.
Your blog source is nothing but lies, ad hominems, and character assassination. What is the purpose? Could it be that some wannabe psychics got a thorough debunking while trying to win his prize and now they want revenge? Or maybe it's just some ardent believer that is offended by the fact that no one has been able to prove their abilities with his tests.
Kubush84,
Maybe you should have read the article. Your comments bear no resemblance to it. There are no lies, ad hominems and no character assassinations contained therein. None. It cites a variety of sources including Randi himself and one of his volunteers. It draws on the experiences of challengers and facts about the nature of the challenge.
The article does not state that Randi does the tests himself. It makes the case that he is not a scientist and is not well versed in the field of parapsychology. This is true. He is a magician. How is that a lie? And by the way, he never carries out experiments himself. (Otherwise he would have published.)
It seems to me that you skimmed the article looking for something bad to say about it because it made you uncomfortable. Why would you make such a broad attack on it?
I would gather that since the article was clearly written by a psychic person, their purpose was to tell other psychic people not to waste their time with it.
Given the sheer amount of dirt he uncovered, I would agree with him.
I would classify him as a scientist. Maybe not a published scientist but a scientist nonetheless. Why even mention anything about his character at all since he is not the one that performs the tests? The tests are valid. That is what is important here. And NONE of the supposed psychics have passed the tests. The whole article is just a hit piece.
Oh CLEARLY written by a psychic person! LOL! How is that clear? Just because they claimed they were? Why would he need to tell PSYCHICS not to waste their time?!? LOL!!! Wouldn't they already know?
Are any of his claims backed up by evidence? Or are you just agreeing with him because you like his conclusions?
POPPYCOCK! Bem and his pseudo-science promote him to the rank of charlatan, never a general...
Ah, a member of the Church of Science. If you don't agree with the Church's precepts you are excommunitcated and exiled.
Oh very creative--put the word science into a statement about religion. Confusion is easy--but the result is meaningless, as is your statement. All it means is you want to believe is something, that may not be there.
I have not read all the posts, so, someone may have already mentioned this, Bern, himself may be a "sender".
My daughter and I have often been in conversations where other people have been in attendance and have had them ask some strange questions about something that she or I said. It turns out that one or the other of us has responded to something that was not spoken. Either she or I will swear that we heard it but every one else says no, including the one to whom was responded, we only thought it.
That has also happened to me more times than I can count! The first time I can remember it happening, I told my mother that I had been at a party with friends and answered an unspoken question. It was really strange. She told me that it runs in the family. It happens to her and her sister, and she remembers her mother doing it too. I was very young when my grandmother passed, but I remember my great-grandmother and my great-great grandmother answering something I was thinking, but had not spoken aloud. My sisters also seem to do it. It's kind of strange when we all get together, because to an outsider, it sounds like we are only having half a conversation!
Yes I believe and practice what most would call the super-natural. Sorry to jump in on your post. Just like twins there are family members that are on a simular wavelength where such orrurrance are not unusual as much as norm and taken for granted. You and your daughter could practice and actually speak to each other without just picking up on unsaid thoughts.
First we wouldn't have science if it wasn't for our ancestors attempting to recreate what reputed 'witchs' could - which is a catch phrase as I don't know of any witch who wants to turn metal to gold.
Second we are socially conditioned away from such things as clairvoyance, telepathy, telekenesis etc. What few posts I read here validate that right away. (But who conditioned the populace away from such belief in such abilities)(And everything has an origin in fact no matter that it ends up as mythos to later generations)
Third on the premise that these are natural abilities we are conditioned from into outright disbelief is not mythos. And all things have an origin in fact would mean that such abilities are a more a probability then many would care to acknowledge-mainly for the same reason that it was conditioned out of the general populace.
Four taking 1, 2 & 3 in account we have to consider the origin of these things and when they were generally accepted by our ancestors. At that time we were transatory and in small groups of 20-30 and of that number 1 maybe 2 were considered to have abilities the others didn't. By Greek/Roman times there were marginally larger populations and the ratio rose in the worship/practice of communing with thier dietes by oracles etc. Then comes along this group who will remain nameless but we all know the type who wanted to have such abilities themselves to control the rest and in summerization what do we get? Witchhunts, stoneings, burnings after a conditioning that such practices are marks of an evil entity. Even with all the people that were persucuted and were innocent of such abilities with such a mentality who is going to actually admit to being real? This was when the population was in the thousands per say. Our population is now in the millions so in reality what do you think the ratio would be for those who could actually do such things? Least we forget the conditioning of generations, even if the ability is there what strength do you think such abilities would be in the population when most don't know/understand/acknowledge it.
Which brings me to Five. And it's directed at the mental giant that asked if someones mother was diagnosed with an illness. (which was where I stopped reading and responeded with this). Due to people of a simular mentality most people of these abilities are considered sick due to the lack of comprehension of the subject by those labeling them as sick. And those rare few people with the abilities that label them as sick are not sick as much as unprepared to deal with the additional sensory imput such gifts or abilities allow after conditioning that such things are evil if not impossible. So we don't understand why your hearing the voices and we can't help you deal with it because the only revelance we have associate it with is regulated to mythology or govermental experimentation, take a pill and the voices will go away is not always the anwser but to handle it any other way is to acknowledge something that give most the heebie-jeebies (due to conditioning and lack of training but that's something else entirely)
Because in reality who wants someone to read thier mind and know thier thoughts before they voice them themselves. Who is comfortable knowing that some person can fling a sharp object across the room and kill without leaving fingerprints. Who wants to know that someone can control you without even being near you? When I see people trying to validate such practices through scientific testing and reasoning I'm courious is it for the sake of science and learning for the betterment of all or a step toward understanding how to use it as a weapon against others. Causing a whole new level of bias in the populations by those who can't and those who can. I know that the strength required for the level that people expect to achieve these things was burned and conditioned out of the populace and bending a spoon is a long way from affecting the body of another person. That the deja vu people take for granted is a long way for most to being able to change/interact what they see in the premise of the movie minority report which is brought up as an example of precongnitive abilities. Which by the way was no more then a modern take on what the oracles were in thier temples.
Yet I notice when people tote thier opinion on this subject weather they believe, deny, seek or found forget that the cause/effect it subjective not to time but will and intent of a majority.
Oh yea, and time does not go in only one way. Time is constant in it's fluidity and is always changeing by the perception of those marking it. Some things are fixed but that brings in paradoxes and such that are illrelivant to the topic at hand.
Genetic predisposition are the words I couldn't think of before. Most families just inherit things like features yours seem to have a predisposition of a form of telepathy.
I would be intrigued to see the results of these very same experiments being done with the assistance of an extremely qualified astrologer, and in conjunction with theoretically sound astrological principles. That is, doing 1 or more series of tests using subjects who are said to have stronger than normal psychic abilities (through their natal aspects or aspect patterns such as a Moon or Mercury Trine Neptune or Sun or Moon Conjunct Neptune or Grand Trine involving Neptune for example), in addition to running the tests during times when the so called psychic powers or influences are supposed to be (according to the precepts of astrology) more prevalent not only in the individuals being tested (by way of personal transits), but universally as well (by the transiting planetary positions at large). Then, reverse everything, and do the testing during the hypothetically worst times and with the supposedly least psychic subjects (again, according to the suppositions of astrology. That way, you might be able to kill 2 birds with 1 stone (as much as I hate that phrase). Also, night & day testing could prove to be yet another key factor in the results. High & low IQ's and safe mind enhancers might also be qualifiers in the testing. I mean, if you're talking about testing for psychic abilities, why not pull out all the stops first, and then eliminate or adjust as you go, while keeping a track record of all the known influences and variables?
When in my teens I frequently dreamt whole hours of a day before they occurred, down to the clothes people were wearing, where we were standing, exact sentences, everything. This was frequent for a few years; it may have been hormone related b/c since I was in my twenties it has rarely happened again. ?  But what I learned was that it is relative; at one point I had a dream of being attacked by a man I didn't know in a bathroom I had never seen. Then I was invited to a Halloween party, rode with a friend, and that same man tried to follow me into the bathroom from my dream. I realized what was happening, dodged his drunken advance to grab me and he fell into the shower taking the curtain with him. The dream was the warning of what would have been, and they can apparently be changed. Never went back to that house.
Say the big bang theory is true, the universe exploded and will eventually return to explode again, how many times have we done this exact same thing?
There is no way to know.
I've dreamt just about my entire life before it's happened, what's interesting is not just the change, but dreaming an event say when your 5 then having another dream when your 6, chaning the outcome of the dream you had when your six only to follow through with the dream you had when your 5, thus if you had not changed what happened when you were six you would not have experienced the dream you had when you were 5.
What is worse is that you dreamt the other guy dreaming about being you while he did that to you. He then planned to do it and when he did you dreamt about it thus preventing it.
There are as many aspects to this as there are choices to make.
It is exciting to see science get involved with things that seem like science fiction now. History has shown that fictional writers have somehow imagined things that in time have come to be. I worked for the telephone company and laughed when told that someday we would carry our phone around in our pocket. Recently I heard of a Mr. Trivedi from India who has been tested by scientists. Mr. Trivedi claims he can change the atomic structure of things such as seeds that can out perform seeds treated with herbicides and fertilizers up to 500 per cent. He does this through his thoughts by channeling the Devine. Any way to check this out and report back?
The guy was full of the stuff you typically find in a cow pasture. No basis in reality for his claims whatsoever.
I became aware of M. Trivedi's body of work last year. Not only is he credible, he has thirty years of
documented research to back up his claims. His approach from the beginning was to verify all of his
experiments using the scientific method. You can watch the video streams on Google/You Tube and
see for yourself. The most innovative scientific geniuses of all time have certain traits in common.
One is infinite curiosity. Another is abstract intuition. Einstein said that his mind would often leap to a
conclusion and that he would then have to retro-engineer how he arrived at his epiphany. That it
took years to prove what his mind percieved in an instant. Where skepticism is valuable to a
discerning mind, nowhere among the great scientists or inventors is cynicism considered to be an
asset. In fact, it's the mark of a lazy mind. One often mired in anger and bias; devoid of both
vision and curiosity.
see for yourself.
The fact that Einstein was able to form a theory before he had the proof in no way involved precognition; it simply shows that he had ideas in his mind of which he was unaware.
Go to the TrivediFoundation.com to read about this man.
Time to call James Randi. Sounds like this guys either going to be a fraud or a millionaire.
This is just the start of more experiments. It is possible that individual people could have reasoning to figure out what will happen next. There is so much activity in the human brain that we don't know what it is really doing yet. How much precognitive effect is actually forward thinking. "If that car keeps coming toward me, it will hit me. I better move."
In the morning my ducks see me step outside. They get all loud and excited. Are they precognitive? They know I'm going to feed them.
In the one experiment the subjects were told that there would be erotic pictures, would the results been different if there were only plain pictures? Could the idea of the possibilities of having a bit of titulation caused a hightened reasoning of logic. "I better get the correct computer to see the erotic picture". Kind of like the kid getting shocked because he guessed wrong in the precognitive tests in "Ghostbusters", when in actuallity he was getting them right.
Also what is the range of the percentages? To say the tests reported a 53% success over a normal 50% statistic, is like saying everyone drives the speed limit because thats the average speed on the freeway. In a group of 100 people not everyone had 53%. What was the range to create the 53%?
Funny you mention cars! LOL
Have you ever noticed how many near misses happen on the highway?
I am shocked everyday about what I see. There is no question that when something bad is about to happen we react and for a moment our minds go blank and we just do what we can to survive.
Human reaction time by perception is simply not fast enough to react that quickly we have to know as its happening what to do, we don't have the luxury to react to it if we want to live.
Those that wait get hurt or die. I know this from personal experiance in both the positive and the negative.
An easier question I think you should ask is, if everything in the universe is neutral, not good or bad, how come we people can only see good or bad if in nature there is no such thing.
If an animal is hurt it is hurt, it doesn't think this is good or bad, it just doesn't want to be hurt anymore. A proton is a proton how can it be good or bad. When the sun burns does it think this is good? We say something is good or bad as it suits us, we have come to try to say that our opinion is what something else is, even though it's not, it is just an opinion and the opinion is not required for the object of question to exist.
The opinion that anything does or doesn't exhist is erronious, either something exists or it doesn't. There are enough people out there to swear with the oath of perjury that they have seen a glimps of the future to know that there is some kind of psychic phenominia evident by the obersvation of peoples symptoms of it.
A doctor can't tell someone they have no pain because I can't get a reading on my pain-o-meter cause there is no device that can tell how much pain someone is in. Only the person can describe it and by the same token psi ability/symptoms are on the same level.
This to me is why the education system needs a better organization on logical thinking, reason and teaching of how to define awareness, events and surroundings/environment.
People like to argue to damn much to get anything decent done in a reasonable/productive amount of time. So we have to be psychic to make up the time lost.
When I was extremly little I was attacked with a knife. I resolved that as I can remember the past to figure out what to do, I could do the same of what was going to happen. I've been connected ever since. With anything cognative you have to be comfortable with it. Discomfort leads to defense mechanisms, those that find the future discomforting will never know of it.
I "bet" you it is just like this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9M2RXpbfWM
You can play as long as you want but the house always wins at the end of day so double down Ronald.
But for real, sounds like fascinating work and more people should be interested in things like this because it would be the surface to the most profound questions in human history.
But try running "Forever Young" in the background instead and you'll be better "tuned" in.
This is so silly. Of course other scientists will try to duplicate the experiments. And they will find no statistically significant effect. And we will all forget about this story. Until someone else comes up with a different experiment that does give results. Then the cycle will start again. It seems to me this has happened many times in the past with Psi.
Sounds NUTS!!! ERK ERK...
It's a good thing some humans are capable of an open mind. Otherwise we'd still be naked, in caves, chewing on raw bones.
Not exactly familiar with the research, eh? In fact, the experiment in the article had very predictable results based on previous research.
There are actually thousands of positive studies that have been replicated with meta analyses showing significant effects to the tune of billions and trillions to one.
The key to understanding this is differentiating between unscientific and pseudo scientific opinion, such as is found in the Skeptical Inquirer, a magazine from an organization that does no research and has no peer reviewed journal and the actual science.
One difference between most 'studies' in the past and this one is the fact that this is a peer-reviewed study in a serious scientific journal. That isn't enough to say this will turn out true, but it DOES mean that you should give it more weight than the average 'proof' of psi.
I expect many will think I'm making this up, but I personally have had two instances where I knew what was going to happen ahead of time. I don't mean simple things like, "Professor So-and-so made a big deal out of this concept, I bet it's gonna be on the exam." I'm talking about a much more instantaneous setting. Both times I was on a baseball/softball diamond. The first was when I was 14 years old. I was playing second base and the other team had a runner on second. We were winning 2-0 near the end of the game, and it was the semi-finals of a tournament we were in. For whatever reason, I knew what was going to happen on the next pitch. The batter would hit the ball off the end of the bat, giving it a weird spin, and it would be hit toward the hole between the first baseman and I. It happened, and I managed to field it. The other time was when I was 20 years old. I was playing third base in an IM softball game. For some reason, I knew the batter was going to hit a line drive to my right that I would need to dive for. I remember getting very tense before the hitter was in the batter's box; but not tense in a nervous way, tense as though I was a cat getting ready to pounce. Sure enough, line drive to my right. Dove, and caught it. Whether or not that was precognition or just weird intuitive moments, who knows. They are memories I will keep with me for a long time.
This is actually common in baseball/sports in general. When you watch hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of at-bats you can tell where the hitter is going to hit the ball based on your knowledge of how/where your pitcher has been throwing the ball, the batter's stance and swing, where they are looking, etc...
Many good baseball players talk about being able to figure out where the ball is going to go based on their knowledge of the game. It's simply a well-educated guess based on observable variables.
How many times did you have a "feeling" about where the ball would be hit, but it was wrong? It's easier to forget the times you were wrong, but remember the only one or two times you happened to be right.
^Bingo.
What about a "feeling" that you should have your seatbelt on? That only happened to me once, and a half-mile further down the road, an approaching car ran off the road, over-corrected and hit me head on. I would have been killed if I hadn't had that "feeling".
" Bern acknowledged that a 51.7 to 53 percent success rate might seem very close to what would be expected by chance. "But that's about the edge that a casino has over you, and guess what? They're still in business,".That statement convinces me, more than anything else in the article, that he is on the right track.
Sound science always depends on indisputable math. What are the chances that your single precognitive experience was due to the slightest outside influence? An influence that you can't consciously remember. The numbers must be astronomical. Is that enough to make just a few of us believe that we may be psychic? Probably. Is that enough to attract huge numbers of charlatans to make money off such claims? Absolutely. It makes perfect sense that, after centuries of experience with mistaken prophets and con men, most of us would easily dismiss the entire idea.
What about the few of us that have experienced repeated and reliable psychic events?(No, it doesn't work at the betting window. It calls to us at unexpected times, we can't call it at will.) We are in awe and respect of those unexplained abilities. Many of us rightfully fear acknowledging them to any but our most trusted loved ones, just as anyone that may be judged as "nuts" or "queer" by most of society. We will be the last people on Earth to participate in a scientific study or this "Million Dollar Challenge".
Bern's study will only validate those that are unaware of their special abilities. Science and math have provided astounding advances that would be called super-natural just a few decades ago. Today, we can manipulate artificial limbs with brainwaves. Who knows what tomorrow may bring.
You do realize that brainwaves are nothing but electrical impulses transmitted through your nerve cells, right? They aren't "broadcast" from the brain to the prosthetic wirelessly, scientists just programed the prosthetic limb to respond to the same nerve impulses that we use to control our natural limbs.
It's not the cons and outright obvious fakes that make this a toucy subject.
How many posts make associations with these things as devine help from outside ourself. That is integral conditioning to doubt ourself and our natural abilities.
To believe that we as individuals are capable of such acts/abilities ourself without any outside help or tools messes with the whole religious dogma orgainized churches have going on. If you are capable of doing what your diety can do is he really a diety or just another schmo who took advantage of those who couldn't?
Those of you who have "experienced repeated and reliable psychic events... fear acknowledging them to any but [your] most trusted loved ones," as you don't want to be "judged as nuts or queer by most of society," therefore you would be "the last people on Earth to participate in... this Million Dollar Challenge."
Given that the Million Dollar Challenge rewards one million dollars contingent upon scientifically provable psychic ability, not only would you win an irresistible cash prize, but you would have scientifically proven your ability, thereby negating any judgment of being "nuts or queer."
A lack of willingness to take this sure thing demonstrates an equal lack of confidence in one's own psychic ability.
orc_jr, did I mention that " It calls to us at unexpected times, we can't call it at will."? Does that satisfy your query?
Science is wonderful. It was always my favorite subject in school. Science provides previously unknown answers to serious questions and modern technology to carry us into the future. I don't believe there is anything elite, evil or politically motivated by most scientists. I know that they are particularly bright people with an insatiable appetite to learn how everything around them works. Much like a newborn infant. Maybe they retain something from that stage of life that many of us lose. Just a thought that be proven or disproved by science one day.
I'll admit that I was never bright enough to join their ranks. My great admiration for them will never allow me to discredit them despite a tiny bit of jealousy. I wish I could say the same for some powerful people in political circles.
Just as they have a never-ending quest to explain everything around them, there will always be more questions than answers. That's what we and they must call the "unknown" and admit freely that it exists as it always has and always will exist. Most scientists describe our universe as infinite. The belief in infinity seems hardly more far-fetched than belief in an all-knowing greater power. Perhaps science and religious faith are not at odds with each other if we discard ancient texts that were written expressly for the better understanding of the people of that period.
My great grandmother claimed to be a psychic. My mother recalled her saying that there is a sure way to tell if someone is a fraud. "If they charge money for it, they're fake." She claimed that it was a gift to be freely shared.
Pin3Hot,
I agree completely with your grandmother. It is a gift that should be shared freely.
When I read pre-cognition, I thought they were going to discuss how changes occur in the brain leading up to the subjects realizing that somthing had changed around them. Like every day my fridge makes a bunch of inaudibale growls before the ice maker comes on and sometimes my mouth starts watering right before I hear it click. Or like how a village could experience collective anxiety before a drasic change in the weather or earthquake. Bern knows that people do not en mass, entertain his definition of precognition and wants you to stop associating the word with fantastical imagery. Hew's trying to measuring his precognitive IQ and he didn't even know it.
We have scientific explanations for instincts, which, in essence, is the inclination toward a particular behavior as a reaction to future events (although subconsciously and low-level), but never learned and in some cases without relying on stored external data input (memory), like f.e. baby sea turtles moving toward the ocean, feeding, etc. It may not be so far-fetched that something like precognition exists among humans, although, with heightened consciousness we may be losing out on the subconscious side, where these things seem to occur.
Jimmyshade, I agree and think that you'd like to read up on quantum gravity, quantum coupling and entanglement, or other related subjects in this area, as you seem to enjoy simliar stimulating subjects and lines of thought. Chronology protection is also another good subject which allows time travel, the traveler or event simply becoming part of what already did happen. Anyway, check out any of the recent books by Lee Smolin or Michio Kaku and enjoy!
I read the article and ironically but not surprisingly found most of what I said in the damn article (kinda makes me feel like the wire instead of the juice), but I was remembering something about causality that may explain half of what was going on durin gthe experiments:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractor
Ever heard of "Everything happens for a reason"? If we are part of the reason then we will be part of the design for something greater and it will be in all things that exist.
If the universe in itself is an ever changing ball of energy, than was we percieve as reality is just the changing part, the past and the future in this sense does not exist nor does our concept of time with the exception of relativity in that the change that is occuring must continue to change at the rate inwhich it defines itself where causality is interdependent changes which make up the environment and is never within it, rather space is pushed outside and inbetween the changes, the change is the environment in which space resides. Thus time always stands still. Its the meaning that changes. Just as we would scratch an itch, what we live with is the universe scratching.
When I was 12 years old I was watching TV. My Mother was in the kitchen cooking supper.
Out of the blue I heard dishes drop and my mother says "Oh My God. Somethings Happened to SIS". Her Sister lived in another city an hour away. She got caught in the crossfire between a robber & police. She had been shot in the leg by a stray bullet.
Another time my brother was in a serious accident. My mothers Sister Again an hour away walked off her job, stopped & threw some clothes in a suitcase & came straight to the hospital within 2 hours time of the accident. NO ONE HAD CALLED HER. She just New my brother was injured & came to be with my mother through the Ordeal. She told my mother he would be fine & would be going home in 3 days. This while Doctors weren't even sure he'd live through the night. 3 days later he was released to go home.
Another time it was I. At work they called everyone in the department together for start up training on a huge Heat treat Furnace that had been down for routine maintenance. I was already trained on this job, but was required to participate. I had worked with this Furnace for several years.
For some reason I had an uncomfortable feeling. I checked & double checked the Computer charts that provide a detailed status of the furnace. I checked all the gas valves & flow control valves & safeties. All the things the safety Supervisor had also checked. Everything seemed normal & routine.
As the other employees gathered around I was being crowded toward the Door of the Furnace. I still had an Uneasy feeling I couldn't shake. I didn't like where I was at. As the supervisor went to light the safety curtain flame I made a 90 degree turn to back away from the front.
I hadn't made it 5 feet when BOOM! That's what they told me later. I didn't hear anything. I was directly in the blast wave. It through me about 25 feet. When I was trying to stand up, people were beating on me Trying to put out the flames. I received burns over 25% of my body. 10 days in quarantine to avoid secondary infection. All's good though. I heal better & faster then most. Something to do with body chemistry & high speed metabolism.(1 in 100 people have this) That's the upside. The downside is these abilities make me none responsive to Pain Meds. Other then very light blemishes on the forearms & top of hands. If you didn't know you wouldn't know.
Had I not started to move away when I did, The consequences could have been much worse. I would've been hit by the 700 pound steel door that was blown off the furnace. Others who backed away a couple steps because of my actions just received some singed hair on their arms. Seems there was a small internal gas leak in one of the safety valves.
I've learned long ago to pay attention to these feelings. I've avoided many mishaps because of them.
I believe we all have this ability to some extent. Some more then others. I think it's more prevalent when we're younger. I don't know if we just gradually lose it or if it's societal suppression as we get older. Many of us have experiences of conversations where we're aware of exactly whats going to be said word for word & done at some point . We call it deja vu.
Do we really need "science" to prove that psychic abilities exist? Science is not the "end all" in whether something is reality or not. I call them, {scientists)"those of little faith"! I happen to be a Christian, so my opinion is coming from that avenue. I just wonder why is it important to people to have science explain things that just are. Science is not the world validator
"Science is not the world validator"
That is exactly what science is. lol. So the answer to your question is YES!
Thank you Kubush. +1 to your point.
Faith is a belief in something in absence of evidence, on in the presence of contradictory evidence. I for one am thrilled that scientists are people of "little faith." It means they're doing their jobs correctly, and not leading us down irrational rabbit holes or chasing fairies just because they're comforting thoughts.
It is human nature to desire explanation, and the results of mechanistic explanations provided by scientific experimentation yield utilitarian results which benefit us all. It's not that science is trying to be a world "validator;" science simply provides a method for providing answers. If people choose to employ the scientific method to investigate something, they will eventually exclude a number of invalid ideas before arriving at the most likely explanation. Nature of the process.
It concerns me that people would take such a negative tone about science, or try to deride it in favor of irrational faith positions. Every single convenience and technology we have is the result of questioning the natural world, probing it with scientific reasoning, and building upon the results. I find it incredibly ignorant to write off science, and incredibly hypocritical to do so without completely rejecting telecommunications, modern medicine, agriculture, composite materials, transportation technology, etc.
Science is a grand arbiter - and that's not a bad thing when you come to understand it.
Except that science often validates itself. That would seem the only way but is, in fact, a limitation of the measurments that can be made. The science/math that shows why the earth stays in this perfect Zone for us to live is, of course, supported and explained by math from that observation. Is there something elsle to "help" it stay in that narrow zone for our benefit?
Is there premonition? I don't know but if the experiments point to a stastical "yes" the experiments should be repeated by others, not just those wishing to disprove but those more interested in what the data will say. We always "know" everything by scientific certainty, until something comes along and shows the scientists were wrong. Happens every few decades. Science needs to be less arrogant but always critical.
Dee,
I think you may be employing some flawed reasoning in your comments about the earth "staying" in this perfect zone "for" us. You are expressing the errancy of retrospective determinism. We evolved in the conditions present on Earth, adapting to cope with those conditions. There isn't anything to indicate that our location is privileged in any way, or that there is anything special keeping our planet in the habitable zone. Our evolution (life in general) occurred because conditions on the Earth coincide with conditions necessary for our form of intelligent life to arise. It is incorrect to assume the reversal of this: That the planet is located in the habitable zone for us. This is a fallacy of causation (specifically reversal of causality), and a
Furthermore, could you be specific? What math are you referring to? Gravitation? Kepler's laws?
The way science works is through a) observation b) hypothesis c) experimentation d) model/theory formulation e) further validation of the theory through experimentation. So, yes, the math should indeed validate the observations - or else it wouldn't be a very good theory and wouldn't have predictive/practical abilities (which both Kepler's laws and contemporary theories of gravitation do provide.)
I'm not sure that science itself "arrogant," though there certainly are arrogant and errant scientists. Science doesn't deal in certainty - only uncertainty. It minimizes uncertainty, allowing us to deduce likely truths (the principle of Occam's Razor). There is certainly (no pun intended) a problem with the public perception of science as elitist/arrogant. Frankly though, this has more to do with the general lack of scientific literacy in our country than anything else -- Which is why Cosmic Log is so important :)
Cheers!