Credibillity of Psychics. Your take on it...

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by H-kon, Jul 7, 1999.

  1. H-kon Registered Senior Member

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    Something that havent been discussed it "mediums" and psychics.

    What do you feel about them? Are there any truth to it? or is is just BS..

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    Enlighten me !
     
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  3. zygos Registered Senior Member

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    hi,

    well I guess I should ask do you belive..you probably have mixed feelings on the subject..so do I. Though I am a Psyic, and a empath ( I can feel what others feel, and understand what they are thinking or talking about immediatly if I am close by) so I guess my answer would be a definate yes..but at the same time what some people say they can do still makes me wonder if I am crazy. Hope this is help. Yours Zygos
     
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  5. H-kon Registered Senior Member

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    Hi

    Well. I have been experimenting with some "branches" of it called psychotronic energy, and other related things.
    i do feel that some of them out there are full of it, but once in a while there seems to be someone of "knowledge".

    I dont have your abilities though

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  7. zygos Registered Senior Member

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    H-kon,

    Sorry but your just full of it, everybody has the able to use these powers (I have used them all my life) all you have to do is have a willingness..Tell me about your powers, for I have found the path of fate often leads me into good people.

    Yours Zygos
     
  8. Mid12am Registered Senior Member

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    I really don't know if there is such a thing as ESP, Mindreading etc. but I do know that I do readings all which are fake, I learned the techneics though books and things. Even though almost every person who I have, being forwarned that I have no paranormal abilities, thinks I have been bang on with their readings, some even say to me afterward that I am really a psycic and just don't want to admit it..

    Oh well It can be faked I have proved that.




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    (Midnight@golden.net)
    (Ouch.my.head)
    (http://home.golden.net/~midnight/)
     
  9. zygos Registered Senior Member

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    hi,

    do you mean when you fake a reading that you say what ever pops up in your head. That you often choose your words..

    Yours zygos
     
  10. Mid12am Registered Senior Member

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    =Quote
    do you mean when you fake a reading that ou say what ever pops up in your head. That you often choose your words..
    =End Quote

    No,
    I work from basic human traits and slowly narrow down the field, its not a hard trick, anyone can do it. Once you break the surface it gets very easy..


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    (Midnight@golden.net)
    (Ouch.my.head)
    (http://home.golden.net/~midnight/)
     
  11. zygos Registered Senior Member

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    hi,
    Oh I was just wondering because what a Psyic connection is. It does intrigue me that you would do negatives on people instead of just using your own powers.

    Zygos
     
  12. JMitch Registered Senior Member

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    129
    Yes, most people out there claiming to be psychic are probably using this method of narrowing down possibilities. But. Throughout my entire life, or at least as far back as i can remember, i have had ideas and feelings about my surroundings jump into my head unasked for by me. This is not to say that i possess special powers, because if these are in fact real impulses that originate from OUTSIDE of my head it seems that everyone would be capable of this. If this is not a mild form of clairvoyance, mind reading, esp or what have you, then it must be a sort of hysteria or a subjective interpretation of the known 5 senses , maybe wishful thinking

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    ( though this was happening before i ever knew of such things).

    Zygos

    Im interested to hear what your experiences are, you sound like you're familiar with Neil Slade?
     
  13. H-kon Registered Senior Member

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    This is getting to be a very interesting conversation. For me.. Well. its the same with me as with the last post before me mentioned.. But you can be trained to learn this stuff. that i know. I happen to touch the surface of this, as with millions of other people on this planet.

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    "All i say is keep looking".
     
  14. Boris Senior Member Registered Senior Member

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    1,052
    I'd caution people against detecting 'clairvoyance' within themselves. A notorious psychological phenomenon is most likely at work here -- correlation. Thing is, everybody gets various thoughts, feelings and dreams that do not make sense, all the time. However, such events are unimportant and are quickly forgotten. However, if soon after a stray thought an event occurs that correlates to that thought, this 'prediction' is firmly retained in memory. So as time passes, you retain memory of the very few coincidences, and you forget the much more plentiful 'psychic' failures.

    Similar effects play a role in the so-called psychic sessions. The 'psychic' may be wrong on quite a few counts, but whenever they hit close to the truth, the 'amazing' aspect of that overshadows the multiple failures, and is the effect that is retained in memory. Coupled to an expectation of the psychic's success, this can eventually lead to a rather irrational belief in the psychic's fidelity. Similar things can be said about the 'prophets' out there (yes, *including* Nostradamus).

    Thing is, in experimental settings, where every prediction (right and wrong) is equally recorded, psychics do awful. In fact, they do no better than any other person. On binary predictions (e.g., is the ball behind my back blue or red?) the performance of psychics is 50% -- purely random guessing.

    This is not to discount the few purported cases where extremely specific and accurate visions/predictions have occured. However, I do advise extreme caution in these matters, as it is very easy to go astray and into la-la land. And the paucity of strong evidence, coupled with irreproducibility of such evidence, leaves me rather unconvinced.

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    I am; therefore I think.
     
  15. H-kon Registered Senior Member

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    Whoops!
    Since i am a Norwegian, I am not sure if i put the right topic here. I wanted to see if there were someone else "experimenting" with this. i am not a psy person, I'll explain what i do :

    There is a term that i call "Psychotronic Energy" It is not like clairvoiance, which i cant do. I have had those "incoming" stuff in my head, but I am not alone there. I guess everyones got them. Be it Psy abillities, or instinct. So I am not hoping to be a "Nostradamus" There are very few of those people, and i am actually glad that i dont have them.. enough of that. Here is what i do :

    The human body consists of roughly 50 trillion cells. All those cells have some form of current in them. Otherwise , you would not be able to move your arm.

    What i do, is that i meditate, not like Yoga or something, just relaxing on the bed, or on a couchwith my eyes closed. With them closed, I look out, but still inward .. If you do that. you somehow manage to focus, makes your brain work. What happens is that so many thoughts are passing through your mind. Once i had like a pre-view of WWII with pictures that i could not remember that i have seen. And when i am lucky, after maybe 20 minutes or so. .it says boom!!, and my whole body has this energy that i cant describe.. If you try to force yourself out of it, you'll get extremely tired, and your day will basically be screwed up ( did it the first time i "managed" it). Well. While this "energy" that i feel maintaines for more than 5 sec, you get the most wonderful experience. You are almost "guided" in a labyrinth, with no clue of where you are going. You start feeling a very fast pulse feeling in the "dent" in the middle of your forehead, and somekind of preasure on both the left and the right side of your head.
    After maybe 5-10 more minutes ( got my eyes closed) I start to go back to a more "sleepy" feeling, and i open my eyes..

    Well. This didnt sound much i know. but what happens when i do all these things?

    I am totally calm, my voice lowers a notch, every muscle is relaxing. You feel alert, calmer. In a way. I feel "free". My concentration really improves.

    One strange thing that i have noticed since i started doing this, is that I almost always know who is calling, before i pick up the phone ( No i dont have called ID

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    ) That could be nothing, or it could be something. I dont know. I dont claim having any "powers" in any way..

    One thing i have to say though is that i remember much more of what people have said, remember much more of what i did last week than i did before.
    What this means to me, and the point of it is that the human brain can be trained. DOnt we use only 10-15% of our brain only? So i figured that its gotta be a way to use some of the rest too. I dont know if this is how you do it, but it sure helps me.

    What do you other guys do. Do you have a "ritual" like i have, or?

    Guess this dont sound too sane huh?



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    "All i say is keep looking".
     
  16. H-kon Registered Senior Member

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    Zygos:

    Would be nice to read what you are doing, and what it is doing.

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    "All i say is keep looking".
     
  17. zygos Registered Senior Member

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    hi,

    Well First off Humans are now ranging more around 17-23% brain compasity(were trying for 28), and that is because of these "psy" abilities. For you see our brains are quite poweriful, but we don't use all of our brain. And for some people (such as boris) who haven't used this new part of the brain Can't (or won't belive) the Psy could exist because it make no sense to them. but it is real "in a lot" of cases(even though everybody has the power). Now as for that energy you speak of, that is what I do...I am as many before me practice "Magik" (the K is used to show it is not illusional)..though many would disagree that it exists, that's what I do in a nutshell. If you wish a furthur explanation one would have to belive in certain things though(such a psy not being dilusional, or illusional).

    Yours zygos

    Life is like no other in the universe
     
  18. Boris Senior Member Registered Senior Member

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    Guys, I don't want to get bogged down in debate on this topic, but I just can't let you get away with this % brain utilization crap.

    We use 100% of our brain, all the time. Just as you use 100% of your heart muscle to pump blood. It is what you use the brain for that makes a difference.

    In fact, the vast majority of our brain is not even devoted to higher cognition. Over a quarter of our brain does nothing except process the sheer influx of information from the two retinas. Primate visual system is among the most advanced on earth, and it shows in terms of brain utilization. Huge chunks of our brains are also devoted to processing other sensory input, like sound and touch. And very significant portions of the brain are devoted to generating and coordinating behaviors, manipulating memory, maintaining an internal model of the surrounding scenery, and recognizing various objects, as well as integrating sensory input across modalities, computationally transforming and filtering binaural and stereoscopic input from eyes and ears into an integrated 3D representation, and so on. In fact at any moment, no matter what you are doing, most of your brain keeps plugging away in the background without you being consciously aware of the enormous computation that is taking place. On average, even if you are a professional athlete, 40% of all calories your body burns are burned in the brain.

    The 10% utilization is a nearly century-old <u>myth</u>. It came from the observation that lobotomies, which removed a large chunk of the orbitofrontal cortex, didn't seem to affect the patients all that much. So, some doctor concluded to a journalist that large portions of the brain (perhaps as large as 90%) are not really in use. This immediately got into the press, and was trumpeted all over the world. The myth has persisted ever since. The truth is, the frontal lobotomies did indeed severely affect people, but in ways a little more subtle than the doctors were looking for.

    Today, we know that no region of the brain goes unused. All you can do is simply intensify activity in certain regions over the normal level. However, such control extends only over limited, mutually exclusive subsets of brain regions. Because the brain is highly interconnected and interdependent, overutilization of large portions of the brain leads directly to seizure! So, attempting to overexcite large portions of the brain might not be a good idea at all. Additionally, raising activity in regions of the brain is quite expensive metabolically, and quite exhausting in the long run (not to mention that overuse of any organ leads to deterioration thereof; all things are good in moderation.)

    Finally, let me brush on the issue of the brain's control over the body. The brain contains or controls most of the endocrine system, which includes the parasympatetic nervous system and endorphins. This allows an individual, through extended training, to learn to control such things as the heart rate or the perceived levels of pain. The 'high' you feel through your meditations could simply be due to a certain degree of conscious control you have managed to gain over the release of endorphins into your blood stream. These are the hormones that are released during injury to minimize pain, or during sexual orgasm to give pleasure. Your description of heightened awareness followed by a relaxed state is in fact reminiscent of what happens during a sexual orgasm -- only in your case the experience seems to be less intense and more prolonged.

    But anyway, I suspect you are not looking to be debunked but to be sympathized with, judging from your post. So, I'll leave the issue here and let you have your fun...

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    I am; therefore I think.
     
  19. H-kon Registered Senior Member

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    Every comment is welcome here.. but i have to ask you if you can prove what you are saying. Every other doctor and scientis says that we only use a small portion of out brain, so how can you verify that we are using all 100% of it?

    Other than that. I must say that you seem not to accept other peoples opinions and experiences

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    "All i say is keep looking".
     
  20. Mid12am Registered Senior Member

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    I think its the whole science has progressed and the myths haven't.

    But thats just me.. and Im kinda funny in the head..




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    (Midnight@golden.net)
    (Ouch.my.head)
    (http://home.golden.net/~midnight/)
     
  21. zygos Registered Senior Member

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    hi,

    Boris I am corrected, it is not that we are not using the entire brain, but we don't have the use of all the neural pathways possible, I know you cannot disagree with this because the sheer # of them are endless. And what I mean in my percentages in what percent of the total we are using. In other words humans are evolving to allow for the use of more neural pathways.

    Yours zygos
     
  22. Aloysius Registered Senior Member

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    Midnight:
    I agree. But since the old brain hasn't evolved either, we still find the old myths evocative. I think that science fiction attempts to fill the gap you mention. I am not sure that it succeeds, since it looks forward, unlike myths. I'm a big fan of Joseph Campbell btw.

    zygos:
    I suspect you are summising, rather than making a statement based on experimental measurment. Although the number of axons and dendrites is huge, it's not "endless"; experimental measurement has shown that it's between 10^11 and 10^13. The role of the glial cells may add even more effective compute complexity also.

    I would hazard the conjecture that, if the human brain is to be made "more capable" while at the same time preserving its overall shape and size, that the representations carried around the brain would become semantically richer.

    Here's a straw man I just thought of:
    I don't think, for instance, that "overclocking" the brain (like hackers do with their new Pentiums) with higher frequencies would work -- a whimsical and nonsensical idea, since the tissue itself is designed to respond at certain frequencies.
     
  23. H-kon Registered Senior Member

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    Doing what i do, is not like overclocking the brain ( i do it on computers). To do an analogy using computers i would say this:

    Windows is defined as slow, but you can you anything you want with it. Now lets say i cleaned the hard drive, and installed BeOS. The same computer would be just as fast as it was, but BeOS makes it go even faster with better coding (crash less) faster applications..more juice out of your system that is.The same goes for Linux for that matter.

    You see. Its not like doing this as having special powers.( My computer still cant do stuff by itself using BeOs which i do) You just use what you have in a different way so that you can get more juice squeezed out of your system, without having to upgrade.
    Was that clear enough?

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    "All i say is keep looking".
     

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