Is being psychic a matter of quantum entanglemen?

maccored

I've been watching the latest 'Weird or What' - fantastic series - and not only does it have an indepth piece of mind over matter and US Military paranormal research, but it also poses the idea of Quantum Entanglement

The idea is that due to the whole quantum entanglement thing, two people can form a link at a subatomic level. it didnt really go much further than that, but if thats true, then couldnt that explain how psychics (and by that I mean the very rare one or two if such people even exist) might be able to read people? By using that quantum connection? Ive no idea how, but there it is if anyone wants to pontificate over it.

The property of entanglement was recognized as a consequence of quantum theory during the formation of the theory. Quantum entanglement is at the heart of the EPR paradox that was developed by Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen in 1935, and was experimentally verified for the first time in 1980 by the French physicist Alain Aspect.

Entanglement is one of the properties of quantum mechanics that caused many physicists, including Albert Einstein, to dislike this formulation of quantum mechanical theory. In 1935, responding to Niels Bohr's advocacy that quantum mechanics as a theory was complete, Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen formulated the EPR paradox. The quantum mechanical thought experiment concluded that either nonlocal interaction exists or quantum mechanics is incomplete as a theory. Einstein famously derided entanglement as "spukhafte Fernwirkung"[2] or "spooky action at a distance".

It was his belief that future mathematicians would discover that quantum entanglement entailed nothing more or less than an error in their calculations. As he once wrote: "I find the idea quite intolerable that an electron exposed to radiation should choose of its own free will, not only its moment to jump off, but also its direction. In that case, I would rather be a cobbler, or even an employee in a gaming house, than a physicist".

Dave!

As a general rule of thumb, if someone attempts to explain paranormal sh*t in terms of quantum mechanics, they are almost certainly dickheads who are trying to confuse you with scientific sounding words.

For more information, see: Deepak Chopra

maccored

Im not going to argue with you on that. what if though, quantum mechanics ends up having some credibilty? Really, if you arent interested in even considering the possibilty then why bother joining the conversation? At least contribute something thought provoking.

No offense, but why the fcuk would I be interested in Deepak Chopra? I just goggled him/her and I really don't see it's connection with the original post. Unless it's because he uses the word 'quantum'. Really - read the last line of the paragraph above.

I suppose really what you're saying is don't bother trying to figure out if theres anything to psychics. Beats having to think I suppose.

Dave!

Perhaps you should focus your efforts on demonstrating that there actually is something to psychics (like, say, find one that can do their thang under controlled conditions) before you start investigating the mechanism by which they might hypothetically do it?

what if though, quantum mechanics ends up having some credibilty?

Can't say I'm much of a physicist, but as I understand it quantum mechanics has considerable credibility within the scientific community? It's just that it doesn't apply to the macro world, of which neurons are a part.

Oryx

Dave! wrote: »

Perhaps you should focus your efforts on demonstrating that there actually is something to psychics (like, say, find one that can do their thang under controlled conditions) before you start investigating the mechanism by which they might hypothetically do it?

He can discuss whatever the heck he likes, in whatever way he likes, its an interesting idea. Except I know about this >.< much about physics and much less about quantum physics. I realise that scientists get a bit testy when alternative or 'woo woo' practitioners jump on their research and try to bend it to fit whatever out there theory they are peddling. But its still worth talking about.

Zombrex

maccored wrote: »

I've been watching the latest 'Weird or What' - fantastic series - and not only does it have an indepth piece of mind over matter and US Military paranormal research, but it also poses the idea of Quantum Entanglement

The idea is that due to the whole quantum entanglement thing, two people can form a link at a subatomic level. it didnt really go much further than that, but if thats true, then couldnt that explain how psychics (and by that I mean the very rare one or two if such people even exist) might be able to read people? By using that quantum connection? Ive no idea how, but there it is if anyone wants to pontificate over it.

The problem with this idea is it is trying to find a way an explanation can work (telepathy) when really there is little to know evidence the explanation is sound in the first place.

Humans could be communicating over distance using an as yet undetectable method but why suppose they are. There are far more plausible explanations for the phenomena of peopling thinking they hear other in their mind that don't require that they actually are.

Humans communicate perfectly well using a perfectly detectable system of causing air molecules to vibrate to pass sound waves to each other.

We have noticeable, detectable, organs in our body for this (vocal cords), where as no one has found any organ or part of the body that could be responsible for telepathy.

Just like we don't randomly cause air to vibrate (you won't hear words if is just wave my hands around), to understand telepathic communication we wouldn't be just randomly causing say electrons to spin, we would need some system to encode language in the communication and no such capacity has ever been found in the brain.

Telepathy sounds cool but supposing its existence makes little sense in a biological and more importantly evolutionary context. There is nothing physically in humans to suggest we have this ability and nothing in evolution to suggest we would develop this ability without there being something to detect.

Telepathy seems simply a by product of the evolution of the inner monologue, the little voice we hear in our head and identify as ourselves but also some what separate. We deduce that if we can "hear" it then perhaps other people can. But of course we don't hear this voice in the same sense that we hear the voices of others.

As for quantum entanglement specifically it doesn't really help telepathy even if we imagined the human brain had a dedicated telepathy organism and an inner monologue that is understandable by others.

For a start you have to make the two entangled particles as far as I know, and then move one away from the other. So if I wanted to communicate using quantum entanglement I would have to give you one of the entangled particles and have you go away. I can't simply start manipulating a particle since I've no idea which other particle, if any, is entangled with it.

Also no one has figured out how to actually send messages with entanglement. There is still a random element to entanglement that can only be reconciled when you have access to both particles, which defeats the purpose of sending messages. If you just have one particle it is hard if not impossible to work out what the other person has done to their particle without looking at it as well.

maccored

i'm just proposing a suggestion. maybe 'psychic' people can manipulate the things you mention naturally. that would tie science in with the mumbo jumbo of psychic land and weirdly, neither side would be wrong.

The sooner someone works out that damn theory of everything the better.

maccored

Dave! wrote: »

Perhaps you should focus your efforts on demonstrating that there actually is something to psychics (like, say, find one that can do their thang under controlled conditions) before you start investigating the mechanism by which they might hypothetically do it?


Can't say I'm much of a physicist, but as I understand it quantum mechanics has considerable credibility within the scientific community? It's just that it doesn't apply to the macro world, of which neurons are a part.

Im not actually a big fan of psychics. there are millions of fakes, but statistically that has to mean theres at least one real one. thats all you need. If we were all to follow your suggestion, science would grind to a halt . 'Dont research the Big Bang Theory - show us it working first ...'

Quantum mechanics doesnt have the same credibility as quantum physics and i certianly understand neither of them.

Genghiz Cohen

maccored wrote: »

Im not actually a big fan of psychics. there are millions of fakes, but statistically that has to mean theres at least one real one. thats all you need. If we were all to follow your suggestion, science would grind to a halt . 'Dont research the Big Bang Theory - show us it working first ...'

Quantum mechanics doesnt have the same credibility as quantum physics and i certianly understand neither of them.

No it doesn't.

maccored

why not? surely thats what statistics are all about? Plus, you'd need to have some way of proving that being psychic is impossible (dont use the old 'cant prove a negative' as a handy way out) in order to be so sure.

Fremen

maccored wrote: »

Im not actually a big fan of psychics. there are millions of fakes, but statistically that has to mean theres at least one real one.

That's not how statistics works. The fact that there are millions of fakes means that it's less likely for there to be a real one.

Suppose I'm considering the proposition that all swans are white (read: all psychics are fakes). If I look at a population of one million swans, and every one of them is white, this observation should reinforce my belief that all swans are indeed white. I can never prove that all swans are white, but the longer I go without seeing a black swan, the more confident I should be in my hypothesis.

maccored

I can never prove that all swans are white, but the longer I go without seeing a black swan, the more confident I should be in my hypothesis.

aye, but if there were tons of people running around telling you of the black swans they've been talking to you'd have to reconsider. People claim psychics exist. of course you can call them all stupid but .....

maccored

anyway - any chance anyone wants to bother discussing the OP rather than psychics? I know yous are very fond of the only debate people have over this side of the forum ...... in that psychics arent real (which Im sure you can all scientifically prove).

Fremen

maccored wrote: »

aye, but if there were tons of people running around telling you of the black swans they've been talking to you'd have to reconsider. People claim psychics exist. of course you can call them all stupid but .....

And there are plenty of people who say they don't exist. I'd be inclined to let the evidence speak for itself. People are unreliable, tests less so.

maccored

Fremen wrote: »

And there are plenty of people who say they don't exist. I'd be inclined to let the evidence speak for itself. People are unreliable, tests less so.

fair enough. Ive no idea how that pans out in relation to your story about swans, but sure how and ever.

Fremen

maccored wrote: »

fair enough. Ive no idea how that pans out in relation to your story about swans, but sure how and ever.

At the risk of running the metaphor ragged, I'd go out and look for some swans myself, rather than listening to what other people told me about them.

At the very least, I'd find some people who have proven themselves reliable, get them to look at the swans, then have their work checked by some other reliable people.

maccored

so the basis of your argument is you;d beleive it if you saw it. Or you'd believe it if someone you trusted had a definitive experience with a psychic? Therefore, just because you havent, then its not true?

Thats not very scientific. I regret starting this thread. Its turned into yet another Skeptic Forum Focus On Psychics. I was trying to see if scientifically it might be possible to explain what psychics do, but its a waste of time as so far there doesnt seem to be any properly sceptical people (ie those with a mind thats open to both possibilities) around these days.

I still think this should be renamed the Cynics Forum as thats nearer the truth.

Fremen

It's absolutely scientific. What I described in my last three or four posts is in effect the scientific method as outlined by Karl Popper. The part about getting other people to look for you was an allusion to repeatable experiments and the process of peer review.

The default position should be not to believe anything until there's a decent body of evidence for it.

You wanted a discussion about the possibility of telepathy via quantum entanglement, but without a verified telepath to study, the question is meaningless. We might as well speculate about whether they communicate using radio waves.

Oryx

Paranormalists are often told off for not being scientific enough, but unfortunately all discussion here ends up in the same loop, without either side learning much about the other.

Id like to ask something hypothetically, cos this whole area intruiges me, but Im also totally confuzzled by it, and I want to get past the impasse in some way.

If you were to assume for a moment that you have person A and person B here. And by some method, person A can apparrently read person B's mind, no matter how far apart they are or in what circumstances.

Two questions. Could this quantum entanglement be used to posit a possible theory on how A & B are communicating? What other methods could be theorised as allowing this to happen? (real methods, not simply deception).

How would you go about confirming the ability of A, what tests and controls would you apply??

Im asking the scientists how to apply this science.

maccored

Fremen wrote: »

You wanted a discussion about the possibility of telepathy via quantum entanglement, but without a verified telepath to study, the question is meaningless. We might as well speculate about whether they communicate using radio waves.

completely disagree. Most things in swcience, particularly when it comes to anything quantum, cant be verified ... so why start looking for verification now? the big bang theory cant be verified. Neither can the whole expansion theory etc etc. Why would you particularly want telepathy to be completely verified first? Imagination is needed first. then eventually if someone can convince someone with promosing psychic skills to put themselves forward to be completely ridiculed, then maybe you could use the thoughts initially 'imagined' and put them to use. To stop the conversation by demanding someone verifies that a medium is real first is just copping out if you ask me. Observation is obviously important, but you get to that when you get to it - and certainly in this thread, we arent that far along yet.

Fremen

Great, much better question.

The first thing I would measure is how fast signals travel between the pair when they are communicating. This in itself is a difficult thing to measure since human reaction times are so slow. If the signal travelled at the speed of light, you would need to put one of the pair on the moon in order to get an accurate estimate of the signal velocity.

If the signal is transmitted instantly, then we're in trouble because modern physics says information cannot travel faster than light. It's back to the drawing board for physics in this case.

The speed of the signal would give me a clue as to its nature (massive/massless particles?). Once that was known, I would try to devise a method for blocking the signal. Once you can block it or detect it in some way, you're a step closer to figuring out how it works.

maccored

Glad to see the whole thing was simplified for you.

There's an interesting report from Commander L.R. Brenseth, US Navy (2001) about US Military Paranormal Research. One of the conclusive suggestions is more research should be done in regard remote viewing / psychic abilities. here's a link to the PDF

Fremen

maccored wrote: »

completely disagree. Most things in swcience, particularly when it comes to anything quantum, cant be verified ... so why start looking for verification now?

Mate, you need to do some reading. Quantum electrodynamics is the best theory we have. It predicts the value of a physical quantity known as the electromagnetic fine structure constant more accurately than any other theory by a wide margin. Quantum mechancis predicted the existence of antimatter.

Psychics can't reliably predict what I'm going to have for dinner tonight.

Fremen

maccored wrote: »

Glad to see the whole thing was simplified for you.

Thanks for your sneering. I think I'll take the high road.

maccored

yeah 'mate' indeed. Quantum electrodynamics is just one part of quantum physics. Is it cold up there on that high horse :rolleyes:

maccored

Fremen wrote: »

Thanks for your sneering. I think I'll take the high road.

Is that because its a link to research on the stuff you're claiming hasnt been researched?

Oryx

Fremen wrote: »

Great, much better question.

The first thing I would measure is how fast signals travel between the pair when they are communicating. This in itself is a difficult thing to measure since human reaction times are so slow. If the signal travelled at the speed of light, you would need to put one of the pair on the moon in order to get an accurate estimate of the signal velocity.

If the signal is transmitted instantly, then we're in trouble because modern physics says information cannot travel faster than light. It's back to the drawing board for physics in this case.

The speed of the signal would give me a clue as to its nature (massive/massless particles?). Once that was known, I would try to devise a method for blocking the signal. Once you can block it or detect it in some way, you're a step closer to figuring out how it works.

You can't put one on the moon, so how do you get around that, and how do you factor in the reaction times?

And you find yourself unable to block it. What next?

Fremen

Put them on other sides of the earth and take an average of reaction times over hundreds of experiments, then do the same thing when they're in adjacent rooms. If the signal travels at light speed, there will be a difference on the order of forty milliseconds. Attempt to control for tiredness, climate conditions, nervousness, coffee consumption, etc...

If it's impossible to block and impossible to detect, we're kind of screwed. We need to find a way to "break" the signal. I would suggest lobotomising one or both the people being studied, but that's hardly ethical.

Zombrex

maccored wrote: »

i'm just proposing a suggestion. maybe 'psychic' people can manipulate the things you mention naturally.

Possibly but consider the mechainary required to do this in a lab it is hard to see how they could do it without any obvious or detectable organs or dedicated areas of the human body for this purpose.

This was my point about the vocal cords. How we speak is not a mystery, we have dedicated organs for this. Even if we think telepathy might be happening it seems some what ridiculous that we can't find the part of the body that is doing it. Evolution tends not to make such mysterious things, particular when what is taking place is complex.

Zombrex

maccored wrote: »

Im not actually a big fan of psychics. there are millions of fakes, but statistically that has to mean theres at least one real one.

What do you mean by "real one"

I'm pretty confident we know what "psychics" are, it is a combination of things like cold reading, all of which I find fascinating by the way, well worth of research into.

So in a sense they are all real. There is a real phenomena here worthy of explanation and study.

What isn't supported is the various paranormal claims traditionally made to explain these phenomena.

That doesn't mean nothing is happening, it simply means some sets of explanations of what are happening are inaccurate or wrong. That is hardly shocking, most explanations end up being wrong. We know longer think that the liver pumps blood or that light travels in an aether.

There is no real need to keep revisiting the same explanations over and over simply because people keep putting them forward. No one would care if some witch doctor, out of ignorance, says the liver pumps blood around the body because we know it doesn't, the heart does.

Nor would someone entertain the idea that all witch doctors cannot be wrong.

Abandoning the out of date paranormal explanation is not the same thing as abandoning the study of the phenomena it was used to explain. A lot of these phenomena remain fascinating. You don't stop studying blood flow because you find out the heart pumps blood instead of the liver, but neither do you keep that out dated idea around either.

Zombrex

Oryx wrote: »

Could this quantum entanglement be used to posit a possible theory on how A & B are communicating?

Unlikely. Again you cannot simply entangle two particles at distance. You must make them together at the same time. Person A would have to put one of the entangled particles in person B's brain, send person B off and then start manipulating their entangled particle.

Also no one has figured out how to send information through entangled particles, and some theories suggest this is in fact impossible. In order to understand what has happened during an entanglement you have to look at both of them. Then you can see that doing something to one changes the other. But if you just have one particle it is impossible to work out what has happened to the other particle. As such it doesn't seem likely that you could send information through particle entanglement, at least at the moment.

Oryx wrote: »

What other methods could be theorised as allowing this to happen? (real methods, not simply deception).

Far easier methods would be radio waves or ultra-sonic messaging. But of course these are detectable so we know humans don't use them for communication.

The appeal, I suspect, of quantum entanglement to proponents of paranormal explanations is that it is so cutting edge they believe (wrongly as it turns out) that it is not yet possible to disprove it.

What proponents of telepathy are looking for is an explanation that justifies the paranormal claim while also fitting in with the reality that no one has detected any method of telepathy communication between humans.

Oryx wrote: »

How would you go about confirming the ability of A, what tests and controls would you apply??

Im asking the scientists how to apply this science.

You would propose a falsifiable theory. So you might say in my model (theory) human A produces a high frequency radio wave that person B can pick up on. This is a falsifiable theory because it makes the prediction that person A should have radio waves coming out of his head, and if he doesn't then the theory is wrong.

You test this and see if the prediction matches observation. If it doesn't you change the theory.

The problem with telepathy is that no one has ever detected any previously undetected non-verbal or visual communication between subjects.

This is lead to testing in other areas that have lead to far greater success in terms of building an accurate model of what is happening, for example cold reading.

And important point to remember is that science is not about disproving the paranormal. It is about finding an accurate model of what is happening. An accurate model is as good as any other accurate model. Cold reading is a pretty accurate model, any ideological objections to this fact from people who subscribe to paranormal explanations (not directing that at you btw) are irrelevant to science.

It seems some what puzzling to me that some (again not you directed at you ) seem deeply unsatisfied by this and continue to think that there must be a paranormal explanation some where.

Oryx

People arent happy with proposed scientific explanations I suppose because it doesnt answer or debunk their own particular experience, whatever that is. You see it all the time here, people saying: wait till its happened to you. And a lot of the time I actually agree with that. But I do also think the mind is very capable of fooling us, and we can misunderstand what we see.

So Im stuck between two camps. Someone who does not want to be fooled or fool myself and yet, who has stuff going on that, to me, defies the explanations given here. Hence I want to understand quantum entanglement. In case thats got something to it that would shed light.

Herbal Deity

IMHO, our minds "play tricks" on us all the time. I think that just depending on what kind of person you are, you'll either dismiss them or at most be mildly amused by them, or else you'll interpret them as resulting from something external to you.

Other times, coincidences occur, which are quite reasonable, statistically speaking, but some people can't/refuse to grasp this.

I think it is interesting to investigate whether there might be something more to these strange experiences, but it gets a little irritating when there exists a subculture which seems devoted to defending the validity of their experiences as being externally caused.

Explaining the paranormal with far-fetched hypotheses relating to quantum physics seems to be quite a fad recently.

SkepticOne

Oryx wrote: »

Paranormalists are often told off for not being scientific enough, but unfortunately all discussion here ends up in the same loop, without either side learning much about the other.

Id like to ask something hypothetically, cos this whole area intruiges me, but Im also totally confuzzled by it, and I want to get past the impasse in some way.

If you were to assume for a moment that you have person A and person B here. And by some method, person A can apparrently read person B's mind, no matter how far apart they are or in what circumstances.

Two questions. Could this quantum entanglement be used to posit a possible theory on how A & B are communicating? What other methods could be theorised as allowing this to happen? (real methods, not simply deception).

How would you go about confirming the ability of A, what tests and controls would you apply??

Im asking the scientists how to apply this science.

You say paranormalists are often accused of not being scientific enough and that the conversation tends to go around in a loop. I agree with this but I think to move things along change has to come from the paranormalist camp.

The problem with discussing how mind reading works is that the question itself pre-supposes the existence of mind reading. What if mind reading doesn't exist?

To resolve this, you obviously need to bring those claiming mind reading abilities into a reasonably controlled situation. But here is where you get defensive reactions.

"Why should I submit to being tested when I already know I have abilities?"

"Why should devote some of my time to your testing for nothing?"

When money is offered objections are also raised.

I'm not a scientist but I would love to see those claiming paranormal abilities agree to a set of experimental protocols with scientists to determine whether or not these abilities really exist but unfortunately I think we can both agree it is not going to happen.

MrMojoRisin

Herbal Deity wrote: »

IMHO, our minds "play tricks" on us all the time. I think that just depending on what kind of person you are, you'll either dismiss them or at most be mildly amused by them, or else you'll interpret them as resulting from something external to you.

Other times, coincidences occur, which are quite reasonable, statistically speaking, but some people can't/refuse to grasp this.

But what about instances where a person has 'seen' something before it actually happened, and reported what they had seen to others in advance of the event taking place? How is the person's mind playing tricks on them when their perception turned out to be valid later?

I say this because one of my cousins has had a few premonitions related to her immediate family life in the past. You could have argued that, in the case of precognition, it's just someone 'predicting' something that's likely to happen in general, or something that's likely to happen because the line of action seems to be leading in a certain direction. That's very true in the majority of cases of so-called 'precognition'. However, my cousin foresaw something that was very gruesome, unexpected and upsetting for both herself and her family. It could have been prevented too if her parents had taken action beforehand.

I don't believe a person's mind is playing silly, little tricks on them when they can 'see' something uncommon taking place beforehand, have the presence of mind to tell someone else at the time, and then have the whole thing vindicated by virtue of it occurring later.

Winston Churchill had a couple of documented premonitions. Once, upon completing a visit to an anti-aircraft battery, Churchill walked toward his staff car. The door was held open for him to take his usual seat. However, Churchill walked past the open door and sat on the other side of the car instead. While driving a few blocks away from the battery station, a bomb landed near the car. The power of the blast lifted the car precariously on two wheels yet, no-one was hurt. It was believed that it was the placement of Churchill's weight which prevented the car from flipping over.

When Churchill was questioned afterwards as to why he had sat on the other side of the car, he said: "Something said 'Stop!' before I reached the car door held open for me. It then appeared to me that I was told I was meant to open the door on the other side and sit there - and that's what I did."


Abraham Lincoln foresaw his own death in a dream and he related the dream to his close friend, Ward Hill Lamon, beforehand:

‘About ten days ago, I retired very late. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room. No living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds met me as I passed alone. I was puzzled and alarmed.

Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room. Before me was a catafalque on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng or people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. "Who is dead in the White House?" I demanded of one of the soldiers. "The president," was his answer. "He was killed by an assassin."’

Just as Lincoln foresaw his own death, Kennedy seemed to have done the same. Just a few hours before he was murdered in Dallas in 1963, JFK told wife Jackie and Ken O'Donnell, his personal advisor, out of the blue: "If somebody wants to shoot me from a window with a rifle, nobody can stop it, so why worry about it?"

The English actor Alec Guinness apparently forewarned James Dean about driving in his car, but unfortunately Gunness didn't mention this to anyone else until many years later.

In the autumn of 1955, Guinness met James Dean at L.A. restaurant, Villa Capri. Dean, who had just purchased a brand-new Porsche 550 Spyder, eagerly brought Guinness outside to show him his latest acquisition.

The actor looked uneasily at the car and urged Dean not to get inside it. Guinness then looked at his watch and said to Dean, “It is now 10 O’ Clock, Friday the 23rd of September 1955. If you get in that car, you will be found dead in it by this time next week.”

Dean laughed off the remark, and Guinness apologised for what he had said, attributing it to fatigue and hunger. There followed a pleasant evening in which there was no further reference to Guinness’ previous words.

The body of James Dean was discovered at 4pm on Friday, September 30th – exactly one week after his meeting with Alec Guinness. He had obviously been killed while driving his new car.

Although Guinness' 'premonition' is compromised heavily by him never bothering to tell anyone else back in 1955, I think it'd be insensitive and in poor taste to speak publicly about having 'known' about a promising young actor being pummelled to death in a car accident decades after it happened. I would have thought Guinness would have had more maturity than to lie about something like that.

Still, the above stories are quite interesting...

I think that mind tricks could play a big role in sightings of 'ghosts' though. That is, unless another person is present when the ghost is seen, and/or they capture it on video. I've seen some weird things in the past but I know that the sum of their 'value' is only a collection of cute, mildly entertaining stories for the majority of people I bother to tell.

Premonitions have greater evidential value, IMO. On that note (well, sort of), a friend of mine was saying recently that he reckons some terrorist-related stuff is going to kick off at The World Cup this summer. I suppose that's a bit of a no-brainer though, seeing as Johannesburg is one of the most dangerous cities in the world to start with, and most major sporting events always guard against the possibility of terrorist acts nowadays anyway. :rolleyes:

Herbal Deity wrote: »

I think it is interesting to investigate whether there might be something more to these strange experiences, but it gets a little irritating when there exists a subculture which seems devoted to defending the validity of their experiences as being externally caused.

I think the subculture of paranormal zealots are only an irritant when the experiences they defend as being valid sound daft or are very easily explainable in a rational sense. Sleep paralysis is one rational cause that features time and time again in so-called 'paranormal' experiences that people talk about.

Herbal Deity wrote: »

Explaining the paranormal with far-fetched hypotheses relating to quantum physics seems to be quite a fad recently.

Which hypotheses related to quantum physics that people use as explanations for their unusual experiences do you find most far-fetched?

I don't think it's just a "fad" - I'm sure this tendency will continue long into the next decade. It probably appears to be a darling "fad" because it appeared to emerge from some dark recess and had been unanticipated by most people. I would view it as people striving to foster a more rounded, all-encompassing perspective of bizarre 'phenomena' - in this day and age, it'd be more cumbersome and disquieting if people neglected to look at issues from more than one side. I see it as a good thing. As progress.

Zombrex

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

However, my cousin foresaw something that was very gruesome, unexpected and upsetting for both herself and her family. It could have been prevented too if her parents had taken action beforehand.

Without details it is hard to comment on your cousin's vision but such claims rarely if ever stand up to close scrutiny.

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

I don't believe a person's mind is playing silly, little tricks on them when they can 'see' something uncommon taking place beforehand, have the presence of mind to tell someone else at the time, and then have the whole thing vindicated by virtue of it occurring later.

Why not?

Your dismissive tone (silly little tricks) smacks of serious bias against natural, albeit boring, explanations.

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

"Something said 'Stop!' before I reached the car door held open for me. It then appeared to me that I was told I was meant to open the door on the other side and sit there[/COLOR] - and that's what I did."

This is the sort of thing most "accurate" predictions are when you actually examine them.

Churchill didn't have a vision that a bomb would land beside him and he would have to sit in a particular place in order to avoid flipping the car over. That might have been impressive.

Instead Churchill had a quite vague "bad feeling" about something. And a little while later something bad happened. The point that is ignored is that Churchill probably had these sort of feelings all the time, but they only held significance to him when something bad happened. So while we focus on one of these feelings that happened to occur around the time of a significant event, we ignore all the others he may have had that resulted in nothing.

This is most evident in religion where people routinely pray all the time but then when something random but significant happens to them they associate it with the last prayer they said, ignoring the hundreds of thousands of prayers said that resulted in nothing.

The idea of visions of the future have significant problems even if we assume humans could actually see them. For example it is assumed in your story about Churchill that the moving of the seats saved his life. But think about it for a minute. If Churchill had not moved seats the car would have left at a different time and as such the bomb would not have landed by the car at all. Yet no one thinks that was Churchill's vision was actually trying to kill him by delaying the time he left in order to have his car in the right spot for the bomb. People instead prefer to view things like this as helpful, despite there being little evidence for this. We have a strong tendency to view these types of things as benevolent, which goes some what to betraying the psychological origin of them as a manifestation of the human sub-conscious rather than supernatural.

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

Abraham Lincoln foresaw his own death in a dream

It is hardly shocking that Lincoln, a man half the country went to war trying to stop and kill, would have dreams about assassination.

How many presidents have had dreams about assassination (all of them I imagine) yet not been assassinated.

Again what is missing from the vision is actual specifics.

Dave!

Wicknight wrote: »

Without details it is hard to comment on your cousin's vision but such claims rarely if ever stand up to close scrutiny.



Why not?

Your dismissive tone (silly little tricks) smacks of serious bias against natural, albeit boring, explanations.



This is the sort of thing most "accurate" predictions are when you actually examine them.

Churchill didn't have a vision that a bomb would land beside him and he would have to sit in a particular place in order to avoid flipping the car over. That might have been impressive.

Instead Churchill had a quite vague "bad feeling" about something. And a little while later something bad happened. The point that is ignored is that Churchill probably had these sort of feelings all the time, but they only held significance to him when something bad happened. So while we focus on one of these feelings that happened to occur around the time of a significant event, we ignore all the others he may have had that resulted in nothing.

This is most evident in religion where people routinely pray all the time but then when something random but significant happens to them they associate it with the last prayer they said, ignoring the hundreds of thousands of prayers said that resulted in nothing.

The idea of visions of the future have significant problems even if we assume humans could actually see them. For example it is assumed in your story about Churchill that the moving of the seats saved his life. But think about it for a minute. If Churchill had not moved seats the car would have left at a different time and as such the bomb would not have landed by the car at all. Yet no one thinks that was Churchill's vision was actually trying to kill him by delaying the time he left in order to have his car in the right spot for the bomb. People instead prefer to view things like this as helpful, despite there being little evidence for this. We have a strong tendency to view these types of things as benevolent, which goes some what to betraying the psychological origin of them as a manifestation of the human sub-conscious rather than supernatural.



It is hardly shocking that Lincoln, a man half the country went to war trying to stop and kill, would have dreams about assassination.

How many presidents have had dreams about assassination (all of them I imagine) yet not been assassinated.

Again what is missing from the vision is actual specifics.

Spot on

MrMojoRisin

Wicknight wrote: »

Without details it is hard to comment on your cousin's vision but such claims rarely if ever stand up to close scrutiny.

This is a private, sensitive matter in which I cannot go into much detail for the sake of some anonymous public forum users, but it has certainly been closely scrutinised within the family for many years.

But, at the same time, I don't know how "close scrutiny" of a more scientific kind would reveal that a child's foreknowledge of a savage, uncommon incident was pure 'luck' or 'chance'. :rolleyes:

Wicknight wrote: »

Why not?

Because a person knowing about something in detail before it happened/happens obviously had/has not been experiencing mind tricks or aberrations of some kind.

Wicknight wrote: »

Your dismissive tone (silly little tricks)

Aw, will I get you a Kleenex? My choice of words clearly hit a nerve.

Wicknight wrote: »

[...] smacks of serious bias against natural, albeit boring, explanations.

Not at all. That's your perception of my words, which happens to be inaccurate, btw.

Wicknight wrote: »

Churchill didn't have a vision that a bomb would land beside him and he would have to sit in a particular place in order to avoid flipping the car over. That might have been impressive.

"Vision"? I never said he had "a vision". He said himself that he heard a 'voice'.

Wicknight wrote: »

Instead Churchill had a quite vague "bad feeling" about something.

No, he didn't. He said he heard a voice instructing him to sit on the opposite side of the car.

Wicknight wrote: »

The point that is ignored is that Churchill probably had these sort of feelings all the time,

How do you know that? Did you ask him?

Wicknight wrote: »

[...] but they only held significance to him when something bad happened.

Again, you would have had to ask him about that. There could have been many things that happened in his life that held significance for him, except he wouldn't have spoken about every single one of them publicly.

Wicknight wrote: »

So while we focus on one of these feelings that happened to occur around the time of a significant event, we ignore all the others he may have had that resulted in nothing.

I'm sure that varies from person to person. You can't blithely speak for millions of people.

Wicknight wrote: »

This is most evident in religion where people routinely pray all the time but then when something random but significant happens to them they associate it with the last prayer they said, ignoring the hundreds of thousands of prayers said that resulted in nothing.

What were the instances where that happened and where and when did they take place?

Personally, I do think that praying is a fairly useless activity and that it's dumb to believe that a prayer can cause a 'miracle' to occur. But people have been into all that for thousands of years; it doesn't look likely to change anytime soon, no matter how much rationale veering to the contrary is shoved in front of people's faces.

Wicknight wrote: »

But think about it for a minute. If Churchill had not moved seats the car would have left at a different time and as such the bomb would not have landed by the car at all. Yet no one thinks that was Churchill's vision was actually trying to kill him by delaying the time he left in order to have his car in the right spot for the bomb.

That's a good point. That's another way of looking at it. Then again, the bomb hitting his car - as bad as that was - at that time might have been a useful reminder to him of the peril he faced and caused him to exercise greater caution subsequently.

If Churchill had not moved seats, who's to say that the car would have definitely departed immediately? Suppose the car's occupants paused momentarily to discuss something before they drove off? Those are valid possibilities too. I don't always drive off several seconds after I get into my car, and my friends don't either.

Wicknight wrote: »

People instead prefer to view things like this as helpful, despite there being little evidence for this.

Just as there is little evidence of things like that being helpful, there is equally little evidence of them being malignant.

Wicknight wrote: »

We have a strong tendency to view these types of things as benevolent, which goes somewhat to betraying the psychological origin of them as a manifestation of the human sub-conscious rather than supernatural.

I don't see why any 'unusual' incidents that are perceived as being benevolent and that are, as you say, a manifestation of the human subconscious would betray the subconscious? That suggests that the human subconscious is inherently malevolent in nature. Maybe aspects of it are (which will vary from one person to another) , but not its entirety.

Wicknight wrote: »

It is hardly shocking that Lincoln, a man half the country went to war trying to stop and kill, would have dreams about assassination.

No, it isn't shocking in the least. Presidency and assassination threats are interwoven - like cheese and onion, or Laurel and Hardy.

What is notable ('shocking' is far too strong a word to use here) is that Lincoln bothered his hole to tell someone else in writing about that particular dream before it happened.

It's funny how there isn't any documentation available that details him having possibly written to someone about his other possible dreams of being assassinated.

Wicknight wrote: »

How many presidents have had dreams about assassination (all of them I imagine) yet not been assassinated.

That's anyone's guess. A person can only assume, so that isn't much good.

Zombrex

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

But, at the same time, I don't know how "close scrutiny" of a more scientific kind would reveal that a child's foreknowledge of a savage, uncommon incident was pure 'luck' or 'chance'. :rolleyes:

That is the problem right there.

You require some close scrutiny to say that it actually was a child foreknowing an uncommon incident in the first place. So to start with you require scientific examination otherwise you are just guessing as to what it is, how common or uncommon it is, how random or non-random it is.

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

Aw, will I get you a Kleenex? My choice of words clearly hit a nerve.

I wouldn't say it hit a nerve but you seem quite biased in how you are approaching this subject, and quite dismissive of natural explanations, which to be honest does not put you in the best position to give rational assessments to the rest of us as to how likely or unlikely or specific or not certain claims you are presenting are.

This to me is one of the biggest problems when trying to assess the paranormal, hearing claims third hand. For example the example you gave earlier, it is sort of difficult to trust your determination that what your cousin predicted was specific and accurate when you seem to be coming to this discussion quite dismissive of the types of tricks of the mind that can produce false assessment.

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

Not at all. That's your perception of my words, which happens to be inaccurate, btw.

Fair enough, if you say so. I can only go on what you post.

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

"Vision"? I never said he had "a vision". He said himself that he heard a 'voice'.

Voice, vision, some what semantic. Foretelling lets say.

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

How do you know that? Did you ask him?

No, but given his age and the stress he was under, and how such phenomena manifest themselves in people under stress, this seems a safe assumption.

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

I'm sure that varies from person to person. You can't blithely speak for millions of people.

Sure you can since this is naturally occurring biological phenomena. It is so common it has a name, similar to confirmation bias, that escapes me at the moment.

We are all human after all.

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

What were the instances where that happened and where and when did they take place?

Where what happened? People prayed and something happened?

I wasn't thinking of any specific event. If you like my gf's sister's fiancé's mother prays all the time and when something good happens routinely says "I'm glad I prayed" or some such.

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

Personally, I do think that praying is a fairly useless activity and that it's dumb to believe that a prayer can cause a 'miracle' to occur. But people have been into all that for thousands of years; it doesn't look likely to change anytime soon, no matter how much rationale veering to the contrary is shoved in front of people's faces.

That is some what irrelevant to the issue at hand.

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

That's a good point. That's another way of looking at it. Then again, the bomb hitting his car - as bad as that was - at that time might have been a useful reminder to him of the peril he faced and caused him to exercise greater caution subsequently.

Useful reminder from who exactly? God? Or Mother Nature?

Why do you assume a benevolent force at work? Why not think that mother nature or fate or what ever was trying to kill Churchill?

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

Just as there is little evidence of things like that being helpful, there is equally little evidence of them being malignant.

There is no evidence of either, I simply find it interesting that people nearly always assume benevolence. This fits into the, rather natural, way our brains work.

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

I don't see why any 'unusual' incidents that are perceived as being benevolent and that are, as you say, a manifestation of the human subconscious would betray the subconscious?

They betray the origins as being from the subconscious rather than supernatural as claimed. We know that the human brain will attempt to structure random events in terms of human like agents in nature that in nearly all cases, act benevolently towards us.

It is two hard to process random information as purely random information so our brains fall back to process these random events in terms of a narrative of nature interacting with us for specific reasons.

So two unconnected events (Churchill thinking he hears a voice and a bomb) are connected by our brain and the gaps filled in.

We can't actually trust that Churchill's description of events after the fact are accurate. We know the brain fills in details after the fact. He obviously heard or felt something causing him to move, but once the bomb dropped the narrative is present and his brain in all likelihood filtered his memories in terms of this narrative.

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

What is notable ('shocking' is far too strong a word to use here) is that Lincoln bothered his hole to tell someone else in writing about that particular dream before it happened.

I don't think that is particularly notable. If you had a terrible nightmare you may well tell someone about it, particularly if it stems from a general sense of dread or fear for your life.

If you take the dream out of isolation, and look at in the wider context of Lincoln's life what you are actually talking about is a man in a general sense of fear for his life writing about how these fears have manifested themselves. And that is hardly notable at all.





That's anyone's guess. A person can only assume, so that isn't much good.[/QUOTE]

Nick Dolan

practioners of alternative theories of all kinds love Quantum Physics because its so strange and full of paradoxes. This means you can a scientific idea (multiple universes or dimensions etc) whack it in to your worldview and you get instant credibility. All you need is an overextended metaphor (Subatomic particles affecting each other miles apart = Mind readers miles apart) .

Zombrex

Nick Dolan wrote: »

practioners of alternative theories of all kinds love Quantum Physics because its so strange and full of paradoxes. This means you can a scientific idea (multiple universes or dimensions etc) whack it in to your worldview and you get instant credibility. All you need is an overextended metaphor (Subatomic particles affecting each other miles apart = Mind readers miles apart) .

I love this from Futurama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqcaaUtPdAo

Anyone who doesn't know who Deepak Chopra is he is constantly invoking quantum mechanics to justify what ever wacky thing he is dreaming up at that moment.

kylith

Nick Dolan wrote: »

practioners of alternative theories of all kinds love Quantum Physics because its so strange and full of paradoxes. This means you can a scientific idea (multiple universes or dimensions etc) whack it in to your worldview and you get instant credibility. All you need is an overextended metaphor (Subatomic particles affecting each other miles apart = Mind readers miles apart) .

I agree. Throughout history fraudsters have used whatever the most current scientific theory is to make their claims sound scientific, while still being secure in the knowledge that the general public doesn't know enough to know it's rubbish. In the past it's been the ether, electricity, radiation, and now it's quantum, infra red and lasers.

MrMojoRisin

Wicknight wrote: »

That is the problem right there.

You require some close scrutiny to say that it actually was a child foreknowing an uncommon incident in the first place. So to start with you require scientific examination otherwise you are just guessing as to what it is, how common or uncommon it is, how random or non-random it is.

No, the family were not and are not "guessing" - it was/is an educated, commonsensical evaluation of what took place based on the knowledge available to them beforehand and afterwards.

Wicknight wrote: »

I wouldn't say it hit a nerve but you seem quite biased in how you are approaching this subject, and quite dismissive of natural explanations, [...]

That's an ill-informed assumption on your part; to somehow possess a comprehensive overview of how I approach an entire subject based on a mere few words I typed. That's farcical. :rolleyes:

Wicknight wrote: »

[...] which to be honest does not put you in the best position to give rational assessments to the rest of us as to how likely or unlikely or specific or not certain claims you are presenting are. [...]

I seriously doubt that you would know confidently whether or not I am in the best position to give rational assessments, seeing as we have never even met each other.

That's very imperious and insulting of you to actually believe that you really have the skinny on people you don't know and, even worse, that you seem to be labouring under the illusion that you are in a position of some God-knows-what importance to hammer home your poorly founded personal assessments of people.

Wicknight wrote: »

This to me is one of the biggest problems when trying to assess the paranormal, hearing claims third hand. For example the example you gave earlier, it is sort of difficult to trust your determination that what your cousin predicted was specific and accurate when you seem to be coming to this discussion quite dismissive of the types of tricks of the mind that can produce false assessment.

Again, you're only working from your assumption of a situation that's, quite frankly, poorly sketched. If you're perturbed at a paranormal claim having been related on a third hand basis, then you'll probably be aware that you're subsequently in a disadvantageous position to even begin to analyse the claim with clarity.

The story was just something I threw into the discussion half-heartedly in order to illustrate another dimension to a person's mind possibly playing tricks. I wasn't seeking a pedantic dissection of the story, or boardsie scientific support of its veracity and/or validity. That didn't/doesn't concern me. You've failed to understand where I was coming from.

Wicknight wrote: »

[...] when you seem to be coming to this discussion quite dismissive of the types of tricks of the mind that can produce false assessment.

That's just your personal opinion.

Wicknight wrote: »

Fair enough, if you say so. I can only go on what you post.

Yes. I've noticed that.

Wicknight wrote: »

Voice, vision, some what semantic. Foretelling lets say.

No. They're all different media. A voice is aural, a vision is visual - they're two completely different things.

Wicknight wrote: »

No, but given his age and the stress he was under, and how such phenomena manifest themselves in people under stress, this seems a safe assumption.

Another assumption. 'Round and 'round we go...

Wicknight wrote: »

Where what happened? People prayed and something happened?

Yeah, any religious-type event that was later termed "a miracle" because someone had reeled off a few prayers prior to it occurring.

Wicknight wrote: »

I wasn't thinking of any specific event. If you like my gf's sister's fiancé's mother prays all the time and when something good happens routinely says "I'm glad I prayed" or some such.

Lol. Is that true? Well, my own mam has prayed to St. Anthony in the past whenever she has lost something particularly important, like her wedding ring. She'll only pray to him when something valuable goes astray. In fairness (and fair dues to the woman), she has found what she was searching for each time. I seriously have no idea whether or not a saint has intervened to help her find stuff, but if it puts her in a calmer state of mind to be able to retrace her steps successfully and find the thing, then how bad.

Wicknight wrote: »

That is some what irrelevant to the issue at hand.

I've forgotten what "irrelevant" (as you say) thing it was that I wrote before, but sure please yourself anyway.

Wicknight wrote: »

Useful reminder from who exactly? God? Or Mother Nature?

What does it matter who the reminder came from? Anyway, the 'source' of the reminder could be totally unique to the individual, depending on how they perceive 'a higher power', or whatever they're into. It doesn't matter what I think the source of the reminder is - that's up to the person in question.

Wicknight wrote: »

Why do you assume a benevolent force at work?

Why not? Maybe I'm an optimist? Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

Wicknight wrote: »

Why not think that mother nature or fate or what ever was trying to kill Churchill?

Because my own personal belief is that the 'thing' (for serious lack of a better word) that created the entire universe is intrinsically 'good' and divine in nature. This is a completely separate discussion entirely now, and I do agree with quite a lot of the theories put forth by Darwinism, btw, but I believe that 'darker' forces have less punching weight and influence because they were once products of the, er, divine force (which is obviously stronger). Those are just my own personal beliefs. I'm certain thousands of others feel differently, and that's fine.

If anything, I think that there's a virtuous force 'out there' that strives to guard people, or lessen the harsh blows of life, more often than not, unless various painful incidents are part of the person's 'life plan'. Such is life for many people, I suppose it's very easy to slunk into cynicism and despondency and believe that there isn't any 'good' higher power. And yes, there is also the factor of there not being any evidence whatsoever of the latter's existence, but that's an argument that has been ploughed through many a time already..

At the same time, I don't think a person necessarily has to believe in anything otherworldly to get fulfillment in their life, or to cope with sh*tty circumstances successfully. You can be simply be a bit philosophical, or take a broader, long-range view of crap or potentially injurious situations, and still emerge intact. Hope for the best basically, and do what you can to ensure that best outcome. Churchill, despite his 'Black Dog' bouts of depression, seemed like a fellow who always tried to see the glass as half-full. He was an optimistic realist, which no doubt contributed to his popularity as an effective leader.

Wicknight wrote: »

There is no evidence of either, I simply find it interesting that people nearly always assume benevolence. This fits into the, rather natural, way our brains work.

But perhaps that is a very necessary function of the human brain to have guaranteed our race's survival for as long as it has? In times of scarcity, people have always travelled further afield (emigration, I guess) in the blind hope of securing a better situation. For the most part, they did find something better, so hope, or the expectation of benevolence, obviously has shown itself as not being such an apparently useless notion after all. 2000-odd years of mankind's continuing survival can't be wrong. :rolleyes:

Wicknight wrote: »

They betray the origins as being from the subconscious rather than supernatural as claimed. We know that the human brain will attempt to structure random events in terms of human like agents in nature that in nearly all cases, act benevolently towards us.

I know that the human brain is predisposed to structuring randomness, but I have never heard of the 'fact' of it only seeing benevolence in that randomness. Who researched that?

Wicknight wrote: »

It is too hard to process random information as purely random information so our brains fall back to process these random events in terms of a narrative of nature interacting with us for specific reasons.

So two unconnected events (Churchill thinking he hears a voice and a bomb) are connected by our brain and the gaps filled in.

That's an interesting explanation, and I have read about that before repeatedly, but it's still only a possible explanation. What would be really interesting would be if a person's brain activity could be monitored visually to illustrate the before and after process of their perception of a so-called paranormal event. I think a paranormal experience could be staged in such a way that it feels like the real thing, btw. It'd be useful and fully conclusive to see the relevant areas of the brain being activated to support this theory of a person finding structure in randomness pertaining to paranormal events (if it hasn't been done already, that is).

So, for now, it's still just an interesting possible explanation.

Wicknight wrote: »

We can't actually trust that Churchill's description of events after the fact are accurate. We know the brain fills in details after the fact. He obviously heard or felt something causing him to move, but once the bomb dropped the narrative is present and his brain in all likelihood filtered his memories in terms of this narrative.

If we can't trust that his description of events in hindsight were accurate, then that brings his mental health (chiefly his memory) into disrepute. That would also mean that we can't ever trust anybody's description of an event of any kind from the past, unless there was written documentation of the event at its time of occurrence, there were supplementary witnesses, or there was a video or recording of it then. Most people have not and do not have the benefit of those supports every time an event happens. What you can accept is that a person's recollection of something is their own personal truth as they see it.

Wicknight wrote: »

I don't think that is particularly notable. If you had a terrible nightmare you may well tell someone about it, particularly if it stems from a general sense of dread or fear for your life.

We don't know what Lincoln felt at that time. If, as you mentioned, threats of him being assassinated were as routine as the sun rising each day, why should he have felt particularly weighty dread all of a sudden that prompted him to communicate the details of the dream to someone else? The fecker should have been well hardened to all that drama. Also, why bother writing a letter to someone about a dream when you can just say it to them orally?

Wicknight wrote: »

If you take the dream out of isolation, and look at in the wider context of Lincoln's life what you are actually talking about is a man in a general sense of fear for his life writing about how these fears have manifested themselves. And that is hardly notable at all.

As I said above, assassination threats were probably the norm for Lincoln. You can't just take the dream out of isolation, seeing as Lincoln made a point of writing about his assassination within the context of a dream. He could have easily written the letter detailing how worried he felt without mentioning anything at all about a dream - but he didn't. So yes, that IS actually notable.

On a similar note, JFK was also probably well-acquainted with threats to the termination of his life, but he was specific in how he would be finished off that day in 1963. Someone could have just as easily shot him dead from a rooftop, a tree, or from a passing car. Unless he had received some intelligence to inform him of his possible mode of demise. We may never know for certain.

MrMojoRisin

Wicknight wrote: »

[...] Anyone who doesn't know who Deepak Chopra is he is constantly invoking quantum mechanics to justify what ever wacky thing he is dreaming up at that moment.

What "wacky" things has he been dreaming up that invoke quantum mechanics as a justification for their creation which seem to get under your skin?

maccored

Wicknight wrote: »

The problem with telepathy is that no one has ever detected any previously undetected non-verbal or visual communication between subjects.

I totally agree with you. Thats what got me thinking of the whole entanglement/psychic thing. This is just a thought.

I not vouching for psychics - far from it. My thoughts though was that if a psychic is someone who can in some way control someone or something else from a distance - a very simplistic view Im sure - then the only thing ive ever heard about anyway science related like that is quantum entanglement (" in which measurements on spatially separated quantum systems can instantaneously influence one another. ").

So in conclusion, what I was wondering was, if it was possible that at some subatomic level, 'psychics' may be just people who have subatomic particles that like to tangle with other peoples particles. something that would end up being completely normal - though we obviously dont know enough about any of it to find that out.

Bit like that woman who has two different sets of dna.

maccored

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

What "wacky" things has he been dreaming up that invoke quantum mechanics as a justification for their creation which seem to get under your skin?

to be honest, i took one look at his site and came away convinced he seemed quite wacky. No-one understands anything quantum so it's quite easy to use it to sell things. I cant say if yer man sells stuff, as Im too afriad to look at his site again, but *if* he does, then thats what i mean.

maccored

Wicknight wrote: »

Unlikely. Again you cannot simply entangle two particles at distance. You must make them together at the same time. Person A would have to put one of the entangled particles in person B's brain, send person B off and then start manipulating their entangled particle.

I cant say you're wrong, but at the same time you seem pretty certain of this. My understanding is that science is still deeply exploring the whole idea of entanglement, so they havent really got any strict rules on just how entanglement can occur.

Kxiii

maccored wrote: »

So in conclusion, what I was wondering was, if it was possible that at some subatomic level, 'psychics' may be just people who have subatomic particles that like to tangle with other peoples particles. something that would end up being completely normal - though we obviously dont know enough about any of it to find that out.

Thats not how subatomic particles work it, only if two particles are created at the same time that there can be a chance for entanglement. these particles can be in any quantum state until observed. Once you observe the ''spin'' of one of the particles its partners spin will become the same instantaneously regardless of distance between them.

Particles cant just decide to entangle themselves with any other when ever they are needed.

maccored

maccored wrote: »

I cant say you're wrong, but at the same time you seem pretty certain of this. My understanding is that science is still deeply exploring the whole idea of entanglement, so they havent really got any strict rules on just how entanglement can occur.

I still stand by my reply to wicknight. Im not saying that just because we dont know, means that they can - Im just saying I'm not too sure you can be so sure of how entanglement works, considering physicists claim they just dont have enough info on any of it to understand not just entanglement, but the rest of quantum mechanics.

Kxiii

What I described there is what the current thinking on entanglement is about, its all about the wave function of particles separated over space.

The human brain evolved to deal with medium sized objects moving in a medium sized environment. We are just not built to perceive the very small or the very large. For instance we can only see the visible spectrum of light we can't observe microwaves, radio, infrared, uv, xrays or gamma rays without the need of some kind of equipment.Most these particle stream through and around us all the time with out us knowing.

So the chance that a human brain could pick out one entangled particle from all the rest is infinitesimally small, let alone somehow synchronizing with the trillions of atoms that make up the 100 billion or so neurons in brain, that would be needed to read someones thoughts and memories.

Our little monkey brains just aren't built for it.

maccored

Fair enough. Still though, kinda kills the debate dont you think. I still fail to see how you can be certain as theres so much yet to learn.

I have to keep saying, I don't think you're wrong either but as I say, in general 'that cant happen ..' type discussions arent very debatable.