Do you believe humans have a sixth sense?

NachoBusiness wrote: »

I remember this being discussed before and people said that you probably have that feeling many times when people aren't looking at you but you forget about those times, only remembering when you're right. Personally I just think that's an easy way to dismiss the phenomena.

You seem to want to believe in fairy tales.

There's one scientific reason you might notice people staring at you. Your peripheral vision records more info than the brain displays. In particular quick movement just behind your 180 deg. vision can be sensed, as well as movement that stops. Someone turning to stare at you or stopping to.

Couldn't what's called the sixth sense just be all the other senses combined.

senses can influence eachother, I think wearing shades increasing hearing etc so combined senses could be studied as an experience the same way individual senses are.

No mystery, just science waiting to be unfolded.

NachoBusiness wrote: »

Maybe you should read people's posts more thoroughly. I was specifically talking about situations where you can't physically see them and so no fairy tale beliefs needed.

So was I. Maybe you should read my post again.

it is also interesting that the overwhelming majority of people that posted on the thread so far seem to dismiss the notion of humans having a sixth sense but yet over 60% of the people who voted definitively in the poll think the opposite.

Just shows you how taboo it is to admit to such beliefs today. The social narrative is controlled in a way.

If I'd made the poll anonymous it could possibly have been an even higher number.

Or the people who are pro "6th sense" can't reasonably articulate their position.

The problem with 6th sensers is you don't want an explanation. You just want magic. So scientific explanations or probabilistic/ statistical answers don't impres you – you just want to believe in something that can't and shouldn't be explained.

You had a dream about a boardsie. He replied to a post. Magic. That's it. The people debunking the "magic" idea (what you call a 6th sense) are actually trying to give explanations. It's not actually a debunking.

For instance I agree that we can tell if someone is staring at us from behind our back and I have a scientific explanation for that - we pick up environmental signals from movement or lack of it behind us from our extra-peripheral vision, and are aware of changes in air pressure and sound etc. No magic required.

Other people have explained why you remember your dream about the boards members. You dream lots of dreams, most you will forget a few moments after waking up, some will have coincidences ( And someone pointed out that whey we think are rare low probability events are more common than we think), and some of those dreams with similarities to real life will be remembered. Precisely because they have those points of commonality.

What other solution is there? Your mind can read the future and uses it to obliquely tell you what boards member is going to reply to you at 9am?

NachoBusiness wrote: »

What are you on about? Something happening is just science waiting to be unfolded? Good grief. When will this science sycophancy end. Don't you people realise that science is just a tool?

something unexplained needs an reasonable explanation.

As I said you don't want explanations. You get angry with explanations. It's just magic.

If I had a magic brain that magically told the future with its magic dreaming I too would get pissed if all my magic brain could tell was who was going to reply to me on boards rather than the euro millions.

This might explain the OP's upset.

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

I suppose what they're trying to convey is "I love that I know what stars are and thus can marvel at the vastness of the universe and comprehend how it came to be. I'm overcome with a sense of wonder when I gaze into the abyss and consider all the myriad worlds that must revolve around these distant pinpricks of light, all the many vistas that I will never get to see, the innumerable events that have unfolded both here and out there across the aeons to take us to this moment. It provokes in me a feeling of profound insignificance, whilst simultaneously thrusting on me an appreciation that I am a part of something immeasurably awesome."

But it's easier to just say "I love science" and sounds less gay.

True. Until I learned what stars were they were just pretty dots in the sky. When I learned what they were the stars, the planets and the smudge that is the Milky Way became much more beautiful, imposing and awesome.

That's the kind of mystery that science brings to society. It's often accused of removing mystery, however.

IrishTrajan wrote: »

Do I believe Humans have a sixth sense? Yes, I do. Balance, the ability to differentiate between hot and cold, pain, hunger... We have lots of senses.

Do I believe we're psychic? No, because it isn't demonstrable, it's not quantifiable, and always come in the form of confirmation biased "well I know a guy whose cousin dreamt of her own death" nonsense.

I knew you were going to post that before you posted it. I used my sixth sense. My sense of pre-post-I-know-what-they'll-post-ery. *


*may not be true.

No it's total and utter bollocks, and anyone who believes in it does so based on nothing - and just wants to to make them feel better or hear what they want ..

cowboyBuilder wrote: »

No it's total and utter bollocks, and anyone who believes in it does so based on nothing - and just wants to to make them feel better or hear what they want ..

How are you so sure? There are so many gaps in what science can explain.