General thoughts / Precognitive dreams

T

TheERK

Registered Senior Member
Hello. I'm new to the board, and this is my first post.

I've reached the point in my life where I'm intrigued with this stuff.

Almost everything has failed to convince me. Psychics are revealed for the cold readers that they are (a conclusion that I'm not firmly grounded in yet--I have much to still read. Gary Scwartz would convince one otherwise.) Reincarnation studies by Ian Stevenson are fascinating and deserve to be analyzed more than they have been for some sort of final word (this is still a thing that I'm hanging on to because of the integrity of Dr. Stevenson and the SUGGESTION of his studies. Of course, there's gaping holes that either the theory needs to be pushed through and forgotton, or plugged up.) Recent Ganzfield tests have me wondering. Outside of parapsychology, the Hard Problem of Consciousness™ has my mind twisted!

However, the most convincing thing that I've ever run across and am currently investigating is the "evidence" of precognitive dreams. I do realize that I must be able to take in several factors: underestimation of perfectly reasonable chances, room for interpretation, flawed studies, etc. But when I read stories of people I have evaluated to be genuinely critical and skeptical, I can't seem to believe that they're lying. Perhaps this is wishful thinking on my part. But it fits perfectly with my theory of parapsychology: that if psi phenomena existed, then they would be unpredictable and spontaneous, sort of like the glitch in the matrix. Rare precognitive dreams would suggest fragments of consciousness/memory/whatever going the wrong way in time once in a while, as would the Ganzfield tests and those random number generators (whose validity I am highly doubtful of).

I know it's the #1 taboo for a skeptic to give any credence to anecdotes, but I'm finding that to possibly figure out things in a single lifetime, one can't always rely on controlled study--especially when one believes that the NATURE of these things are inherently spontaneous. I think it is relatively reasonable to critically evaluate the integrity of the person's anecdote (including their ability to think critically and realize when they're hallucinating) and make judgements on it.

There's my eighty cents. Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear replies. I'll also be posting this on the JREF forums.

Eric
 
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Why the desire to believe in a god? What will it do for you that reason won't?
 
Hi TheERK

Firstly, welcome to Sciforums. I enjoyed reading your first post however at this time I don't have anything I want to contribute except to say that most of what you have written has crossed my mind at some point in time.

I have become an athiest by choice and I am happy with my decision.

I do like that you're investigating the paranormal because this topic also interests me. When you have some more thoughts or find more information I will eagerly read your posts. I always find that people who contemplate both sides of an argument are easier to converse with because their ideas are not set in stone and questions will be raised and thought through.

Keep up your search for knowledge and let us know how you're going.
Again, welcome, and keep up the posting.
Cheers
Teri
:)
 
Adam:

I'm not sure it will do anything, but as always, a search for the truth is never pointless. I imagine it would inspire a sense of awe (as if the universe doesn't do that already, but hey, you know, one that transcends that) and perhaps hope of life after death. I don't think that hope in eternal life is childish, but I think that recklessly believing in it is. Perhaps it would give my life more meaning. Or perhaps it would negate the meaning of life. Who knows? Either way, the desire to believe lets me sanely sift through the masses of BS without getting too bored ;)

Teri: The JREF forums are the James Randi Educational Foundation forums at www.randi.org. James Randi is the most popular skeptic known for exposing frauds.

A question for you: hypothetically, if precognition in dreams was proven without a reasonable doubt, would you shift your worldviews significantly, or remain clueless (and hence, an atheist.) I'm asking because if I decide they are true, I'm wondering what I'd do with that belief!

Eric
 
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Answer to your question

"hypothetically, if precognition in dreams was proven without a reasonable doubt, would you shift your worldviews significantly, or remain clueless (and hence, an atheist.) I'm asking because if I decide they are true, I'm wondering what I'd do with that belief!"
____________________________________________________

I believe that the human mind is capable of performing functions we as yet have not imagined exist.

Precognition would fall into the category of what we ourselves would be able to do if we were to utilise our brains to a further extent. I believe there are some people who have already found how to use that section of their brain.

There are arguments regarding how much of our brain we use and I continue to look for answers to that question.

I believe that the human mind will continue to evolve as long as humans survive on this planet and all those conditions that fall under the category of 'paranormal' will be as common as remembering what we had for breakfast.

Cheers
Teri


Please forgive me if I have expressed myself in a round-about way today - my 'mind' is not working properly and I'm sure I could probably rephrase what I have just written to be a little easier to digest.
 
TheERK:

The key is to keep an open mind so that you assimilate a lot of information. Remember that in early last century, scientists thought that everything that need to be discovered has already been discovered....

Information begets Knowledge which begets Wisdom. But you need a lot of....it is a pyramid base where information sits at the bottom.

Good luck....
 
Even though I haven't reached any real conclusions, let's all pretend for a minute that science eventually discovered that predicting the future in dreams was real. What could we possibly make of it?

Well, one could say it's a result of quantum fluctuation, an error in which time's apparent linear-ness goes out of whack. But is this probable? If information concerning a particle's velocity was to accidentaly travel back in time, I wouldn't be concerned--but entire thoughts? That's a near-infinite amount of information coming back, and in the form of intelligible and meaningful series' of neuron firings and connections. Could it really be random?

Let's say, for a minute, that it's not. Most will conclude that it's God's interaction, and they're somewhat justified in believing that. But what about aliens? Perhaps they're messing with our heads when we aren't watching. And suppose our universe was created, but not by "God", but in a laboritory by a higher intelligence living in another universe--regressing further and further back until we have a mundane universe in which no outside power acts. Perhaps God created that universe, but the idea is essentially meaningless to us. Besides, the anthropic principle and multiverse theory can explain the first cause away.

Any thoughts? Remember, this is all pretending that precognitive dreams are real, which they very well may not be.
 
I have always said that precognitive dreams are not absolute, they are a simulation based on the available information. It works this way. You go to a store where you know they put a lot of products on "Sale" in the week end. During certain time of the year, they have "white Sale". If you knew from last year (noted in your calendar - all you have to do is wait this year to that time and wallah...they are on sale and you buy your stuff.

Big busineses do "what-if" scenarios for their supply chain and also hiring and firing of people based on past experience. The Retek (a software) predicts your retail sale of your products. The brain works in a similar fashion.

Now, can we know the future for certain? Only if the universe is deterministic. Then it is obvious.
 
Honestly, I didn't really understand that at all. Are you saying that they don't happen, or are you explaining what we would conclude once they are proven to happen? I'm asking about the latter case in my previous post.

Eric
 
If it is proven to happen 30% of the time then that is below 50:50 chance and therefore the proof is not valid

I do not think they will be proven to happen (over 60%) at our stage of the development.
 
"If it is proven to happen 30% of the time then that is below 50:50 chance and therefore the proof is not valid"

Just because some event doesn't happen to 50% of people doesn't mean it isn't proved. Paranoid schitzophrenia is a "proven" disoreder, but less than half of people have it. If a study of several people reveals that their dreams are telling the future beyond a reasonable doubt (which is, for all practical purposes, proof), then that is proof enough. There's no rule that says everyone has to do it, unless you want to prove that "all people dream precognitively."

Anyway, this is besides the point. The entire question was "IF it were proven, what conclusions could you make? How would you tie it into your worldview?" Remember, the assumption is that it IS real.

Eric
 
"Anyway, this is besides the point. The entire question was "IF it were proven, what conclusions could you make? How would you tie it into your worldview?" Remember, the assumption is that it IS real."

Do I know you? I have a friend who talks in similar manner....just checking...

If the hypothethesis is true, then we use the knowledge to avoid the danger which makes it false. Unless we explain that the change is a different time line which means that the other time line had the event take place. Which will make the assumption real but the poor idiot will neverthless suffer in the other time line.
 
That's an interesting viewpoint, but I'm not asking about how you would apply such knowledge of the future. I'm wondering how it would tie in with your conceptions of theology or lack thereof.

Eric
 
Theology? What theology has to do with it? I am not a student of theology...so I will pass....
 
If I were an athiest (I'm not - I'm not a theist either, nor agnostic), precognition wouldn't be evidence enough for me to believe in a God. If precognition were "proven beyond a resonable doubt", the means it's been scientifically proven (for an atheist at least), which would not infer divine intervention.

Plus with all of the talk on relativity and quantum physics, looking into the "future" is hard to define. What is "future" by these standpoints? I read a quantum physics article the other day that suggested we can change the pass by just being an observer.

-Xenu
 
Eric,

I have posted rough details of a dream that may be labeled as precognition in the "Lucid Dreaming" thread. My point there was that, it may not necessarily be precognition, but a form of telepathy. My point is, you can argue such dreams from many different perspectives.

Also on that note, how could you possibly tell the difference between precognition and being able to create or change upcoming events with your mind. Precognition implies a determinist POV while future creation implies a free will. We all know that that will never be solved.

-Xenu
 
Xenu: I think even telepathy would be a strong suggestion of some sort of soul. Brain waves simply aren't powerful enough to propogate distances to other people, and even if they were, the data is so incredibly meaningless and garbled that I highly doubt any brain could decipher it. Correct me of I'm wrong, but parts of your brain don't communicate to eachother via brainwaves--brainwaves are simply a side effect of all the activity going on in your brain. What else can we possibly conjure to explain telepathy or precognition? And how exactly did this evolve in the course of human development?

Eric
 
Originally posted by TheERK
Xenu: I think even telepathy would be a strong suggestion of some sort of soul. Brain waves simply aren't powerful enough to propogate distances to other people, and even if they were, the data is so incredibly meaningless and garbled that I highly doubt any brain could decipher it. Correct me of I'm wrong, but parts of your brain don't communicate to eachother via brainwaves--brainwaves are simply a side effect of all the activity going on in your brain. What else can we possibly conjure to explain telepathy or precognition? And how exactly did this evolve in the course of human development?

Eric
Click to expand...

There are theories that theta waves within the brain aid in the cause of learning and forgetting irrelevent info. I talk a little bit about it at this thread:

http://www.sciforums.com/t7395/s/thread.html

I haven't talked about it in too much detail however, I could if requested.

I think that brainwaves they are more than just byproducts, except for beta waves at least. When parts of the brain are in an inactive state the neurons will all fire in conjunction, producing huge sweeping waves, like everything working in harmony. Why would the brain have some kind of mechanism to fire in synchronous way if it didn't need it. When the brain is in an active state (beta waves), the waves are short and chaotic, unsynchronous. You'd think in an inactive state it would be like this but just less. Why spend energy and functionality to evolve synchronization? It seems to be more than meets the eye for me. I'm trying to start a discussion about it at this thread:

http://www.sciforums.com/t8563/s/thread.html

So far, no discussion really. Also these waves are very low frequency which gives them the power to travel greater distances. Much like why AM waves can travel further than FM waves. I really can't say how far they would travel however or if this could be a possibility of communication.

-Xenu
 
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