Mental illness and parapsychology.

[Read-Only]

It really doesn't matter what the honker thought (many people don't think in words by the way). Science has already demontrated that the content of Person A's thoughts cannot be communicated to Person B using nothing but thought. Thats why we communicate with our bodies (voice, expression, posture, smell, etc.).

CC, I admire the fact that you are trying to help her. I tried and had to give it up as a lost cause and respectfully suggest you do the same rather than just waste your efforts.

My reasoning is quite simple: She's determined not give up the idea that psi abilities exist. She believes it's real, has thoroughly convinced herself of it and I don't think towering towering stacks of solid data could ever change her mind - much less honest, helpful people on a forum trying to get her to understand the truth.

 

[Bebelina]

Science has not in any way been able to prove that, they have just conducted experiments after the wrong premisses. If they really wanted to prove its "nonexistance" they would have to engage in more advanced research. And how did the thought of telepathy arise enough to become a word?

 

[Crunchy Cat]

CC, I admire the fact that you are trying to help her. I tried and had to give it up as a lost cause and respectfully suggest you do the same rather than just waste your efforts.

My reasoning is quite simple: She's determined not give up the idea that psi abilities exist. She believes it's real, has thoroughly convinced herself of it and I don't think towering towering stacks of solid data could ever change her mind - much less honest, helpful people on a forum trying to get her to understand the truth.

You are quite correct.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Science has not in any way been able to prove that, they have just conducted experiments after the wrong premisses.

It has. We know enough about biology, chemistry, and physics to demonstrate an absence of mechanisms for human brains to directly transmit and receive complex information.

There have also been many studies done on supposed "psi" phenomena claims that have found no supportive evidence.

If they really wanted to prove its "nonexistance" they would have to engage in more advanced research.

You don't apply advanced research to study a phenomena that isn't there. The only phenomena regarding "psi" that exists are claims of "psi". That is actually something that is researched.

And how did the thought of telepathy arise enough to become a word?

It's a natural psychological phenomenon, a result of how a very intelligent social species (humans) evolved. Understanding human behavior is a key to understanding why certain ideas arise.

 

[Read-Only]

Science has not in any way been able to prove that, they have just conducted experiments after the wrong premisses. If they really wanted to prove its "nonexistance" they would have to engage in more advanced research.

This will be my last response to you on this subject because you've made it clear that you want to believe in this nonsense no matter what - and that's about as far from being scientific as possible.

They HAVE done advanced research - and both the military and CIA spent MILLIONS of dollars on the assumption that it might exist. After several years of trying and spending all that money, they dropped it because they found *nothing* there.

And how did the thought of telepathy arise enough to become a word?

Easily answered: It originated in science fiction stories - that's how it became a word. Exactly the way "teleporter" (from Star Trek) became a word.

It was common (mostly undereducated) people that came to believe that both were real.

 

[Doreen]

Source?
Because I have

I.e.it's the quantum effect acting through chemicals that gets "used".
http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-Birds-Can-See-the-Earth-039-s-Magnetic-Field-84707.shtml
Which is your own link.

The quantum zeno effect

Another new research points to the existence of a quantum effect enabling the birds to see the magnetic field via photosensitive proteins in their retinas. When a photon strikes one of these proteins, it forms a pair of oppositely charged ions, free for a moment before recombining.

Each ion has electrons with a quantum property called spin. The spins are in opposite directions - but a magnetic field tends to align them. This alignment causes a biochemical reaction that can be recorded by the retina. The problem is that the ions recombine about 10 times faster than the rhythm at which the Earth's magnetic field could influence the spins of the electrons. Now, Iannis Kominis at the University of Crete, explains this by means of the quantum zeno effect: the act of observing a quantum system can affect its evolution, maintaining its state for longer than expected. This way, the turning of the molecules from ortho to para isomers could be slowed down when constantly colliding.

"A similar thing happens in birds: the presence of a geomagnetic field extends the lifetime of the singlet-triplet mixture from which the ions recombine. This gives the magnetic field time to bias the outcome of the recombination," said Kominis.

This theory would explain the odd observations about avian magnetoreception, like the heading error of about 30 degrees common in birds, and why bird compasses seems to react only to a certain window of magnetic field strength.

"The window depends on the hyperfine couplings of the atoms involved which have been selected for by evolution. We may well see similar effects elsewhere. A similar mechanism might be at work in photosynthesis," said Kominis.

Of course chemicals are involved, but without the specific use of the quantum zeno effect it would not work, nor work the way it does. IOW a specific use of a quantum process evolved.

It's your fault!! You always turn just before I go to bed.

Ah, a new strategy.

Chemical processes and "may"?

Chemical processes + quantum processes specifically used and it is stronger than may with the bacteria.

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/PBD-quantum-secrets.html

Not really, we can rule out a lot of things based on current science - if they directly contradict what we do know and what has held up for so long.

yes, but some form of information transfer via processes undetermined cannot be ruled out. Think of how certain recent technologies would have been ruled out earlier in scientific history - something back on superconductors for example.

Yet it's done (and not just by me).
And certain "avenues of research" ARE ignored because they are ruled out by what we know.

Sure. And some are ruled out by many, reaserched by a few, resisted for a long time until overwhelming evidence accumulates and it is grudgingly acknowledged. Let me give a recent example, one that is in the middle of this process. Remember how we learned about the 'electric' nature of nerve transmission. Well, two physicists in Copenhagen - with very similar objections to the ones you have about the transmission of thoughts, felt like the standard model could not be right because that model did not take into account accumulation of heat, which did not seem to be present. Well, they investigated the idea that sound, not electricity at issue here AND found solid evidence for this.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/06/nerve_communication
This was met with great skepticism by biologists - the nerve of those physicists - but then it turns out that the sound model explains how analgesics function. So right now we are in a transition phase. In any case someone is wrong. The physicists are wrong about the heat creation and other things or the standard model is incorrect. And each model would rule out the other. Each of them would think that the other model can be ruled out.

Here's one that is less solid than the others but getting support right now

it relates to smell....

TUNNELING FOR SMELL
Quantum physics may explain the mysterious biological process of smell, too, says biophysicist Luca Turin, who first published his controversial hypothesis in 1996 while teaching at University College London. Then, as now, the prevailing notion was that the sensation of different smells is triggered when molecules called odorants fit into receptors in our nostrils like three-dimensional puzzle pieces snapping into place. The glitch here, for Turin, was that molecules with similar shapes do not necessarily smell anything like one another. Pinanethiol [C10H18S] has a strong grapefruit odor, for instance, while its near-twin pinanol [C10H18O] smells of pine needles. Smell must be triggered, he concluded, by some criteria other than an odorant’s shape alone.

What is really happening, Turin posited, is that the approximately 350 types of human smell receptors perform an act of quantum tunneling when a new odorant enters the nostril and reaches the olfactory nerve. After the odorant attaches to one of the nerve’s receptors, electrons from that receptor tunnel through the odorant, jiggling it back and forth. In this view, the odorant’s unique pattern of vibration is what makes a rose smell rosy and a wet dog smell wet-doggy.

In the quantum world, an electron from one biomolecule might hop to another, though classical laws of physics forbid it.

In 2007 Turin (who is now chief technical officer of the odorant-designing company Flexitral in Chantilly, Virginia) and his hypothesis received support from a paper by four physicists at University College London. That work, published in the journal Physical Review Letters [subscription required], showed how the smell-tunneling process may operate. As an odorant approaches, electrons released from one side of a receptor quantum-mechanically tunnel through the odorant to the opposite side of the receptor. Exposed to this electric current, the heavier pinanethiol would vibrate differently from the lighter but similarly shaped pinanol.

“I call it the ‘swipe-card model,’?” says coauthor A. Marshall Stoneham, an emeritus professor of physics. “The card’s got to be a good enough shape to swipe through one of the receptors.” But it is the frequency of vibration, not the shape, that determines the scent of a molecule.

 

[Bebelina]

We don't know enough about anything to draw any such conclusions. Science hasn't come very far at all in the research of the human brain and consciousness to even begin to understand the complexity of communication.
But I think we can at least agree that most concepts we now know as "real" first started as an idea.
I don't know about CIA's investigations so I can't comment on that, it can be rumours and they might have hidden agendas, that's kind of their trademark so to speak.

Don't you think it would be benficial for mankind to use their brain more effectively?
As I see, telepathy, if there would be a way to increase it, by inducing schizophrenia for example, would greatly improve all communication, since it would be more direct and honest.
Evolution would come to an end if all radical ideas where flushed down the toilet because of pure fear of what it would mean if telepathy could somehow be proven to exist. And, I believe the best way to do that, is to try to prove that it doesn't exist.
What kind of psychological experiment could do that?

The nature of telepathy is perhaps not controllable but of a more spontaneous kind.

 

[Bebelina]

I have come to the conclusion that schizophrenia is not an illness until you're actually suffering from it. If you just fit the profile but are happy, it's not an illness, it's an extended version of reality, a perspective you can learn to live with and benefit from, just like being psychic.

 

[Read-Only]

I have come to the conclusion that schizophrenia is not an illness until you're actually suffering from it. If you just fit the profile but are happy, it's not an illness, it's an extended version of reality, a perspective you can learn to live with and benefit from, just like being psychic.

That doesn't make much sense to me. :shrug: Please link us to a reputable source that describes the life of an individual that actually fits with what you've "concluded."

 

[Bebelina]

That would mean outing my patients, I can't do that.

 

[Bebelina]

It would be interesting to find out the density of dopamine axons in the prefrontal cortex of a known psychic and see if it matches the schizophrenic.

 

[Bebelina]

Without having any proof, I would still say that is probably the major difference.
In schizophrenia the mind tries to "escape" the brain, while in the psychic condition it becomes more integrated.

 

[Bebelina]

The conflict is the difference.

 

[Randwolf]

Yes, and these are the same people that sometimes believe God is talking directly to them (telling them to kill, etc.), that believe others can hear their thoughts, that the government is watching them through their TVs, that the government is secretly bombarding them with EM messages to control their thinking - and the list goes on.

Don't know much about all that, but I can assure you that the U.S. government was (is?) quite seriously interested in "paranormal" abilities.

I was grabbed in the '70's by a US military program called "SNAG" (Selecting and nurturing the academically gifted, or some such crap) - no big deal, just a few days (3-4?) of staying in a dormitory with others of my "ilk". They submitted us to all types of tests, the one being relevant here would be E.S.P.

I had never before heard of someone testing "negative" for ESP, in the sense that given coins, cards, etc., I routinely guessed wrong more often than right. Meaning my scores were outside acceptable norms for "just plain guessing", but on the negative side, rather than the positive. I can see how this would be useful to someone - just bet against me, and you will be right more often than wrong...

Anyway, I found this strange, and not reproducible, because I am quite a good gambler (Blackjack) and seem to have a knack for guessing "right". (Although I may be subconsciously "counting cards" here - But to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, repetitively?)

So, in the end, I find paranormal abilities to lie in that same category as G*d - impossible to even contemplate - hence my "agnosticism", or more specifically "ignosticism". In other words, I haven't a clue...

 

[Read-Only]

Don't know much about all that, but I can assure you that the U.S. government was (is?) quite seriously interested in "paranormal" abilities.

I was grabbed in the '70's by a US military program called "SNAG" (Selecting and nurturing the academically gifted, or some such crap) - no big deal, just a few days (3-4?) of staying in a dormitory with others of my "ilk". They submitted us to all types of tests, the one being relevant here would be E.S.P.

I had never before heard of someone testing "negative" for ESP, in the sense that given coins, cards, etc., I routinely guessed wrong more often than right. Meaning my scores were outside acceptable norms for "just plain guessing", but on the negative side, rather than the positive. I can see how this would be useful to someone - just bet against me, and you will be right more often than wrong...

Anyway, I found this strange, and not reproducible, because I am quite a good gambler (Blackjack) and seem to have a knack for guessing "right". (Although I may be subconsciously "counting cards" here - But to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, repetitively?)

So, in the end, I find paranormal abilities to lie in that same category as G*d - impossible to even contemplate - hence my "agnosticism", or more specifically "ignosticism". In other words, I haven't a clue...

Heh-heh-heh. Yep, during the 70s was exactly the time period that both the military and the CIA was interested in all this junk science. The CIA's "big adventure" was primarily remote viewing. I've forgotten the exact name of the programs now but they - and their dismal results <grin> are still available on the web.

It's just rather hard for me to accept that in the twenty-first century we've STILL got woo-woos that actually believe in what's already been *thoroughly* debunked. (But of course, like taste, there's no accounting for idiots either.)

 

[Bebelina]

Many people in history have first been called idiots and then geniuses.

 

[Read-Only]

Many people in history has first been called idiots and then geniouses.

"Many"? Actually, very few - VERY few! And every single one of those had already been recognized as highly intelligent on other areas. Such is not the case here. :shrug: (And incidentally, the word is spelled "geniuses" - are you really claiming to be member of that group, yet unable to even spell it? Seriously?)

And there's no real need to point out the extremely poor grammar in "Many people in history has...", is there?

 

[Randwolf]

And there's no real need to point out the extremely poor grammar in "Many people in history has...", is there?

Ummm, Read, is English Bebelina's first language? I truly don't know, but I would hate to be held accountable for a spelling mistake in say - Spanish... que?

 

[Bebelina]

When you start commenting on my grammar you're really out of arguments.

 

[Read-Only]

Ummm, Read, is English Bebelina's first language? I truly don't know, but I would hate to be held accountable for a spelling mistake in say - Spanish... que?

Perhaps so, but I felt rather obliged to point that out for someone who is - even if in an off-cuff manner - making an even distant comparison between herself and various geniuses in history. Notice how she also claims to have "patients" yet will not share even the tiniest detail about how they relate to her woo-woo claims. Knowing full-well that not a single one of us could NEVER tie any such information to any individual - living or dead.

In other words, I believe she is being TOTALLY intellectually dishonest with us in anything she claims here. (I figure that I'm being more polite in putting it that way rather than using the common single word to describe such a person's actions.)