Preminitions

[sensa2008]

Right it started about 3 yrs ago , i used to think maybe it was coincidence, I dont believe in jesus so im not really a religious person at all but all i know is what happens and it happens regular. I have dreams, i usually forget them by morning but the next day an event will occur that will rejog my memory all of a sudden and will make me remember the dream, there not usually major preminitions but for instance, i had a friend who i never spoke to for years, dreamt bout him calling me and he did the next day, thats just one of many ive had in the last few years. Is this coincidence or are these genuine preminitions? help please

!!

 

[shaman_]

People who think they have premonitions never seem to be able to spell the word correctly.

Is there a link? hm.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=49598

 

[sensa2008]

and thats because? your very helpful thanks for that..........your scientific theory is that people who have preminitions use picture perfect english on forums... idiot, just because it happens does not mean that I know everything surroundin the subject including how to spell it!! so sorry about that..... any other suggestions?

 

[one_raven]

People who think they have premonitions never seem to be able to spell the word correctly.

Or punctuate correctly, or express themselves well...

I can't help but wonder if correlation implies causation on this issue.

 

[Oli]

Is this coincidence or are these genuine preminitions? help please!!

It's a coincidence.
There is no physical system that allows "premonitions" to be real.

 

[sensa2008]

i hear what your saying but its happening frequent, never major ones there always pretty random unimportant things

 

[Oli]

The only "answer", unfortunately, is that weird shit sometimes just happens.
Your best bet is to accept it as "neat but strange" while it's still happening.

 

[one_raven]

It's a coincidence.
There is no physical system that allows "premonitions" to be real.

You speak with a lot of confidence on this.
How can you be so sure that there is no physical system that allows it?

By the way, have you ever read up on Rupert Sheldrake's work?

 

[Oli]

You speak with a lot of confidence on this.
How can you be so sure that there is no physical system that allows it?

40+ years of reading up and trying to check it out.
Plus-
I've had two periods in my life where I was "psychic" - I'd hear a 'phone ring five minutes before it actually rang, and be half way out my chair before noticing the guy sat next to the 'phone hadn't even reacted.
Over a six-month period (and this is the fun part) as a sceptic I noted every ocassion. A particular young lady worked in our gatwick office. Over that period I "knew" whether it was her ringing ot not, average number of calls per day was (from memory) around 30.
Twice in that period I got it wrong... once it was her and I thought it wouldn't be, once it was the other way round.
And then eventually I stopped being "psychic".:shrug:
I never did find an explanation

By the way, have you ever read up on Rupert Sheldrake's work?

If he wrote "Forbidden Science" (or something similar) then yes I've read that.
But it was a decade (two decades?) ago.
The name rings a bell.

 

[one_raven]

40+ years of reading up and trying check it out.

Bah.
There are plenty of people on the other side of the aisle that can make that same claim.

I've had two periods in my life where I was "psychic" - I'd hear a 'phone ring five minutes before it actually rang, and be half way out my chair before noticing the guy sat next to the 'phone hadn't even reacted.
Over a six-month period (and this is the fun part) as a sceptic I noted every ocassion. A particular young lady worked in our gatwick office. Over that period I "knew" whether it was her ringing ot not, average number of calls per day was (from memory) around 30.
Twice in that period I got it wrong... once it was her and I thought it wouldn't be, once it was the other way round.
And then eventually I stopped being "psychic".
I never did find an explanation

So, it's not possible because you experienced it? :bugeye::shrug:

If he wrote "Forbidden Science" (or something similar) then yes I've read that.
But it was a decade (two decades?) ago.
The name rings a bell.

I don't know Forbidden Science.

http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=1434382#post1434382

 

[Oli]

Bah.
There are plenty of people on the other side of the aisle that can make that same claim.

And if they can come up an explanation I know where the holes are because I've been there.
My father got me a library ticket when I hit the age of 7. I more or less went through all seven libraries in my home town one Dewey Decimal section at a tiime.
If there was a book on a subject I read it.
Especially the UFO and paranormal sections.
Each book contradicted all the others and not one of them provided workable answers.
Always some little fudge somewhere and a plausible-sounding skim over it...

So, it's not possible because you experienced it? :bugeye::shrug:

I experienced something.
Like I said: weird shit happens.
The mind is stranger than we think, can I rule out me wanting the phone to ring, so I could talk to her, and then coincidentally she does?
(She was on my mind a great deal).
Can I rule out being pissed that she hadn't rung and not wanting to talk to her but wanting someone to take it out on? (I was the tech-guru for the entire firm - and my tongue was the sharpest thing in town, believe me. Even the managing director used to accept my statements without question).
Too many possible psychological explanations, and no physical method that doesn't have large holes in it.

I don't know Forbidden Science.

Could be faulty memory on my part.
I'll check the link and the books.
Thanks.

 

[one_raven]

And if they can come up an explanation I know where the holes are because I've been there.

You see, though, some of us don't claim to have any explanation of HOW these things happen, we just know they do.
Those who claim they know how and why (I always think of Otho from Beetlejuice) are morons, plain and simple.
Fact is, however, I know it is possible - therefore there MUST be some sort of mechanical dynamic that allows for it - regardless of whether or not we know what it is or understand it - no different than many aspects of science.

Each book contradicted all the others and not one of them provided workable answers.
Always some little fudge somewhere and a plausible-sounding skim over it...

No being able to explain it, does not make it non-existent.

I experienced something.
Like I said: weird shit happens.

Exactly.
And if you can't explain it, all that means is that you do not understand it.

I have posted this a few times over the past few weeks:
I can;'t explain it, therefore I can;t explain it away.
I don' tknow WHAT happened, but I do know that it DID happen...

One day, a few years back, I left work early.
It was about 3AM and I was driving home pretty fast, because the highway was empty and I wanted to get home.
Suddenly I had this... I hesitate to use the word "vision" because of all the baggage it carries...
Anyway it was as vivid as it was really happening.
A tractor trailer lost control in front of me and overturned.
It landed with the bottom of the truck facing me, and blocking three lanes of traffic.
I actually heard the sound of the crash.
I was directly behind it, and, like I said, it was blocking three lanes of traffic, so I could not swerve to avoid it.
Just as I was about to crash into the truck, I came out of it.

I was very shaken by this.
I had never experienced anything like it before.
It was so much more than a daydream.
I slowed down quite a bit and called my girlfriend at the time, who was at home.
As I was telling her about what happened, I came across a truck lying on its side, blocking three lanes of traffic in front of me in the exact same position I "saw" not five minutes before.
It had to have just happened, because there were no other cars there, the driver was standing outside his truck dazed and confused and the police hadn't arrived yet.

Remember, I saw the truck after I told my girlfriend what I had experienced, so it wasn't a dream, figment of my imagination or a deluded memory.

 

[Ophiolite]

Just on the matter of coincidences I was doing a small test the other day, one that I run from time to time for amusement. I open a dictionary at random, then run through it until I hit a word I am unfamiliar with. (Now since my vocabulary is in excess of 50,000 words the first unknown I find will tend to be unusual.) On this particular occassion I ran into the name of a plant that I had vaguely heard of before, but about which I knew absolutely nothing. (Inconveniently I have now forgotten which plant.)
Within the day it was mentioned by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wear's Prada, which my wife was watching on TV. That is a typical result. Try it yourself. It's a focus of attention thing.

 

[Oli]

Fact is, however, I know it is possible - therefore there MUST be some sort of mechanical dynamic that allows for it - regardless of whether or not we know what it is or understand it - no different than many aspects of science.

Ah,, this is where we differ... see below.

No being able to explain it, does not make it non-existent.

If all the mechanical explanations are flawed...
The human mind is a very strange thing.
My take (and my reading and experiences) lead to a "glitch in the mind" explanation (for what it's worth as an explanation).
There's so much we don't know about how the mind works, how it processes information...
This could, of course, be my particular manifestation of woo wooism - I'm an engineer and a physics fan from waaay back, therefore the psychology side is much more of a terra ignognita to me.

 

[one_raven]

If all the mechanical explanations are flawed...

...then we obviously do not understand the mechanics behind it.

Let me ask you this...
Some people say gravity works as an extention of the electromagnetic force.
Some say it is the result of "gravitons".
Some say it is the literal bending of spacetime.
Some say it is...

People have lots of theories on how and why gravity works, but frankly we simply do not know yet.
Does this make gravity non-existent?

The existence or non-existence of anything is not reliant upon our severely limited knowledge and understanding.

 

[Oli]

The difference being is that gravity is the mechanism. (The "cause" of gravity is a different thing altogether).
For premonitions we want the equivalent of gravity in celestial mechanics, and all explanations so far put forward are incorrect.
My own prejudices lead me to a psychological solution simply because anything that would account for premonitions from a physics stand point would invalidate more or less everything we already know.
I could be misapplying Occam's Razor, but the mind is known to do strange things and that seems a far simpler explanation than re-writing the entire book of physics.
There could be a physics solution, but only if everything we know (and have already demonstrated to be "correct i.e. it works) is wrong.
:shrug:

 

[one_raven]

The difference being is that gravity is the mechanism. (The "cause" of gravity is a different thing altogether).

I disagree.
What are the mechanics behind how gravity works?
What are the mechanics behind how premonitions work?

My own prejudices lead me to a psychological solution simply because anything that would account for premonitions from a physics stand point would invalidate more or less everything we already know.
I could be misapplying Occam's Razor, but the mind is known to do strange things and that seems a far simpler explanation than re-writing the entire book of physics.
There could be a physics solution, but only if everything we know (and have already demonstrated to be "correct i.e. it works) is wrong.
:shrug:

Nonsense.
What laws of physics would the existence of premonitions break?
Without knowing what the mechanics behind the phenomena are, we can not say that they break any mechanical laws.

Even if it DID, perhaps that means we should revisit what we think we know.
The whole point of science, as I understand it, is that knowledge is constantly evolving and we need to be open to question our beliefs and augment our theories with new information.
While I agree that many, if not most, so-called preminitions are likely tricks of the mind, that does not imply that all are.

I can't see any way, for example, how the experience I described above could possibly be a trick of my mind, as I pointed out I was speaking to someone, describing what I "saw" in detail when I came upon the scene.
If I hadn't shared it with someone else beforehand, I would have questioned it and questioned my own facilities.
The fact that I know it happened, forces me to consider this as a fact which must be considered and reconciled in my worldview and my base of knowledge.

Furthermore, if you want to properly apply the principle of parsimony, you should not unnecessarily complicate explanations and add what is not necessary.
Taking a look at the scenario I described above, it seems to me that the simplest explanation is that I saw something before it happened - or I saw it happening at a distance.
So either premonitions are a real possibility, remote viewing is, or some form of empathetic communication at a distance is.

 

[one_raven]

double post

 

[Oli]

I disagree.
What are the mechanics behind how gravity works?
What are the mechanics behind how premonitions work?

Not the question: gravity IS the mechanism of orbits (how gravity works is not relevant to why planets stay in orbit), there is no mechanism that fills this position for premonitions.

Nonsense.
What laws of physics would the existence of premonitions break?

Let's see:
Time travel: premonitions are of things that haven't happened yet
Telepathy:the phenomenon is directly to the mind - how is it transmitted? How is it received?
Repeatability: to use your example - gravity works all the time, premonitions are spasmodic (at best), random in when and to whom they occur.

Even if it DID, perhaps that means we should revisit what we think we know.

Which bits of what we know?
There's (so far) insufficient data to formulate a workable hypothesis.
It has been shown to not work under lab conditions or to order.
Where do you start?

The whole point of science, as I understand it, is that knowledge is constantly evolving and we need to be open to question our beliefs and augemt our theories with new information.

New information?
How many centuries have people been claiming to have premonitions?
How much of that is reliable?
In the fifties and sixties there were relatively large numbers of serious scientists trying to find a basis - results: rien, nul, zero.
We have no start point.

I would have questioned it and questioned my own facilities.

Funnily enough, I've gone the other way.
Now I do little but question my own facilities.

Furthermore, if you want to properly apply the principle of parsimony, you should not unnecessarily complicate explanations and add what is not necessary.
Taking a look at the scenario I described above, it seems to me that the simplest explanation is that I saw something before it happened - or I saw it happening at a distance.
So either premonitions are a real possibility, remote viewing is, or some form of empathetic communication at a distance is.

You consider that either of those is simpler than the mind "playing tricks"?
I hadn't realised we had such different outlooks on things.

 

[one_raven]

Let's see:
Time travel: premonitions are of things that haven't happened yet

1.) As much as I disagree with it, relativity does allow for hypothetically travelling forward in time.
2.) Depending on how far in the future it may be, perhaps we are just slow on the uptake.
3.) With the example above, I pointed out that I may have seen it AS it was happeining - not necessarily before. I have conceded that it may not have been a premonition, rather one of the other two possibilities I listed.

Telepathy:the phenomenon is directly to the mind - how is it transmitted? How is it received?

I don't know.
That does not mean it is not possible.
Again, the fact that we do not understand the mechanics does not imply it is impossible.
What laws of physics does telepathy break? I know of none.

Repeatability: to use your example - gravity works all the time, premonitions are spasmodic (at best), random in when and to whom they occur.

And?
Some people can make full court baskets sometimes.
Most can't.
Most can't on demand.
None get it every time.
That says nothing.

Which bits of what we know?
There's (so far) insufficient data to formulate a workable hypothesis.
It has been shown to not work under lab conditions or to order.
Where do you start?

Again, the fact that we do not understand it, does not imply it does not exist.

You consider that either of those is simpler than the mind "playing tricks"?
I hadn't realised we had such different outlooks on things.

Give me simpler explanation of what happened, then.
I'll capitulate if you do.
I've searched for one, believe me.