🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <403@husc6.HARVARD.EDU> greg@endor.UUCP (Greg) writes:
>In article <364@husc6.HARVARD.EDU> hadeishi@husc4.UUCP (mitsuharu hadeishi) writes:
>[Lots of ambiguous, untestable theorizing deleted from original posting]
>>	However, it may be that very subtle forms of telepathy (below
>>the threshold of consciousness) can be going on all the time without
>>our being aware of it.  If this phenomenon is subtle enough, we
>>may not be able to distinguish it from the noise (due to the selective
>>nature of our consciousness which acts as a kind of squelch.)
>
>Alternatively, we may invent it by selectively looking at the noise.
>Whatever you mean by noise.  And telepathy.

It's a breath mint!!   It's a candy mint!!
It's a breath mint!!   It's a candy mint!!

Stop! You're BOTH right!  It's a breath mint AND a candy mint!
It's TWO mints TWO mints TWO mints in one!

>easy to edit your own memory to have it fit your preconceived notions of the
>world.  Recollections of dreams and feeling are especially easy to change.

When in doubt, acuse.

>Or to put it more bluntly, I had my own experiment recently:  I ran a random
>number generator for a long time.  Here is a sample of the results:
>
>11011100111010...
>^^ ^^^  ^^^ ^
>
>I discovered an *amazing* coincidence, nay it was more than coincidence.  ALL
>of the digits above the arrows are 1's!  Given that there are ten ones, the
>odds of that are 1024 to 1!

My, what a clever boy.  Grow up, Sophomore.

Ridicule is appropriate on Saturday Night Live and Not Neccessarily The News.
It has no place in establishing truth.  

You have good points to make, why spoil the effect with bad sportsmanship?


You won't like this example either.  In my own family, a more dramatic
series of dreams by my sister ended when they came true:  she repeatedly
dreamed of Dad choking, and of herself struggling to wake up and go to help
him (ever dream that you couln't wake up, or of running through molasses?)
She finally did get up (took seconds but seemed like longer) and staggered
to Mom and Dad's bedroom, where Mom was paralysed with fear, couldn't speak,
just pointed to the bathroom.  Dad had tried to swallow some body-temperature
water from the shower and his larynx got confused and spasmed (that's how he
described it to me... hey, this isn't the dream I'm describing, this happened.)
He was just about to inject himself with adrenalin (he's a doctor and has
various allergies, so keeps some remedies handy)... says he probably would
have survived even without Margie's help, but the spasm cleared when she
pounded him on the back (she could see he was choking, and had expected it
from the dreams.)  The dreams stopped.

Proof?  Nope.  The sun rising in the morning proves nothing, could be a
simulation.  There is no proof, if you go to extremes.  So don't go to
extremes, learn to live.  Part of that is to learn what is, not what theory
says.  If you limit yourself, your power of observation is reduced.  Either
limitation of too much belief or too much skepticism puts blinders on you.

Anecdotal examples prove nothing, but they can be worthwhile to inspire
deeper thought.  Or they can be a distraction from real thinking.  (From my
point of view, that would be the TV evangelists... but to be fair, some
New-Age and psi stuff qualifies as distraction, too).

If I told you I had seen rocks fall from the sky (or that my Dad and my
sister had), would you scoff that there are no rocks in the sky, therefore
the report HAS to be false?  There is a third alternative, besides belief
and disbelief: open mindedness.  Try it.  You'll be a better scientist for
it.  Or at least a better person.

>>	Yes, I am a senior in physics (a pretty good physics student,
>>too, in my opinion :-), and I realize that there is no plausible
>>mechanism that could have transmitted this kind of information.

(I wouldn't say that, just that none that has been proposed has been
verified.)

>What you really mean is that there is no *known* mechanism for what you
>describe.  In that case, the phenomenon you have discovered would be the
>biggest enigma in all of physics.  

It is, actually.  And he didn't "discover" it, wise-ass.

>				  It should be presented as the great
>counterexample in all physics courses.  Other paradoxes in physics are
>presented in this fashion, so why not yours?  

Only the ones already tamed, or safely divorsed from uncomfortable folklore.
Physicists tend to be very proud of how superstitious they aren't, and go
to amusing lengths to prove it, at the expense of objectivity.

>						Maybe there is something wrong
>with your experiments...

What experiments?  He was presenting experience.  Not conclusive proof of
anything, of course.  His theories are quite preliminary, but fit well with
my experience, so far.  The subconscious mixes input from many sources,
including psi (and the conventional sources like memory, body language,
unconsciously noted details, sometimes even scent, etc), and draws conclusions
of variable utility called hunches, dreams, premonitions, common sense,
wisdom, horse sense, chemistry, rapport, instant (dis)-like... not a well-
ordered obedient servant of logic and order.  A difficult subject to deal
with rationally, so why bother (pardon the sarcasm)?  Just put on the
blinders.  Easier to dismiss it all than to try to sort it out.

>>Excuse the psychobabble.

(Mitsu, I knew you'd get burned on that phrase.  What a straight line!)

>I'm sorry, but I can't.  Psychobabble, just like any other sort of babble, is
>ultimately inexcusable.  It doesn't belong in net.physics, and it doesn't
>belong in the mouth (or at the fingers) of a "pretty good physics student".
>gregregreg

And ridicule does belong?  I think Mitsu wrote rather clearly, and presented
useful ideas for further consideration.  Go ahead and criticize, but don't
dishonor yourself so with childish taunts.

(MY what a lovely tempest our teapot is developing!)

	- Phil		prs@oliveb.UUCP (Phil Stephens)     {really oliven}
	or, if that fails:	{get to 'nike' somehow, then}!oliveb!prs 

Leaving the net temporarily about Oct 21; back in maybe early-mid November.
Will try to catch up on mail and news when I get back.