Asd and psychic tendencies.

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There actually is a sixth sense, but it has nothing to do with any psychic abilities -- proprioception. It was not recognized as a sense at the time that the "five senses" were listed and so it isn't commonly seen as a sense. Nevertheless, it is a very important sense.

Proprioception is the ability to sense the position of the parts of your body in relation to their adjacent parts.

There are people who have lost that ability through strokes and as from dietary supplements. If you take massive doses of Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine), for a long enough period, you are likely to lose the sense, at least until you can bring those levels back down.

Imagine trying to walk if you have no idea where the various parts of your body are located. Without proprioception, you would have to visually look to see their positions and monitor their movement in the walking process. Walking would be quite difficult and at its best would be markedly different from the way people usually walk.

So there you got it. You want a sixth sense? You have it. But it has nothing to do with so-called psychic abilities.

This is a link to a more sophisticated discussion about theories of interface between known reality, further dimensions and psi possibilities:

http://www.newdualism.org/papers/D.Stok ... tions.html

That website is philosophical in nature, rather than empirical. It also relies heavily on anecdotes. Remember, the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.

So what? I embrace the big field of fresh thinking: philosophical, theoretical, and great science had come from great speculation. (Einstein?) He had quite a few philosophical views, empirical views, theoretical views. They are not mutually exclusive, and I didn't say it was empirical. If everything we posted was "strictly empirical", Fnord, WP would be a very tedious place, and seeing a bigger picture can lead to very significant breakthroughs (and has, I can give you hundreds of examples in science, where hunches went on to become empirical findings).

Sure, but 'Hunches' are irrelevant as long as no practical use can be derived from them; and by 'practical', I include literary and cinematic entertainment, as well as technology.

Speculative fiction should be presented as speculative fiction, and never as established science.

“I think that only daring speculation can lead us further and not accumulation of facts.”


― Albert Einstein

Axions and dark matter don't provide an excuse for thinking "anything goes" -- nor does quoting Einstein. The reason we value Einstein's work is that it was proven correct. It is demonstrably correct and has been tested again and again.

The standard model is similarly correct. When the math predicted new particles at certain energies, they were found to be there.

Axions are a theoretical extension to the standard model, as the Higgs boson was until its existence was confirmed by experiment at the Large Hadron Colider. Supersymmetry may reveal SUSY versions of the fermions and bosons, but nothing in this allows rational people to claim that gaps or extensions in the standard model require or allow gods, wizards or "paranormal phenomena."

You are ignoring Einstein's meaning when you quote him in this way. He did not and would not agree with the mumbo jumbo on the new duality page. What he was talking about was the kind of thinking that led him to special relativity. The implications of his (informed) theoretical speculation later became facts because of experiment.

I am open to any of this stuff as long as they don't ask me to give up critical thinking or use ideas like dark matter, dark energy, axions, SUSY particles or "quantum effects" to justify any magical nonsense they like.

I see all these bogus, pseudo-scientific explanations for "psi" phenomena to try and make this neo-spiritism/new age stuff seem legitimate, when all that would be required for people to believe and study it would be reliable duplication of effect. Since that never happens, all the other philosophical and pseudoscientific effort is a waste of time.

Electromagnetism was once every bit as mysterious as this other stuff, but people discovered more and more about it's nature through experiment. And it works every time. Electric light, radio, television, electronics -- all these technologies are based on what would once have been magic, but is now science because the experiments are repeatable, the effects reliable. I can place a resistor in a circuit and it will reduce current flow in a predictable manner.

Magic and alchemy became physics and chemistry because people used reason to understand the evidence of their senses. The moment that "psi" or some other stuff can be shown to be real and repeatable, it will be studied in the same way until it's understood. But that doesn't happen. Because it isn't real. This is about wishful thinking and psychology, not about understanding reality.

Michael Schermer has prepared a free PDF document named "Learn to be a Psychic in 10 Easy Lessons". It describes how practical anyone can become a psychic, with very little training, and with no alleged 'psychic' abilities at all!

These are the best-written instructions that I have ever read on this topic, as it describes everything you need to know to spot someone running the Psychic Con.

Schermer explains his ideas with wonderful clarity. I enjoyed "Why People Believe Weird Things" though it was more about the mechanisms of such belief than about the psychological forces that drive people to employ those mechanisms to create or bolster their own weird beliefs.

Another excellent book on this topic is Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World."

I also like the argument in Dawkins "Enemies of Reason" --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P2mS-AImeY

But I think the question of why people have a psychological need for these irrational systems of thought is important and needs to be explored.

There is no substantive evidence to support the idea that paranormal phenomena exist, and nothing to research there, but there is very clear evidence that common psychological forces push people to latch on to belief in such phenomena and I think that is a very interesting area for neurological research.

I have had many experiences that could be attributed to paranormal forces, some of them quite compelling, but I can see that they do not require belief in paranormal forces, no matter how compelling the emotional aspects of those experiences were.

I can also see that there is a positive survival value in a degree of irrational optimism of the kind that faith can create. I may not see a way to achieve my goal, but if I have faith that my prayers, mojo, talismans, crystals or whatnot, somehow magically make the unattainable possible, then I may attempt things when I would otherwise give up. The odds of success in any remotely achievable endeavor drop substantially if you don't even try, but if you do and expect some magical aid, you may be more open to perceiving new factors that materially improve your chances of success.

While I believe those forces are part of the reason that people are open to such beliefs, I think there is much more at work and I expect these forces to be more clearly explored in the future.

I think a key factor is that many faithful believers spend a lot of time actively running cons on themselves, playing both con man and mark. They gather together to bolster this process by acting as shills and temporarily handing over the role of con man to leaders of various kinds (priests, mediums, shaman, healers, etc.) In many cases, they derive real benefit in the form of enhanced placebo effects and positive social effects.

I'm of the opinion that some people feel that their lives at so insignificant that they have to lie about themselves or their experiences to get noticed and to feel 'special'. Kids will lie about having magic items or creatures, teens will lie about how often they've had sex and with whom, and adults will lie about their jobs and wealth - all this to get noticed and feel 'special'. Why not lie about being a 'psychic' or 'prophet' as well? Especially if there is the added bonus of making a living from it ...

I think that the field is called "Abnormal Psychology", which is a branch of behavioral psychology that studies unusual patterns of behavior, emotion and thought, and which may or may not be understood as precipitating a mental disorder.

I have also had experiences and witnessed things that I can not fully explain; but there is no compelling reason for me to take a flying leap from "That's odd" to "Disembodied spirits are responsible for what just happened". Others may if they want to, and in some cases I have encouraged those people to go and take a flying leap ...

While there may be a lot to be said in favor of faith inspiring confidence, in the end that faith is based on fantasy, and the success is solely due to the person's own efforts.

BINGO! I've often said that the first religion was invented when the first scoundrel met the first fool. The scoundrel wants what the fool has without having to work for it, and the fool gets to feel good about not having to think.

Having been on both sides of the Psychic Con and the Religion Con, I can see how superstitious nonsense is easily insinuated into weaker minds by people whose primary motivation is greed.

There are many things that I cannot fully explain. Some are things that someone might think are psychic because they cannot imagine them possible without it -- that is, a failure of their imagination, nothing paranormal about it. Others are things that hardly anyone would even consider to be paranormal.

I'm not at all sure in which group the Seahawks beating the Packers in the playoffs falls.

Wow, blindfold chess?!?!? That's impressive! I can't even play regular chess
Lydia

I deliver pizzas for a living. Two nights ago I drove up to an address, immediately had a hunch that this place wasn't safe and stopped to call the customer. I described where I was to the customer and he said I was in the right place. I proceeded onto the property where I was greeted by a very angry man wanting to know what I was doing on his property (this is TX so it was very possible that he had a gun). So in this case my hunch of danger was confirmed. I don't know why I felt this way at the onset, I just did...and strongly.
Just my $.02,
Lydia

These intuitions are interesting. I was driving home late at night one night, and approaching a green traffic light. Yet something told me to stop and I did (no traffic behind me). A car going at very high speed went through the red light a second later, which would have hit my driver's door and killed me. There where tall buildings blocking my visual line of the rogue car coming so it wasn't a case of seeing it. There was background noise so it wasn't that I heard the danger coming. I don't know why I knew to stop. I have never had that stopping experience before or since.

B19,
That's happened to me as well. Similar scenario. I think we must be picking up on "something." It's interesting to hear that you had that experience. I'm glad you avoided disaster.
Lydia

You cannot know that your senses did not pick up some indication of the coming danger. You cannot rationally discount the possibility that you perceived the danger at some less than fully conscious level and this came to your conscious mind's attention as a compelling need to stop without an explanation.

I have had many such experiences, some of them very, very compelling emotionally.

Once I had an intuition that my wife was in trouble and without really understanding why, I rushed out to meet the danger. There was a man stalking her and she had tried to shake him by going into several busy stores, but then realized that he was waiting outside. I randomly chose the right direction to head off on into New York City to find my wife as she was stopping at a payphone to call me to come and get her out of this scary situation. I saw her approach the phone and then see me, but I was looking for the danger. Then I locked eyes with a man half a block away and KNEW it was him. He saw me recognizing him and he suddenly ran off down a side street. My wife was amazed--how did I know where to go or that the guy was trouble? I can't find a simple or obvious explanation for these events.

On another occasion, when we were poor students and sometimes very short of cash, my wife (then girlfriend) would routinely find money on the sidewalk in New York, enough to make a difference in our food budget. When I asked her what her technique was for looking for and finding money, she confessed that she did not really have one and attributed this to some sort of guardian spirit. As a rationalist who regarded superstition as a psychological artifact, I found this absurd, but as I loved her deeply I tried not to be dismissive.

I found myself short of cash toward the end of the month, having just put my paycheck into the rent and utility bills, and I was hanging waiting for her by the Student Union. As she approached I said to her something like, "I wish I had your money finding spirit, then that bit of rubbish would be a fifty dollar bill." As I said this I noticed that the shape on the pavement amongst the other wind-gathered bits of trash next to the wall really did look like a bill. I bent down to take a closer look and discovered that it was exactly that and a $50 dollar bill, too.

The rational explanation for this is that I had peripherally noticed the bill, but was not consciously aware of it, so my subconscious signalling to my conscious mind created the strange precision of the "if I had your money spirit" invocation.... or maybe it was some supernatural agency?

Because of these and other experiences, I did try to find some evidence that there was some truth in the idea of a paranormal reality. If you approach this with an open mind, though, it remains utterly unconvincing. The people who have been working at it the longest (the practitioners of the major religions) have nothing useful to say about it. No reliable procedures. No discoveries. Various approaches to mindfulness and meditation do have a lot to offer, but nothing supernatural.

I think about the achievements of the systematic exploration of electromagnetism since Volta discovered the battery with his pile in 1799--the way that exploration has led to electric light, radio, telecommunications, electronics and particle accelerators that have allowed us to confirm the major elements of the standard model in physics all in just over two centuries.

Compare to that the millenia that religious experts have been working a way at ritual magic or systematic prayer, etc. and achieved... nothing. No repeatable experiments. No reliable means of communicating with gods or spirits. No magic-meters, spiritual batteries, prayers or incantations that work in any detectable way. Nothing.

I spent a lot of time reading about and exploring many such systems and it's really a very dismal record. I can see that groups of people who spend time doing religious or spiritual things get the benefit of doing group things (not something I am ever really comfortable with) and will benefit from whatever meditative aspect their tradition may afford them, but beyond that, nothing.

My own intuitions are often useful, so I try to respect them. If I have a feeling that it might not be wise to enter a certain place, I will attribute that to some kind of rapid processing of real information that I haven't been able to consciously process yet and heed the "warning." but I don't see any of this as reason to suppose that the paranormal or supernatural has any basis in reality.

Anecdotes such as the ones you have shared, B19 and lnb1771, don't really provide any more evidence than my own experiences of unexplainable, accurate intuition. If there was some consistency or pattern to these things, then they would have been explored in depth long ago and we would have cellphones for direct communication with the gods by now, but these things never happen reliably and never in way that can be used to understand anything about another aspect of reality (except perhaps in terms of the psychology of the perceiver.)