A point, by the way: Meta-Gumble mentions superstring theory. While this term is commonly used, it’s a misnomer, and should more properly be called “superstring model” or “superstring hypothesis”. The superstring model is not yet strong enough to be considered a theory, since no prediction of it has yet been tested experimentally. It is, however, mathematically internally consistent and well-defined, and consistent with known physics within the scope of parameters where known physics has been tested, which is more than can be said for astral projection.
If you read Randi’s site carefully, every dowser claims very high accuracy even before a formal test is agreed upon. In what way is expecting them to live up to their claims unfair?
Nobody’s in a fix. Here’s your mistake: whether psi, dowsing, or anything else is tested, it’s not an experiment to prove or disprove the phenomenon. It’s only testing the claims of those who say they have these powers. If they don’t live up to those claims, no prize. The person tested agrees to this before testing.
Not true. Demonstrate psi under proper controls repeatedly by different experimenters including skeptics, and you would be surprised how quickly psi would be accepted. But psi effects seem to disappear when proper controls are in place, and some psychics simply refuse to be tested under those conditions. Some believers ascribe that to negative vibes or other nonsense. The simplest explanation is that the psychic couldn’t cheat under the controls. This doesn’t prove the psychic cheated or that psi doesn’t exist, but reasonable people would conclude that that’s probably the case.
Alas, it always works out to be exactly the same success rate as blind chance.
This assumes that it is a physical force. There’s no evidence to support that, and I don’t think people who adhere to the model would claim that it’s a physical force. Or even that it’s a force!
What we got is an experiental phenomenon without an adequate explanation. Sure, we could call it delusion, bunk, hallucination, whatever, but then the burden is on you to prove that it is delusion, etc.
Randi is a showman. He’s a magician. He doesn’t want to prove psychic phenomenon exist or don’t, he just wants to make sure his name gets mentioned in places like this. That’s his motivation – it makes him more famous. Don’t take a Ph.D to figger that one out.
(Hey, let’s use an admitted faker to prove that people are fooling themselves)
However, I have no reason to believe he’d dismiss valid results or come up with last minute conditions in order to keep from paying out his million, except that one million dollars sure is a compelling motivation to make sure you hang onto the money! Don’t you think he wouldn’t do just as much as he can to avoid giving out the prize? (Oops, there goes all my free advertising!)
When the U.S. Government was involved with what laymen call ‘astral projection,’ they called it “remote viewing.” The government’s project has been declassifyed, and likely they abandoned it (or they’d be using it to find Osama Bin Laden). But then our government has abandoned lots of things that worked just fine… I’ll see if I can find a link to the government’s results.
OK, as promised, off to Great Debates.
Then just what are you claiming that it is? It can’t be detected, can’t be reproduced, can’t be controlled, just what is it?
No, it is not. YOU (or AP proponents) are the ones making the outrageous and fantastic claims without support. It is your job to prove it, or I will take the most reasonable attitude that your claim has no merit whatsoever.
Yeah, sure. :rolleyes: But don’t you think he could make a lot more money if he emulated Sylvia Browne instead?
Now you’re catching on. Who better to know how the real fakers are faking it? I’ll bet he is less fooled than you or me because he knows how tricks are done.
When you do, I think you’ll find that the reason they abandoned it was there were no results. At least not ones worth spending tax money on. A rare moment of governmental lucidity.
Don’t you think that if RV or AP existed, we would be using it to find Bin Laden? You can run but you can’t hide from our RVers!
No – we don’t have an experimental phenomenon. We have claims made by people who do this outside of acceptable experimental conditions. When scientists observe experimental phenomena, they set about trying to reproduce them, understand them, and explain them. Not leave them hanging and claim “its on others to debunk”.
When the phenomena can not be recreated, they’re written off. You’re lacking an understanding of the scientific process.
And, if you think the scientific process is incorrect, then by all means develop a competing process – a different way to confirm the existence of something.
If your “process” is to claim its existence because of lots of first hand accounts, then that’s your process. Fine. Go with it. But I don’t think its going to be useful.
Or if you just want to believe something exists, and you want to make some sort of crazy Cartesian claim “I can think it, therefore it is” as your criteria for existence, then fine too.
And that’s going to play fine at other message boards.
But here, some people understand what it actually means to show the existence of something (and no, just because no one has claimed Randi’s prize doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist) so don’t try to put AP on the same plane as genuine scientific theories.
Wrong. You clearly do not understand the scientific process. And that’s not ridicule. That’s just a statement. Here’s a primer. My comments are in bold.
From here, the scientific method is composed of 4 steps . . .
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Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena. OK. I’ll believe you have this. I’ll believe you observed this phenomena of AP
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Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation. I’ll believe you have this. You’ve formulated a hypothesis, such as the human brain is capable of observing things that aren’t right in front of it. Technically, this isn’t how a hypothesis is formed, but its close enough for this primer.
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Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations. This, you lack. This says that you need to repeat the experiment and get the results you expected to get.
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Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments. This, you definitely lack.
So, like I said before, you’re free to come up with whatever criteria you want to believe in the existence of something, but don’t expect people here to believe it without satisfying the 4 criteria above. And don’t think we’re being closed-minded about it.
It always gets me how the “Believers” like to paint skeptics as close minded. If many skeptics have similar pasts to my own, I would say they are in fact MORE open minded than “Believers.” Let me explain.
Growing up I always questioned things. Why this, what that, etc, etc. If something happened I wanted to know why and how. I would say that growing up I belived quite a bit. UFO’s, Bigfoot, Nellie. All of it was fascinating. It held the allure of secret knowledge, the idea that big bad science still doesn’t know everything, so we are safe. The idea of Astral projection, magick, psi, empathic abilities and all that stuff was a constant turn on for me in high school. I would hang out at the local wiccan book store, go to the nearest camp (camp Gia, outside Levenworth, Ks) and attend rituals, I would go out in the country and instead of star gazing, I would look for UFO’s, cameras ready. I remember when we did seances at my neighbors house and played with Ouji boards, telling stories of hauntings and ghosts and strange deaths at night. It was a period in my life in which I really got into reading books, and started hating the local churches for their influence that kept the “Good” books out of the public library and continuously closed down the alternative book stores in the area.
After years of this, I would guess from age 16 to age 22 or so, I accumulated many questions about things. They why, how and what. I slowly learned about science, and found other explananations for things. At first I resisted change, because I WANTED to believe this stuff. I could learn to do magick and make a girl fall in love with me, or make myself motivated to become rich. I wanted to be able to learn how to read minds, and I liked the idea of the scary theories about underground movements like the Illuminate. But slowly my open mind combined with my questioning habits drug me away from just accepting scant evidence and loony, white trash peoples stories as fact, and made me reconsider my beliefs.
I still WANT to believe in PSI, and alien technology, I would love to be turned into a vampire, find Atlantis, or be recruited to the Illuminate. Evidence however, is lacking, and I have realized, slowly but surely that evidence is what matters. There are alot of delusional people in this world, and quite a few compulsive liars, why should I believe them just to spare their feelings? I have a mind open enough to weigh evidence, and a desire to find out the truth, not just what sounds cool. I would say that those believers have the closed mind. They, after all, refuse to admit the fact that they can be wrong. I have already accepted that I was wrong, and went with what is fact, not fancy.
I get a laugh everytime somebody says I have a closed mind though. LOL If I had a closed mind I would have accepted everything my parents told me about Christianity and would be a hardcore fundementalist, like them. Not a skeptical athiest.
Here we go again.
The question is does man have a spirit that can leave the body and gather information while out of the body and return with that information. The answer is yes. Near death experiences tell us this can and does happen. There are scientific studies on it, and much scientific evidence. Astral projection is real.
Now, before the skeptical hordes fall upon these statements, let me show you were to start looking.
This is a good beginning, there are hundreds of more cases across the web.
Be sure to follow the many links because that is where the science studies and evidence lie. These are called veridical NDEs, because they can be verified and have been verified. I did not make up this name, it comes from the research done at the University of Virginia in the Psy dept.
Love
Several scientists have asked if Near Death Experiences might not merely be byproducts of the brain shutting down.
Loss of Oxygen does cause hallucinations, you know.
And from the morass of stubbornly unreasonable skepticism emerged a reasonable objection to the theory of AP, and lo Musiccat spaketh saying:
This is true, but lets limit our discussion to AP. As I understand it we are talking about a double of the physical body, which can separate from it and wander about etc. Obviously it would require energy to travel, but I don’t quite see how the above point is relevant as we are not talking about a “force”.
Certainly you’d have a good point if we were arguing about telepathy, or other “psychic powers” which we aren’t.
As for superstring model being internally consistent, Chronos, aren’t Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia also internally consistent? You can construct very intricate logical and mathematical models, which are internally consistent but if they are based on a false proposition (e.g. “superstrings exist”) then they are complete pap.
If you had read the material you would have discovered that cause was dismissed 30 years ago.
Love
Oh, please. From that so-called. cite:
You know what they call having zero brain activity for two hours? They call it being dead, then they bury your ass. In any case, this certainly wasn’t carried out under any kind of strict controls. The patient almost certainly ahd some kind of awareness of what was going on, and was thus able to describe it later. What of the myriad controlled experiments that have failed time and time again, hmm?
You know, every time one of you says something like this you just show more and more clearly that you do not understand mathematics/science/scientific process.
An intricate mathematical model, such as “superstring theory” is not based on a proposition like “superstrings exist”. It is based on a proposition like “given two numbers, a and b, then either ‘a < b, a = b, or a > b’”. Then, a mathematical system is constructed using several such axioms and the rules of logic. When that system is incontroveribly consistent, new systems can be constructed on top of it using it’s properties as axioms for the next system.
This has nothing to do with AP, just your lack of understanding about what it means for something to be true.
lekatt – this woman with the NDE tells a pretty interesting story. She overheard the doctors saying a lot of things while she showed no brain activity. What I think I missed, however, was the part where she told the doctors what she overheard and they corroborated it. Can you point out where she wrote that. I think I missed it.
If not a force, I ask again, what is it that you are postulating?
As far as AP, I often hear claims about psychic/paranomal traveling to distant places, like countries, planets, galaxies even. The time it takes or the energy required never seems to enter into the discussion. This is consistent with a dreamlike mental state, or pure fantasy, which is not bound by such physical restraints. But nothing in the known physical world outside of the mind works like this. (Radio waves and light travel pretty fast, but they can be measured and they have been.) If AP exists, we must postulate a major revision of the underpinnings of science. That’s an awful lot of interlocking history to overturn.
Why do you insist on grasping at straws? Do you have anything other than your own wishful thinking to bring to the table? If so, cite it and we can take a look.
I’m not claiming anything. I’m asking. What are you doing? You sure aren’t answering.
Yeah, that’s what I said! 
What are you? A one-person search-and-destroy mission??? :dubious:
Self-appointed?
Whoa, Dude! Can we take this down a notch? This is GD, not The Pit.
I am not making a claim. If you aren’t, either, then this thread is done, as there appears to be nothing to discuss.
But if you think that Astral Projection can happen – even the slightest chance – please bring forth your best evidence and we can take a look at it. I have not seen any good evidence for it. I have not seen any good evidence for the Easter Bunny, either, and for the same reason, I doubt he exists.
Now it’s my turn to be confused. Are you saying that[ul][]AP works and the US is using it to find Bin Laden, or[]Because he hasn’t been found, AP isn’t being used?[*]or what?[/ul]Do you have a cite for this or are you just making a funny?
Snake and other posters,
C. Dex said it pretty well in his post: the “believers” have learned to shut up. This short (compared to similar others!) thread demonstrates how nasty and irrational certain of the skeptic posters can be. It’s just no fun to argue this stuff on SMDB.
When it comes to NDEs, someone will always throw out, “It’s just the brain lacking oxygen!” People who actually know about the topic know that this is no longer taken seriously as a possible cause of the phenomenon (as Lekatt said). It’s frustrating having to wade through miles of muddy “Idle Speculation Creek” to get to the clearer waters of “True Debate Ocean.”
Another point of BS: That in the lab under “proper” conditions, psi phenomena do not appear–probabilities revert to chance. Only someone with zero knowledge of the actual experiments would say this. In fact, even one media skeptic has had to admit that something has been demonstrated thereby (but he still dismisses it as irrelevent). Even Cecil in his column on the matter says that, no, there’s no awesome proof of psi, but there may be a small hint of something going on. Squeezing even that much of an admission out of an uber-skeptic means something.
As for this particular skirmish, I’m done with it. I suggest that others also let this thread sink out of sight.
Whoa, thanks for the bell! When I started this thread, it was in response to a Staff Report, and the OP mentioned (referenced) that report. I was sure I was posting it to Comments on Staff Reports. And that’s how I’ve been approaching the subject.
When I look at the top of the web page here, it says: “Great Debates” !!!
This is akin to a wardrobe malfunction. I (and the moderator!) thought I was in Staff Reports, others thought they were in Great Debates. I think we got some electrons crossed here.
I’d make a joke about ‘It must be the psychic charge created by a discussion of PSI phenomenon,’ but there’s some folks here that would be all over me in all seriousness, challenging me to ‘prove’… well, something.
CKDH, please do something with this thread. Move it back to CoSR, close it, encrypt it or whatever, and please put a note in to the software folks that “Houston, we have a problem…”
Thanks all for you efforts.
OK, I never intended this to be in Great Debates. The OP doesn’t support inclusion therein. Therefore, I’m outa here. See you in IMNSHO.
But, before I go:
The OP:
And a comment to Trunk:
What, exactly, am I supposed to be claiming? I don’t know what this is, just that I, and others, have experienced it. I’m not claiming it is science, proven or even possible; I’m not claiming it is anything.
I won’t say you, but others here are claiming it is something. Well, let’s take those same scientific criteria (nicely done, btw) and have those folks look in a mirror. It’s not scientific to call it bunk, delusion, hallucination, whatever, unless it meets those same four criteria. We can call it unproven, unlikely, faith-based, and similar opinionated terms. Even calling it Astral Projection or remote viewing is a stretch, but then you got to call it something.
Thanks to “Aes…” for those comments. Tried to email you but couldn’t.
“What we got here is a failure to communicate.”
I started this in CoSR, people started posting like it was GD, the moderator moved it? to GD, and some posts sure don’t belong here (others belong nowhere else).
What a mess.