Mangeorge, were all three people in the same group? Did they know you were sitting there prior to you staring, and how far away were you sitting? Were there people in front of them that could have been watching you as you watched them, theyby giving you away? Or maybe a waitress when at their table looked in your direction? Is there anything that could have given you away?
It’s great that you are getting out and trying to get to the bottom of this. I was at a restaurant and forgot to try.
As has been mentioned, ‘cold readers’ can do this too.
See: http://www.randi.org/library/coldreading/
Why then is this ‘proof’ of psychic powers?
Why do psychics have to ask you a lot of questions? Why don’t ‘the powers’ simply tell them all about you?
Why do psychics charge for their services then?
Why do they appear on Nationwide chat shows?
Why are there rich notorious psychics (who refuse to be scientifically tested)?
Indeed there are. Did she tell you how she knows this?!
Given that she states there are many fakers + frauds in the field, and that all psychics use exactly the same ‘endless guesses’ techniques as cold readers, can you put 2+2 together?!
Wow! Super! You’re going to be a millionaire!!
‘At JREF, we offer a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event.’
So when are you going to pick up the money?
…
You’re not going to apply?
…
But simply repeating your demonstration above a few times (with a few simple scientific safeguards) would satisfy every condition for the money?
…
Oh - even you don’t believe it yourself. OK.
I picked them because they were alone, they were 10 - 20 feet away from me, no servers except that they bring your food to you, and I didn’t actually stare, I just casually watched them. Something obviuosly gave me away, they did turn and look right at me. I can’t say what, though.
This is a pretty noisy place, with busy traffic going by and all. No mirrored walls or anything that obvious.
glee, why are you such a smartass? I didn’t make any claim for special powers. I simply stated some facts. Data, as it were. If that doesn’t fit within your prejudices, that’s your problem.
Maybe you need to get out more?
Peace,
mangeorge
I don’t know exactly what it is about the cross section of members on this board but I sense a definite skew toward skepticism of any paranormal / conspiritorial / altered view of what is commonly accepted as fact. I don’t necessarily embrace the paranormal etc. as fact, however I do like to entertain these possibilities simply because they are so much more interesting to contemplate than the mundaneness of ordinary everyday life.
Why is it that some people so vehemently reject any notion of something that defies a rational or scientific explanation? To the point of not even being able to entertain a possibility for the sake of discussion? A “what if” attitude can yield some very interesting discussions but many people seem to be unwilling / unable to participate beyond adamant demands that there is no room for speculation even just for the sake of an interesting discussion. I pity the poor fool who once suggested that the earth might possibly be * round. * If only he would have had a cite handy to back up his claims, he might have been spared a great deal of embarassment for his extremely odd perception of reality.
An open mind is a precious commodity in my opinion, but there are many who seem to be unable to consider little beyond the realm of what can be backed up with a reliable cite.
No offense intended to any of the participants in this thread, I just wanted to share my 2 sense.
While such things may be more interesting, that doesn’t make them real. With no known mechanism through which such things can be expected to work, there is little reason to leave open the possibility that they might. But, I am certainly not close-minded to the idea, should someone demonstrate via a meaningful and properly-conducted experiment, that such things can occur. The fact that $1 million has remained unclaimed all these years is quite telling IMO. Not one single reputable and repeatable study has ever been conducted which demonstrates any paranormal abilities, and I challenge you, or anyone else, to find one.
Of course it doesn’t make them real. I was merely remarking on the reluctance of many people to * consider * the possibility. My interest is not in convincing anyone of anything. I find the behavior of people as interesting as I do the concept of the paranormal…
Well, as I said, I’ll consider the possibility as soon as I see some real evidence. I’d wager any other skeptic will say the same.
not to side with them or anything, but the definition of paranormal is
Main Entry: para·nor·mal
Pronunciation: “par-&-'nor-m&l, 'par-&-”
Function: adjective
Date: circa 1920
: not scientifically explainable : SUPERNATURAL
wouldn’t that make the randi’s paranormal challenge technically impossible? magic is what we don’t understand scientifically, once we understand it won’t be labelled as magic…
say some scientist discovered how telepathy works, can he claim the prize?
Well, no. Even though, at this point, we cannot provide a scientific explanation for, say, psychic minreading ability, if someone should accept and pass the JREF $1 million challenge, we would most certainly have to begin looking for such an explanation. The definition of “paranormal” would be better off reading “not currently scientifically explainable.”
And to address this part, which I overlooked…yes. But no one has, to date.
SkyBum wrote:
You’re kidding, right? This is the Straight Dope Message Board, after all, and the General Questions forum (where questions which can be factually answered should be asked). The overwhelming lack of evidence of paranormal abilities, or vast conspiracies, or “altered” views shows that they are, most-likely, not the “Straight Dope.” How long does one need to look for a wild unicorn before deciding that they probably don’t exist?
Reality is actually fascinating to some people. The immensity ability of human brains, for example, to take really low-level stimuli and transform them into a sense that someone is standing outside our visual area is utterly amazing. That you think this and other rational explanations of the effect in question to be “mundane” or uninteresting is indicative of a lack of knowledge of just how much has to go on in the brain in such a situation.
Contemplating psychic abilities pales in comparison, since “being psychic” would be so much easier. All you need is a “brain wave” receptor somewhere in the gray matter, and you’re done. How utterly boring.
A very wise person once said something to the effect of, “keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.” If you consider all explanations of an event to be equally possible, those around you won’t consider you to be open minded, but instead to be gullible.
And since nobody has mentioned it yet directly, I feel a big part of the “I know when someone is staring at me” phenomenon is this: person A senses, through whatever “mundane” means, that person B is where they are. Person A then turns their head to look and make sure that what they sense is correct, since (in an evolutionary sense) person B might be a threat. Person B notices, through peripheral vision, that person A is moving, and (in an evolutionary response), looks at person A to make sure they’re not becoming a threat. Person A therefore turns and finds person B “staring” at them, even though person B was looking in a different direction just milliseconds beforehand. They lock eyes, and an awkward moment happens. No big deal, except person A walks away from the encounter thinking that person B was staring at them, when nothing of the sort was going on.
Under controlled situations, when person A was being tested as to whether or not he/she could detect being stared at, and could not turn around to look at person B, this “ability” should be expected to vanish, and that’s precisely what happens, according to the best available evidence.
Oh, also: shijinn wrote:
Randi doesn’t care how telepathy works. For the million bucks, all you need to demonstrate is that telepathy works. In other words, if you can telepathically send a message from person A to person B repeatedly and reliably under scientific scrutiny, you’ll get the money. How it is done doesn’t matter, but if a scientist were to discover how telepathy works, it seems obvious he/she should be able to show that such an ability exists to begin with, no?
Ok,
I’ ve read this thread, and I expected to find a comment or two about
the recent article in the Canadian online Globe and Mail; their feature writer was very impressed with the methodology of one Rupert Sheldrake, who seems to have convinced her that he is on to something;
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20030809/FCSHEL/TPScience/
That is news to me;
For what it is worth, here is Mr Sheldrake’s home page
http://www.sheldrake.org/
and an article or two about him and the whole phenomenon.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/lifestyle/115082_stare01.shtml
http://www.theherald.co.uk/living/archive/16-5-19103-21-13-47.html
and a skeptical (or is it sceptical ?) look at Sheldrake’s ‘research’ here:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20030625-9999_1c25singular.html
I am surprised this didn’t come up in this thread, by the way; however Sheldrake doewsn’t move me to believe in the phenomenon one bit; I have more faith in the power of Confirmation Bias and Self-Serving Bias to fool the subjective mind.
Well, it seems that one of Sheldrakes claims is contradicted by the CSICOP link supplied by QED;
My appalling skill at english language comprehension in these matters must have failed me once again. The CSICOP site seems to say the exact opposite;
http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-03/stare.html
So even the group labelled ‘psi stars’ could not produce consistent results; this is entirely consistent with chance.
Or even people who claim to have seen a fiery rock fall from the sky.
www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF8/805.html
HH you need to meet this guy named Lekatt, I bet such a union would spark a wonderful relationship.
For me, skepticism came with age. When I was a child, I used to believe in all of the paranormal: ghosts, Loch Ness monster, telepathy, alien abductions, God. There never was any “aha” moment when I began to see things differently, so aging must have done it. Becoming a young adult made the world seem smaller and the search for understanding how its works began to rule out the fantastical. It is sad that the pure open-mindedness of childhood has to fade away, but all of the energy daydreaming about whether there are monsters has to be applied to a new set of adult concerns. And this doesn’t mean that I don’t have free daydreaming or imagine fantastical things, it’s just that I know all of it exists in my fantasy not as a part of the world.
The skeptic looks at the world through a filter of their beliefs much like anybody else, say a person that believes in God. They can be open-minded to almost anything, but ultimately information is judged against what they currently believe to be true. In the skeptic’s case it is how things can be explained through science or practical means. They acknowledge life’s mysteries but also try to solve them.
I don’t deny the “psychic staring” as a phenomenon, but I believe there is a logical explanation for it.
How could a skeptic claim a belief in god? Sensing the attention of another person would be child’s play for some characters of the bible. Religion IS magic.
**mangeorge **,
I cannot work out if your “experiment” and your “defence” of your “experiment” ain’t just one big whoooosh, but one specific thing that is missing, that makes your “data” uninterpretable (read meaningless), is the lack of a control.
When come back bring interpretable data.
The OP asks;
“Can people really sense if someone is staring at them?”
Note the word “sense”, TGU. It isn’t limited to the paranormal or the physical. So my real world observations, which don’t rule out either, do carry weight. Control would have only interferred with my experiment.
Did I address your comments? I tried to interpret your post as best I could.