Nothing that gets posted on a message board should be counted as evidence. At best, the post points to a site, or book, or journal, or museum etc. where one can independently see the evidence.
Yes, I lack knowledge of everything in this world. I don’t know how it started, and I have precious little knowledge of how it operates. All I have to guide me is my own experience, which I believe is true.
Love
Leroy
You have rejected facts and will accept only your beliefs as evidence. This is precisely the ignorance we have been fighting against since the early 1970s.
I had hoped that Toofargone would answer your post, and he still may. I hope he does.
Let me explain: you took about 10 lines of personal experience and tried to tell the author, with 25 lines of explanation, that he was wrong about his own experience. You had only the 10 lines he wrote. He had several months of experience and probably many conversations with his mother and others about this event.
Now you say you don’t believe in the supernatural. I don’t either, because there is no such thing. There are only things that we don’t readily understand. To say some things are supernatural would imply that all natural things had been discovered and documented. I don’t think that has happened yet, or ever will happen.
I have had this done to me many times on this board by those who thought they were more intelligent than I, about my own experiences. They were not present at my experience, they knew nothing.
The only logical, proper responses to someone’s personal experience is to believe it, not believe it, or just not judge it. Nothing else is appropriate.
I know you meant no harm, and I mean no offense either. It’s just that everyone should think about the presumption of telling someone you know more than they do about their own experiences.
Love
Leroy
Oh, I see I am ignorant again.
Please tell me where these facts come from that you want me to believe as truth. Not from personal experience, I presume.
To say something is supernatural is to say that the something is outside of the realm of the possible natural world.
So we should take someone’s word or not in all circumstances? If we doubt them we should not investigate? Why not? Isn’t that being a little close-minded?
For Example: Someone sees a UFO and says it’s obviously an intelligent craft, trust him or don’t-but don’t investigate it, even if we can find out the truth about what the person saw?
Exactly my point! Now, what is outside the realm of the possible natural world, how can we know that, without knowing all of the realm of the possible natural world? Do you know all of the realm of the possible natural world? If you do, how do you demonstrate this knowledge?
If you doubt someone, it is ok to ask for more information, or indicate you need more data to understand their position, but that was not happening. The intent was clearly to explain away the person’s experience. This is not exceptable in respectful company.
Go back to what is proper.
The only logical, proper responses to someone’s personal experience is to believe it, not believe it, or just not judge it. Nothing else is appropriate.
If a person is so fragile with their beliefs that no one can hold opposing beliefs in their presence without being attacked, they need to do some serious growing up.
Love
Leroy
Psychics do not posses supernatural powers though, they claim to, but that doesn’t make it so. The problem as I see it, in gauging a psychics credibility, is that their results are no better than cold readers.
You didn’t answer my question.
You are right, Psychics do not posses supernatural powers, but they do have a natural ability to do what they do.
As for the theory of “cold reading”, it was established earlier in this thread that no controlled studies have ever been done to prove cold reading even exists, much less that Psychics use it.
A controlled study of “cold reading” would be easy to do, just take one reading and give it to 100 subjects, if the results were not the same with each subject, then the premise of cold reading is false.
Love
Leroy
First, I don’t think any one is trying to tell someone else what they have experieneced. Instead I think they are cintesting the appropriateness of the interpretation of what they experienced.
Second, the results of the test you proposed of cold reading would only be valid for that readng. Cold reading is an interactive process that draws info from the person being read.
A more valid way to test CR would be to have a number of people who are well trained in cold reading and an equal number of people who lay claim to paranormal psychic skills and find a large sample of people to read. The relative skill level/ experience of the CR would have to assessed and recorded. The relative skill level/ experience of the People claiming paranormal psychic skills would have to assessed, (somehow), and recorded.
Administer surveys to the people who are to be read before the reading to assess their self reported attitudes toward and expectations of the reading. Administer surveys after the reading to the people who were read to assess the attitudes and level a credulity they have toward the reading that they had. Reord transcripts of all readings.
This data would let you guage the experiences of the various people who had their reading done by coldreaders and psychics. If there was a similar degrees of belief between the people who were read by CR as by People Claiming Paranormal Psychic Skills, (PCPPS), as assessed in the after reading survey, then this would some more evidence that PPS are very difficult to distinguish from CR. If on the other hand, there was a large difference in the rate of belief of participants who were read by CR and those who were read by PCPPS as assessed by after reading survey it would mean one of two things depending on what the difference was. If people who got CR had a higher rate of relative belief than those who had a reading done with PPS then it would mean that the CR’s were more able to convince the particpants than the PCPPS. If people who got a reading done by PCPPS had a higher rate of relative belief than those who had a reading done with CR then it would mean that the PCPPS were more able to convince the particpants than the CR’s.
I’m not saying that this would prove or disprove PPS. I’m just saying that this would be a much, much better way of testing the difference between CR and PPS than what you suggested.
I hope you can appreciate the differences between these two suggested methods of demonstration.
Love SimonX now!
Simonx, the test you propose might require more subjectivity than desired to be a fair, impartial test. For example, “The relative skill level/experience of the CR would have to assessed and recorded.”
Psychics regularly claim that all they need to read a subject is the person’s name or just a picture. Of course, that’s not what usually happens; the subject is pumped for much more that that.
So, a simple and fair test might be for a psychic to be given 10 pictures of unknown people. The psychic writes a description of each. Someone who knows each subject writes a description of each without seeing the psychic’s descriptions. All pix and all descriptions are given to someone not yet involved in the test who is told to match the descriptions. A high percentage of correct matches would be favorable to psychic ability.
A similar test of two Russian ladies was done by James Randi and can be seen on the Nova program Secrets of the Psychics. They claimed that they could tell amazing things about any person with just a photograph. Randi supplied them with one, and they attempted to obtain more info, but he refused to add any. The ladies claimed they were not “getting anything,” complained loudly about Randi’s silence, gave some generalities such as “he [the subject] gets along well with people,” but failed to detect that the subject was not only [ul][li]very dead, andserial killer Ted Bundy[/ul][/li]Without feedback, they were just guessing, and badly. With feedback, they were spectacular. Could the feedback have something to do with their success? Do ya think?
Now, some might object that I am talking about tests of psychic ability, not cold reading. But cold reading is not in doubt and there is nothing supernatural about it; even Lekatt has admitted it is used at least sometimes. The question before us is, “Is there more to a performance than just cold reading?”
I’m not completely sure of what means would be used to judge the relative skill of a CR. I’d guess it could be done in part by judging the adroitness with which they handle negatives/misses and lack of response and in addition their ability to elicit response.
I think that this an important element in that not CR are of equal skill. I’ve never practiced the techniques of CR so I probably wouldn’t be as good as someone who is a professional magician/mentalist with many years experience.
As to assessing the relative skill of PCPPS… well I don’t know. Nor do I know anyone who knows. With exception of people who want to subject them to stringent testing like Randi et al. But I’m trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.
But other than that I’m not clear as to how assessing the skill level/ experience of CR’s would be an undesirable amount of subjectivity. Can you explain some more?
I’m sorry about that. What question was it?
Was it this:
I’d say that almost everything is inside the realm of possible knowledge with the exception being God (although I wouldn’t rule God out yet). I’d say that there are things that science hasn’t figured out yet.
I don’t know all of the realm of the possible natural world-shoot, I don’t know most of it! I don’t claim too though. I would say that hypothetically, I could learn about it though.
To be honest, I’m not convinced that there is another realm besides the natural world (aside from God that is). I haven’t seen a convincing display of supernatural abilities, or anything that couldn’t be explained in one fashion or another.
ANY subjectivity introduces a level of uncertainty for testing. As you said above, judging skills can be difficult.
And, if by “stringent,” you mean devising a test that cannot be passed by cheating, then count me in the James Randi et al camp.
I unnecessarily complicated my proposed test above. Let’s have ten pictures of unknown people, and a profile of each drawn up by someone who knows each. Then, randomize the pix & profiles (that is, no one should know which pic goes with which profile), give these to the test psychic, who is not privy to any prior knowledge of any of the ten and ask him/her to match pix with profiles.
The profiles could contain much info like “subject plays piano” or “subject breeds dogs,” but could not have anything like “subject is female and has blonde hair,” which would make a match too easy.
Decide, in advance, how many matches must be made to be significantly above the element of chance.
Certainly if the test psychic can match all ten pix to the correct profile, we have a winner! Chance alone would not allow a very high score. We have removed all subjectivity; no matter who tallies the score from this test, the outcome will be objective. If the only thing that can be used to make the matches is psychic ability, we now have a strong candidate for proof of such a force.
Here’s what gives me a headache:
We have two sets of people, A and B. Individuals in each set perform before a group of people, with the same result: some members of the audience believe that the performers have shared personal, private information which the performers should not know.
Mr. A claims his ability to speak with the dead provides him with the answers.
Mr. B claims his ability is based a technique called “cold reading.”
We are expected to believe Mr. A’s claim - because that’s his experience. But Mr. B’s claim - based on his experience - we are expected to reject? On what grounds?
Yet you both fail to see me in Shakopee.:smack:
I’ve said time and again that human beings are ill-equipped to judge their own experiences. If a patient is given a placebo and recovers, they credit the medication. Memories of events can become distorted.
Read Rashamon
Watch A Beautiful Mind
You are, of course, free to believe anything you want, but you are not free to accuse others of fradulent behaviour without solid proof. Skeptics have no real proof of anything.