How did Uri Geller (psychic) divine pictures people had written?

[Razncain]

@ianzin

Do I think Uri Geller has psychic powers? I don’t know. I wasn’t present at each and every one of his supposed demonstrations. In my personal opinion, it’s unlikely, given the state of psi research since the 70s, and I myself haven’t seen or witnessed anything that makes me think the psychic hypothesis is necessary. But I know lots of people would disagree with me, and I don’t have a problem with that. Maybe I could listen to them and learn a thing a two. I’m not dead yet and I haven’t stopped listening and learning.

Also unlikely considering how well established conservation laws are. Those same conservation laws are the reason the US Patent Office doesn’t take perpetual claims seriously. They can also be applied to psychic phenomenon. Any strict adherence to such laws and the way they are understood make psychic phenomena impossible. Einstein didn’t believe in psychics for that reason, and how it also was applied to the inverse square law. For psychics to be legit, there has to be an energy source. Transmission of information through space such as telepathy requires energy going from one mind to another. All psychic phenomena are violations of conservation of energy in various forms.

The only point I was making at the time was that if you’re going to attribute a quote to someone, it’s a good idea to attribute it correctly. I would have thought this was a relevant point to make on the SDMB. I still think it’s helpful to preserve the distinction between what Uri says about Uri and what other people say about Uri.

That doesn’t help his case at all, go to his cite. Some of it is written by him, and other parts are others writing some glowing accounts of him, which surely if the cite is his, he has to approve of it. Do you want me to quote from there? If he wants to say he is not a magician while performing, fine, but what about when he isn’t? Or is he on 24/7/365, and he can use deceit any way he sees fit to bilk others out of their money, and I don’t think we’ve heard any disproval from you thus far, have we?

While you seem like a nice of enough guy to me, and seem to be respectful and all, this is why I kind of feel uncomfortable about you, is that pretty much everything mentioned about Geller thus far, has been you and PM coming to his defense, saying well, he is a magician, he’s been awarded such and such; he’s a really nice guy; other magicians respect him; other magicians do this; and you add he is a friend of yours. A friend that threatened to sue you, so is that why you’re so skittish to say anything about him in a negative way?

I realize everything Geller says about himself and other things he has on his cite has to be taken with a grain of salt, but if you want us to go by what is said there, he has taken millions from investors by using his psychic abilities and dowsing to look for minerals just from that alone. I’m sure he exaggerates, many of these places remain unnamed, and details are sketchy, and getting outside corroboration on just about the majority of it is difficult. But why is he building up his reputation to be able to do this unless it is to get his hooks into another big investor or use his supposed psychic powers for other ventures as well?

Randi, Penn & Teller, the late Houdini, and many, many others realize there is a time to be on, and a time to be off, and most importantly have the ethics not to swindle or use their talents and skills in such a way to defraud others, and will also go to great lengths to expose others for the fraud and con-artists they are. So why is it with you, which I assume you’re familiar with such things, it’s basically just a shrug of the shoulders with you?