# James Randi calls time on the $1 million dollar prize ... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 4, 2008, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263 "2008-01-04T12:30:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/241 "2008-01-08T19:34:32Z")
[QUOTE=lekatt] Well, it’s kinda like the twig thing. If you put 1-2-3 twigs together they are easy to break, but if you put 12 million twigs together they are impossible to break. [/QUOTE] You could take an infinite number of twigs, bind them together with unbreakable twine, and they _still_ wouldn’t be a tree. -Czarcasm’s Addendum to lekatt’s Non-Sequitur ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/242 "2008-01-08T20:13:07Z")
[QUOTE=askeptic] Cite? On a serious note I actually agree. Once we burn all your twigs of ignorance and meaningless superstition we will be well on our way to a purer form of truth (whatever that is…) [/QUOTE] What twigs of ignorance and meaningless superstition? When we started they were just twigs, changing the rules again? ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/243 "2008-01-08T20:14:29Z")
[QUOTE=Czarcasm] You could take an infinite number of twigs, bind them together with unbreakable twine, and they _still_ wouldn’t be a tree. -Czarcasm’s Addendum to lekatt’s Non-Sequitur [/QUOTE] Definately an accurate observation. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/244 "2008-01-08T20:21:43Z")
[QUOTE=lekatt] Definately an accurate observation. [/QUOTE] 1. You “definately” have no idea what “non-sequitur” means, do you? 2. If you are going to volunteer to do the irony, I could use a little extra starch in the collars, please. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/245 "2008-01-08T20:22:58Z")
[QUOTE=Hakuna Matata] lekatt I am also trying to keep an open mind here–but you do need to answer the questions people ask. You have not responded to this question asked by Bayard: “Question: how do you, lekatt, separate the fake psychics from the real ones? Presumably, you don’t believe everyone who claims to be a psychic. So, in your mind, there must be a way to separate the ones you feel are real from the fakes. How do you make that call? Please give examples of the real and fake psychics” [/QUOTE] I do appreciate an open mind and will quickly reply. I am a spiritual person, I feel emotions and intent of others. Sort of like a lie-detector, I know in only a few sentences or posts if someone is being honest with me. I won’t claim to be 100%, however. It is not an unusual trait, many sense the intent others, and children and animals sense it even better than us adults. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/246 "2008-01-08T20:26:42Z")
[QUOTE=Czarcasm] 1. You “definately” have no idea what “non-sequitur” means, do you? 2. If you are going to volunteer to do the irony, I could use a little extra starch in the collars, please. [/QUOTE] Let’s just say I don’t speak Latino very often. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/247 "2008-01-08T21:04:06Z")
[QUOTE=lekatt] I have provided cite many times, but don’t mind doing it again. This cite is very long, it covers many facets of the near death experience, I doubt anyone will read the whole thing. But at least read the main part. > **[Question 28 about Near Death Experiences.](https://aleroy.com/FAQz28.htm)** > > Question 28 about Near Death Experiences. No, I did not write this article. [/QUOTE] OK, so I had more time than I thought today. Really, some day I need to get a job where I have actual work to do. Anyway, I read your cite, the whole thing. I hope you will read my full response with an open mind, as I did for your source. Here are my responses. (For those of you just joining us, NDE=Near Death Experience and OBE=Out of Body Experience. NDEr is one who experiences an NDE.) All quotes are from **lekatt’s** source. > [@](#): > > Question: I need more proof that NDEs are real, do you have any more evidence? I do not dispute that they are “real”. I accept that people experience NDEs. However, I dispute that they are anything other than the result of chemical and biological processes that occur in the brain under certain conditions. I submit that, while the triggers are poorly understood at present, this lack of understanding should not give a reasonable person cause to accept that NDEs are evidence of an afterlife or other supernatural phenomena. > [@](#): > > These include being able to accurately tell the doctors what they were doing while they were clinically dead, what clothes they wore, what procedures and instruments they used, and any conversations being said, including accurate blow by blow accounts of their own resuscitation from a bird’s eye point of view, the whole of which can later be checked and verified to be true. I believe these claims are in dispute. Untangling whether the memories of NDErs accurately represent what was happening at the time of the NDE is tricky. Researchers like Dr. Jan Holden and Dr. Bruce Greyson have been doing things like placing a laptop facing upward near the ceiling of the OR, and interviewing patients later to see if they could recall what images were displayed on the laptop. To my knowledge, they have not yet captured an NDE in progress, so to speak. Apparently, other researchers have been trying to corroborate NDErs recollections with the recollections of the doctors and nurses. I have not been able to locate the results of these kinds of studies. Something in a peer-reviewed medical journal would be a great source, but I don’t have access to these kinds of resources at the moment. Suffice it to say that the veracity of these claims is not universally accepted. At least some of the recollections reported as very accurate have turned out, upon further investigation, to be either very vague or just wrong. > [@](#): > > There are also accounts of experiencers meeting deceased relatives during an NDE that the person did not know was dead, such as a relative or a friend, and finding out that they were really deceased after the fact, and learning information from them that they could not have otherwise known. > There are many accounts of children and adult NDErs learning about relatives and siblings who had died before their own birth that they never met or were never told about, etc. These are intriguing stories, but really anecdotal. “Information that they could not have otherwise known” is quite vague. Perhaps the NDEr awakens and says something like, “I saw Grandpa. He wore a green shirt and walked with a cane.” The family member hearing this thinks, “Wow, my dad did own a green shirt and walk with a cane. Amazing.” But these are such common and obvious traits that they could be applied to lots of men. Is this what the writer considers a “hit”? Or are we talking about things like “I saw Granddad. He was six feet tall, had green eyes and a Clark Gable-style mustache, walked with a slight limp, and had a tattoo of a snake on his left arm.” We just can’t tell from this kind of account. There is no real data here, just vague anecdotes. > [@](#): > > Also, people who have been blind since birth have been able to accurately perceive visual surroundings during their experience. Many people have also been informed of knowledge far beyond their personal capacity. Etc. Again, do we have an actual account of something like this? Do we have something better than “I heard about his guy once who…” Also, how does a blind person describe visual experiences? If someone blind from birth says, “I saw a doctor in green scrubs leaning over me,” what does that mean? Is the patient’s understanding of “green” the same as mine? How does he recognize “green”? Has the patient just heard and read the word “green” associated with scrubs so often that it became ingrained in his subconscious? If he reports “green scrubs” to his family, do they even know that the doctor was wearing green scrubs? They weren’t in the OR either. Who is verifying the patient’s claims of what he saw? What is “knowledge far beyond their personal capacity”? Did the NDEr report something specific, like “Grandpa hid 75 pearls in a red coffee can under the stairs”, or did he just report some vague impression that his family interpreted as a “hit”? I don’t know. The claims of this site are insufficient to address these questions. > [@](#): > > Dr. Michael Sabom > \ > PMH Atwater > \ > Dr. Pim Van Lommel > \ > Dr. Kenneth Ring These studies, while intriguing, are disputed. There are questions about the methods by which Sabom and others gathered their data, how well it was verified, and what was considered a “hit”. Skeptics (see [Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences » Internet Infidels](http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html) and [Near-Death Experiences - Dr Susan Blackmore](http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Chapters/ShermerNDE.htm)) charge that many OBE recollections can be accounted for by a mix of prior knowledge, cultural expectations, and generous interpretation on the part of the interviewer. This is not to say that such objections can be used to dismiss all NDE/OBE reports. However, it is enough to say that these studies are far from conclusive. Time has a recent article ([TIME | Current & Breaking News | National & World Updates](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1657919,00.html)) that gives an overview of the research being done by a lot of people smarter than me. There is a lot of debate about what these things mean. Some aspects of the classic NDE seem to be pretty clearly related to certain physical stimuli; some don’t. I certainly don’t know what it all means. But your reference cherry-picks the researchers who favor a spiritual basis for NDEs without acknowledging the ongoing debate in medical and scientific circles. That’s misleading. > [@](#): > > –If the spiritual component of the near-death experience could be explained away as just an extension of the person’s pre-existing belief system, why have confirmed atheists come back after their NDE convinced there is a God? And why have religious believers returned from their NDE with un-orthodox changes to their prior dogmas? People change their minds in response to stressful and unexplained events all the time. That tells us something about the effect of the event, but tells us nothing about the source of the event. You cannot look at outcomes and say, “the effect is X, therefore the cause must be Y.” NDEs are undoubtedly powerful events, which many people interpret as spiritual in nature. That does not, however, tell us anything about the nature or cause of those events. You cannot infer purpose from effect. Many people say they experience God while under the influence of drugs; that does not mean that God gave us drugs for that purpose. > [@](#): > > As Greyson notes: 'No one physiological or psychological model by itself explains all the common features of NDE…. Fair enough. But “We don’t really understand this” does not lead us to “It is supernatural.” Our ignorance is not evidence of anything. The argument “scientists don’t understand it, therefore it is spiritual” is not persuasive. > [@](#): > > What do the Skeptics on the otherhand have to say about NDEs? Let’s be fair now. OK, let’s. > [@](#): > > Skeptic Argument # 1: Dying Brain Theory … The answer to this argument is really just a rehash of previous arguments. I do think, however, that scientists would agree that anoxia is only part of what’s going on with NDEs. > [@](#): > > Skeptic Argument # 2: DMT Chemicals Causing NDEs. DMT does not account for the Veridical Elements of the NDE, nor the amazing structure of many NDEs, according to the book “DMT: The Spiritual Molecule,” it may act as an initial NDE trigger, but cannot make up for the entire experience, Veridical Elements and all, in addition to the pesky little fact that within 4 to 20 seconds of cardiac arrest, the brain waves go flat, and even if they were sufficient (which they are not), the brain cannot produce images in this state, and even if it could, you wouldn’t remember them. The last part of this statement takes it as proven that the brain cannot produce and remember images in this state. I don’t think this is proven. Perhaps EEGs are not able to detect all brain activity. Perhaps the NDErs are filling in some memories after that fact. Who knows? Again, these guys are cherry-picking science they agree with, presenting it as established fact, and dismissing the science that questions them. > [@](#): > > Skeptic Argument # 3: Ketamine More of the same. > [@](#): > > Skeptic Argument # 4: The Navy Airmen Stress Tests > These are studies where they used Navy Airmen in G-Force stress tests that caused the blood in the heads of the individuals to drain, inducing a state of simulated clinical death, in which NDEs were reported. These do not conflict with the NDE Phenomenon, as the persons were essentially put into a state of simulated clinical death when the blood drained from their heads, and they had an NDE. I’m not finding much on this test. I am skeptical of the argument that g-force stress puts people in a state of “simulated clinical death”. > [@](#): > > Skeptic Argument # 5: Susan Blackmore’s Critique Of “The Tunnel” > Regarding the Tunnel that people see during their NDEs, Susan Blackmore has theorized that the optic nerve causes a “Tunnel Effect” due to random neuron firings in the back of the eye to explain away the “Tunnel” that people see. > But a woman named Vicki who was born blind had her optic nerve severed in her incubator at birth, and she still visually saw a Tunnel during her NDE and OBE. And it happened awhile into the actual experience. I guess I’ll just Google “Vicki” for more information on this case. Even if Blackmore is wrong about the optical nerve thing, the reasonable response is “we don’t really know what’s going on here”, not “it must be the afterlife”. > [@](#): > > Skeptic Argument # 6: The Assertion That People Only See And Experience What They Already Believed Lots of anecdotes here. Completely unhelpful. > [@](#): > > Skeptic Argument # 7: Keith Augustine’s Anti-NDE Article (The Skeptic’s Trump Card) > Sources such as Keith Augustine’s article will prey upon the perceived weakness of certain NDEs, out of their full context, while ignoring alternative explainations… Yeah, we wouldn’t want that. > [@](#): > > His alternative explanations of Veridical NDEs ignore pesky facts and additional and alternative information that he conveniently ignored to come to his conclusions. Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, pot. Look, I don’t know what’s up with NDEs and OBEs. My unscientific guess is that a combination of things like loss of oxygen, endorphins, other brain chemicals, false memories, cultural expectations, and generous interpretation by family members can account for the majority of NDE cases. Do I know for sure? Of course not. Does that mean that the answer is therefore spiritual? No. When scientists first started hammering out the germ theory of disease, I imagine lots of people seized on inconsistencies in their findings and proclaimed, “See? Science can’t answer our questions. Diseases must be the work of spirits.” When scientists started unraveling the workings of the brain, holdouts still claimed that the mentally ill were possessed by demons, until science pulled back the curtains. The same thing is happening with NDEs. “Scientists don’t know! It can only be the work of God!” And when scientists sort this out, what then? Where will we go looking for God? Maybe there are spirits and gods. But they won’t be found hiding in the gaps of our scientific knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/248 "2008-01-08T21:17:50Z")
[QUOTE=Bayard] OK, so I had more time than I thought today. Really, some day I need to get a job where I have actual work to do. Anyway, I read your cite, the whole thing. I hope you will read my full response with an open mind, as I did for your source. Here are my responses. (For those of you just joining us, NDE=Near Death Experience and OBE=Out of Body Experience. NDEr is one who experiences an NDE.) All quotes are from **lekatt’s** source. I do not dispute that they are “real”. I accept that people experience NDEs. However, I dispute that they are anything other than the result of chemical and biological processes that occur in the brain under certain conditions. I submit that, while the triggers are poorly understood at present, this lack of understanding should not give a reasonable person cause to accept that NDEs are evidence of an afterlife or other supernatural phenomena. I believe these claims are in dispute. Untangling whether the memories of NDErs accurately represent what was happening at the time of the NDE is tricky. Researchers like Dr. Jan Holden and Dr. Bruce Greyson have been doing things like placing a laptop facing upward near the ceiling of the OR, and interviewing patients later to see if they could recall what images were displayed on the laptop. To my knowledge, they have not yet captured an NDE in progress, so to speak. Apparently, other researchers have been trying to corroborate NDErs recollections with the recollections of the doctors and nurses. I have not been able to locate the results of these kinds of studies. Something in a peer-reviewed medical journal would be a great source, but I don’t have access to these kinds of resources at the moment. Suffice it to say that the veracity of these claims is not universally accepted. At least some of the recollections reported as very accurate have turned out, upon further investigation, to be either very vague or just wrong. These are intriguing stories, but really anecdotal. “Information that they could not have otherwise known” is quite vague. Perhaps the NDEr awakens and says something like, “I saw Grandpa. He wore a green shirt and walked with a cane.” The family member hearing this thinks, “Wow, my dad did own a green shirt and walk with a cane. Amazing.” But these are such common and obvious traits that they could be applied to lots of men. Is this what the writer considers a “hit”? Or are we talking about things like “I saw Granddad. He was six feet tall, had green eyes and a Clark Gable-style mustache, walked with a slight limp, and had a tattoo of a snake on his left arm.” We just can’t tell from this kind of account. There is no real data here, just vague anecdotes. Again, do we have an actual account of something like this? Do we have something better than “I heard about his guy once who…” Also, how does a blind person describe visual experiences? If someone blind from birth says, “I saw a doctor in green scrubs leaning over me,” what does that mean? Is the patient’s understanding of “green” the same as mine? How does he recognize “green”? Has the patient just heard and read the word “green” associated with scrubs so often that it became ingrained in his subconscious? If he reports “green scrubs” to his family, do they even know that the doctor was wearing green scrubs? They weren’t in the OR either. Who is verifying the patient’s claims of what he saw? What is “knowledge far beyond their personal capacity”? Did the NDEr report something specific, like “Grandpa hid 75 pearls in a red coffee can under the stairs”, or did he just report some vague impression that his family interpreted as a “hit”? I don’t know. The claims of this site are insufficient to address these questions. These studies, while intriguing, are disputed. There are questions about the methods by which Sabom and others gathered their data, how well it was verified, and what was considered a “hit”. Skeptics (see [Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences » Internet Infidels](http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html) and [Near-Death Experiences - Dr Susan Blackmore](http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Chapters/ShermerNDE.htm)) charge that many OBE recollections can be accounted for by a mix of prior knowledge, cultural expectations, and generous interpretation on the part of the interviewer. This is not to say that such objections can be used to dismiss all NDE/OBE reports. However, it is enough to say that these studies are far from conclusive. Time has a recent article ([TIME | Current & Breaking News | National & World Updates](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1657919,00.html)) that gives an overview of the research being done by a lot of people smarter than me. There is a lot of debate about what these things mean. Some aspects of the classic NDE seem to be pretty clearly related to certain physical stimuli; some don’t. I certainly don’t know what it all means. But your reference cherry-picks the researchers who favor a spiritual basis for NDEs without acknowledging the ongoing debate in medical and scientific circles. That’s misleading. People change their minds in response to stressful and unexplained events all the time. That tells us something about the effect of the event, but tells us nothing about the source of the event. You cannot look at outcomes and say, “the effect is X, therefore the cause must be Y.” NDEs are undoubtedly powerful events, which many people interpret as spiritual in nature. That does not, however, tell us anything about the nature or cause of those events. You cannot infer purpose from effect. Many people say they experience God while under the influence of drugs; that does not mean that God gave us drugs for that purpose. Fair enough. But “We don’t really understand this” does not lead us to “It is supernatural.” Our ignorance is not evidence of anything. The argument “scientists don’t understand it, therefore it is spiritual” is not persuasive. OK, let’s. The answer to this argument is really just a rehash of previous arguments. I do think, however, that scientists would agree that anoxia is only part of what’s going on with NDEs. The last part of this statement takes it as proven that the brain cannot produce and remember images in this state. I don’t think this is proven. Perhaps EEGs are not able to detect all brain activity. Perhaps the NDErs are filling in some memories after that fact. Who knows? Again, these guys are cherry-picking science they agree with, presenting it as established fact, and dismissing the science that questions them. More of the same. I’m not finding much on this test. I am skeptical of the argument that g-force stress puts people in a state of “simulated clinical death”. I guess I’ll just Google “Vicki” for more information on this case. Even if Blackmore is wrong about the optical nerve thing, the reasonable response is “we don’t really know what’s going on here”, not “it must be the afterlife”. Lots of anecdotes here. Completely unhelpful. Yeah, we wouldn’t want that. Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, pot. Look, I don’t know what’s up with NDEs and OBEs. My unscientific guess is that a combination of things like loss of oxygen, endorphins, other brain chemicals, false memories, cultural expectations, and generous interpretation by family members can account for the majority of NDE cases. Do I know for sure? Of course not. Does that mean that the answer is therefore spiritual? No. When scientists first started hammering out the germ theory of disease, I imagine lots of people seized on inconsistencies in their findings and proclaimed, “See? Science can’t answer our questions. Diseases must be the work of spirits.” When scientists started unraveling the workings of the brain, holdouts still claimed that the mentally ill were possessed by demons, until science pulled back the curtains. The same thing is happening with NDEs. “Scientists don’t know! It can only be the work of God!” And when scientists sort this out, what then? Where will we go looking for God? Maybe there are spirits and gods. But they won’t be found hiding in the gaps of our scientific knowledge. [/QUOTE] I had hoped you would read it, you give back the same old skeptical arguments that were defeated by research. You also pose a lot of “what if” anyone can what if anything to death. Guess I was wrong. Some quotes from the research: > [@](#): > > “How could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG? . . . Furthermore, blind people have described veridical perception during out-of-body experiences at the time of this experience. NDE pushes at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness and the mind-brain relation. In our prospective study of patients that were clinically dead (flat EEG, showing no electrical activity in the cortex and loss of brain stem function evidenced by fixed dilated pupils and absence of the gag reflex) the patients report a clear consciousness, in which cognitive functioning, emotion, sense of identity, or memory from early childhood occurred, as well as perceptions from a position out and above their ‘dead’ body.” (Van Lommel, Van Wees, Meyers, Elfferich (2001). Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands. Lancet.) > [@](#): > > “Our most striking finding was that Near-Death Experiences do not have a physical or medical root. After all, 100 per cent of the patients suffered a shortage of oxygen, 100 per cent were given morphine-like medications, 100 per cent were victims of severe stress, so those are plainly not the reasons why 18 per cent had Near-Death Experiences and 82 percent didn’t. If they had been triggered by any one of those things, everyone would have had Near-Death Experiences.” (Van Lommel 1995) > [@](#): > > Dr. Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper completed a two-year study into the NDEs of the blind. They published their findings in a book entitled “Mindsight” in which they documented the solid evidence of 31 cases in which blind people report visually accurate information obtained during an NDE. Perhaps the best example in his study is that of a forty-five year old blind woman by the name of Vicki Umipeg. Vicki was born blind, her optic nerve having been completely destroyed at birth because of an excess of oxygen she received in the incubator. Yet, she appears to have been able to see during her NDE. Her story is a particularly clear instance of how NDEs of the congenitally blind can unfold in precisely the same way as do those of sighted persons. > > Sources: > > (a) “People Born Blind Can See During a NDE”, Dr. Kenneth Ring’s NDE Research of the Blind > [http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence03.html](http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence03.html) Of course skeptical literature writers do not find anything because they don’t read and comprehend the material either. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/249 "2008-01-08T21:25:03Z")
[QUOTE=lekatt] I do appreciate an open mind and will quickly reply. I am a spiritual person, I feel emotions and intent of others. Sort of like a lie-detector, I know in only a few sentences or posts if someone is being honest with me. I won’t claim to be 100%, however. It is not an unusual trait, many sense the intent others, and children and animals sense it even better than us adults. [/QUOTE] What you are sensing is your own feelings. It has nothing to do with what is actually going on. We all make judgements about others but us non-goofy people recognize it for what it is. I just flipped a coin and it came up tails. Am I lying or not. You have a fifty fifty chance of GUESSING correctly. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/250 "2008-01-08T21:26:08Z")
[QUOTE=lekatt] Of course skeptical literature writers do not find anything because they don’t read and comprehend the material either. [/QUOTE] I was trying to be nice, but now you’re just pissing me off. A question to the folks who have been here longer than me: I’m just wasting my time in this thread, aren’t I? Is this some kind of SDMB initiation that was held in reserve just for me? ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/251 "2008-01-08T21:28:25Z")
[QUOTE=Bayard] A question to the folks who have been here longer than me: I’m just wasting my time in this thread, aren’t I? [/QUOTE] “Definately”. The only sane thing to do is have fun while it lasts. As for logic, lekatt’s immune to it. The object of the game is to post frequently without getting a “Warning” from a testy mod. Easy in the Pit but much more challenging in this forum. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/252 "2008-01-08T22:06:48Z")
[QUOTE=Bayard] Is this some kind of SDMB initiation that was held in reserve just for me? [/QUOTE] Grease up the goat! ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/253 "2008-01-08T22:24:42Z")
[QUOTE=Fear Itself] Grease up the goat! [/QUOTE] I thought that was what we were doing. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/254 "2008-01-08T22:30:44Z")
[QUOTE=Bayard] A question to the folks who have been here longer than me: I’m just wasting my time in this thread, aren’t I? [/QUOTE] For what it’s worth, you provided a quality analysis: cogent, coherent, rational, intelligent and thorough. But you’re trying to have a rational discussion with lekatt. About woo. As shown, lekatt can react to an application of reason much like, well, like he just did. He very much wants to believe his myth, and epistemology can’t pry him away from it, not with high explosives. This is unsurprising, as his myth allows him to not fear death. And that’s pretty damn hard to take away from someone if they don’t want it to be taken away. What’s a bit of illogical apologetics compared to the terror of the grave? I was actually wondering why you’d decided to play Sisyphus until I noticed your join date, and then meant to give you a heads up. As has already been stated, the fight against ignorance has definitely signed an armistice on this front. Good work though. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/255 "2008-01-08T22:39:08Z")
[QUOTE=FinnAgain] For what it’s worth, you provided a quality analysis: cogent, coherent, rational, intelligent and thorough. But you’re trying to have a rational discussion with lekatt. About woo. As shown, lekatt can react to an application of reason much like, well, like he just did. He very much wants to believe his myth, and epistemology can’t pry him away from it, not with high explosives. This is unsurprising, as his myth allows him to not fear death. And that’s pretty damn hard to take away from someone if they don’t want it to be taken away. What’s a bit of illogical apologetics compared to the terror of the grave? I was actually wondering why you’d decided to play Sisyphus until I noticed your join date, and then meant to give you a heads up. As has already been stated, the fight against ignorance has definitely signed an armistice on this front. Good work though. [/QUOTE] Thanks for the kind words. I kind of enjoyed the mental workout, but I was hoping for a little actual, uh, debate from Mr. L. I spent a couple of hours on that %#$@ post. Oh well. I am a vegetarian, but I enjoy goat cheese, for what it’s worth. Goat grease? Not so much. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2008, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/256 "2008-01-08T23:41:03Z")
[QUOTE=Bayard] Is this some kind of SDMB initiation that was held in reserve just for me? [/QUOTE] Definitely not. **lekatt** ’s here for everyone. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2008, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/257 "2008-01-09T00:42:55Z")
[QUOTE=begbert2] Definitely not. **lekatt** ’s here for everyone. [/QUOTE] Amen and Amen. ---
**Author:** ![Hakuna\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hakuna\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hakuna_Matata)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2008, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/258 "2008-01-09T03:54:07Z")
[QUOTE=lekatt] I do appreciate an open mind and will quickly reply. I am a spiritual person, I feel emotions and intent of others. Sort of like a lie-detector, I know in only a few sentences or posts if someone is being honest with me. I won’t claim to be 100%, however. It is not an unusual trait, many sense the intent others, and children and animals sense it even better than us adults. [/QUOTE] So you can tell if someone is psychic by their intent or emotion? I am unclear on this–do you know these people personally so that you can hear them speak? Or you are saying that you can read what someone else wrote about, say about Noreen Renier you can tell if she is a psychic? Or are you saying that from reading her words you can tell if she is real or not? Am I a psychic? Can you tell from what I have written here? Am I being honest here? Please elaborate on what you mean by the above post so that I get an idea of how you tell if someone is a real psychic or a fake psychic. thank you in advance ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2008, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/259 "2008-01-09T04:25:15Z")
[QUOTE=lekatt] I do appreciate an open mind and will quickly reply. I am a spiritual person, I feel emotions and intent of others. Sort of like a lie-detector, I know in only a few sentences or posts if someone is being honest with me. I won’t claim to be 100%, however. It is not an unusual trait, many sense the intent others, and children and animals sense it even better than us adults. [/QUOTE] So if someone was pranking you repeatedly and over a long period of time in order to make a point in Great Debates you’d pick up on that, right? Someone like, ooh, now that guy, what was his name again? **Dr Catholic**? **Dog Catheter**? Nah, that’s not it. Anyway, you wouldn’t be fooled by anyone like that now, would you? You’d know within a few posts if he was yanking your chain, wouldn’t you? **Bayard** do a search on “lekatt” in thread titles in the Pit. [This particular pit thread is a great primer.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=169316&page=1&pp=50) You have to realise that you are debating an internet (and indeed usenet) _legend_. If you really want to get into the detail you could always read [this little thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=156629). It only goes for 36 pages, but it will give you a fair understanding nonethess;) ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2008, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263/260 "2008-01-09T12:51:38Z")
[QUOTE=lekatt] I do appreciate an open mind and will quickly reply. I am a spiritual person, I feel emotions and intent of others. Sort of like a lie-detector, I know in only a few sentences or posts if someone is being honest with me. I won’t claim to be 100%, however. It is not an unusual trait, many sense the intent others, and children and animals sense it even better than us adults. [/QUOTE] Yes, as everyone knows, children are much harder to dupe than adults. At least **lekatt** is acknowledging a childlike credulity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-randi-calls-time-on-the-1-million-dollar-prize/432263.md?page=14)