Many people prey upon ignorance, trust, and innocence to take advantage of people, spread ignorance, and cause problems and hardship for many. They have many very dark and self satisfying motives
Someone comes along who makes a simple offer. Prove you can do what you say you can. As an inducement, I’ll give you money if you’re right and I’m wrong.
Where are people tortured? Did you watch the video I linked to? Randi’s behavior was impeccable. The only torture that guy got was from his bad tap dancing in an effort to weasel out of his commitment.
Yes many people prey upon others for their own motives. Some use misleading information and down right lies.
We can now go back to “paranormal” and have the whole conversation over again. It is the “Million Dollar** Paranormal** Challenge”, after all.
Shall we rehash the published meanings of “paranormal” again ? You know the the whole name of the challenge and all. Scientifically unexplainable events and occurances ? Human life, unconsciousness, the horizon problem, the plethra of unexplainable events that nobody is getting any prize for in the “Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge”.
I submit that just by my presence in front of the initial magistrates or whomever, I am displaying the paranormal. I can see, hear, feel and process information and form opinions and be self aware. That is paranormal. Next, I submit that I can stand before the judges, describe them, smell them and form first impressions of them. That would be paranormal. I don’t have to explain how I do it. No, no, that’s not a requirement. I just have to do it. If it is paranormal, “scientifically unexplainable”, I should get the prize. But you and I know I won’t, because the meaning of the word, the very word they chose to use in there title, is rejected despite every definition you can provide. If they can explain human consciousness, I want to hear it.
Why? To what purpose? To quibble over a definition?
The horizon problem? After all this, you still insist that the Challenge is about the horizon problem? It simply isn’t. You need to accept it. Really. Just get over it.
If you can find someone willing to pay you $1 Million or that, more power to you.
Free your mind, your ass will follow. This obsession with definitional minutiae cannot be healthy.
For the umpteenth time,* explanations are irrelevant to the Challenge*. Why is this a difficult concept?
Demonstrating consciousness is trivial. Demonstrations are what is being challenged, not explanations.
Trivial definitions. Yes such trivial matters as understanding and communicating with clarity and meaning. I admit I am tempted to call you ugly names just to see exactly how trivial the meaning of words are to you. But I won’t. You know the importance of word meanings.
The probability of winning the “contest” for the “prize” is **virtually **zero. You somehow manage to cling to that little bit of something, that little bit that you can’t even quantify, the very last speck that seperates something from nothing, and believe that little micro speck holds this whole thing up to “winnable”.
The contest is real.
The rules are real.
The prize is real.
So far, the only thing that has been fake are the applicants, so who is it exactly you are protecting here-the frauds and fakers?
Not defending anyone at all. The psychics and such are exactly fakes and frauds. They can be exposed with more integrity that constructing a bogus challenge.
make trivial objections: to argue over unimportant things and make petty objections"
Do you even know the meaning of the words you use ? You said “quibble” right ? Quibble denotes trivial objections.
And I assume you have followed the conversation. You still claim the validity of the challenge despite the fact of the revealing of the probability being >0. Hence, you are holding onto the tiniest speck of plausibility known.
A demonstration is not a definition. The difference between the two is not trivial.
So, you can infer that I have followed the conversation, and based on that inference further infer that I hold a particular position, said position upon which I have offered no opinion, and yet you claim that it is it is Randi who is the dissembler? Simply because there is a semantical difference between the Challenge and the Challenge rules?
Give it up. Or apply for the Challenge and expose it for the sham that it is. But your rhetoric holds no sway here.
The challenge is not fake to those to whom it matters, the claimants. What is your method for inducing them to tell the truth, which they know will hurt them, without offering something in return?
Ok. Definition and definition mean the same thing, right ? You see here where you said “quibble over a definition” .
In any case, the challenge “prize” rest on the smallest known probability. Without that, there is 0 chance of the prize being awarded. Anyone who thinks this is enough to constitute a “prize” is hanging their hat on the “unknown”. That is what the >0 accounts for. The unknown. That’s what psychics hang their hats on too.
How many of you play the lottery ? The odds of you, personally winning the lottery are exponentially greater than anyone winning the challenge. You guys must be buying those tickets like they’re going out of style.
So? If a genuine telekinetic walked into the JREF offices and did his thing, got any evidence he wouldn’t walk out with a million bucks? If, say, Uri Geller had even a tiny fraction of the talent he has claimed over the years, he could claim the prize easily. Frankly, I’d love for Geller or someone like Geller to demonstrate something, because it would open up whole new lines of study in biology and physics. I get the impression the JREF guys would love to see that, too.
In the meantime, the implicit purpose is to expose fraud, which is less romantic but just as valid a goal. You want to call the whole thing a sham and you do so at the risk of your own credibility, at least around here, for what that’s worth.
Lots of people claim they can do paranormal* stuff
Randi’s challenge boils down to “I bet a million dollars that you can’t” - nothing dishonest about that challenge. If he was saying “paranormal* phenomena are all about us, I’ll pay you a million dollars if yours is the best”, that would be a dishonest summary of his position, but of course he doesn’t say anything like that - he says paranormal phenomena * are bunk - if you can prove me wrong, I’ll pay you a million dollars.
How is that dishonest? He’s saying I’m so confident that your claims are false, I’ll pay silly money if you can put egg on my face.
like dowsing, telekinesis, telepathy, talking to the dead, etc.
I see where I called a demonstration trivial, and you responded by questioning whether definitions were trivial. If you want your meaning to be clear, you need to include the post you are responding to in your reply.
It has nothing to do with wart charming, but I just wanted to admit, bashfully, that it’s taken me three days to realize that the OP’s name derives from “I knew it.”
Not “Ik-ne-wit,” whose exotic language of origin had until now baffled me, nor an anagram of “tie wink,” “wine kit,” or “Net Kiwi.”
Anyway. Back to our program topic, “viruses that respond to polite requests to stop replicating.”