horse communicators and reason out the window

Booboos said:
We may have thought the earth was flat and then round and then eliptical but each time there was good reason for thinking this (e.g. flat: look we are not falling off the earth, round: look there is a solar system that accounts for gravity so we don't fall off a ball, etc.)).
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This business of ancient folk thinking the world was flat is totally bigged up out of all proportion - mainly based on the outpourings of that religious nutcase Bishop Usher who worked out from Biblical texts ( so he said ) that the Earth was created on the so&so of October 6006 years before.

In fact nothing could be further from the truth - certainly by Christopher Columbus's time - all sailors were CONVINCED it was a globe - but with no America in the way - which meant they would be sailing three quarters of the way around it before reaching the East Indies and FRESH WATER - not a pleasant prospect when beating against the prevailing Westerly wind and only having about 60 days rations on the biggest ships - drink you own urine anyone?
 
YorksG said:
Is schizophrenia a complex neurological disorder? Not as far as I am aware. There is an observed cluster of symptoms, which may or may not be neurological in origin (we do not know, as we do not have the ability to test for this). Not all people with the diagnosis of schizophrenia will display the same symptoms and there is emerging evidence that the diagnosis is in fact over used and that some of the symptoms in the cluster could be as a result of other disease.

Sounds like a complex disorder which has a neurological component to me. Just because it's not simple or there are misdiagnoses or a multiplicity of presentations doesn't mean that the background science is useless. That's true for loads of conditions - R. equi infection used to be misdiagnoses as TB, both of which can present as pulmanory or miliary infections. Science now knows better and can distinguish different infections, different aetologies, different presentations. That doesn't mean the previous work was wrong, it just wasn't the whole picture.

There was a time though when people in the scientific community had 'proved' the existance of 'schizophrenia', knew its location in the brain and surgically 'removed' the schizophrenia (leucotomy, performed in UK into the 1980's). That peer reviewed proof has since been disproved, to accept only that which has current scientific 'proof', shows a degree of concrete thinking, which indicates a very closed mind.
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No, you've introduced the idea of "proof". I never mentioned proof. I talked about a lack of evidence, despite repeated efforts to show an effect. Scientists don't "prove" anything and they don't seek to. Just because some scientists presented a solution which appeared promising (but was actually useless) doesn't mean that science is worthless - it means that science is constantly developing and questioning itself. This is why repeated studies have been performed to attempt to show psychic ability - science didn't accept the first trial, it kept going - and people are still trying to prove it. The fact that they haven't says a lot more than the occasional misdirection in published literature.

One study isn't proof, two thousand studies aren't proof, but they are evidence, which can be taken as a plausible understanding of the world as we see it.

The trouble with an open mind is that anyone can walk right in and set up shop. I personally try to keep a few locks on the door to keep the riff raff out :D I'm always open to well constructed arguments and new evidence though.
 
There is no evidence that schizophrenia has any neurological component, however in the past scientists have believed that the evidence has proved that they could 'find' the site of the illness. My point is that unless the evidence is observed correctly and with an open mind, then it is as worthless as belief, which is what it becomes in those instances.
Some of the comments in this thread have become so rude and personal, nothing to do with evidence etc. that I shall refrain from continuing the debate. I will only debate with those who show a modicome of courtesy to others.
 
So i phoned this lady with my number withheld and the only thing she knew about me was my name 'Elle' and that is actually short for Michelle which she wasnt told.. if she still somehow managed to research all of the things about my past, even things ive never told anyone, then fair play she earned that £30! :P
 
FionaM12 said:
Sadly, my ex-husband is a bit of a victim of all the internet conspiracy theories etc. :( He has mental health issues and lives on the edge of reality at the best of times. Now he believes there are seven species of aliens (very precise, yes, seven) living among us and is obsessed with this "fact" and many others freely available on the internet.

I also knew someone who became convinced the American space program was all a hoax, moon landings included. He had a stack of "evidence" from the internet.
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Sorry to hear of OH's problems, as you might know Mrs FirstClass has had her moments but her's revolve around total disengagement rather than Conspiracy!

This seven species of Aliens is interesting - one of my young helper's friends - prompted by his father - is of the same mind - does yours also think the Queen is a lizard?

On the face of it - all Conspiracy has some merit - we all like the think bad of those in authority but if you begin to delve it usually ends there. The main problem for anti-Moonwalkers is the fact that while it was fully possible to send guys to the Moon in 1969 - it was NOT possible to fake it - to wit, I ask, just how convincing do you find modern CGI? It is entertaining - but does it look - real?

Furthermore, C.T's ( Conspiracy Theorists) rely on everything being controlled by the Government - better still if they pronouce it Guvn'mint! But it isn't - it never can be because the Moon programme involved 250,000 people, most of whom had 2.4 kiddiwinks, a lovely wife called Kitty and a mortgage - some weren't even Yanks!! Shock horror!

When the 47 minutes of live footage went out live - the important "one small step for man" bits - the Earth was turned in the wrong direction for direct transmission to America so the signals were sent by radio digital link to a British base in Australia then sent by telephone cable to the U.S. As our guys had to focus their big antenae on the stop where the signals originated - there is NO DOUBT that they were DEFINATELY coming from the MOON live - or else you have to explain why 400 British people suddenly want to lie for the Yanks!!!

I could go on.
 
YorksG said:
There is no evidence that schizophrenia has any neurological component, however in the past scientists have believed that the evidence has proved that they could 'find' the site of the illness.
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I beg to disagree - schizophrenic diagnoses are associated with high levels of dopamine in various parts of the brain, and schizoid behaviours can be induced (in disease models) by giving L-dopa (also reported in some cases of PD treated with L-dopa). fMRI scans highlight differences in patients with schizophrenic diagnoses. This is all evidence that was kicking about 5-10 years ago when I worked on it. The understanding of pathology will certainly have evolved, but these factors have not, as far as I'm aware (and I'll admit, I haven't worked on neurobiology in years) been refuted. That is a neuro component.
 
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Ellemoo said:
So i phoned this lady with my number withheld and the only thing she knew about me was my name 'Elle' and that is actually short for Michelle which she wasnt told.. if she still somehow managed to research all of the things about my past, even things ive never told anyone, then fair play she earned that £30! :P
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Once upon a time a big boat sank after hitting an iceberg on it's maiden voyage and drowned a lot of rich & strangely poor people with not many in betweeners - what boats there were around seemed to let it sink. How could this happen? Everyone asked - but then someone said - I wrote a book about it years ago - and look I put all of that in it!!!

The author knew that there was mileage in a disaster story so he went looking for one - hmmm... it needs to be a big thing ( the more fictional deaths I create, the better!) a train - no, not big enough and it's too easy to rescue everyone, an airship - only just invented so too futuristic ( no aeroplanes either) so it automatically became a ship..... a BIG ship... how about the BIGGEST ship ever built ..... and on it's maiden voyage eh? Great! Now, what am I to call this great big ship - SS Enormous? Nah... SS Gigantic.... hmm better... SS Ti.... yes. yes.... SS Titan - oh, great I like it (he never got it spot on) but he did predict the SS Titan hitting an iceberg - but what the hell else could it hit and sink in the flippin' Altantic ??? As for the passengers - he did some research and found that while the super rich loved to sail in style there were thousands of cheap steerage tickets sold for every liner. Bingo - but is NOT clairvoyance.
 
1stclassalan said:
Sorry to hear of OH's problems, as you might know Mrs FirstClass has had her moments but her's revolve around total disengagement rather than Conspiracy!
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Sadly, our marriage did not survive his issues, and neither did his next marriage. :(

I have seen mention of Mrs 1stClass's problems, and you both have my sympathy. Mental health issues, in all their forms, make life hard for the sufferer and their families. :(
 
JFTD said:
I beg to disagree - schizophrenic diagnoses are associated with high levels of dopamine in various parts of the brain, and schizoid behaviours can be induced (in disease models) by giving L-dopa (also reported in some cases of PD treated with L-dopa). fMRI scans highlight differences in patients with schizophrenic diagnoses. This is all evidence that was kicking about 5-10 years ago when I worked on it. The understanding of pathology will certainly have evolved, but these factors have not, as far as I'm aware (and I'll admit, I haven't worked on neurobiology in years) been refuted. That is a neuro component.
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Very interesting - am I correct in thinking that this had to do with the sythasizing of dopamines for use in treatment of Parkinson's Disease etc.,?

I am all for the mental disorders being caused by something demonstrably deviant from the "norm" but cannot get my head round two actual people living inside the same flippin' head!!!
Mrs FirstClass was daft enough to allow herself to be diagnosed in need of "psyching" and will now defend it all like a woman possessed so I try to leave well alone; however; I find most psychology very difficult to accept.
 
1stclassalan said:
Very interesting - am I correct in thinking that this had to do with the sythasizing of dopamines for use in treatment of Parkinson's Disease etc.,?

L- dopa is a molecule which is made into dopamine within certain neurones of the brain and it is (certainly was) used as a treatment for Parkinson's.

I am all for the mental disorders being caused by something demonstrably deviant from the "norm" but cannot get my head round two actual people living inside the same flippin' head!!!
Mrs FirstClass was daft enough to allow herself to be diagnosed in need of "psyching" and will now defend it all like a woman possessed so I try to leave well alone; however; I find most psychology very difficult to accept.
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Ah, I think you're thinking of Dissociative Identity Disorder (or whatever it's been rebranded as now), which is often confused with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is characterised by extreme paranoia, hallucinations, hearing voices, that sort of thing. DID is hard to get your head round I agree.

As I say though, this isn't really my field :o

eta - the lines between neurology and psychology are fascinating and (as far as I can tell) blurred. Interesting world in there.
 
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Fascinating thread. I've enjoyed following it, but don't think that I can contribute much.

There are undoubtably things which are difficult to explain, and it would be really interesting if some psychics did submit to scientific tests.

I enjoyed the discussions about evidence versus proof too.
 
1stclassalan- thats confused me that has! Isnt the story of Titanic a true story, backed up by accounts and records of who was on board?? Or am i more stupid than i already assumed and your point has sailed straight over my head! :)
 
JFTD said:
Ah, I think you're thinking of Dissociative Identity Disorder (or whatever it's been rebranded as now), which is often confused with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is characterised by extreme paranoia, hallucinations, hearing voices, that sort of thing. DID is hard to get your head round I agree.
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The two are so often confused that I regularly hear people using the word "schizophrenic" to describe a sudden contradictory change of situation or person. For some reason people think schizophrenia means "split personality". I don't know how this misunderstanding came about. :confused:
 
FionaM12 said:
The two are so often confused that I regularly hear people using the word "schizophrenic" to describe a sudden contradictory change of situation or person. For some reason people think schizophrenia means "split personality". I don't know how this misunderstanding came about. :confused:
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I don't know, it's odd isn't it.

It's like this "everyone believed the world was flat till they sailed round it" business. Complete nonsense - the ancient Greeks did loads of maths / astronomy which demonstrated that the world is not flat but spheroid - just like the other celestial bodies they observed. It's fascinating how these misconceptions arise.

I guess it's because it literally means split mind - so the leap to split personality is intuitive

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=schizophrenia
 
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Ellemoo said:
1stclassalan- thats confused me that has! Isnt the story of Titanic a true story, backed up by accounts and records of who was on board?? Or am i more stupid than i already assumed and your point has sailed straight over my head! :)
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:D He's not saying the Titanic disaster wasn't real, he's explaining why a writer might have appeared to "predict" it many years before the real event.
 
horserider said:
Science cannot explain how the bodies of some Catholic saints remain incorrupt after death. Some saints, even hundreds of years later look as though they are asleep and smell of a sweet odour.

Does this mean that unless logic and reason can explain it, it does not exist ?
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I am an atheist but I cannot imagine a world in which a benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient god gives us free will so that we have the freedom to chose and by doing so accepts the down-side, i.e. that he will not intervene while millions upon millions of people get tortured, die of hunger, get slaughtered and suffer because of the exercise of our choices...but then re-thinks the whole issue and intervenes just to keep a couple of bodies from rotting. Nothing else, no saving of innocent children, no healing of the sick, no helpign the deserving poor, no just preventing some bodies from rotting.
 
P.S. I have to point this out otherwise my Greek ancestors will be rolling over in their graves: I do know the Ancient Greeks were superb astronomers and knew the earth was round and did mention it later on in the thread. At the earlier post I was responding to Hippona's claims about scientific truth changing by, momentarily, accepting her hypothesis that scientific proofs change and still showing the underlying argument to be wrong.
 
FionaM12 said:
:D He's not saying the Titanic disaster wasn't real, he's explaining why a writer might have appeared to "predict" it many years before the real event.
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Spot on! Or should that be ICEBERG DEAD AHEAD!!!!

Mind you, it's far better for a ship to hit an iceberg dead ahead ( that's if you can't be bothered looking out for one till it's too late!) As then it will only crush the bow and a few compartments and not sink - scrape along the entire side and you have a big sinky problem!

Also, the order of HARD ASTARBOARD - quickly followed by FULL ASTERN was ridiculous and indicative of a certain amount of panic on the bridge ( Capt was off duty asleep) turning right or left was fair enough but putting the engines in full reverse took all the leeway off the rudder so in effect the ship hardly turned at all.

Funnily enough - one of our Trafalgar class nuclear subs ran aground on its maiden voyage a while ago through exactly the same control confusion - and did £50 million of damage to the radar absorbing hull material. Oops.. there's one officer on car park duty.
 
Booboos said:
I am an atheist but I cannot imagine a world in which a benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient god gives us free will so that we have the freedom to chose and by doing so accepts the down-side, i.e. that he will not intervene while millions upon millions of people get tortured, die of hunger, get slaughtered and suffer because of the exercise of our choices...but then re-thinks the whole issue and intervenes just to keep a couple of bodies from rotting. Nothing else, no saving of innocent children, no healing of the sick, no helpign the deserving poor, no just preventing some bodies from rotting.
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Behold!!! I am a jealous GOD and the sins of the father shall be the sins of the son..... Yea, even unto the SEVENTH generation.

So by that token then ( on average ) all I have to do is worship an idol or take His name in vain, not kept the Sabbath holy etc., etc., and my future generations will have about 175 years of penitance to do. Hah!
 
Ellemoo we give a lot of clues about ourselves without body language.
These readers can deduce a lot of things from our age group, how we dress etc.
Also I would be really interested in hearing a tape recording of the reading. In this case your female friend called xxx who died of cancer was a hit. I would be interested in how you relay it here is EXACTLY how it was said. As I stated earlier there can be a lot of vague information which the human mind can grasp to fit information in our mind. Now an example of how this can work for your reading.
Reader : Who's xxx?
You : She was a friend of mine
Reader: yes, I'm seeing her here. She was a lovely lady. I'm sensing she passed from cancer (a pretty sensible guess lots of people die from cancer sadly & if you are reasonably young sadly if you've lost a friend they are most likely to have died from cancer or a traumatic car crash)
Reader : I'm seeing her with a bob hair cut (again not a bad guess a bob haircut is pretty common amongst women & the term 'Bob' can cover a multitude of styles)
Reader : she says she is happy (they're never unhappy are they) she likes seeing you with the horses (is horse people tend to give a lot of non verbal clues about our hobby with the way we dress I.e the label joules & country boots even when we're no where near a horse.

Also I would like to have heard what other information was given about xxx. Information which, because it wasn't a 'hit' & didn't fit your memory of her your subconscious has filtered out as bein irrelevant. You probably weren't even aware of it happening!

Now PLEASE don't get offended at what I've said. If you are happy with the reading you had then it makes no odds to you what I say does it? You know I don't believe.

Again if the woman that did your reading was really so accurate then urge her to make herself $1,000,000 instead of messing about with a paltry £30 here & there :)
 
Glamourpuss- no offence taken at all dont worry! I find it totally fascinating to hear a differing view on the subject- and as much as my reading with this lady brought me a lot of comfort, strangely i still sit on the fence with believing it- as has been pointed out numerous times there is no proof to back psychic ability up :)
The reading was 'exactly' as i relayed it here, there was no questioning to see my response, just her saying what she said! She also mentioned the year that the lady passed away and that her son was 15 at the time and had no chance to grieve. No other information was suggested and if she had had any more to say i couldnt have known if it was true or not, as the lady who passed away was my partners mother and she died 7 years before i met him :(
 
Booboos said:
I am an atheist but I cannot imagine a world in which a benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient god gives us free will so that we have the freedom to chose and by doing so accepts the down-side, i.e. that he will not intervene while millions upon millions of people get tortured, die of hunger, get slaughtered and suffer because of the exercise of our choices...but then re-thinks the whole issue and intervenes just to keep a couple of bodies from rotting. Nothing else, no saving of innocent children, no healing of the sick, no helpign the deserving poor, no just preventing some bodies from rotting.
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Quite true,

Love him loathe him, part of a Ricky Gervais routine goes like this:

Where are my car keys?

Damn where are my car keys?

God where are my car keys?

Come on god if you're up there, just this once. Show me where my keys are.

Astonished, he gets answered.

I'm sorry Ricky I'm busy right now, giving African babies AIDS
 
Boo Boos said:
Not quite, there are plenty of documented records, verified by doctors, of unexplained healing for terminally ill people but if you are an atheist, miracles would have passed you by.

BTW, Lazybee, A prayer to St Jude, has always helped me find something I've lost, but its, ok, I'm happy for you put it down to coincidence. For myself, I'd rather say thank you.
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horserider said:
BTW, Lazybee, A prayer to St Jude, has always helped me find something I've lost, but its, ok, I'm happy for you put it down to coincidence. For myself, I'd rather say thank you.
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Wow god must really rate you to spend his time finding your lost items. Any chance you could ask for a cure for AIDS, or an end to world hunger, or peace on earth next time though?
 
1stclassalan said:
Spot on! Or should that be ICEBERG DEAD AHEAD!!!!

Mind you, it's far better for a ship to hit an iceberg dead ahead ( that's if you can't be bothered looking out for one till it's too late!) As then it will only crush the bow and a few compartments and not sink - scrape along the entire side and you have a big sinky problem!

Also, the order of HARD ASTARBOARD - quickly followed by FULL ASTERN was ridiculous and indicative of a certain amount of panic on the bridge ( Capt was off duty asleep) turning right or left was fair enough but putting the engines in full reverse took all the leeway off the rudder so in effect the ship hardly turned at all.
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I was a reporter on the local rag when Titanic came out. A local family related to Murdoch (officer on watch at the time of the collision; gave the orders) contacted me to get me to run a story complaining about Murdoch's portrayal in the film. "He gave the order to turn the ship!" they said. "If he hadn't, the ship would have gone straight into the iceberg!"

They didn't believe me when I pointed out that going straight into the iceberg would have been the best thing to do in that situation...
 
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Booboos said:
Wow god must really rate you to spend his time finding your lost items. Any chance you could ask for a cure for AIDS, or an end to world hunger, or peace on earth next time though?
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ach c'mon, is this really necessary?
 
Patterdale said:
JFTD - 'The trouble with an open mind is that anyone can walk right in and set up shop. I personally try to keep a few locks on the door to keep the riff raff out'

Best quote ever!
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*sniggers*


Full disclosure: the first sentence is a Terry Pratchett quotation :o
 
Hippona said:
Hmm. According to Terry Pratchett the world is flat. Well..Discworld is at any rate.

No idea where that fits in.....

*leaves thread again to pour another glass of red*
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And floats through space on the backs of 4 elephants, astride a giant turtle :D

And it has a circumfence :D

*yes I am bumping this thread up for a bit of Terry Pratchett worship*
 
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