horse communicators and reason out the window

Denying logic is a bit like denying gravity...only worse.

Where have i denied logic :confused: I just havent denied spiritual things .
Just because something cant be measured, pidgeon holed and peer reviewed, doesnt mean it has no value, how do we measure love ?
Im sure you must have someone you think loves you, how can you prove it ?
Some things have to be accepted on faith alone to validate them :)
 
I think there is a scientific & logical explanation for sixth sense/ psychic power. We just haven't discovered it yet. Just like stone age man wouldn't have been able to offer a scientific explanation of how sight or any other human sense or power works. I also think the human race is so dependent on language (whether spoken, braille, sign or pictures even) we could all just have stopped relying on another means of communication that is just as scientific & present as any other power a human has. Certainly, humans are pants at body language compared to other mammals, because we no longer rely on it. I see no reason why other basic human abilities can't have been lost along the way too. It's widely accepted that people who suddenly lose a sense often find another one heightens. And its accepted that the sense hasn't suddenly improved, it just wasn't being fully utilized previously as the person could manage without. So perhaps we just don't utilize a sense we all have, to the point we don't believe it exists. There's been millions of things that humans couldn't explain, which with the advances in science we can now give logical answers as to why & how they occur. I think being psychic is just one we haven't yet discovered the science for. And the brain is a complex organ we still know comparatively little about.
 
I have noticed one thing. If you don't believe in Spritualistic phenomenon & prefer scientific reasoning it would appear, according to this thread, that you are arrogant & rude. I've been called it twice & now Booboos.

Can I say I have much respect for Ellemoo. She hasn't once got angry or insulted at any of my clumsy attempts to explain her experience. In fact not being accused of rudeness/arrogance/calling her a liar is quite refreshing. It is much easier to debate & respect someone's opinion when it isn't slung at you with insults ;)
It is not your beliefs, which you are quite entitled to hold, which have earned you the epithet 'arrogant' but rather your manner of belittling others' beliefs and experiences. You have twice posted your version of conversations (which never happened) in response to posters experiences in direct contradiction of what the posters had just said. That can only be called arrogant.
It is quite understandable that having been taken in by a charlatan yourself, you have become somewhat evangelical on the subject. However some of us had a wide knowledge, including professional qualifications, and experience of psychology before any involvement whatsoever with a 'communicator' and are considerably less gullible than you admit to being, so you really don't need to worry about us.

Whilst we are quoting from fantastical literature, I recommend that you try to 'believe 6 impossible things before breakfast' (Lewis Carroll), you will find that it enriches your life experience.

The psychologist in me always finds it amusing that one poster in particular likes to divert a thread when she is losing an argument.
 
Hate to return to the subject of schizophrenia, but cannot allow the comments earlier to remain unchallenged. There is no physical test which confirms or denies the existance of this disease. There is no form of diagnosis, other than self reported, or third party observation of psychotic symptoms. If these are present, along side other, often described as negative symptoms, a diagnosis may be made. It is possible to induce psychosis with a range of chemicals, these will not induce schizophrenia, which is an illness which requires a diagnosis over time and more than one psychotic episode. I have had extensive converstions and been provided with large amounts of literature from the the drug companies who make the third generation anti-psychotics and they admit that they do not 'know' how they work. They make surmises and believe that they have proven their efficacy, but this has been the case with the first and the second generation anti-psychotics, which were in fact mainly sedating, thus not reducing the symptoms, merely making the patient less of a nuisance.
JFTD, I was under the impression that you were about 26 years old, did you really under take such serious work at 16?
 
I was 17 and I was working on projects at a major pharmaceutical company. The thing is that with any neurological (or psychological unless you dispute that the brain is the seat of consciousness) condition is complicated and where neuro-psych issues cross, the complexity is manifested is difficult diagnoses and disease characterisation. That doesn't mean that the issue doesn't exist corporeally, or isn't influenced by pharmacology. I thing that your argument is flawed and illogical. Clearly you disagree. I don't think that schizophrenia is especially relevant (or that either of our views on its causation further any debate).
 
Ok that is grammatically horrible - my phone changes words randomly / I am useless with typing on it and I can't edit. You get the gist.


Btw if the 'poster changing the subject' is aimed at me, I'm just trying to negate some of the more unpleasant undertones of the thread with some levity. I can't see that any arguments against psychic capabilities or ACs have been lost here! You must be reading a different thread from me :D
 
JFTD, I was under the impression that you were about 26 years old, did you really under take such serious work at 16?

That seems a bit barbed and rude tbh YorksG. I don't think any of us need to produce our birth certificates or cv to be believed!
 
That seems a bit barbed and rude tbh YorksG. I don't think any of us need to produce our birth certificates or cv to be believed!



I was merely pointing out that working with such complex issues was unlikely to be entrusted to a 16 year old.

JFTD You may consider my thinking illogical and flawed, but the information you gave was factually incorect, which in the context of this thread was unfortunate. The reason I used the example of a major mental illness was that over time many scientists have believed that they had the evidence to show where it was lodged and what caused it. Time and open minded research has shown that such evidence, peer reviewed as it was, was dmagingly incorrect. The mind and the psyche are, as yet, too complex for our research methods.
 
Which suggests it was a lie. Which is rather rude, don't you think? :o

I would have said that I was suggesting an exageration, which appears to have been correct. Given the number of times, on this thread, when others have accused me of telling lies, I think this is considerably less rude.
 
That is not what im saying,to you or the others who base your beliefs on science and its foundations.
it is the intolerance of others beliefs that is arrogent and rude, you are entitled to your beliefs and can have them without belittling others, what they believe in is as valid as yours, and Booboos dressing up your intolerance with your " im having trouble responding attitude" let me try and explain it to the intelectually inferior " your superior attitude still doesnt make mine or their beliefs less valid than yours.

This is where you deny logic.

Merely believing something does not make it valid, nor even true. Again you are mixing up your right to hold a belief, with the question of the truth of that belief. Just because you believe something doesn't make it true.

I may believe that the capital of Italy is Paris, that doesn't make it so, but it can still be my belief.

If by 'valid' you mean 'valuable' that is also wrong, not all beliefs are equally valuable. There is little value in believing things that are wrong and there is no value in some beliefs, e.g. racist beliefs.

I don't base my arguments on science, I know very little science and I am not a scientist, I base my arguments on reason.
 
It is not your beliefs, which you are quite entitled to hold, which have earned you the epithet 'arrogant' but rather your manner of belittling others' beliefs and experiences. You have twice posted your version of conversations (which never happened) in response to posters experiences in direct contradiction of what the posters had just said. That can only be called arrogant.
It is quite understandable that having been taken in by a charlatan yourself, you have become somewhat evangelical on the subject. However some of us had a wide knowledge, including professional qualifications, and experience of psychology before any involvement whatsoever with a 'communicator' and are considerably less gullible than you admit to being, so you really don't need to worry about us.

Whilst we are quoting from fantastical literature, I recommend that you try to 'believe 6 impossible things before breakfast' (Lewis Carroll), you will find that it enriches your life experience.

The psychologist in me always finds it amusing that one poster in particular likes to divert a thread when she is losing an argument.

As a scientist, a psychologist, who has come across evidence that radically changes what science believes about the possibility of mind reading, are you not at all tempted to publish the results? You are sitting on a piece of evidence so astounding and so well guarded against being a con, but you don't want to do us the favour of at least sharing it with us if not a professional journal?

I have to admit that as a researcher I couldn't keep such amazing news to myself.
 
It was not an exaggeration - I was involved in projects at a pharma company in a neurology research and development group. I said it had been 5-10 years since I worked on this. And furthermore I dispute the information I have given is incorrect. I think you are coming at this from a psych background (am I wrong?) which doesn't sit well with my molecular background. Different perspectives. You disagree, fine, I can accept that, but do try to keep some perspective :rolleyes:
 
As a scientist, a psychologist, who has come across evidence that radically changes what science believes about the possibility of mind reading, are you not at all tempted to publish the results? You are sitting on a piece of evidence so astounding and so well guarded against being a con, but you don't want to do us the favour of at least sharing it with us if not a professional journal?

I have to admit that as a researcher I couldn't keep such amazing news to myself.
Did you not read my earlier posts?
 
Littlelegs.....you have said exactly what I have been trying to say....only better.

I would like to add....it is only down to Terry Pratchett and red wine that I have posted again on this thread....
JFTD.....Im with you.And Twoflower
 
It was not an exaggeration - I was involved in projects at a pharma company in a neurology research and development group. I said it had been 5-10 years since I worked on this. And furthermore I dispute the information I have given is incorrect. I think you are coming at this from a psych background (am I wrong?) which doesn't sit well with my molecular background. Different perspectives. You disagree, fine, I can accept that, but do try to keep some perspective :rolleyes:
I would be really interested to know how involved a pharma company allows a work-experience student to get in its projects, having supervised w/e students myself, who could barely be trusted to make the tea.
 
I wasn't a work experience student ;) I really don't think it would be appropriate for me to discuss the matter more 'fully' on a public forum, since it would divulge the nature of my work and my former employers, which would be pretty bad form.

Hippona, I am reading his short stories at the moment (when I put my phone down :p ) I rather like the following:

'Captain vimes believed in logic in much the same way as a man in the desert believes in ice - ie it was something he really needed, but this just wasn't the place for it :D
 
You know I keep banging on about people wanting to hear things in a reading, that they take the information given & make it fit what they want to hear?
This thread is a perfect example of this. I keep being told I've accused people of lying! But I haven't not once! In fact the opposite,I've said I don't think anyone is lying!

As for the conversations I have guessed at. Yes they were crap attempts but they are how these people work/talk.

I actually wasn't ripped off or taken in by a charlatan. I was initially very excited about my reading. They had known things they couldn't possibly have known etc. it was only later when my analytical side kicked in I saw it for what it REALLY was.

Here are 2 readings. One from one of the top Psychics in the US & one from one of the top pysychics in the UK.
All I ask is you watch them & really ask yourself what information the reader is giving & what is actually being given by the girl being read.
http://youtu.be/dh2IlmaCOVQ
 
I've just remembered I had something like a reading done by the woman that used to be in the Trafford Centre when it first opened (mainly for entertainment purposes but, you know, just to see if I could be blown away by one of these "it has to be true, they couldn't have known that, etc", experiences). Obviously it wasn't a memorable experience, lol.

I'm a weird woman. I hate shopping, at the time I had no OH and had no particular interest in finding one, I prefer physical work, care little about what I look like, you get the idea. Not that strange for a horsey woman maybe, but still fairly unusual generally speaking. Everything she talked about was the stuff a "typical" twenty-ish woman would want to hear. Barely any of it applied to me or even interested me IIRC, but it was the sort of stuff romantics would have lapped up. At least she didn't try telling me she'd been chatting to some dead relative or anything, but it was BS none the less.

If I could read minds I'd use it to blackmail people for their secrets, and I'm sure so would psychics if they were really any good.
 
Wasn't there something in the news a short while ago about science discovering a "God" thingy? Can't remember the exact details, but it might have had something to do with energy. Best pseudo-science I came across was "Angels & Demons" by the guy who wrote the Davinci Code. Fabulous.
 
This is where you deny logic.

Merely believing something does not make it valid, nor even true. Again you are mixing up your right to hold a belief, with the question of the truth of that belief. Just because you believe something doesn't make it true.

I may believe that the capital of Italy is Paris, that doesn't make it so, but it can still be my belief.

If by 'valid' you mean 'valuable' that is also wrong, not all beliefs are equally valuable. There is little value in believing things that are wrong and there is no value in some beliefs, e.g. racist beliefs.

I don't base my arguments on science, I know very little science and I am not a scientist, I base my arguments on reason.

Excuse me, dont tell me what i mean to say, i do mean valid, and youve not answered my question, how do you measure love ? How do we prove it exists, it does of that we are sure, but it cant be quantified, or pidgeon holed, its based on trust and belief. You continually try to talk down to people who hold beliefs that are based on the spiritual .
We could argue the point back and forth but i cant see us agreeing therefore i will agree to disagree with you
 
Marydoll there are things that can be measured with respect to love. Physical reactions within our body when we see the person we love & hormone excretion. This isn't just physical attraction either studies have been done on Parents & children as well. MRI scans have shown that certain areas of the brain respond differently when we see pictures of our love ones.
So there are aspects of love that can be measured.
 
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