h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Does anyone believe in psychic powers?, I do and I would really like some more views on the subject.
For example have you ever been humming a song and you turn on the radio the same song is on at the exact bit you were humming, I get that all the time and it scares the hell out of me....
I get loads more, but they're a bit scary to be on a public channel...

Please let me know what you think

It´s also a bit creepy when suddenly a song turns up in your head. And shortly after the guy next to you start humming it I believe there might be something about telepathy and telekinesis, but not the others. And I have looked at paranormal things quite thoroughly. If there really are ppl with ESP out there, it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack though. Because of all the thousands of phoneys.

While heavily rational, and not a believer in the paranormal or psychic powers, I've certainly had strange things happen that seem to defy logical explanations, and I've experienced a few strings of multiple coincidences (peculiarly enough, often while stressed out from flat or job-hunting) that are extremely hard to account for, but nothing that's had any actual effects beyond just appearing very odd.

I'm not including simple coincidences, as they do happen quite often as a matter of nature, but there have been few times when 2 or 3 strange things have already happened in one day and I was actually *waiting* for the next oddity, and then it actually happened, when it has been hard to supress the feeling that there's a prankster god out there somewhere just playing with the edges of reality for their own amusement.

I'm extremely sceptical about all 'psychic phenomena'. Coincidences happen, and indeed happen a lot more often than most people realise. In fact, virtually everything is a coincidence, it's just that some are more impressive to people than others.

The bottom line is, anything which looks impressive but disappears when you investigate it using scientific methods has got to be coincidence, and I haven't heard of any studies into psychic phenomenon which have both found something and not been flawed...

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So how do you explain the fact that people in the US military are able to locate crashed aircraft and missing people simply by concentrating on a picture of them?

Oh yeah and once there was a group of about 12 of us (my friends and I) and we all started to hum a song at the same time and we got seriously freaked out

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'So how do you explain the fact that people in the US military are able to locate crashed aircraft and missing people simply by concentrating on a picture of them?'

I don't. If this were even remotely true, radar, GPS systems, metal detectors, police searches, 'missing person' posters, and indeed countless other things, would not exist. They do.

Given the fact that people hum songs fairly often... and there are likely to be perhaps one or two songs that you're likely to hum at a particular time... and a group of friends are likely to listen to the same music... and several of your friends may have intentionally started humming the same thing... and it's only happened once in your entire lifetime...

...that isn't very impressive. Sorry.

There comes a time, I think, when you have to face up to the fact that there isn't any real magic in the world... and perhaps accept that that's the way things are and should be.

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Yeah, but even though they were co-founded by a guy like Carl Sagan, they have a tendency to be quite arrogant and snobbish. But that doesn´t make them wrong of course.

I´ve heard a quite impressive prediction that I´ll try and find for you. It´s interesting.

*waiting in anticipation*

All you need to know about psychic phenomena has been answered by the World's Biggest Skeptic, although his name escapes me at the moment. I've seen him on the Discovery Channel on a few occasions. His group holds a widely publicized one-million dollar bond, payable to the first person who can prove, in a laboratory setting, any kind of psychic ability. That bond has been sitting around for about 20 years or so, and nobody has collected... in fact, it has generated quite a bit of interest. In between discrediting hoaxes, he generates hoaxes of his own, sending students about demonstrating one psychic power or another, allowing the thing to gain national media attention, and then lowering the boom and explaining how they managed to sucker everyone.

Why would 12 people hum the same song at the same time? Someone was humming it aloud without realizing it, and everyone else took up the tune, also without realizing it. A friend of mine used to play that game all the time... he'd start softly humming a song, and wait to see how many others took it up. As soon as they did, he would point at them and yell, "Sheep! Sheep! No mind of your own!!" and keep ragging on them until they made a bleating sound to pacify him.

CS - Possibly you're referring to James Randi?
(Some of Martin Gardner's writings on alleged psychics and paranormal phenomena are well worth reading.)

Personally, I just have to accept that very odd things do happen sometimes. It can be fun to dream up speculative theories that try to explain the oddities, as long as keep a sense of humour and perspective, and I don't actually take any of my speculations seriously.

The human brain is a superb machine for noticing inexplicable or unexpected events, and trying to fit them into a pattern, whether or not there actually is a pattern there in the first place.
The number of supposedly intelligent people who have be hoodwinked by one or other kind of psychic fraudster or religious cult leader over the years really should make people pause for thought before they decide to believe in anything.

Yeah, that would be James Randi. He has set up all those money for the first psychic to show up. The astronomy-teacher at my school also made a thing where he invited astrologers to come to the school, and he would give them 200.000 danish kroners if they could prove that astrology works. Of course the astrologers claimed that it would be "wrong to commercialize it", and stuff like that. Comes from ppl who get payed over a thousand kr an hour But of course most of them simply denied ever getting an invitation and refused to talk to him

James Randi - he's the guy, although his name always manages to escape me. He's my hero, nevertheless. Hey, maybe if I type it a few times, I'll remember...

James Randi
James Randi
James Randi
James Randi
James Randi
James Randi
James Randi

Should I believe in Psychic Phenomena? I apply two tests to questions like this:

1. Is there any evidence that such phenomena are genuine?

Answer: no.

2. Is there any reason to think that such phenomena should exist, given the laws of science as we known them?

Answer: no.

As a result, I dismiss them. The second question is important, because there will occasionally be things for which we have no evidence but that we think might happen, such as black holes when they were first postulated, which are worth investigating.

I like the clarity of that analagy...
But first I need a definition of "physic phenomena"....
In the writings of many modern day Quantum Physicists it had thus been deduced...

You can receive messages from the future either by mechanical means as in timescape, or if you wish to imagine the possibility through dreams and extrasensory perception.
But those messsages are unlikely to do you much good.
It is quite likely that you will recieve a message from an alternate reality which is not applicable to your current location.

*Shrugs*

James Randi has also on several occasions has invited perhaps the worlds best known (and richest) so called "Psychic" Uri Geller to show off his powers under independent scientific conditions.
Surprise surprise he has been turned down.

If I had these powers and there was a million pounds up for grabs I'd be there for certain!!

*Scratches little head*
What is old Uri's take on all these dabblings?

Quantum physics merely opens up the notion that ESP etc is possible..
If you can determine the exact location of every particle and it's realtion to other particles, you can thus predict the future of the particle....
Very risky stuff, remebering you have a multitude of infinate realities running parallel to your current reality and it has not yet been proven how these realities co inside or whether at some point they do.

The present is dodgy enough, without having to worry about the future.

I'm not a big expert on quantum physics but surely knowing the positions of all particles and their relation to others is prohibited by Heisenburgs uncertainty princible? Not sure though

"We cannot know, as a matter of prinsiple the present in all its details." Hertzenburg...

According to Newtons law of particle physics, the prederminability of particle behaviour was raised...
But as it is very difficult to pinpoint the exact relation between particles and the forces acting upon them, universal predetermination is not entirely achievable.

I can't claim to be a guru where Quantum Physics is the topic of the day, but in terms of the topic which I do believe has shifted from Physcic Phemomina, there is a definate possibility that ESP is achievable it's just dodgy.