Psi: How Open Minded are You Really?

[tantric]

Absolutely no proof. Don't believe it. A problem, since I spent several years learning to manipulate probabilities and got fairly good at it. Hell, I had a disciple. I've DONE things I can't explain, but I still don't believe it.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Here is one of the best lectures ever summarizing the most recent findings in parapsychology. While you watch, please pay attention to your own reaction.

Yeah, I don't regard your posts as worth more than an hour-and-a-half of my time. You can summarize, or you can fuck right off. The choice is yours.

[Jenny A]

I didn't watch the video, it's too long without a summary. I did look the man up. Dean Radin says:

When discussing the reality of psi phenomena, especially from the scientific perspective, one question always hovers in the background: You mean this is for real? In the midst of all the nonsense and excessive silliness proclaimed in the name of psychic phenomena, the misinformed use of the term parapsychology by self-proclaimed "paranormal investigators," the perennial laughing stock of magicians and conjurers … this is for real?

The short answer is, Yes.

A more elaborate answer is, psi has been shown to exist in thousands of experiments. There are disagreements over to how to interpret the evidence, but the fact is that virtually all scientists who have studied the evidence, including the hard-nosed skeptics, now agree that there is something interesting going on that merits serious scientific attention.

http://www.deanradin.com/NewWeb/TCUindex.html [/quote]

More specifically Radin is a proponent of Global consciousnesses.

65 people at various locations around the world have a small hardware random number generator, which they call an egg, connected to a computer. All day, every day, each one spits out random numbers, which are regularly transmitted through the Internet to Nelson's server in Princeton, New Jersey. When the researchers choose an event, they pull the data from that time and put it through a series of filters and analyses and find patterns they say are improbably less random. I'm not going to go into all the details of how they do this, it's really boring and confusing if you're not a statistician, but they do openly publish all their methodology on Nelson's web site at noosphere.princeton.edu. Their theory is that somehow, the collective consciousness of all the emotional or psychological energy of people focused on the chosen event, somehow affects the random number generators.

* * *

The problem is that people outside their lab either fail to reach the same conclusions or find their methodology so flawed that it's pointless to even review the findings.

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4049

If you think this is good science or that poo-pooing it is a sign of a closed mind, then you are willing to accept just about any evidence of the supernatural uncritically.

[Mudhammam]

Why not just call the video, "Science and the taboo of unscientific assertions promulgated as serious hypotheses for financial gain," or even better, "Proof the Soul is Real!"

[Thumpalumpacus]

lolol

[Aoi Magi]

So he doesn't even bother doing any demonstrations? and here I was hoping for some good magic show....oh well

[Esquilax]

Tell you what, Chad: I'll watch your video, but first answer me one question. Is it possible, during this discussion, for someone to disagree with your thesis, without you labelling them close minded?

[Silver]

Parapsychology is a pseudonym for ignorant.

I am not open-minded enough to accept it as real, because being too open-minded means one accepts anything as being true just because someone states that is.

If one is open-minded enough to accept god as real with zero evidence to support his existence, imagine how easy it is for that individual to accept fairies and dragons as real. If that same individual cannot accept the that fairies and dragons are real, then they are not applying the proper logic to their god myth.

[Alex K]

The proof is in the pudding. I see no pudding.

[Napoléon]

The proof is in the pudding. I see no pudding.

I demand some fucking pudding.

Like, right now.