Psi: How Open Minded are You Really?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Apparently you are all more interested in discussing me than the information presented in the video.

[The Valkyrie]

I'll watch the video when I get home and hopefully comment on it the next time I'm online.

Personally, I'm fascinated with the supernatural but generally believe everything has a rational explanation.

Saying that, I'm more a fence sitter on this issue.

[Silver]

Apparently you are all more interested in discussing me than the information presented in the video.

I do not even discuss the information presented in atheist videos posted on this forum.

[Pizza]

Apparently you are all more interested in discussing me than the information presented in the video.

We have talking about psi and you haven't. So apparently you're not reading your own thread.

If (big if) psychic phenomena is real clowns like that aren't helping us discover anything about by being as critical as a head of lettuce.

I haven't watched the video (nor do I intend to), but I've read one book and several articles by Dean Radin.

I find him to be a remarkably uncritical thinker. His biggest problem with analyzing reports of psychic phenomena seems to be that he is either unaware of or rejected that possibility that some people are deliberate frauds. Additionally, he seems to discount any chance that purported psychic occurrences may have other explanations; honestly mistaken witnesses, faulty reporting or second or third-hand accounts, etc.

By way of example, Radin is fond of the story about Mark Twain having a precognitive dream about his brother Henry's death in a steamboat explosion. According to Twain himself, he dreamt that the boat on which Henry worked exploded, Henry suffered fatal burns and died in great pain. The dream also included details of the funeral - his brother's coffin placed between two chairs and decked with red and white flowers. Dean simply and unjustifiably ignores the following points:

1. Twain knew steamboats were dangerous.

2. He had already (by the time of Henry's death) lost his father and three of his siblings.

3. Twain had gotten his brother the job on the steamboat.

4. The funeral in Twain's dream was a typical one.

In other words, Twain was worried about his favourite brother working in a dangerous profession, but that's not enough for Radin - nothing will do but the explanation that the author had a precognitive experience (to be fair, Twain believed the same thing).

Of course there's a possibility that psychic phenomena are real - as real a possibility as unicorns, leprechauns, and salesmen that don't lie. But the truth or falsity of psi won't be established by boobs like Radin.

Boru

[Jenny A]

Apparently you are all more interested in discussing me than the information presented in the video.

It's a long video and a short google search gave me reason to doubt the speaker had anything of value to say. So, if you give me a synopsis, I might spend the time.

[Pizza]

Apparently you are all more interested in discussing me than the information presented in the video.

I do not even discuss the information presented in atheist videos posted on this forum.

With videos there isn't much to talk about. I've posted a few and they don't get many if any replies.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Apparently you are all more interested in discussing me than the information presented in the video.

Your attitude sort of begs it, bud. Don't like it? Change your approach.

I will repeat for the fourth time: present a summation. Nutshell the information in the 90+minute video. If it's that important to you, make it easy for your audience. If you won't even make that simple step, it must not be important to you; prepare to lose audience. I mean, you already have squandered much credibility in you recent spate of shitposting. Why should you warrant attention? What do you have to say? This is a discussion board, and you're refusing to discuss your own video.

At the freethought site I used to help moderate, we looked upon posting links without commentary as spamming. If I were a moderator here, I would have already banned you, after your first refusal to provide your own commentary on this: you're obviously trying to put a turd in the punch bowl and slink away, as evidenced by your refusal to say anything at all about the video that you yourself posted.

I think you're full of shit and yourself, and not in that order.

[Cyberman]

Apparently you are all more interested in discussing me than the information presented in the video.

What is there to discuss? You posted it and said "watch this", with a side dish of closed-mindedness intimation. I for one tried to elicit at least a spark of commentary from you, much in the same way that you intended by posting the video in the first place.

[Angrboda]

I watched about 30 minutes of it. A lot of claims that I don't have the time or skills to properly evaluate. Given Radin's reputation, it would be foolish for me to take what he says at face value. So there was no point to continuing watching the video.

[Esquilax]

Apparently you are all more interested in discussing me than the information presented in the video.

Hey, I'll happily discuss the video, I just want some assurance before I do that this wasn't just one big rhetorical trap designed to either get the answer you wanted, or denigrate those who refuse to give you that. It's not exactly a crazy request.

Because I have a feeling how this is going to go, and I want to cut it off before it happens because, as applied to this topic, you calling me close minded for not agreeing would be ridiculous; psi-powers are one of my favorite fantasy tropes, I love them conceptually and if they were real, I'd want to believe that. I just have higher standards of evidence for claims than whether or not I want them to be true, and as I'm a busy man I don't even want to engage until I can feel safe doing so in place of, say, working.