Sunday School

[unapologeticParticipant]

HA. at the end of the ‘God’s chosen President’ vid, YouTube fed me an ad for the Rump campaign.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

If I ever had an astrological reading telling me that I would set aside my teenage leaning toward being an Episcopal clergyman in favor of becoming an atheist philosopher whose main interests were linguistic philosophy and the questions surrounding free will consciousness, I’d be impressed on one level,

Well, any given medium is only capable of telling you so much.  If I recollect correctly (the lady I used to see has died – yes, she might have seen it coming), a chart tells you things about your personality and potential, and how these interact with events.  It’s not a TV set.  Tarot cards are more comprehensive, but still not a David Attenborough documentary.

Applied to astrology, one is far more likely to remember and be fascinated by predictions that turn out to be uncannily accurate. The scam called “cold reading” functions in a similar manner.

This is all true.  But it doesn’t rule out competent practitioners.  Obviously the field is ripe for exploitation by charlatans.

I once met a working-class speed freak called Babs, on a council estate, she was the friend of a friend.  We all spent the night out.  Babs told me about things that were happening at my house, that a troublesome person was having a row with everyone and was leaving.  When I got back, this had happened.  She said she had the gift of clairvoyance, and so did her mother, and so did her nine year-old son.  The things she told me were very specific and came true.  She had no way of knowing them.

[UnseenParticipant]

@ Simon

If anyone wants an area ripe for investigation by parapsychologists, it’s psychokinesis since it seems experimentally proven that the mere act of observing some events (simply knowing about them, in other words) has some way of modifying them. (Split Screen Experiment)

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

the mere act of observing some events (simply knowing about them, in other words) has some way of modifying them.

Surely observing requires photons to knock into and bounce off something, therefore, potentially modifying it.

[_Robert_Participant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:

If I ever had an astrological reading telling me that I would set aside my teenage leaning toward being an Episcopal clergyman in favor of becoming an atheist philosopher whose main interests were linguistic philosophy and the questions surrounding free will consciousness, I’d be impressed on one level,

Well, any given medium is only capable of telling you so much. If I recollect correctly (the lady I used to see has died – yes, she might have seen it coming), a chart tells you things about your personality and potential, and how these interact with events. It’s not a TV set. Tarot cards are more comprehensive, but still not a David Attenborough documentary.

Applied to astrology, one is far more likely to remember and be fascinated by predictions that turn out to be uncannily accurate. The scam called “cold reading” functions in a similar manner.

This is all true. But it doesn’t rule out competent practitioners. Obviously the field is ripe for exploitation by charlatans. I once met a working-class speed freak called Babs, on a council estate, she was the friend of a friend. We all spent the night out. Babs told me about things that were happening at my house, that a troublesome person was having a row with everyone and was leaving. When I got back, this had happened. She said she had the gift of clairvoyance, and so did her mother, and so did her nine year-old son. The things she told me were very specific and came true. She had no way of knowing them.

A “friend of a friend” might know some things. My mother was setup by a “friend” for a trip to a psychic and even though I was only 12 years old I smelled a rat and got a confession (after some unnecessary emotionality). In fairness the friend was trying to get my mother away from the church by making her think there were alternatives but that was a stupid way of doing that and my mother was doing just fine on her own.

[UnseenParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:

the mere act of observing some events (simply knowing about them, in other words) has some way of modifying them.

Surely observing requires photons to knock into and bounce off something, therefore, potentially modifying it.

You’ve got it backward, Simon. Photons go into the eyes. They don’t shoot out of them.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

You’ve got it backward, Simon. Photons go into the eyes. They don’t shoot out of them.

Lol, the photons have to come out of a light source, bounce off something and go into your eyes.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

A “friend of a friend” might know some things.

That’s true.  But this was before mobile phones, and none of us could confirm the prediction until I went home, when it had all played out to the letter.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

all played out to the letter.

If Babs really was able to see twelve hours into the future, what would that tell us about the nature of space-time?  That from the point of view of the present, the future already exists.  After all, the future is a place as well as a time.

[_Robert_Participant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Simon Paynton wrote:

all played out to the letter.

If Babs really was able to see twelve hours into the future, what would that tell us about the nature of space-time? That from the point of view of the present, the future already exists. After all, the future is a place as well as a time.

I am skeptical. The multiverse is as elusive as god is so far. You would think “clairvoyant” people would be billionaires in the lottery, stock market or Vegas, predict and prevent their ailments and do that for friends and loved ones, solve crimes, make scientific discoveries. Yet…you can beat them at checkers. Perceptive people can predict many things based on observation and knowing probabilities. I remember watching a neighbor kid ride his motorbike. I made the comment at a party that he wouldn’t live 6 months.  Well, he didn’t. Took another life with him as well. People were saying all sorts of nasty things about me, like I was some Voodoo guy or something.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

I am skeptical. The multiverse is as elusive as god is so far.

I’m not talking about the multiverse.  I’m talking about the idea that the entire history of the universe, a 4-dimensional shape, was created simultaneously, in the Big Bang.  It’s not so far-fetched.  Subjectively, we experience a 3-dimensional world as we travel forward in time.

You would think “clairvoyant” people would be billionaires in the lottery, stock market or Vegas, predict and prevent their ailments and do that for friends and loved ones, solve crimes, make scientific discoveries. Yet…you can beat them at checkers.

But if they exist, these abilities receive their information through various sources and media, and they’re not necessarily geared to that kind of information.

 

 

[StregaModerator]

I don’t even think I could cope with a 2 minute clairvoyance talent, let alone a wide open future view.

10:00 – Sitting in my office, drinking coffee and dumbly gazing out the window, I see that at 10:02 a bird will smash into the window, scaring the crap out of me, causing me to spill my coffee all over my shirt.

10:01 – In order to avoid the pending coffee spill, I put my coffee mug down and wait for the bird to hit the window.

10:02 – As expected, a bird smashes into the window, but rather than spill coffee on myself, I give a victorious snicker.

Back to 10:00 – The vision of me spilling coffee on myself at 10:02 has been erased and replaced with a vision of myself at 10:02 arrogantly laughing at a bird who has just smashed into my office window.

10:01 – Feeling bad for the bird and ashamed of my reaction, I go outside to stand in front of the window in order to save the bird from smashing into it.

10:02 – The bird sees me long before it comes near the window and ends up flying the other way. I smile and wave goodbye to him. ‘If only he knew how I just saved him’ I think.

Back to 10:00 – The vision of me at 10:02 laughing at an injured bird has been erased and replaced with a vision of me at 10:02 standing outside of my office window, smiling like a daft child and waving at absolutely nobody.

10:01 – Alarmed by my behavior, and seeing no good reason why I should go outside and wave at the trees, I decide to stay put and drink my coffee. Gazing out the window, I continue to wonder what I was doing out there.

10:02 – BOOM! A bird smashes into the window, scaring the crap out of me, causing me to spill my coffee all over my shirt.

Back to 10:00 – The vision of myself standing outside waving at nothing has been erased and I now see that at 10:02, as I stare dumbly out the window, a bird will smash into it, scaring the crap out of me and causing me to spill my coffee all over my shirt.

10:01 – I put my coffee mug down and wait for the little F-er.

Yeah no, I’ll stick to chance, thanks 🙂

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 6 days ago by  Strega.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Strega, clever, but is it unknown rather than chance?

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@strega – that way lies madness.  There are all kinds of things we could do recursively, but we don’t, because it’s too much effort.  To Babs, 12 hours and 2 miles away was like standing on top of a hill and looking around over the countryside.  Maybe the story was centred around me because I was there.

[UnseenParticipant]

I don’t know the name of it, unfortunately, but there was a sci fi novel or short story about a man who wanted to go back in time to “fix” something (the death of someone important to him) and while he succeeded in going back in time, no matter what he did or how he changed the antecedent circumstances, they would still die then somehow.

That story expressed a belief in fate.

Of course, there was a successful movie franchise built loosely on the notion of fate, the Final Destination series.

Now, if I’m a fatalist, and I have a 1 or 2 minute precognition of my demise, that would be useless. If I saw a truck coming through the restaurant window I was seated next to, then I might run back through the kitchen, slip on a wet or greasy floor and bang my head fatally by hitting something hard or sharp on the way down.

[Author]

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