A few more fun gemli comments

[drumdude]

He could bind them and sell as a review of the series, A reasonable leap into the light.

Assuming DCP takes 2 minutes to read and then respond to each of Gemli's comments, DCP has spent over 430 hours of his precious time. If anything that is a very conservative number.

Think about it, DCP has spent at least 3 months working full-time to sneeringly and sarcastically respond to Gemli on the internet.

Is it any wonder why DCP can't finish any of his promised books? God bless Gemli!

Honestly, one of the most amazing things that I've observed in some critics of the Church is what unpleasant and repellant people they seem to be.

I find myself wondering whether they were always this way, or whether it's their apostasy that has deformed them.

Is not writing the book you’ve been trying to write for over a decade because you’re obsessed with arguing with gemli a form of deformation? Or was Dan born that way?

[Marcus]

A very good post...

gemli
3 days ago

Of course the fact that there is no such thing as "extrasensory perception" is the only thing that keeps it from being a legitimate science. That someone has significant credentials in one area of science does not mean that they aren't susceptible to the same false beliefs that an alarming percentage of otherwise intelligent people believe and accept as the gospel truth. Jesus said a lot of things, but somehow failed to mention that we should wash our hands before eating, which might been an important bit of real knowledge that would have prevented untold numbers of illnesses and death. But I digress.

I've mentioned before that an alarming percentage of the audience at a David Copperfield magic show thought that he could actually fly, on a stage not 20 feet from the spectators. To be fair, it's a great act. But are those claims true because a few susceptible people were taken in by the trick? David Blaine put his hand through a plate glass jeweler's store window and took an expensive watch from a shelf. That's clearly what he did. Right?

Joseph Dunninger was a mentalist who awed crowds with his ability to read minds. He told people that it was a trick, and railed against fraudulent mediums who took advantage of grieving relatives who would bankrupt themselves thinking they were contacting uncle Fred from beyond the grave.

People are susceptible to false beliefs, especially when they're surrounded by other people who constantly reinforce and reward such beliefs, and, unfortunately, punish the skeptical.

Thanks to gemli.

[Imwashingmypirate]

A very good post...

gemli
3 days ago

Of course the fact that there is no such thing as "extrasensory perception" is the only thing that keeps it from being a legitimate science. That someone has significant credentials in one area of science does not mean that they aren't susceptible to the same false beliefs that an alarming percentage of otherwise intelligent people believe and accept as the gospel truth. Jesus said a lot of things, but somehow failed to mention that we should wash our hands before eating, which might been an important bit of real knowledge that would have prevented untold numbers of illnesses and death. But I digress.

I've mentioned before that an alarming percentage of the audience at a David Copperfield magic show thought that he could actually fly, on a stage not 20 feet from the spectators. To be fair, it's a great act. But are those claims true because a few susceptible people were taken in by the trick? David Blaine put his hand through a plate glass jeweler's store window and took an expensive watch from a shelf. That's clearly what he did. Right?

Joseph Dunninger was a mentalist who awed crowds with his ability to read minds. He told people that it was a trick, and railed against fraudulent mediums who took advantage of grieving relatives who would bankrupt themselves thinking they were contacting uncle Fred from beyond the grave.

People are susceptible to false beliefs, especially when they're surrounded by other people who constantly reinforce and reward such beliefs, and, unfortunately, punish the skeptical.

Thanks to gemli.

I agree with a lot... But to say that it is a "fact" that there is no extrasensory perception? I disagree. It is a fact that there isn't enough tangible evidence to say there is such a thing. But there is a general consensus that there are other senses. When I was looking at sensory processing disorder, there was information about other senses. Getting that eerie feeling around people who turn out to be not nice people, I'd consider that to be a sense of some sort.

[Marcus]

A very good post...

Thanks to gemli.

I agree with a lot... But to say that it is a "fact" that there is no extrasensory perception? I disagree. It is a fact that there isn't enough tangible evidence to say there is such a thing. But there is a general consensus that there are other senses. When I was looking at sensory processing disorder, there was information about other senses. Getting that eerie feeling around people who turn out to be not nice people, I'd consider that to be a sense of some sort.

There are other senses (such as proprioception which I think you are referring to with regard to a sensory disorder), but no, there is not a 'general consensus' that ESP is one of them.

Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind.

Wikipedia

Back to gemli...

Of course the fact that there is no such thing as "extrasensory perception" is the only thing that keeps it from being a legitimate science...

I agree, ESP is not a legitimate arm of sensory science. I have no problem with gemli stating that. The only problem I might have with him using the term 'fact' is for the same reason I have a problem stating a probability as P=1.

No one knows every future thing, but in this case I would define the likelihood of ESP being a legitimate science as P = epsilon, with epsilon bring a number as close to zero as absolutely possible without technically being zero.

If gemli wants to use the word 'fact' to describe that in a conversational setting, I have no problem agreeing with him.

[Physics Guy]

It is pretty darn clear that things like remote viewing are not real. There is some room to have a human brain that processes its normal sensory input in unusual ways.

For example some people really do seem to have synesthesia. They may get vivid impressions of color in response to sounds, or hear tones in response to certain odours. Some people have good situational awareness; they notice what's going on around them, and keep it in mind, to a degree that most people don't.

It has at least been speculated that some people may be able to detect subtle patterns in other people's posture or facial expressions and thereby form instinctive impressions of what the other people are about to do, at least for some kinds of action. I'm not sure how real this ability is, but I don't see why it couldn't be possible in principle. If it did work, it might seem a bit like telepathy.

It is in principle possible to use artificial instruments to give people much more information about the world than our natural senses supply. Astronomy is mostly about this, for example. Our eyes have really crude frequency resolution. If our ears perceived sound frequency the way our eyes perceive light frequency, a piano would have only three fat keys, together spanning less than one octave, and music would consist of nothing but three-note chords with more or less force on each key. With instruments that can resolve light frequency much more finely, however, observing light from distant stars is like listening to a symphony and clearly distinguishing not only many different notes, but whether the notes are being played on strings or woodwinds or brass. You can see what the star is made of, how hot it is, how strong its magnetic field is, and how fast it is moving, just by seeing a lot more frequency detail than the naked eye sees in that little bright twinkle.

One can imagine giving people artificial eyes or other sensors that would reveal a lot of things to which we are naturally blind. I think the problem would be finding a way for our brain to process the extra information. Our brains are wired to recognize just three primary colours; it's not clear how they could cope with vision that didn't just show millions of different combinations of those three colours, but that actually had thousands of primary colours.

I once read about a guy who implanted a little magnet under the skin of his finger, so that he could feel magnetic fields. I don't know that it's a good idea but it could certainly have worked. Any magnetic fields around his finger would push on the magnet and he could probably feel the push under his skin. So there may be room for extending human senses in this kind of way, supplying new input to our existing natural senses. Maybe the more detailed frequency information in light could get represented as smells.

[Imwashingmypirate]

I agree with a lot... But to say that it is a "fact" that there is no extrasensory perception? I disagree. It is a fact that there isn't enough tangible evidence to say there is such a thing. But there is a general consensus that there are other senses. When I was looking at sensory processing disorder, there was information about other senses. Getting that eerie feeling around people who turn out to be not nice people, I'd consider that to be a sense of some sort.

There are other senses (such as proprioception which I think you are referring to with regard to a sensory disorder), but no, there is not a 'general consensus' that ESP is one of them.

Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind.

Wikipedia

Back to gemli...

Of course the fact that there is no such thing as "extrasensory perception" is the only thing that keeps it from being a legitimate science...

I agree, ESP is not a legitimate arm of sensory science. I have no problem with gemli stating that. The only problem I might have with him using the term 'fact' is for the same reason I have a problem stating a probability as P=1.

No one knows every future thing, but in this case I would define the likelihood of ESP being a legitimate science as P = epsilon, with epsilon bring a number as close to zero as absolutely possible without technically being zero.

If gemli wants to use the word 'fact' to describe that in a conversational setting, I have no problem agreeing with him.

I disagree. I think people have experiences that they don't fully understand and that are different to others. Not that they are special but that they are sensitive to other things that others might not be. How they interpret that is down to their opinion and experience.

Like some people are able to know which direction is home when they are perhaps lost. They feel it. We can say scientifically, they probably sense the sun and nature and unconsciously work it out without realising.

Yes I was referring to proprioception etc.

I don't think I was expressing that there was a general consensus on psychic abilities being real. I was saying generally people are aware of a belief of other senses. Such as sensing what's around you and where your body is. Sensing danger.

Psychic abilities in my opinion appears to be mostly the ability to detect and relate. I have had psychic experiences before but I don't believe I am psychic. I think sometimes for some reason we just pick up on things. I was once playing with oracle cards with a classmate. I didn't believe they told fortunes. I did believe that we interpret things how we want to interpret them. But totally nothing to do with the cards we were looking at a totally out the blue thought jumped into my head. No idea where it came from but something told me she had been sexually abused. I was a teenager. I didn't know that a lot of people had been at that time. I put the cards away and asked to talk to her away from the others and I said I had a strange thought and she opened up and told me she was being abused. Was that a psychic moment? I doubt it but it happened nonetheless.

I don't believe in the looking outside your body in different places thing but I do believe there was an experiment about it done years ago. I have had dreams where I have been stood in other places and where I've been outside my own body. But they are dreams. I once napped in the day and thought I woke up but I hadn't and I looked out the window and saw snow. In the UK it kinda tries to snow every now and then but we don't always get snow and at that time of year it wasn't expected. Realised I was asleep and hadn't got up. Picked my kids up later and heard kids talking about how it had snowed. It was strange but I doubt I actually left my body.

I think we can't put a probability as close to zero as you are suggesting. Probably a low probability because we can't consistently repeat and not everyone has such experiences. But we don't know what all of our brain does. Apparently we smell our own lungs but stop processing it (or something like that), there is background noise but we stop hearing it. I hear buzzing lights and switches, other people in my life don't. Does that mean it isn't happening? I have visual snow. I see dots and light flares. I know they aren't physically there but who's to say I'm not experiencing that? I assume it means nothing but what if my brain is reading something and translating it as visual snow and I just haven't associated it with a meaning? I have tinnitus, no idea why. ENT Dr. said stop listening to it. Apparently the solution to tinnitus is to train yourself to ignore it.