She's Obsessed With Fortune Tellers and Astrology

[Bonhomme]

How many of you have picked up the phone to call someone (we're talking land lines here), and they were on the line ... with the phone not having rang?

I've had that happen numerous times.

I made a rough calculation of the probability of such occurrences happening as often as they have, and the odds against it were astronomical: way worse than winning the big lottery prize!

My take on it is scientific: that we send out "thought waves," but the process is not "tidy" enough to do so on cue, so to speak, and that the very observers can "jam the frequencies," so to speak, by the very act of observation. On a quantum level, after all, the observer affects the observed.

I think such phenomena are occurring on a quantum or even sub-quantum level -- completely outside the realm of anything we can effectively explain, in a mechanical sense.

 

[I'm Joe Dirt]

How many of you have picked up the phone to call someone (we're talking land lines here), and they were on the line ... with the phone not having rang?

Yeah, I've had that happen too.

While it is a rare occurance, low probability even means it WILL happen every now and then. If you consider the billions of phone calls being made everyday, having this happen several times doesn't seem so out of place.

That doesn't mean something paranormal has occured.

The definition of paranormal or psychic is if it is IMPOSSIBLE by any other means. For example mind reading. No one can READ another person's mind (like in that one Mel Gibson movie). There is no scientific way of explaning it, its not even a question of odds. It's not like there is a 1 chance out of 1 trillion that someone's thoughts will be picked up by your head and interpret it. There is no scientific way this can occur, period.

When something is just highly unlikely but happens, thats not as big a deal since it is logical and makes sense, just the probability was low. But low probability doesn't mean it CAN'T happen. So it still falls into our regular world. Its not paranormal.

 

[italostud]

Guys, I retract my earlier skeptical statements. Jesus christ titty shyt, listen to this:

I just took a big dump. When I got up, I turned around to stare at my floating turd, like usual, and the damn thing was shaped like a 'C'!! Can you believe that? And 'C' is the 4th letter in my middle name!!!! I mean, holy crap, I calculated the odds, and they are astronomical! This only happens once in a blue moon, and I'm convinced that either my anus, OR my large intestine, has psychic powers. Possibly even the small intestine, but lets not get too carried away here. Penkitten, you were right. I'm going to try to market my digestive system as a psychic advisor. Maybe "Sphincter Psychics" what do you guys think? Patent pending too, so don't even think of stealing my name.

Damn you Joe Dirt! I dare you to come stare into my toilet bowl and tell me psychic phenomenon aren't real.

 

[Mortukai]

My take on it is scientific: that we send out "thought waves," but the process is not "tidy" enough to do so on cue, so to speak, and that the very observers can "jam the frequencies," so to speak, by the very act of observation. On a quantum level, after all, the observer affects the observed.

Just because you use the word "scientific", doesn't mean that science in any way agrees with you. So tell me, through what form do these "thought waves" exist?

Are they photons (electromagnetic energy)? If so, why can we not detect these energy emissions from our own heads, when we can detect photons of light trillions of miles away across the other side of the universe? And not only can we detect this light, we can also calculate the precise distance of it, and the speed at which the source is moving away from us, and what fuel is burning to produce it, and the size and age of the star. So if we have the technogology to detect all that from so far away, why can't we detect thought waves from right here if they use any form of electromagnetic emmision?

Or do they instead use gravity? If so, why can't we detect them, given that we can detect the minute gravitational pull that planets have on stars which are millions of light years away from us, allowing us to calculate the mass of the planet and its orbit around the star? And why can't our gravity wave detectors pick up the gravity "thought waves" from our heads, when they can pick up the vibrations from a car driving past thousands of miles away?

There are only 4 known forces in the universe, and only 2 of them have any way of making any difference at the level of human scale: gravtiy and electromagnetism. The strong and the weak force can only affect things within the distance of a single atom. So either these "thought waves" travel via electromagnetic waves, in which case they'd be detectable by our equipment which is billions of times more sensitive than the human body could ever dream of being, or they travel through gravity, in which case they'd also be detected by our equipment which is billions of times more sensitive than the human body could ever dream of.

"Thought waves" cannot possibly exist, unless you propse that they travel through some force which has not yet been discovered. In which case, there's nothing scientific about your thinking at all, because you are presuming that thought waves exist before any evidence for their existence, let alone any proposal for how they might work, has been identified. This is called "wishful thinking".

Unfortunately it appears "quantum" is the "new age spirituality" goldmine. You can just throw the word "quantum" around and all of a sudden you're scientific and everything you say makes sense. This only works because the vast majority of people don't know crap about quantum mechanics. For those who do though, there's nothing to suggest any sort of mystical powers you care to name might be plausible, let alone possible. Quite the opposite, in fact.

 

[italostud]

Thought waves, magical turds, it's all science to me baby

 

[Freddy1]

Originally posted by I'm Joe Dirt
Actually you're wrong, there is very little info on cold reading out there. Ive been researching it for weeks now and as far as the internet goes I've found nothing more than basic overviews and descriptions.

I found a bunch of info on cold reading on ebay one day (last year). Maybe one should check out ebay???

 

[Freddy1]

Ive been doing the tarot card thing for 10+ years now. Its really not that difficult. You learn by experience.

 

[penkitten]

Originally posted by Freddy1
Ive been doing the tarot card thing for 10+ years now. Its really not that difficult. You learn by experience.

same with reading runes and tea leaves.