Answer this!!

[DeanoC]

People trust there own minds to much. I've had what could be paranormal experiences but I'm not really a believer, I know how much my brain lies, so I'm not sure whether to trust it or not.

My weird untrust of my own senses come from a strange condition I have. Luckily it only occurs rarely (the full on illness is not fun) but I sometimes see sound!.

I usually occurs when my brain is tired and presumely gets its wires crossed. At night when I'm almost asleep, a loud crash outside will produce wavy lines (Its hard to describe but its crosses my entire vision with coloured wiggly lines), multiple bangs and crashes will produce multiple lines intersecting. I also get some other visual anomlies and time distortions all without the help of any (illegal) drugs or alchohol

I've studied mental tricks quite alot, things like Ganzfeld and mediation can produce very real but totally fake experiences, I'm liable to consider ghosts as simple a form of that (but I'm not 100% sure yet, there are still a few things I've encountered that I can't quite explain...).

I advise everybody to get a book on the subject of mind tricks and weird themselves out at least once

 

[DeanoC]

As far as ghosts go, I usually attribute them to lack of knowledge of physics and a lack of skepticism. There has never been any serious experimental evidence for them.

Everyone hates the cynic!

The problem occurs when a sceptic (me) can't explain certain results. Putting it down to lack of physical knowledge is not fair (I got a pretty good grasp of modern physics I think ). And I'm sceptical, for most supernatural things I will even blame by brain for completely inventing the situation (I reckon the time I 'heard' a horse and coach at Borley, comes under that category).

The problem I have is that at least twice, I've encountered infomation transfer I can't explain without invoking 'other science'.

Once my friends were doing the Ouija board while I was programming (on an Atari ST of all things) at the other end of the room (about 6 foot away). Being the sceptic I am, I asked if the 'spirit' could perform a test, It 'replied' yes, so I set it a simple test. I had a book in my hand (on 3D Graphics for Atari ST in Assembler if your interested), sitting well anyway with no mirrors (I checked) I picked a page, put my finger on a word and asked it to spell out the word. It spelled the word 'concatanate' which I was pointing at.
Now any other sceptic will say that somebody saw the book and my finger etc BUT I was there, I checked and I'm pretty certain nobody could have cheated.. which leaves the problem of HOW.

It sucks being a sceptic, when it looks like your wrong!

 

[Thowllly]

I usually occurs when my brain is tired and presumely gets its wires crossed. At night when I'm almost asleep, a loud crash outside will produce wavy lines (Its hard to describe but its crosses my entire vision with coloured wiggly lines), multiple bangs and crashes will produce multiple lines intersecting. I also get some other visual anomlies and time distortions all without the help of any (illegal) drugs or alchohol

Sounds like synaesthesia... That’s cool! I mean, it’s a fascinating subject, if you don't like it happening then that is of course not so cool for you...

 

[Fred]

Hehe, the Ouija boards are like the oldest tricks in the book. You should check out Penn and Teller for amusing tricks you can play with one.

(btw im guilty of pranking friends with one too. Its soooo easy)

As far as mind illusions go, they are indeed very real. Any insomniac for instance knows all about the little 'flashes' of light that pop in and out of their frame.

But double blind scientific experiments that are done with 'respected mediums' have never shown a shred of evidence. Its rather convenient that under scientific scrutiny every single 'spirit' fails to get motivated enough to grace us with their presence

The nearest thing i've had to a supernatural experience, was this native American 'healer' who used to come to my house. I remember him brushing my back with a feather. After it was over, my back was literally burning to the touch.

Now I admit it was likely a trick, thats the most rational explanation of course. Perhaps a way to touch certain parts of the body to cause reactions, or maybe some sort of hidden 'heat pack'. -shrug-

 

[DeathKnight]

I've had a couple of unexplainable things happen to me before. I think there is a possibility of ghosts or supernatural beings of some kind. I'm also pretty convinced there's some kind of poltergeist that screws with stuff in my house from time to time :?

One of the unexplainable things had to do with my watch. It may sound kind of lame, but it still baffles me to this day. It was a couple of years ago and was a typical school night. It was getting kind of late and I was quite tired. I plopped down on my bed and got all cozy and whatnot. Well, I realized I left my watch on so I just took it off and dropped it on the bed beside me. Morning rolls around and I'm getting ready for school. I go to get my watch and it's not on the bed. Now I proceed to start looking in numerous places (all on top of the bed, in the blankets, beside the bed on the floor, all around the bed, under the bed, etc). It's nowhere to be found. Go to school, come back home after school, and I take a quick look around again just to make sure. Still missing. The next morning comes and I slowly wake, kind hanging off the side of the bed a bit before getting up completely. Guess what I see when I look at the floor? You guessed it: my watch. And to boot it was neatly folded, face up, and parallel just to the side of the bed I honestly don't know where it went before it was conveniently returned to me. It may be a poltergeist of some kind since similar stuff has happened before in the house (my mom has had several accounts of random stuff being moved or changed when she wasn't present in the particular room).

Weird stuff

 

[notAFanB]

Anything is possible...

but no all things probable

 

[zidane1strife]

which leaves the problem of HOW.

Well, I've had similar experiences... no Quija though... some of even my most bizarre thoughts, have gone into the minds of others... and uttered/spoken they were...

Now, of course I certainly didn't reveal that that which was pronounced was that which I was thinking while in a casual conversation among friends(iow no talk about mind reading, etc... heck those who did it didn't even know... they'd done it... nor did I tell them.)

Nowadays, I try not to think about any of my deepest secrets when I'm around others... just of that which I wish for others to know...

 

[DeathKnight]

I've had that happen before. It was actually in English class and the teacher was asking about something and getting answers from the class. So I'm thinking of a possible answer, however it was one that was so loosely related that you'd think that no one else would think of it (the answer I was thinking of was "astronaut"... I can't remember the question). I didn't say what I was thinking because I was playing it safe... didn't want to look like a fool. However, a couple seconds later a chick across the room blurts out the exact same answer I was thinking: astronaut. I was stunned, but didn't say anything. She was on the receiving end of a couple funny looks and I could tell she knew it wasn't the best answer... heh

 

[fiz]

OMG! 4-D EARTH ROTATION HARMONIC TIMECUBE!111

 

[fiz]

The classic book "Flatland" by Edwin Abbott which was written in 1952 ....

Abbot died in 1926. I think the book was actually written in the late 19th century (1880s, methinks).

 

[Simon F]

People trust there own minds to much. I've had what could be paranormal experiences but I'm not really a believer, I know how much my brain lies, so I'm not sure whether to trust it or not.

My weird untrust of my own senses come from a strange condition I have. Luckily it only occurs rarely (the full on illness is not fun) but I sometimes see sound!.

I usually occurs when my brain is tired and presumely gets its wires crossed. At night when I'm almost asleep, a loud crash outside will produce wavy lines (Its hard to describe but its crosses my entire vision with coloured wiggly lines), multiple bangs and crashes will produce multiple lines intersecting. .......

I advise everybody to get a book on the subject of mind tricks and weird themselves out at least once

I guess you've probably read "The man who mistook his wife for a hat" by Andrew Sachs. It's frightening what the brain can do and uplifting as to how people deal with their problems.

 

[Ilfirin]

I sometimes see sound!.

Ah yes, I have the same problem. Only it isn't limited to sound - I also see electric & magnetic field lines, light interacting with a surface at a microscopic level, the individual photons of light hitting my monitor screen, a free-body diagram on every object, the occasional shadow volume extending from an object, the depth map from the perspective of a light, a normal map approximation of an object in my room, and occasionally the whole world in wire frame, along with a bunch of other stuff. Basically, I have the problem of whenever I learn anything it becomes part of my minute-to-minute thinking. Sometimes it can drive you insane, but most of the time I can keep it under control. It only really bothers me when I get a headache, because it's usually then when my mind decides to loose control and everything just compounds together.

As a consequence, I often have trouble distinguishing between what is and isn't 'real'. But then the math portion of my brain kicks in and starts asking questions like what defines 'real', where is there a proof defining existence at all, and how is it possible for such a proof to be true as it would have to be based upon the assumption that this world around us actually exists first (since it would be created in this world). What makes this world the real one, and one in a dream a fake one? Because we consistently return to this one? I consistently return to the same worlds in my dreams. Because there are other people in this world who tell you to just STFU and accept that this world is the real one? There are other people in the worlds in my dreams too, and they say the same thing. The conclusion that I draw is that anyone who can state absolutely that the world around them truly exists simply hasn't thought about the problem enough.

After all, all we see is the brain's interpretation of the reflection of light off objects. Which means we can only see things of a certain size, things that emit/reflect light of a very limited wavelength range, 2-dimensions at a time (yes, you do only see 2 dimensions at a time, we only infer that there are at least 3 since we can move our eye and see a different projection of the same object. Which makes it all the more entertaining to see this ("we can't see them") as a reason for why there can't be more than 3 spatial dimensions). So basically, you can only see far less than 1% of what exists in this universe to begin with (not even really taking into account that normal matter/energy only makes up 4% of the universe, the rest is dark - or so says the speculative (speculative != theoretical) physicists), so if you're limiting your understanding to that which you can see (as 99% of the world does) you're limited your understanding to something so small that it rounds to 0 on any calculating device with less than an infinite amount of precision. Indeed, one of the implications of 4 spatial dimensions (of which string-theory suggests there are 9) is that there is an infinite number of these 3-space universes, and the implication of 5 spatial dimensions is that there's an infinite number of those 4-spaces (which also contain an infinite number of 3-spaces), and so on. So back to the question of existence - if there are actually 9 spatial dimensions, or even only 4 and you only exist in 3 of them, mathematically you don't exist at all as defining the amount of space you make up in the full universe would involve at least one divide by infinity.





*Note all oppinions stated here are for the sole purpose of an entertaining discussion. Please do not call a mental institution and have me commited, thank you.