Mental illness and parapsychology.

CC, I admire the fact that you are trying to help her. I tried and had to give it up as a lost cause and respectfully suggest you do the same rather than just waste your efforts.

My reasoning is quite simple: She's determined not give up the idea that psi abilities exist. She believes it's real, has thoroughly convinced herself of it and I don't think towering towering stacks of solid data could ever change her mind - much less honest, helpful people on a forum trying to get her to understand the truth.

 

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Science has not in any way been able to prove that, they have just conducted experiments after the wrong premisses. If they really wanted to prove its "nonexistance" they would have to engage in more advanced research. And how did the thought of telepathy arise enough to become a word?

 

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You are quite correct.

 

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It has. We know enough about biology, chemistry, and physics to demonstrate an absence of mechanisms for human brains to directly transmit and receive complex information.

There have also been many studies done on supposed "psi" phenomena claims that have found no supportive evidence.

You don't apply advanced research to study a phenomena that isn't there. The only phenomena regarding "psi" that exists are claims of "psi". That is actually something that is researched.

It's a natural psychological phenomenon, a result of how a very intelligent social species (humans) evolved. Understanding human behavior is a key to understanding why certain ideas arise.

 

This will be my last response to you on this subject because you've made it clear that you want to believe in this nonsense no matter what - and that's about as far from being scientific as possible.

They HAVE done advanced research - and both the military and CIA spent MILLIONS of dollars on the assumption that it might exist. After several years of trying and spending all that money, they dropped it because they found *nothing* there.

Easily answered: It originated in science fiction stories - that's how it became a word. Exactly the way "teleporter" (from Star Trek) became a word.

It was common (mostly undereducated) people that came to believe that both were real.

 

We don't know enough about anything to draw any such conclusions. Science hasn't come very far at all in the research of the human brain and consciousness to even begin to understand the complexity of communication.
But I think we can at least agree that most concepts we now know as "real" first started as an idea.
I don't know about CIA's investigations so I can't comment on that, it can be rumours and they might have hidden agendas, that's kind of their trademark so to speak.

Don't you think it would be benficial for mankind to use their brain more effectively?
As I see, telepathy, if there would be a way to increase it, by inducing schizophrenia for example, would greatly improve all communication, since it would be more direct and honest.
Evolution would come to an end if all radical ideas where flushed down the toilet because of pure fear of what it would mean if telepathy could somehow be proven to exist. And, I believe the best way to do that, is to try to prove that it doesn't exist.
What kind of psychological experiment could do that?

The nature of telepathy is perhaps not controllable but of a more spontaneous kind.

 

I have come to the conclusion that schizophrenia is not an illness until you're actually suffering from it. If you just fit the profile but are happy, it's not an illness, it's an extended version of reality, a perspective you can learn to live with and benefit from, just like being psychic.

 

That doesn't make much sense to me. :shrug: Please link us to a reputable source that describes the life of an individual that actually fits with what you've "concluded."

 

That would mean outing my patients, I can't do that.

 

It would be interesting to find out the density of dopamine axons in the prefrontal cortex of a known psychic and see if it matches the schizophrenic.

 

Without having any proof, I would still say that is probably the major difference.
In schizophrenia the mind tries to "escape" the brain, while in the psychic condition it becomes more integrated.

 

The conflict is the difference.

 

Don't know much about all that, but I can assure you that the U.S. government was (is?) quite seriously interested in "paranormal" abilities.

I was grabbed in the '70's by a US military program called "SNAG" (Selecting and nurturing the academically gifted, or some such crap) - no big deal, just a few days (3-4?) of staying in a dormitory with others of my "ilk". They submitted us to all types of tests, the one being relevant here would be E.S.P.

I had never before heard of someone testing "negative" for ESP, in the sense that given coins, cards, etc., I routinely guessed wrong more often than right. Meaning my scores were outside acceptable norms for "just plain guessing", but on the negative side, rather than the positive. I can see how this would be useful to someone - just bet against me, and you will be right more often than wrong...

Anyway, I found this strange, and not reproducible, because I am quite a good gambler (Blackjack) and seem to have a knack for guessing "right". (Although I may be subconsciously "counting cards" here - But to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, repetitively?)

So, in the end, I find paranormal abilities to lie in that same category as G*d - impossible to even contemplate - hence my "agnosticism", or more specifically "ignosticism". In other words, I haven't a clue...

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Heh-heh-heh. Yep, during the 70s was exactly the time period that both the military and the CIA was interested in all this junk science. The CIA's "big adventure" was primarily remote viewing. I've forgotten the exact name of the programs now but they - and their dismal results <grin> are still available on the web.

It's just rather hard for me to accept that in the twenty-first century we've STILL got woo-woos that actually believe in what's already been *thoroughly* debunked. (But of course, like taste, there's no accounting for idiots either.)

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Many people in history have first been called idiots and then geniuses.

 

"Many"? Actually, very few - VERY few! And every single one of those had already been recognized as highly intelligent on other areas. Such is not the case here. :shrug: (And incidentally, the word is spelled "geniuses" - are you really claiming to be member of that group, yet unable to even spell it? Seriously?)

And there's no real need to point out the extremely poor grammar in "Many people in history has...", is there?

 

Ummm, Read, is English Bebelina's first language? I truly don't know, but I would hate to be held accountable for a spelling mistake in say - Spanish... que?

 

When you start commenting on my grammar you're really out of arguments.

 

Perhaps so, but I felt rather obliged to point that out for someone who is - even if in an off-cuff manner - making an even distant comparison between herself and various geniuses in history.

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Notice how she also claims to have "patients" yet will not share even the tiniest detail about how they relate to her woo-woo claims. Knowing full-well that not a single one of us could NEVER tie any such information to any individual - living or dead.

In other words, I believe she is being TOTALLY intellectually dishonest with us in anything she claims here. (I figure that I'm being more polite in putting it that way rather than using the common single word to describe such a person's actions.)

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