The Taboo of Psi

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Here is a good video I came across:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw_O9Qiwqew

It is a presentation on evidence for telepathy and other psi phenomena.

Utter nonsense. The human brain does not generate enough energy to transmit electromagnetic radiation beyond of fraction of an inch from the skull.

transmitting information requires photons or gravitons.

ruveyn

Theres three schools of thought regarding paranormal phenomena:

1) Believes : they belief in is tho don't raise questions about the phenomena.
2) Parapsychology: have a health open minded view on the phenomena & raise questions about it.
3) Skeptics: they raise questions about it with a closed mind & present irrational arguments

I have found that both beileves & skeptics have a closed minded view of the subject and
fail to have a rational discussion.

There is nothing healthy minded in logical contradictions and denial of physical laws.

ruveyn

open mindedness is not healthy, it may cause brain to fall out.

If that is so, then there is no need for advancements in the field of Physics.

Physics progresses precisely because it is constrained by physical fact. Physics is no place for crack-brained unsubstantiated speculation such as mental telepathy which has never once been objectively proven nor is possible given what we know of the electro-magnetic spectrum. There is no physical basis for psi so there is no psi. Everything that exists in the Cosmos is physical. There is nothing but matter and energy in spacetime.

ruveyn

The concept of a spherical Earth was "crack-brained unsubstantiated speculation" before the 16th century.

Thanks ruveyn, for so aptly demonstrating the kinds of strident and illogical arguments people use to create this aforementioned taboo against studying psi phenomena.

Besides taboo itself, the video also discusses several experiments that show repeatable empirical evidence of psi phenomena. Feel free to speculate on how those results were achieved. Extra points if you use the word "charlatan", or "huckster", or some other 19th-century slur.

I'm pretty skeptical of 'psi' phenomena, especially considering most people who claim to have psychic powers genuinely appear to be crazy or profit driven. However, if you are interested, I suggest reading into Dr. Darryl Bem's work on 'retroactive causality' which was a recent study he did investigating whether events that have yet to happen have a tangible effect on the present, from some sort of quantum or plank-level phenomena. The test subjects were not self-proclaimed psychics and the study was done within the framework of scientific methodology. I don't take the study completely at face value, but I do believe that the methods he used were sound, and further investigation into his findings could be worthwhile

Cheers for that I'll have a read of that sometime soon. Some of my sceptical views are about testing methodologies.
One example of this is the use LSD to get into psychic states of consciousness. Stanislav Grof is well known for his use of LSD in his research plus I have douts about his Holotropic Breathwork techniques.

Nonsense! Eristothenes the curator of the Library of Alexandria and a contemporary of Archimedes calculated the circumference of the earth to within five percent of its modern value. The Greeks and later the Greco-Roman scholars knew full well that the earth was spherical.

The notion that people believed the earth was flat was a story propagated by the American writer Washington Irving in his whitewash of Christopher Columbus. It is a canard and a bogus fiction that educated people believed the earth was flat. At the time of Columbus the Church fathers knew perfectly well that the earth was spherical and they had doubts about Columbus' estimation of the length a trip around the world to get to the riches of China would take.

ruveyn

Physical proof of it was shown when Magellian was the first to circumnavigate the earth. Skeptics might of raised questions about Eristothenes' calculations before the Magellian-Elcano expedition of 1519-1521

Illogical where?

The burden of proof is on your side. You can't get away just calling critics "strident and illogical" or by calling the phenomena a "taboo" as if the skepticism was some sort of conspiracy against people making these claims. If you want people to believe psi is possible, you will need to post actual evidence. Simple as that.Let's say that it was.

The concept of giant red horses that spit fire and live in the sky and are the source of all wheat in the world was "crack-brained unsubstantiated speculation" during that time and today as well. Just because the earth turned out to be round it does not mean we should believe everything claimed since then.

There is a difference between the world being round and the claims of psi. We currently have tons and tons and tons of proof of the former.

Conclusions can only be made based on historical & current knowledge. Using future knowledge is simply speculation.

Psi is the easiest phenomena in the world to prove (although a theory is more difficult). I've yet to see a single convincing piece of evidence for psi.

We must must be careful not to let theory predict fact. But when the claims are hardly backed up, and they fly in the face of our current theories, then I know where I'm placing my bets...