DrP

I was quite pleased about making this meme.... but no one I know gets it.lol. I stiched the pics together and my cousin suggested the phrasing. Anyone come up with a different legend?

Polyphia. The Audacity / Playing God / Ego Death ... I only found out about them earlier this year.... love these 3 tracks.

You've probably seen these (Falcon 9?) rocket landings before in news or on the net. When I think of the size of this thing and earth's gravity, I cannot fail to be impressed.. even though one explodes.

I don't think there is one as far as I'm aware. Not a scientifically studied one anyway.

That's just how the body works. It reacts to changes in your psychological state. You are just 'feeling'. Most people can do it. I read an article recently that mentioned that some people can reach orgasm just from thinking. The connection between body and mind is strong and complex. It's not some magical power.

Isn't this just focusing your attention on what you are feeling in a specific part of your body though? Couple that with the brilliant capacity of the human brain to imagine things and self hypnotise itself and you can feel all sorts of things. For example, if I concentrate on my toe I can feel a sensation in that... if I focus on my body and imagine a 'chi' like energy... I can feel a warmth and sensation... I can move it around too... like in tai chi.... this doesn't mean I have chi... it just means I can focus my perception upon specific places in my body. The brain and body ate extremely complex.

aha! - that's your conceptual error... incredibly low probability does not equal zero probability... especially when talking about timeframes of many billions of years - that's a very long time. That isn't evolution of modern animals from a common ancestor though - that is closer to abiogenisis I think. There are speculations as to how it could have happened (of course no one can know as they were not there and it isn't really observable)... all require a very long time to happen. Hundreds of millions of years... which in the time frame of many billions, is obviously long enough as it clearly happened somehow or we would not be here.

"I think about it every night and day, spread my wings and fly away" Neither does anyone else who is in their right mind - did you read the OP?

How are you defining nothing in this statement? A lot of the first page of this thread was talking about definition and context. What about the virtual particle pairs that pop into and out of existence? (although they obviously do not come from 'nothing'.. they do appear to. Matter moving through dimensions not bound by our 4?) What was Einstein's E=mC2 if it wasn't physics? It was very much maths. I am certain that there are many natural things that seem to defy common sense and logic that we do not understand. Only viewing the universe with eyes and minds that can see and think in 4 dimensions might limit us as to what we can ever know about a multi dimensional universe.

I am getting more and more confused as to what people consider natural and un-natural. If an intelligent mind has evolved naturally... then, naturally that intelligent mind would create new things and make new things. How is something manmade not natural? If we have our intelligence 'naturally' and our intelligence leads to what some call 'un-natural' things then surely that is a mistake in understanding? It IS natural for these things that seem un-natural to occur, because naturally, an intelligent mind would invent such things. Is Rum and Raisin ice cream natural? This is obviously off topic - sorry - I might open a new thread if anyone wants to discuss it.

not sure anyone really claims it did... depends on how you define 'nothing' as mentioned above.

I like her version of 'Here comes the Sun'.

Muscles tense or relax to change the shape of the lens in the eye to focus on what we look at. You can choose to mis-focus and things go blurry. Anyone can do it. https://www.aao.org/museum-eye-openers/how-does-eye-focus

Cross your legs, close your eyes, bliss out, relax and say 'ohmmmmmmme"

Isn't this just the same as this: https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/61212-strange-self-induced-feeling/?tab=comments#comment-1089398

...convenient that. I guess they put that rule in to avoid embarrassment. ;-) I did say that it would be very complex and multiple trials would be needed with blinds etc... some taking meds some not, some believers some not etc. Repeated for different types of ailments. Again - I am guessing that there could be a placebo. I had some AMAZING co-incidences crop up as answers to prayer when I was a Christian. Looking at the back of someone from across the room in a church wanting them to experience the same joy as I felt during my 'baptism in the Holy Ghost' I raised my hand like a priest or wizard and prayed they'd have it too... then watching them throw their hands in the air gasping for breath due to the ecstasy they are in and falling to their knees in tears of joy... happened a few times - like zapping someone with power... although - this happens all the time in churches so it could have been a co-incidence that they emoted and dropped at the same time I projected my love at them. They were probably praying for that feeling. That - or there may be some connection between us - I can't explain the Holy Ghost... A video from Derrin Brown gave some good suggestions I saw once where he gave an atheist the same experience as baptism in the holy ghost... so I am guessing it is a state of body and mind.

That is interesting. Although do we know who the test subjects were? Although this is more assumption from me I would think it is very complex and you could run the experiment 20 times with different results. There are so many variables. Are the prayed for believers or non believers? What are their expectation for the prayer to be considered positive. What are they praying for? (relief from a minor ailment or raising from the dead)

I would assume everyone can do it. I haven't done it since I was an infant. I used to all sorts of weird things as a child. I think children explore things like that. I can't think why it would be useful to an adult though.

I assume they concluded that there was a placebo effect? I also assume that 'the faithful' would have a slight increase of perceived positive answers to prayer based on further placebo through stronger belief and maybe a touch of Pareidolia with some good old wishful thing and maybe some misunderstanding of probability? What did they find?

Totally agree. I had a problem with the first book... when Mat and Rand travel from tavern to tavern you get a FULL description of every bar down to the shading on the curtains... fine for one or 2... but after the 5th tavern they stay in, after flirting with the bar maids, getting chased off by darkfriends, playing the flute and juggling for their supper, eating some bread and cheese... you think, come on, get on with it! lol. Although!!! saying that - it all makes sense in book 2 when pretty much everyone they met from all of those inns on their travels turn up at Tar Valon to train to be Aeis Sedi or end up fighting in one of his armies or something as they are both taverian (or however it is spelt). Loved the girls introduction to the white tower in book 2 and the introduction of the Senscean. Great story. He finished it beautifully imo. ...and 'the last battle' which went on for weeks was very well done. The duels with Demandred were brilliant and that bit when Elayne Trackand charges that trollock with her sword was great - it even bought a tear to my eye, soppy git that I can be. Welled up at several places actually.

It was Sanderson - thanks for correcting me- sorry. Have you read any of it? Full of incredibly strong female characters (Aies Sedi in particular) - it's awesome. Argg... I started a thread to see if anyone had read it and was willing to talk about it... Can you change the title for me please? I guess I should have spelled checked his name from google rather than putting it up from memory. Thanks. It's a lot of pages per book and words per page too! lol. Worth it though.

Just finished 'The Wheel of Time' series by Robert Jordon / Brendon Sarasson. Loved it.

If 'god' appeared in the sky or on the telly and demonstrated his power by giving us a demonstration that it was god... wouldn't that be 'evidence' of that god? (Not saying it would be 'proof' as it could easily be staged or faked.. but it would e considered evidence no?) Similarly - I expect people take what appear to be answers to prayers to be evidence.... although when it is broken down and assessed then prayer answers come into the realms of standard probability... but some would consider it evidence (albeit poor). Clearly. and surely there would be a better way to reveal your presence than making some harmony in some random background noise.... lol. It reminds me of the crickets singing in slow motion hoax that was about a few years back.... all the spiritulists and god lot on social media went crazy about it. Cute though it was... it was total bunk.

lol - you're over thinking it. Although I have been called 'Dick' before - it is not my name.

This true story came to mind earlier for some reason - thought I'd share it as it still makes me chuckle: Nearly 30 years ago I did work experience in an Analytical lab for quite a big firm that had a research lab, QC lab, Analytical lab and many other facilities. The rather old guy I worked for there was head of the Analytical department and was called Richard Peerless. He was a great old guy and I really respected him, so did everyone else. He was very encouraging to me and to all who worked for him. At the time the Human resource dept were making people were ID badges... I think they must have been toying with him a little when they put a little too many abbreviations on his badge - he wasn't impressed that it simply said on it: "Dick P - Anal Chemist". This still tickles me now.