Telekinesis, telepathy and their impact on science [Absolutely NONE]

[Eldad Eshel]

 

Wow. I thought you were serious about this, but you're a complete crackpot. You have no idea what you're talking about. You should stop talking and go back to school.

 

I can't believe you said this.

Just shows how different we are in our mind sets, that's all.

 

Side note: I am able to get the wheel to move with the glass bowl over it, but only by a little bit.

[Phi for All]

Just shows how different we are in our mind sets, that's all.

 

Minds have little to do with it. It's about facts, data, and a reliable methodology to gain information from those things. You are ignorant about physics, you don't understand it, and therefore you think it's wrong. You don't know what you don't know, it's really that simple.

[John Cuthber]

Could it be a type of Brownian Motion?

No.

[Robittybob1]

No.

Well I'm not sure you can discount a type Brownian Motion at this stage. The small motions back and forth under the glass cover, and the person already out of the room. What is your best guess?

[Gees]

StringJunky;

Yes, if telekinetic forces can pass out through the skull it should pass through clear glass... but maybe bone is telekinetically transparent and other materials are not?

 

So you are saying that "telekinetic forces" start inside the skull? Do you have proof of this? It amazes me that people are willing to deny the existence of telekinetic forces, while assuming its origin. (chuckle)

 

Clear glass is different. We know that water is necessary to conscious life. We also know that glass, and I suspect plastic, share properties with liquid/water. My studies suggest that although water seems to serve almost as a conduit to conscious life within the body, it has a blocking effect outside of the body. It is for this reason that I doubt any "paranormal" testing that puts glass or plastic between the person being tested and the test. I expect that the glass or plastic would nullify the results and invalidate the test.

 

Ajb;

 

I am surprised that this thread is still open!

Three important points here.

Telekinesis
i) has no proposed mechanism;
ii) would break several of the established laws of physics, (eg conservation of momentum);
iii) has been investigated by scientists for over 130 years with not a single piece of creditable evidence that it exists.

We can rather safely conclude that this thread is simply based on a hoax.

 

i) Neither did gravity for a very long time, and neither does conscious awareness.

ii) This is an assumption since we don't know the mechanism, we don't even know if laws would be broken. But laws of physics have been broken before and will probably be broken again.

iii) Why do you think they have been investigating it for 130 years? Most of the paranormal gives us occasional glimpses of what seems to be true, but has never been proven, and we really do not know what it actually is. This makes it a tantalizing idea that we keep returning to.

 

Swansont;

 

Another limitation you can have, as I am reminded of from reading about the debunking of James Hydrick's claims (probably from a book by or about James Randi, since he's the one who debunked): Put other objects around the device that would also be disturbed by air currents, and make the object rotate but not disturb the other objects. Hydrick was able to move objects, but not when polystyrene chips were placed nearby. Because it was done with air currents.

 

You have had some good ideas and advice in this thread, but I have questions regarding the above quote.

 

Are you saying that he could not move the test object when the chips were there, or are you saying that he also moved the chips? If he also moved the chips, it could be possible that he lacked the control to very delicately move one thing without moving another. It would also mean that we are assuming that telekinetics does not also move the air. Lot of assumption to my way of thinking.

 

Gee

[ajb]

I think today's physics need a good slap in the face.

It is fascinating just how many people we get on these forums who known nothing of how science works telling scientists how to do their jobs. Quite amazing really.

ii) This is an assumption since we don't know the mechanism, we don't even know if laws would be broken. But laws of physics have been broken before and will probably be broken again.

People have tried to propose mechanisms. If one supposes that another fundamental force is at play here that can over come the electromagnetic binding atoms together, say in a 'spoon bending exercise'. Such a force would be always present in nature. This force must actually be extremely weak, something less that a billionth the strength of gravity, otherwise we would have detected in already.

 

Other problems seem to be conservation of energy and 1/r^2 law.

 

And this is even before we have any actual evidence...

 

iii) Why do you think they have been investigating it for 130 years? Most of the paranormal gives us occasional glimpses of what seems to be true, but has never been proven, and we really do not know what it actually is. This makes it a tantalizing idea that we keep returning to.

The paranormal gives a glimpse into the human mind more than nature.

[swansont]

 

You have had some good ideas and advice in this thread, but I have questions regarding the above quote.

 

Are you saying that he could not move the test object when the chips were there, or are you saying that he also moved the chips? If he also moved the chips, it could be possible that he lacked the control to very delicately move one thing without moving another. It would also mean that we are assuming that telekinetics does not also move the air. Lot of assumption to my way of thinking.

 

Gee

 

I think this is mentioned in the link — he refused to attempt the demonstration with the chips nearby, because he knew it would reveal him to be the fraud he later admitted he was.

[John Cuthber]

Well I'm not sure you can discount a type Brownian Motion at this stage.

I am, because I can do arithmetic.

There's this thing called science; you might have heard of it.

It's a really neat trick for finding out how things work- well, strictly it's a way of finding out how they don't work, but that's nearly as good.

 

So, for example, someone might come up with the idea that Brownian motion is responsible for the movement if a bit of foil in a glass bowl.

Using science I can calculate how big the movements should be if they were driven by Brownian motion.

And the answer is tiny- far too small to see.

So I can rule out Brownian motion as a mechanism.

 

It doesn't tell me what is driving the foil, but it tells me that I can stop wasting time on Brownian motion.

Well, at least i can stop wasting time on it unless someone who doesn't understand it keeps banging on about it.

[DrP]

Having done a bit more discovery on the topic I have heard the "force" comes out from the hands. There is a series of videos by Darryl Sloan who also is trying to discover the science behind PSI and I believe he was able to get his PSI wheel to turn (a quarter turn only) under a glass bowl.

There could be basic science behind it but check out this video yourself.

 

To me - it clearly looks like the foil is still slowly coming to its equilibrium point of balance at the time he claims to have moved it... it's so precariously balanced and is still wobbling slightly when the turn happens.... which is a turn in the direction opposite to the turn it made a few seconds before when the guy set the thing up. If he left it for a lot longer it would just settle to stillness. Vibration through the floor and the table could unsettle the thing again - just look at the Euler's Disk thing we were discussing before - it can take a very long time for a mass to come to equilibrium. And, that equilibrium can be easilly disturbed if it was just hanging on to some partial metastable state set up by small masses and unknown frictions on the fulcrum point and the foil. Basically - the guy in the vid just doesn't really know what he is talking about, but is probably just a prankster or a con man, no-one can be that dumb surely. ;-)

 

To support this further - all of the after tests to show that the thing won't move with heat or drafts are done after the thing has then sat there for 10 mins... it won't move now because it has found it's equalibrium.... until you jog the table maybe and set it off again.

 

Also - with a completely different piece of foil, you might see the whole thing not work at all or even work a lot better, depending on the extent of the crinkles in the foil around the fulcrum which are giving these little rest spots for the thing to stop on from time to time while it is gaining torc under momentum for it's next move while it is settling.

 

I could be wrong, but I don't think so..... I think it is a lot more likely than than explaining those early movements with telekinesis. If I AM wrong, then the explaination lies elsewhere, not in brain power.

Edited January 23, 2016 by DrP

[Robittybob1]

.....

It doesn't tell me what is driving the foil, but it tells me that I can stop wasting time on Brownian motion.

Well, at least i can stop wasting time on it unless someone who doesn't understand it keeps banging on about it.

I didn't say it was Brownian Motion but "a type of Brownian Motion". I accept it isn't BM but some sort of motion quite close to the concept of Brownian Motion.

What is the most massive object that could be moved by the random fluctuations of air pressure under the glass bowl?

[John Cuthber]

Well, at least I can stop wasting time on it unless someone who doesn't understand it keeps banging on about it.

[Robittybob1]

 

To me - it clearly looks like the foil is still slowly coming to its equilibrium point of balance at the time he claims to have moved it... it's so precariously balanced and is still wobbling slightly when the turn happens.... which is a turn in the direction opposite to the turn it made a few seconds before when the guy set the thing up. If he left it for a lot longer it would just settle to stillness. Vibration through the floor and the table could unsettle the thing again - just look at the Euler's Disk thing we were discussing before - it can take a very long time for a mass to come to equilibrium. And, that equilibrium can be easilly disturbed if it was just hanging on to some partial metastable state set up by small masses and unknown frictions on the fulcrum point and the foil. Basically - the guy in the vid just doesn't really know what he is talking about, but is probably just a prankster or a con man, no-one can be that dumb surely. ;-)

 

To support this further - all of the after tests to show that the thing won't move with heat or drafts are done after the thing has then sat there for 10 mins... it won't move now because it has found it's equalibrium.... until you jog the table maybe and set it off again.

 

Also - with a completely different piece of foil, you might see the whole thing not work at all or even work a lot better, depending on the extent of the crinkles in the foil around the fulcrum which are giving these little rest spots for the thing to stop on from time to time while it is gaining torc under momentum for it's next move while it is settling.

 

I could be wrong, but I don't think so..... I think it is a lot more likely than than explaining those early movements with telekinesis. If I AM wrong, then the explaination lies elsewhere, not in brain power.

That is along the line I was thinking too. So would the real test be if the setup was stable, then to see if it can be moved later, but never lifting the bowl and resetting the foil on the point? For there must be a limit to how much settling can occur.

Well, at least I can stop wasting time on it unless someone who doesn't understand it keeps banging on about it.

So why did you even write that?

[John Cuthber]

 

So why did you even write that?

I wrote it to reiterate my point that the only reason that Brownian motion is still under discussion is that you don't understand it.

There is not, for example, a meaning to the phrase "a type of Brownian Motion".

Motion is Brownian motion, or it isn't.

(And, in this case, it's not),

Edited January 23, 2016 by John Cuthber

[Robittybob1]

I wrote it to reiterate my point that the only reason that Brownian motion is still under discussion is that you don't understand it.

There is not, for example, a meaning to the phrase "a type of Brownian Motion".

Motion is Brownian motion, or it isn't.

(And, in this case, it's not),

When Brown first described Brownian Motion he had no idea what was causing it.

[John Cuthber]

When Brown first described Brownian Motion he had no idea what was causing it.

https://vimeo.com/80162775

 

And it doesn't matter that he didn't know the cause.

There was a cause and it was what came to be known as Brownian motion.

[Robittybob1]

....

And it doesn't matter that he didn't know the cause.

There was a cause and it was what came to be known as Brownian motion.

Exactly and there maybe another type of motion which I have coined "a type of Brownian motion" that affects larger objects than is usually dealt with by classical Brownian motion. Let's call it Robittybobitty Motion just to make it distinct from BM then.

[swansont]

Exactly and there maybe another type of motion which I have coined "a type of Brownian motion" that affects larger objects than is usually dealt with by classical Brownian motion. Let's call it Robittybobitty Motion just to make it distinct from BM then.

 

Do you have examples of this phenomenon? What causes it?

[Gees]

Ajb;

 

Please consider my following thoughts:

 

It is fascinating just how many people we get on these forums who known nothing of how science works telling scientists how to do their jobs. Quite amazing really.

 

I hope you are not including me in this statement. I think science is brilliant.

 

What I object to in paranormal testing is what the tests are testing for. I am not a scientist, but I do remember my elementary education. When doing a scientific test, you try to remove any interference that is not what you are testing for, so that you can test for one specific thing. Yes? In paranormal testing, it is assumed that the paranormal is not normal; therefore, not natural, so they remove any possibility of natural influence -- they are testing for magic. Since magic does not actually exist, this testing seems to me to be less than brilliant -- and less than scientific.

 

It is the original premise, or the assumption that the paranormal is not normal or natural, that I take issue with. Philosophy is all about the premise.

 

People have tried to propose mechanisms. If one supposes that another fundamental force is at play here that can over come the electromagnetic binding atoms together, say in a 'spoon bending exercise'. Such a force would be always present in nature. This force must actually be extremely weak, something less that a billionth the strength of gravity, otherwise we would have detected in already.

 

Although I see your point, I think that you are forgetting something. The paranormal is about mind, so it is about consciousness, so it is about conscious life. We have detected conscious life; we just don't know how it works.

 

Every cell in our bodies is sentient, sentience being a lower form of consciousness. We can manipulate a cell, or clone a cell, or make a cell duplicate itself, but we can not create a cell -- we can not cause life from non-life. We don't understand the mechanism. I don't know anything about "electromagnetic binding atoms together", but every cell in our bodies is aware of the need to maintain itself and is also aware of the need to maintain and support the whole body, so this looks like a kind of binding to me, or at least an awareness of the binding.

We also know that bonding outside of the body and between life forms is real. How does it work? Through emotion. Can it affect things that are not alive? Don't know.

 

Most of the paranormal that I have looked into, the mechanism is emotion and/or bonding, and emotion works through the unconscious mind, so it is not very controllable. It is for this reason that I am very skeptical about telekinesis and telepathy, as it is claimed that they work through the self directed rational aspect of mind. On the other hand, there have been monks, who have been able to control parts of their bodies that should be controlled unconsciously, like breathing and heart rate and an indifference to pain. So they are controlling unconscious activity consciously, kind of like "wagging the dog", so it may be possible. Don't really know.

Other problems seem to be conservation of energy and 1/r^2 law.

 

Don't know what these are, so I will ask you. Does life contradict any laws of physics? If it does, then it is most likely that the paranormal will also; if it doesn't, then the paranormal most likely will not.

 

And this is even before we have any actual evidence...

Actually we have lots and lots of evidence, but it is all subjective. Consciousness is subjectivity.

The paranormal gives a glimpse into the human mind more than nature.

 

Are you implying that the human mind is not natural?

 

 

Swansont;

 

I think this is mentioned in the link — he refused to attempt the demonstration with the chips nearby, because he knew it would reveal him to be the fraud he later admitted he was.

 

I apologize. Normally I check links and read or view them, but I skipped it this time. Home life was kind of hectic, so I just asked my questions. It won't happen again.

 

Just for the sake of information, did he state how he committed the fraud? It would be nice to know for future reference.

 

Gee

[Robittybob1]

 

Do you have examples of this phenomenon? What causes it?

Did you study the last video I linked to? Where the PSI wheel kept making small rocking movements even when Darryl left the room.

That was the example and the cause I postulated to be random fluctuations in the air mass under the bowl. Just as BM is due to random collisions so does this. I was only looking for a simple physical explanation as to why the PSI wheel keeps moving fractionally.

link. Edited January 23, 2016 by Robittybob1

[swansont]

Just for the sake of information, did he state how he committed the fraud? It would be nice to know for future reference.

 

Gee

Are you just not willing to read the link?

[Gees]

Swansont;

 

Are you just not willing to read the link?

 

Sorry!! You said "later" admitted, so I did not think it was part of the link. I will check it out today.

 

Gee

[swansont]

Did you study the last video I linked to? Where the PSI wheel kept making small rocking movements even when Darryl left the room.

That was the example and the cause I postulated to be random fluctuations in the air mass under the bowl. Just as BM is due to random collisions so does this. I was only looking for a simple physical explanation as to why the PSI wheel keeps moving fractionally.

link.

No, I didn't; I'm not convinced it's not a waste of time (and the rules say you need top present the pertinent details here anyway) What's the difference between offering up a mythical physical phenomenon and a mythical mental phenomenon?

 

Can't you just own up to the fact that your suggestion of Brownian motion (or something like it) is without basis? Residual air currents are not something like Brownian motion.

[Robittybob1]

No, I didn't; I'm not convinced it's not a waste of time (and the rules say you need top present the pertinent details here anyway) What's the difference between offering up a mythical physical phenomenon and a mythical mental phenomenon?

 

Can't you just own up to the fact that your suggestion of Brownian motion (or something like it) is without basis? Residual air currents are not something like Brownian motion.

What makes you think residual air currents are not something like Brownian motion? Is BM accentuated by heat? I have a feeling it will be.

 

The residual air currents (in Darryl's case) were subsequently shown to be caused by heat. Heat from the turned off laptop!

 

Note it is the movement of the tin foil sheet that is like the BM. The residual air currents are more like the movement of the molecules in the solution the particles are suspended in. In fact they are not just residual but currents continually being generated by heat from the surroundings.

 

http://science.howstuffworks.com/brownian-movement-info.htm

 

When the fluid is heated, Brownian movement increases, because molecules move faster as the temperature rises.

Edited January 24, 2016 by Robittybob1

[ajb]

... and less than scientific.

Those that have made paranormal claims usual do not submit themselves for scientific testing, for obvious reasons.

 

 

Does life contradict any laws of physics?

No claims by any mainstream scientists suggest that life contradicts the laws of physics. Quite the opposite, life as far as we know obeys the usual principles of physics.

 

Sometimes anti-evolutionists and similar may make such claims.

 

 

Actually we have lots and lots of evidence, but it is all subjective. Consciousness is subjectivity.

This is the problem. So far there has been nothing like reliable scientific evidence of the 'paranormal' and in particular no evidence for telekinesis or telepathy.

 

 

Are you implying that the human mind is not natural?

Quite the opposite.

 

To me, the general arena of the paranormal is fascinating, but not because I think that any of this is real. I think the paranormal gives us great insight into the human mind in the sense of what imagination we have and how easily our senses can trick our brain. It also shed some light on deep ingrained fears and hopes. All of which are tied to our evolution and our social constructs.

[Robittybob1]

Those that have made paranormal claims usual do not submit themselves for scientific testing, for obvious reasons.

 

 

 

No claims by any mainstream scientists suggest that life contradicts the laws of physics. Quite the opposite, life as far as we know obeys the usual principles of physics.

 

Sometimes anti-evolutionists and similar may make such claims.

 

 

 

This is the problem. So far there has been nothing like reliable scientific evidence of the 'paranormal' and in particular no evidence for telekinesis or telepathy.

 

 

 

Quite the opposite.

 

To me, the general arena of the paranormal is fascinating, but not because I think that any of this is real. I think the paranormal gives us great insight into the human mind in the sense of what imagination we have and how easily our senses can trick our brain. It also shed some light on deep ingrained fears and hopes. All of which are tied to our evolution and our social constructs.

How does it fit in with evolution? Why would the humans with these imaginary tendencies have a selective advantage?