Reply to Re: Psychic powers.
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August 30th 2009, 05:23 PM
SkeleTony
Psychics do not exist. In addition to there being ZERO evidence that would warrant such an inference, every bit of evidence that could be scrutinized has been shown to be fraudulent or simple mis-perception.
Deja Vu is not an actual phenomenon but the belief that one has experienced such has to do with human psychology and our evolutionary biological wiring. Humans tend to amplify 'hits' and de-emphasize or ignore 'misses', ala 'Confirmation bias'.
Same thing basically applies to people who felt that were to some degree 'psychic' because they 'Were thinking about grandma just seconds before they got the phone call that grandma passed away or was admitted to the hospital...'. Basically we ignore all those times when we were thinking about Angelina Jolie or the clerk at the 7-11 and no one called to tell them news about Angelina/the 7-11 clerk/etc.
Probability dictates that out of the hundreds(perhaps thousands) of phone calls one will receive, a few of them will be eerie in their timing and/or subject matter and THOSE are the ones we remember and amplify through another psychological phenomenon called 'False memory'. We tend to recollect events inaccurately, giving amplified or outright false details that confirm our beliefs. This was famously demonstrated in a study where subjects who had visited Disneyland as a child but had not been back since then were asked a series of questions relating to their experience as they recalled it. One of those questions was "Do you remember your meeting with Bugs Bunny?" to which most of the respondents not only said "yes" but also gave detailed accounts of said meeting. The problem of course is that Bugs Bunny is a Warner Bros. cartoon character and has never been featured at Disneyland.
Deja Vu is not an actual phenomenon but the belief that one has experienced such has to do with human psychology and our evolutionary biological wiring. Humans tend to amplify 'hits' and de-emphasize or ignore 'misses', ala 'Confirmation bias'.
Same thing basically applies to people who felt that were to some degree 'psychic' because they 'Were thinking about grandma just seconds before they got the phone call that grandma passed away or was admitted to the hospital...'. Basically we ignore all those times when we were thinking about Angelina Jolie or the clerk at the 7-11 and no one called to tell them news about Angelina/the 7-11 clerk/etc.
Probability dictates that out of the hundreds(perhaps thousands) of phone calls one will receive, a few of them will be eerie in their timing and/or subject matter and THOSE are the ones we remember and amplify through another psychological phenomenon called 'False memory'. We tend to recollect events inaccurately, giving amplified or outright false details that confirm our beliefs. This was famously demonstrated in a study where subjects who had visited Disneyland as a child but had not been back since then were asked a series of questions relating to their experience as they recalled it. One of those questions was "Do you remember your meeting with Bugs Bunny?" to which most of the respondents not only said "yes" but also gave detailed accounts of said meeting. The problem of course is that Bugs Bunny is a Warner Bros. cartoon character and has never been featured at Disneyland.
