Supernormal Senses (telepathy, etc): Do They Exist

[Mattos_12]

Basically the problem is that people's minds are really good at finding patterns, and are always looking for them (without your consciously knowing about it). Our brains are amazing, capable of inventing things, making us see things that aren't there, changing our memories, and finding faces in random dots.

This can be pretty handy (like if you want to see a tiger hiding in trees etc) but it does mean that we tend to find patterns when their no there. Luckily we have science, which takes away a lot of the wishful thinking, bias and pattern finding problems in the human mind. So, whilst people might want to have magic powers, science finds no evidence for them. For now, its pretty much just case closed.

[Dreadnought]

We know very little about our brains and how they work and what they are capable of, but we are learning more and more each year.

[Nozzferrahhtoo]

Originally Posted by Dreadnought

We know very little about our brains and how they work and what they are capable of, but we are learning more and more each year.

Yes there are many things we do not undertand. The key on a thread of this nature however is that this does not give us license to simply make up nonsense and act like it is credible.

"We do not fully understand the brain" jumping to "Therefore it is credible that some people somewhere can engage in telepathy" is a complete and baseless non-sequitur.

[ocpaul20]

Originally Posted by Mattos_12

The problem is that most of these things are amazingly easy to test. Can people move things with their minds? Surly a pretty easy thing to test? Yet despite some studies there seems to be no clear evidence for it. Shouldn't it be something whereas, if it did exist, the evidence is amazingly clear?

No... the problem is that science tries to squeeze investigations into their imperfect framework. Some things, a LOT of things, cannot be squeezed into their restrictive rules and they wont or they cannot make new rules which are acceptable to other scientists. If they try, then their science is 'flawed' or 'bad' science.
The problem is also that the peer-review system is geared towards keeping the status-quo and will not easily allow new understandings to creep in.

On one hand, science says that there are other dimensions which cannot be measured but have been 'found' to exist by experimentation and theory. On the other hand, when other non-scientists say there are other dimensions, the non-scientists cannot 'prove' that what they say is correct. What to do? Science wants to control science and religion/belief systems want to control their religion/belief system. Neither side will move towards the other and so we have this impasse.

Then we have people who hold onto their cherished beliefs and sit firmly in one camp or the other. They cannot allow themselves to believe (yes, at this stage it IS a belief) that these things exist yet their feelings which they deny in favour of 'scientific proof' are in opposition.

I personally think that there are many people who need a definite 'view' of their world in order to feel safe and the only definite view of this world is through science where everything has to be proved through repeatable experiments. If it cannot be produced on-demand, then it cannot fit into the science framework and therefore cannot be a 'valid' view of daily life. How sad.

There are lots of different words used to deny something's validity and to make the personal experience 'invalid' or all-in-the-mind and there are examples throughout the 8 pages of this thread. I feel it is a form of control and disrespect for the experience of others which is largely produced by the scientfic and medical establishment. Just because something cannot be proved, does not mean was not experienced, and it is very arrogant to assume that science or medicine has the only handle on all of reality..