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That is indeed one of the most interesting aspects of the "unexplained" and "paranormal". It is easy for the skeptic to merely dismiss it all as charlatanism and foolery. But I think quite often, probably more often than people realize, the person perpetuating it genuinely does believe it themselves and believes themselves to have the power they think they do.
And quite often this is because people around them have been complicit, consciously or not, in ramifying the idea in the persons head that they have this "power".
Which is why when they run into a Randi or other skeptic and they fail to prove their powers, they leave genuinely confused and hurt and disillusioned.
And we have so many examples of this it is past being funny. The most striking (no pun intended) for me was the nature of complicit delusion that we see in the case of Yanagi Ryuken, a purported master of aikido who could strike people to the floor without touching them through the power of Chi.
When you look at THIS VIDEO it is clear why some people are impressed by it. But what we are actually seeing is a group of students who have become complicit in an old mans delusion and are throwing themselves to the floor.
And unfortunately (for him) this reality only became apparent when, in full confidence of his powers he stood up to an ACTUAL martial arts combatant and tried to use his "chi" on him. The result of his collision with reality is one you should only watch in THIS VIDEO if you are not perturbed by the sight of a defenseless old man being repeatedly punched in the face.
So while I am ENTIRELY and justifiably skeptical of the claims of his powers..... I am not AT ALL skeptical about his belief that he had them. He clearly genuinely believed he had a magical gift of chi. And he was probably left really confused and upset by his complete lack of it when this reality was made so painfully apparent to him.
So our investigation into the unexplained to separate the merely unexplained from the truly remarkable or even paranormal has this hurdle to over come. That the people claiming it, genuinely do believe it themselves. To the point they will literally stand up to fight based on their belief and get smacked around senseless for their efforts.
I have studied those effects quite closely and know them well enough to play with them and have fun. I have, for example, fully mastered the skill of having a group of innocent bystanders move a table around with the power of their minds and spirit. And despite the fact that these people are only LIGHTLY barely touching the table..... collectively they are able to move the table around a room unconsciously with a surprising quantity of force and direction and effect.
There is nothing there to suggest there is some magical "energy streams" that we have not detected with our science but somehow a trained mind can access.
Here is Derren Brown demonstrating the same trick I have mastered doing with groups. He does everything exactly like I can/do. He just does it with a lot more charisma, panache and presence than I do
I recommend trying it and mastering it. You get some great effects and responses from the people you do it on. People are genuinely left moved and emotionally unbalanced by the experience. IT can be quite effective and trans-formative for them.
I recall one we used as teenagers all the time. You sat the heavier of the kids in the chair and the other four kids clasped their own hand together and stuck out their index fingers. They put those fingers under each knee and arm pit of the one seated....and tried to lift the kid.
It of course, didn't work. Then you placed your hands on the seated kids head one prefer the other on a pile chanting light as a feather or some such nonsense, and when you repeated the lifting, the kid went up light as a feather.
There is some science behind this, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is.
I think I remember. It's dead weight. When you sit, you're dead weight, hard to lift. When four people pile hands on your head you go rigid, and stay rigid through the rest of the exercise...which helps the lifters.
Nozzferrahhtoo, I dont want to quote your whole post, so just imagine I have please.
Although I can agree with you that people like Darren Brown and yourself may be doing nothing special, your actions are still the product of your beliefs. You believe deep down this is not real. The opposite can be said for those who believe it IS real. Both sides believe something and the results manifest for them in their life.
Reading what I wrote about TCM, what do you think is going on there? Is it doctors being trained to perform as doctors, making the patients believe they will get well? If this is what you believe, then you must bear in mind this has been going on for centuries, not just in China but in the West and in every other country. NOTHING is anything other than one mind believing and the others following along, engaging in the same beliefs for their own benefit and experience.
Where does it stop? Are we all in some kind of mass hologram where we all have our own little piece which others "buy-into" to make our world a reality? Matrix-style.
So obviously fake that even the WWE would reject them.
Indeed but that is the crux of my point. One of the most interesting things in exploring "Unexplained Mysteries and Paranormal" is the fact that something that patently, obviously, transparently and blatantly false and fake..... STILL manages to convince people.
Despite the obvious fakery, this poor old man managed to mislead himself.... and be misled by others......... into GENUINELY believing he had an almost supernatural power.
He got into a ring with an ACTUAL COMBATANT he was so confident in his power. And it was not until this poor defenseless old man was repeatedly struck in the face that the reality of it likely started to become apparent to him.
So who knows if there is anything genuinely paranormal or weird out there in the world? I certainly have seen exactly ZERO evidence for any so far. But IF there is such a dimension to our reality..... then THIS is the kind of thing we have to overcome and account for in our exploration of it.
And it is a level of complexity we can not merely dismiss by calling practitioners charlatans. Many of them are, sure. But many of them GENUINELY believe it themselves.
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Originally Posted by Tallysmom
It of course, didn't work. Then you placed your hands on the seated kids head one prefer the other on a pile chanting light as a feather or some such nonsense, and when you repeated the lifting, the kid went up light as a feather.
I know the one! There is a mix of possible things going on there depending on exactly how it was executed.
Sometimes it is the placebo effect of self belief. It genuinely can make people stronger. Examples of this can be seen in some stage show magic where a member of an audience is unable to lift a bag of bricks before the "chanting" but after it he is able to lift it a centimeter off the floor and carry it across the stage. If you watch the recent "Miracle" stage show by Derren Brown he employs this technique. You basically get the weight JUST outside what a person can normally lift. Then push them over the edge with a bit of adrenaline and self belief.
Another way to do it however is to make sure you set the "center of gravity" of the lifter and/or the thing being lifted in just the right way. So on the "first attempt" the lifter or lifted is placed in a certain position or angle and they can not lift it. But in the "second attempt" this is slightly modified to manipulate the centre of gravity in a better way. A great exmaple of THIS one is Penn and Teller where they bring a petite woman to gyms. They get the muscliest looking men there to lift her up and they can do it. Then they pretend to magically remove the strength from the guys. The guys try to lift her again and they can not get her off the floor at all. Even though relative to them she is TINY. But all that is going on here.... is she has changed how she is standing to completely modify where her "centre of gravity" is. All perfectly scientific and rational and well known stuff. Actually Derren Brown has done that one too.
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Originally Posted by ocpaul20
Although I can agree with you that people like Darren Brown and yourself may be doing nothing special, your actions are still the product of your beliefs. You believe deep down this is not real.
Well no that is not accurate at all. I am merely the facilitator. The people actually "moving the table" are not me. They are people I have set to doing it. And they are always a mix of people. Some skeptical entirely. Some believers in the mystical world of woo. And everything in between.
And the "trick" works pretty much every time, regardless of the combination of participants I use. I am not touching the table myself AT ALL however. So my beliefs, or lack of them, are entirely out of the equation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ocpaul20
Reading what I wrote about TCM, what do you think is going on there? Is it doctors being trained to perform as doctors, making the patients believe they will get well?
Well yes, that is indeed how placebo works. Convincing patients that they will get better. It is very interesting stuff. No sign yet that placebo works because we are "getting in touch with magical sub level energies" or anything like that. Likely a lot of it is due to the fact that pain and suffering is itself already subjective. So treating subjectivity with subjectivity is not as magical as some might think, even if it is massively interesting.
Plabebo is interesting for several reasons. Placebo can work quite well for example EVEN WHEN you tell the patient it is placebo. What is even more interesting is that the more invasive a placebo is the more effective it is, even if the patient knows it is placebo. So a spoon of medicine is less effective than a pill. And a pill is less effective than an injection.
Indeed but that is the crux of my point. One of the most interesting things in exploring "Unexplained Mysteries and Paranormal" is the fact that something that patently, obviously, transparently and blatantly false and fake..... STILL manages to convince people.
Despite the obvious fakery, this poor old man managed to mislead himself.... and be misled by others......... into GENUINELY believing he had an almost supernatural power.
He got into a ring with an ACTUAL COMBATANT he was so confident in his power. And it was not until this poor defenseless old man was repeatedly struck in the face that the reality of it likely started to become apparent to him.
Indeed, pretty amazing that the old guy was able to convince himself that he was for real.
That's the point. He did not just convince himself. There was a deluge of people complicit in his delusion. And that can be quite convincing and affecting.
That's the point. He did not just convince himself. There was a deluge of people complicit in his delusion. And that can be quite convincing and affecting.
And you also are convincing others they can do this. This man must have had trainers who got him to believe what he now believes. So, you are sitting people around a table and making this levatation happen. Why can't you see the similarity?
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Well yes, that is indeed how placebo works. Convincing patients that they will get better. It is very interesting stuff. No sign yet that placebo works because we are "getting in touch with magical sub level energies" or anything like that. Likely a lot of it is due to the fact that pain and suffering is itself already subjective. So treating subjectivity with subjectivity is not as magical as some might think, even if it is massively interesting.
I am trying to be polite here - In my opinion what you are saying does not make sense, unless it is what I described previously. Are you suggesting the whole of Chinese medicine works as a placebo effect?
And you also are convincing others they can do this.
Well yes and no.
The difference is that I was tapping into a natural effect that people can already do and then showing them a surprising result of it.... that a table can move quite quickly and steadily around a room. There is no mystery here, no woo, no magic and I am entirely upfront with them either before, during or after the effect as to what just happened and why.
But the old man in question was made convinced he could do something he actually could not do. That he had a magical power outside the realms of science. And this delusion was facilitated by a systematic barrage of complicit actors who led him to becoming convinced of the reality of this power up until the day reality was brought to him in the form of multiple fist blows to his face.
This is no small difference.
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Originally Posted by ocpaul20
Why can't you see the similarity?
Or more to the point, why can't you see the differences?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ocpaul20
Are you suggesting the whole of Chinese medicine works as a placebo effect?
I am saying that when "alternative" medicine is examined and any of it is found to work, it becomes "medicine" and the rest is left to the world of placebo and charlatans to practice. I do not tend to answer vague questions. When you ask me "is the WHOLE of X in category Y" I am not going to answer that because the questions is too wide. But if you want to get specific about one treatment type in particular and you can show the citations of the inquiries that were made into it, I will happily evaluate them.
But yes a HUGE proportion of "alternative" medicine is simply down to placebo of one form or another. That and the effect of having the attentions of the practitioners. In homeopathy for example a lot of the "benefits" are put down to having practitioners sit down and really LISTEN to the patients complaints and spend time with them, soothing them, and connecting with them. While mainstream doctors can be quite cold, clinical and efficient, speeding the patients through the process and out the door. And this "personal touch" can have quite an impact on many patients.
Another aspect that we should not overlook is that when a fraudulent treatment is applied it is often to a condition that will almost always resolve due to the passage of time. Whether it's a headache, a cold, or a more serious infection, in most circumstances it won't last forever. If it ends, as it almost inevitably will, the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc is there to provide the explanation.
You've never seen traditional Chinese medicine or homeopathy or naturopathy or faith healing regrow an amputated limb, have you?
And yes, I said fraudulent because that is exactly what it is, particularly when we come to homeopathy.
Well very little ACTUAL medicine will re-grown an amputated limb. So to partake of the devils avocado salad I would have to point out that if we are going to evaluate alternative medicines, we should be doing it to the same standards as mainstream ones and not expect it to achieve some magical higher standard like literally producing new limbs.
The problem for most alternative medicine is that it does not attain the lower standards either. Homeopathy as you mentioned it does not perform any better than placebo. But in fairness to them there is one claim they make that is not fraudulent. On their bottles they usually have written "No side effects"
You are absolutely right to mention "post hoc ergo propter hoc" and this is compounded by something called "return to the mean" too. It is not just that illnesses get better with time, but most illnesses get better, then worse, then better, then worse WHILE you have them. So quite often what happens with "post hoc ergo propter hoc" is that people reach for the "alternative treatment" at the worst parts of the diseases..... JUST when it was about to get a bit better anyway. So they become convinced that this is what is making them better.
The paranormal and unexplained are GREAT and fun topics to explore, and they sometimes even help us learn real things about our universe. But there is so much failed human intuition we have to work through before we even get to the core of what it is we think we want to study and test.
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