the telepathy thread

[Chroma Starlight]

1 minute ago, Rat Luv said:

I don't know if you're teasing? 😄..I have definitely had number coincidences come up before!

You never look at forum post number and rep count quite the same again. Each post is a numerically-unique moment!

[Coffee Pancake]

6 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

 

You mean like the X-Files episode with Burt Reynolds? That damn number 3 kept coming up days after we watched the episode. Every. Where. We. Looked. There was that damn number 3.

Pick a random number, that's your lucky number for today. Tell yourself every time you see it, it's the universe telling you things will go well.

Well done, you broke your brain and will see it everywhere, and by the end of the day you wont be able to shake the feeling that it's meant to be.

[Silent Mistwalker]

3 minutes ago, Rat Luv said:

I don't know if you're teasing? 😄..I have definitely had number coincidences come up before!

Not teasing at  all. It really happened. Not just to me, to husband, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improbable_(The_X-Files)

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 minute ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Pick a random number, that's your lucky number for today. Tell yourself every time you see it, it's the universe telling you things will go well.

Well done, you broke your brain and will see it everywhere, and by the end of the day you wont be able to shake the feeling that it's meant to be.

Not even close to what happened. And no, just because my DOB is mostly nines, 9 is not a lucky number. If any thing it's unlucky AND a multiple of 3. So there. 😋

[Rat Luv]

 

1 minute ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Not even close to what happened. And no, just because my DOB is mostly nines, 9 is not a lucky number. If any thing it's unlucky AND a multiple of 3. So there. 😋

I was just about to say 9 is my lucky number 🤣

 

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Not even close to what happened. And no, just because my DOB is mostly nines, 9 is not a lucky number. If any thing it's unlucky AND a multiple of 3. So there. 😋

My point is it's that easy to do this.

Low numbers are more likely. 3 is an especially easy one to see everywhere, or to count events in sequences of 3, or to take other things or numbers and work that back to 3, and once that seed has been planted your mind will subconsciously do the rest. There's a cluster of neurons somewhere in your head that really (and I mean REALLY) like 3.

Even if you know and are convinced it's all BS .. it still works.

 

[Chroma Starlight]

21 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Pick a random number, that's your lucky number for today. Tell yourself every time you see it, it's the universe telling you things will go well.

I don't think that's quite how this works, you see, it's not "up" to you what's important today. Maybe today will be something else entirely, there are so many possible paths through a day, some less trodden. Maybe the "universe" (you think there's only one emerging from source?!) will choose to make you notice a number. It'll be something that stands out, obviously, and usually stacked with extradimensional meaning so you really take notice, and maybe it will be like a number is lucky in the most absurd spoopy sequence, every time you touch it feels golden. That is, assuming you didn't dismiss your cue or even ignore it to the point of being unconscious of it. Stranger things than mere good fortunes have happened when people follow gut intuition. I think it happens more readily with symbols than numbers, but numbers have an aesthetic and resonance all their own.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Chroma Starlight

[Rat Luv]

I know there's been a film about it, but I have met a lot of people renting at no. 23 😳

[Madelaine McMasters]

37 minutes ago, Rat Luv said:

One coincidence was reading a book by Tom Vague about Notting Hill in the 1960s that had a photo of a wall with "I CAN'T BREATHE" graffiti  at exactly the same time the George Floyd incident happened...

And Tom Vague's other book is this! https://www.amazon.co.uk/Televisionaries-Red-Army-Faction-Story/dp/1873176473

Here's Google's Ngram view of "I can't breathe". I think I first became aware of the phrase a decade ago after police in a town near me caused the death of a young man. I've been hearing that phrase ever since. By the time George Floyd's death, the phrase was well known in the black community. You became aware of it as the result of George Floyd's death elevating the phrase to meme and hashtag status.

You'll see that the phrase rises from obscurity (again) around 1960. I'm curious about the bump from 1870-1900. Tom Vague wrote the book in 2012. It's hard to say whether the photo you saw was from the 1960s, or more recent. No author truly writes from other times they depict.

Coincidences are a dime a dozen.

;-).

Edited July 6, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters
changed "from the time" to "from other times" so it makes sense.

[Silent Mistwalker]

8 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

My point is it's that easy to do this.

Low numbers are more likely. 3 is an especially easy one to see everywhere, or to count events in sequences of 3, or to take other things or numbers and work that back to 3, and once that seed has been planted your mind will subconsciously do the rest. There's a cluster of neurons somewhere in your head that really (and I mean REALLY) like 3.

Even if you know and are convinced it's all BS .. it still works.

 

Um. Bookkeepers and  accountants tend to like all numbers.

Your point had nothing to do with what happened to us.

[Rat Luv]

.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Rat Luv

[Rolig Loon]

As a scientist, I usually know better than to argue about beliefs and articles of faith, most of which are real to us and -- by their very nature -- impossible to prove.  Most importantly, they influence the way our minds interpret the world around us and either accept or reject it.  There's a major difference between faith (or belief) and scientifically verifiable reality, though.  I will gladly defend anyone's right to hold beliefs that shape her universe.  I enjoy Harry Potter and speculative fiction as much as the next person.  Just don't try to apply the tools of science to "prove" that realities based on faith and wishful thinking exist.  That's unfair to science and to faith.

[Coffee Pancake]

14 minutes ago, Chroma Starlight said:

I don't think that's quite how this works,

That's exactly how it works. If you can knowingly lie to yourself and decide to believe something (even something you know to be BS), imagine how easy it is for external things to do that.

Your brain is desperately creating and matching patterns and you're unaware of it. Your brain will actively apply new patterns to old information and permanently change your perceptions with no conscious action from yourself. The whole mess ends up a self reinforcing search for more self reinforcing information.

Once you find a rabbit hole, It's rabbit holes all the way down.

For added fun, mix sex into the mess, or sweet food, or holding a warm drink. A cup of hot chocolate is a powerful tool to someone who understands how to effectively deploy it.

[Chroma Starlight]

2 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

... Just don't try to apply the tools of science to "prove" that realities based on faith and wishful thinking exist.  That's unfair to science and to faith.

 

Quote

It is said that a visitor once came to the home of Nobel Prize–winning physicist Niels Bohr and, having noticed a horseshoe hung above the entrance, asked incredulously if the professor believed horseshoes brought good luck. “No,” Bohr replied, “but I am told that they bring luck even to those who do not believe in them.”

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 minute ago, Rolig Loon said:

I will gladly defend anyone's right to hold beliefs that shape her universe.

A lot of people hold beliefs that shape other people's universes.

That's when I gladly challenge.

[Madelaine McMasters]

3 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

A cup of hot chocolate is a powerful tool to someone who understands how to effectively deploy it.

...sets it on fire.

[Coffee Pancake]

6 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

...sets it on fire.

As someone who's allowed themselves to fall in love over a mug of sweet coco piled high with marshmallows, simply because it seemed like a wonderful misadventure in the moment, I can't help feel you're 10 years too late .. that was so dumb. Fun .. but really stupid. 

Edited July 6, 2021 by Coffee Pancake

[Chroma Starlight]

16 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

That's exactly how it works. If you can knowingly lie to yourself and decide to believe something (even something you know to be BS), imagine how easy it is for external things to do that.

Once you find a rabbit hole, It's rabbit holes all the way down.

That seems like a very simplistic way of looking at things. We don't usually believe lies unless conditioned to somehow. Anyway, it's rarely as simple as all that. Not much is black and white in reality and so belief is more like a filter and an expectation or optimism or knowledge that things work a certain kind of way. In photography, switching from a telephoto over to a fish-eye lens and then over from color negative to infrared positive film doesn't make the result "a lie," it may just not be traditional for wedding photography.

How one approaches things can be a matter of suitability to some purpose or in some context, but also of course it's a matter of reality, which is infinite within its bounds. Hopefully you are discerning enough to distinguish the lies from the truth, understanding that the sometimes even apparent truths are actually just built out of lies, or filled with lies, or founded on lies, or tainted with diluted lie. And so you really do have to consider the absolute context of things, know yourself, and listen. 

Edited July 6, 2021 by Chroma Starlight

[Rolig Loon]

5 minutes ago, Chroma Starlight said:

  Quote

It is said that a visitor once came to the home of Nobel Prize–winning physicist Niels Bohr and, having noticed a horseshoe hung above the entrance, asked incredulously if the professor believed horseshoes brought good luck. “No,” Bohr replied, “but I am told that they bring luck even to those who do not believe in them.”

That's Blaise Pascal's 17th Century argument for God, and it's a good one.  Why believe that God exists? "If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exists."  I like that argument.  It satisfies my own sense of the universe, and it has absolutely nothing to do with science.  Some things do not deserve to be proven.

So again, if you wish to believe in invisible elephants, telepathy, or faeries, be my guest.  If you want to convince me scientifically that they exist, however, find a way to do it that uses the tools of science and doesn't begin by assuming that they do.  Begin by assuming that they do not.  If you run into an example that seems to disagree with that starting point, do everything you can to eliminate observational error and experimental bias.  If the observation still survives that scrutiny, you might be onto something.  That's a really tough hurdle, though.  So far, the jury is still out.

[Madelaine McMasters]

3 minutes ago, Chroma Starlight said:

We don't usually believe lies unless conditioned to somehow.

Most of the wrong things we believe are not lies. Lie implies intent.

Believing the sound of a snapping twig always signals a predator is a life-saving misapprehension. Our rapid social evolution from small tribes to modern society renders a lot of such life-saving misapprehensions problematic.

[Chroma Starlight]

7 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

So again, if you wish to believe in invisible elephants, telepathy, or faeries, be my guest.  If you want to convince me scientifically that they exist, however, find a way to do it that uses the tools of science and doesn't begin by assuming that they do. 

Or maybe some of us just split off to that scene, the one where those things are just all over the place, forking off to a more colorful and inspiring corner of the multiverse to flourish while others, back here, teach the controversy. Who's even to say reality extends beyond the limits of an individual's perception aside from some shared local meta as filtered by them. It could just be everyone's experience is bespoke.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Chroma Starlight

[Madelaine McMasters]

6 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

That's Blaise Pascal's 17th Century argument for God, and it's a good one.  Why believe that God exists? "If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exists."  I like that argument.  It satisfies my own sense of the universe, and it has absolutely nothing to do with science.  Some things do not deserve to be proven.

Dad took Pascal's Wager. I don't think I can. I don't imagine a god I believe in because Pascal said "it couldn't hurt" would appreciate that kind of nonchalance.

[Rolig Loon]

2 minutes ago, Chroma Starlight said:

Who's even to say reality extends beyond the limits of an individual's perception aside from some shared local meta as filtered by them. 

Heh.  Now you trick my mind into remembering a conversation from 40 years ago.  I had a friend, an eminent professor of psychology, who told me after an evening of much wine and imagining, that he believed everything he was experiencing was an elaborate fantasy.  I did not exist, the room we were sitting in and the wine we were drinking did not exist.  They were all in his mind.  When he died, he believed, the entire universe would die with him because it was all a marvelous fiction.

It's hard to argue against a belief like that.  It's like "turtles all the way down" cosmology.  It has a ring of irrefutable truth to it.  As Maddy says, though,

31 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

A lot of people hold beliefs that shape other people's universes.

That's when I gladly challenge.

 Me too.  If you want me to accept that all sorts of fine magical things are real, play by my rules.  Use scientific processes to dive into the rabbit holes and root out the pesky errors and biases that hide what might be there. 

[Rolig Loon]

5 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I don't imagine a god I believe in because Pascal said "it couldn't hurt" would appreciate that kind of nonchalance.

Oh, I think that's exactly what she would appreciate.  God has a great sense of humor. Look at the platypus.  

[Madelaine McMasters]

2 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Oh, I think that's exactly what she would appreciate.  God has a great sense of humor. Look at the platypus.  

I'll see you in hell, Loon*.

;-).

* Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. Mark Twain

Edited July 6, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters