Moondira

Twin telepathy stories abound, and there are 50 million sets of twins on Earth. That's a target rich environment for research, yet I'm unaware of any credible evidence of telepathy between twins, or anyone. Psychic experiences aren't so amenable to lab experimentation. Usually they occur unexpectedly, though there are ways to lessen the ego barriers that prevent them and so better facilitate their occurrence. I've not seen experiments which take these problems into account; i.e., bad design/methodology equals a bad result. Sometimes we find, especially on the internet or in new-age circles, people who use quantum concepts to justify what they want to be true, but without understanding the science. Silliness and fads are always a part of the human experience. But ignorant people do not prove something is not true. Check out the respected scientist Erwin Laszlo -- he ties together quantum physics with some of the concepts we're discussing here much better than any new-age mumbo jumbo. Currently I'm reading his book 'Science and the Reenchantment of the Cosmos: The Rise of the Integral Vision of Reality' Quantum Physics is not an easy topic to read, but he does a fairly good job simplifying it for the lay reader: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/181822.Science_and_the_Reenchantment_of_the_Cosmos

That doesn't work, and I've just realised why "[A] true non-sensory experience might have occurred" and "a means outside of our known sensory detection ability" aren't the same thing at all. A means outside out known sensory detection ability is quite possible. We couldn't detect all sorts of wave and particle activity until one day we could. No, a true non-sensory experience might be detectable in the future, or it might not be. I've never separated them but it looks like you separated them in your mind and are imagining I did. I've always allowed a true non-sensory experience the possibility of detection in the future if new measuring devices allowed it. A true ESP experience simply means it is derived from what humans can't currently detect, and a false one is the wishful thinking and errors in logic we've been describing. No, you are assuming I'm looking at it the other way around when I'm not, but this is what you've been doing. I've never said or implied that ESP is a "thing" separate from the rest of the world or any type of measurement we might come up with in the future. I've only said that normally we can't perceive these types of connections with our senses. Like I said, I view the world holistically. ESP experiences are not a separate "thing" outside of the world we inhabit; it is only our lack of awareness of it that lends it any separateness. I would suggest reading some of the newer science on quantum physics and studies in consciousness, as well as meditating under the guidance of a competent teacher for one hour daily for at least a year. Not to experience telepathy per se but to experience the state of consciousness that can allow telepathy to incidentally occur -- a more holistic type of consciousness that isn't as limited by the ego (left-brain).

Possibly you do, though most people's perception of the world is remarkably partial and selective. However, I really don't see what that's got to do with it. If you want me to accept that "that a true non-sensory experience might have occurred; that information could have been accessed by a means outside of our known sensory detection ability," I'm perfectly prepared to accept it could thus have been accessed, but you have to be prepared to accept that it might not have happened that way either, and that there may well be any number of equally plausible explanations that don't involve upending the laws of physics to get them to work. I've never said there could not be plausible sensory explanations for any individual's claim to a telepathic experience (errors in logic, wishful thinking, for example). Most cases of claimed telepathy are not true. I'm only saying that when I evaluate a claim of telepathy I allow for the possibility that it could be true; I don't automatically rule it out. Also, I think you need to read some of the newer Physics; there are numerous scientific articles embodying a new paradigm. Upending the laws of Physics -----YES! They are working on it I don't want to persuade you of anything. I want you to read modern Physics. Also, I would like to have this thread be a space for others to simply express their telepathic experiences without being forced to justify them to you if they choose not to engage. I'm not interested in telepathy per se, and I'm especially not interested in people who feign it or even make a game of the fact that there are ways of connection beyond what the current human conceptions and measurements allow. It is the worldview which discounts a part of reality beyond what humans can currently perceive and measure that I rail against, that says anything humans can't conceive of or measure does not exist. Telepathy is but one facet of a worldview that says we are far more connected than what our measurements currently allow us to see. Telepathy should not automatically be discounted simply because we don't have the measurements to detect it, or because we see the world from a humancentric viewpoint. There is a profound weakness in assuming that our particular sense organs and devices of measurement are the only way to define and perceive reality. Like someone said earlier, it's like placing a thermometer next to a computer and insisting there are no EMF waves emitted by it because the thermometer does not register them. Reality could very well be beyond what humans can normally sense, and indeed many affirm that it is. Those who can affirm that it is (beyond what humans can normally sense) would have trouble convincing you intellectually. Some reading in the new Physics might provide a better frame of reference for you though. So in a way this intellectual discussion (at least with many participating in it currently) might not, as you say, take us anywhere. I only wish more humans could experience this reality because experiencing reality from an anthropocentric perspective is destroying our planet. When we relate holistically we take care of what is perceived as 'us' (what we genuinely feel connected to in the world), but when we separate from the world and only see it through human eyes we tend to control and exploit what appears separate and inferior. Our history, for the last X hundreds of years, has been nothing but separating everything into bits with humans becoming more individualized and unable to comprehend they are part of the whole. I do have some hope though as more holistic paradigms emerge and shake loose the old beliefs that deaden our world. Long ago the Native Americans lived in harmony with the land, and received instruction from it. They did not overstep bounds; they did not commodify the earth and hoard it in the way we Westerners do. The world was alive and appreciated in its own right; it was not dead matter that existed only for humans to exploit until it was destroyed or all used up. Can we go back to that mindset? Maybe, but another part of me says that the Ghost Dance and Wovoka's dream will come to pass, that the red man (aboriginal) will end up inheriting the continent, and sooner than we might like.

Do you see any solutions? I know there are competent science writers who sometimes do a good job. Frequently I like to read the philosophy of science more than actual science experiments.

As I just described to Rolig, I view dividing reality into its parts and not comprehending the whole as the primary causation of the mess the world is in. Yet you are advising I do this in evaluating the phenomenon of telepathy. But I see the world as a whole; I don't cut out parts of it so that I can make my point. I fully acknowledge that much (if not most) of what others believe to be non-sensory phenomena (extra sensory phenomena) is actually the result of wishful imagination or faulty reasoning (the errors in logic humans can exhibit, as described by Kahneman). But I also leave open the possibility that a true non-sensory experience might have occurred; that information could have been accessed by a means outside of our known sensory detection ability. The latter is the definition of true telepathy, and you are asking me to leave out the actual definition of it in my evaluation of it? This is beyond illogical. Your request would be perfectly understandable if we were discussing, say, the weather patterns in Africa, or the behavior of newborn kittens; yes in these cases it's best to stick to the known senses in our evaluation. This won't work in the case of telepathy, however, because it starts from the position, the claim, of experience outside our known senses. I'm willing to include both -- faulty logic/wishful thinking causing an individual to believe an experience is a telepathic one outside the known sensory channels and the possibility of a non-sensory experience outside our known ways of perceiving the world -- why can't you?

I hope you don't think I was dissing scientists. I enjoy reading about science and admire scientists. I wouldn't care if there were 3 times the scientists vs the artists. I'm currently reading Mapping The Heavens by Priyamvada Natarajan, who is quite impressive: https://campuspress.yale.edu/priya/new-post-from-lisa/ https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300204414/mapping-heavens I was not positing some sort of contest between artists and scientists to determine which is better. While using a scientist, Darwin, as an example of left-brain/right-brain imbalance I was speaking to this dynamic in society overall -- the Western world is imbalanced in favor of the 'left-brain' and we would be better as a society overall if we incorporated more holistic 'right-brain' dynamics and let this side be the "Master", as Dr. Iain McGilchrist advises. I see science moving away from an excessively individualized, atomized paradigm so there is hope, and perhaps that's why I love the more holistically oriented discoveries in quantum mechanics which have the potential of tying our world together. Anyway, I used Darwin is an example of a scientist who became unbalanced, someone who focused intensely on his 'left brain' activities and lost touch with his 'right brain', much the way I see that society overall has done, and did not mean to imply anything is wrong with individual scientists. I do wonder why this happened to him, and in my own endeavors I struggle to maintain the balance (personally this is one reason why, as an artist, I spend time writing to keep my 'left brain' active). For centuries we've been on the path of conquering and controlling nature, of bending it to our will for our anthropocentric needs, not taking into account the needs of of other inhabitants of our world, of the whole. That's what the 'left brain' tends to do, it tends to take everything apart and see only parts while ignoring the connection between everything, whereas the 'right brain' views reality more holistically. This materialistic, reductionist approach to the world is causing grave harm, so much so that we may become instinct in the next decades as we clamor to suck up every last resource for humans while ignoring the web of life that is worthy in its own right, and is vital in keeping humans alive too. It's bizarre really; there is a general lack of comprehension that if the rest of life dies then we do too, and it's as if on some level we believe humans are so special and separate from the rest of the world that we could live without the environment surrounding us. Somewhere along the way we stopped feeling connected to nature in its own right and increasingly began looking at it as a 'thing' to control, as something that only exists to accommodate our demands instead of living in balance with it. The development of science has certainly facilitated this mindset, along with all its positive contributions, but I don't blame science per se.

But most of all, snark those who thrive on having enemies. Fortunately, I don't see this dynamic too much inworld. Not as much as I do on the forum anyway. And so I see SL overall as pretty welcoming to new people. I do take note though, that it might be because we don't open our mouths as much inworld. 😁 Basically, SL is pretty much like real life in that your experience depends on who you meet.

"Towards the end of this life, Charles Darwin indulged in a little retrospection. Aged 65, he wrote a short, episodic autobiography, intended only for close family members. Published in a redacted version as part of his son’s Life and Letters of Charles Darwin a decade or so later, it only emerged fully into the light in the 1950s. Primarily about his working life, the document did allow Darwin to ruminate a bit on his personality and interests. “Looking back as well as I can at my character during my school life,” he recollected, “the only qualities which at this period promised well for the future were that I had strong and diversified tastes.” Some of those tastes were self–evidently scientific. Euclid’s geometry, he recalled, gave him “intense satisfaction.” But many were not. “I was fond of reading various books, and I used to sit for hours reading the historical plays of Shakespeare.” The poetry of Byron, Scott, Milton, Gray, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and Thomson had the same effect, as did art and music, which afforded him “very great delight”. Things began to change, however, and from about the age of thirty Darwin began to lose all pleasure from poetry “of any kind, including Shakespeare.” Indeed, it was worse than this. For many years now, he confessed towards the end of the memoir, “I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.” It was a similar story for art. “I have also almost lost any taste for pictures.” Music simply distracted him and even beautiful scenery “does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did.” Darwin lamented this and, in typical fashion, pondered it. “My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts,” he said, before proceeding in the very same sentence to ask, “why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive.” The juxtaposition of these clauses – the first seemingly answering the second – appears to have escaped him. He goes on to evaluate, briefly, the consequence of this loss. His inability to read and enjoy poetry, drama, music, and art may possibly have been “injurious to the intellect”, but Darwin sounds unsure about this. More probably, it was a loss “to the moral character”. Certainly, it entailed “a loss of happiness”. Darwin’s loss may have been pronounced but it was surely not unique. Indeed, it might even stand for the entire trajectory of the modern Western world, if the argument of The Master and His Emissary, Iain McGilchrist’s widely–lauded intellectual blockbuster is correct. Society has become a kind of machine for grinding general happiness out of large collections of data, or at least trying to. It probably hasn’t been injurious to our intellect. We remain very clever. But it hasn’t done our moral character any good. And it hasn’t really generated that much happiness. To paraphrase William Wordsworth, who hovers like a presiding genius above The Master and His Emissary, we have murdered to dissect". ~~ "The book (The Master And His Emissary) is, in its very nature, an objective attempt to understand the human condition through a highly–informed and sympathetic analysis. But it is an analysis nonetheless and one that points us to the need for a response that cannot be analytic. We cannot forensically analyse our way out of whatever existential cul–de–sac the left hemisphere has driven us into. Rather, we need to do something else. We need art, we need music, we need poetry, we need ritual, we need landscape, we need narrative, we need the Other, we need God, we need love. We need, as Seamus Heaney wrote in his magnificent poem, ‘Postscript’, to “make the time to drive out West…when the wind/ And the light are working off eachother.” But we need to keep moving because it is “Useless to think you’ll park and capture it/ More thoroughly.” Darwin knew this. He ended his most famous book with his own tangled bank, “clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth”. It’s a vision almost worthy of the Romantic poets with whom he grew up, Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey’ hovering in the background: “Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth.” Darwin was still, then, a lover of meadows and woods but by this stage, Wordsworth hovered only as a ghost, and Darwin was well on the way to losing the “strong and diversified tastes” with which he started out. The left hemisphere was winning. “A man with a mind more highly organised or better constituted than mine, would not I suppose have thus suffered”, he reasoned in his autobiography, before resolving, somewhat mournfully: “If I had to live my life again I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied could thus have been kept active through use.” " https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2020/10/26/murdering-to-dissect-the-master-and-his-emissary

And I'm sure you know many people claiming that ESP is real have had their claims debunked. What of it? Which aspect of Kahneman's research do you criticise in particular? He's a Nobel laureate, so his work is worth taking seriously, I think, and he certainly makes a very cogent and persuasive case. Regarding replication, I was referring to the religion aspect Madelaine brought into the discussion; I was basically saying that scientific replication is not the only way to arrive at truth. However, a primary criticism of Kahneman's book is that many of his experiments cannot be replicated: https://jasoncollins.blog/re-reading-kahnemans-thinking-fast-and-slow/ https://www.wenglinskyreview.com/wenglinsky-review-a-journal-of-culture-politics/2017/1/23/kahnemans-fallacies https://jasoncollins.blog/bad-behavioural-science-failures-bias-and-fairy-tales/ Kahneman even came out and admitted he placed too much faith in underpowered studies: https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-underpowered-studies-nobel-prize-winner-admits-mistakes/ Personally I'm not so troubled about some studies not being replicable and critique it on other grounds, some of them not even attributable to the book per se but instead in the manner in which others becoming aware of illogical thinking patterns misapply the theories to other people and situations. I've seen Madelaine do this repeatedly, and am hoping she'll take her beloved book off the altar, illumined lovingly by the candles shining upon it, and read it more carefully. Behavioral scientists in general can become quite cocky and divorce themselves from real life, only paying attention to the patterns they think they've discovered and misapplying them. I don't know whether to laugh or cry reading these examples: https://unherd.com/2020/03/dont-trust-the-psychologists-on-coronavirus/ https://jasoncollins.blog/2020-04-07-the-limits-of-behavioural-science-coronavirus-edition/ But regarding Kahneman's book specifically, I like his conceptualization of some of the illogical patterns he demonstrates, but my main criticism is that (although he assigns the 'left brain' rational mind the number 2 position and the more unconscious 'right brain' mind the number 1 position) he clearly favors the conscious, rational mind and assigns all bias to the other. I much more agree with a book published 2 years prior to his which gives the 'right brain' mind priority, The Master And His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist. His book stresses that the conscious, rational mind should be the servant of the 'right brain' and not its master. I believe the conscious, rational mind is overrated; one only has to look at the mess the Western world has created for proof of this. The Enlightenment? Just no. Plus, you can't make someone rational by telling them to be so. Just look at the forum for examples of that! One must dig deeper/higher, and incorporate Transpersonal Psychology methods to effect lasting change. It might be fun for us intellectuals to play with our minds and see where we fool ourselves, but lasting change for society? Nope. So what's the point of Kahneman's book really? So us intellectuals can play with ourselves I guess.

Yup. That's the process. Test a conclusion by seeing whether you can replicate it under the same conditions repeatedly. If you can't, you must have reached a flawed conclusion. If you can replicate it, you might still have reached a flawed or incomplete conclusion, but you won't know unless you test under different conditions or find contradictory observations. When that happens, you dust yourself off, make a better guess about what's going on, test it, and try to replicate the new result. And so it goes, baby steps. If telepathy rarely happens in a laboratory setting, and rarely happens between people who don't know each other, then the variables are not set up correctly. Poor methodology produces poor results. * Another problem is that experiments in telepathy are set up to test the physical world as detected by the 5 human senses. But true telepathy, by definition, transcends the physical world as we know it. We have to take into consideration quantum physics if we want to understand it, and I've never seen this taken into consideration in most telepathy experiments.

I'm not sure why you think the Bible isn't a religious reference. You don't understand that is simply an expression and not indicative of bringing religion into the discussion?

Yep, but if you go by the experimental successes over the history of science and religion, one does seem to be have a better track record. Curiously, it's the one that admits it doesn't know where it's going, allows for the possibility of never getting there, and is generally excited about that. I'm not sure why you've brought religion into the discussion. My backup links/concepts point straight to Physics and ongoing research there.

I'm sure you know, much research has been replicated and then discovered at a later time to be wrong, or at the very least incomplete.

Are you saying that my entire life's experience of my own premonitions being wrong far more often than right is but one input? My father was the one who encouraged me to try to keep track of wrong premonitions, as he had, and as had his grandfather before him. I'll count my father's experience as a first hand account and my grandfather's experience as hearsay. Might not our ability to learn to detect this internal bias be considered... expertise? I'm big on paying attention to anyone's experience, but there are limitations. All mind's are different, and so we need other variables (other minds) in any experiment in order to draw a more valid conclusion. For example, perhaps another person doesn't have the vast amount of premonitions you experience and then discover to be in error. I don't.

Little does Arielle know we are busily discussing her situation. hehe

What about a difference in the intensity of the smell, or the extent of space affected by it? Yes that seems something to consider. A much stronger odor than usual or detected in spaces in the vehicle where the odor is not usually present.

I've read it. Not to be too snarky, but it is not the Bible is it?

We should never base major evaluations of any matter only on our personal experience. It is but one input.

Arielle simply said she always smelled propane when the vehicle stopped and so the smell of propane would not be something which caused her to check the tanks. We need to look elsewhere for clues, in other words.

What about all the times in our lives that we have premonitions that are wrong? We don't remember them because they're unremarkable. If we do remember them, we don't tell stories about them because they're unremarkable. I will now tell the story of my lifelong effort to remember the times I thought something would happen, and it didn't. Well, I would, but I've lost count. Therefore my personal experience is enough (for me) to counter every premonition I've experienced myself (a few) and every premonition story I've ever heard (quite a few). That's why I included the bit about how our fears can sometimes distort. There are other reasons too, as you've pointed out. It can be very difficult to suss out true intuition from the noise. But just because our mind can commit errors does not prove intuition is always false. There are ways to train the mind to be more accurate regarding intuition. Some of these methods do address the issue you've mentioned.

Ok, I'm in heaven today with time to read topics related to telepathy: Akashic field theory László's 2004 book, Science and the Akashic Field: An Integral Theory of Everything posits a field of information as the substance of the cosmos. Using the Sanskrit and Vedic term for "space", Akasha, he calls this information field the "Akashic field" or "A-field". He posits that the "quantum vacuum" (see Vacuum state) is the fundamental energy and information-carrying field that informs not just the current universe, but all universes past and present (collectively, the "Metaverse"). László believes that such an informational field can explain why our universe appears to be fine-tuned so as to form galaxies and conscious lifeforms; and why evolution is an informed, not random, process. He believes that the hypothesis solves several problems that emerge from quantum physics, especially nonlocality and quantum entanglement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ervin_László "Ervin Laszlo is a philosopher and systems scientist. Twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, he has published more than 75 books and over 400 articles and research papers. The subject of the one-hour PBS special Life of a Modern-Day Genius, Laszlo is the founder and president of the international think tank the Club of Budapest and of the prestigious Laszlo Institute of New Paradigm Research. The winner of the 2017 Luxembourg Peace Prize, he lives in Tuscany". Lots of presentations on YouTube too.

Interesting experience. Not to discount your evaluation, but my first thought is always like the one Silent had, and that is to check for any input from the senses that the unconscious received which was not registered by the conscious mind. I had not thought of the propane odor, but looks like that's out. What about the demeanor of the person who filled your propane tank? Could you perhaps have perceived him as shady or incompetent and so felt distrust of his work, causing you to check the propane tanks sooner than you typically would? I totally believe we can receive information that is not limited to what our senses picked up, but that this is rare, or perhaps rare in most people. There's a lot of work occurring in quantum physics, and many theorize a kind of field which surrounds us that contains all the information in the universe (A-field by Ervin László, zero point, Bohm's Implicate Order: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicate_and_explicate_order ). Conceivably, on some occasions we can tap into this information. I wonder if that's what happened to you, or how do you define the experience? Whether your impulse to check the tanks came from outside the senses or is a phenomenon of the unconscious mind registering sensory input we're unaware of, in either case it's amazing, eh? It's good to trust intuition even though sometimes our fears can cloud up the message and distort it.

Blinking is an instinct,so is yawning and breathing.. Shivers might not be. Wikipedia says yawning is a reflex, but then you can't always trust Wikipedia. I read elsewhere some of these are considered both a reflex and an instinct. Nothing is ever simple, eh? I had hoped that at least between the 3 concepts we were trying to define at the time (instinct vs intuition vs reflex) we could ace one in the whole at least, but no such luck!

Those are examples of reflexes, not instincts. "Instincts are inborn complex patterns of behavior that exist in most members of the species, and should be distinguished from reflexes, which are simple responses of an organism to a specific stimulus, such as the contraction of the pupil in response to bright light or the spasmodic movement of the lower leg when the knee is tapped".

I wouldn't disagree with the model you've proposed being correct most of the time, but its weakness is in assuming that our particular sense organs are the only way to define and perceive reality. It's like placing my thermometer next to my computer and insisting there are no EMF waves emitted by it because my thermometer does not register them. Reality could very well be beyond what humans can normally sense.