Consciousness and the Paranormal

[smcder]

Assuming there actually is a third party being ( entity or whatever ), there seem to be only two possibilities:

1. Non-alien
2. Alien

Both of the above could include humans as possible candidates. In either case, the candidates would seem to require the ability to clandestinely influence the thoughts of humans. This can be done with psychology and/or technology. Perhaps it can also be done via the innate psychic abilities of the third party. I don't know. But all these factors that are rarely considered. The usual assumption is that psychic phenomena associated with humans is also directly caused by innate human ability. However this may not be the case.

It may be the case that certain psychic subjects are unwitting participants in a scenario orchestrated by parties whose true identity and role are unknown to the participant. Known examples include the MK-Ultra experiments, and technology such as ultrasonic projectors and EM generators. So a careful plan to convince someone that they have psychic abilities could conceivably be carried out quite convincingly. Perhaps the experimenters themselves are even part of the setup. Given the lack of sufficient verifiable evidence, who really knows for sure?

The usual assumption is that psychic phenomena associated with humans is also directly caused by innate human ability. However this may not be the case.

good point

@Constance said:

The 5,000 year history of psychic phenomena argues against the possible validity of this kind of explanation.

But both and isn't eliminated: some psychic phenomena could be directly caused by innate human ability and then, through these abilities, other phenomena could be created by a third party?

You say:

Perhaps it can also be done via the innate psychic abilities of the third party.

So these innate psychic abilities of the third party could be used to influence innate human psychic abilities -

So a careful plan to convince someone that they have psychic abilities could conceivably be carried out quite convincingly. Perhaps the experimenters themselves are even part of the setup. Given the lack of sufficient verifiable evidence, who really knows for sure?

Interesting possibilities:

1. convincing an individual or small group (depending on their sophistication) they have psychic abilities could be done with stage psychic/stage magic and con artists techniques, but might not have any broader impact as it would probably be exposed in time

2. to do so in the context of an experiment raises many questions and issues as an explanation for all of Psi research (and I don't think you are doing that) it raises significant questions and issues. it could certainly be part of the scenario to do #1 in the context of an experiment (alert: interesting plot for a novel!)

3. given sufficient ability, this possibility could be applied to any area of science: physics, chemistry, biology, etc. - e.g. aliens gaming the LHC

I came across this yesterday in an article about the Trickster before your post above came in:

Respectable or not, proponents of the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) will no doubt argue that UFOs are not paranormal or supernatural. Abduction researcher David Jacobs, for one, adamantly refutes the assertion that abductions are paranormal. Others might contend that extraterrestrials may have such a complete understanding of humans that they can manipulate or “hide behind” our psychology and mythology while they conduct their ‘programmes’.

 

[smcder]

Assuming there actually is a third party being ( entity or whatever ), there seem to be only two possibilities:

1. Non-alien
2. Alien

Both of the above could include humans as possible candidates. In either case, the candidates would seem to require the ability to clandestinely influence the thoughts of humans. This can be done with psychology and/or technology. Perhaps it can also be done via the innate psychic abilities of the third party. I don't know. But all these factors that are rarely considered. The usual assumption is that psychic phenomena associated with humans is also directly caused by innate human ability. However this may not be the case.

It may be the case that certain psychic subjects are unwitting participants in a scenario orchestrated by parties whose true identity and role are unknown to the participant. Known examples include the MK-Ultra experiments, and technology such as ultrasonic projectors and EM generators. So a careful plan to convince someone that they have psychic abilities could conceivably be carried out quite convincingly. Perhaps the experimenters themselves are even part of the setup. Given the lack of sufficient verifiable evidence, who really knows for sure?

@Constance says:


The 5,000 year history of psychic phenomena argues against the possible validity of this kind of explanation.

But "both and" hasn't been eliminated: one possibility is that both humans and the third party have innate psychic abilities . . . just as it's one thing to say (and prove) all Psi experiments are the result of this kind of thing versus some - it's one thing to say all psychic phenomena are the result of the abilities of a third party versus some phenomena are - or, humans have innate psychic reception - just the ability to "pick up the phone" would allow for third party influence ...

 

[Randall]

@Constance says:


The 5,000 year history of psychic phenomena argues against the possible validity of this kind of explanation.

But "both and" hasn't been eliminated: one possibility is that both humans and the third party have innate psychic abilities . . . just as it's one thing to say (and prove) all Psi experiments are the result of this kind of thing versus some - it's one thing to say all psychic phenomena are the result of the abilities of a third party versus some phenomena are - or, humans have innate psychic reception - just the ability to "pick up the phone" would allow for third party influence ...

Your logic is sound, however I would propose that if humans had any substantial psychic abilities they would have manifested themselves unambiguously by now. Instead all we have are interesting anecdotes and vague statistical interpretations that don't take into account a possible third party influence. So in this case, absence of evidence can be fairly considered evidence of absence. Yet despite this hard line rational approach, I personally still feel that there is something more to it than that. What limited psychic phenomena I seem to experience on a regular basis feels inherent rather than imparted. So I'm certainly not closed to that possibility. I'm mentioning these alternatives only because they are seldom considered, and they provide some interesting ( IMO ) food for thought.

 

[Burnt State]

What we've been told about the abandonment of the RV military attempts by T & P is that it was just too inconsistent.

Except here:

Entangled Minds: My comments on Alcock's comments on Bem's precognition article

Radin says:

Did supposed flaws adequately account for the results of remote viewing studies? No. Were those study designs abandoned? No. Did skeptics like Ray Hyman, who reviewed a small subset of the SRI/SAIC remote viewing studies for the CIA, conclude that the studies were flawed? No. Did this research paradigm, which was an updated version of picture-drawing techniques developed a half-century earlier, disappear? No.

Targ and Puthoff, and later Ed May and colleagues, continued not only to conduct substantial research on remote viewing, but it proved to be so useful for gathering information in a unique way that it was ultimately used for thousands of operational missions by the DoD. Some portions of the history of the formerly secret Stargate program (and other projects with different code names) is in the public domain now, so it is not necessary to go into that here. Suffice it to say that those research programs were very carefully monitored by skeptical scientific oversight committees who continued to recommend funding for over two decades (as long as the program remained secret).

ok, i looked around a bit myself online and did discover that the trail of breadcrumbs suggests that the military in fact has long used RV up until the mid-90's as i could find no other references past then - and with some interesting quotes supposedly verifying actual successes in some cases. however, in their scenarios, there is a specific team of talented individuals who are the sensitives, not to discount the rest of us psychic slouches, but perhaps these more convincing high percentage skill sets only exist in selective folk making the idea of experiments using the masses something that will always produce mediocre results. i could not find reference to thousands, but hundreds of events sponsored by the CIA and DIA. No one is speaking about success rates, percentages or global impact. Most spoke of its use for threat assessment as in, what are the chances of other foreign powers remote viewing us? My favourite reference on one site was the eight martini RV'ing event - where the success was so spectacular that observers who witnessed the results had to go out for eight martinis to allow it to better settle in the system...

 

[smcder]

This is an example of something that happens to me somewhat frequently since I learned to tune in to strange ideas/phrases/associations that come into my head. I am not making any particular claim but I'm putting it out there because I have never sat down and completely worked through an experience like this before:

Yesterday the word/phrase (phonetically) "tear ann oh gas ter" (tear as in tear a piece of paper) came into my head - I woke up early this morning and it was in my head again (and unrelated to the dream I just remembered) - I made a note of it because the phenomenology of that experience (@Constance - is that a correct use of the word?) was similar to other words/images/impressions I have received in the past that turned out to be significant. And it was persistent and it was a particularly strange word or phrase to me.

The unambiguous part of this phrase (taken separately) is "gaster" the Greek word for belly. The first thing I think of is that I have a medical appointment tomorrow involving my stomach.

I did some searches based on variations of the phrase:

1.) However it is spelled, the sound of it rhymes with melanogaster:

Melanogaster ("black-bellied") may refer to the following organisms:

• Melanogaster (fungus), a genus of false truffles
• Melanogaster (fly), a genus of Hoverflies

2.) If it's Tyrrano-gaster, it would mean something like "tyrant stomach" and in many ways both recently and throughout my life, my stomach has ruled - but that's not telling me anything I don't already (consciously) know.

However, I pronounce Tyrrano as "tur ran oh" but in my head it sounded more like "tear uh" as in tear a piece of paper which, so it could be Terra (see below)

3.) Tear anno gaster is vaguely like tear inna gaster, tear in the stomach . . . a possibility of sorts, that would be information I couldn't have before the appointment tomorrow

4.) if the first part is Terra (Greek for earth or land) - we could have some variations around: earth-belly

Terrano or Teran (in Croatian) is a Croatian, Italian and Slovenian dark-skinned grapevariety, bearing the mark of recognized traditional denomination.[1][2][3] It is a member of the Refosco family of grape varieties, which also includes Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso

And it's also a surname . . .

That's enough to give you the general idea . . . I will keep searching and thinking of spellings/phrases/words and record these elsewhere - but my thought is to see what results come from the appointment tomorrow and see if they relate to this phrase and keep an eye out elsewhere for anything that could be related to it.

If it's like previous synchronicities, it will work out in an unexpected manner after I have forgotten about it, IF it doesn't completely dissolve because I have brought this conscious focus on it. We'll see what happens.

 

[smcder]

ok, i looked around a bit myself online and did discover that the trail of breadcrumbs suggests that the military in fact has long used RV up until the mid-90's as i could find no other references past then - and with some interesting quotes supposedly verifying actual successes in some cases. however, in their scenarios, there is a specific team of talented individuals who are the sensitives, not to discount the rest of us psychic slouches, but perhaps these more convincing high percentage skill sets only exist in selective folk making the idea of experiments using the masses something that will always produce mediocre results. i could not find reference to thousands, but hundreds of events sponsored by the CIA and DIA. No one is speaking about success rates, percentages or global impact. Most spoke of its use for threat assessment as in, what are the chances of other foreign powers remote viewing us? My favourite reference on one site was the eight martini RV'ing event - where the success was so spectacular that observers who witnessed the results had to go out for eight martinis to allow it to better settle in the system...

I've always found tequilla to be better for inducing psychic phenomena, whereas cheap whiskey is best for fighting.

 

[smcder]

ok, i looked around a bit myself online and did discover that the trail of breadcrumbs suggests that the military in fact has long used RV up until the mid-90's as i could find no other references past then - and with some interesting quotes supposedly verifying actual successes in some cases. however, in their scenarios, there is a specific team of talented individuals who are the sensitives, not to discount the rest of us psychic slouches, but perhaps these more convincing high percentage skill sets only exist in selective folk making the idea of experiments using the masses something that will always produce mediocre results. i could not find reference to thousands, but hundreds of events sponsored by the CIA and DIA. No one is speaking about success rates, percentages or global impact. Most spoke of its use for threat assessment as in, what are the chances of other foreign powers remote viewing us? My favourite reference on one site was the eight martini RV'ing event - where the success was so spectacular that observers who witnessed the results had to go out for eight martinis to allow it to better settle in the system...

and with some interesting quotes supposedly verifying actual successes in some cases.
see section 2.4 here:
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jutts/air.pdf

No one is speaking about success rates, percentages or global impact.

I'm no expert, but it seems that is generally true of any source of intelligence data?

See section 6 here:
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jutts/air.pdf

 

[Burnt State]

I doubt it. The paradigm shift I referred to is in its beginning stages, Burnt State, and involves many deepening developments in physics and other disciplines. Did the 'associative' rather than 'causitive' universe proposed by the people you quoted come with any further details, including references to scientific theories or theorists? Also, what connections did the radio conversants make between consciousness and the internet?

i think it's worth listening to the podcast for their relaxed interplay of speculation, and anecdotal confirmation. as far as science goes, i think these people are more big picture thinkers than microfiche reporters. that's what i liked about their conversation as it allowed for us to think about the universe in a way quite contrary to what we've been taught - that everything is causal instead of acausal. when i consider the joy of ecosystems happily teaming with bubbling life, all spawning and yawning and growing together, they are interconnected associations that bring these lifeforms together. there is an accretion of the system as a whole that happens over time as diversity and accumulation of lifeforms respond to the variable at play. sure you could draw out the linear lines of the food chain if you want, but that's a gross oversimplification of what's really going on.

for them, they are allowing for the contactee to possibly be a receiver of real information, though not a good processor of it, Keel holds weight because he's suggesting a complete alternative to what UFO's are, similarly the notion of the UFO as cosmic art project, or as an introduction of non-linearity to linear minds.

on smaller levels, the reasons why atoms mix with other atoms is because they are holding out their hands, ready to form bonds with each other, to accumulate in associations of molecules and before you know it, you've got a thinking, breathing creature on your hands, or maybe you've got some swamp gas, or even better a breathable atmosphere and water to drink. when you get immersed in any single event or point of study, suddenly snychronicities start appearing left and right. those are the moments to pay attention to.

i think it was more me making the connection to consciousness and the internet, as i was rattling on in my thought shower. one day, there will be enough digital associations taking place that it will begin to appear that it is thinking for itself. though i do remember them specifically talking about the net as an associative landscape as well, where everything is hyperlinked. in this way they were referencing Vallee and his own experiences of the universe as information relationships, synchronicities and chance meetings.

 

[Burnt State]

I've always found tequilla to be better for inducing psychic phenomena, whereas cheap whiskey is best for fighting.

you know this is categorically true. at the bar i worked at, the whiskey monster would often come out, just like in my family, and it was never pleasant, but you know, you get enough tequila into people and they are up on the table, turning into werewolves, howling at a lightbulb moon and playing the sweetest invisible harmonicas that you ever did hear. i miss those days too - the tequila werewolves and not the whiskey monsters. oddly enough, i prefer scotch.

 

[Burnt State]

This is an example of something that happens to me somewhat frequently since I learned to tune in to strange ideas/phrases/associations that come into my head. I am not making any particular claim but I'm putting it out there because I have never sat down and completely worked through an experience like this before:

Yesterday the word/phrase (phonetically) "tear ann oh gas ter" (tear as in tear a piece of paper) came into my head - I woke up early this morning and it was in my head again (and unrelated to the dream I just remembered) - I made a note of it because the phenomenology of that experience (@Constance - is that a correct use of the word?) was similar to other words/images/impressions I have received in the past that turned out to be significant. And it was persistent and it was a particularly strange word or phrase to me.

The unambiguous part of this phrase (taken separately) is "gaster" the Greek word for belly. The first thing I think of is that I have a medical appointment tomorrow involving my stomach.

I did some searches based on variations of the phrase:

1.) However it is spelled, the sound of it rhymes with melanogaster:

Melanogaster ("black-bellied") may refer to the following organisms:

• Melanogaster (fungus), a genus of false truffles
• Melanogaster (fly), a genus of Hoverflies

2.) If it's Tyrrano-gaster, it would mean something like "tyrant stomach" and in many ways both recently and throughout my life, my stomach has ruled - but that's not telling me anything I don't already (consciously) know.

However, I pronounce Tyrrano as "tur ran oh" but in my head it sounded more like "tear uh" as in tear a piece of paper which, so it could be Terra (see below)

3.) Tear anno gaster is vaguely like tear inna gaster, tear in the stomach . . . a possibility of sorts, that would be information I couldn't have before the appointment tomorrow

4.) if the first part is Terra (Greek for earth or land) - we could have some variations around: earth-belly

Terrano or Teran (in Croatian) is a Croatian, Italian and Slovenian dark-skinned grapevariety, bearing the mark of recognized traditional denomination.[1][2][3] It is a member of the Refosco family of grape varieties, which also includes Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso

And it's also a surname . . .

That's enough to give you the general idea . . . I will keep searching and thinking of spellings/phrases/words and record these elsewhere - but my thought is to see what results come from the appointment tomorrow and see if they relate to this phrase and keep an eye out elsewhere for anything that could be related to it.

If it's like previous synchronicities, it will work out in an unexpected manner after I have forgotten about it, IF it doesn't completely dissolve because I have brought this conscious focus on it. We'll see what happens.

if dreams are simply the brain's way of helping us to learn new skills, respond to whatever is worrying us by searching through the memory filing cabinet and flinging surreal imagery back at us to help us out based on past experience and knowledge, then the words on your lips when you wake makes perfect sense as your own brain crunches through what is obviously a rather diverse and detailed personal memory cabinet. maybe not synchronicity so much as just the way our brains work?

 

[smcder]

if dreams are simply the brain's way of helping us to learn new skills, respond to whatever is worrying us by searching through the memory filing cabinet and flinging surreal imagery back at us to help us out based on past experience and knowledge, then the words on your lips when you wake makes perfect sense as your own brain crunches through what is obviously a rather diverse and detailed personal memory cabinet. maybe not synchronicity so much as just the way our brains work?

That's the question.

The whole process you describe above is still fraught with mystery/puzzles - the phrase "just the way our brain works" neither excludes synchronicity or many other possibilities, if, in fact, it excludes any.

Yesterday the word popped into my head in the middle of the day in a "normal" state of mind, apropos, as far as I could tell, of nothing.

 

[Polterwurst]

How many black haired, brownish skinned, middle eastern Muslim women are going to have the name "Frank" ?

LOL ...so it's a leap of faith. At least not a standstill.

The video doesn't play for me, though (probably some silly german copyright restrictions again).

 

[smcder]

LOL ...so it's a leap of faith. At least not a standstill.

The video doesn't play for me, though (probably some silly german copyright restrictions again).

Rigorous Intuition (v. 2.0): Author, Author

 

[smcder]

if dreams are simply the brain's way of helping us to learn new skills, respond to whatever is worrying us by searching through the memory filing cabinet and flinging surreal imagery back at us to help us out based on past experience and knowledge, then the words on your lips when you wake makes perfect sense as your own brain crunches through what is obviously a rather diverse and detailed personal memory cabinet. maybe not synchronicity so much as just the way our brains work?

if dreams are simply the brain's way of helping us to learn new skills,

I doubt dreams are "simply" anything simple - it's good to remember that we have no detailed explanation of the processes you describe below:

"respond to whatever is worrying us by searching through the memory filing cabinet and flinging surreal imagery back at us to help us out based on past experience and knowledge"

in order to know if this is how things are - we have to untangle what it means to say the brain responds to us (is the brain us or is we the brain or . . . ?), we have explain worry (emotion), memory, surreal imagery (which means we have to explain the imagination in general) in the context of past experience (time, what is time?) and knowledge . . . we have our work cut out for us!

But since we don't know any of that in detail, how much perfect sense is in the below (including now the need to explain a general processing of information "crunches"):

then the words on your lips when you wake makes perfect sense as your own brain crunches through what is obviously a rather diverse and detailed personal memory cabinet. maybe not synchronicity so much as just the way our brains work?

So my point is that we often try to explain and explain away something in terms of something that is at least as mysterious as the thing we're trying to explain . . . a "just so" story . . .

 

[smcder]

ok, i looked around a bit myself online and did discover that the trail of breadcrumbs suggests that the military in fact has long used RV up until the mid-90's as i could find no other references past then - and with some interesting quotes supposedly verifying actual successes in some cases. however, in their scenarios, there is a specific team of talented individuals who are the sensitives, not to discount the rest of us psychic slouches, but perhaps these more convincing high percentage skill sets only exist in selective folk making the idea of experiments using the masses something that will always produce mediocre results. i could not find reference to thousands, but hundreds of events sponsored by the CIA and DIA. No one is speaking about success rates, percentages or global impact. Most spoke of its use for threat assessment as in, what are the chances of other foreign powers remote viewing us? My favourite reference on one site was the eight martini RV'ing event - where the success was so spectacular that observers who witnessed the results had to go out for eight martinis to allow it to better settle in the system...

To muddy up the RV waters even more:

Tangling With the Trickster: Myth, Magic and the UFO. David Perkins | MAGONIA

In his chapter on “Govemment Disinformation”, Hansen makes the interesting observation that the only substantial funding for paranormal and psi-related research from the ruling hierarchy has come from government intelligence agencies. Since their job is institutionalised deception, it is logical that they would gravitate to these tricksterish realms. Hansen suggests that these agencies have promoted ‘mythological beliefs’ which are not always healthy for the larger society. Aside from the government’s well-documented remote viewing research, Hansen claims there was more going on.

He quotes from a 1997 article by Gerald Haines, a historian at the National Reconnaissance Office, which suggests that intelligence agencies had a strong interest in the link between UFOs and parapsychology: “During the late 1970s and 1980s … some in the Agency and in the Intelligence Community shifted their interest to studying parapsychology and psychic phenomena associated with UFO sightings.” Hansen questions why so many prominent UFO/ paranormal researchers have links to intelligence services and goes on to paint some less than flattering portraits of these individuals.

 

[smcder]

Good suggestion, Steve -- to 'hold judgment' on Hansen's book and theory of the trickster until I have time to read the book. I'm sure the book provides a wealth of information contextualizing the trickster concept that is useful in a number of fields. My comment about our tendencies toward reification of that which we don't fully understand was in response to a predictive statement you quoted from Hansen, but the reification problem involved in discussion of 'the trickster' goes far beyond Hansen. I think it extends to 'the paranormal' as well, which seems to have become an enormous umbrella term for a wide range of human experiences that might not share anything in common other than our inability to account for them in objectively defined, prosaic terms.

That problematic tendency toward reification has been amplified by the widespread pop culture usage of the term 'meme', which contributes to the notion that what we think is real is as 'real' as that which we judge (on relatively firm foundations) to be real.

You also wrote re Hansen: "I think, in terms of knowledge, he doesn't necessarily say what we can know but rather he looks at what happens on the borders of what we do know (at any given time)."

In a world like ours with a young science, we spend a lot of time at the borders of what is comprehensible. After 100 years of quantum science, we are still unclear about the general relationship between quantum reality and classical reality. Jung learned a great deal about quantum science from Pauli, but that took place decades after he began to develop his idea of 'archetypes' as orientations to life evolved and maintained in the human collective unconscious. We might say that Jung was prescient in recognizing a trickster-like situation presented to classical physics. Perhaps even prescient concerning the developments of chaos theory and systems theory.

You've cited in another post of today the exchanges and developments of insight into the mind-matter relationship achieved over a decades-long friendship by Jung and Wolfgang Pauli. Harald Atmanspacher and a coauthor have a forthcoming book entitled The Pauli-Jung Conjecture: And Its Impact Today (due out on March 1) that will likely be the most insightful of the half-dozen books already devoted to Jung and Pauli's friendship and exchanges of ideas about the nature of reality. The reason why Atmanspacher et al's book will likely be the best source to consult is because Atmanspacher is a major philosopher of science who is involved with others (quantum physicists and other philosophers of science) in pursuing the relationship of consciousness and physical reality.


Most helpful for discussion here, I hope, is a downloadable paper by Atmanspacher that presents the core of the Pauli-Jung conjecture in the context of similar developments in philosophy and science concerning the mind-matter relationship and the issue of causality.

http://www.igpp.de/english/tda/pdf/dualaspect.pdf

How do you see the following ideas, in terms of whether they fit in with your sense of quantum science and knowledge of Jung?

Tangling With the Trickster: Myth, Magic and the UFO. David Perkins | MAGONIA

If we assume, as Hansen maintains, that the trickster is still alive and kicking, we are left with some profound questions. Does the synergistic interaction of this “powerful life spirit” and the human collective unconscious somehow have the ability to alter/create physical reality’ Is the trickster an independent objective entity apart from the collective unconscious? Jung speculated that flying saucers were “materialised psychisms ” or what are today called “macro-PK events”. Jung’s psychoids” were the contents of the unconscious mind that spilled out into the material world as physical or semi-physical manifestations.

Theorist Tom Bearden has put forth the idea that UFOs, cattle mutilations, Bigfoot, fairies, Motthman, etc. arise from “exteriorised psychokinetic manifestations of the collective unconscious”. Bearden called these manifestations ‘tulpoids’. Tulpas are reputedly the entities which can be consciously created by Tibetan spiritual masters. Obviously there is a big leap from unconsciously created materialisations to consciously generated entities. Borrowing from Jung, Bearden speculates that the materialised tulpoids have a “metapsychological” or prophetic function. Just as an individual’s dreams reveal his or her unresolved conflicts, tulpoids are thrust up from the unconscious depths to illuminate the unresolved conflicts of humanity. Depending on how skilful we are at interpreting and integrating these prophetic eruptions, this could be construed as a helpful therapeutic process.

I find this last idea fascinating.

Hansen refers to psi and paranormal phenomena as “ideoplastic”, meaning that “they respond to and are shaped by the ideas, beliefs and anxieties of the observers”

I respect Hansen's ability to maintain ambiguity, it may sound funny, but under the right conditions, I think this is an intellectual virtue.

 

[smcder]

Your logic is sound, however I would propose that if humans had any substantial psychic abilities they would have manifested themselves unambiguously by now. Instead all we have are interesting anecdotes and vague statistical interpretations that don't take into account a possible third party influence. So in this case, absence of evidence can be fairly considered evidence of absence. Yet despite this hard line rational approach, I personally still feel that there is something more to it than that. What limited psychic phenomena I seem to experience on a regular basis feels inherent rather than imparted. So I'm certainly not closed to that possibility. I'm mentioning these alternatives only because they are seldom considered, and they provide some interesting ( IMO ) food for thought.

however I would propose that if humans had any substantial psychic abilities they would have manifested themselves unambiguously by now.

Could you give an example of what you would consider an unambiguous manifestation of psychic ability?

 

[Constance]

Your logic is sound, however I would propose that if humans had any substantial psychic abilities they would have manifested themselves unambiguously by now. Instead all we have are interesting anecdotes and vague statistical interpretations that don't take into account a possible third party influence. So in this case, absence of evidence can be fairly considered evidence of absence.

The underscored statement is a gross overstatement in my opinion. I'm also wondering why you're reaching for a 'third-party' explanation for phenomena about which you have such radical doubt in the first place.

 

[smcder]

. . .

But let's not digress on this point - i think the issue of whether or not we can understand psi phenomenon as causative in the first place is a good one to address. I just finished listening to a great podcast with Red Pill Junkie on Radio Misterioso with Greg Bishop whose conversation has a lot of direct bearing on this conversation. In fact there were so many aha moments about points discussed here in the thread (and often in my brain) i had my jaw drop numerous times.

. . . there's lots of great material for us to chew on here. i can see that stephen has already posted about the episode with the link - go figure.

I'm working on an "episode notes" for this - re-listening and making notes on all the significant ideas, will post when I am done - I agree it's astonishing how much it overlaps with this thread . . .

 

[Constance]

and with some interesting quotes supposedly verifying actual successes in some cases.
see section 2.4 here:
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jutts/air.pdf

Burnt State: "No one is speaking about success rates, percentages or global impact."

I'm no expert, but it seems that is generally true of any source of intelligence data

Indeed it is, Steve. The CIA's disclosure in the 90s of part of its remote viewing experimentation at SRI was by no means a full disclosure of what was witnessed over the years at SRI. Ingo Swann, one of the most skilled RVers employed by the CIA at SRI, has described the CIA's public statement as a betrayal of what was learned in those years and at a deeper level a betrayal of our species' right to know about it (see his remarks on this at the superpowers website I linked a day or two ago). I'm not talking here about the CIA's obvious need to protect certain information involved in national security interests, the excuse we always hear concerning far-reaching governmental secrecy, but about frank sharing of acquired knowledge concerning paranormal abilities of humans.

Also, as I suggested a day or two ago, the CIA announcement that it was discontinuing RV research in the 90s is one of many statements of the alphabet agencies that one should take with a grain of salt. Before, during, ,and after the CIA-sponsored research at SRI, remote viewing experimentation had been undertaken in special military units. Military and governmental interest in psychic research began earlier, when US intelligence agents learned that psychic research had been employed in the Soviet Union beginning in the 1930s. As I also noted the other day, one prominent remote viewer learned at an RV conference a year or two ago in a personal communication from a participant in current military remote-viewing programs that this research continues in unadvertised, undisclosed projects.