Premonition Question

[Tompet]

For those of you who are confirmed skeptics, let's assume you had a premonition or vision of some kind, for example you are going to get into a fender bender on your way to work. Would you pay attention to the premonition/vision, or dismiss it immediately? If you would dismiss it immediately, what would be your reasoning?

 

[wayrad]

For those of you who are confirmed skeptics, let's assume you had a premonition or vision of some kind, for example you are going to get into a fender bender on your way to work. Would you pay attention to the premonition/vision, or dismiss it immediately? If you would dismiss it immediately, what would be your reasoning?

I'd certainly pay extra attention to my driving if I had such a feeling, on the grounds that it reflected some anxiety about my own driving abilities (e.g. a realization at some level that I was tired or not feeling up to par). Alternatively, it might mean that for reasons I hadn't bothered to sort out, I expected bad road or traffic conditions.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

As Wayrad said, there is some reason to think that your premonition is based on subconscious feelings or knowledge. Can't hurt to pay extra attention to driving. Then, when nothing happens, you can have a chuckle at your own expense.

~~ Paul

 

[Yahweh]

For those of you who are confirmed skeptics, let's assume you had a premonition or vision of some kind, for example you are going to get into a fender bender on your way to work. Would you pay attention to the premonition/vision, or dismiss it immediately? If you would dismiss it immediately, what would be your reasoning?

I dont think your hypothetical question is phrased in a way where it would be "fair" to ask.

In any case, I would have to consider a number of "factors":
How many clues did I have?
Were they incredibly vague?
How close to the actual event happened?

And most importantly, did I make a prediction? I for one have a bit of a bias, it goes like this: "I'm not impressed by psychics who make predictions after the predicted event occurred".

 

[Boo]

I have been accused by former co-workers of being able to predict patients that will have a cardiac arrest or that one or more will occur during a shift.

In talking it over with a friend it was explained that often what we term as instinct or gut feelings is the subconcious adding together a bunch of little clues, filtering them through our experience and leading to a conclusion.

I tested myself and found that I am a little better than 50% on determining how bad a shift is going to be. After 18 years of experience I do not discount those feelings, but I wouldn't bet on them either.

Premonitions are just the subconcious at work, giving the forebrain a little kick in the pants.



Boo

 

[Bikewer]

We recieve information subliminally in many ways, and some folks are more sensitive to these things than others, if only by dint of long experience in a particular field.

As to premonitions, consider that occurences of any sort, even if unlikely, are bound to occur in complex societies. Your particular chances of winning that big multi-state lottery may be millions to one against, but every few weeks, someone does, in fact, win.

 

[rustypouch]

You might want to take a look at this thread:

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27219

 

[Tompet]

Thanks for the link, Rustypouch. That's very interesting. The reason I asked this question is because I have a friend who constantly has "premonitions", and then claims they came true when something similar to her "premonitions" occurs weeks or months down the road. She completely forgets about all the times she had "premonitions" about events which never materialized. Counts the few (perceived) hits, forgets the (many) misses.

A couple weeks ago, I had sort of an uneasy feeling about a possible fender bender. I dismissed it as nonsense, went about my business, and nothing occurred. I told her this to prove my point, and her explanation is that because of the "premonition", my subconcious caused me to be extra careful and thus avoid a fender bender.

 

[Ratman_tf]

A couple weeks ago, I had sort of an uneasy feeling about a possible fender bender. I dismissed it as nonsense, went about my business, and nothing occurred. I told her this to prove my point, and her explanation is that because of the "premonition", my subconcious caused me to be extra careful and thus avoid a fender bender.

Well, in the case of the subconcious, that may very well be.

But if we're talking psychic power here, your friend simply can't lose with that explanation, wether she/you/we have psychic powers or not.

 

[Yahweh]

Thanks for the link, Rustypouch. That's very interesting. The reason I asked this question is because I have a friend who constantly has "premonitions", and then claims they came true when something similar to her "premonitions" occurs weeks or months down the road. She completely forgets about all the times she had "premonitions" about events which never materialized. Counts the few (perceived) hits, forgets the (many) misses.

I used to be like that, in fact I probably made dozens of "premonitions" a week (I'm not like that anymore). Its nothing more remarkable outside a human's natural tendency to find associations between unrelated events, a bit of paranoia on the side. Make sure you tell your friend this.

 

[Abdul Alhazred]

For those of you who are confirmed skeptics, let's assume you had a premonition or vision of some kind, for example you are going to get into a fender bender on your way to work. Would you pay attention to the premonition/vision, or dismiss it immediately? If you would dismiss it immediately, what would be your reasoning?

Dunno if I'm a "confirmed" skeptic, but I'd call my lawyer.

Suppose you had a premonition or vision of some kind, for example that your town was going to be nuked.

Would you pray?