Bodhi Dharma Zen
Advaitin
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- Nov 25, 2004
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Throg said:
Yes. Excellent. This is what EVERY individual confronted by "anomalous data" should do, always. Great job.
Shera said:
This is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of but it was most definitely referred to as sympathetic distress when I did my degree. What's in a name though?
Well I do disagree with you on that one. Most of the people I come across can stay pretty dry.
Fair point. If you are repeatedly coming across wet people then we have to look at the possibility of a whole new type of unusual ability. :s.
Sceptics shouldn't assume anything and I certainly don't mean to imply that you are experiencing hallucinations. At the moment we simply don't have enough information to know what you are experiencing.
I also understand that from a scientific impartial point of view, I'm not considered an impartial party.
No, but in practical terms you're the only one in a position to gather the data. Formalised self-report is often used in medical diagnosis and the protocol I suggested will guard to some extent against the dangers of subjectivity. Really, the idea was that by following such a scheme you would at least have given yourself a chance to falsify the theory that there is something paranormal going on and thus to see whether it's worth spending time on further investigation.
I would tentatively suggest that it can be falsified if you discover that you have more occasions where a sensation occurs without a corresponding explanatory event than seems to be the case or you discover that in order to make the connections the time-frame has to become extremely elastic (perhaps you could start by specifying a time-limit within which the "explantory event" must occur for you to allow that it is connected to your sensation). If after keeping your diary for a few weeks there still appears to be a paranormal phenomena then we have to think about a more rigorous test. At some point, we may have to devise a test rigorous enough to pass the Randi challenge. Given the implications for the model of causality that underlies modern science I think it is unlikely we will reach this stage but if we do can I have a cut of the million dollars?
Alternatively, you may find after several weeks of keeping the diary as I suggested that there is no relationship between your sensations and the people who seem, at the moment, to be the cause. At that point we would consider what other explanations there might be.
No reason at all you should be. Even if you turn out to have got it all wrong, being wrong doesn't make one insane. Thinking one is never wrong probably does.
You could not come up with anything conclusive but you could come up with something that could tell us never or not we should investigate further.
It is certainly possible but it would be more involved than the protocol I suggest, the purpose of which is largely to see if it is worth getting more involved.
Ultimately, on a pragmatic and personal level, I don't believe it matters. If it's real it's not particularly useful (although interesting at times). And if it's not real, it’s a stable and managed condition.
True, from a personal point of view it would really be about satisfying intellectual curiosity.
That in itself would seem pretty huge to me. We can always use more windows into the universe and science. But, if you genuinely have an ability to sense the state of other human beings at a distance and before it happens that is huge. It would fundamentally change the world.
You wrote an interesting post and I became interested. The truth is that I am interested in pretty much everything but most of all interesting people having interesting experiences whether they turn out to be world-changing or not.
Bodhi Dharma Zen
Advaitin
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2004
- Messages
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Shera said:I agree with you that from a scientific point of view, my personal conclusion has weak points. A reasonable person could argue that I may be periodically experiencing very odd forms of hallucinations and because I've been able to logically connect some of these sensations to what other people have physically felt, I came up with an erroneous conclusion. While I haven't done any readings in the area of hallucinations yet, my guess is that more sucessfully replicated experiments have been done in that area than in psionics, so therefore most skeptical people would assume that I am experiencing hallucinations and not physcial empathy. I understand that, but based on my personal experience I don't agree with it. I also understand that from a scientific impartial point of view, I'm not considered an impartial party.
I wouldnt call them "hallucinations", merely unrelated phenomena, that has been "causally linked" with some form of meaning.
Shera said:However on a personal level, I have satisfied myself to the point where I'm not concerned about my sanity, at least not any more than I was before this whole thing started
Fair enough!
Shera said:Ultimately, on a pragmatic and personal level, I don't believe it matters. If it's real it's not particularly useful (although interesting at times
There should be more people like you in this forums ;-)
FreeChile said:
Not the only way that our nervous system is divided in psychology/neurology but a perfectly valid one in terms of the funstionality that dichotomy is intended to expose. Also one of the many different uses of the word 'sympathetic' in psychology.
I don't know what my distance limit is.FreeChile said:
I don't think I've picked up on information on someone through physical empathy while talking to them on the phone. From what I've noticed, when I do pick up on someone's state via physical empathy -- I'm not directly focusing on them but instead on something or somebody else.
Using a variation of the "focused attention" aka concentration meditation technique.
Throg said:
Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
Here's a definition of a hallucination from Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinations
I think this is a dichotomous situation, and IF the sensory information I'm picking up is false -- then I think it would have to be called a hallucination.
I'm not sure. Other people that I have chatted with online have said that they don't believe there is a distance limitation to psionic abilities. This is a very difficult statement to falsify.
I do agree with you about the time-frame though.
One of my first physical empathy experiences was that I was feeling someone working out while I was in the office. I did not track it down to anybody. Months later I had an injury that I needed to follow up with a few sessions of physical therapy. It was only then that I learned there were two very small gyms tucked away on the block where I was working. Was I hallucinating or was I picking up someone at random in one of those gyms? I don't know how to answer that question with scientific methodology.
I do like yours and FreeChile optimism!
Seriously I don't think my type of psi is testable because of the falsifibility difficulty.
I can think of other types of psionic abilities that would be testable because they could be tested for falsifibility. Those types would include telekinesis or perhaps someone who could do physical empathy at will.
Ah, you were teasing. Ok, I feel better now.
Oh, I should have put in a smiley -- sorry! Actually I had learned at about that time that I had first started experiencing this, that hallucinations alone are not enough to deem someone insane. Which I thought was very interesting… and still am surprised about … Anyway, after I got over the shock of learning about physical empathy firsthand, I felt like myself, like I always had … so I figure I am as normal as I've ever been.
O_O
Ah, seriously, I actually don't think it would change the world. I do think it would incrementally increase our understanding of the world. I think the challenge is to get agreement among the scientific establishment upon whether weak psionic abilities are worth testing, and if they are, how testing methodologies can be agreed upon.
In this forum I keep reading that there has been no successful repeatable tests in psionics. I find that hard to believe, but I still have a lot of reading to do in this area. Probably about 50 years worth as this isn't my day job unfortunately … lol.
BTW just to clarify, I think I've sensed the state of other people from a distance without the benefit of my other 5 senses. I don't think I've ever done this before their state happened.
Aw shucks, I'm blushing!!!Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
Seriously, I'm glad I stumbled across this forum. I've enjoyed my 2 months and the people I met here, plus I've learned quite a bit.
edited for attempted clarity
Any links? Just cuz I believe in psi doesn't mean I'm not a skeptic! lol!Throg said:
Seriously, I'd appreciate references if you have them.
I have heard about the thirst/hunger confusion from one of my friends before, but I'm not convinced. In England I bet you are bombarded as much with food advertising as we are in the USA. Plus in the States you can not walk a block or drive a mile without seeing some food somewhere, (usually junk food). And eating is fun after all…
I think it would be fun to know if any tests for thirst/hunger confusion have been limited to any of the following groups of people:
* those use to drinking the recommended gallon of water a day
* or who have consistently and easily managed to maintain their appropriate weight even lets say after the age of 40 (these people theoratically could prove that they had remained sensitive to hunger and thirst differences despite environmental influences...)
* or any demographic that has not been bombarded with food advertising if such people exist.
And of course I would be interested in reading about tests that show that people have confused temperature changes with wetness sensations.
Wouldn't it be funny if I was the first person to hallucinate an illusion?
LOLEdited because I mumbled something...
Shera said:
Not necessarily, it could be that there are external causes other than the ones you have identified. Neither is it the case that mis-interpretation of sensory information would normally be categorised as a hallucination (as in temperature change = wet,for instance.)
There really is no scientific way to investigate what has already happened to you but I would suggest that you are jumping to conclusions here. Let's suppose that you do have this extraordinary ability. What makes you think you were picking up on someone working-out in those particular gyms rather than someone who was working out in a completely different gym on the other side of the world? Is there any limit to the number of possible explanations for what could have caused the sensation if you can experience across unlimited distance? Were the sensations you felt so specific to the particular activities one can only get up to in a gym that you can be sure that is what you felt?
I like to think of it as open-mindedness and I think you underestimate my cunning when it comes to designing a good experiment.
Ah, you were teasing. Ok, I feel better now.
I really wasn't. I think I've been quite open about the fact that it seems unlikely to me that you are experiencing what you seem to be experiencing. That doesn't mean I'm 100% certain I'm right - I'm a sceptic, I don't do 100% certain. Nor am I making fun of you or suggesting experiments which I think are a waste of time. I'm interested in what you are going through on a purely social level (you are a person talking about an interesting and baffling experience), on a psychological level (what is really going on here) and on a lottery-ticket level (there's very little chance it's going to turn out you really do have such an ability but what if you do?) Oh and I'm deadly serious about my cut of the million, too.
I have to strongly disagree with you there. At the very least it would necessitatie a re-evaluation of the way our sensory apparatus work, at most the way physics model the Universe. It is precisely this type of consideration that causes science to be extremely dismissive of paranormal claims - because even the very minor claims have profound consequences for the best models of the universe we have. Without strong proof, it makes no sense to turn established, rigorously tested science on it's head. That is precisely why I think it is important that people who do perceive themselves to be having paranormal experiences do their best to confirm/disconfirm them. You wouldn't be just doing it for you but for the world. Drum, roll, fanfare etc. Seriously, though it is important. Look at it this way, if you keep the pocket diary and it turns out nothing paranormal is really going on, you need never tell anyone, just let the whole thing drop. If something paranormal does still seem to be going on, then let us know because while your ability might not be useful to you, the implications of such an ability may have use to all of us.
Unless of course, it turns out that psionics just don't exist, which isn't to say nothing is going on, just that things aren't always what they seem. Of course, if you find any examples of succesful tests, please let us all know.
I know the feeling.
Now you're asking me to do some work. Still, I asked you to do some. How about you promise to keep the diary for two weeks and I'll break my vow of laziness and find the references? What do you think? Am I a manipulative bastard?
In the meantime, as far as I recall, though, we don't actually have any moisture sensors in our skin, it's all done by temparature sensors and clever but fallible processing of the sense data by our brains.
I have heard about the thirst/hunger confusion from one of my friends before, but I'm not convinced. In England I bet you are bombarded as much with food advertising as we are in the USA. Plus in the States you can not walk a block or drive a mile without seeing some food somewhere, (usually junk food). And eating is fun after all…
I don't deny that advertising has a big influence on making us all eat too much along with that nasty but nice insulin spike that goes along with all the really good junk food. The thirst/hunger confusion is independent of that effect though and is really down to the fact that there's a lot of functional overlap between the neural structures in our brains responsible for "telling" us we're hungry and thirsty. Whoever designed our brains used really cheap components and re-used bits for multiple purposes wherever possible.
I'll go an think about digging out some references while you think about whether you can promise to keep the diary (you could be really mean and promise then not do it, of course, but then I would cry.)
We take for granted the fact that our bodies perceive continuously. This continuous perception is also highly parallel or independent. Also, we underestimate how attentive our body is. There is no off-switch except perhaps at death.
Perceptions are continuously being recorded as experiences. This is also happening independently. That experience is immense. There is vast amount of information maintained there all the time. It is not like the computer where there is a need, due to capacity limitations, to overwrite memory.
This knowledge and ability makes our bodies immensely intelligent, enough to form scenes when we dream and hallucinations when we are awake.
All the computers in the planet put together do not compare to the intelligence of the animal body. This includes super-computers. We are just beginning to notice this in the field of nano-technology.
Perceptions are continuously being recorded as experiences. This is also happening independently. That experience is immense. There is vast amount of information maintained there all the time. It is not like the computer where there is a need, due to capacity limitations, to overwrite memory.
This knowledge and ability makes our bodies immensely intelligent, enough to form scenes when we dream and hallucinations when we are awake.
All the computers in the planet put together do not compare to the intelligence of the animal body. This includes super-computers. We are just beginning to notice this in the field of nano-technology.
FreeChile said:
This is by no means certain and is still argued about in psychology. The evidence is inconclusive. There are most certainly apparent gaps in our experience, in our memory of the world. Whether these apparent gaps in experience represent real gaps or merely times when experience was recorded unconsciously is impossible to ascertain. How does one reliably confirm the existence of records of unconscious experience covering to cover all those times when there is no conscious experience for one or other of our sensory modalities? I have not come across a way and remain agnostic as to the question of continuously recorded experiences.
Human memory does not store information in the same way as a computer memory but there is reason to believe that there are limitations to it's capacity. There is a limit to both the number of neurons in a human brain and the connectivity of individual neurons both theoretically and observably. More significantly, the same physical locations in the brain appear to be used to encode multiple memories with the upshot that while new memories do not overwrite old memories they do alter them, obscure them, merge with them. This makes our memories both more useful in many ways and less reliable than the sort of "perfect" literal memory of a computer.
A fine example of one of the advantages.
No they don't in terms of the things our brains do well but neither do we compare well to the cheapest personal computer in terms of what they do well.
When I say perception I mean the sensory activities of touching, hearing, seeing, etc. I am strictly speaking in physical or mechanical terms and not the interpretation elements of seeing a color or hearing a sound or tasting sugar. Also, when I talk about experience, I am talking about memory. I did not want to use the word memory because it tends to confine this activity to a particular place, like the brain, which is what you seem to have confined memory to.Throg said:
In the context of Shera’s experiences, it is mostly the unconscious elements of this that I am trying to emphasize.
For example, sitting here in this room, I notice that there is a fan going on all the time. I can feel it blowing, I can see when I look for it, and I can hear it. I can’t think of a moment I have not heard it blowing, or a moment I have not felt this chair pressed against my back, or a moment I have not seen objects in front of me. All this I can sense simultaneously, as I perform other activities like composing this reply. If I were to dream about being in this place tonight, have a hallucination about it, or be hypnotized, I would probably reconstruct many of these experiences, even those I did not play close attention to.
Can you please elaborate on the evidence you mention?
FreeChile said:
That's an interesting example because there does appear to be a certain amount of "cycling" going on as far as sensory experience goes. Your brain is not handling input from all of the numerous sources of sensory input all of the time. Subject to prioritisation, there is a sort of round-robin system in operation (one of the more plausible explanations for the conscious/unconscious divides, I recall was that the conscious experiences are the high priority ones of which the average brain can cope with 7 +/-3 at any one time). Your tricky old nervous system fills in the gaps, much like it does with the images in a movie or a flick-book animation so that it seems like your receiving constant input from all your senses.
The problem with hypnosis is that there is no way to determine which experiences you have genuinely retrieved and which ones you have unconsciously fabricated. This is the "false memory" problem and the real kicker is that while it has been demonstrated to exist (in cases were physical evidence has directly shown that a memory recovered under hypnosis could not have been true) there is no way in general to know what proportion of memories recovered under hypnosis are real.
Yes, I've been pretty lazy about that but it is time consuming digging out studies. How about you pick one piece of evidence a day for me to elaborate/provide references and I'll try not to let them pile up? Let me know where you want me to start.
From what I've read, that is considered an illusion.
I don't believe that's what is occurring in my situation. Incidentally, according to Wikipedia, hallucinations (false sensory perceptions vs. distortions of sensory perceptions as per the Wikipedia definition that I posted yesterday) are common, even after excluding mental illness or drug use as a cause.
I agree. At least not in an inexpensive or nonintrusive way.
Well I have worked out on machines in gyms and continue to lift light weights at home. These particular sensations felt like the ones a person would get working out specific muscles with a weight machine. But we are repeating old ground here, others and I have already discussed that my conclusions are impossible to test and falsify. That is certainly what I believe and it's what I said in these posts several times.
I ask a lot of questions on this forum and its fair for me to be asked a lot of questions in return. But, and please don't take this the wrong way, I will ask that any new questions be on new territory and not on ones already asked and answered. Your honor, I protest, the witness has already been asked and has answered the question!
[Warning!!!! Purely Speculative Mode Starts]
Does science really have so much of our understanding of the world nailed down? Particularly in how people think, learn and remember? [If anyone can recommend good books in these areas, I'd appreciate it.]
Here's a cut and paste from my post in another thread:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=1870837552#postid1870837552
Assuming Sheldrake's summary of these experiments are accurate, his morphic fields hypothesis warrants being rigorously tested. If tested and proved, I think it would bring an incremental understanding to our world, not a fundamental change. Psionic abilities could probably be worked within a morphic field hypothesis without too much trouble.
[Warning!!!! Purely Speculative Mode Ends]
Heh, you would have to do far worse to be a manipulative bastard by my standards. For many years I've worked with people whose breakfast of choice was homos sapiens.
Feel free to provide references or not as you like. Despite your amazing number of posts (227 as of this one), I see you have only been here for a week. (Welcome by the way,
) Wow! How do you write so many so quickly!? Well, I guess you save time by not providing references (I'm sorry, I couldn't resist, lol.)Seriously, from what I can tell its standard at JREF to provide references for any assertions that are not personal stories. The punishment, if one chooses not to do so, is that your assertions are reduced to ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE, a truly harsh price to pay; and I'll leave it to you to decide if you want to pay it…
Well you have suggested that I keep a diary. What would it prove (in my situation) and where would it go? I value my anonymity and we already discussed that if I have physical empathy it's not a falsible version. So what would be the point?
Incidentally, this is my 9th post on this topic (my unusual experiences) which represents a whopping 13% of my posts so far and I'm a little bemused by this. I didn't join JREF to try to persuade anyone that weak psionic abilities exist nor to win a million dollars. I joined to help educate myself in various areas like some of the sciences, Cartesian dualism vs. materialism philosophies, and hopefully soon statistics. I'm finding that reading other peoples reactions and critiscms in these areas is very helpful for that. Just an fyi…
Shera said:
Yes, but that's not the same as a hallucination.
They are really not impossible to falsify. If you keep a systematic record but find no systematic relationship between cause and effect then that would be falsification. We could also, once we specify a time-frame, perform statistical analysis to establish, at a given level of confidence, whether or not a relationship exists.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by nailed down but I would say essentially yes. For how people think, learn and remember, try the psychology section of your local bookshop. You might start with "Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour by Richard Gross". It's a nice thick book which gives a good overview of psychology, is fairly easy to read without a deep background in psychology and has hundreds and hundreds of references to other books on psychology and relevant studies. I must buy myself a new copy.
Feel free to provide references or not as you like. Despite your amazing number of posts (227 as of this one), I see you have only been here for a week. (Welcome by the way,
I write so many so quickly because I am a good typist, have only just found the forum and I am spending far too much time here. I do indeed save time by not providing references; it's been ten years since I finished my degree and I no longer have any of my books or references so it is a non-trivial exercise finding those references again. Lazy? Yes, but I've already copped to that. Any lazier than not keeping a brief systematic diary for a few weeks in an attempt to disconfirm that you possess a paranormal ability? I estimate the workload to be roughly similar. Thanks for the welcome, by the way.
I find the accusation does not impact me on a personal level one way or the other. Might I suggest, however, that in the absence of references you could treat what I say as alternative philosophical explanations; logical possibilities to show "it ain't necessarily so." You could, of course, find references for what I have said with a web-search almost as easily as I could given the descriptions of the phenomena I have provided. This cannot be done for a great deal of paranormal claims because no scientific studies exist to be found.
I do not see how keeping a diary for yourself impacts at all on your anonymity. I have addressed what could be proved and the issue of falsifiability above. There is a point only if you care about the truth or falsehood of your current beliefs. If they are purely articles of faith then there is no point at all.
I'm not trying to be critical of you as a person in any sense, nor to destroy your beliefs. I am just trying to answer questions you raised to the best of my abilities. Without doing too much hard work of course. My offer stands, I will go to the trouble of reconstructing the reference material I no longer have if you will agree to the diary - which you may of course keep entirely to yourself.
Isn't it interesting? How a thread asking a simple question "Why do you visit this site?" leads to a discussion of this nature. I don't mean to say we should not be discussing psionics here. I am simply pointing out this oddity. We are all trying to protect something. We may have come here for some other reason, but in the end, we revert to that need for self-protection. I'm gonna check out that new thread on beliefs to see what it says about this tendency.
Assuming there is cycling or round-robin as you say, it implies nothing about the continuity of memory nor about the continuity or independence of the sensory perceptions. This is simply a catching up issue. The activities of memory can never catch up to the sensory perceptions. So they capture frames like movie cameras.
Prioritization implies importance. How does the body know that one experience is to take precedence over another? You hear a sound and it is converted in some way, let’s say into electrical impulses. At some point it reaches your round-robin system. How does this system know that this sound is more important than any other sound or that it is more important than a particular color? I don’t think you mean to say this the way you said it. You may want to re-write this sentence.
This is just the way the information is represented, in frames. The video recorder and player are always moving once you press the button. This is the continuity I am talking about. The recorder needs to capture everything in its sight. If it didn’t, it could not give context to the objects of focus.
The same is true of ‘conscious’ life. There is always an element of interpretation, fabrication and selectivity. Add to that the problem of the sub-conscious or irrational arising from time to time. Yet in both cases, there is the use of memory: the images of any (true or false) experience could not be created or articulated without this memory. The image or story itself may all be inconsistent. But elements from that image come from the memories.
The evidence is not always essential. The problem is, when evidence is used in support of some statement, it is better to have that evidence or at least paraphrase the theories supported by the evidence. This way certain assumptions can be analyzed.
Note: All quotes, unless noted otherwise, are from Throg's post timestanped 03-30-2005 08:59 AM GMT, some of which are also from earlier posts.
Other quotes from different posts are timestamped within the post below.
--
(BTW, I later edited in a smiley to the end of that paragraph. You responded so quickly, I don't think you saw it. I'm not a fan of smileys -- they seem so high schoolish, but they do help get around the fact there is no voice tone to hear in forums)
I shouldn't have to! lol When one makes an assertion that what one says has been lab tested and perhaps even lab replicated, they are really the only ones to know which particular reference they saw that they used to come up with their understanding. Expecting someone else to undertake a research to try to find what the first party may have read is, in my opinion, inefficient at best. I already work hard to make it as easy as possible for anyone to verify what I think I understand based on what I have read. Many other people in this forum do the same: if they assert it, they cite it.
You may be the exception to the rule, but I have found out the hard way that it usually isn't worth it to do other people's work for them even if one has the time. (And didn't mind doing the other person's scut work, ah hem.) Time is a scarce commodity these days...
--
Ah, the diary issue. I suspect that I was annoyed that it seemed to me that you had assumed that I did not keep careful note of everything that was occurring when I first got these unusual experiences.
The comment "there is a point only if you care about the truth or falsehood or your current beliefs" I simply regard as a poor attempt at manipulation.
This might be a good time to sum up my personal attitude about this -- just for clarity's sake.
As posted earlier:
In addition, shortly after I first experienced this, I spent some time thinking about what it meant to me to frequently experience something significantly different that others don't -- regardless as to whether it was real or not. This is what I came up with: One could argue that most people make an effort to fit in with others on some level. To demonstrate the same social mores, to talk knowledgeably about whatever happens to be fashionable at the moment, etc.
Considering that I don't find these experiences to be particularly useful and since they are not similar to what most people experience, I treat it accordingly. I rarely mention it with the following exceptions: a few very close friends (and then just a few times, to fill them in on something that was new to me), some new acquaintances that I had met on line via psionic web sites, and now, this forum. I don't obsess about it either, although it had triggered an interest in attempting to learn more about some of the sciences and what some non-western cultures have to say about this area. I allow this a certain amount of time per week, and that's it. Life goes on, and other aspects of life are very interesting too. (Keeping that in mind, I will probably have to cut back on my posting time here {sigh}.)
--
However, there is no harm in keeping a brief diary. Most of the time I experience this while working in the "zone", and obviously I have an easier time finding causality if I'm working in a large open area with no privacy and lots of "traffic". That does not describe my situation for the next couple of months (estimated). If there is still interest, I'll take it up then.
Other quotes from different posts are timestamped within the post below.
)
--
(BTW, I later edited in a smiley to the end of that paragraph. You responded so quickly, I don't think you saw it. I'm not a fan of smileys -- they seem so high schoolish, but they do help get around the fact there is no voice tone to hear in forums)
I shouldn't have to! lol When one makes an assertion that what one says has been lab tested and perhaps even lab replicated, they are really the only ones to know which particular reference they saw that they used to come up with their understanding. Expecting someone else to undertake a research to try to find what the first party may have read is, in my opinion, inefficient at best. I already work hard to make it as easy as possible for anyone to verify what I think I understand based on what I have read. Many other people in this forum do the same: if they assert it, they cite it.
You may be the exception to the rule, but I have found out the hard way that it usually isn't worth it to do other people's work for them even if one has the time. (And didn't mind doing the other person's scut work, ah hem.) Time is a scarce commodity these days...
--
Ah, the diary issue. I suspect that I was annoyed that it seemed to me that you had assumed that I did not keep careful note of everything that was occurring when I first got these unusual experiences.
The comment "there is a point only if you care about the truth or falsehood or your current beliefs" I simply regard as a poor attempt at manipulation.
This might be a good time to sum up my personal attitude about this -- just for clarity's sake.
As posted earlier:
Shera: 03-28-2005 3:35 PM GMT
Ultimately, on a pragmatic and personal level, I don't believe it matters. If it's real it's not particularly useful (although interesting at times
In addition, shortly after I first experienced this, I spent some time thinking about what it meant to me to frequently experience something significantly different that others don't -- regardless as to whether it was real or not. This is what I came up with: One could argue that most people make an effort to fit in with others on some level. To demonstrate the same social mores, to talk knowledgeably about whatever happens to be fashionable at the moment, etc.
Considering that I don't find these experiences to be particularly useful and since they are not similar to what most people experience, I treat it accordingly. I rarely mention it with the following exceptions: a few very close friends (and then just a few times, to fill them in on something that was new to me), some new acquaintances that I had met on line via psionic web sites, and now, this forum. I don't obsess about it either, although it had triggered an interest in attempting to learn more about some of the sciences and what some non-western cultures have to say about this area. I allow this a certain amount of time per week, and that's it. Life goes on, and other aspects of life are very interesting too
. (Keeping that in mind, I will probably have to cut back on my posting time here {sigh}.)--
However, there is no harm in keeping a brief diary. Most of the time I experience this while working in the "zone", and obviously I have an easier time finding causality if I'm working in a large open area with no privacy and lots of "traffic". That does not describe my situation for the next couple of months (estimated). If there is still interest, I'll take it up then.