Spiritual Awakening - Page 6

On December 05 2018 23:56 Loco wrote: I removed the dodging part because I had missed your response in my first read -- I was distracted with something else when I first read your post and missed it, so I apologize. You did answer but not every question. I also edited my post just now as you replied, so I'll give you the time to read it over and edit yours if necessary, before I read and respond. Note that I wasn't asking you to guess what their intentions were, or what I think their intentions are, just what it is that they are actually doing, which we have information about.

I appreciate that, and no worries, your attention and thoughtfulness is much appreciated even if you did get distracted, which happens to all of us!

Regarding the intentions, I think my original answer most accurately described what they were doing and not their intentions, at least to the best of my knowledge knowing everything I know about the context of this specific video, and the overall context of presenting evidence of the spiritual to the general community.

I think my second attempt at answering your questions jumps into assuming intentions, which is my bias of how skeptics think, hehe. Busted! I'm curious to hear your answers to those questions and see what your view of the situation is.

On December 06 2018 00:22 PoorUser wrote: Show nested quote + On December 05 2018 23:49 k2o4 wrote: Here's the thing that I don't understand. You talk about credibility, but I have a feeling that I'm the only one of us who has successfully convinced people of their fake psychic powers. In other words, I have experience faking this stuff, not just knowledge of how to fake it. So which person's analysis is more credible? The one who can fake psychic powers, or the one who is smart enough to figure out how to fake them? this isn't really much of an argument. performance magic is based in science and psychology, and science understands magic by being able to identify when our expectations on how the world works are violated. it would have been a lot better to say that your background in magic led you to look at different places and different times in the video for different things (or said a simpler way, it gives you a different perspective, not necessarily a better one). and while that response is fairly noncommittal, i don't think many magicians would take the position that they understand more about the "true versions" of the processes they are trying to fake, than their scientific counterparts - and even if they could make that claim specifically in terms of methodology, that should be easily communicable.

Yes indeed, performance magic is based in science and psychology. That's why I had a bit of a leg up once I started my psychology degree, because I knew about many of the phenomena they were describing. It was cool to go into more detail about exactly why the magic tricks I'd done were working, down on a biological basis.

That being said, from my experience, knowing how to create the illusion based on theory, and knowing how to create it based on practice, provides different perspectives for sure. I've trained in both perspectives, and while it doesn't mean I can automatically spot what's real and what's fake, it does give me a bit more experience and practice and knowledge to tap into than a person who just understands the science. It's like the difference between asking a surgeon or a nurse their opinion on a surgery. They've both got the knowledge, but the doctor has done the operation over and over. Generally we'd look to the doctors opinion over the nurses because of his experience, even though it is possible for the nurse to know just as much as him.

So I agree that you or Loco or any other smart scientifically trained individual could figure out the same thing as me, but it does make sense to give my opinion a bit more credibility because of my experience with the specific topic.

Finally, I certainly don't claim that being a magician gives me more knowledge about the true version, it just means I know how to create the fake version and therefore what to look for. My knowledge of what the true version looks like has come from a deep dive of research and personal experiences with the real thing. That's separate from the magician credential, though a good magician does spend at least some time looking at how the real thing happens in order to copy it and be more convincing

@Spitfiree

It's precisely because we tend to use the same types of classical logic here -- or dismiss them -- that it is easy to predict who believes in these things and who doesn't. Just an FYI, I don't only think in terms of Aristotelian logic, my thinking has moved in recent years towards paraconsistent logic (a non-classical form of logic that is contradiction/paradox-tolerant).

I've never heard about that Bulgarian mystic, but I've read a little on the occult, mostly due to the fact that there are great writers I like that were into it, and I had some strange experiences as a child myself. But all of that is something that deals with the realm of the imagination. There are no limits to the imagination, and there are complex phenomena that can occur between organisms endowed with an imagination that can strike us as magical if we are not interested in trying to explain them scientifically. Hell, even without an imagination... look at the way ants, termites, bees, etc. self-organize, it looks like magic if you don't understand emergence/information/organization.

As for "the beyond" yes, there are things that are suprarational, and there are things we cannot perceive because we didn't evolve the ability to do so, but we have zero reason to jump from these simple conclusions and believe that people can have supernatural powers. Your friend doesn't have to have reasons to lie to you, he only needs reasons for why he would deceive himself, or be deceived by someone else. And there are plenty of reasons for that, here's just one which I often bring up: the need for us to escape a grim world and our awareness of our finite existence through the imagination.

If you actually really look at the way people with these belief systems live, they are the ones who are often limiting themselves, without realizing it. They live inside simplistic systems of belief and false dichotomies. They are shutting off parts of the world, e.g. those that are judged as "negative". It's a false openness. Everything we believe is colored by our value judgments, and those value judgments are actually unconscious, and if we didn't consciously place them there, then we didn't choose our beliefs and reactions. Without empiricism, all we do is regurgitate the content of our self-serving unconscious, not realizing that this is what's happening.

Saying that we have to be open to supernatural claims is bogus. We only have to be open to the fact that they believe these things for real and open to giving them the opportunity to show evidence for them, in the right setting. That setting isn't an internet forum, or some low budget TV show. That's just a waste of time. Think about the number of people who claim to have seen ghosts or apparitions of some kind. Like poltergeists moving things around. Now think about the actual number of these people having cameras. If the actual phenomenon of a ghost coming into some ectoplasmic body exist, or a poltergeist moving things around, you'd think there would be some footage of it available, but no, instead we pay people in a multi billion dollars industry to make movies about them because we love how these myths make life interesting for a couple hours.

Apparently, Baba Vanga is said to have predicted that nuclear and chemical war would bring World War III to Europe from 2010-2014 and that the continent as we know it would cease to exist by the end of 2016. How many of these false predictions do we need before we consider that maybe she didn't have such powers? That's the thing I don't get. To me it suffices to find just one. It's like when you start a book that claims to be scientific, and the very first reference is complete bogus, taken from a fake scientific journal, or the author obviously misrepresents the study, do you give the author the benefit of the doubt, and spend 10 hours of your life reading his book? You have to make snap judgments about things you should be paying attention to or not paying attention to sometimes, and there are such cases that you'll almost never be making the wrong choice because the red flag is revealed immediately and it is so big.

Can some brave soul start this interesting conversation as a thread in the general section so it doesnt get buried in a blog post?

On December 06 2018 00:34 k2o4 wrote: Show nested quote + On December 06 2018 00:22 PoorUser wrote:   On December 05 2018 23:49 k2o4 wrote: Here's the thing that I don't understand. You talk about credibility, but I have a feeling that I'm the only one of us who has successfully convinced people of their fake psychic powers. In other words, I have experience faking this stuff, not just knowledge of how to fake it. So which person's analysis is more credible? The one who can fake psychic powers, or the one who is smart enough to figure out how to fake them? this isn't really much of an argument. performance magic is based in science and psychology, and science understands magic by being able to identify when our expectations on how the world works are violated. it would have been a lot better to say that your background in magic led you to look at different places and different times in the video for different things (or said a simpler way, it gives you a different perspective, not necessarily a better one). and while that response is fairly noncommittal, i don't think many magicians would take the position that they understand more about the "true versions" of the processes they are trying to fake, than their scientific counterparts - and even if they could make that claim specifically in terms of methodology, that should be easily communicable. That being said, from my experience, knowing how to create the illusion based on theory, and knowing how to create it based on practice, provides different perspectives for sure. I've trained in both perspectives, and while it doesn't mean I can automatically spot what's real and what's fake, it does give me a bit more experience and practice and knowledge to tap into than a person who just understands the science. It's like the difference between asking a surgeon or a nurse their opinion on a surgery. They've both got the knowledge, but the doctor has done the operation over and over. Generally we'd look to the doctors opinion over the nurses because of his experience, even though it is possible for the nurse to know just as much as him. So I agree that you or Loco or any other smart scientifically trained individual could figure out the same thing as me, but it does make sense to give my opinion a bit more credibility because of my experience with the specific topic.

i do give you credibility. i think a magicians take on magic tricks is always interesting. i think you underestimate the range and power of science as a tool when you say a person who 'just understands the science' though - and i think thats probably exemplified in your analogy. the doctor knows more than the nurse. yes at lower levels, the nurse and the doctor may be able to give the same insight and perform the same duties, but as the complexity of the task goes up, the reliability of the nurses insights/abilities will certainly falter. to my knowledge, no nursing programs train for the nurse to run lead on an intracranial surgery or a heart transplant, and i suspect there are few-to-none who would think that they can. i think, since this was an analogy and you (and similar opinioned people) are assumedly the nurse, without a proper understanding of the scope of science, it should be very hard to remark with certainty on what science can and can not explain given unfettered access to materials.

i understand that the reverse point can be made with spiritual stuff - that most skeptics can't fully understand it so we can't remark on the scope of it. that said, we then run into the whole occams razor and extraordinary claims should require extraordinary proof. as far as i know, the science side of things generally says come into a lab 24/7 and lets see what this is all about and when thats not embraced by the side of extraordinary claims, you can imagine why this debate doesn't end up engaging a lot of people.

just a last note - i think there is general feeling among people with beliefs that fall outside of science, be it religion, mediumship, spiritual anything, ESP etc. that scientists are promoting a scientific agenda. maybe that's been propagated by a few of the leading philosopher/scientist hybrids kind of being assholes. that said, everyone that i work with, and pretty much everyone i've come into contact with in the scientific community only really cares about discovering how things actually work. i know i for one dont care if any of the aforementioned things are true and if ive ended up being wrong - some of this stuff is pretty dope. there just hasn't been any compelling evidence to make me change my mind.

and finally, in case my post comes off a bit brash, while i think you meant to compare yourself to the nurse in your analogy, in no way do i mean to compare myself to the doctor in my response. i dont know most everything about pretty much everything.

that said, everyone that i work with, and pretty much everyone i've come into contact with in the scientific community only really cares about discovering how things actually work.

I have wondered since our dinner at Naked Fish probably almost exactly two years ago if you got out of poker and into the scientific community. It sounds like you have! Excellent news.

I know, I know... off topic... back to discussion.

On December 06 2018 01:03 PoorUser wrote: Show nested quote + On December 06 2018 00:34 k2o4 wrote: That being said, from my experience, knowing how to create the illusion based on theory, and knowing how to create it based on practice, provides different perspectives for sure. I've trained in both perspectives, and while it doesn't mean I can automatically spot what's real and what's fake, it does give me a bit more experience and practice and knowledge to tap into than a person who just understands the science. It's like the difference between asking a surgeon or a nurse their opinion on a surgery. They've both got the knowledge, but the doctor has done the operation over and over. Generally we'd look to the doctors opinion over the nurses because of his experience, even though it is possible for the nurse to know just as much as him. So I agree that you or Loco or any other smart scientifically trained individual could figure out the same thing as me, but it does make sense to give my opinion a bit more credibility because of my experience with the specific topic. i do give you credibility. i think a magicians take on magic tricks is always interesting. i think you underestimate the range and power of science as a tool when you say a person who 'just understands the science' though - and i think thats probably exemplified in your analogy. the doctor knows more than the nurse.

Actually I'm a big fan of science. I still use it everyday, and my time studying psychology is why I became attracted to yoga, as it takes a scientific approach to the spiritual experience. I just think that what we call magic is not yet explained by science, mainly due to a constriction on science by the materialist paradigm that so many scientists have bought into (often without even realizing it). I believe that science can and will explain everything, and the path to that explanation looks something like this manifesto for post-materialist science.

And my bad, I must not have written my nurse/doctor example very clearly, as you seem to have misunderstood it (and then assumed it was evidence of my underestimation of science's range and power). Yes the doctor knows more than the nurse, that was my point. Let me try and be clearer.

Tutz is watching a video of a surgical operation and he has two people he can question while forming a judgement about what happened in the video. One is a surgeon that performs the same surgery, the other is a nurse who assists the same surgery. Who is the more qualified expert? Of course the doctor, cause even though the nurse has all the medical theory about the operation in her head, and has stood by to watch it happen before, the nurse has never used their own hands to do it. If they're an exceptional nurse they could possibly provide the same answers as the doctor, so it is possible to only have the theory and a view and know what's going on. But we generally trust the person whose hands have actually done the operation to know the most.

Now in our situation, I'm the doctor and Loco is the nurse, because I'm the one who has actually had my hands performing the operation (magic trick), while he has all the intelligence to know what's going on but hasn't personally done it. That's not to say that he can't figure out the same thing as me, or that I'm gonna get it right every time because of my past experience. Does that make more sense?

You're right that overall it's a bad argument, because I shouldn't have brought it up in the first place. Me talking about this is a sign of my ego getting triggered, as I get bugged by people explaining away evidence by saying it's a magic trick, and then dismissing a magician who says it doesn't look like a magic trick, justifying their dismissal because they feel that their 2nd hand knowledge is better than the magicians 1st hand experience. But that's just my ego being whiny, so I apologize for dragging us both into a tangent Luckily this sidetrack did lead to you making some interesting points which I now get to reply to, so thank you for that!

i understand that the reverse point can be made with spiritual stuff - that most skeptics can't fully understand it so we can't remark on the scope of it. that said, we then run into the whole occams razor and extraordinary claims should require extraordinary proof.

I commented on the extraordinary claims stuff in reply to Loco above so I won't repost it here, but I do want to reemphasize the manifesto for post-materialist science, which helps to switch our perspective and claims suddenly become less extraordinary.

as far as i know, the science side of things generally says come into a lab 24/7 and lets see what this is all about and when thats not embraced by the side of extraordinary claims, you can imagine why this debate doesn't end up engaging a lot of people.

Really good point! This is what I often talked about with my professors too. While getting my psych degree my best friends on campus were my professors, and I spent a lot of time at their office hours. I remember one of them asked me "if people can really do these magical things, why don't they just come into a lab and prove it to us?" and I pointed out the ethnocentrism of her statement. For them, it's already real and no proof is necessary. A need to prove it to others is an egoic need, which is what they've trained themselves to move away from, and getting caught up in it could lead to the loss of the ability and a backslide in their development. We're the ones who should be asking kindly for them to come to our lab, not saying they're all charlatans unless they seek us out to prove us wrong.

So basically they're living a very different existence in many ways. Even the top meditators who we did get into the MRI machines wouldn't have gone if the Dalai Lama hadn't asked them to, as it's traditionally discouraged to be examined. But when top scientists met with the Dalai Lama at Mind and Life, he decided he trusted them and wanted to support their work. That's when we started getting amazing data out of Richie Davidson's lab which greatly shifted the debate and mainstreamed meditation, a very "woo woo" thing that scientists dismissed as having any effect for decades.

just a last note - i think there is general feeling among people with beliefs that fall outside of science, be it religion, mediumship, spiritual anything, ESP etc. that scientists are promoting a scientific agenda. maybe that's been propagated by a few of the leading philosopher/scientist hybrids kind of being assholes. that said, everyone that i work with, and pretty much everyone i've come into contact with in the scientific community only really cares about discovering how things actually work. i know i for one dont care if any of the aforementioned things are true and if ive ended up being wrong - some of this stuff is pretty dope. there just hasn't been any compelling evidence to make me change my mind.

I know what you mean, but I'm not coming from that place. Like I said above, I love science. My beef is with a belief system which has supplanted itself over science. That belief system is materialism, and it creates an implicit bias which leads many good people who just want to "discover how things actually work" down the wrong path. I've spent a lot of time with scientists, and I've had the same experience as you, that they're mostly good people who want to find the truth about what's happening and why it happens. My sincere hope is that we can free science from the binds of a belief system so it can operate as it was meant to, a method of objectively observing and collecting data, and creating theories which explain ALL of the data. Right now due to the implicit bias, so much data is just being thrown out because it doesn't fit the materialist model, and that makes me sad to see. Please check out the manifesto for post-materialist science to get a better understanding of where I'm coming from

On December 06 2018 00:42 Loco wrote: Your friend doesn't have to have reasons to lie to you, he only needs reasons for why he would deceive himself, or be deceived by someone else. And there are plenty of reasons for that, here's just one which I often bring up: the need for us to escape a grim world and our awareness of our finite existence through the imagination.

You're right, generally with anecdotal evidence this is the standard flaw. Even if the person telling you what happened is telling the truth, they could have been deceived. This point, as well as being a magician who sent many a person off claiming to have seen magical powers (and they would have passed a lie detector), was a big reason I was such a staunch skeptic for so long. It felt like no one could ever provide enough evidence to convince me. It wasn't until I opened my heart, which opened my mind, that opportunities to have first hand experiences entered my life.

Saying that we have to be open to supernatural claims is bogus. We only have to be open to the fact that they believe these things for real and open to giving them the opportunity to show evidence for them, in the right setting. That setting isn't an internet forum, or some low budget TV show.

Agreed, there should be openness to viewing the evidence in the right setting, and for a skeptic, my posts on a message board are not that setting. I hope to see that manifest, like bringing that girl into a lab

On December 06 2018 02:52 k2o4 wrote: Actually I'm a big fan of science. I still use it everyday, and my time studying psychology is why I became attracted to yoga, as it takes a scientific approach to the spiritual experience. I just think that what we call magic is not yet explained by science, mainly due to a constriction on science by the materialist paradigm that so many scientists have bought into (often without even realizing it). I believe that science can and will explain everything, and the path to that explanation looks something like this manifesto for post-materialist science. And my bad, I must not have written my nurse/doctor example very clearly, as you seem to have misunderstood it (and then assumed it was evidence of my underestimation of science's range and power). Yes the doctor knows more than the nurse, that was my point. Let me try and be clearer.

yeah i remembered you had a degree in psych before reading your posts (and didnt and dont consider you an anti-science crusader) and have enjoyed reading your posts in the past. as for the analogy, i feel like i understand what you are saying but i think my point still applies. i guess maybe we are just missing each others points and thats alright.

Really good point! This is what I often talked about with my professors too. While getting my psych degree my best friends on campus were my professors, and I spent a lot of time at their office hours. I remember one of them asked me "if people can really do these magical things, why don't they just come into a lab and prove it to us?" and I pointed out the ethnocentrism of her statement. For them, it's already real and no proof is necessary. A need to prove it to others is an egoic need, which is what they've trained themselves to move away from, and getting caught up in it could lead to the loss of the ability and a backslide in their development. We're the ones who should be asking kindly for them to come to our lab, not saying they're all charlatans unless they seek us out to prove us wrong.

i get that's the common argument 'it's not about proof to people who know'. its an argument where, if we are looking at the omniscient scoreboard, tends to not go well for the team making it. that said, if we buy in and say sure that makes sense and they just want to use their powers to better humanity or whatever...it feels like it would only take a couple hours of their time one day to increase the circle of people who would be bettered by their gifts from .0000001 of the population to 50%+ ) (just throwing out a number obviously not meant to be fought over).

So basically they're living a very different existence in many ways. Even the top meditators who we did get into the MRI machines wouldn't have gone if the Dalai Lama hadn't asked them to, as it's traditionally discouraged to be examined. But when top scientists met with the Dalai Lama at Mind and Life, he decided he trusted them and wanted to support their work. That's when we started getting amazing data out of Richie Davidson's lab which greatly shifted the debate and mainstreamed meditation, a very "woo woo" thing that scientists dismissed as having any effect for decades.

theres probably some interesting tangents to be had on something that started in the spiritual ending up being backed by mainstream science and the positive effects of habits being practiced that have gains but are attributed to the wrong sources - but its not something im super equipped to go on. just as an obvious note, the main difference between meditation (at least as understood in science) and most of the other things being discussed in this thread is that meditation makes no claims at ESP

as for the manifesto, my thought reading everything up to point 9, minus a sentence or two about QM which i really just dont know much about, was 'yeah sorta duh' thinking that this might have been a more appropriate thing to put out 20+ years ago. my knowledge of general academia isn't great, but these points don't seem to say much that isn't already common place.

from 9-11, i guess this is just a show me the data type thing. i haven't really heard of anything approaching reliable that is evidence of this, but from the phrasing it sounds like there is a lot of it. not really worth commenting on the rest since its largely predicated on 9-11.

that said, re 10: pretty sure people who are about to die, their brains get them high as shit (and then maybe some other survival based stuff depending on whose theories you like). seems like a good enough explanation. past that, people aren't really that great relayers of their own experience, and the more stress you add to that the more true it becomes. while i'm not saying that there's no useful data from first hand accounts of people of their near death experiences, there's sorta no useful data of peoples first hand accounts of their NDE's (no more so than listening to a guy who was high tell you about his trip).

all that said, i actually worked in a psych research lab that was trying to find a sound methodological way to catalog a persons unique inner experience. it was a nice intersection of psychology and philosophy. i learned a lot there and it was really cool. you probably would have had a good time there.

On December 06 2018 02:42 RiKD wrote: Show nested quote + that said, everyone that i work with, and pretty much everyone i've come into contact with in the scientific community only really cares about discovering how things actually work. I have wondered since our dinner at Naked Fish probably almost exactly two years ago if you got out of poker and into the scientific community. It sounds like you have! Excellent news. I know, I know... off topic... back to discussion.

trying. we'll see if they let me in for keeps. should know soon enough.

On December 06 2018 03:57 PoorUser wrote: Show nested quote + On December 06 2018 02:42 RiKD wrote:   that said, everyone that i work with, and pretty much everyone i've come into contact with in the scientific community only really cares about discovering how things actually work. I have wondered since our dinner at Naked Fish probably almost exactly two years ago if you got out of poker and into the scientific community. It sounds like you have! Excellent news. I know, I know... off topic... back to discussion. trying. we'll see if they let me in for keeps. should know soon enough.

Break a leg!

On December 06 2018 03:57 PoorUser wrote: i get that's the common argument 'it's not about proof to people who know'. its an argument where, if we are looking at the omniscient scoreboard, tends to not go well for the team making it. that said, if we buy in and say sure that makes sense and they just want to use their powers to better humanity or whatever...it feels like it would only take a couple hours of their time one day to increase the circle of people who would be bettered by their gifts from .0000001 of the population to 50%+ ) (just throwing out a number obviously not meant to be fought over).

I hear ya, it is annoying to me as well that more of them aren't willing to take that lab time. But we really have to be honest with ourselves about the ethnocentric view we have. We think it's no big deal, and that it will be good for humanity. For them, participating risks all sorts of ego traps, which could actually set them back on their path, which is much more important to them because from their perspective, they'll do more to help the world by going further on the path.

I think this is well illustrated in the story of DJ, a healer who exhibited amazing abilities and was tested and successfully demonstrated many phenomena. He ended up cutting the experiements off because of the negative effect it had on his practice and path. You can watch it all here:

as for the manifesto, my thought reading everything up to point 9, minus a sentence or two about QM which i really just dont know much about, was 'yeah sorta duh' thinking that this might have been a more appropriate thing to put out 20+ years ago. my knowledge of general academia isn't great, but these points don't seem to say much that isn't already common place.

I'm glad to hear that you agree with the points up to 9, including:

6. Science is first and foremost a non-dogmatic, open-minded method of acquiring knowledge about nature through the observation, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. Its methodology is not synonymous with materialism and should not be committed to any particular beliefs, dogmas, or ideologies.

Cause that's really my main argument that I'm hoping to get across.

from 9-11, i guess this is just a show me the data type thing. i haven't really heard of anything approaching reliable that is evidence of this, but from the phrasing it sounds like there is a lot of it. not really worth commenting on the rest since its largely predicated on 9-11.

We haven't heard of the evidence because of the implicit bias created by buying into materialism when we're first taught science. Scientists are humans too, and one of the big flaws in science is that the data has to travel the gauntlet of human biases, emotions, and self preservation. I like to look at cannabis as an example of how this bias can prevent an abundance of scientific evidence to be ignored. In reality, there is a bunch of legit science which was done on cannabis for over 150 years, all saying that it was generally safe and shouldn't be criminalized. But due to a smear campaign and federal rules regarding legality and availability for study, every mainstream scientist would confidently repeat lies that they believed to be true about the dangers of cannabis. None of them took the time to do their own research and only looked at places like the DEA and NIDA for their info. And scientists who knew some of the wider science were scared to speak up because it could effect their career to be labeled the "stoner sympathizer".

When it comes to psi research and so on, it's a very similar scenario. Lots of work has been done, all over the world, and much evidence has been compiled. But it can't survive the gauntlet because the biases and self preservation are too strong right now.

that said, re 10: pretty sure people who are about to die, their brains get them high as shit (and then maybe some other survival based stuff depending on whose theories you like). seems like a good enough explanation. past that, people aren't really that great relayers of their own experience, and the more stress you add to that the more true it becomes. while i'm not saying that there's no useful data from first hand accounts of people of their near death experiences, there's sorta no useful data of peoples first hand accounts of their NDE's (no more so than listening to a guy who was high tell you about his trip).

Yes there is the "high as shit" explanation, and while it does cover some stuff, it doesn't explain everything. As you're dying you get high as shit, but after the heart stops and the brain stops, the high stops and you shouldn't have any data or info about what's happening around you. So if you come back after your brain has been stopped for minutes, and can report on what happened in the room during that time, it indicates that info was received from a non physical sensory system. So while the high as shit might explain a person coming back and saying they went to heaven, it doesn't explain someone bringing back info about what happened while their brain was no longer receiving, recording, and interpreting stimulus from the environment. And that's just when they report on what happened in the room their body was in - the best evidence comes from NDE's which report on veridical events that occurred in rooms where the body was not.

Then let's talk about the "high as shit" part - I find it interesting that people dismiss a persons spiritual NDE as just being high on psychedelics, so it's no big deal. I feel like most people who say this have not spent much time using psychedelics. I've smoked DMT, which is the endogenous psychedelic believed to create the high as shit death experience, as well as done many other psychedelics. Those experiences were extremely real and informed me very much about myself and reality. So even if it was just a really awesome trip, that doesn't mean it isn't providing us with important information about the nature of reality.

all that said, i actually worked in a psych research lab that was trying to find a sound methodological way to catalog a persons unique inner experience. it was a nice intersection of psychology and philosophy. i learned a lot there and it was really cool. you probably would have had a good time there.

That does sound very cool, and like a very difficult task to achieve! Glad to hear they're working on it though. Personally, I feel that's what meditation is all about. When I look at the ancient traditions, they didn't have MRI's and CT scans, instead they trained their brains to be the microscope, and scientifically analyzed everything which was occurring. This allowed them to come to startlingly similar conclusions to our most advanced psychological findings today. It's just a lot harder to train people to be that good at meditation than to use a FMRI, so it's good that we have both modalities available now. It's a beautiful time to be alive, a time where two seemingly opposite worldviews, spirituality and science, can come together to give us deeper understanding of reality than we've ever had before.

Thanks for all the interesting conversation so far, and thanks also for looking into that manifesto

On December 06 2018 03:57 PoorUser wrote: Show nested quote + On December 06 2018 02:42 RiKD wrote:   that said, everyone that i work with, and pretty much everyone i've come into contact with in the scientific community only really cares about discovering how things actually work. I have wondered since our dinner at Naked Fish probably almost exactly two years ago if you got out of poker and into the scientific community. It sounds like you have! Excellent news. I know, I know... off topic... back to discussion. trying. we'll see if they let me in for keeps. should know soon enough.

what area of science? im also trying to break into science.

On December 05 2018 22:25 k2o4 wrote: You always manage to simplify things down but somehow get them wrong I've missed seeing the Baal posts! It's actually C, which says that: C) Limitations proposed by scientists who have bought into the materialist paradigm are wrong, but science as a method is accurate and most of the findings still make sense. [quote]Ok so let me correct it then: A) Some people have "super powers" that not only cannot be explained with our science, it also breaks many of its core theorems, also none of these people have ever took the time to scientifically prove these powers. B) Someone in those videos is fucking lying. you chose A -_-

True science accepts that new findings will cause old scientific facts to change. That means you have to accept that pretty much everything we believe to currently be right and true, could be proven wrong in the future, and a real scientist has to be ready to adjust as the info comes in.

Absolutely, and science requires EVIDENCE, you have none, the more extraordinary the claim the more evidence is required, if I claim that I'm wearing a white t-shirt a video will suffice, if I claim I can levitate and break the laws of physics then the requirement of evidence is much more rigorous than some shitty video for fucks sake why do I have to explain this to you?

And don't forget, condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance.

There is no need to investigate every claim of sighting of big foot, it is logical to assume they are just hoaxes unless more serious evidence is presented, so far I've seen a vide of a bunch of charlatans and no evidence has been presented whatsoever.



As a magician I assume you know about James Randy, why do you think none of these hacks have claimed their million donated it to a charity and absolutely revolutionaze all the sciences?

On December 05 2018 23:49 k2o4 wrote: Apologies, didn't mean to dodge, I thought I was answering your questions, but I guess I didn't give you the answers you were looking for. I think I know what you want though, so I'll give it a try Here we go, my attempt at the skeptic perspective! /skeptic hat on "What are they doing with this power?" Trying to fool people into believing magic is real, and that she got the power from a magical guy who can give it to you too. "What is the way in which they acquired it?" By paying money to a guy claiming to be a guru. "Let's zoom back a little because context matters, as much as what we are shown matters" - in other words, the context is that they're trying to make money by fooling people into paying for ceremonies which will "give them magic powers" too. Therefore every person involved is part of the scam, from the girl to the guy asking the questions to the guru who supposedly opened her third eye. Ok, /skeptic hat off. I hope I passed. Here's the thing that I don't understand. You talk about credibility, but I have a feeling that I'm the only one of us who has successfully convinced people of their fake psychic powers. In other words, I have experience faking this stuff, not just knowledge of how to fake it. So which person's analysis is more credible? The one who can fake psychic powers, or the one who is smart enough to figure out how to fake them? It feels like you're saying that I haven't thought about how to fake this, that I haven't taken the time to check if those are happening, despite the fact that I emphasized I had done so in my previous post. If you start from the bias that psychic stuff is impossible, then the simplest explanation is that people are lying. In other words, you'd rather call people liars than believe what you're seeing. What is your evidence that they're lying though? You only have suspicions that the props are faked, that there's some sorta comms device, that everyone is in on it and it's all staged. But those suspicions get upgraded to "obvious answer" when you start from a base belief that magic can't be real, "because science". She's a child surrounded by spiritually minded people, not scientists, and she's showing her abilities to the world in what feels like a convincing manner from her perspective. If I had that ability, I'd go to a lab because I live in a world of scientists and understand what they need in order to be convinced. That's why I posted the second video, in the hope to have a better example to discuss which isn't as tainted by suspicions because it's a cleaner scenario. Finally, you answered my question with a question, which is what I consider to be a dodge. But I appreciate that you're continuing in the conversation, and hopefully I've answered your question well enough that you will now answer mine

I'm catching back on this thread now and I don't know where to start, so I'll begin here.

First part: Again, I have to say these are not the good faith answers I was looking for. It's responding in bad faith to try to play a role in this way, like you know the answers I would want to hear, because I fall into a certain category of people in your mind that you know very well and who are predictable. It's patronizing and makes us waste time. I wanted your honest answers, nothing else.


I don't know why you're talking about the credibility of your analysis versus mine. What analysis, did I miss it? You said the girl wasn't wearing an earpiece, yet at no point we are shown this, if I recall correctly. How do you know that? You didn't even mention how the blindfold could be tricked, really there was almost no analysis here from you. Why are they always wearing a blindfold, which we know always leaves in some space to see (I've slept with a large number of sleeping masks, and to this day I have never found one that blocks 100% of the light). Why aren't they covering their entire heads? Hell, why are they not being held in a different room entirely? One of them mentions being able to see the home of the host asking questions, remote viewing. Yet for some reason the little girl only ever reads those words when the paper is held underneath her head, and all of those people need the piece of paper near their heads. This doesn't raise any concerns for you?

I'm not saying you haven't thought about how to fake this, I'm saying you're dealing with the same deficit of information that I am, and we should look at everything that we have available to us. We are watching a video that was recorded in another part of the world. We aren't there, we don't personally know these people. The little that they show to us fails to meet the standards of basic scientific experiment. Not only that, we know that they are charging ridiculous amounts of money and, seeing how it convinces even people like you, we can guess that they must be getting a decent amount of business in this part of the world that is filled with superstition because people don't have the money to become educated. With this kind of money coming in ($10k per student for 21 days), it should be pretty easy to pay poor people to play a part in these scams. Indeed, it would be relatively cheap to pay them to become very good at them.

I don't start with the basic premise that psychic stuff is impossible. The more assumptions you make about me, the less it makes me want to engage. (The assumption that I'm a "materialist" is another one I wish I wouldn't have to spend time correcting.) If I start with a basic premise, it's the following: people do what they have to do to survive. People do much worse things than lie about supernatural abilities in order to put some food on the table, especially when they live in one of the world's poorest countries, through no fault of their own.

So, if you had the ability, you'd go to scientists. Ok, first, why don't you have that ability, or rather, why aren't you focused on getting it instead of talking about it? I think Baal and I would be the first to get a plane ticket to see a guru like this if we believed it was legit. What holds you back? What holds everyone in your position back? This world is filled with people who share your beliefs, and who want to see a unification between religion and science... surely someone would have developed this ability at this point.

And on this same point, elsewhere you said it's about "ethnocentrism". These people are not egoic beings, so they don't feel the need to show their abilities. Yet... this is exactly what they are doing? They are just doing it in a setting that challenges them to a minimum. It's clearly their preferred environment, and they clearly enjoy showing their "powers".

The point I was trying to drive home is that, someone with such abilities could do a lot of good, and our best guess at whether this is real or not is by looking at how much good they are doing, since they are supposed to be devoting themselves to others according to their spiritual views. Think about it. First it's a cure for blindness. Did they start a center to serve the blind? Also, remote viewing. You could find people who have been kidnapped, people who are lost, people who are in accidents and need emergency help. All of which can be accomplished with a "pure heart". Where are these people doing such things? Why do we have to hear about these abilities from a guru who charges $10k for it for a 21 day course? What are they doing with this money? If they are devoted to human liberation, I would expect total transparency with the funds being used, if they are not doing it for free. I guess the key word that comes to my mind is coherence. It's not there. I'm sure there's more to address but I'll do it in a separate post.

As for your other video, I don't have much to say. It's an old video, I remember seeing it many years ago, and I'm sure it's been critiqued enough already. Here's some stabs at it I found online:

1. "Generating electricity" - this is normally done with the use of a small high-frequency, high-voltage, low-amperage device taped to the performer's body. James Randi mentions this device here, regarding others who have done this:

Randi wrote:This “chi” scam artist on YouTube is probably using the very same setup as the Malaysian crook did, a small battery-powered device worn on the body that develops very high voltage at very low amperage, that can be directed from the body of the performer to anything that’s at a lower potential than he is. It’s a form of Tesla coil, and it’s very effective. There’s also a rabbi in New York using this same gimmick to convince the faithful…

2. Catching a "rifle bullet" - what is shown is the firing of a very low-speed pellet that can pierce the wall of an empty soda can. Then, Chang puts his hand in front of the gun. He is in no danger, and there does not appear to be anything extraordinary about what he is doing.

3. Moving a knife - Chang carefully balances a knife on its sheath. It is shown moving slightly in one direction, twice. With such a precariously-balanced object, the slightest breeze will move it readily. All Chang has to do is wait a bit. In the first movement, he has his mouth close to the knife, "talking" to it. In the second, he has leaned back, so either he's caught a breeze, or he started the knife in a position that would naturally swing away, or else he's using his knee (either one would work, but it's hard to tell from that angle which, if either, is in position), to slightly lift the glass tabletop.

4. "Fooling the experts" - they have a CEO, a doctor, and a physicist. They really needed an electrical engineer. They try to use an ordinary volt meter. If he's using the high-frequency device, of course they will not get readings from this! Some experts they are! Maybe they actually do use the metal detector on his back and feet to check for the device, but this is not shown. Chang seems to be flexing his back to produce his electricity. I would check between his shoulder blades. I mean, they strip him almost naked, but they let him leave his shirt on?!? Oh, and the color-changing LEDs have different colors depending on the direction of the current, not the amount.

5. "Chopstick through the table" - has anything ever looked more like a set-up magic trick? First, he takes them to his local restaurant. Then he can't make the "chi" work on Formica, so he needs to use the bottom of the table. This trick requires nothing more than a cheap table with a seam in the wood.

On December 06 2018 06:05 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + True science accepts that new findings will cause old scientific facts to change. That means you have to accept that pretty much everything we believe to currently be right and true, could be proven wrong in the future, and a real scientist has to be ready to adjust as the info comes in. Absolutely, and science requires EVIDENCE, you have none, the more extraordinary the claim the more evidence is required, if I claim that I'm wearing a white t-shirt a video will suffice, if I claim I can levitate and break the laws of physics then the requirement of evidence is much more rigorous than some shitty video for fucks sake why do I have to explain this to you?

You don't have to explain it to me, I agree with you about the importance of evidence and I don't think that these videos qualify as enough. I think if you read through the other posts where I've replied to Loco and PoorUser you'd better understand where I'm coming from. Or check out the manfiesto for post-materialist science.

As a magician I assume you know about James Randy, why do you think none of these hacks have claimed their million donated it to a charity and absolutely revolutionaze all the sciences?

Yep I know about Randi and his challenge. For my answer, look at what I discussed with pooruser about why accomplished practitioners don't show up in labs or for million dollar challenges.

Like I said, my strongest evidence is personal experience, which is no evidence at all for you, so there's only so much I can do. Click around on that open science website with the manifesto if you want to start finding some real evidence, like actual studies and the names of scientists who are doing the work. There is a scientific explanation that doesn't dismiss NDE's, mediums, and psychic phenomena, and that website focuses on getting that explanation across. I'm not an expert, just a passionate student, so I refer you to the people in labs if you want the scientific evidence and theory

On December 06 2018 06:26 k2o4 wrote: Show nested quote + On December 06 2018 06:05 Baalim wrote:   True science accepts that new findings will cause old scientific facts to change. That means you have to accept that pretty much everything we believe to currently be right and true, could be proven wrong in the future, and a real scientist has to be ready to adjust as the info comes in. Absolutely, and science requires EVIDENCE, you have none, the more extraordinary the claim the more evidence is required, if I claim that I'm wearing a white t-shirt a video will suffice, if I claim I can levitate and break the laws of physics then the requirement of evidence is much more rigorous than some shitty video for fucks sake why do I have to explain this to you? You don't have to explain it to me, I agree with you about the importance of evidence and I don't think that these videos qualify as enough. I think if you read through the other posts where I've replied to Loco and PoorUser you'd better understand where I'm coming from. Or check out the manfiesto for post-materialist science.   As a magician I assume you know about James Randy, why do you think none of these hacks have claimed their million donated it to a charity and absolutely revolutionaze all the sciences? Yep I know about Randi and his challenge. For my answer, look at what I discussed with pooruser about why accomplished practitioners don't show up in labs or for million dollar challenges. Like I said, my strongest evidence is personal experience, which is no evidence at all for you, so there's only so much I can do. Click around on that open science website with the manifesto if you want to start finding some real evidence, like actual studies and the names of scientists who are doing the work. There is a scientific explanation that doesn't dismiss NDE's, mediums, and psychic phenomena, and that website focuses on getting that explanation across. I'm not an expert, just a passionate student, so I refer you to the people in labs if you want the scientific evidence and theory

You agree about the importance of evidence and claim that you love science, yet nothing you've said seems to demonstrate that fact -- something you have in common with tutz. I think you want to see yourself this way but you are not. I mean, the first guy I looked up from your panel of scientific experts is someone who studies parapsychology, which is a pseudo-science. And then we have Rupert Sheldrake and other people who are associated with Deepak Chopra and a whole host of pseudoscientific fields of study. One thing they have in common: they all have something to sell, literally. Interesting how quick they are to bring up QM in that paper yet I could not find a single one of them having a background in physics.

Your answer to the Randi challenge is that people who have developed these abilities don't seek him out, because they don't care about money and fame -- yet you admit that if you were in their shoes you would do it, and we can assume many people feel the way you do, because they'd want to put that money to good use and help people break out of the "materialistic trap". So, it seems your explanation here is not congruent with the rest of your belief system. I mean really, that response is utterly laughable, and I mean no disrespect to you, but think about the number of people who claim to have these powers in India and elsewhere, who have sick relatives whom they could help, and turn their lives around with a cool million... and yet... somehow it just never happened once. If you say "well, they're culturally obliged to avoid revealing their powers to westerners" it still doesn't change the fact that there is also a large number of westerners who make those claims or who could embark on a journey to develop these powers and come back for the challenge.

Like I said, my strongest evidence is personal experience, which is no evidence at all for you, so there's only so much I can do.

Well, you could start by giving us some of that anecdotal evidence, which is better than nothing, and certainly better than saying you're more qualified than us to know whether or not the stuff shown in some YouTube videos is real or trickery.

Edit:

"why accomplished practitioners don't show up in labs or for million dollar challenges."

But you've that capitalism is the reason why this guru charges 10k for the third eye awakening. Why can't "because this is capitalism" apply to the million dollar challenge too?

Haha no one understands what 'science' is, it seems. I think it is just whatever sounds reasonable and holds up to serious debate. My standards on what science is, have wide boundaries, because science is constantly changing and you never know what conclusions are going to come of it. I think it's actually impossible to know what science is for this reason; we don't know the limits of understanding.

Reading through these comments on science, it should be pointed out that many things that once seemed like magic are now part of modern science. Even Newton regarded his theories as some sort of magic that was difficult to completely explain. I agree that these charlatan types have to prove to us that they are legit, not the other way around. I don't see there being anything wrong with ethnocrentism here. Some cultures are superior to others, if you take two cultures and one beleives in magic, and the other science, and all other factors remain the same, you know which one im going to stand for. science should be a universal for any culture, since science tends to mean the best form of explanation that humans have come up with. If they beleive it be true before there is proof, well how convenient for them, but it doesn't tell us about their claims, only how their mind works haha.

Firstly, science cannot explain everything. most of the questions the greek philosophers asked there has been zero progress on. Human beings are stuck with a subjective view of the universe due to their biology, just as mice and dogs are. We can get a little outside of our skin and begin to see a more objective picture of the universe, but that's about it. there are restrictions which simply cannot be passed. In fact there was a mathematician david hilbert who beleived all problems in mathematics could be solved, he was proven wrong nearly 90 years ago on that topic.

secondly, yes i agree that science suffers from certain distortions from elite interets. some parts of neuroscience has a history of lying to justify the drug war, and inventing pseudo-science to justify the slave trade. crimonologists have lied on fox news, ect. all fields in STEM suffer from serious distortion, physcisists especially are focused onto certain research topics, due to their expensive research facilities that they want, the military wants something back from them. I'd say pure mathematics is just about as independent from power as a field can get though. Social sciences are full of ideology, from just war theory, to 'security', and 'terrorism studies', to post modernism. Political science does a lot of polling simply because propagandists want to know how to manipulate the population. Economics doesn't teach economic history in undergraduate anymore because it's too helpful for understand why there is such massive wealth inequality.

I read some of the manifesto and am a little suspicious of it:

Im suspicious of the manifesto because i don't think it understands or represents the positions properly.

1) reductionism is a fine activity for science, if you can link two areas of science togethor, that's obviously helpful. But often it goes the other direction. Chemistry was explained through discoveries in quantum physics, not the other way around.

So in 2) they define scientific materialists as "The belief system implies that the mind is nothing but the physical activity of the brain, and that our thoughts cannot have any effect upon our brains and bodies, our actions, and the physical world."

firstly, who knows or cares what the mind is? In most of science you create pragmatic and specific technical definitions that are useful for a certain theory, in order to explain the natural phenomena. To use concepts like 'physical', and 'mind' they are deliberately avoiding focusing on some natural phenomena in the world. These concepts are too vague to be of any interest. People on cognitive science study specific phenomena, like how syntactic structures are learnt by children, or how the visual system gets 2D images and converts them into 3D, or what the cause of specific moral judgements are. But these concepts like mind and physical seem either too broad or meaningless to deserve discussion. I don't get the attraction of debate about them from philosophers.

The word 'physical' is a completely useless concept for the following reasons: The way philosophers use it, it seems to mean whatever is part of science. so if you understand the mind, does it just become part of the physical like moving objects at a distance did with physics? In which case the materliasts would be right but it would be like who cares? It's a tautology.

secondly, anyone who beleives that our thoughts cannot have any effect on our actions', is obviously wrong, since that goes against our immediate experience. We choose to walk or drive with our thoughts. other actions are based on pre-conscious cognition, like language, but more complex actions are a result of our thought. This all seems pretty obvious to me. I typically wonder that people are being strawmanned in scientific or philosophical journals unless they are being directly quoted. I'd like to see someone calling themselves a scientific materialist and that they dont beleive thoughts affect action, and have them quoted, than have someone tell me there are bunch of people like that-without any quotations.

3) They claim without evidence that the materialistic dogma has become very strong in science. Im suspicious of this claim and think it requires evidence.

4) They say that " Scientific methods based upon materialistic philosophy have been highly successful in not only increasing our understanding of nature but also in bringing greater control and freedom through advances in technology." What? The way they defined it earlier, this statement doesn't even make sense. Read the definition then read this statement. It makes no sense whatsoever.

5) More of the same incoherent claims.

6) Cool, i agree

7) I can't assess this insight with any confidence. I'm not sure how it's related though. In science often theoretical constructions are invented to help explain phenemona, and we either discard them or accept them as part of reality as time goes by. I don't think anyone thought atoms were an actual part of the universe when they were first conceived, they were just theoretical constructions to explain a theory. But later they came to be accepted as part of nature.

I apologize for the assumptions. Reading yours makes it easy for me to understand why my assumptions reduce your desire to engage. I'll do my best to avoid them going forward

On December 06 2018 06:20 Loco wrote: First part: Again, I have to say these are not the good faith answers I was looking for. It's responding in bad faith to try to play a role in this way, like you know the answers I would want to hear, because I fall into a certain category of people in your mind that you know very well and who are predictable. It's patronizing and makes us waste time. I wanted your honest answers, nothing else.

I gave my honest answers in my initial response, and then gave these role playing answers after your post where you asked me to answer them again. If you want my honest answers, look at the first ones.

I don't know why you're talking about the credibility of your analysis versus mine. What analysis, did I miss it? You said the girl wasn't wearing an earpiece, yet at no point we are shown this, if I recall correctly. How do you know that? You didn't even mention how the blindfold could be tricked, really there was almost no analysis here from you. Why are they always wearing a blindfold, which we know always leaves in some space to see (I've slept with a large number of sleeping masks, and to this day I have never found one that blocks 100% of the light). Why aren't they covering their entire heads? Hell, why are they not being held in a different room entirely? One of them mentions being able to see the home of the host asking questions, remote viewing. Yet for some reason the little girl only ever reads those words when the paper is held underneath her head, and all of those people need the piece of paper near their heads. This doesn't raise any concerns for you?

There are multiple videos of her, some showing very clearly the blindfold and that it's legit. Here's another one:



You point out that you've worn sleeping masks and they don't block all the light, as if she is only wearing a sleeping mask. In the video we've been discussing, she is shown putting on the blindfold and it's much more than just a sleeping mask. It's multilayered and while it doesn't cover her entire head, it covers most of it. And the video I just linked uses a different mask and we get an uncut shot of what it looks like inside directly into her putting it on.

You're right about the earpiece though, I'm taking the guys word that he's not in on it and that he checked while putting on her blindfold. I agree that these aren't scientific conditions, and I personally wish I could be there to guide the camera work and conditions so we could eliminate all of these possibilities of deception. If anyone ever hears of a gig like that, sign me up, cause I'd love to help ensure that it's not a magicians trick.

I'm not saying you haven't thought about how to fake this, I'm saying you're dealing with the same deficit of information that I am, and we should look at everything that we have available to us.

True, we do have a deficit of information that will prevent us from ever being 100% sure. But my deficit is a bit smaller than yours, cause I've done a bit more research on this girl, which is made clear by several inaccurate things you state below.

We are watching a video that was recorded in another part of the world.

If you consider southern California another part of the world, then you're right.

we know that they are charging ridiculous amounts of money and, seeing how it convinces even people like you,

First off, this video alone doesn't convince me, I just don't dismiss it right away because of all the other evidence I've gathered from research and personal experience which shows me that this stuff is possible. So maybe she's doing it for real, maybe she's faking it, I can't tell for sure from the evidence presented. But there's no obvious indication of it being fake. The blindfold looks legit, they all exhibit honest body language, etc. At the same time, they didn't present it in a way to prove it's real (a long uncut shot that showed the entire process of putting on the blindfold, and also checked the ears, etc). So I get your hesitation to let this one video be the proof, cause it's not enough to be complete proof.

we can guess that they must be getting a decent amount of business in this part of the world that is filled with superstition because people don't have the money to become educated. With this kind of money coming in ($10k per student for 21 days), it should be pretty easy to pay poor people to play a part in these scams. Indeed, it would be relatively cheap to pay them to become very good at them.

Lotta conjecture in here, and contradictory claims. You highlight that it's expensive, so only wealthy people can go, but also say that superstitious poor people are being tricked into going... with what money?

You then suggest that poor Indians are being paid to play a role in the scam, and since we're talking specifically about the girl from the video, it sounds like you're saying she could possibly be a poor Indian girl who was paid to play a role. But in the interview with her mother towards the end of the video, it is clear that they flew to India to do the initiation, and the home in the background of the mothers video looks like a western home. Considering that they had money for a home like that and to fly to India, it's not very likely that the girl in the video is an impoverished child living in India used for a con job.

I will give you credit for a realistic theory, it just doesn't match the information available.

If I start with a basic premise, it's the following: people do what they have to do to survive. People do much worse things than lie about supernatural abilities in order to put some food on the table, especially when they live in one of the world's poorest countries, through no fault of their own.

Again, you're assuming she's poor. So maybe I'm wrong about you having a materialist bias (and I'm excited to hear you explain more on why you don't), but it seems like maybe another bias is at play in some of your inaccuracies

So, if you had the ability, you'd go to scientists. Ok, first, why don't you have that ability, or rather, why aren't you focused on getting it instead of talking about it? I think Baal and I would be the first to get a plane ticket to see a guru like this if we believed it was legit. What holds you back? What holds everyone in your position back??

I haven't done enough work to develop it. I'm not focused on getting it because that's not the way I've learned we should walk the path. While it's possible to get initiations which open things up if we're predisposed for them, the teachings I follow say that these powers, referred to as siddhis, should be looked at as accomplishments that indicate your level of progress on the evolutionary journey. They're not supposed to be shown off, you shouldn't even be spending time doing them, because the journey is not about gaining powers, it's deeper than that. And getting caught up with wanting to have powers is a way to get sidetracked from the real goal. You should just be doing your practice, and when one of the powers arises, you notice it, know that you've reached another level of accomplishment, and then continue practicing. Getting caught up in "oh look at my cool new power" is a sidetrack that has all sorts of potential pitfalls.

Why haven't I flown to India to see this guy? Cause I don't have the extra money or time for it. Fund my trip and I'll go do my best to capture data that either proves or disproves all these powers. Also, like I said earlier, I don't like the vibe of that ashram, from the pricing to the showboating, so I never felt a calling to go learn from them. But if I ever got the chance to meet with that girl from the video, I'd take in in a heartbeat and setup the most controlled environment I possibly could

When I've had opportunities I have gone to visit people who are claiming powers, including an amazing trip to a healer in Brazil who did some real magic right in front of me. That's one of those personal experience moments which will never be valued as evidence to the skeptically minded, but was very powerful for me. So I'm not sitting around doing nothing about it. I do hope to get back to Brazil to film and document that healers work in a way that can be at least semi satisfying to skeptics, as much as a non laboratory based analysis can be convincing.

And on this same point, elsewhere you said it's about "ethnocentrism". These people are not egoic beings, so they don't feel the need to show their abilities. Yet... this is exactly what they are doing? They are just doing it in a setting that challenges them to a minimum. It's clearly their preferred environment, and they clearly enjoy showing their "powers".

Good point, I look very contradictory there. Traditionally this stuff has been known to be possible but how to do it was kept very secret. Teachings were often direct from guru to student, and a guru would only take 1 student. Before being taught these things they tried to ensure you had learned the moral stuff, because while it's true that these powers develop naturally when you're doing the complete path, it's also possible to still have some shady energy and develop certain powers. That's part of the reason for keeping it secret, cause shitty people with access to the abilities could be very bad for everyone. Just look at the story of Milarepa.

When it comes to this girl and her guru nityananda, they are a rare specimen. Most people who are doing this stuff aren't as public about it (like the guy in the video I posted, or the healer I visited in Brazil), but this guru believes his role is to show off to the world all the powers that come from yogic & meditative practices. It seems he has the goal of teaching lots of people to do these things, so that there is lots of evidence of it being real. They haven't done a good job of organizing to put their accomplished students into science labs though, and if they don't then his effort may not get very far.

The point I was trying to drive home is that, someone with such abilities could do a lot of good, and our best guess at whether this is real or not is by looking at how much good they are doing, since they are supposed to be devoting themselves to others according to their spiritual views. Think about it. First it's a cure for blindness. Did they start a center to serve the blind? Also, remote viewing. You could find people who have been kidnapped, people who are lost, people who are in accidents and need emergency help. All of which can be accomplished with a "pure heart". Where are these people doing such things? Why do we have to hear about these abilities from a guru who charges $10k for it for a 21 day course? What are they doing with this money? If they are devoted to human liberation, I would expect total transparency with the funds being used, if they are not doing it for free. I guess the key word that comes to my mind is coherence. It's not there. I'm sure there's more to address but I'll do it in a separate post.

Good points, and also why I don't like this ashram, because I don't know what they're doing to help others. I think they believe that by showing us all that these things are possible, they're helping us. But I prefer the work of a yogi like Sadhguru, who understands the spiritual science and also is creating lots of value for the entire community in a transparent way.

But even sadghuru, who feeds thousands of people for free, recognizes that we live in the world of capitalism and even if you want to give everything for free, at some point you need to bring in some money so you can get the ingredients to cook the food that you're giving away. So there has to be some sorta income stream and when it's an ashram scenario that's usually related to things like training's and courses.

As for your other video, I don't have much to say. It's an old video, I remember seeing it many years ago, and I'm sure it's been critiqued enough already. Here's some stabs at it I found online: 1. "Generating electricity" - this is normally done with the use of a small high-frequency, high-voltage, low-amperage device taped to the performer's body. James Randi mentions this device here, regarding others who have done this: Randi wrote:This “chi” scam artist on YouTube is probably using the very same setup as the Malaysian crook did, a small battery-powered device worn on the body that develops very high voltage at very low amperage, that can be directed from the body of the performer to anything that’s at a lower potential than he is. It’s a form of Tesla coil, and it’s very effective. There’s also a rabbi in New York using this same gimmick to convince the faithful…

Well I guess I'm not arguing against you here then, I hope you see the fallacy in this explanation. So he's wearing a device that they couldn't find despite him only wearing a thong and t-shirt, and them using a metal detector to check his body? Just cause there's a magician's trick that can be used to create an effect, doesn't mean you can dismiss it right away. You gotta find the device on his body, which they didn't.

2. Catching a "rifle bullet" - what is shown is the firing of a very low-speed pellet that can pierce the wall of an empty soda can. Then, Chang puts his hand in front of the gun. He is in no danger, and there does not appear to be anything extraordinary about what he is doing.

Again inaccurate, it's referred to as a "pellet" not "bullet" and his hand is shown empty, the camera shot doesn't cut, and he covers the barrel and catches the pellet in his hand. The pellet is smushed from the impact. It's an air rifle, not a real rifle, but those still hurt if you get hit in the skin, especially point blank. That's not a normal reaction to a pellet being shot directly into someone's hand.

3. Moving a knife - Chang carefully balances a knife on its sheath. It is shown moving slightly in one direction, twice. With such a precariously-balanced object, the slightest breeze will move it readily. All Chang has to do is wait a bit. In the first movement, he has his mouth close to the knife, "talking" to it. In the second, he has leaned back, so either he's caught a breeze, or he started the knife in a position that would naturally swing away, or else he's using his knee (either one would work, but it's hard to tell from that angle which, if either, is in position), to slightly lift the glass tabletop.

This demonstration was certainly one of the least convincing and I agree with their potential explanations. It could go either way, so I certainly wouldn't use this demo as a data point to try and prove anything.

4. "Fooling the experts" - they have a CEO, a doctor, and a physicist. They really needed an electrical engineer. They try to use an ordinary volt meter. If he's using the high-frequency device, of course they will not get readings from this! Some experts they are! Maybe they actually do use the metal detector on his back and feet to check for the device, but this is not shown. Chang seems to be flexing his back to produce his electricity. I would check between his shoulder blades. I mean, they strip him almost naked, but they let him leave his shirt on?!? Oh, and the color-changing LEDs have different colors depending on the direction of the current, not the amount.

Agreed that it wasn't the most impressive group of experts, but having some scientifically trained minds coming from a skeptical perspective to witness and try to bust him is better than a lot of other scenarios. And if they had recorded voltage, that would be an indication of a scam, as chi is different than electricity, even if it can have some shocking effects on people, so you shouldn't be able to read it on a device that measures electricity. I agree that the camera shots and editing were very unconvincing in many segments including not showing a full body sweep with the metal detector. This relates to the overall theme we discussed earlier, that there's a deficit of information and it's not possible to say for certain based on these videos.

5. "Chopstick through the table" - has anything ever looked more like a set-up magic trick? First, he takes them to his local restaurant. Then he can't make the "chi" work on Formica, so he needs to use the bottom of the table. This trick requires nothing more than a cheap table with a seam in the wood.

Agreed, it was also a very bad demonstration for proving something to a skeptic. It's clear to me when watching many of these videos that the people trying to capture evidence don't do a very good job of thinking about what a skeptic would need to see to be convinced.

Just another great teacher of enlightment passing by: