David B. - 26 June 2007 04:48 PM

Charybdis - 26 June 2007 03:37 PM

No he didn’t, whenever you measure one you invalidate the other.

The same is true of bowling balls. To measure its speed you must allow it to change position; to measure its position you must do so instantaneously or the result is invalidated by the speed.

Well, in the quantum world, to measure the location (or velocity, or even the sexual preference) of a sub-atomic particle, one must bombard it with something, typically a photon.  Being very small, the particle being studied is affected somewhat by that lone photon, hence the impossiblitlity of studying it without affecting it in some way.

Bowling balls can easily be studied with high-speed photography without altering their position enough to change their dyanamics.

Okay, I am actually kind of surmising all this, I hope to get a response from David B. telling me he now thinks I am the smartest human ever, next to him (and precious Bebe, of course).

Dan, not thinking that is very likely

Stargazer posted, in part:

.........Einstein was mistaken according to Stephen Hawking in Does God Play Dice,

Einstein

Einstein’s main mistakes were made because he was letting his religious views slip into his science. That was essentially the cause of Einstein’s Folly.

tngirl - 27 June 2007 07:13 PM

idea circus
I was just thinking about Vivian Grey today & thought I would google her when I came upon your post. Vivian Grey did exist and she was the “real thing.” I live in Knoxville, Tn & used to visit Vivian every week. She indeed was the “real thing.” Everything she ever told me came true! She was a sweet lady who I trusted & loved. I miss her very much! I am glad that you had the chance to meet her! I was blessed enough to live close enough to visit her often. There are alot of hoaxes out there…but Vivian was NOT one of them. Her body might have given up on her, but her mind didn’t. I believe she was there to bless us all with her sweet spirit & her “gift.” I know that she touched my heart & I will never forget her…or any of the words she told me. You shouldn’t either!

tngirl

See, guys, this is why I get so mad at psychics. People wonder “what hard does it have?” or “isn’t it all for fun?” but nothing we can say to this poster will convince her of reality. She will probably live her whole life with this believe that this woman was actually a psychic and that just makes me so angry.

The best you can do is to explain how and why it’s unlikely that the person or idea they believe in is untrue.  You can’t force a person to accept your ideas, you can only do your best to help them see it for themselves.  Critical thinking isn’t a common strength, so it has to be coaxed out of others.  Unfortunately I rather suck at that.

Stargazer - 27 June 2007 08:21 PM

tngirl - 27 June 2007 07:13 PM

idea circus
I was just thinking about Vivian Grey today & thought I would google her when I came upon your post. Vivian Grey did exist and she was the “real thing.” I live in Knoxville, Tn & used to visit Vivian every week. She indeed was the “real thing.” Everything she ever told me came true! She was a sweet lady who I trusted & loved. I miss her very much! I am glad that you had the chance to meet her! I was blessed enough to live close enough to visit her often. There are alot of hoaxes out there…but Vivian was NOT one of them. Her body might have given up on her, but her mind didn’t. I believe she was there to bless us all with her sweet spirit & her “gift.” I know that she touched my heart & I will never forget her…or any of the words she told me. You shouldn’t either!

tngirl

See, guys, this is why I get so mad at psychics. People wonder “what hard does it have?” or “isn’t it all for fun?” but nothing we can say to this poster will convince her of reality. She will probably live her whole life with this believe that this woman was actually a psychic and that just makes me so angry.

I fail to see why it makes you angry, or where the harm is for this particular person. If something someone else believes in which you don’t believe to be true makes you angry, I can think of many things that must simply infuriate you. As for this woman, I don’t see anything that contradicts the “what harm does it have” question. If you want to approach things from a purely scientific stance, then you should probably look into tngirl’s life and how it has been changed or affected by what Vivian Gray told her. It is quite possible that she is living a grand old life and eveything is all hunky dory, in which case “what harm does it have” seems to apply after all. Believing that this woman was a psychic if this woman didn’t use that influence malevolently isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Of course you’ll likely bring up money that was spent on visits and I’ll ask what the difference is from that or someone who spends money on a pack of cigarettes a day. I’ll assume Vivian Gray didn’t send tngirl to the poorhouse since she’s still a “happy customer” to this day.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying people should get to calling Miss Cleo straight away. Personally I think that if you’re making money from being a “psychic”, then you’re probably not a psychic. I’ve known some people with “talents” however (none of which called themselves psychic or even remotely insinuate that they have any control over whatever it is they do) which leads me to believe that there is some sort of psychic or telekinetic ability out there. I tend to think of it more as intuition than psychic ability, but people use the word “psychic” to define a lot these days.

As for those experiments and the results with regard to psychic abilities, I might remind you of the double-slit experiment and how science still does not understand how the mere fact of observing or measuring which path the particles will take changes the outcome. I am aware that at the quantum level the act of observing is affecting the outcome (uncertainty principle), but there still is no understanding as to what the exact element of observing the experiment is that causes the wave/particle conversion. Why does the particle change from wave-form? because it is being observed is the current explanation, but what part of the observation specifically causes the change is not known. Could a radio frequency emitted from recording and observation equipment affect psychic abilities? Could be, who can say it can’t with 100% certainty? Is it possible that some factor not taken into account of in the experiments influenced the outcome? I think it’s fair to say that yes, it is possible. Do we know what that factor is? Nope.

The fact that someone believes in psychics doesn’t make me mad. What does make me mad is the way “psychics” abuse that belief to rake in money and sometimes cause actual harm to their victims/customers. As long as there are people looking for something to believe in, they’ll still be around, and as long as there are people, there will be those who need something to believe in.

It might not hurt this one person in particular, but many more people get hurt than not. And it’s the principle that counts.

From what I hear, if you’re asian it cetainly is unlucky to be born a girl in the year of the fire-horse. Mostly because it is much more likely your parents will try to murder you!

Transfrmr - 27 June 2007 11:02 PM

If something someone else believes in which you don’t believe to be true makes you angry, I can think of many things that must simply infuriate you.

I don’t care if someone believes something different than me. I do care when people are swindled, lied to, manipulated, or, as David notes, start killing their children.

As for those experiments and the results with regard to psychic abilities, I might remind you of the double-slit experiment and how science still does not understand how the mere fact of observing or measuring which path the particles will take changes the outcome.

Why would you remind me of something totally untrue? And what does that have to do with anything?

I am aware that at the quantum level the act of observing is affecting the outcome (uncertainty principle), but there still is no understanding as to what the exact element of observing the experiment is that causes the wave/particle conversion. Why does the particle change from wave-form? because it is being observed is the current explanation, but what part of the observation specifically causes the change is not known. Could a radio frequency emitted from recording and observation equipment affect psychic abilities? Could be, who can say it can’t with 100% certainty? Is it possible that some factor not taken into account of in the experiments influenced the outcome? I think it’s fair to say that yes, it is possible. Do we know what that factor is? Nope.

Yes, we know exactly what it is. In order to observe on the quantum level, you have to observe using methods that are large enough to have an influence on the outcome. If I use my eyes to look at a rock, all I have to do is to wait for light bouncing off the rock to get to my eyes. Sure, the light from the lightbulb bombards the rock, but it’s not really affecting it. Conversely, if I want to look at an electron, I can’t do this. I must shoot something at the electron to observe it. (Or allow it to interact with something.) And we certainly don’t have something smaller than an electron on the same scale that a photon is smaller than a rock for me to use. Therefore, my act of observation itself becomes manipulative.

The fact that someone believes in psychics doesn’t make me mad. What does make me mad is the way “psychics” abuse that belief to rake in money and sometimes cause actual harm to their victims/customers. As long as there are people looking for something to believe in, they’ll still be around, and as long as there are people, there will be those who need something to believe in.

Yeah, that makes me truly furious. And the “talking to the dead” people raise the most ire in me.

Thanks Stargazer, I actually started doubting myself today on the double-slit experiment and was just reading a couple of really good articles. That’s what I get for going on what I was taught in school and not going out and looking myself. I actually hadn’t realized the method they were using to locate the slit that was being used at the quantum level, and yeah, ummm scratch all that gobledegook.

I guess the point I was trying to make in general is that it isn’t necessarily believing psychic phenomena are possible that causes so many problems, it’s believing that someone can “master” or reproduce it regularly, on demand, and basing your life upon it. Any time you put your decision in someone else’s hands with absolute trust you’re just asking for that trust to be abused. Human nature sucks.

As for the fire-horse women David brings up, I thought that had deeper roots in astrology. I agree that modern “psychics” tend to tie the two together to make their “business” much more elaborate, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say that everyone who believes psychic phenomena are possible also believe it is tied to astrology. Then again, maybe I’m the only one who thinks that intuition and foresight is possible, but it’s not necessarily tied to astrology, tea leaves, or any of the typical “shams”.

It’s still sad that people can fail to believe in themselves to the point where they need something to believe in so strongly that they’ll accept something without question. Whether it be what their psychic says, what their church says (creationism) or what their government says (gotta get those WMDs). I think the biggest problem is that people fail to question things simply because they want to believe with all their hearts.

The comment is only up there because SG had already referred to it. I redacted my post when I noticed you weren’t saying superstition in general was harmless, which made the point I was making moot.