Some predictions and miscellaneous for 2012 and beyond

Confirmation bias had nothing to do with it. She described exactly what was happening to my Dad before anyone else knew since the tests hadn't even been run yet.

There are medical intuitives who are amazingly accurate. I have witnessed some amazing things firsthand. I can understand people who haven't experienced things like this firsthand not believing it is possible, but those of us who have had these type of experiences know psychism exists, charlatans aside.

 

A few years ago I remember coming up with a number of things I believed would happen. I had a list of three major things that I was certain would occur. I was 100% correct on all of them.

 

Some people have predicted the future, and they continue to do so.

It isn't impossible.

 

If it was confirmation bias, you wouldn't realise by definition. Unless you have a recording of the conversation you had with your friend, you're relying entirely on your memory from what would have been a intense and emotional period of time for you.

I'm not saying confirmation bias is unquestionably the explanation, only that it is a perfectly possible explanation and, unlike the one you're saying is unquestionably the explanation, confirmation bias has logical and evidential backing to it as a principal.

We've all witnessed amazing things but something being amazing doesn't prove the specific mechanism for that amazing thing. For example, there have been experiments suggesting that dogs can sense when someone has cancer, even in very early stages. I gather that exactly how they do this isn't entirely clear but though there are several ideas, nobody has suggesting that it must mean that dogs have psychic powers.

There is zero evidence that any kind of psychic powers exist - there isn't even a single consistent hypothesis describing them in detail (different believers have a range of very different opinions about how and why they work). There is lots of evidence for surprising intuition, subconscious knowledge, confirmation bias and all the other entirely temporal wonders of the human mind and plenty more that we don't yet understand entirely. There is absolutely no justification for assuming some unexplained event or action must be explained by psychic powers rather than something (a little) more mundane.

 

Proof no one can predict the future. Although it wasn't hard to predict some smart mouth would comment inaccurately on that post

Luna, there is no evidence. Every single time it is properly investigated, it is proven to be complete bollocks. Wishful thinking.

Your experience was not evidence, it was one of any number of non-evidential circumstances, i.e. a lucky guess. What did he tell the next person? There are many examples of psychics who bug the ante room to find out what people want to hear and to hear what others say about them while they're with the psychic. Some even investigate people before they see them. They speak generally until they drag something out of you as someone pointed out in the thread, it's a technique. There are many people in the world who know how to ask an open question. They make a living at it and no doubt confer to learn the most effective tricks.

 

Who has done that?

 

Isn't that what psychics do every day?

 

Yes, it is. Frauds do it, too, but the genuine articles are out there and I have witnessed and experienced things that defy any other explanation.

 

There's no hope for you two. But I suppose as long as you're happy with your delusions, who am I?

 

Was that supposed to be "lift" it all up? I'm trying to understand what you were saying....

 

She's expecting you to be psychic and read her mind.

 

That was a typo. It should have been "lift." I should have caught that. Sigh.

 

*sigh* Maybe one day, you will meet a psychic and be blown away by their predictions, who knows?

 

Magic, alien technology, divine influence, better quality frauds? An individual having some kind of psychic powers is only one possible explanation for the kind of amazing things you're thinking about. Automatically assuming psychic powers (or indeed any of the others) must be the correct one is presumptuous in the extreme.

 

Alternatively , may be one day you will find a talking pig who invites you aboard his Magic Carpet to ride to Porker Land .
There is a deal of difference between making forward guesses( "predictions' , and making successful forward guesses that over a long time period are "right" significantly more than chance .

 

Do I still strike you as a person who makes uninformed judgements?

 

*cough* I don't know...??

I am just saying that some people out there do have something, that enables them to predict things.

I can predict things, too. I predict that the next winner of Australia's The X Factor will be Reese.

 

You watch the X Factor. This is conclusive evidence to close the case here.

Everyone wants to believe in psychic ability. Not once has it ever stood up to serious controlled testing. There is no one anywhere in the world who has genuine psychic ability. There are lucky guesses, educated guesses, calculated trickery, cons, etc etc etc but no evidenced psychic ability.

Ability to predict what gullible dafties want to believe is different. Ability to predict what the masses will accept, even where the winner is pre-arranged and absolutely nothing is left to chance, is also different. NB: I did not allege anything against the X Factor.

I have visited psychics with groups of friends. And whenever they run psychic fairs, they are always mobbed out. It is entertainment, a lot of con man rubbish.

It annoys me when friends who have lost relatives go to the theatre with a cast of thousands and expect their expired to "come through" and talk to them. One of the funniest arguments I've had, an elderly workmate paid an huge amount of money to go to a psychic show (which sold out) and then complained vehemently her mother didn't say anything and it wasn't very good. One half of my mates went to the psychic show and the rest of us went to belly dancing class. The woman then ripped into us for wasting money on belly dancing.