What is "Psi" according to you?

We have from 3rd Rock Resident Alien that "Psi" to him is the following:
And I quote:

His definition of "Psi" is picking up chicken with your fingers, using your hand/finger to change the channel with the remote, to well reading with your eyes. Even taking a pee or going poop would be "Psi".

So Do you agree with that??

Why??

Why Not??

What is your definition - give an example if that would be easier.

For me it is not quite that broad of a definition. But I think that is why some of us have been 'going around' - in the case of 3rd Rock and I, we were talking two totally different meanings.

My definition is a little less broad and I admit that. That could be where the problem is with a few others as well?? That the definition of what each thinks "Psi" is, is enough different to create what amounts to nothing more than "I mean this...", "He means that...", "You mean something else...."?? Thus the strong emotions and feelings. We are saying the same word, but have possibly upto 5, 6 or more different definitions??

To me, "Psi" is controlling 'external', without the help of the normal 5 senses.

Examples of what I mean:
Telepathy -
Understand one and/or two way, the thoughts of another.
Remote Viewing -
Seeing people, objects and such at another location. U only have very limited clues as to who, what and where. But you draw pictures and write key words to describe the 'other place'.
Empathic Sense-
Feeling another's emotions without audio, visual or touch clues. So if you were blind, deaf and bound - you would feel the emotions of another in the room.
TK -
Having a pin wheel spinning clock wise by the power of a fan - and without turning the fan off - you could stop and/or reverse the spin of the pin wheel with your thoughts only.

Ok - so where do we stand?? What is "Psi" - how broad of definition are we talking or how specific a definition are we talking about??

Thanks - Jj

Great post Jj!

Well Psi to me is short for Psionics!

Psionics-
1. Telekinesis
2. Remote Veiwing
3. Precognition
Etc.

Our heart muscles keep our heart beating, our lungs keep us breathing, our digestive system digests food, and our sense of touch in fingertips are what connects it to the keyboard. As for "going pee and poop", I am just not going to go there.

The human body is vastly complex, you have to give it some credit.

[font="Garamond"][/font][size="4"][/size] I use "psi" as a shortcut for "psychical phenomena" which means the things studied by the Societies for Psychical Research, e.g., SPRs. So what do they study? Apparitions, poltergeists and other kinds of Psyco-Kinesis (PK), and haunts. They also study people who can do unusual things with their minds, so unusual that they gain the label "paranormal." Psi also includes such things as the scientific studies of evidence of reincarnation. Prof. Ian Stevenson is the recognized expert. Mostly he has studied young children 2-5 who spontaneously talk about a previous life, and he has studied Responsive Xenoglossy. This is the ability of someone under a very deep hypnotic trance to carry on a conversation in a language the present day (not under trance) individual does not know. His proof of reincarnation is the basis of psychical research, because it shows that the mind is not the brain, and consciousness is not the brain, nor produced by the brain. What reincarnates is the essential self, which I call "the spirit" though others might use a different term. At the very least, it means that the mind is not made of ordinary matter, and is essentially separate and distinct from the body.

Given the discoveries made by Prof. Ian Stevenson, and his colleagues in the SPRs, we could use "PSI" to refer to all the inherent powers of the mind, many of which only appear when one goes Out Of Body. This is often called an OBE (Out of Body Experience). This is closely related to the NDE (Near Death Experience), although we should not take that title too literally. It refers to a variety of experiences had by people who are dead certain they are about to die (falling alpinists, collected cases by Heim), people who temporarily flat-line (a true NDE), and people who are most definitely dead by every criterion known to science, and yet come back to life after 3 days (Google George Rodonaia). The last we might call a "Lazarus" experience, except there are no transcendental figures seen. They might be there, unseen.

The two inherent powers of perception of the OOB mind are the apparitional powers and the HSP powers. Apparitional powers use a force or vibration unknown to physics, while the HSP powers use the de Broglie waves, something that is known to physics.

See my web-site for more: Edit: Advertising a site in this way is against forum rules]

~~~~Cebrakon

I do not think that psi controls the body.

At the root, the cause of all of those bodily systems functioning is nucleotide by the name of adenosine triphosphate, more conveniently known as ATP. What the fellow may have been saying (and may not have even known it) is that rather than ATP being the basic "currency" of intracellular energy exchange, the energy being exchanged was in fact psi.

He may also have been implying that since those functions are controlled by the brain, including the brain ordering the cells to produce ATP, that that counts as psi. However the distinction must be made between mind and brain. The brain controls the body, but the mind is the sum of aspects of intellect and consciousness.This is why people can not hold their breathe until they die, or why water is often inadvertantly inhaled while drowning. Although the mind is willing the body not to breathe, the functioning of the respiratory system is finally passed to the medulla oblongata, which handles the situation by either forcing respiration or causing a blackout. This illustrates a clear separation between mind and brain.

Since psi is alleged to be a process of the mind (since it can be developed, trained, focused, etc.), then the brain, including its operation of bodily systems, is irrelevant. Even if the brain itself is doing telekinesis to move, say, ions across cell membranes (it's not), that is no more a power of the mind than the heart beating. Therefore defining psi as the force which governs the body's functions (it's not) is flawed.

The only way bodily functions are psi is if we use the terms psi and energy interchangably, which is impractical at best and impossible at worst.

Frankly, if Mr. 3rd Rock actually thinks it's possible for psi to run the body's functions, he needs to take a Biology 101 course and (re?)discover the science of cellular energy transfer.

PSI is the energy source used when conducting different forms of psychic abilities like telekinesis, astral projection, mind reading, etc. It's a broad term.

There are many threads on PSI where one can see what other user's views on PSI are.

Making a thread to spotlight another user that you do not agree with and entice negative opinion on him/her, is not acceptable here on UM.

Closed.