When does thought transition to belief?

[+Liquid Gardens]

9 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

No its not a cop out, it comes from  past experience Those who don't want to believe, will not believe even clear evidence.  They come up with excuses for how it happened

It is a cop out until you offer up some evidence that I or other people here 'don't want to believe'; it's not an exact analogy, but you're pretty close to 'those grapes were sour anyway'.  You have no evidence concerning how we will react if you were to provide some evidence, since you have never personally experienced that situation because you've never provided any evidence.

9 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

And it is NOT something which can be done simply on demand or to meet a test.

Okay, I think that's the first I've heard you say that, at least you're taking baby steps towards defining exactly what you think you can do.

9 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

ive tried in the past on Um and the only success i had was with a person who had genuinely lost a valuable object 

So you can't do it on demand or simply, and in some amount of attempts you've made here you've had one success.  I'd totally expect that if you didn't have any powers at all, and of course I'm sure you don't take these failures as evidence that you don't have your powers.  To my knowledge you have never said you were at the top of the pyramid or the cosmos or Easter Island because you were looking for a valuable object.

9 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Instead of asking me to prove it why dont you learn how to do it for yourself. 

For the exact same reason you aren't currently learning how to summon Santa Claus on demand to your house.

[eight bits]

2 hours ago, lightly said:

          YES                        ?

You stole my guess in the three letter word sweepstakes!

Why yes?

 

After that, why do the other three-letter words even bother?

[quiXilver]

I think believe it's decidedly odd, that alcohol is the only drug I ever have to explain not using.

[onlookerofmayhem]

8 hours ago, Habitat said:

The word is ARC. I just saw it with my Third Eye

Ah. So you've finally revealed the name of your TEAM! Congratulations on your unanimous acceptance.

[lightly]

6 hours ago, eight bits said:

You stole my guess in the three letter word sweepstakes!

Why yes?

 

I dunno really.    For the "sign on my desk". . challenge,  YES was my guess.   I just think of it and see it more easily than WHO, or BUT, or most any other 3 letter word.     ?? It 

Edited October 10, 2019 by lightly

[jmccr8]

11 minutes ago, lightly said:

I dunno really.    For the "sign on my desk". . challenge,  YES was my guess.   I just think of it and see it more easily than WHO, or BUT, or most any other 3 letter word.     ?? It 

Hi Lightly

I suppose that because I used to do decode a quotes "the" was the foremost in my mind and knew that was not the word. When I do the puzzle I always look at The single and triple letter words first, the is one of the most commonly used words and the letters t, h,and e are found in many words so I was just having a bit of fun.

jmccr8

[+Sherapy]

7 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

It is a cop out until you offer up some evidence that I or other people here 'don't want to believe'; it's not an exact analogy, but you're pretty close to 'those grapes were sour anyway'.  You have no evidence concerning how we will react if you were to provide some evidence, since you have never personally experienced that situation because you've never provided any evidence.

Okay, I think that's the first I've heard you say that, at least you're taking baby steps towards defining exactly what you think you can do.

So you can't do it on demand or simply, and in some amount of attempts you've made here you've had one success.  I'd totally expect that if you didn't have any powers at all, and of course I'm sure you don't take these failures as evidence that you don't have your powers.  To my knowledge you have never said you were at the top of the pyramid or the cosmos or Easter Island because you were looking for a valuable object.

For the exact same reason you aren't currently learning how to summon Santa Claus on demand to your house.

Unless one counts the “he is so good looking, how good lookin is he claim” MW did provide a picture.

No one disbelieved it was him, not one single poster expressed disbelief. 

He was well received and there were a lot of kind words said to him. 

I do think your posit that this is a cop out is a fair one and MW’s qualms are unfounded at best. 

I also found a test to determine if one has a photographic memory. 

 

Edited October 10, 2019 by Sherapy

[Habitat]

8 hours ago, Sherapy said:

Are you anti alcohol?

I do think people who are enamoured of a drink, are often tilted more toward to the sociopathic, than those that aren't drinkers.

[+Sherapy]

12 minutes ago, Habitat said:

I do think people who are enamoured of a drink, are often tilted more toward to the sociopathic, than those that aren't drinkers.

Wow, that is over the top.  

Lots of folks enjoy a drink and are responsible about it. 

Did you grow up with alcoholics?

[XenoFish]

I'm a happy drunk. Strange that is.

[Habitat]

37 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

Wow, that is over the top.  

Lots of folks enjoy a drink and are responsible about it. 

Did you grow up with alcoholics?

No, both parents were only very occasional drinkers. But, I have seen a pretty fair sample of the population, and I would have to say alcohol is a kind of escape mechanism for many people, it gives them a time-out, and that time out includes a "holiday" from their true selves. What does it say about people, that they feel the need to be in any kind of "altered state" ? I would say, that their "normal state" is not entirely palatable to them. Of course it is a feel-good, or more accurately, relief from "feel-bad". Someone who has had a "stressful" day at work, and needs a drink or two to "wind down", is more or less escaping from an inability to properly cope with situations. I would also say that the degree to which people are inclined to seek the "altered state", is the degree to which they are "unavailable", emotionally, to others. If you are not happy with your "normal" self, why should others be ?

Edited October 10, 2019 by Habitat

[Mr Walker]

14 hours ago, eight bits said:

No, the way you could tell the light was real was that somebody else who was nearby at the time asked you about it, so you could reasonably infer that they saw a light, too.

The voice is different. Although these people were nearby, they didn't hear anything, or at least didn't tell you or ask you about a voice.

OK, so now that's explained by their being nearby, but not nearby enough to hear a voice. We aren't talking about their understanding what was said, we're talking about recognizing that somebody has spoken. (You know, instead of telling us about all those psychiatrists who give you a clean bill of health, you should have gone for your witness being hard of hearing.)

So, if there's anything left of the rags and tatters of this story, then a healthy self-aware critical-thinking individual would notice, "You know, damn it, I really don't have any strong reason to think that the voice was real. All its other effects were inside my head, the smoking thing, maybe hearing it was, too. Other healthy people "hear their own thoughts," especially at important times in their lives, like when making a sudden big change in their lifestyle. Maybe that's what happened to me, too."

But no - you go full-tilt confabulation. OK, healthy people do that, too. No worries. But this story is crap. Inventive and entertaining crap, but brown and mushy all the same.

No and this epitomises the problem some people must have perceiving reality for themselves No one needs another person to validate what they see.  We are all evolved to see and perceive extremely accurately despite some claims to the contrary  eg Ive never seen something which did not have a physical existence since i was about 4 years old, or when on hospital painkillers, and even then it was easy to tell that what i saw was not real.  Add to that  almost 2 decades of training by my parents teachers and lecturers in observation analysis and perceptual checking and I was absolutely  able to determine the solid independent reality of both e the light and the voice  ( I honestly dont understand people who cannot do this or see things which the y cant tell are not real  Sure i know the medical and psychological causes and effects in some peole but ive never experienced it and so cant  truly comprehend what it must be like  it )

I only brought the light in to the discussion  when others challenged how i could be certain it was real.

Well I knew it was real but the witnesses were required by others to assure themselves  It is lucky the y existed or otherwise people  would say  tha t both  the light and the voice emanated form in my mind 

So no, the story remains the same. Your struggle to comprehend comes from the difficulty your mind has in simply accepting this as a real simple physical event   eg if i had told you a story about finding an elephant   in our front garden you would not have the same difficulty with it You might not believe it but you wouldn't need to come up with reasons why i had imagined r hallucinated it.  The irony is of course that we once did find an elephant in our front garden .It had escaped overnight from  a nearby circus and was happily eating stuff in the garden.

Same for the odd horse, and some of our indigenous people, who wandered into the front garden for a feed or a sleep

You are trying to put your own disbelief  over my experience. I DID go and get a full psychological assessment, even though I knew the event was real because it was so odd and I was a secular humanist at the time, who found it incredible myself.

I was lucky to have access through my uni studies to some of the best psychologists and psychiatrists in Austrlalia  

Ive explained in detail their assessment after several days of talks, and tests of observation perception etc.

I had to spend years working it through and only the ongoing re appearance of the entity, at times of crisis or need, helped me understand just what was occurring.

The story is true and as accurate as i can make it 

Thats why i persevere telling it People need to know (even if the y don' t believe) that such things can happen to anyone, and that there is a powerful protective force available to anyone    

[+Sherapy]

1 hour ago, Habitat said:

No, both parents were only very occasional drinkers. But, I have seen a pretty fair sample of the population, and I would have to say alcohol is a kind of escape mechanism for many people, it gives them a time-out, and that time out includes a "holiday" from their true selves. What does it say about people, that they feel the need to be in any kind of "altered state" ? I would say, that their "normal state" is not entirely palatable to them. Of course it is a feel-good, or more accurately, relief from "feel-bad". Someone who has had a "stressful" day at work, and needs a drink or two to "wind down", is more or less escaping from an inability to properly cope with situations. I would also say that the degree to which people are inclined to seek the "altered state", is the degree to which they are "unavailable", emotionally, to others. If you are not happy with your "normal" self, why should others be ?

I mean this could apply in some cases, but over all I don’t think this applies in every single case. It sounds like an over generalization. 

I don’t drink, but most people I know do and I don’t conclude that they can’t cope or are unhappy with their normal selves. 

You ever heard of a happy loving drunk? Partying is seen as fun, letting go of inhibitions and moral dictums, just letting ones hair down and laughing, joking connecting, dancing, cutting loose with loved ones and friends. I think you see more of a natural self after a few toddies in this case. 

Of  course, there are alcoholics who do have issues, or are dealing with PSTD, or traumas or mental illness with alcohol, and if one is isolating themselves, nasty to others, blacking out, not working and harming others, bringing their dysfunction to others then they need an intervention and it is a valid issue, but having a few drinks is ‘t this. 

Don’t you have a friend that has an alcohol issue?  

Edited October 11, 2019 by Sherapy

[Mr Walker]

14 hours ago, Sherapy said:

 

You did state that god only talks to you in your mind a few days ago when you were explaining how you and your wife experience god differently today it has been rescripted  to god talks to you through others, through outside voices and in your mind. 

You have argued vehemently against the idea of god being a voice  in your head until tonight.

So, yes, I agree with 8ty and 3rd you are inconsistent to the point it seems as if there are new spins daily. Maybe just take a break for the stories, clear your head. 

Hey, by the way how can you possibly have a photographic memory and not be able to hold visual images in your mind. 

You do know that having a photographic memory is the ability to hold an visual image in your mind. 

There is a test to test for a photographic memory.

Pssst, don’t forget and drag in aphantasia to cover for you remember my Neurologist set the record straight on that. 

 

No i did NOT.

I said tha t when god talks to me in mymind of course my wife cant hear it, but when god talks aloud, she and anyone else can hear it BOTH (and other) forms of communication are used between god and I

You UNDERSTOOD my words to mean that god only talks to me via my mind because you want to believe that as it makes me seem crazy  

as you pointed out yourself  ive spoken many times before of the physical occasions and means god has used to speak aloud or to communicate. Tha t includes coming in the form of a physical angel,  seen by many in the hospita, who brought me a bible and then dematerialised from a 5th floor balcony, leaving me with the bible open at random to the verse,  "Have no fear No harm shalt come to you, for I am with you."   (or very similar)    

Actually a photographic memory is just a word for word perfect memory.

I cant see a single word in my mind as an image  but i could reproduce dozens of pages of texts, word perfect with punctuation in place as my mind brought the words (not the images ) directly to my mind  as inner voice. In 1973 during my final politics exam at uni I brought  into my mind almost 100  (foolscap) pages of  lecture notes taken over the year.

I was able to hold them in my mind as i did the questions and use them for information and even quotes to answer the questions 

I got a score given as a distinction which i think was over 85% The answers were mostly essay form  so it was hard to get a perfect score on facts alone I was offered an honours course in politics on the basis of this but wanted to get  back into the country and start teaching.The city was driving me crazy and i wanted to do something i loved    

No your neurologist said nothing to discredit or challenge my in abilty to see images nor to  disallow aphantasia, as much as oyu would like to think so  

[+Sherapy]

14 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

No and this epitomises the problem some people must have perceiving reality for themselves No one needs another person to validate what they see.  We are all evolved to see and perceive extremely accurately despite some claims to the contrary  eg Ive never seen something which did not have a physical existence since i was about 4 years old, or when on hospital painkillers, and even then it was easy to tell that what i saw was not real.  Add to that  almost 2 decades of training by my parents teachers and lecturers in observation analysis and perceptual checking and I was absolutely  able to determine the solid independent reality of both e the light and the voice  ( I honestly dont understand people who cannot do this or see things which the y cant tell are not real  Sure i know the medical and psychological causes and effects in some peole but ive never experienced it and so cant  truly comprehend what it must be like  it )

I only brought the light in to the discussion  when others challenged how i could be certain it was real.

Well I knew it was real but the witnesses were required by others to assure themselves  It is lucky the y existed or otherwise people  would say  tha t both  the light and the voice emanated form in my mind 

So no, the story remains the same. Your struggle to comprehend comes from the difficulty your mind has in simply accepting this as a real simple physical event   eg if i had told you a story about finding an elephant   in our front garden you would not have the same difficulty with it You might not believe it but you wouldn't need to come up with reasons why i had imagined r hallucinated it.  The irony is of course that we once did find an elephant in our front garden .It had escaped overnight from  a nearby circus and was happily eating stuff in the garden.

Same for the odd horse, and some of our indigenous people, who wandered into the front garden for a feed or a sleep

You are trying to put your own disbelief  over my experience. I DID go and get a full psychological assessment, even though I knew the event was real because it was so odd and I was a secular humanist at the time, who found it incredible myself.

I was lucky to have access through my uni studies to some of the best psychologists and psychiatrists in Austrlalia  

Ive explained in detail their assessment after several days of talks, and tests of observation perception etc.

I had to spend years working it through and only the ongoing re appearance of the entity, at times of crisis or need, helped me understand just what was occurring.

The story is true and as accurate as i can make it 

Thats why i persevere telling it People need to know (even if the y don' t believe) that such things can happen to anyone, and that there is a powerful protective force available to anyone    

What were the names of these tests? 

 

[SHaYap]

10 hours ago, eight bits said:

Why yes? 

After that, why do the other three-letter words even bother?

In the words of John the Yoko Lennon... 

Quote

 

[00.01:45]

~

[+Liquid Gardens]

20 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Indeed, while a few of my travels, especially when i was learning, were carefully and deliberately  planned  and practised  today such excursions are much rarer and more random.

Another piece of evidence that leads me to believe that they are all equally non-existent.

Quote

 but i can win almost any game of trivial pursuit or any quizz night  as long as the y don't have too many facts which are very modern and which i have never committed to memory 

Wow, that's indeed some grandmaster strategy you're sharing with us there, Mr Trebek, it would have never occurred to me that trivia games could almost always be won as long as they don't ask too many questions concerning facts which one has never committed to memory...

[+Sherapy]

5 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

No i did NOT.

I said tha t when god talks to me in mymind of course my wife cant hear it, but when god talks aloud, she and anyone else can hear it BOTH (and other) forms of communication are used between god and I

You UNDERSTOOD my words to mean that god only talks to me via my mind because you want to believe that as it makes me seem crazy  

as you pointed out yourself  ive spoken many times before of the physical occasions and means god has used to speak aloud or to communicate. Tha t includes coming in the form of a physical angel,  seen by many in the hospita, who brought me a bible and then dematerialised from a 5th floor balcony, leaving me with the bible open at random to the verse,  "Have no fear No harm shalt come to you, for I am with you."   (or very similar)    

Actually a photographic memory is just a word for word perfect memory.

I cant see a single word in my mind as an image  but i could reproduce dozens of pages of texts, word perfect with punctuation in place as my mind brought the words (not the images ) directly to my mind  as inner voice. In 1973 during my final politics exam at uni I brought  into my mind almost 100  (foolscap) pages of  lecture notes taken over the year.

I was able to hold them in my mind as i did the questions and use them for information and even quotes to answer the questions 

I got a score given as a distinction which i think was over 85% The answers were mostly essay form  so it was hard to get a perfect score on facts alone I was offered an honours course in politics on the basis of this but wanted to get  back into the country and start teaching.The city was driving me crazy and i wanted to do something i loved    

No your neurologist said nothing to discredit or challenge my in abilty to see images nor to  disallow aphantasia, as much as oyu would like to think so  

 

Walls there is no difference between visualizing a page of words or an object.

An image is an image whether it is letters on a page or pictures.

Awww a downgrade, to you a photographic memory is the equivalent of a perfect memory. 

“Okay, Walls, the Neurologist I work for said that the ability to visualize imagery is different in everyone some are better than others and that while there are a group of folks who are at the shallow end of the pool (lower end) on the imagery vividness spectrum, but there are no studies of individuals who have “no” ability at all. 

“A group of individuals lying at the low extreme of the vividness spectrum have recently been described using the term ‘aphantasia’(Zemanet al., 2015, 2016). One estimate suggests that approximately 2 % of the normal population lacks the ability deliberately to summon visual imagery to the mind's eye (Faw, 2009).

“The current study did not include any individuals at the far extreme of the imagery vividness spectrum, but the studies of the neural correlates of visual imagery summarised here suggest a range of hypotheses for the neural basis for aphantasia “

https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0010945217303209?token=7005A16484115EE8BADC0B72E006919E6E58C73818AF3E997D013D6565F207CE8EA19F3E130F9214F3A9FDD4846E387F

In other words, if you think you are someone who qualifies for having no ability at all offer yourself for further study they could use your help. 

I

 

 

[+Liquid Gardens]

1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

No one needs another person to validate what they see. 

What is the purpose of peer review in science?  Just for fun?

[XenoFish]

Guess I need to quit visualizing 4th dimensional objects, let the rest of you catch up.

[+Sherapy]

Peer review means to me, that the source is credible because the objective is accuracy, it says we have a good scientific basis for our conclusions that we used logical reasoning and well crafted studies, that we backed up our claims with evidence. For me,  it builds trust in communication. It doesn’t mean that thIs is the end of the discussion, in fact, it isn’t it opens exploration and questioning and  sets the tone for dialogues which are constructive and productive. 

 

[Golden Duck]

8 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

Guess I need to quit visualizing 4th dimensional objects, let the rest of you catch up.

What about the pythagoras theorem in 4d?

[jmccr8]

1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

Well I knew it was real but the witnesses were required by others to assure themselves  It is lucky the y existed or otherwise people  would say  tha t both  the light and the voice emanated form in my mind 

Hi Walker

Are we still taking about one experience or are you including several? You told me that you were alone the first time and your parents were in the house, you say they were aware of a light but did not look out the window and asked yopu what it was and you protected them by telling them it was truck lights.

Just a minor point but were are discussing this in the present and my condolences but your witnesses are no longer alive so that doesn't really make them witnesses at this time so all there is is your version of events.

The other time 30 yrs later there was you and 4 dogs who again are not really what we consider witnesses obviously due to communication difficulties.

So who are these others and how do they relate to these 2 instances and where are they?

1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

You are trying to put your own disbelief  over my experience. I DID go and get a full psychological assessment, even though I knew the event was real because it was so odd and I was a secular humanist at the time, who found it incredible myself.

Wasn't that when you thought you might have a brain tumor after seeing John Travolta in a movie where he played Micheal? Why would that be relevant to your experience with this light? 

jmccr8

[XenoFish]

9 minutes ago, Golden Duck said:

What about the pythagoras theorem in 4d?

It would probably look like sacred geometry.

[Mr Walker]

1 hour ago, Sherapy said:

What were the names of these tests? 

 

Asked and answered many years back on UM  From now on I am no longer prepared to talk with people incapable of belief ,whose only reason for wanting details is to try and use them  to disprove the story The story is true and has important ramifications for everyone's lives and realities, although it might never impact on them

Please do not say i refused to supply the names.

We have had this discussion before and I went into detail about them, and the time the y took over several days,  The y included vision and perception   tests, as well as questions designed to test my abilty to discern reality, and my  propensity to hallucinate or perceive  images  (none found)   A lot of it was interview based, with several sessions of written tests of an hour to two hours duration