Can People Sense the Future?

[TheStatutoryApe]

Yesterday I had a similar experience. I was coming onto campus for work and my co-worker had the arm of the security booth up as I was pulling into the drive way. I had the feeling, or saw if you will, as I started pulling in that he might forget that the arm was up and accidently drop it on my car as I was driving in. Sure enough he had forgotten and pushed the button but fortunately realized pretty quick what he had done and stopped it before it hit my car.
The thing is ofcourse that I have that worry every time I drive on in the same circumstances. I also have similar worries when ever I see a situation where something of that sort could happen. A glass of water someplace where someone is quite close and could knock it over or what not. And in the majority of these instances what I'm afraid might happen doesn't happen.
Also those times when it does occur as I have "foreseen" it impacts my memory far more than when it doesn't.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Clearly you can't consider situations where the outcome is expected and obvious. If you had never had this concern and you entered this gate everyday, that would be interesting. Your situation was just a matter of the odds of a small and insignificant mishap. This was certainly not the situtation in my example.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Clearly you can't consider situations where the outcome is expected and obvious. If you had never had this concern and you entered this gate everyday, that would be interesting. Your situation was just a matter of the odds of a small and insignificant mishap. This was certainly not the situtation in my example.

Perhaps I could have used a better example but that was the first that came to mind. I have certainly had other similar experiences in situations not so familiar to me. I would argue though that the significance of the mishap doesn't neccisarily play a role, nor the odds. I'd think that if I were to see someone working on a motorcycle that was running with the chain in view I might have an inkling that the person may have an accident. Depending on my state of mind at that moment I may feel the danger to be more serious than at a different time in a different state. As for the odds, you could say that it was more likely to happen in my case than in yours. Either way I could have driven through there and had it never happen what so ever or I could have had it happen the very first time I entered this campus. Same with the accident you described. No matter what the odds of it's occurance it could still happen and it could still happen the very first possible moment for it to occur or even never at all. I don't think most people's brains automatically calculate to a very effective degree the odds of any particular occurance.
After all of that I'm not dismissing the story either. I'm just giving a possible explination. If I have an experience similar to the ones I have already had but more intense I may find that the possibility of precognition in your story and in my own experiences is much higher. I obviously can't say I know what it was that your friend experienced.

 

[Chronos]

Hard to get a serious answer when poking aroung the edges.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The reason I see this example as significant is that his reaction was a once in a lifetime event. This is not a problem of the odds of the guy getting hurt by chance. How many people get hurt cleaning a chain that way? The odds are probably not in the mechanic's favor. But the fact is that the normal reaction for the observer is to shrug and think, damned fool, but instead his [Joes] reaction was atypical and inexplicable in his mind. At least this is how I perceived the events described and his feeling about things.

Or course this could have been some extended version of deja-vu. Could he have reacted after the event but transposed the order of events for some reason? He was sure that this was not the case, but who knows? As I said, this is only anecdotal evidence, but similar stories are fairly common.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I've posted before about experiencing deja-vu. It's a very odd sensation. As far as I figure deja-vu isn't simply being someplace or seeing something that seems familiar to you as many people seem to think, at least not from my own experiences.
Mine have been extremely disorienting. I feel as though I'm experiencing something in a sort of dream state. Originally my initial response, and others too it seems, was to think that I must have dreamed what was happening before and was just then remembering it as it took place. After thinking it through though I realized that I never remembered dreaming any of these things that occured. After that realization I stopped having that response any longer and just felt a very surreal quality about the experiences.
An explination I was given once was that perhaps a wire gets crossed somewhere in your brain, so to speak, and you begin to recall the memory of the experience as you experience it, like an echo. I must say that is very much what it feels like though it gives you the distinct feeling of having seen what was happening just a fraction of a second ahead of time.
At any rate perhaps that is analogous to your friends experience. Something more intense than your average feeling of having "seen it coming".

 

[WyldFyr]

fascinating topic,,, is it in the correct forum? oh well... I have often wondered about some of this stuff myself. Is there anyway to design an experiment that could detect the latency in the way the brain gets its information? Although I could be wrong, I feel confident that such latency does exist. Mostly becuase of subjective experience, like falling in an aweful way and discovering that my body/subconscious did some quick thinking corrrections well before my conscious mind was aware of the danger. Well, bable aside, any ideas?

 

[PIT2]

I've posted before about experiencing deja-vu. It's a very odd sensation. As far as I figure deja-vu isn't simply being someplace or seeing something that seems familiar to you as many people seem to think, at least not from my own experiences.
Mine have been extremely disorienting. I feel as though I'm experiencing something in a sort of dream state. Originally my initial response, and others too it seems, was to think that I must have dreamed what was happening before and was just then remembering it as it took place. After thinking it through though I realized that I never remembered dreaming any of these things that occured. After that realization I stopped having that response any longer and just felt a very surreal quality about the experiences.

Ive had one of those aswell. I woke up one morning, remembering a coversation i had with a person about a specific subject. But when i thought about it, i discovered that i never had the conversation, and neither did i dream it! I just remembered telling him something important, but had no clue where my memory came from, or whether it was a real or a fake memory(or i should say: i thought it was real, but since i don't know where it came from it might be fake). I was confused for a few days, then stopped thinking about it. I still don't know whether it was real or fake, but i don't remember what it was about anymore or who the person was, so i guess ill never find out.

 

[matthyaouw]

and neither did i dream it!

How can you be sure? Memories of dreams are often hazy at best, if even there at all.

 

[Chronos]

The brain [at least the human version] is very susceptible to trickery. Not every odd perception is intended to trick other brains [hoaxes et al], but ours is big enough to trick itself into believing almost anything. That is why we have science. Our individual perceptions cannot be trusted. Our collective, peer reviewed perceptions are, however, very sound.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The brain [at least the human version] is very susceptible to trickery. Not every odd perception is intended to trick other brains [hoaxes et al], but ours is big enough to trick itself into believing almost anything. That is why we have science. Our individual perceptions cannot be trusted. Our collective, peer reviewed perceptions are, however, very sound.

Of course we can only peer review that which can be easily quantified or reproduced in a lab. Science provides no mechanism to explore unpredictable, transient, and isolated events. If something can't be repeated on demand, science falls short of providing alternative approaches. So, contrary to pop interpretations, just because we can't figure out how to study an supposed phenomenon, this does not imply that the phenomenon does not exist [sorry about the triple negative]. It could mean that we just lack creativity in our approach.

Unfortunately we are teaching young people that the limitations of science define reality, which is certainly false.

 

[PIT2]

Arent most of the scientific explanations of the workings of the brain, perceptions and consciousness just theoretical, based on a bunch of unproven assumptions?

'consciousness is produced by the brain' would be assumption number 1.

 

[RoboSapien]

"Poker Premonitioner"

Here is a Killer device idea that I have came up with. If the dam experiment discussed in this thread does work then we can use this concept to create a device called "Poker Premonitioner".

Here whenever we are about to select a card, the device should check our brain waves and beep on a horrible card brain waves detection, this device won't be limited only for poker ...


but it can be used in the battle fields too.

I guess that why the result of the original experiments may be suppressed.

This is my personal speculation being a Next Sapien ofcourse.

Hope this post isn't confiscated.

 

[godzilla7]

We have to take into account the actions of the subconscious,

'I had a hunch that was going to happen'

Is often because a similar or related experience has happened to that person before e.g. firemen often say I just new there was going to be a backdraft from that area, precisely because some subconscious or even conscious clues correlate with previous experience, to the outside untrained observer it looks like a strange hunch that is right, in fact it is simply a subconscious survival mechanism.

Your friend could have seen or been involved in a similar incident, his subconscious made him aware of what would happen because of this, even though he might not cconsciously remember the event, it's in there it just takes the right stimulus to tweak this memory back into the conscious realm. also imagination no doubt works on a subconscious level so sometimes you wouldn't even have to have been involved in a similar event, your brain is subconsciously imagining possibilities, most are discarded but some are important enough to bother the consciousness with, when there are correlations with the real world.

I've read about the so called hunch that comes true stuff before, these seem like premonitions but there really clever evolutionary tricks the mind has learned. Not that I don't think ESP is possible but there is often a much more rational reason for events than any of us realize.

 

[matthyaouw]

We have to take into account the actions of the subconscious,

'I had a hunch that was going to happen'

I agree with a lot of what you said in your post. I'd also like to add this as another factor:

Its great to be able to say that in reterospect, but I don't think that its much of an acivement unless you mention it before the event happens, and then go on to be proved right. Yes, its easy to think that if you had a feeling of apprehension before an event, you can say "I knew something was up", but how many times do people have similar feelings that prove incorrect? Any example of a hunch that is correct will stick out in your mind, where as one that led to nothing will be more likely to be dismissed and forgotton, making it seem in reterospect that you have had some kind of premonition.

 

[RoboSapien]

Whats the difference between DeJavu and Premonition ?

 

[SpaceTiger]

Whats the difference between DeJavu and Premonition ?

Deja vu is the feeling that you lived through a situation more than once (that is, you've experienced the exact same thing before). Premonition is seeing something before it happens. In both cases, you think you see something happen twice, but in deja vu you're not sure when you experienced it the first time.

 

[PIT2]

Perhaps the subconscious is responsible for it, but that doesn't really explain anything. The subconscious is one giant mystery. Personally i think consciousness is like the tip of the iceberg, and the big part underwater is the subconsciousness.

Even if the subconsciousness rapidly calculates all kinds of possibilities and probabilities, this still doesn't explain how people can react to certain kind of randomly selected images, before they see the image.

(by the way, is it "the subconscious" or "the subconsciousness"?)

 

[RoboSapien]

The subconscious is one giant mystery. Personally i think consciousness is like the tip of the iceberg, and the big part underwater is the subconsciousness.

I really don't quite agree with U nor will those involved in Artificial Neural Networks Intelligence. All that is there underneath is just a bunch of Strengths of connects. The same thing responsible when U start to masturbate without planing for it, U just start doing as U r commanded by your neural chemistry, U r nothing but a biochemical propogation.

 

[WyldFyr]

Agreed, but our "subconscious" is an extremely organized neural network with millions of discrete componets and nodes. So its not as simple as just chemistry. There is definately some complex behavior going on, involving lots of different inputs.
I think our subconscious does inform our conscious mind to the degree that our conscious mind is just the software running on ontop of the subconscious, like the iceberg example. Might be better to describe it with an aplication-program-to-operating-system analogy.

 

[PIT2]

I really don't quite agree with U nor will those involved in Artificial Neural Networks Intelligence. All that is there underneath is just a bunch of Strengths of connects. The same thing responsible when U start to masturbate without planing for it, U just start doing as U r commanded by your neural chemistry, U r nothing but a biochemical propogation.

Im afraid that "consciousness is produced by the brain(or even subconsciousness)" is an unproven assumption. (take a look in the NDE and OBE thread: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=69211 )

And i don't think anyone specialised in artificial neural networks has a clue how matter can become conscious, or develop a subconsciousness.

 

[Burnsys]

Agreed, but our "subconscious" is an extremely organized neural network with millions of discrete componets and nodes. So its not as simple as just chemistry. There is definately some complex behavior going on, involving lots of different inputs.
I think our subconscious does inform our conscious mind to the degree that our conscious mind is just the software running on ontop of the subconscious, like the iceberg example. Might be better to describe it with an aplication-program-to-operating-system analogy.

Just a note: Subsconscious is atemporal and does not experience time...

 

[SpaceTiger]

Just a note: Subsconscious is atemporal and does not experience time...

Is that an experimental or philosophical statement? It's not obvious to me why it wouldn't.

 

[godzilla7]

yeah it's the "why do I wait for ages and 3 buses turn up at once?!? that always happens", syndrome, people forget the number of times they've turned up to see a bus pull round the corner, or the number of times a single bus has turned up, because there is no emotional context, just as when you have a hunch that's proved correct the emotional wonder makes you remember.

Buses run on strict timetables, that are often affected by traffic causing busses to run out of synch with the timetable and so sometimes they turn up in 3's or 4's, but to say that it is a frequent event is forgetting past history.

A little while after writting the last post, I was walking through the hospital where I work and my attention was imediately brought to a round O2 cylinder on a flat table, in my minds eye I saw it roll off the table and crash to the ground: this didn't happen and on closer inspection I saw that the table had small metal bits at the corner which would prevent this from happening, it didn't stop my subconscious from alerting me to possible danger though: why do I still remember it, because I remembered writing this post, otherwise I'll wager I would have quite easily forgotten it.

 

[godzilla7]

In response to where does the conciousness/subconcioussness come from, well that's a real scientific issue, it has a name all of it's own called 'the hard problem' anthropologists neurologists psychologist have been working to answer this since the beginning of recorded history and the advent of philosophy and no one is really any the wiser, until we understand any corellation between cocnious thought and brain chemistry, if indeed we ever can little progress can be made without some tangible evidence, or a good testable theory.

it's all very well describing how it happens but why does it happen and where's your evidence.

I've posted this example before but a control group of non depressed and another group of clinically depressed patience were started on SSRI's (Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibtors; prozac,lustral etc) - a short time after the pills were taken, enough time for the drug to be fully absorbed into the body and to have an effect on the brain - the brain activity of one group and the other were analysed, as were certain brain chemistry indicators, seratonin levels dopamine levels etc. they were found to be identicle in almost every respect; why then do SSRI's take 3-5 weeks to have any noticible effect on mood?

Answer that and you've made progress in the great mystery of the conciousness/subconciousness.

'the hard problem' is the holy grail of many sciences including neuropsychology, Neuropharmacology amongst others and philosphers and thelogians alike.

 

[SpaceTiger]

I've thought about it a bit more and it seems to me that the subconscious must store temporal information. Otherwise, how could I answer somebody who asked me how long I had been doing something if I hadn't specifically thought about time in the process of doing it? We must have some clock that runs separately from our conscious mind. But what are its properties?

This must have been studied in real experiments at some point, so if anybody has any links, they would be much appreciated. However, let me pose the following thought experiment. Let's say I'm put in a room with two light bulbs. While I'm sitting in the room, the light bulbs will both go on at some undetermined times. The question I will be asked after the experiment is done is, "After the first bulb went on, how long was it until the second one went on?" The experimenter gives me some sort of menial task to perform while I'm sitting in the room so that I'm unable to consciously count intervals of time.

Now I'd be curious of the actual results of such an experiment, but let's see if I can approximate the results from my everyday experience. First, what's the shortest time interval between which I can possibly give an accurate answer? That must be the integration time of our eyes, which is about a 30th of a second. Any less and I won't be able to distinguish the events. But is my brain good at distinguishing between a 30th of a second and a 10th of a second? If done in succession, I suspect the answer might be yes, but if you're just asked the length of time of the interval without any other information, it's not clear that most people could give an accurate answer. Can we distinguish between a 10th of a second and a second? I would say almost certainly, so our mind must have temporal resolution of at least a fraction of a second.

Unfortunately, this raises many other questions. Is memory of vision the primary means by which we store temporal information? Would a blind person be as accurate as a seeing person? Would we be as accurate if we were given auditory signals instead...with eyes open or shut? Do we use the outside world as our clock or is there an internal one? Our senses are our only links to the outside world, so if the answer is the former, then temporal information must be linked to our senses. I suspect that outside information must play a role, otherwise it would be a strange coincidence that the time intervals we can distinguish visually are comparable with those we can distinguish mentally.

What about long periods of time? If they waited a minute, an hour, or a day to turn on the lights, how would my accuracy change? It's hard for me to distinguish 59 seconds from 60 seconds, yet I can easily distinguish 1 from 2. The same would apply to hours or days. This implies that my temporal memory decays logarithmically. Is that because of an inaccuracy in my clock or a loss of information about the original event? Our memory clearly decays with time, so the latter must play a role.

The more I think about it, the more questions I get. I'd be very curious to see what a psychology expert has to say about these things.

 

[WyldFyr]

Well, I had a cool post, but then the cat walked on the keyboard *grin*
I think it went something like this:
I think we all agree that the problem with discussing sensing the future is two fold;
One: We don't have a clear answer as to the relationship of perception and consciousness. We don't have a clear answer what makes perception what it is. We don't even know what makes conscious work exactly. Two: We need those answers to ask the question (and get the answer) of whether precognition really exits.
I believe, and I think some others here are behind me on this, that awarness is created by physical phenomenon that we have observed elsewhere in the real world. So I think the real question is: Is there real, verified phenomenon (flame me if I'm not using that word correctly) that has two or more events that appear unable to influence each other (causually disconnected), but really are influenced by each other?
Personally, as an example of what I'm alluding to, I was thinking of a life game setup where the formation appears to jump ahead. I think it is completely possible that this future sensing could really be happening, and not just an artifact of our process of perception.

 

[theopenbook]

Perceptions

Great Thread! Has anyone ever heard of this guy Kim Clement? I saw him in person, and although he played the piano a lot before demonstrating, once he began to share his spiritual perceptions, it was incredible. He has been used in several cases of successfully resolving whereabouts of kidnapped children. Any thoughts? www.kimclement.com

theopenbook

 

[Alkatran]

Great Thread! Has anyone ever heard of this guy Kim Clement? I saw him in person, and although he played the piano a lot before demonstrating, once he began to share his spiritual perceptions, it was incredible. He has been used in several cases of successfully resolving whereabouts of kidnapped children. Any thoughts? www.kimclement.com

theopenbook

How many cases do you think he sent in suggestions for? How many TIMES per case? No friggin kidding if you saw "near a river... or... a field..." you're probably going to be close.

Fact is: Any time there's a popular missing person's case the police get bombarded with 'psychic help': and there's no rhyme or rhythm to what they say! And yet if one of them is even CLOSE they yell it to the world! Wow! You and a hundred other people took random guesses and YOU got the close one! AMAZING!

And let's not forget the fact that the information is useless sent a long with a "Please don't release this if the information is wrong"

 

[theopenbook]

How many cases do you think he sent in suggestions for? How many TIMES per case? No friggin kidding if you saw "near a river... or... a field..." you're probably going to be close.

Fact is: Any time there's a popular missing person's case the police get bombarded with 'psychic help': and there's no rhyme or rhythm to what they say! And yet if one of them is even CLOSE they yell it to the world! Wow! You and a hundred other people took random guesses and YOU got the close one! AMAZING!

And let's not forget the fact that the information is useless sent a long with a "Please don't release this if the information is wrong"

Could be I suppose. In the concert I saw him get some people's names, number of children, birthdays and etc while in front of the crowd. Like Jonathan Edwards, mingling with the crowd, he would walk out and pull people out if he felt he had a prediction for them.

Have you ever seen someone like this with the real "gift", as some would call it?

theopenbook