Is Telepathy Real? My Personal Experience with Grandparents and a Tractor

[Dwalaine]

Hello physics forum

I wanted to describe an experience that I view as evidence for telepathy. I'm not a troll (even though I registered just to write this).

I was six years old and visiting my grandparents country house. They had a large garden of about an acre. One day my grandfather went out with his tractor lawn mower. My brother and I took turns sitting on his lap while he was mowing the grass. At one point, I was running towards the tractor and slipped on the cut grass, ending up with my right foot under the tractor. The blades cut a strap on the sandal I was wearing, but missed my foot by millimeters.

My grandfather stopped the tractor and all three of us stood there in disbelief and shock. As we were about go back to the house, I saw my grandmother with a very worried look on her face coming to check on us. She said "Your mom just called and told me to check up on you guys, she was sure something terrible had happened."

 

[Dotini]

I wanted to describe an experience that I view as evidence for telepathy.

Hi Dwalaine. Welcome to the Physics Forum and thank you for your post.

Unfortunately, even though your experience is interesting, may have really happened just as you described, and similar experiences have been reported by many others, it cannot be accepted as evidence of telepathy, certainly not according to the rules of this forum as I understand them. It must remain a charming anecdote.

The "scientific" literature on Psi is very thin. If you are motivated to explore what little of it I am aware of, you might take a look at some of the books written by Dean Radin.

Respectfully submitted,
Steve

 

[Evo]

Hi Dwalaine. Welcome to the Physics Forum and thank you for your post.

Unfortunately, even though your experience is interesting, may have really happened just as you described, and similar experiences have been reported by many others, it cannot be accepted as evidence of telepathy, certainly not according to the rules of this forum as I understand them. It must remain a charming anecdote.

The "scientific" literature on Psi is very thin. If you are motivated to explore what little of it I am aware of, you might take a look at some of the books written by Dean Radin.

Respectfully submitted,
Steve

I wouldn't read Dean Radin, his work is not considered scientific by his peers. Just one of many critiques. http://www.skepticreport.com/sr/?p=537

 

[Dotini]

...his work is not considered scientific by his peers.

If by "peers" it is meant other scientific experimentalists in an array of fields, then undoubtedly Radin is a very marginal figure. But compared to the general run of muck in the literary genre of the paranormal, he could be judged a rare tower of probity. :)

I am not aware of any work that is considered valid science in this field, but I would like to know of any.

Just for fun, here is a NY Times review of Radin. http://www.deanradin.com/nytimes_hires_f.htmlRespectfully,
Steve

 

[DaveC426913]

"In a world as vastly complex as ours, the only event that would be astonishingly unlikely to happen is for fabulous coincidences to not happen."
-DaveC426913 0201110You've lived how many decades? and in all that time you haven't had a second example of an astonishingly unlikely coincidence.

Statistically, giant coincidences - like giant meteors and giant earthquakes - have to happen occasionally.

 

[lostcauses10x]

You left out information.
Did you go to your grandfathers the same morning??

Are you or were you prone to getting yourself hurt at the age??

Your mother may simply been seeing a pattern related to you and got worried and called;due to a pattern of behavior at the time, and her worry, it conforms to coincidence.

The human mind has some great observational power. More often than not such experiences can be wrote off as coincidence.
Especially as a kid it is easy to justify such coincidences as more than such.

 

[Evo]

You might want to read an objectic review of the lack of science used by Radin.

http://www.skepdic.com/refuge/radin6.html

I have a whole list. He's been discussed here many times, perhaps it's time to put him on the banned topics list since his institute of Noetic Sciences publishes a study guide to What the bleep on their site which *is* on our banned topics list.

About a year and a half ago I wrote here about going to see the movie What the Bleep Do We Know?, a rather spectacularly stupid and lunatic film which extensively misuses quantum mechanics. This weekend, a sequel called What the BLEEP – Down the Rabbit Hole opened here in New York, and I figured I owed it to my readers to check out the this new movie.

The new material includes interviews with a crackpot parapsychologist (Dean Radin, from the “Institute of Noetic Sciences”), and a crackpot journalist (Lynne McTaggart).

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=342

 

[DaveC426913]

The identical thing happened to me when I was 17.

I went to a friend's farm. It was just the two of us in a shack for two weeks. No phone, no car.

One morning we woke up and half of his dozen goats were dead. We had to hoof it into town (a two hour walk) to try desperately to find a country vet open on a weekend.

Out of the blue, my mother showed up with with car, saying she just had a feeling we might need her help and decided to make the hour drive.

(I of course put no credence in a mother's instinct to let her son go to a deserted farm for two weeks, wait patiently through the first week, then decide that the weekend would be a good time to drop into see if everything was all right. )

 

[Dwalaine]

You left out information.
Did you go to your grandfathers the same morning??

I do not remember the other circumstances clearly.

Are you or were you prone to getting yourself hurt at the age??

No.

Your mother may simply been seeing a pattern related to you and got worried and called;due to a pattern of behavior at the time, and her worry, it conforms to coincidence.

My original post wasn't completely clear on this point, but she freaked out. She also told me afterwards that "she knew something terrible had happened", so it wasn't a routine call of an overly protective mom. She has never freaked out like that again.

 

[lostcauses10x]

"She also told me afterwards that "she knew something terrible had happened","

Strangely enough the panic of the moment can be easily related to the phone call itself. It is always after the fact it was supposedly thought of, or reacted before.

Were as to you all this many seem real and since today you are even further away from the event, it is simply easier to accept as you do.

Since it is such you do not do such every day, there is no reason to argue it.
An event happened that I am sure scared you, and of course your mother when she happened to call and found out it happened.
How you view such today if your are satisfied with it needs not be changed.

Yet you placed your experience on a board that has people that can easily dissect such an event, and show how it can be an everyday thing without telepathy, or some other form of divine intervention.

I see the lack of injury as the greatest part of the event, and how you view the rest as unimportant. I see the whole situation as chance and luck including your mom's call, you see it differently. Yet no mater how you or I and others may view it; the result was good.

 

[Dwalaine]

Yet you placed your experience on a board that has people that can easily dissect such an event, and show how it can be an everyday thing without telepathy, or some other form of divine intervention.

In that short description, there's enough room for interpretation and fantasy to accommodate whatever position one feels comfortable with.

Reality is a different thing. Having experienced it, my position is that I would be lying to myself if I said that it wasn't telepathy.

To each their own. I see no need for anyone to change their opinion.

 

[StevieTNZ]

I remember having this dream about a woman who worked in this shop I use to go to. In the dream she couldn't serve me because she was lying down in pain, and was pregnant.

I told her about the dream. Before I didn't know she was pregnant, but I told her in my dream she was. She said she was pregnant and was having complications. I was stunned.

 

[phinds]

... my position is that I would be lying to myself if I said that it wasn't telepathy

As long as you don't plan on going into a career in science, that's fine for you, but you really should give some more thought to the quote that Dave provided in post #5. He's quoting himself apparently, but Carl Sagan and others have said the same thing. It really isn't telepathy and science doesn't work on anecdotal evidence, but again, if you're not going into science, you can believe any nonsense you like.

 

[Evo]

Reality is a different thing. Having experienced it, my position is that I would be lying to myself if I said that it wasn't telepathy.

The rules here are that you can tell an anecdote but you cannot make claims as to what happened.

 

[DaveC426913]

Are you or were you prone to getting yourself hurt at the age??

No.

Your mom may have a different take on that.

the quote that Dave provided in post #5. He's quoting himself apparently, but Carl Sagan and others have said the same thing.

No fair. I made it up on-the-spot. I was quite pleased with it.

 

[DaveC426913]

Reality is a different thing. Having experienced it, my position is that I would be lying to myself if I said that it wasn't telepathy.

What makes you conclude it's telepathy? How can you rule out coincidence?

To each their own. I see no need for anyone to change their opinion.

Ah but once you voice your opinion, you open it to challenge, and you are obliged to defend it.

 

[phinds]

No fair. I made it up on-the-spot. I was quite pleased with it.

Great minds think alike

 

[phinds]

The rules here are that you can tell an anecdote but you cannot make claims as to what happened.

Unless you can support them with hard evidence, of which you, Dwalaine, have offered none.

There have been LOTS of experiences like yours and those that have them, especially those that have no experience with or belief in, the scientific method, are invariably forcibly struck by how REAL the apparent miraculousness of the event was. I once again refer you to Dave's quote.

EDIT: by the way, none of here are trying to be rude to you or hard on you, it's just that we think in scientific terms and you are clearly NOT thinking in those terms ... you are convinced by what to us is clearly anecdotal evidence of a coincidence.

 

[Jack21222]

Feynman has an example of this (I think in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman.) He had an experience where a thought came into his head that his grandmother had died. The phone rang. It was unrelated, and his grandmother was fine.

He made a mental note to always remember this "failure," in case it ever came out the other way.

Yes, page 130.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Unless you can support them with hard evidence, of which you, Dwalaine, have offered none.

There have been LOTS of experiences like yours and those that have them, especially those that have no experience with or belief in, the scientific method, are invariably forcibly struck by how REAL the apparent miraculousness of the event was. I once again refer you to Dave's quote.

EDIT: by the way, none of here are trying to be rude to you or hard on you, it's just that we think in scientific terms and you are clearly NOT thinking in those terms ... you are convinced by what to us is clearly anecdotal evidence of a coincidence.

Thing is, it could have been an incidence of telepathy. The fact that remarkable coincidences happen frequently doesn't disprove that any given example was telepathy, it just proves it doesn't have to have been telepathy, that there's a excellent alternative mechanism.

It's fine to be adamant that it could easily have been coincidence, but to be sure it wasn't telepathy is just confirmation bias. Nothing can be proved either way. You have no evidence whatsoever it was merely a coincidence just as the OP has no evidence whatsoever it was telepathy.

If the OP is being unscientific by saying it had to have been telepathy and couldn't have been coincidence then the opposite stand, that it had to have been coincidence and couldn't have been telepathy is equally unscientific.

By Occam's Razor the hypothesis it was a coincidence is to be preferred. Coincidence is a known quantity. Telepathy is unknown. That's the extent of it: coincidence must be the preferred explanation.

 

[FlexGunship]

The blades cut a strap on the sandal I was wearing, but missed my foot by millimeters.

[...]

She said "Your mom just called and told me to check up on you guys, she was sure something terrible had happened."

Your mom was wrong. Your foot was fine. At best this is counter-evidence. Unless you count the destruction of a sandal was "terrible," in which case your mother must lead a life of extreme anxiety.

EDIT: In the Feynman tradition, you should remember this "failure" of telepathy should you ever have a "success." Your telepathy scorecard should currently read "-1," and if you ever experience a more compelling example of telepathy you scorecard should read "0."

DOUBLE EDIT:

EDIT: by the way, none of here are trying to be rude to you or hard on you, it's just that we think in scientific terms and you are clearly NOT thinking in those terms ... you are convinced by what to us is clearly anecdotal evidence of a coincidence.

 

[dacruick]

Just the other day I was going for a walk with my mother and we were talking about some family issues that surrounded her aunt's recent passing. Not a minute after we started talking about it her cousin was making a left turn as we were crossing the street, he basically whispered my mother's name in her ear as he drove by. He made a U-turn and we conversed for a while. It turns out that he had made 2 wrong turns to get to the same intersection as us, and my mother was astonished. She was convinced that it was her aunt who had influenced the meeting, as her cousin was able to offer her peace of mind (my mother didn't get to visit her aunt before the death). If we had crossed the street seconds earlier or seconds later, or her cousin had made the right turn instead of the left, that encounter would never have happened. But think of every second of every day that passes by and an encounter like this doesn't happen. Humans have a general tendency to attribute coincidence to the supernatural. We are easily wooed by stories of fantastical nature, as they spice life up. I feel similarly about religion, as it gives its followers security and comfort. The problem with believing in the supernatural is that there is motive to. In general the people that believe in this kind of thing also like the idea of it. People who believe in God like the idea of God and his proposed benevolence. It's just not objective enough to be science.

 

[phinds]

If the OP is being unscientific by saying it had to have been telepathy and couldn't have been coincidence then the opposite stand, that it had to have been coincidence and couldn't have been telepathy is equally unscientific.

Much as I hate to, I have to agree w/ you in this case. When you're right, your're right.

Still, I think you're bending over backwards to be scientifically proper and you are giving the OP some hope that he might be right. I DETEST this kind of belief in coincidence far more than the rules of the forum allow me to say in a straightforward way (a great many expetives get brought in ) so I do have to admit that I am less inclined to be scientifically proper, as you are being, in THIS case. This kind of stupidity is one of my hot buttons and other than this sentence, I think I have restrained myself admirably so far.

 

[FlexGunship]

If the OP is being unscientific by saying it had to have been telepathy and couldn't have been coincidence then the opposite stand, that it had to have been coincidence and couldn't have been telepathy is equally unscientific.

Much as I hate to, I have to agree w/ you in this case. When you're right, your're right.

I disagree a bit. In the instance of claiming telepathy, you must invent a new aspect of the universe to aid in explanation. In the instance of claiming coincidence, no such invention is necessary.

Fundamentally, claiming telepathy, claiming divine intervention, and claiming little green men helped in this case are not strikingly different. In each case you are using an outside "unknown" meta-actor to explain something that you perceive as being beyond coincidence.

 

[dacruick]

I disagree a bit. In the instance of claiming telepathy, you must invent a new aspect of the universe to aid in explanation. In the instance of claiming coincidence, no such invention is necessary.

Fundamentally, claiming telepathy, claiming divine intervention, and claiming little green men helped in this case are not strikingly different. In each case you are using an outside "unknown" meta-actor to explain something that you perceive as being beyond coincidence.

I agree. He has proposed a process with no evidence to support the existence of that process.

 

[FlexGunship]

I agree. He has proposed a process with no evidence to support the existence of that process.

Statistics do amazing things given large enough sample sizes. Given that the average human perceives their existence as a string of 2-to-3-second "moments", the sample size is large enough to permit a one-in-a-million event each month.

 

[dacruick]

Statistics do amazing things given large enough sample sizes. Given that the average human perceives their existence as a string of 2-to-3-second "moments", the sample size is large enough to permit a one-in-a-million event each month.

As I think DaveC posted, the chances of a coincidence not happening are very low.

 

[FlexGunship]

As I think DaveC posted, the chances of a coincidence not happening are very low.

"I had an incredibly normal month... nothing noteworthy happened to me at all!"
"Wow, what a coincidence!"

 

[DaveC426913]

Thing is, it could have been an incidence of telepathy. The fact that remarkable coincidences happen frequently doesn't disprove that any given example was telepathy, it just proves it doesn't have to have been telepathy, that there's a excellent alternative mechanism.

Except that there is a preponderance of evidence for coincidences happening and no credible evidence for telepathy.

No one is saying it can't be telepathy any more than anyone says there can't be a teapot orbiting Jupiter.

 

[DaveC426913]

Your mom was wrong. Your foot was fine. At best this is counter-evidence.

That is actually an excellent, excellent point. His mom was indeed wrong.

Like numerology, it is very easy to assign significance to events - all you have to do is cast a wide enough net as to what constitutes the event.

In this case, apparently, mom called because a bad thing did not happen. So apparently, if an event does happen AND an event does not happen - both are considered "hits" as far as telepathy goes.

If it is impossible to fail a test, then success is less than trivial.

 

[FlexGunship]

No one is saying it can't be telepathy any more than anyone says there can't be a teapot orbiting Jupiter.

First of all, it's around Mars, and it's supposed to be at a Lagrange point. Secondly, I hear that putting a teapot in space in Elon Musk's secret goal with SpaceX.

That is actually an excellent, excellent point. His mom was indeed wrong.

I'm full of excellent points!

 

[DaveC426913]

First of all, it's around Mars, and it's supposed to be at a Lagrange point.

Actually, it's "orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars", but in the manner of classic quotes, it needs to be shortened for maximum pithiness.

 

[FlexGunship]

Actually, it's "orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars", but in the manner of classic quotes, it needs to be shortened for maximum pithiness.

Potato potato.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Much as I hate to, I have to agree w/ you in this case. When you're right, your're right.

Still, I think you're bending over backwards to be scientifically proper and you are giving the OP some hope that he might be right. I DETEST this kind of belief in coincidence far more than the rules of the forum allow me to say in a straightforward way (a great many expetives get brought in ) so I do have to admit that I am less inclined to be scientifically proper, as you are being, in THIS case. This kind of stupidity is one of my hot buttons and other than this sentence, I think I have restrained myself admirably so far.

Knowing the grief it causes you only makes your admission the more scientific, and my respect for you increases accordingly.

The degree of your upset may be symptomatic of an argument against this being telepathy that you haven't managed to articulate. Rest assured that giving the OP hope is not my intention. I just have a sensitivity to cognitive dissonance.

My own opinion is that this story probably demonstrates neither a complete coincidence, nor telepathy. I think the mother probably noticed something unusual about his behavior before he went on the trip, something that struck her as an uncharacteristic reckless edge, perhaps. This probably ate at her till she felt moved to call and the timing of that call ended up, coincidentally, being about perfect to create the impression of a telepathic occurrence. Something like that. In other words, the mother was probably working on some internal emotional calculus over something real she'd noticed from the time he left till when she called, such that her feeling and call wasn't a complete coincidence.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Except that there is a preponderance of evidence for coincidences happening and no credible evidence for telepathy.

No one is saying it can't be telepathy any more than anyone says there can't be a teapot orbiting Jupiter.

Actually Phinds asserted it was clearly evidence of a coincidence:

you are convinced by what to us is clearly anecdotal evidence of a coincidence.

By which "clearly", he ruled out telepathy.

I did cite Occam's Razor. The known cause is to be preferred for an explanation over the "unnecessarily multiplied" suggestion. But if we're going to give lectures about being scientific it is encumbent upon us to be scientific ourselves and admit there's no proof either way: we are unable to examine and test the phenomenon. We are left with a strong preference for the assumption there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter.

 

[DaveC426913]

Actually Phinds asserted it was clearly evidence of a coincidence:
By which "clearly", he ruled out telepathy.

Well, as I think you're pointing out, Occam's razor is a test for picking the likelihood between two theories, all other aspects of the theories being equal. In this case, they are not equal, not by a long shot. One has a preponderance of evidence, the other has (what is generally considered) an extreme paucity of evidence. So yeah, Occam's razor does not apply.But if you prefer a more mathematical vein, rather than a logical one, the event described is not statistically significant.

That's not a trivial statement. Because there is an aspect of this phenomenon that is out of control of the investigators (a hunch and a phone call), the first thing one must do is take into account the null hypothesis. Does the phenomenon fall outside normal distribution of events.

Well, it doesn't. Which means that, as far as investigating, there is actually nothing to investigate. Once you remove the statistical element of probability, you're left holding nothing at all.

 

[Oldfart]

When I was in the vicinity of 9-11 years old, when my mother's snoring kept me awake, I would concentrate on telling (thinking) her to stop snoring, and she always stopped. It seemed like a natural thing to do, it didn't surprise me that it worked. Later in life, when I realized that this was kinda wierd, she and I tried a telepathy test using playing cards, no joy, my "gift" was gone.

Yes, coincidence could explain this, but that seems like a stretch, seeing as how I did this repeatedly. Strange...

 

[DaveC426913]

When I was in the vicinity of 9-11 years old, when my mother's snoring kept me awake, I would concentrate on telling (thinking) her to stop snoring, and she always stopped. It seemed like a natural thing to do, it didn't surprise me that it worked. Later in life, when I realized that this was kinda wierd, she and I tried a telepathy test using playing cards, no joy, my "gift" was gone.

Yes, coincidence could explain this, but that seems like a stretch, seeing as how I did this repeatedly. Strange...

In this case, it's not a coincidence; it's two linked* events that have a time limit. The fact that they occur in a similar time frame is what causes the false connection.

*And they are linked. You would not be doing your concentrating if she were not snoring.

(Please forgive the comparison here). When a dog hears someone approaching the front door, it goes into defense mode, barking and freaking out to chase the intruder off. The mailman drops the mail in the slot - and then leaves. The dog's belief that is has successfully chased off another intruder is reinforced.

What's happening is cause and effect are mixed up. You think communication is from you to her, when in fact, it is from her to you.

 

[Chronos]

Perhaps you gave cues, like vocalization, shuffling your feet, or touching her. That is what I'm thinking.

 

[Oldfart]

Perhaps you gave cues, like vocalization, shuffling your feet, or touching her. That is what I'm thinking.

She was in a separate bedroom, and why would I vocalize, I had no need for that?

 

[Deveno]

i was married to a woman for 24 years. during that time there were several occasions where we had several long, wordless conversations. it was utterly impossible to lie to her. we would "catch each other thoughts" the way some people finish each other's sentences.

there was nothing "mystical" about this, it was just an everyday fact of our lives together. but it defies easy explanation. that's not to say i don't believe there isn't any, and i don't think we possessed any special abilities (or else i'd be doing the uri geller circuit in a heartbeat, there's some serious cash to be had as a "mind-reader").

if the universe is (and it might not be) a pattern of distributed energy, there's no reason to think that sometimes certain sub-patterns might be (more or less) synchronous. some of these might be detectible at ranges near the limits of our thresholds of perception: faint sounds, slight movements, there's a lot of possibilities. it's hard to know just what configurations of events could serve as carrier waves of information that we're just not paying attention to.

now i don't, in general, believe in "magic" (unles the mandelbrot set qualifies), but i do think there's a lot of stuff we don't know. even looking at things from a statistical point of view has its pitfalls: we don't actually know the range of possibilities, we have to make an educated guess, based on (at best) a short window of human observation. mathematics and science only fills in the picture so far...and the very belief that the underlying structure is both consistent and discernable, is perhaps a hindrance to recognition. in lay terms: you only see what you're looking for.

i think this is why paradigm shifts occur so rarely, we find the utility of our beliefs so binding, we're virtually blind to the impossible (which, upon deeper investigation, often reveals flaws in the basis of our thinking). it took a long time for concepts like "negative number" and "complex number" to be accepted, because they ran contrary to what we thought was "real" and "true". any other brand of science currently in vogue, whether it be chemistry, physics, or nanotechnology, has the same problem: as soon as we start to say what IS, we tend to exclude what "isn't", and we have no real proof (just a lot of "validation") that that is the "proper" way to look at things, in terms of accuracy.

of course, a lot of this is pure speculation on my part, and as such, i neither care about nor seek any kind of agreement from others. what i do notice, is that a lot of people who become deeply involved in trying to divine "how things really are", become obsessively rational, to the point of excess.

 

[DaveC426913]

if the universe is (and it might not be) a pattern of distributed energy

of course, a lot of this is pure speculation on my part

It is. And should not be voiced here.

 

[FlexGunship]

When I was in the vicinity of 9-11 years old, when my mother's snoring kept me awake, I would concentrate on telling (thinking) her to stop snoring, and she always stopped. It seemed like a natural thing to do, it didn't surprise me that it worked. Later in life, when I realized that this was kinda wierd, she and I tried a telepathy test using playing cards, no joy, my "gift" was gone.

it was utterly impossible to lie to her. we would "catch each other thoughts" the way some people finish each other's sentences.

if the universe is (and it might not be) a pattern of distributed energy, there's no reason to think that sometimes certain sub-patterns might be (more or less) synchronous.

Woah... this thread is in trouble... I'm out'a here!

 

[dacruick]

Woah... this thread is in trouble... I'm out'a here!

I wish I had myself a FlexJetPack with which I could do the same.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Well, as I think you're pointing out, Occam's razor is a test for picking the likelihood between two theories, all other aspects of the theories being equal.

No. Occam's razor:

"a scientific and philosophic rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities"

-Merriam-Webster's

There is no proviso about "all other aspects of the theories being equal". In fact, the whole point of it is to clear up situations where one proposed explanation has 'unnecessary multiplications', i.e. is not really equal at all to the other theory in terms of its sticking to reality. It advises that the explanation that sticks to known phenomena should be preferred. It's a way of determining that the theory containing the unnecessary multiplications is really not as good as the one that goes by known quantities. Occam's Razor absolutely applies here.

I heard Occam's Razor paraphrased on CSI:NY: "When you hear hoofbeats in Central Park, don't think 'Zebra!'" Central Park is sometimes patrolled by cops on horseback, so that is really the first thing you should think of if you hear hoofbeats there. And for the very same reason you shouldn't think "Zebra!" you also shouldn't think "The ghost of George Washington's horse!"

The fact remarkable coincidences are statistically common is a very good reason to prefer that explanation over telepathy, on which we have no data whatever.

That fact, though, does not constitute proof that it wasn't telepathy. Because, strictly speaking, there's been no proof it was a coincidence, just proof of the high probability it was coincidence.

 

[FlexGunship]

No. Occam's razor:

"a scientific and philosophic rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities"

-Merriam-Webster's

There is no proviso about "all other aspects of the theories being equal".

Not to speak for Dave, but I think he's saying that when the "explanatory abilities" of two theories are equal (i.e. all things other than the explanation's complexity itself), then Occam's Razor indicates there should be a preference for the simpler theory.

In effect, you're both saying the same thing.

A zebra and a horse both adequately explain the sound of hoof-beats. So, all other things being equal (except for the complexity of the explanation) favor the simpler of two theories.

 

[Evo]

i was married to a woman for 24 years. during that time there were several occasions where we had several long, wordless conversations. it was utterly impossible to lie to her. we would "catch each other thoughts" the way some people finish each other's sentences.

Were you in the same room?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Not to speak for Dave, but I think he's saying that when the "explanatory abilities" of two theories are equal (i.e. all things other than the explanation's complexity itself), then Occam's Razor indicates there should be a preference for the simpler theory.

In effect, you're both saying the same thing.

A zebra and a horse both adequately explain the sound of hoof-beats. So, all other things being equal (except for the complexity of the explanation) favor the simpler of two theories.

I understand your statement perfectly well, but Dave seems to have meant something else because he came to the conclusion Occam's Razor doesn't apply in the coincidence vs telepathy choice:

Well, as I think you're pointing out, Occam's razor is a test for picking the likelihood between two theories, all other aspects of the theories being equal. In this case, they are not equal, not by a long shot. One has a preponderance of evidence, the other has (what is generally considered) an extreme paucity of evidence. So yeah, Occam's razor does not apply.

I think it applies more than ever, that it was designed for just such choices.

 

[FlexGunship]

I understand your statement perfectly well, but Dave seems to have meant something else because he came to the conclusion Occam's Razor doesn't apply in the coincidence vs telepathy choice:

I think it applies more than ever, that it was designed for just such choices.

I stand corrected.

 

[Deveno]

Were you in the same room?

quite frequently. not always. and, yes (it sounds like such a cliche) there were times when i'd be at work, the phone would ring, and i'd know (by a feeling in my guts) it was her (note: i received many calls at work, at these calls came in at various times during the day).

now,i freely admit, i might have subconsciously noticed some pattern to her calls, and such anecdotal accounts do not constitute "proof" of anything. but i am led to believe that we might (in some sense) be aware of more than we think we are. it would be interesting to see how pairs of identical twins did on "guessing cards" tests, and whether or not they performed within expected statistical norms.

as far as Occam's Razor goes: it is my understanding that some very well-thought-of physical theories depend on "fine-tuned" parameters, and that this is seen as a potential flaw (that is, the very existence of our universe is, in some well-defined sense, improbable).

i think the objections raised by other posters in this thread, namely: "if telepathy is a real ocurence, why isn't it more common?" is a valid one. i agree it's possible that all such occurences could just be coincidence, certainly some unlikely things are bound to happen every now and then. but perhaps not all of them are, for reasons as-yet unknown.

i don't see telepathy as a "useful" explanation, because we can't reproduce it with any regularity (people have tried, even the remote viewing studies released by the CIA, were ambiguous at best, and their methodology has been (justly) criticized). but i also feel (in a vague sense i will not define) that there "is more going on than meets the eye".

looking at the world in an analytic and dispassionate way is fine, as far as it goes. but it's somewhat reductionist, and not (in my opinion) wholly accurate. there's mysteries we haven't solved, and may not ever.