Author Topic: general superparanatural exploration - part 2  (Read 50975 times)

Mr X

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general superparanatural exploration - part 2
« on: 10 August 2015 10:14:30 AM »
this is an continuation from part 1.

http://www.forum4.org/index.php?topic=40.0

mr x.

ps.
for ease of post references, this is 2#0, the first post in part 1 is 1#0.
discussion of the guessing rounds in part 1 are welcome, more guessing rounds are not. we will get to that.

Mr G

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Re: general superparanatural exploration - part 2
« Reply #1 on: 10 August 2015 08:53:08 PM »
Quote
Uncle Sam Doesn't Need You!

...

Then the psychiatrist checked into something else. "You said that you talk to your deceased wife. What do you say to her?"
I got angry. I figure it's none of his damn business, and I say, "I tell her I love her, if it's all right with you!"
After some more bitter exchanges he says, "Do you believe in the supernormal?"
I say, "I don't know what the 'supernormal' is."
"What? You, a Ph.D. in physics, don't know what the supernormal is?"
"That's right."
"It's what Sir Oliver Lodge and his school believe in."
That's not much of a clue, but I knew it. "You mean the supernatural."
"You can call it that if you want."
"All right, I will."
"Do you believe in mental telepathy?"
"No. Do you?"
"Well, I'm keeping an open mind."
"What? You, a psychiatrist, keeping an open mind? Ha!" It went on like this for quite a while.
Then at some point near the end he says, "How much do you value life?"
"Sixty-four."
"Why did you say 'sixty-four'?"
"How are you supposed to measure the value of life?"
"No! I mean, why did you say 'sixty-four,' and not 'seventy-three,' for instance?"
"If I had said 'seventy-three,' you would have asked me the same question!"

...

When I finally got back to Schenectady I went in to see Hans Bethe. He was sitting behind his desk, and he said to me in a joking voice, "Well,
Dick, did you pass?"
I made a long face and shook my head slowly. "No."
Then he suddenly felt terrible, thinking that they had discovered some serious medical problem with me, so he said in a concerned voice, "What's
the matter, Dick?"
I touched my finger to my forehead.
He said, "No!"
"Yes!"
He cried, "No-o-o-o-o-o-o!!!" and he laughed so hard that the roof of the General Electric Company nearly came off

From "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character, by Richard P. Feynman

ju4o

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Re: general superparanatural exploration - part 2
« Reply #2 on: 11 August 2015 11:38:25 AM »
In similar vein,

Quote
In one test the interviewer gave each candidate a blank sheet of paper and asked him to study it and describe what he saw in it. There was no one right response in this sort of test, because it was designed to force the candidate to free-associate in order to see where his mind wandered. The test-wise pilot knew that the main thing was to stay on dry land and not go swimming. As they described with some relish later on in the BOQ, quite a few studied the sheet of paper and then looked the interviewer in the eye and said, "All I see is a blank sheet of paper." This was not a "correct" answer, since the shrinks probably made a note of "inhibited imaginative capacity" or some goddamned thing, but neither did it get you in trouble. One man said, "I see a field of snow." Well, you might get away with that, as long as you didn't go any farther...as long as you did not thereupon start ruminating about freezing to death or getting lost in the snow and running into bears or something of that sort. But Conrad...well, the man is sitting across the table from Conrad and gives him the sheet of paper and asks him to study it and tell him what he sees. Conrad stares at the piece of paper and then looks up at the man and says in a wary tone, as if he fears a trick: "But it's upside down."

This so startles the man, he actually leans across the table and looks at this absolutely blank sheet of paper to see if it's true -- and only after he is draped across the table does he realize that he has been had. He looks at Conrad and smiles a smile of about 33 degrees Fahrenheit.

This was not the way to produce the Halo Effect.

~The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe

Mr X

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Re: general superparanatural exploration - part 2
« Reply #3 on: 13 August 2015 04:09:04 PM »
hello g and j,

nice quotes. an good start. i can remember trying to read the right stuff as an lad. didnt get far. i liked the movie.

as an general reply, first i want to add this link for easy reference, 1#191
http://www.forum4.org/index.php?topic=40.msg1007#msg1007

compared to the start of part 1 i am...not sure what to say. i am more inclined to belief in superpara being real than i was before.

that summary in 1#191 seemed to knock some sense into me. what ever mr paranormal/mr ea is, some intent of the universe, some magical sprite, some program in the matrix or some whatever, it seems like that being involved is an better explanation than us all becoming incredibly accurately telepathic or psychic for fun.

there are however i think some traces of telepathy like things that remain undiscussed. but due to time passed and the transient nature of perceptions it is hard to say for sure.

the best part is that it happened. we wanted to talk about these things and something very interesting happened.

mr g, something i am very curious about is your experience. you reported getting a feeling for the supernatural then retracted it later citing an mental anomaly. if you can remember and want to say, i am wondering about what you experienced, and why you discarded it. in the current context that it is possible mr supernormal was around when you were thinking the new flavor of supernatural was around. and when you shut it down you experienced and strong feeling of unpleasantness.

in other words i am wondering if you actually noticed mr strange as he was around but discarded him as an normal anomaly.

mr x.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElzIPn1pXWE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAL6qVciZMA

tally-ho!

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Re: general superparanatural exploration - part 2
« Reply #4 on: 13 August 2015 07:07:37 PM »
Quote
: i am wondering if you actually noticed mr strange as he was around but discarded him as an normal anomaly.

is your Mr strange and vampire? he might have been "and normal anomaly" that i have seen one of this nights.
אָהוֹי כַּנְטַלָהּ
בַּרִ^י(כְּ) מָנְטָלַה
טַרֻי וָצַ'קָ[ת]
רַתּוּי מֻ(מ)רַטָּ[ת]
כָּהָר מַרֲטָה
טָרִיק בָּרְבַּרֻ רָטַּטֻהִי
אֲשַּׁתֻּהִי
הוֹי!

~נהפכ נהפכ ונהפכ~

Mr X

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Re: general superparanatural exploration - part 2
« Reply #5 on: 15 August 2015 03:55:58 PM »
hello ms z,

no vampires, mr strange in that post was just and more ambiguous way of saying mr paranormal or mr explanatory anthropomorphism.

i assume you are wondering about vampires because it came up recently. i dont belief in them and think you should consider that not everything is connected or has meaning. vampire was an secondary hit, off target but close.

this leaves us with the question, what is mr strange or mr super or whatever. of the possible answers, what do the people of forum4 think it could be ? i have wondered what everyone is bringing to the table regarding that.

we can put the mr hacker theory to rest just by considering the amount of effort it would take him to arrive at 1#191 as an outcome. aside from compromising various isp services, operating systems, firewalls, security software, vpn and encrypted hard drives, mr hacker would then have to socially engineer things like mr g selecting the xhosa book and everything else. just to trick us for fun. to trick an few people on the internet.

its like we have all had the same virus, speaking for myself i was looking at the symptoms, what we each were guessing. it is curious to think, what is the virus / external force ?
on that note, mr g i am pretty sure i felt the mania (positive mania). but what do you think would happen, if an person just sort of happens to notice mr strange, it certainly would not be an low energy event.
i didnt get the depression after, but if we compared timelines i pretty sure i felt that too.

merlin, i am wondering what you think of all this. it wasnt about winning the lottery, but something happened.

mr x,

tally-ho!

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Re: general superparanatural exploration - part 2
« Reply #6 on: 15 August 2015 09:53:35 PM »
Quote
i assume you are wondering about vampires because it came up recently. i dont belief in them and think you should consider that not everything is connected or has meaning.
yet - if you could enlarge vampire's definition to include ticks - ~SINCHRO WARNING!~ - than i spend last night and day killing "vampires".
i mean... ticks.
way less glorious... abnoxious!
why not dragons? octopuses? alas, ticks were all my chance to get to glory...

my dog hardly have any, but his friend is a sibirian-somehing...
in the morning i discovered they were exiting her fur, walking to all directons, climbing the walls.
small ticks, tiny ticks and nano.

and it's not over... i should wash the dogs with viniger or alcohol, but they don't cooperate.
and yes, i belief everythink is connected and have a meaning.
otherwise, how the weekly horoscope can possibly work?

Quote
vampire was an secondary hit, off target but close.
this is incorrect! the word i guessed was from a banner saying:
 "from the author of "blood brothers"
that's another book , part of the "vampire world" trilogy.

thus the mention of "blood" refering to a book about vampires.

Quote
From Library Journal
This fantasy inaugurates a new cycle in the author's "Necroscope" series, which chronicles the war between vampires and the Szgany people, fought in a world ravaged by the remnant of a deteriorated black hole and divided into Starside and Sunside. The story here concerns Nathan and Nestor, twin sons of vampire-slayer Harry Keogh of the previous novels. Separated by the recently renewed vampire attacks, the brothers travel the world, each seeking to understand the mysterious gifts their heritage has given them. Meanwhile, the vampires mass for a civil war that threatens to overwhelm the Szgany as well

i posted other book's cover at the time, because this one is not red, and i was searching for the red book on which "blood" was written bt hand.
on the other hand, this one is blue!
very interested!
-also has 3 sections of text
so mis y-not's cry
 
Quote
"three! blue!"
is due.

PS
Quote
Quote Z:
can you guess a word from the name? or all 3 words?

X:okay, i am not suprised that i might have misunderstood you or thought you were suggesting there were only 3 words.
what?
« Last Edit: 15 August 2015 10:03:57 PM by tally-ho! »
אָהוֹי כַּנְטַלָהּ
בַּרִ^י(כְּ) מָנְטָלַה
טַרֻי וָצַ'קָ[ת]
רַתּוּי מֻ(מ)רַטָּ[ת]
כָּהָר מַרֲטָה
טָרִיק בָּרְבַּרֻ רָטַּטֻהִי
אֲשַּׁתֻּהִי
הוֹי!

~נהפכ נהפכ ונהפכ~

tally-ho!

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Re: general superparanatural exploration - part 2
« Reply #7 on: 16 August 2015 11:50:47 AM »

Quote
Re: general supernatural exploration
« Reply #204 on: 05 August 2015 04:23:48 PM »
 

Ms Y did not know that the book had three words on it when she exclaimed "three! blue!"

jufosito - i see 2 blue things,  were's the third?

...and this too is called "coat of arms":
http://www.lyricsmania.com/coat_of_arms_lyrics_sabaton.html (http://www.lyricsmania.com/coat_of_arms_lyrics_sabaton.html)
and here is a version slightly different
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/sabaton/coatofarms.html (http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/sabaton/coatofarms.html)
אָהוֹי כַּנְטַלָהּ
בַּרִ^י(כְּ) מָנְטָלַה
טַרֻי וָצַ'קָ[ת]
רַתּוּי מֻ(מ)רַטָּ[ת]
כָּהָר מַרֲטָה
טָרִיק בָּרְבַּרֻ רָטַּטֻהִי
אֲשַּׁתֻּהִי
הוֹי!

~נהפכ נהפכ ונהפכ~

ju4o

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Re: general superparanatural exploration - part 2
« Reply #8 on: 17 August 2015 02:13:32 PM »
I simply meant blue=Israel

Quote
Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt tell them to make to themselves fringes in the corners of their garments, putting in them ribands of blue

Meanwhile, here are some more thoughts on the question of meaningfulness (as in: "meaningful [synchronicities] tend to come in meteoric showers scintillating and hinting at half-seen connections as though a woven fabric of intent pervades everything")

A standard skeptical response to the suggestion that an unusual occurrence may be meaningful is to say something like: "People only find that kind of thing meaningful because human brains have evolved to seek meaning;  people tend to invest meaningfulness in phenomena which are not really meaningful".

Which is, in itself, a fair response.

In order for it to be reasonable to attribute meaningfulness to an unusual occurrence that would not normally be the kind of thing that has meaning, there needs to be some kind of special quality about the occurrence which makes it ... well ... not normal.

This is where the paranormal comes into the picture.  Part of the value of statistically outrageous unlikeliness is that it can act as an antidote to that skeptical response by providing a paranormal setting.

If something odd happens, and someone suggests that the universe is telling us something, then it's easy for skeptics to say that the person is "only imagining" that there is meaning in it.

But if a whole lot of curiously related odd things happen, to the extent that what's happening begins to seem statistically unbelievable, then it can start looking more like a scintillating meteor shower hinting at half-seen connections as though a woven fabric of intent pervades everything.

So after that build-up, I'd like to relate the SR desk experiment.

This happened in 2007 and after the 3 forum-wide experiments which I described in part 1 of this thread was the only other forum-wide SR paranormal experiment.

Wu ran an experiment where he put a number up above his desk, and asked people to guess the number, the colour and the medium it was written in.

Several people guessed, including the person who posted as 'power' or 'wonder', who guessed as follows: "The number above the desk is equal to the number of replies in the contest until wu or someone closes the ticket window." In order not to skew any possible result in relation to his guess, he then (without telling us the reason) moved his discussion of the experiment to another thread.

The experiment closed on April 1st, and no one had guessed the number (which was 71), Rooster had guessed the colour correctly (brown) and no one had guessed the medium (duct tape).

Then a few oddities started rolling in ~ some trivial, some curious and some strange.

Wu noted that Rooster's number guess (72) was a remarkably close miss.

Neatly balancing this from the other side, we have emilio's guess ~ he'd guessed the number would be odd and prime, and settled on 67 ~ well, 67 is the next odd prime below 71.

Wu also noted that, out of the blue, Kit (moderator of the "experiments" forum) had mentioned "duct tape" for no apparent reason at all ~ but not as part of a guess.

(She actually mentioned it in the secondary thread to which 'power' later transferred discussion of the experiment)

Tom Booth claimed that his guess (which was the number pi) was (when written as a Greek letter) the closest you could get (in appearance) to 71 (if you write pi with a straight top and shift it sideways a bit)

While all this was happening, 'power' was away on holiday.

To appreciate the next oddity, note the chronology of the replies on the main thread of the experiment:

March 22nd: 11 replies
March 23rd: 11 replies
March 24th: 5 replies
March 25th: 10 replies
March 26th: 2 replies
March 27th: 2 replies
March 28th: 4 replies
March 29th: 3 replies
March 30th: --
March 31st: --
April 1st: 6 replies (including revelation of answer in coded form)
April 2nd: 8 replies (including revelation of answer decoded)
April 3rd: 8 replies
April 4th: 1 reply

April 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th: ** (silence)

----------total 71 replies----------------

On April 12th 'power' came back from holiday, and said hey look there are 71 replies in the thread.

Which was the case not merely at that instant; the remarkable thing was that the thread had calmed down of its own accord and settled at 71 replies, and stayed there for a whole week, without anyone noticing that this was the secret number.

Wu refused to accept this as a winning guess because he'd revealed the answer on April 1st/2nd and considered the experiment closed at that point.

In my opinion, on the other hand, in these semi-magical guessing-games, the exact form of words used may be very important.

'power' hadn't said "until the experiment closes", he had said "until the ticket window closes".

Well, the ticket window is the window through which bets are placed, and through which winnings are paid out.  As long as there are winning tickets outstanding, the window stays open.

Thus the ticket window stayed open until 'power' came back from holiday on April 12th and declared his winning ticket, which was a winning ticket *because* the window was still open at that point.

Intriguingly self-referential, and not surprisingly this opinion didn't go down at all well with the SR skeptics.

It doesn't matter, there is more to come.

We need to review another aspect of the experiment, which is that in order to preclude cheating on the part of the experimenter, wu said at the start that he would send an encrypted form of the answer to Kit (whom everyone trusted not to try to break the code prematurely), and that he would close the experiment by publishing this encrypted form of the answer (thus giving everyone the enjoyable task of trying to crack it for themselves) and then finally (if no one cracked it) announcing the answer in clear.

But there are issues about how safe that procedure actually is and one problem is that we had to trust Kit not to try to break the code prematurely and secretly tip off someone else to make a winning guess.

Of course, we all did trust her, but still theoretically there was a problem.

Well, the beautiful thing about 'power's guess is that (unlike everybody else's guesses) it could not possibly be the result of a secret tip-off from Kit.

The only way that his guess could have been the result of dishonest collusion would be if everyone in the forum colluded in order to make the thread settle at 71 replies.

So *any particular member* can say to themselves "I know that *I* did not collude, therefore 'power's guess can't have been dishonest."

Note also that, thinking of things the other way around, this turns collusion from a bad thing (practised by a subset of the forum in order to fool the remainder) into a good thing (practised telepathically by the forum as a whole in order to reach a desired result).

However, 'power's guess had a blemish:  in order to make it win, everyone in the forum had to contribute their telepathic collusion in order to make the thread settle at 71 replies, but only 'power' would get the credit.

Since everyone in the forum contributed telepathically to making the guess win, it would be much more just if the forum as a whole could get the credit.

This sets the scene for the final oddity, the real slammer, which emerged when Aventurine (the poster of wistful sobriety) thought of analyzing the digits in everyone's guesses:

   
Quote
Of the 13 original guesses, here is the breakdown on the numbers 0-9 guessed:

    0 - 1
    1 - 5
    2 - 1
    3 - 2
    4 - 1
    5 - 2
    6 - 3
    7 - 8
    8 - 1
    9 - 0

    That's right - '7' was guessed the most (8 times) and '1' was guessed second most (5 times).

or, putting it another way,

    The correct answer of 71 was built up forum-wide and holographically:

    Each person's guess adds a quantum of illumination to the digits they select.

    At the end of the contest, the most brightly glowing digit by far is 7; second place goes to 1.

This is the essence of the Age of Aquarius : forum-wide telepathic collusion, dreaming together


tally-ho!

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Re: general superparanatural exploration - part 2
« Reply #9 on: 17 August 2015 04:33:13 PM »
I simply meant blue=Israel

yes, but -
mis-/mis y exclamation was "three! blue!"
leave aside the encient sorcery of the Mizvah [=comandment, decree] of zizit [=those fringes on the corner of garments - which, BTW, in modern times are a part of Jewish religion, apart from Israeli nationality)
the color blue IS considered representive of nationality though - being the flag and emblen color;

so - can you reckon what she could have meant by "three!"?

Quote
Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt tell them to make to themselves fringes in the corners of their garments, putting in them ribands of blue

something to do with and blue book? X's choice? mine?

and how does that link to my nationality? and were the vampires are fitting into the wide picture?
isis is  and vampiric sect?
turned loose by one?

Quote
This is the essence of the Age of Aquarius : forum-wide telepathic collusion, dreaming together

aquarius?
that explain everything! (joking)

...i had my own amature thoughts about that experiment -
reading it recently, i was quite sure the number was changing all the time
also - i seemed to see that the material and color were changing as well, in short - everyday Wu was hanging a new note above that desk of his.
of course, this we have no means to  check, so - maybe i should have rather shut-up here.
 
PS what happend to the option "quote" that used to appear above each post? now it appears only at the page of "reply" - so if you want to quote another thread, or even remote page, you have to do it manually. awkward!

PSS i never believed in vampires, untill i met one. she is even, up to this day, among my facebook  friends...

אָהוֹי כַּנְטַלָהּ
בַּרִ^י(כְּ) מָנְטָלַה
טַרֻי וָצַ'קָ[ת]
רַתּוּי מֻ(מ)רַטָּ[ת]
כָּהָר מַרֲטָה
טָרִיק בָּרְבַּרֻ רָטַּטֻהִי
אֲשַּׁתֻּהִי
הוֹי!

~נהפכ נהפכ ונהפכ~

Mr X

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Re: general superparanatural exploration - part 2
« Reply #10 on: 18 August 2015 02:01:48 AM »

Mr G

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Re: general superparanatural exploration - part 2
« Reply #11 on: 18 August 2015 11:19:01 AM »
Hi i'm just popping in to say sorry for not taking part in the conversation. I'm just having to deal with "mountains" of work.. Sorry, i'm sure for some people it would be a minor chore but I'm not one of them.. Once more into the fray i go..

Merlin

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Re: general superparanatural exploration - part 2
« Reply #12 on: 18 August 2015 11:05:26 PM »
Sorry struggling to understand these lottery games...

Anyway, the question that sort of stands out and smacks one in the eye is ...
If all this nearly there, almost right, close-but-not-quite etc. guesswork is an act of a supernatural entity ... is the entity guessing too?
If not, and if it is the work of the paranormal, why is it being so cryptic?

I imagine that if there is something that can transfer number/word information telepathically, it would transfer all the information rather than bits of it for a laugh.

Understanding that Ra6 has a reputation for the lowest miracle declaration threshold yet witnessed in a public space, my view is that he appears to have roped you all into a virtual life-of-Brian script.

Tupe:  https://youtu.be/krb2OdQksMc?t=2m33s

Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?

ju4o

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Re: general superparanatural exploration - part 2
« Reply #13 on: 19 August 2015 07:16:09 AM »

It's a question of staying in the sweet spot where things are startling but not too startling.

If the information transmission experiments were too successful, we'd have to start not believing each other and/or wondering if the little cameras at the top of laptop screens could somehow get turned on remotely, which would destroy the nice easy feeling of the forum.
 

Mr X

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Re: general superparanatural exploration - part 2
« Reply #14 on: 19 August 2015 10:31:42 PM »
hello merlin,

you raise some points that apply to not only the guessing games but general supernatural exploration.

Anyway, the question that sort of stands out and smacks one in the eye is ...
If all this nearly there, almost right, close-but-not-quite etc. guesswork is an act of a supernatural entity ... is the entity guessing too?
If not, and if it is the work of the paranormal, why is it being so cryptic?

firstly, we dont know it was an supernatural intelligence, just that something happened at all. and what happened seemed to be more than just a strong sequence of coincidences.

i can see what you are saying, and i ask why wouldnt it be cryptic to us ? why would we understand how supernatural forces work. like an radio just tuning into an crackling band enough to hear some words and numbers. there could still be an superpara quality to it all without some intelligence singling us out. such as meat to meat telepathy running at 00.1 capacity. or pure incredible luck. even then we would not understand how it works.

there is probably a reason why the famous quote is

"God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm."

and not

"when the supernatural does something, it is always well explained, and neat and tidy, everyone understands everything, and there is no room for interpretation, as our minds are capable of understanding the workings of the divine."

I imagine that if there is something that can transfer number/word information telepathically, it would transfer all the information rather than bits of it for a laugh.

i imagine thats how true telepathy would work. if we were face to face, i could say all of this post, possibly in an instant, without words. you would hear, comprehend everything despite spelling grammer or language, and reply in real time.  so that is not what happened.

if we were just scratching the telepathic surface, an number here, word there, synchronous behavior or experience there, would make sense. if it was purely us involved.

if there were some external force such as an generic intelligence of the universe or even an preternatural scamp involved, we shouldnt apply human rationality and expect and non human intelligence or force to comply. wether it is an glimpse of an impersonal wider network of information, or an actual entity of some sort, there is no reason why it would play by our rules or make any sense to us.

with ghosts, as an generic example, say at an old building an caretaker, contractor and security guard all see the full bodied apparition of the same figure at different times. with no prior knowledge of the haunt. one things leads to another they compare notes, get their minds blown. independent accurate hits on an paranormal thing. researchers come in to look for the ghost with all their electronics and gear, cant find anything other than hints something is around. why would the ghost not transfer all its information to everyone, and just use its appearances on some people. nobody knows.

as an side, have you seen what happens when people claim to telepathically receive all the information from an being - it is called channeling and results in all sorts of new agery. not pretty.

mr x.

tupe for merlin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BNjJutK_4A&t=1m47s
tupe for g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amJCWEgSnAs

ps.
mr j as and side note - unless you use the laptop camera daily you should keep it covered up, in the same way you should have av/firewall and so on.