Thread: Sceptics, please explain this

Originally Posted by Kraftwerk

Skeptics always find a way. Whether its logical, and grounded in reality like this, or illogical and crazy, just to prove somethings not real.

If they find a way to prove something is not real and its grounded in reality and logic, then that means they were correct in being a skeptic. Being a skeptic is a very good thing, if you are right.

There isn't much to post about it though, since all the tricks have already been explained here and even in the comments of the videos themself. Stuff like that is all about technique. If you show an average person the right technique they can do it. If you try it without the right technique, its possible to get hurt.

Fire walking is a good example. If you walk slowly anyone can do it, and they wont get hurt. If you walk quickly however, you will get hurt because as you walk you will push your feet deeper into the pit of coals, because there is more pressure on your feet when you move fast or run. Or if you stop at any point, you will also get burned. The correct technique is to just walk at a casual pace.

Since we are throwing out all the classic examples, that have already been disproven, might as well bring out the laying on a bed of nails. Looks scary and dangerous but the reason a person can lay on a bed of nails is because their weight is spread out over a large area. You can even have people walk on top of you and you wont get hurt. Nothing special about it though.

Seems people are thinking skeptic=atheist in just about everything. Skeptic just means that, skeptic. If i saw someone do something unbelievable and someone tells me "yeah right", they are a skeptic, not an atheist. I do not get it.

Originally Posted by Spartiate

I saw them do it on Mythbusters . There's nothing to it apparently.

Has anyone here firewalked?

I have never firewalked before, but if I was ever given the chance I would be more than happy to give it a try. Even just so I could say that I did. Its been studied enough, and proven that I feel perfectly safe doing it.

All you have to do is build a fire and then spread the coals on the ground for fifteen feet and walk across. Surely you have the ability to do that? That is your opportunity.

Yea but I dont think anyone is going to appricate me dumping fifteen feet worth of coals onto their yard, and I am not sure they will let you do that in a park or anything. Talk about a mess, that isn't something I want to clean up.

You can do it in the woods, by the train tracks, or in your own yard, or outside of town. You won't have to clean it up as long as it is not in a neighbor's yard.

I am not that interested in it. It is more of an interesting thing that I wouldn't mind doing if I had the chance. Driving an hour out of town, buying a few hundred dollars worth of coals, sitting around for hours to burn them and putting them all in place is a bit to much work.

Its defenitly not worth it unless you got a group of people, and even then its normally a party thing. In fact that is where most people do it, at parties and stuff. Its a party trick.

Just as firewalking requires some information (techniques of how to do it safely), I believe setting up the coals requires a certain technique as well. I am not qualified to create a bed of burning coals that is safe for firewalking, and so I leave it to experts who have been doing it for a long time. However, if given the opportunity without having to go too far out of my way, I will most happily try it.

Again: the video of the magic trick. The video of the guys who convinced a load of people they could run across water (with far better quality).

This isn't going to convince anybody Dannon. This is what we're trying to explain. There's hundreds of videos on the internet of mysterious things which have later turned out to be just hoaxes, which looked far more impressive than that.

I was just wondering if anybody tried fire walking. This video i posted is not meant to convince anybody, since of course it is not convincing if you think it could be a hoax, namely because the video is from far away and it could be that it only looks like he is sitting in the fire because of the zoom. But I don't think that this video is either a hoax or meant to mislead anybody. I think that this guy is minding his own business doing a fire meditation and happened to be filmed. But like I said, it looks as if he is sitting in the fire but may be an optical illusion. I just thought it was an interesting video to post since we ended up talking about fire walking. My viewpoint is that walking on coals is obviously possible by anybody also. I am not trying to convince anybody that it isn't possible, and thus paranormal. Heck, I've done it. I've seen rich middle-aged new agers do it. Anybody can do it.

And I also think that everything has a rational explanation. The misconception I feel is that people feel the need to find something that defies explanation to feel that the Universe is Divine, whatever that means. As if only something unexplainable can prove Divinity. And so people who have faith in reductionist science and materialism are lead to conclude that there is no Divinity (whatever that means). But trying to prove or disprove Divinity is futile. There are laws of physics, laws of nature, what have you, but that doesn't mean something has to defy those laws in order to prove spirit. The only proof for spirit is a subjective individual proof via a personal spiritual experience, not an objective empirical proof. Those who haven't had that experience either believe or not, either have blind faith or look for 'miracles' to prove it in order to give faith. Faith is a substitute for knowledge. The rationalist and the skeptic and the scientist put more stock in knowledge than faith, and rightly so, because it is knowledge that will set us free from blind faith.

But still, even if everything has a rational explanation, and all mysteries solved, this does not mean that this Universe isn't Divine. Only that there is no place for faith. Not that the Universe only has a divine origin, but that every particle and wave is inherently divine. But trying to define and explain the Divineness people come up with absurd theologies, imao, to convince others who don't need convincing, creating flying spaghetti monsters. They deny empirically proven observations in favor of a fantasy, and then look for proof for the fantasy. There is no contradiction between truth and truth.



No beliefs are necessary, no explanations from any side. Why do people feel the need to look for miracles? Isn't it a miracle to be alive? Isn't the Universe a miracle enough, with all of its laws of physics and quantum mechanics? Isn't love a miracle? Why do we need to look for people walking on water or bending spoons to strengthen our faith? These do not give us faith, but suppress our doubt. And empty faith that needs miracles and proof to justify itself is not faith, but ignorance. Knowledge is supported by truth. Beliefs are supported by limited mental concepts and flawed reasoning. We should discard beliefs in favor of knowledge. And why do others feel that if something is explainable that it isn't wonderful? Even if I knew the grand unified theory and everything was explained, would not cease my wonder. The living quality of the buzzing energy that courses through every atom, a Universe in every atom, and that I can feel it, and to realize that I am the Universe experiencing itself from inside itself. That cannot be explained in any way that will take away the wonder. And this feeling is beyond any theism or atheism and what I think Albert Einstein felt when he said things like this:

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences his self, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separate from the rest-- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion, to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in it’s beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself part of the liberation and foundation for inner security."

--Albert Einstein

Chi is definitely real , I've felt it during meditation. It's conscious energy, observation energy, wherever your attention is on, energy flows to it. Chi has been proven to exist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7ht1...eature=related

It will take years to do what some of these martial artists can do, this stuff takes time and patience..and plenty of meditation...most peoples minds are cluttered, with little to no right-brain activity. Strictly left-brain prisoners. Most can't even visualize with the minds eye. Heck, most people don't even breathe right, and are oxygen starved.

Even Einstein said "imagination is more important than knowledge".

To manipulate Chi, you need a calm and relaxed mind, meditation does that. If you have meditated before, you notice there are momentary glimpses of seeing that concentration is feasible, but it can't be sustained. It constantly slips again and the mind goes right back to where it came from.

Originally Posted by Xei

Again: the video of the magic trick. The video of the guys who convinced a load of people they could run across water (with far better quality).

Please explain. What are you referring to here?

Originally Posted by Aquanina

Please explain. What are you referring to here?

Probably referring to Liquid Mountaineering:

This is a really, really awesome video about healthy skepticism



Like he says: "I am not saying you are not magical; YOU are saying you are. So prove it." He's got the right attitude. He isn't setting out to disprove all this stuff; he's giving people an opportunity to prove it, because the onus is on the person who claims that stuff. So instead of feeling offended at skepticism, how about considering it as an opportunity to really show the world the wonderful stuff it's missing out on?

For example, re: Majestic's "Chi proof" video:

I felt the wind generated by my fingers as they whooshed by. I might have also hallucinated something slightly warm. But that's not a proof. Proof would be:

1) Someone ELSE can swirl their fingers around and I feel it

2) Someone ELSE swirls their fingers around (or otherwise pushes chi into me), in conditions where I cannot see what they're doing... and I have to be able to tell whether I'm feeling that warmth exactly at the right time.

THOSE would be proper observational conditions. Do you understand the difference between a proper experiment and some random youtube trick?

Originally Posted by Replicon

For example, re: Majestic's "Chi proof" video:

I felt the wind generated by my fingers as they whooshed by. I might have also hallucinated something slightly warm. But that's not a proof. Proof would be:

1) Someone ELSE can swirl their fingers around and I feel it

2) Someone ELSE swirls their fingers around (or otherwise pushes chi into me), in conditions where I cannot see what they're doing... and I have to be able to tell whether I'm feeling that warmth exactly at the right time.

THOSE would be proper observational conditions. Do you understand the difference between a proper experiment and some random youtube trick?

How about if someone used chi to heal your gall bladder right before you were going into surgery to get the stones removed, but the chi dissolved the stones in 15 minutes?

I think eventually there will be a full-blown scientific explanation for chi, I believe the working theory is that it has to do with the body's flow of electromagnetism. If so one day it will be as important to fundamental human biology as the cardiovascular system. Apparently firewalking has to do with channeling all of the body's chi to auras around the feet. Those auras are distinctly visible under the lens of kirlian photography.

At any rate, none of the above really matters to me. I "believe" in chi because I've experimented with it before and manipulated its flow beyond the shadow of a doubt. I should really get back into that, don't know why I ever stopped meditating really.

Originally Posted by Dannon Oneironaut

How about if someone used chi to heal your gall bladder right before you were going into surgery to get the stones removed, but the chi dissolved the stones in 15 minutes?

Is there a device attached that is measuring the stones getting dissolved?

Originally Posted by Dannon Oneironaut

How about if someone used chi to heal your gall bladder right before you were going into surgery to get the stones removed, but the chi dissolved the stones in 15 minutes?

In Gregg Braden's movie 'The Science of Miracles', he mentions a story of a woman who healed her cancer in 3 minutes. Helped by three spiritua practitioners. She had tried everything else before, conventional medicine, etc. It can be seen in his video that the cancer virtually shrinks and disappears in a very short time as the practitioners repeat a mantra, and the woman supposedly also 'prays' in her head. The shrinking cancer is seen on the X-ray (if they use an X-ray for this, forgive me my ignorance).

Do you believe this could be true? Or just a hoax or Braden?

the only experience with things Im not readily able to explain is when I tried seeing my own aura before. following the instructions of the wingmakers site, I attempted to look past my own hand over a white backdrop. eventually I could see a light blue outline around my hand. some days it was green instead though. The site said after you get good at your hand try doing it in a mirror and look above your head to see your whole aura. To my surprise this actually worked. Around my head was blue, but down to my shoulders (I had a red shirt on) it suddenly turned turquoise. Farther down the page I came to a point that warned that colors had natural opposites, and if you look at one color, the aura will be the opposite. The opposite turned out to be turquoise. That was pretty cool to me.

It suggested next you should try to see other peoples...but honestly, you cant get away with just staring at another person that long...feels weird. >.> unless they are interested in trying too.

Originally Posted by juroara

There's a great way to test the theories of skeptics. Ask someone of the same weight/height/muscular tone to reproduce these amazing feats. Can anyone do it just because they have the right 'physics'? I think the answer is no. I disagree with the skeptics. This isn't just about physical physics, there is a mental aspect to these amazing feats. That's why it's called mind over matter.

Another example would be walking on hot coal. Skeptics also offered a great scientific argument that anyone can walk on hot coal and not get burned. The very same skeptics that offered this scientific argument however, were too chicken to try it, and it doesn't explain why so many tourists who go to these places where people walk on burning coal - get burned.

Mind is the missing element. It's the difference between whether or not you get burned, sliced or diced. And many physicists agree.

This is the definition of close-mindedness. You present a situation in which the reality of it could be tested, but then you draw your own conclusion without ever actually performing the test. You already believe your assumptions to be correct; therefore your mind is closed to all other possibilities.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

This is the definition of close-mindedness. You present a situation in which the reality of it could be tested, but then you draw your own conclusion without ever actually performing the test. You already believe your assumptions to be correct; therefore your mind is closed to all other possibilities.

My argument was based on the REALITY that people have been burned. If the answer was so simple that the surface of the coal isn't hot enough to burn - then no one should get burned. My argument was based on another scientific research - that measured the surfaced temperature of the coal - and found it to be hot enough to burn anyone. But not everyone was burned.

I didn't deny all other possibilities. But you find it necessary to toss insults.

Originally Posted by juroara

My argument was based on the REALITY that people have been burned. If the answer was so simple that the surface of the coal isn't hot enough to burn - then no one should get burned. My argument was based on another scientific research - that measured the surfaced temperature of the coal - and found it to be hot enough to burn anyone. But not everyone was burned.

I didn't deny all other possibilities. But you find it necessary to toss insults.

You're overlooking the rate at which this extreme heat is transferred. Since the human foot is such a terrible conductor, the time it takes to burn via conduction (the primary way heat is transferred in firewalking) is slightly longer than the contact-time between feet and coals when walking the pit.

Just some basic physics for you to ponder over and incorporate into your views, if you so choose.

Also, fucking magnets, how do they work?