/x/ - Paranormal

Consciousness is one of the hardest problems in science, I don't think anyone can claim to understand it yet. It's definitely more complex than just electric currents in our brain, it goes all the way down to the quantum (subatomic) level. I'm not against the idea that our minds have the ability to extend beyond our skulls and perhaps affect the physical world in some way, but it's a dangerous line of reasoning, because it usually leads to 'positive thinking', 'you create your own reality' and other such nonsense. It leads to 'it's your own fault you got cancer, because you attracted it with your negative thoughts' or 'you don't need to work hard, just be positive and good things will come your way' (which is usually said by women, probably because they're so entitled).

Read The Kybalion.

>>32575

>If our consciousness consists of electric currents

That's so 19th century breh, nowadays it's all about quantum entaglement.

>isn't it possible that we do in fact affect our surroundings and events through expectations?

That's like saying that since our words are made of vibrations, we should be able to influence and move things by talking. Except the actual physical vibrations have no correlation with the meaning we give words, so whatever you're actually doing with electrical currents in your brain (nothing really) is arbitrary and has no correlation with what you think you're doing or what you want to do.

I'm not saying magic doesn't real (though I'm practically certain 100% of internet wizards are roleplayers), but it probably doesn't work like that.

>>32575

Heisenberg principle, and a few others apply here.

As soon as you observe something, you have altered it, so any measurements you take are inaccurate.

We do not 'see' objects. We see a very small slice of the spectrum of light that the objects do not absorb but reflect towards only our eyes. The rest of the light, visible and invisible, is reflected and goes off in infinite directions, so we only see a small part of it all. Color is an illusion. A trick of the light.

We do not actually 'touch' anything due to the sub-atomic nature of matter where like charges repel, much like two magnets' north ends will repel each other, that is what we 'feel' when we 'touch' something, but not the object itself. On the bright side, you have never touched yourself.

Sound is nothing more than pressure waves that not being received, make no noise. (Tree in the forest makes no sound if no ears are near it to register the pressure waves.) Again, we only register a tiny fraction of the frequencies of those pressure waves, and in doing so, we change them through absorption. We'd go mad if we could hear everything at every frequency.

Ever try to look at one of those squiggly things inside of your eyes as it floats across your field of vision? That is life in a nutshell, everything is peripheral and can never be brought into focus, and the harder you try to look at something, the more it eludes you. This is why serendipity has played such an integral part in science, whether scientists wish to acknowledge it or not. Only by not looking for something will you ever really find it.

Good luck, and get therapy. Because if you can fathom the philosophy I just gave you, you're going to need it.

>>32648

>We do not actually 'touch' anything due to the sub-atomic nature of matter where like charges repel, much like two magnets' north ends will repel each other, that is what we 'feel' when we 'touch' something, but not the object itself. On the bright side, you have never touched yourself.

which is why people never get HIV… Oh wait…?

>>32581

>>32575

see webm

>>32674

>>32581

>Consciousness is one of the hardest problems in science, I don't think anyone can claim to understand it yet.

I understand it. It's not physics. Pretty simple.

>>32575

> isn't it possible that we do in fact affect our surroundings and events through expectations?

Go outside on a cloudy day, not overcast. Claim a cloud as part of your body. Will it to grow or shrink, the same way you will your arm to move up and down. I can't guarantee it will work for everyone, but clouds are very sensitive. If it will work at all, it will work on them.

>>32676

HIV is not even remotely the same scale as subatomic physics. That's like saying that if humans can fly in planes around the Earth, we should be able to fly to the Andromeda Galaxy.

>>32716

>I understand it. It's not physics. Pretty simple.

You're like those people who think they understand quantum mechanics. Protip: you don't.

>>32733

>My life has improved tenfold, mundane

Sure it did, that's why you're shitposting here instead of literally anything else.

>>32736

It takes a few minutes and brings me great joy while I'm waiting for things and don't feel like reading or texting. And if my shitposts inspire anybody to come shitpost on /fringe/ instead and maybe learn a thing or two, all the better.

>>32736

I should also mention, before the occult my life was pretty screwed up, so I might have lower standards than you.

>>32746

Tying confirmation bias to the theory of magic is an application of Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is that /fringe/ does rituals and looks for results where none exist. To say otherwise, we would have to make recourse to some nebulous metaphysical… thing… to account for what is happening. However, the simplest explanation is not always the correct explanation. When >>32731 says that the third wave feminists who write Wikipedia articles have "disproven" magical bullshit, it's just not true. They've merely offered a fair assessment of the situation.

Assume for a moment that you really can alter reality through Hermeticism or whatever. However, there are stipulations on what you do. You can never do something cool like defy gravity or turn OP into a heterosexual. All your magic allows you to do is relatively mundane things like getting you a job in your preferred profession. If is indeed real (and again, for the purposes of this thought experiment, we're assuming it is), how would you distinguish this amazing ability from confirmation bias?

>sitting 30 feet from a tree that has a squirrel in it

>begin using magic with the intention of the squirrel coming to me

>the squirrel makes eye contact with me and watches me for a minute

>the squirrel climbs down out of the tree, walks around a staircase, and comes directly to my feet

>other people in the area take note of the occurrence

>I do this again multiple times with multiple animals over the next few weeks, always with other people observing

>the CIA investigates remote viewing

>there is a picture of some Mesoamerican ruins in one room and the subject sits in the other room

>the subject draws the objects in the picture with a significant degree of accuracy and tells that they are ruins

>this is repeatedly achieved under an experimental and scientific setting

>the CIA did not do this for publicity or the scientific community, so they had no reason to lie

>these results were declassified after several decades, and the only reason they stopped pursuing it was because it provided no tactical military advantage

>man in Spain is arrested in the late medieval ages for killing and eating many people

>he claimed to be a werewolf

>the reports show that he had repeatedly traveled a rocky stretch of 400 miles that are infested by wolves, and had done so on foot

>he always made the trip much faster than anybody on foot possibly could

muh confirmation bias

>>32752

1. I can't read

2. I can't read

3. I can't read

>>32752

It's more like

1. lies

2. documents he can't show us/don't say what he says and more bullshit (like "remote viewing provided no tactical advantage" - no shit, it didn't work)

3. literally nothing

This is all a bunch of bullshit, really.