Poll: ESP: Does/Could it exist?

[SharPhoe]

Yeah, I'm actually making a serious topic for once. The end just may be nigh.

I have a friend. We'll call this person "Vee". One Friday night, after a trip to the mall went badly (and that's a huge understatement), Vee was to spend the night at my house, at my request. Upon doing so, and after some heated phone calls between Vee and another friend of mine, Vee decided to reveal a secret to me.

He said that he was capable of Extra-Sensory Perception, or ESP. In particular, he said he had the abilities of premonition (seeing the future) and aura perception (being able to sense the energies around a person).

My friend came over and, after another rough talk, Vee explained some things to me: namely, that he could tell that my friend's aura was very erratic, with several shades of red, blue, and violet going at once, meaning that he was feeling a mix of anger and depression at the time. He also told me that he saw a glimpse of what was to come for him, and noted that, even though my friend was very happy with his current girlfriend, it wouldn't last, and she would wind up leaving him. Months later, that prediction came true, though not in the exact sense.

I didn't want to reveal this to Vee at the time, because I didn't wish to hurt his feelings, but... I never believed a word of what he said about his abilities, even though I lied and said I did. I had more than my share of reasons, among which were:

* He said he could tell what my friend's emotions were based on his auras, while at the same time, I could very easily see the exact same thing just from how he was acting. It's not like it was hidden.

* His prediction about my friend's relationship wasn't hard to come to at all, considering the troubles that had arisen in the time they were together. Besides that, I also knew that Vee was saying that for his own gain.

* That night, I had a very bad feeling in my gut about what had transpired that day, and Vee explained to me why I felt that way. His explanation was 100% incorrect.

*While talking to my friend, he got out of the car and sat in the grass by my house. Vee freaked out and ran outside too, quickly brushing up the dead leaves and rubble from beside where my friend was siting. He said that there was a shard of glass sitting there, and that if he hadn't acted, my friend was going to use it on himself. I checked that same spot not a week later, and there wasn't a scrap of glass to be found, at all.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that ESP is entirely a load of bunk. There's a chance that it may actually exist in some small way. Based on the evidence I was presented, however, I came to the conclusion that Vee was making it up for attention.

tl;dr conclusion:
My question to you, Escapists, is this: Do you believe that the ability of Extra-Sensory Perception does or could exist in some way, shape or form?

 

[Leorex]

esp dose not exist, but being animals we have instincts.

 

[black lincon]

Absolutely not. and anyone who tries to tell me you only use ten percent of your brain and imagine what you could to if we used all of it;
http://www.cracked.com/article_16241_6-most-frequently-quoted-bullsht-statistics.html
read #5, that will explain why you're wrong.

 

[Easykill]

It seems totally ridiculous. Except that people commonly have dreams that foretell the future: deja vu and all that crap. It's fucking confusing.

 

[Johnmw]

I'm not one for the one setence statement but, NO, and such thinking hold back the human race.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that ESP is entirely a load of bunk. shape or form?

I AM - seriously this kind of thinking should have been left behind in the dark ages's....sorry if i've offended anyone but it's true.

 

[Lazzi]

Im aware that what Im abotu to say is rather rude, but I mean it with the most love ans respect possible.

Your pal is bat shit crazy. Ill admit, the whole concept of ESP is wonderful and I actully wish it was real. However Vee just as a high EG and is crazy. He has confused the ability to be empathatic with being having extra sensroy pereption.

 

[black lincon]

It seems totally ridiculous. Except that people commonly have dreams that foretell the future: deja vu and all that crap. It's fucking confusing.

To understand prophetic dreams you have to understand regular dreams. All dreams do is play back what you've already seen, but they generally combine things. Like if you've ever seen a meadow, a beaver, a seagull, and a kung-fu fight scene, you might dream about a seagull and a beaver kung-fu fighting in a meadow. However, your never going to see that. But, if you've ever seen a pencil, a paper, a desk and your hands, you might see your hands holding a pencil writing something on a desk, which if you are a student is a very familiar scene. You'll then remember the dream and it will seem like you predicted the future.

 

[RockKillsKid]

Of course I believe in Extra Sensory Perception...psychic auras or the ability to communicate with the dead...not so much. But there are vast amounts of ways of absorbing information in the universe and I'm certain there are others out there besides the limited scope that humans can experience.

Sharks, for example, have ESP. They can detect minuscule electrical signal traveling through the water, even as small as the ones sent by the central nervous system of their prey. They therefore know if a human they're following is about to start swimming away, even before the person's arm does. If left unexplained, this could be easily viewed as the ability to sense the future, instead of the more natural, yet still friggin' awesome sense that it is. I imagine the ability to detect infrared light (would be able to "see" in the "dark") would seem just as supernatural if not explained.

So yes, I believe in strict terms that ESP can/ does exist, it's just not so much supernatural or paranormal as it is unexplained or lacking a logical definition.

 

[SharPhoe]

-snip-

There were probably nicer ways to put that, but your point is valid nonetheless.

 

[Snowalker]

I do not believe people have an ESP, but I do believe some people have a higher ability in a certain sense. I believe mine is Perception, not because I'm going on my own judgements, but because my friends cailm I am very perceptive. Honestly, I think it has to do a lot with the fact that I'm level headed, though I do tend to think I have a better insight into human emotion than the average person.

 

[Extremist18]

I believe ESP exists.

 

[Easykill]

It seems totally ridiculous. Except that people commonly have dreams that foretell the future: deja vu and all that crap. It's fucking confusing.

To understand prophetic dreams you have to understand regular dreams. All dreams do is play back what you've already seen, but they generally combine things. Like if you've ever seen a meadow, a beaver, a seagull, and a kung-fu fight scene, you might dream about a seagull and a beaver kung-fu fighting in a meadow. However, your never going to see that. But, if you've ever seen a pencil, a paper, a desk and your hands, you might see your hands holding a pencil writing something on a desk, which if you are a student is a very familiar scene. You'll then remember the dream and it will seem like you predicted the future.

If only it was that simple, but it's really not. There's SOMETHING more to it, because it's never vague things like that. They're short clips, but very detailed and slide into reality perfectly. And it can't just be that you produce so many billions of images that you get one right eventually, because I usually consciously remember them for a month or so after having them.

 

[black lincon]

It seems totally ridiculous. Except that people commonly have dreams that foretell the future: deja vu and all that crap. It's fucking confusing.

To understand prophetic dreams you have to understand regular dreams. All dreams do is play back what you've already seen, but they generally combine things. Like if you've ever seen a meadow, a beaver, a seagull, and a kung-fu fight scene, you might dream about a seagull and a beaver kung-fu fighting in a meadow. However, your never going to see that. But, if you've ever seen a pencil, a paper, a desk and your hands, you might see your hands holding a pencil writing something on a desk, which if you are a student is a very familiar scene. You'll then remember the dream and it will seem like you predicted the future.

If only it was that simple, but it's really not. There's SOMETHING more to it, because it's never vague things like that. They're short clips, but very detailed and slide into reality perfectly. And it can't just be that you produce so many billions of images that you get one right eventually, because I usually consciously remember them for a month or so after having them.

it's a little like flashbacks, you never remember your dreams but they can linger and be triggered when you see similar things. the mind see's things by relating it to things it's already seen. I've heard a theory about the native americans not being able to see the giant European ships because they had no reference to go off of and their mind couldn't comprehend what they saw. You have a short dream about you writing, then the next day your hands happen to be in the same position as in the dream you forgot, then your mind remembers the dream and fills in the blank spots in the paper with whats there so you can better understand with the situation at hand, it's you mind messing with itself.

 

[Emendo5]

Infact, there is not any form of ESP that are displayed in freaky movies and stories. The brain can however absorb information during REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement). So you have a dream that you are in alot of pain, and your arm is broken, or something of the such has happened to a roommate. You wake up, and it has come true, your arm is broken. This is not because of ESP however, this is because your brain can recieve information during sleep. It's science, not mystic powers of ESP.

 

[Khedive Rex]

It seems totally ridiculous. Except that people commonly have dreams that foretell the future: deja vu and all that crap. It's fucking confusing.

To understand prophetic dreams you have to understand regular dreams. All dreams do is play back what you've already seen, but they generally combine things. Like if you've ever seen a meadow, a beaver, a seagull, and a kung-fu fight scene, you might dream about a seagull and a beaver kung-fu fighting in a meadow. However, your never going to see that. But, if you've ever seen a pencil, a paper, a desk and your hands, you might see your hands holding a pencil writing something on a desk, which if you are a student is a very familiar scene. You'll then remember the dream and it will seem like you predicted the future.

If only it was that simple, but it's really not. There's SOMETHING more to it, because it's never vague things like that. They're short clips, but very detailed and slide into reality perfectly. And it can't just be that you produce so many billions of images that you get one right eventually, because I usually consciously remember them for a month or so after having them.

Same here. Prophetic dreams are very real, they don't involve guesswork or your brain randomly assigning objects to settings until one is sort of right.

I've had prophetic dreams about chatting with people I wouldn't meet till two months later. Never seen their faces, never spoken to them. I therefore could not have randomly imagined them, by your logic.

As for the topic at hand, I believe in ESP. By the same token, that doesn't mean every carnival worker who can guess your weight and age is a bonafide Nostradamus. Your friend is not psychic, your friend is suffering from delusions of grandeur. I'm assuming you're all teenagers. S/He will grow out of it.

EDIT:

it's a little like flashbacks, you never remember your dreams but they can linger and be triggered when you see similar things. the mind see's things by relating it to things it's already seen. I've heard a theory about the native americans not being able to see the giant European ships because they had no reference to go off of and their mind couldn't comprehend what they saw. You have a short dream about you writing, then the next day your hands happen to be in the same position as in the dream you forgot, then your mind remembers the dream and fills in the blank spots in the paper with whats there so you can better understand with the situation at hand, it's you mind messing with itself.

I've seen the movie you're quoting from. It's something like "What the $%&^ do we know?!" or an equally scholarly topic. The premise of that movie was arguably as bad the premise that Vee has ESP.

By the logic you've presented, memory synapses in the brain are a stronger indicator of human behavior than our most prevalent sense. Literally, you're saying we can ignore stimuli because it doesn't have a pre-existing memory synapse. The counter example? If I burn you with a big old flame thrower and you've never been burnt before, you'll still try to get away. It'll hurt. You won't sit in the flames and think to yourself, "this is quite a unique feeling, I'm not sure what to compare it to so I'll choose to ignore it."

You'll forgive me, to this day that movie makes me very irritated. It uses metaphysics and poor science to justify philosophical claims that have no warrant in reality. If you're trying to use it as source material for an argument, you should really find better source material.

 

[Easykill]

It seems totally ridiculous. Except that people commonly have dreams that foretell the future: deja vu and all that crap. It's fucking confusing.

To understand prophetic dreams you have to understand regular dreams. All dreams do is play back what you've already seen, but they generally combine things. Like if you've ever seen a meadow, a beaver, a seagull, and a kung-fu fight scene, you might dream about a seagull and a beaver kung-fu fighting in a meadow. However, your never going to see that. But, if you've ever seen a pencil, a paper, a desk and your hands, you might see your hands holding a pencil writing something on a desk, which if you are a student is a very familiar scene. You'll then remember the dream and it will seem like you predicted the future.

If only it was that simple, but it's really not. There's SOMETHING more to it, because it's never vague things like that. They're short clips, but very detailed and slide into reality perfectly. And it can't just be that you produce so many billions of images that you get one right eventually, because I usually consciously remember them for a month or so after having them.

it's a little like flashbacks, you never remember your dreams but they can linger and be triggered when you see similar things. the mind see's things by relating it to things it's already seen. I've heard a theory about the native americans not being able to see the giant European ships because they had no reference to go off of and their mind couldn't comprehend what they saw. You have a short dream about you writing, then the next day your hands happen to be in the same position as in the dream you forgot, then your mind remembers the dream and fills in the blank spots in the paper with whats there so you can better understand with the situation at hand, it's you mind messing with itself.

Again, that's logical and fits into what I know about the brain. Except, as I said, I often DO remember. I know the memory isn't being edited by the similar experience calling it, because it didn't need to be called. I already remembered.

 

[Leorex]

It seems totally ridiculous. Except that people commonly have dreams that foretell the future: deja vu and all that crap. It's fucking confusing.

To understand prophetic dreams you have to understand regular dreams. All dreams do is play back what you've already seen, but they generally combine things. Like if you've ever seen a meadow, a beaver, a seagull, and a kung-fu fight scene, you might dream about a seagull and a beaver kung-fu fighting in a meadow. However, your never going to see that. But, if you've ever seen a pencil, a paper, a desk and your hands, you might see your hands holding a pencil writing something on a desk, which if you are a student is a very familiar scene. You'll then remember the dream and it will seem like you predicted the future.

If only it was that simple, but it's really not. There's SOMETHING more to it, because it's never vague things like that. They're short clips, but very detailed and slide into reality perfectly. And it can't just be that you produce so many billions of images that you get one right eventually, because I usually consciously remember them for a month or so after having them.

it's a little like flashbacks, you never remember your dreams but they can linger and be triggered when you see similar things. the mind see's things by relating it to things it's already seen. I've heard a theory about the native americans not being able to see the giant European ships because they had no reference to go off of and their mind couldn't comprehend what they saw. You have a short dream about you writing, then the next day your hands happen to be in the same position as in the dream you forgot, then your mind remembers the dream and fills in the blank spots in the paper with whats there so you can better understand with the situation at hand, it's you mind messing with itself.

of corse they could see the European ships. they had fishing boats them selves. i think its very ignorant to think that they couldent see it, because they hadent thought of it.

 

[headshotcatcher]

I do believe stuff like it exists, theres a guy who told the medical personnel, few hours after he'd awoken from coma but he had not left his bed for half a dozen months, that there was a bird's nest (dove if I recall) with two eggs in it. People went and checked it and it was in the exact same spot he told them..