Archive through October 27, 2000

The ClubHouse: The Game - Discussion Room: General : Do you believe in Synchronicity?: Archive through October 27, 2000

Sandyc

Thursday, October 26, 2000 - 10:41 pm Click here to edit this post
How can we all be 'a unique and isolated ball of gray matter that has no connection outside of itself' when the very space between us joins us?
Does not air carry energy waves?

'Tis the receptors that are damaged or shut off.

And does that omnipresent knowing exist beyond death if no thing is alive to be aware of it (going back to that wonderful tree falling soundlessly).

I, in my simple way, really do believe in synchronicity (if that's what we want to call it).

Okay, that's enough from me for awhile. It sure is nice to get away from selling Chinese food.

Noslonna

Thursday, October 26, 2000 - 11:07 pm Click here to edit this post
ummm... I fell in this holy hell purely by coincedence <sp?> I just call it coinky dink cause I can never figure out how to spell it.

I stand by my original theory... if life's amazing concurrent events are really just Synchronicity, then eventually the pattern will bore us to tears. Random acts and non-sense are much more interesting.

Now get me outta this scary place.

signed... another small bump, in the major intellectual pot-heads, pot-holes, pot-moles... whoever you linda blair type people are. Stop that head rotation!

Vasix

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 05:59 am Click here to edit this post
Kar: Twas neither size nor speed that scared me off. I just was having too much fun watching the minds cavort like sea lions in the surf. And scarily you were making most my points anyways so I let you play in traffic while I ate my ice cream cone on the side of the off ramp wondering if I lost my right thumb would I ever be able to hitchhike again..

Adven39

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 06:08 am Click here to edit this post
If this thread keeps going much longer, one of us monkeys is going to end up writing Hamlet.

Twiggyish

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 06:12 am Click here to edit this post
I believe people explain some events as supernatural, which otherwise can be explained logically.

Years ago, I was watching a special on the Bermuda Triangle. There was one particular event where 3 men were in a small boat (off Ft. Lauderdale beach) on the 4th of July. They were watching fireworks, when suddenly the water turned a strange glowing green color. Because one of the men was a priest, this event was classified as supernatural.

There is a natural occurring algae, which does give off a greenish glow. (Bioluminescence) The whole incident had nothing to do with the Bermuda Triangle.
http://edie.cprost.sfu.ca/~rhlogan/frye.html

This doesn't mean there aren't unexplainables (for lack of a better word) in this world, such as synchronicity, etc. It is perhaps because we (humans) haven't all the answers.

Vasix

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 06:23 am Click here to edit this post
okay first, what the heck is a priest doing out in a boat anyways? And second, my monkey wants to know if you want it double spaced or not.

Adven39

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 06:25 am Click here to edit this post
Single-spaced and see if the chimp can jazz up the "to be or not to be" soliliquy this time.

Affinity

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 07:07 am Click here to edit this post
I am wondering how many people can pronounce "synchronicity" the correct way

Vasix

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 07:19 am Click here to edit this post
I can't even pronounce half the screennames! And I love the line, "for what dreams must come when we shuffle off this mortal coil" (at least that is the way I carry the quote in my monkey brain).

Twiggyish

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 07:25 am Click here to edit this post
So you aren't answering my post because I am not a scientist. I see some snobbery here.

Twiggyish

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 08:03 am Click here to edit this post
Please excuse above post. I am in an aggravated mood right now (related to work).

Karuuna

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 08:34 am Click here to edit this post
Wcv -- that your brain is having spasms is a good thing. It's when it totally shuts down, like mine, that you need to worry. At least it doesn't hurt any more.

Elitist, I'm glad you went to bed. Of course, the answer is to your question is that something that explains everything is no explanation at all. Universally.

I did meet a man recently who claimed to be enlightened. Unfortunately, I'm not enlightened enough to know if he was telling the truth. He does have a nice kind of cultish thing going in Boulder. On the other hand, he is extremely intelligent, and uncannily intuitive. Luckily he seems to use that mostly for good, and while he does claim to be able to lead others to enlightenment (from the looks of his disciples, he's got his work cut out for him!), he doesn't seem to charging an exorbitant amount for it. So there you have it, enlightenment can be bought for a reasonable price, you just have to go to Boulder.

For Vaxie's benefit: Karu'una (Kah-roo'-oo-nah), from the Sanskrit, meaning compassionate action. And you have a lot of nerve complaining about how difficult some screen names are to pronounce!

Elitist

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 08:42 am Click here to edit this post
OK Twig, I will answer even though you aren't a scientist.

I think a lot depends on the green glow the priests described. I think I saw the same show, and the way they depicted it was that it was a constant green light that lit up all of the water.

Now I have seen the algae that you spoke about. It is pretty weird. We were camping out on the beach of the Gulf when my cousin brought a pail of water into the tent at night and started washing his hands. We were pretty astonished that whenever he moved his hands the water would glow. We all went out to the water line and you could see all the breakers glowing with the same glow. So we had to take a swim, and whenever you moved, the glow would appear. Pretty neat. I have seen this at least on one other occasion.

Now the depiction I saw on TV didn't really fit this type of behavior. Either they embellished the truth (and would television do that?), it was a different type of algae that glowed all the time, something was agitating the water enough to create the glow, or it was something else.

Karuuna

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 09:01 am Click here to edit this post
Eli -- now here you are again! And I was hoping we could distract you long enough over on those other threads so that we could let our unique and isolated balls of grey matter run away with the thread without having to verify our assumptions and cross our i's and dot our t's as well. (huh?)

But since you're back...
I did look at the critical article you posted yesterday. The author has some valid points, but I think there's some wiggle room, and give me some room and I'll be happy to wiggle!

He objects that there was no control for prayer outside of the study, that is there was no way of telling how much outside praying was being done for each of the patients. Fair enough in a sense, however, he doesn't mention that such an experiment would never pass an ethical review board. Can you imagine calling folks and saying, "hey, we know your loved one is in coronary care and could die, but for the sake of furthering science, would you mind not praying for him/her?" Not gonna happen. I would have found his criticism more valid if he had voluntarily offered the limitations involved. By not acknowledging the impossibility, he implies that the experimenter's neglect of this matter was either a great oversight, or intentional.

He also mentions that there were three other studies done previously that did not have the same results. Okay, but given that the first one was done in 1872, do we really think that's comparable? At the average of one study every 30 years or so in this area, I think at the very least we could say more study could be done.

I will say that the results of the experiment are less than stellar, and I'm not too happy about the leap that says because prayer worked, God exists. Seems to me there are a few steps in between those two positions. I do think because there was some clear statistically reliable difference in some of the parameters measured, the thing deserves another look. Of course, we'll have to wait another 30 years for the next experiment...

Elitist

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 09:23 am Click here to edit this post
K - I totally agree about the "who else was praying for these people". I think I pointed out in my rebuttal that it was pretty picky.

And yeah, I agree a few more studies should be done to see if there is anything there.

I guess what bothers me is (like your enlightened friend in Colorado) is that someone takes something like this then makes a bundle off of it selling books and seminars, just because, as you said, most people except it "without having to verify our assumptions and cross our i's and dot our t's as well". (I know, I am a real pain in the ass, aren't I)

Twig - I did go and read your link. The algae (actually I think it was something else - dinoflagellates - aren't they more animal?) behavior he described was pretty much what I remember, except that I distinctly recall movement being required before they luminesced, whereas he implies they do it spontaneously.

Wcv - my brain is spasming also, but luckily I have a spare (Ocean, I couldn't resist).

Wcv63

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 09:27 am Click here to edit this post
Coincidence is nothing more than how we make connections between certain events. This could very well be mind gyrations.

Faith is a different matter all together and doesn't rely on coincidence or syncronicity to exist. One of the premises of prayer is that you can pray for anything. Sometimes the answer is no.

If you notice all 12 step programs are based on a belief in a higher power. As a matter of fact it's one of the very first steps.

My penchant for playing in traffic is starting to concern me. I've never thought of myself as a risk taker or a dare devil. Yet here I am gleefully skipping across the freeway dodging semis and speeding cars.

Karuuna

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 09:40 am Click here to edit this post
Eli-- I sort of agree with you about the making a bundle part, but I have to say that with the caveat that I'm making a very small "bundle" on the internet, and altho I'm not selling unverified conclusions that inspire hope, I am selling sentimentality to a certain degree. To ease my guilty conscious I donate a fair amount of it to charity. However, I'm not completely convinced that selling hope is such a bad thing. Fossey's book focuses *primarily* on the power of self-prayer/meditation, and it's decidedly non-denominational. My estimate is less than 10% of it focuses on the intercessionary-without-patient-knowledge kind of prayer. I think we can agree that praying for oneself does work, even if it's only placebic. Also, I don't know how much money is too much and when it becomes an ethical dilemma. I have my own perverse mental struggle with that...

And lastly I don't think you're a pain in the (ahem!) at all, altho you do cause a few of us more than the ordinary amount of brain pain. I think that's a good thing, and so does Tylenol.

Elitist

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 09:55 am Click here to edit this post
SandyC - Just my picky little self having to make you cross your i's and dot your t's.

You said "Does not air carry energy waves?"

Well actually, no, air does not carry energy waves. If anything it is a hindrance, or maybe a minor annoyance.

Energy waves (I am assuming you mean electromagnetic energy waves) pretty much travel the best in a vacuum (the kind in outer space, not the one you clean your carpets with). That is how we receive light from the sun and can detect distant stars from their radio signals.

Now if you were talking about other types of energy waves (unknown and unknowable) I would suspect they would behave similarly.

Now sound waves - that is a different matter. You definitely have to have some medium to transmit them. That is why most sci-fi movies are so ridiculous when they show these big explosions in space with thunderous sound. It makes good cinema, but since there is nothing to transmit the sound in space, it it ludicrous.

Twiggyish

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 10:08 am Click here to edit this post
Elitist, you missed the entire point of my post. The algae example was merely to point out a natural occurring event being misconstrued as supernatural. My feeble brain (although not as superior as yours) was trying to explain perhaps science has not found all the answers. This could explain unexplainable happenings.

Thanks for not being condescending in your response.

Wcv63

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 10:39 am Click here to edit this post
Twiggy I agree that there are a lot of "supernatural" or "unexplained" events that can easily be explained away by science. I also think that Karuuna had a point in a much earlier post about syncronicity being manufactured as mankind's craving for meaning. I brought up faith as a totally different perspective on syncronicity.

All the talk about duality, energy, statistics, protons, neutrons etc. is enough to make my head explode. I"m going to lay down with an ice pack on my head.

Karuuna

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 11:01 am Click here to edit this post
Wcv -- I just want u to know that I really counted on u to keep me out of this crazy-making place! Now yer making me think and post more. Thanks for making me be responsible for my own actions, something I've spent a lifetime trying to avoid at all possible moments!

Here's the conundrum as I see it. We know that events exist that we cannot yet explain. My friend's son has autism, and my son has an extremely mild form of autism called Sensory Integration Disorder. These are observable, somewhat predictable conditions altho there is great deal of variation from child to child. But we can't "explain" it in any meaningful way, nor do we understand it. The best we can do is describe it as a particular set of behaviors, without knowing its mechanism.

We "observe" synchronicity, or at least we think/hope we do. But the nature of synchronicity is so different from the medical condition I've named above, it's not as neatly definable. In order to concretely call something synchronistic, we must say that the odds of that happening are greater than what would be allowed for by chance. But how do we calculate such odds? In order to attempt to calculate the odds, we have to concretely define a synchronistic event. Am I going in circles here?

Here's another way of hurting your brains (did I tell you I just purchased some stock in the makers of Tylenol?). Suppose a psychic makes a living by predicting future events. Suppose that psychic is only right 10% of the time. Does he/she possess psychic abilities? In order to assess that, you have to assess how many of these events would have occured by chance, in order to compare the two numbers. But how could you possibly give a concrete number for how many times an infinite number of possible events would occur by chance? What if the psychic is right 30% of the time? 40%? What do we compare that to?

Wcv63

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 11:08 am Click here to edit this post
Luck? A direct line of communication with a higher power? Coincidence? Statistical probability (along the lines of if you throw down a coin x number of times it will come up heads x number of times).

Arrrggghhh...get me out of here!

Elitist

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 11:28 am Click here to edit this post
Twig - I stand chastised before you.

Your point is valid.

But what is the standard sci-fi reply - "Any technology superior enough will appear to us to be magic".

Elitist

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 11:33 am Click here to edit this post
K - I was wondering how long it was going to take for someone to bring up people predicting the future.

Well the way you test a psychic is to have a bunch of non-psychics make predictions also, and see how well they do, then see if there is a significant difference in the success ratio between the two groups. Of course what if there is not difference - does that make the psychic invalid or all the non-psychics really able to predict the future?

Lets see that head spin around a couple of more times.

Noslonna

Friday, October 27, 2000 - 11:35 am Click here to edit this post
Let's do an experiment in this power of prayer thing. Everyone pray Vykin is victorious. I just want to see if it really works.