Interesting facts (21)

1 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-15 22:16 ID:gx7J/wTI

Tell me anything interesting you can think of.

I'll give you some of mine.
Once human female is attracted to a male, they can recognize their scent, even from a few rooms away. But the scent is very subtle. That trait is starting to dissapear already, since we don't use it anymore. The male's sweat even starts to smell good to them.

psychological facts are the most interesting.

2 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-16 00:51 ID:iJpdtyBs

interesting

3 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-16 10:41 ID:oEgNKQga

Out of body experiences can be induced byy electrically stimulating cerain parts of the brain. The person sees herself and things like she was floating, but she can't see anything occluded from her real point of view, and observable if she was really floating.

It seems the electrical stimulations hinder brain activity, which fails to coordinate sensory information and misplaces the body position in the mental space representation.

4 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-16 17:37 ID:j/cHhnDS

>It seems

Not a fact.

5 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-16 23:23 ID:iJpdtyBs

>>4

Possible links are more factual than disjoint occurrences.

6 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-17 15:53 ID:kwU7ME8U

>>4
Yep: the reason I gave is a possibility, hence the "it seems",... But that you can induce these out of bodies experiences by electrically stimulating the brain is a fact.

Basically we agree, so I don't see the point of your remark

7 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-17 22:29 ID:j/cHhnDS

Needs a link to the study with actual statistics.
What if the out of body experience actually occurred?
Does everyone said they can't see anything occluded from her real point of view?

8 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-18 10:02 ID:kwU7ME8U

>Needs a link to the study with actual statistics.

Sure,... check this article (http://tinyurl.com/3xoatd). Besides, there are other ways of inducing OBE (out of body experiences), see http://tinyurl.com/2wc45v. If you want more info on OBEs, just check wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-body_experience#Scientific_studies_of_OBEs)

>What if the out of body experience actually occurred?

If the person was really watching from a different point of view than her body, she should be able to see things that are hidden from her body's point of view. Of course, being able to induce such illusions of OBE does not mean that real OBE do not exist. It just means that when someone claims that he had an OBE, it's possible to explain it as an illusion caused by biological reasons.

>Does everyone said they can't see anything occluded from her real point of view?

Because of the nature of the experiment (sticking electrodes on a person's brain), you can't repeat this on many people. But the results where repeated multiple times on the same person. But like I said, there are several studies on this, check wikipedia, or mail the article authors.

9 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-19 00:08 ID:dxyrf9/P

If you think out-of-body experiences are the least bit plausible, it's already too late. Enjoy your liberal arts major.

10 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-19 02:48 ID:Heaven

>>9

lmao

11 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-20 04:52 ID:8AvPB/2I

Mwahahaha. I used to have a huge interest in out of body experiences. Have been out of my body on many occasions, and had several different types of out of body experiences, including the type where i've witnessed things which i couldn't see from my body. It's surprisingly a lot less exciting to do then people imagine, thus my lack of enthusiasm the last year or so, but still something i'm glad to have experienced in my life. At some point i'm bound to take it up again and become more skilled.
>>9
And I'm studying science. Roflmfao.

12 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-20 08:54 ID:kwU7ME8U

>>11
Interesting,... I guess people like you must be intensively used by secret services agencies to spy on top secret sites. Why bother with James Bond style stunts, if you can just float and have a look, right?

If OBEs were real, the world would be a very different place from what it is presently, so pardon my skepticism,...

13 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-20 11:01 ID:P8GBe0rR

>>11

Right. So are you saying that during your OBEs you can literally see and hear without eyes or ears, or is there some other magic involved?

You can probably see where I'm going with this. Sensing the universe requires that you interact with the universe: if you can see then you must be blocking the path that rays of light would otherwise of taken, making you visible - at least from - behind as a silhouette. But then what, physically, is blocking the light? Can you touch it? What's it connected to (presumably the visual information must be sent somewhere to be processed, even if not by your brain)? If not, why not?

This is all apart from the fact that OBE believers claim to experience full mental function while their brain is dead, and yet we observe impairment of mental function in people whose brains are damaged. Why should the mind gradually lose function as the brain is damaged, then bounce back once it's dead?

This whole idea rests upon a chain of implausible assertions, which is why I don't think anyone with an analytical frame of mind could possibly accept it.

14 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-20 11:49 ID:8AvPB/2I

>>12
If OBE's were more reliable, easier to learn and master, maybe, yeah. That particular line of skepticism rests on OBE's being far more controllable, and any information gleaned from them far, far more reliable than it actually is. For example, one wednesday night, I leave my body, and watch a pair of my friends go to a particular bottle shop, where they buy some particular drinks, then mess around with an abandoned trolley in the parking lot behind it, with another friend that turns up. They get yelled at and run off. When I see them on saturday, they mention the incident, and i ask a couple of questions. I discover that Every detail was correct, only it happened with a several hour time difference than what i thought. Another day, I leave my body, and find myself off in some bizzarre fairy land, with this strange being resembling a giant retarded pokemon flying about. I decide to leave and try to make my way into a real world projection, but get distracted by some pretty trees, etc etc. Another time, I hang around in my house, near where my body is, and it seems to represent what is actualy happening around my body. I see my mother doing the laundry, or something. When I wake up and try to confirm what i saw, I find all details were wrong.

>>13
If the whole idea did rest on that chain of implausible assertions, I don't think anyone without severe mental issues could possibly accept it.
What the whole idea does rest on, is the concept of the non-physical universe, and, in relation to your point about full mental function while brain is dead, non physical 'mind' and self. Google 'astral plane' if you're not familiar with the basic idea. There are various view points which provide explanations for these kinds of things, generaly less ridiculous than ' my brain was working, even though it was dead!' Also, death related OBE's are far rarer than intentional OBE's. Of course, i'm certainly not going to argue with you or anyone else this can be explained scientifically or proven in anything nearing an academically acceptable manner. It can't.
The only things I can say to back myself up is that people who know me regard me as an intelligent person, and that I have had various experiences which cannot be explained by science or, by a very, vastly long shot, coincidence. Or drugs, or mental problems, lol. It's pretty much endless new age metaphysical babble, completely and utterly unprovable in any sort of scientific way.

Haha post way to long and rambling, looks like i've forgotten how much i can crap on about this stuff. Twas amusing.

15 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-20 12:45 ID:kwU7ME8U

>>14
The problem with these paranormal effects is that they seem impressive, but in the end have zero impact on the world (for instance, if anyone could predict the future, there would simply not be national lotteries). Even if a minority of what you see is in fact true, it would be usable, and have an impact on the real world. As a side question, I wander what you think about the wrong things: are they hallucinations? And if so, could not all be an hallucination (just like the illusory OBEs induced by electrical stimulation)

>I have had various experiences which cannot be explained by science

Do you really think you have the knowledge to make such an arrogant claim? The point of the story I wrote is that precisely there are many things (like some forms of OBE) which CAN in fact be explained by science. But if in fact you have experiences which really CANNOT be explained by science (and you can reproduce them), you should study them and become quite famous,...

16 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-20 14:06 ID:8AvPB/2I

>>15
The ability to predict the furutre does not nec?essarily [i should just go to bed, i'm over tired lol] mean ability to predict lottery numbers. Does not nessessarily mean ability to predict anything you like. For example, some psychics like psychometrics can't really do anything without having an item touched by etc the person who they are looking to predict things about. Some have no control over what they may predict, or whether they predict anything at all. Meh, any real digging into this stuff would explain what i'm on about. example using me: I did psychic development exercises for a while, and developed random claivoyance. I can't control when it will happen, or what i might predict, and it doesn't happen often. I'm lazy, and not much of a psychic. The things I've seen have almost always been completely useless pieces of information, like seeing a guy from my class walk out of a building and come ask me a certain question, about 5 seconds before it happens. That kind of thing. Sure, my experiences have had pretty much zero impact on my world, but hey- they were amusing!

Getting things wrong in OBE's... again, something that would be understood pretty quickly if you read books on how to do this stuff etc... due to the nature of non-physical experiences, it's really more surprising that I, or many other people ever actualy get things right. I won't crap on about astral theories here. This is a science board, lol... what a mess i've made of this thread.

Yes, really, i've experienced things that science has no current explanation for, unless it's like, brand new and i don't know about it yet. The info you posted i remember seeing before, and I do like stuff like that. My interest in new age crap started from a desire to know if anything is for real and such, so, yeah. My only annoyance is when people claim things like 'this kind of OBE is explained by this, therefore, all OBE's are explained by this', which isn't the case.
If science does have any good explanations for the precognitive visions i've had, or the times i've percieved things which were not physicaly possible for me to percieve, etc, I honestly am very interested in it. But as far as I've seen, there aren't any. So the possibilities are either i'm lying, which most reasonable people would suspect, if not be fairly sure/ certain i'm doing, or, I indeed have had experiences science can't explain atm. I can't reproduce anything in a way that could be used to scientifically verify anything. I can be extremely certain myself that i'll have more clairvoyant visions in my life, but hey, what am i going to do, grab a bunch of scientists and say "hey, hang around me for possibly months at a time! Eventualy i'll 'see' something and i'lll tell you, and then it'll happen, and you can write a journal article about it, and everyone will totaly beleive you, and you'll be famous, and your careers won't be ruined or anything!" lolz.
Of course, i do have my little dreams of one day becoming really great at OBE's, and possibly being able to retrive some information i can prove i didn't get via ordinary means, but i'll probably never be that good. And even if I was, I'll be a scientist by then, and unwilling to wreck my careeer with something like that. There's pretty much no way i'll ever be able to provide something with enough strong evidence to be taken seriously rather than ridiculed. The plan is to wait until i'm really, really old, with a great track record, then publish a bunch of stuff of this nature, and be remembered for a while at least as 'that scientist who turned out to be a nut'
lol long rambling, again. Hope it amuses someone.

17 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-20 17:34 ID:kwU7ME8U

>My only annoyance is when people claim things like 'this kind of OBE is explained by this, therefore, all OBE's are explained by this'

Fortunately no one made that claim in this board (at least not me). I clearly specified that 'some forms of OBE's' could be explained by biological reasons, which does not mean that all OBE's could be explained that way,...

>If science does have any good explanations for the precognitive visions

Well,... your visions seem to be so unreliable that they are not above random chance of being correct (otherwise you could use them for something). So the questions would rather be why are you having visions, and what is the explanation for it, independently or not of their so-called accuracy.

>Of course, i do have my little dreams of one day becoming really great at OBE's, and possibly being able to retrive some information i can prove i didn't get via ordinary means, but i'll probably never be that good. And even if I was, I'll be a scientist by then, and unwilling to wreck my careeer with something like that.

Man, if you can prove that you can really do OBE's, your career is guaranteed. You would probably go straight for the textbooks for the [your name] effect, just like Bose-Einstein condensates, or the Planck constant. You'd probably get the Noble prize, so put your fears to rest. I think you have a deep misunderstanding about what doing science really is about, with such a misconception.

18 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-21 05:18 ID:8AvPB/2I

Yes, i nboticed that nobody made that claim, the point was that some retards do, which i don't like.

Which visions are you talking about? If it's things i've seen during OBE's, they certainly are too unreliable to be used for anything. The clairviayant visions i've had, far, far out of the reach of random chance. I mean, what are the odds of me for some reason, seeing in my head a movie of something reasonably unlikely-extremely unlikely to happen happening, and then it does happen exactly as i saw it in my head?

Yeah, maybe if i could provide lots of strong, conclusive proof, then, that would be great, and hopefullly i'd end up a very rich lady. My point was that I almost certainly won't ever be able to provide such strong conclusive evidence. I don't think i'm very naturaly talented at OBE's, unlikely to become extremely skilled at it. I'm pretty sure that the best I'll be able to do is provide some interesting but not really text book-rewriting stuff, which would naturaly get a lot of criticism and ruin my reputation if i did it before retiring. Don't you get it, if you're going to publish anything on anything related to non-mainstream science, it had better be world-news-worthy kinda quality, or else your career is dead.

19 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-25 13:24 ID:kWRH82FT

Interesting fact: Eggplants arent vegtables theyre really fruits.

20 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-25 21:11 ID:Heaven

>>19

Interesting facts: Backticks aren't apostrophes.

This is an apostrophe: '
It is used in English for many delightful purposes.

This is a backtick: `
It is not used by anybody but programmers, and a strange minority of people who mistake it for the apostrophe.

21 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2008-03-27 02:04 ID:iJpdtyBs

`but it makes things so cool

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