Can ISLAND CASTAWAYS really see the past/future?

Umbran · Oct 1, 2004

The fact that the discussion was begun by a spammer does not invalidate the discussion entirely. We can make lemonade out of a lemon, so let's not slide too far into silliness, hm?

Still a darned funny edit, Piratecat

dreaded_beast · Oct 2, 2004

Greylock said:
Psychics are bunk-um, hokum, malarkey, you name it. There is no such thing as 'reading' the future. This thread touches upon the religious in a subtle way, and if political threads are verbotten then so should this clap-trap.

Strong words.

While I respect your opinion, I don't think their is any concrete evidence that psychics are "bunk-um, hokum, malarkey, etc."

Granted, there is no concrete evidence that psychics are real either, but my opinion is that unless psychics are proved either real or fake, I will try and keep an open mind.

Although, I tend to lean more towards skepticism, with a hidden sliver of hope that magic does exist in the world.

Umbran · Oct 2, 2004

dreaded_beast said:
While I respect your opinion, I don't think their is any concrete evidence that psychics are "bunk-um, hokum, malarkey, etc."

There is a great deal of concrete evidence that many folks who claim the title "psychic" are, in fact, pulling hoaxes.

This doesn't say they all are, of course. But then again, the fact that every single time you drop a rubber ball from your hand it falls doesn't prove that another ball won't float up into the sky. However, gravity comes up as a pretty well established fact anyway.

dreaded_beast · Oct 2, 2004

Umbran said:
There is a great deal of concrete evidence that many folks who claim the title "psychic" are, in fact, pulling hoaxes.

True.

But even though there is a substantial amount of people who have been discredited as psychics, that doesn't necessarily mean the psychics are not real. Is there a logic term for this particular line of thinking? I think there is, but it escapes me at the moment.

Perhaps my wording in my previous post could have been better.

RangerWickett · Oct 2, 2004

My thought is:

We have disproven many psychics.

We have proven no psychics.

In a world this big, if there is any sort of psychic powers, it's so negligibly weak as to be unimportant. If people could predict anything with certainty, we'd know about it, because some yutz would have tried selling his services, and would have actually made people millionaires.

You cannot prove psychics don't exist, just like you cannot prove you're not in the Matrix experiencing reality as a digital illusion. But you can look at the whopping lack of proof of the existence of psychics, and infer that there ain't any.

Sea monsters, though, that's another story. I heard one wrecked this little old ship that was just out on a three hour tour.

Umbran · Oct 2, 2004

dreaded_beast said:
But even though there is a substantial amount of people who have been discredited as psychics, that doesn't necessarily mean the psychics are not real. Is there a logic term for this particular line of thinking? I think there is, but it escapes me at the moment.

It depends upon what you mean:

In general: Basically, as I've said - if a whole mess of psychics have been shown to be fakes, it does not absolutely preclude the existance of real psychics. In a sense, it is impossible to prove a negative like, "psychic powers do not exist". However, it is still the way to bet. Especially because I've yet to hear of a single psychic that's been able to perform under rigorous scrutiny.

In specific - If a given psychic gets caught faking it, I'm going to have a hard time believing they have powers. "No, honest! I know you caught my shill in the audience, but I really can read minds!"

dreaded_beast · Oct 2, 2004

Umbran said:
In general: Basically, as I've said - if a whole mess of psychics have been shown to be fakes, it does not absolutely preclude the existance of real psychics. In a sense, it is impossible to prove a negative like, "psychic powers do not exist".

Ah, I probably was just running myself around in mental circles.

We are in agreement here, although I am more hopeful that psychics do exist, but based on the above, realistically there probably isn't or a very miniscule amount of actual psychics.