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Uri Geller - Magician
- Thread starter ElectroVibe
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To be honest I don't know enough. This whole discussion started after James Randi died. I really haven't watched many of them.
Lol wait... this whole thread and you don't have a single name? Come on! I, for one, can only name Derren Brown, and he's not strictly into mentalism; big part of his stage shows, though.
What are your thoughts on telekinesis? Is that a real thing? That would be my super power of choice if given the option.
I don't know. But there have been incidents of people lifting cars or heavy objects to save someone trapped underneath.
You should check out Eddie Hall's documentary on deadlifting like 500kg or whatever the record was at the time. (Think it's on Netflix.) Granted that record was broken, but he describes going to a doctor to access that fight adrenaline level of strength.
He wouldn't elaborate but it had to do with his family being in mortal danger, so kind of like a car trapped on your baby. Same concept. Human body be crazy
Lifting heavy objects is fundamentally different than telepathy; it is merely an enhancement of known physical abilities. Can anyone provide a plausible, physical, scientific, basis upon which telepathy could work? Is the thought "signal" coming from the brain subject to the inverse-square law (decreases in amplitude according to the square of the distance), and does it travel at the speed of light, like other forms of electromagnetic radiation?
It travels at the speed of your imagination and is as strong as your intentions. I hope that satisfied your query.
Oh, that doesn't bode well, given my current mental state....
Guys, I skimmed this. I don't have 6 pages of reading in me. This is very simple
Gellar himself has said
'll no longer say that I have supernatural powers. I am an entertainer. I want to do a good show. My entire character has changed.
/thread
Gellar himself has said
'll no longer say that I have supernatural powers. I am an entertainer. I want to do a good show. My entire character has changed.
/thread
Sometimes, I'm actually just as impressed to find out how the faked as I would be to find out they were actually psychic. James Hydrick was one. Martial artist and now convicted child molester. He was on a lot of shows in the 70's and 80's and was debunked by James Randi.
He would make telephone book pages flip, pencils move, and could make a dollar bill spin on a stick, under a fish tank. You later found out he did this by blowing on them. But he had amazing breath control. It never looked like he was breathing out and never made noise, even when a mic was on him.
The fish tank was what blew my mind. He did this, again, by blowing on them. But directing his breath under the small gap left between the edge of the tank and the table.
Well, you can tell from his criminal history (before the child molestation), fraud, and child molestation. He is not a good person. Just an interesting ability.
He would make telephone book pages flip, pencils move, and could make a dollar bill spin on a stick, under a fish tank. You later found out he did this by blowing on them. But he had amazing breath control. It never looked like he was breathing out and never made noise, even when a mic was on him.
The fish tank was what blew my mind. He did this, again, by blowing on them. But directing his breath under the small gap left between the edge of the tank and the table.
Well, you can tell from his criminal history (before the child molestation), fraud, and child molestation. He is not a good person. Just an interesting ability.
I mentioned earlier that I had learned how to do cold reading as a teenager and used the skill to entertain classmates in high school.
I was motivated by an article I read on James Randi where he explained how psychics used cold reading to fool others. I also watched a TV show where Randi demonstrated how so called psychics blow on objects to make them appear to move by telepathy.
It is ridiculously easy to do. Just a few days of practice and I was able to show off my "psychic powers" to my friends.
What was funny was how many people believed that I actually had psychic powers, even after I explained to them that it was a trick and I was moving the object by blowing on it.
Try it yourself with a pencil. Place the pencil perpendicukar on the edge of a table so that it's just balanced there. Then very lightly blow on one end of it. The pencil will slowly turn. Blow on the other end and it will turn back.
To make the trick convincing, move your hands in the air about a foot above the pencil as if you're using your hands to channel your magic powers.
Practice blowing surreptitiously and also screw up your face as if you're concentrating intensely with your mind to move the pencil by sheer force of will.
It really is very easy to do and you can really fool people into believing that it's telekinetic power.
But how do you know for sure that you don't have telekinetic power? Maybe the blowing wasn't doing anything... 
Note that, while I was being sarcastic above, I was also making a more subtle point about methodology. Moving a carefully balanced pencil by blowing it involves fairly simple physical laws, and classical mechanics. However, moving it with only one's mind seems to require unknown aspects of physics why defy current scientific understanding. Of course, this is assuming that if telekinesis is real, it must at some level be a manifestation of physical law and not something truly magical or supernatural. So, if a real force can be applied to objects by one's mind, ultimately there must be a physical means by which this can occur. What might this be, and how might it work?
Occam's razor suggests that we ought to prefer the simpler explanation, the one which makes the fewest extraneous assumptions. In this case, that would imply that we should prefer the blowing hypothesis over the possibility of telekinesis. Further, the blowing hypothesis is easily falsifiable; put the balanced pencil in a vacuum and see if you can still move it, or just use a simple barrier to stop air movement. There is still much more to say about scientific methodology and why it ought to be preferred... but this is a start.
Occam's razor suggests that we ought to prefer the simpler explanation, the one which makes the fewest extraneous assumptions. In this case, that would imply that we should prefer the blowing hypothesis over the possibility of telekinesis. Further, the blowing hypothesis is easily falsifiable; put the balanced pencil in a vacuum and see if you can still move it, or just use a simple barrier to stop air movement. There is still much more to say about scientific methodology and why it ought to be preferred... but this is a start.
Dave Mustaine of Megadeth has an interesting view on Hexes, which he used practice as a youth. Not sure if I am allowed to link it here though.
Not necessarily. Moving an object by blowing it requires the unimpeded flow of air, which could be stopped with a simple barrier. But, while a thin paper barrier would stop airflow, it will not have a significant effect on radio waves or x-rays. So, whether or not a given barrier is effective would depend on the material and thickness as well as how energy or physical force is being transferred from one place to another (e.g. lead would be more effective at stopping x-rays).
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Same as his. But he has more experience with them.
Did you watch the video? It's a short clip from 9 years ago on youtube. Search on: dave mustaine hexes.
I didn't want to post it because he talks about spiritual things.
So how do we know that a barrier which blocks air won't also block telepathic energy?
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