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Gaydars and other stupid human tricks

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by YCOSeth, Jun 24, 2011.

  1. StayFrosty

    StayFrosty
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    I was under the same impression until about six months ago, but it's a common misconception. We use our entire brains (most of us), it's actually that as a race we've only mapped / discovered in detail how about 5% of it works.
     
  2. scootah

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    You have documented proof of it that is entirely depending on your own interpretation of your own written predictions that were recorded on a blog that you can't access anymore? This is a bit like saying 'Horoscopes must be true, they've been accurate so often!' while ignoring the far more plausible possibility that the predictions were sufficiently generic to lend themselves to many situations and if you can't see Confirmation Bias playing a role in this, I'm not sure you know what Confirmation Bias is.

    <a class="postlink" href="http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percent.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percent.asp</a> - the x% of the brain thing is bullshit. And the only insane/ridiculous part of research implying that we ever had any kind of ESP is that anyone swallows that horseshit.

    There are 38 numbers on a roulette table. So the odds of calling five numbers in a row are 1 one 79,235,168. 30 spins per hour per table, five in a row runs will be remarkable for a particular player but not that uncommon in a larger pool like Atlantic City or Vegas. For comparison, the Mega Millions lottery is about a 1 in 175,711,536 chance of winning - but there are about a dozen winners a year.

    My stupid human trick is apparently the ability to cling to logic in the face of almost every imaginable coincidence.
     
  3. Disgustipated

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    I have the uncanny ability to take a normal situation and turn it into a completely fucked up mess without doing anything, being involved, bearing any knowledge of it or having any semblance of attachment to it. It's a gift.
     
  4. dubyu tee eff

    dubyu tee eff
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    Thinks he has a chance with Christina Hendricks...

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    I can beatbox. Does that count?
     
  5. RCGT

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    I've always had some pretty heavy deja vu. A lot of times it's things in reality having a very strong resemblance to things that I've dreamed about and subsequently forgotten, only to be reminded. I've even had periods where I have to concentrate really hard to remember if certain things actually happened or not. I remember recently contemplating a near-drowning that I experienced, only to realize after several minutes' thought that it had never happened, and in fact was a dream from two weeks ago.

    It's pretty trippy just how fragile/fallible the mind is.

    I also find this mind-over-matter stuff really cool. I recalling reading some stuff a while back about yogis' ability to selectively reduce their subjective pain, redirect blood flow, and reduce body temperature through deep meditation. Considering these things are an altered state of consciousness (far as I can tell), I don't think we should be ruling things out too zealously.
     
    #25 RCGT, Jun 29, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 27, 2015
  6. mazian

    mazian
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    The things the mind can do are sometimes truly amazing.
    We once had an elderly lady with severe diarrhea at the hospital and she was absolutely convinced that only an i.v. was the appropriate treatment for her.
    The doctors gaver her the medication that should stop the diarrhea but nothing helped. What fixed the problem was an i.v. with basically just water in it. Worked like a charm.
    With the whole yogi thing...I'm not really convinced that it's some kind of altered state of mind, I see it more as a practiced skill.
    Normally, thins like your heart rate, body temperature etc. are basically on "auto pilot", but you have some access to it if you concentrate, so if you "practice" that skill through meditation you can do it easier.
    But that's just the way I see it.

    On the other hand, sometimes I wake up in the morning and know exactly that person x is gonna call today, even if there has been no contact for some time and there's no imminent reason they would call that I could know of.