[HN Gopher] The Perplexing Appeal of the Telepathy Tapes
___________________________________________________________________
The Perplexing Appeal of the Telepathy Tapes
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 59 points
Date : 2025-11-11 13:34 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (asteriskmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (asteriskmag.com)
| mtlynch wrote:
| I listened to the first episode of the _Telepathy Tapes_ , but
| then I read this article[0] and watched this video[1] of someone
| using a spellboard with their child and felt like _Telepathy
| Tapes_ had deceived me.
|
| I hope the people facilitating communication in the podcast
| aren't faking the communication as obviously as in that Instagram
| video, but the rest of the article showed specifics of the
| podcast where it feels like the host is using "sleight of hand"
| to present evidence in an overly strong way.
|
| [0] https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/the-telepathy-
| tapes-...
|
| [1] https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_-ln0iO6i6/
| ch4s3 wrote:
| FC is always fake even thought the facilitator usually believes
| earnestly that it is real. It works partially through the
| ideomotor effect where the facilitator subconsciously makes
| physical queues to the letter they are thinking of next. There
| are plenty of tests where the facilitator is blind to a piece
| of information that the subject of facilitation can see and the
| FC always fails this test.
| robocat wrote:
| I would guess it is hard on facilitators once they're caught
| out.
|
| Nobody likes their beliefs to be shattered, especially when
| it is so brutally caring.
| an0malous wrote:
| Are you serious? That video is nothing like the tests in the
| telepathy tapes, they have kids who don't need to be touched at
| all and spell completely independently.
|
| I hate this whole "skeptic" culture so much, it's just as
| religious as the people who believe things without evidence.
| You have a preconceived agenda about things you were told are
| wacky and you don't even bother to review the evidence before
| drawing a conclusion.
|
| There is more rigorous peer-reviewed, published evidence for
| psychic abilities than most sociological and biological fields.
|
| The Ganz experiment has been reproduced 78 times by 46
| different researchers, but sure it's all fake and a blogger and
| an one obviously fake strawman instagram video are suddenly
| enough evidence for the skeptics who constantly demand the
| highest standard of academic rigor from the other side.
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11134153/
| wredcoll wrote:
| > There is more rigorous peer-reviewed, published evidence
| for psychic abilities than most sociological and biological
| fields.
|
| If this proved that such things were real, there would be a
| corporation exploiting it by now.
| an0malous wrote:
| That is folk logic, not rational thinking.
|
| First, the US and Russian governments did spend decades
| researching these abilities and in the US they CIA, DIA,
| Army, and other agencies all used psychics. Perhaps they
| are still using them, or maybe they found satellites and
| drones easier to work with.
|
| The other issue is that psi seems to have strong
| statistical significance but low effect size. It's not a
| crystal ball, the inconsistent results make it inconvenient
| for things like stock markets and espionage.
|
| Finally, maybe people do use psychic abilities but they
| lack the introspection abilities to recognize it. Where do
| your thoughts really come from? If you're a stock trader
| and you have a hunch or insight about an opportunity, where
| did it come from? Sure you likely gathered data and
| evidence to support your investment, but didn't you first
| have a hunch or a fuzzy idea that seemingly came from
| nowhere?
|
| We have much to learn about consciousness. I'm not asking
| anyone to accept psi on faith, but this culture of
| skepticism boils down to "psi isn't real because psi can't
| be real" and I believe it's holding back our understanding
| of reality to be so close minded.
| almosthere wrote:
| I haven't watched the TT but anecdote. One of our friends has an
| autistic child, but fairly high functioning. When he was about 6
| or 7 one morning this child complained he didn't want to go to a
| weekly playground and told his mom the slide was broken and it
| wouldn't be fun. Mom said what are you talking about - when they
| arrived, the slide was literally broken. The friend said there
| was no possible way he should have known that (I don't know the
| details) but this child does not have a phone and is under non-
| stop supervision.
| igor47 wrote:
| Selection/confirmation bias. Think of all the times the child
| told their mother some other random things which turned out not
| to be true. Those incidents don't stick out because children
| say nonsense all the time.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Or, perhaps the slide was cracked the previous week and now
| had completely failed.
| pulvinar wrote:
| There are other possibilities, the most likely being that the
| slide was already in the process of breaking when the child
| used it last, and he noticed that before others did.
| driggs wrote:
| Of every story you've ever heard about this child, this
| singular event is your evidence for telepathy? Shouldn't that
| alone be strong evidence against your interpretation?
|
| I'm reminded of the anecdotal, arbitrary miracles attributed to
| Jesus in the gospels of the New Testament. An omniscient, all-
| powerful son of god chooses to prove his infinite power by
| providing wine at a party.
|
| Or maybe there was another, much more likely and mundane
| explanation.
| wredcoll wrote:
| My pre-adolescent child says all sorts of things, occasionally
| some of them turn out to be true!
| igor47 wrote:
| > skeptics generally don't care to push back
|
| They _do_ care to push back though! It 's just that there's much
| more of a market for wishful pseudoscientific bullshit than for
| careful, history and evidence based sceptical bashing of hopes.
| Just another example of how broken our information ecosystem is.
|
| I learned about TT from my favorite podcast the SGU, where it was
| placed in the historical context of the FC controversy and then
| roundly debunked.
|
| https://www.theskepticsguide.org/
| VMG wrote:
| I am eternally grateful for the SGU.
|
| Our escape to reality indeed
| an0malous wrote:
| It's not pseudoscientific, it's one of the most rigorously
| studied topics in academia and has pushed the standard for
| psychology research: https://www.deanradin.com/recommended-
| references
|
| The Ganzfield experiments have been reproduced 78 times by 46
| researchers and this review article concludes that anomalous
| cognition meets the standards of proof:
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11134153/
|
| The president of the American Statistical Association has
| reviewed the evidence for psi and said: "Using the standards
| applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that
| psychic functioning has been well-established"
|
| https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/202...
|
| Of course you don't believe it because you listen to a podcast
| about skepticism so it's a dogma for you, you've drawn your
| conclusion without even considering the evidence. Skepticism is
| a religion as much as Catholicism in Galileo's time.
| Hugsun wrote:
| I listened to a few episodes on a recommendation. The episodes
| lead you to believe that the host is some agnostic person that's
| just curious about these reports. They are not as the original
| lead is from another superstition believer podcast.
|
| They also present the cameraman as a token skeptic, who is of
| course quickly swayed into belief.
|
| They lean heavily on a host of tricks with long histories of non-
| reproduction when tested rigorously.
|
| A "scientist" (known crackpot and woo believer) is employed to
| make the experiments sound. And their terrible academic
| reputation was explained away using conspiratorial arguments.
|
| I found TT wholly unconvincing and consider it a scam to get
| people to pay for the actual evidence. I won't pay of course and
| confidently assume it to be poor based on the publicly available
| material.
| parpfish wrote:
| > For months, I was puzzled as to why a great number of listeners
| wholly ignorant of the autistic experience were so enamoured by
| The Telepathy Tapes. ... I feel I'm finally starting to
| understand. Moving forward, the series has expressed a desire to
| explore the wider nature of consciousness and explore topics
| outside of the autistic community.
|
| It's right there in the name -- Telepathy. It's not a show about
| autism, that's just a means to the end. It's a show about the
| paranormal and it appeals to people that want to learn about the
| paranormal.
|
| The fact the the author has this 'revelation' about the true
| appeal at the end is strange. it'd be like having a big
| breakthrough that "i though people were watching The X-Files
| because they were all interested in learning about FBI
| bureaucracy, but it turns out people are interested in aliens!"
| rdtsc wrote:
| > It's right there in the name -- Telepathy. It's not a show
| about autism, that's just a means to the end.
|
| It has to be both. If it was just about "hey, look random
| fortune tellers are telepathic, let's watch 500 hours of video
| about it" that won't go anywhere. It would be dismissed right
| off the bat. But it has to be something like autism. Everyone
| has someone in their family or acquaintance circle who has
| autism nowadays. Some are non-verbal and it's sad and
| frustrating not being able to talk with them. Aha, but what if
| there was a way? - Telepathy to the rescue. So it's like a
| necessary two part thing.
| cogman10 wrote:
| What I don't like is that these things ignore the individual.
| Rather than dealing with "this is a nonverbal person, they
| likely have limited understanding" people that believe this
| garbage think "oh, this is a magic guru with super powers and
| wisdom beyond comprehension".
|
| That becomes dangerous when it comes to watching these
| individuals. No, they really don't know to not play in the
| street. They don't know not to eat the berries. They aren't
| connected with animals and don't know some can hurt them.
| munificent wrote:
| I have a pet theory (certainly unoriginal) that humans as a
| species feel a compelling need to indulge in some form of magical
| thinking in order to cope with existential horror.
|
| A few things are simultaneously true:
|
| 1. We have a truly fantastic level of agency as actors in the
| world. A single human can build a house out of raw materials,
| write a book series with hundreds of settings and believable
| characters, start a war, etc.
|
| 2. In order to make the most of that agency, we need a
| psychological system that makes us feel empowered to use it.
| Having nature's most impressive brain would be pointless if we
| all believed everything we tried was doomed to fail anyway so we
| should just sit in the dirt and eat slugs.
|
| 3. We are also corporeal objects made of surprisingly fragile
| meat and bone subject to the careless whims of physics. Through
| no fault or intention of anyone, all of your agency can be
| completely taken in an instant. Just be standing in the wrong
| place when a tree branch snaps off, have one cell misdivide and
| become cancerous, choke on a grape.
|
| We need 2 in order to make the most of 1. But the more we believe
| ourselves in control, the more horrific contemplating 3 becomes.
|
| I often wonder if we evolved magical thinking and all of its
| manifestations like religion, parapsychology, destiny, fate, etc.
| in order to hold these three realizations in some sort of stable
| configuration.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| My theory is that this all about "I know something you don't
| know." The people I have met with the most fringe theories
| don't have much agency in life. I suppose it could be a form of
| narcissism as well.
| WJW wrote:
| In addition to the accidental things already listed under 3,
| there is also the additional points that:
|
| - Other people exist and they also have a lot of agency, the
| exercise of which sometimes directly interferes with your life.
| Not to mention how much capacity bigger entities like countries
| have to mess with your life it they wanted to.
|
| - In opposition to point 1: while humans do have tremendous
| agency, they also have very little agency when seen against how
| big the universe really is. There are more stars in the sky
| than people on Earth, by a considerable margin. Nobody can do
| anything at all to influence them. Hell, we can't even
| manipulate the orbit of our own planet in any meaningful way. I
| think many of the magical thinking paradigms are ways to cope
| with that as well.
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| Is a game of poker magical thinking?
| munificent wrote:
| It can be, depending on your thought process while playing.
| If you're indulging in feeling like your willpower can affect
| what cards get drawn, then yes. If you're just thinking about
| betting strategy and your opponents, then less so.
|
| My own magical thinking indulgence is fishing. I'll tell
| myself dumb stuff like "the next cast will be the one". I
| think any sort of gambling-like experience where random
| chance is heavily involved can be an outlet for magical
| thinking, healthy or otherwise.
| pino999 wrote:
| I enjoy mythologies and partake in magical thinking. Religion
| is a tool, you can use on yourself.
|
| I don't mind 3. Two is a bit over the top, I feel. When I was
| atheist I didn't need such tools or believe everything would
| fail.
|
| A different data point.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| Humans make meaning, as far as we have observed we are the
| meaning making organ of the universe in a totally literalist
| physicalized sense. Stars convert mass to energy, humans
| convert energy to semantic meaning with high syntactic
| complexity, density and causal leverage.
|
| We build the libraries, we deflect the asteroids for the
| foreseeable future (we really should check and see if dolphins
| would like thumbs.)
|
| Flight existed before apes but - in a purely non-woo sense - a
| few of us gave the universe the how and why of it.
|
| We haven't yet definitively ruled out the possibility of
| altering spacetime topology, or solving entropy, or plucking
| entities out of the light cone.
|
| Humans tend to bring what they desire into the world. Wheat
| threshers, combines, tricorders, harry potter cloaks.
|
| Listen to interviews of people who lived from the mid 1800's to
| the mid 1900's. They say the whole damn world changed,
| everything changed.
|
| Now,
|
| A large contingent of Humans want eternal life, want
| resurrection.
|
| There is this kind of speculative naturalists pascals wager at
| play right now that we are losing at.
|
| Where a certain contingent of the population simply refuses to
| believe that the earth could be destroyed by an asteroid, or if
| it was it will be part of the fulfillment of their wishes for a
| new heaven and earth.
|
| But if they have the least doubt in the quite moments of the
| night they need to realize. That if only what we empirically
| observe is stable and true, then their only hope for their
| desires coming true might be humans making it happen. We don't
| know yet, we just don't know, it's early days yet, nothing or
| everything might be in the future.
|
| So we really need to preserve humans so they can keep making
| meaning, make our existence more resilient and keep pushing the
| edge and expansion of knowledge.
|
| At one point humans thought travel to the moon was impossible,
| some living people still do, but the very strange implications
| is that us and other meaning making agents might actually fill
| the universe with meaning, we might end up giving the universe
| meaning, as semantically less complex dna bootstrapped us we
| may bootstrap the whole universe.
|
| I find it highly unlikely but I cannot rule it out and no one
| else can either. We really need to protect human and the life
| we can see.
| Loquebantur wrote:
| Ironically, scientism is also a manifestation of "magical
| thinking": Going through ritualistic motions of scientific
| appearances without actual understanding, getting positive
| feedback from the multitudes being just as incompetent.
|
| Here, with the "Telepathy Tapes", the subject matter is
| immediately categorized as "magic": stuff deemed to be
| impossible because of it "obviously/implicitly contradicting
| scientific knowledge".
|
| But that contradiction doesn't really exist? To give a
| decidedly clumsy, but entirely "physically possible",
| explanation of "telepathy": little green men from outer space
| might facilitate that effect using extremely advanced
| technology, hiding their presence and foiling attempts at
| getting easily understood evidence.
|
| While such a scenario is highly inconvenient for current human
| academia to address, it's not "impossible" in any way? Isn't it
| really "magical thinking" to assume, such "outlandish"
| scenarios were excluded by natural law?
| Yizahi wrote:
| So, to explain one invisible and unprovable thing for which
| there is zero evidence, you have invented a completely
| different invisible and unprovable thing for which there is
| also zero evidence. Great job :)
| ctoth wrote:
| But don't you see? My two invisible things with no evidence
| support each other, giving each other evidence! Hey, what
| are you doing... put down that razor!
| Loquebantur wrote:
| There are many "invisible" things that exist. "Telepathy"
| isn't "unprovable". The "Telepathy Tapes" are evidence in
| favor of telepathy (It appears, you confuse "evidence" with
| "proof"). The explanation I suggested is neither
| "invisible" nor "unprovable". There actually is evidence
| for it as well (again, your idea of evidence is wrong).
|
| In other words, your assessment is entirely counter-factual
| and simply false.
|
| Noting the absurd down-votes on my comment in conjunction
| with the lack of comments providing any rational argument
| is actually evidence in favor of the hypothesis presented
| there.
| munificent wrote:
| _> The "Telepathy Tapes" are evidence in favor of
| telepathy (It appears, you confuse "evidence" with
| "proof")._
|
| To the degree that "E.T." is evidence in favor of alien
| life, yes.
| almosthere wrote:
| The problem with science approaching telepathy tapes is
| that a parent will say:
|
| My kid knows when another kid is sick.
|
| Scientist: We have to apply scientific rigor, so let's ask
| him for tomorrow's lotto numbers.
|
| Parents: Yeah, we said he can tell you when another kid is
| sick and it's 100% correct every time.
|
| Scientist: That proves this is all bullshit.
| foltik wrote:
| Ritualistic "magical thinking" stays the same regardless of
| outcomes or new information. Science does the exact opposite
| - predictive power determines what's true. Nobody said your
| alien hypothesis is impossible; just that it's highly
| implausible. No predictions, no evidence, no way to test it.
| Loquebantur wrote:
| Your assessment of "magical thinking" being impervious to
| criticism funnily applies just the same to the attitude
| exhibited here regarding "fringed" ideas like "telepathy".
| The "Telepathy Tapes" are "new information", people's
| attitudes stay the same regardless.
|
| "Predictive power" isn't the source of truth in science,
| evidence for that attribute is. Given even only a hint of
| such evidence, scientists are supposed to work in order to
| acquire more, not to ignore the hint because that work
| would inconvenience them.
|
| You claim that "alien hypothesis" was implausible, but that
| statement would require solid arguments in its favor. And
| those don't exist. You rather argue from ignorance, but
| absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.
|
| Again, your pretense of "no predictions, no evidence, no
| way to test it" is simply counter-factual. You argue from
| ignorance. (To reiterate, evidence isn't the same as
| "proof")
| foltik wrote:
| The "Telepathy Tapes" aren't new information. They repeat
| a setup already tested under controlled conditions:
| facilitators know the answers and guide participants
| through non-telepathic cues, usually without realizing
| it. When those cues are blocked, the "telepathy"
| disappears. Scientists did the rational thing, tried to
| replicate the effect, and it failed.
|
| Absence of evidence isn't proof of absence, but when
| every controlled test comes up empty, that's the result.
| You might as well call a magician's card trick new
| evidence for magic.
| Loquebantur wrote:
| You invoke magic when you pretend, those "tests" were
| somehow "proof" instead of merely evidence against the
| claim.
|
| Argument from authority is no valid scientific approach,
| neither is you putting up a straw-man (your claim how the
| supposed effect came to be). Just because that's how you
| can imagine how the "trick" might work doesn't mean, it's
| what's actually happening. Just because the result
| (dis-)pleases you doesn't mean, the experiment was done
| (in-)correctly.
| foltik wrote:
| I am not invoking magic. When proper controls are added,
| the effect disappears. That is probabilistic evidence
| against the claim, not proof of anything. Just the
| outcome of repeated tests.
|
| No one is appealing to authority. The experiments are
| public, the methods transparent, and the results
| reproducible. If there is a better design, describe it.
|
| Facilitator cueing is not a guess or straw man. It has
| been directly measured in controlled studies, and when
| those cues are removed, performance drops to chance. That
| is what the data shows.
|
| You say tests are not proof, which is true, but repeated
| failure still counts. You call cueing a straw man, though
| it has been measured directly. Is there any outcome that
| would convince you the effect isn't there? If not then
| this isn't a discussion about evidence anymore.
| Yizahi wrote:
| That need is not a cause, it's a reason. The cause is mental
| variation we have as a species and which is never openly talked
| about.
| mjklin wrote:
| "A tendency to superstition is of the very essence of humanity
| and, when we think we have completely extinguished it, we shall
| find it retreating into the strangest nooks and corners, that
| it may issue out thence on the first occasion it can do with
| safety."
|
| - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
| msuniverse2026 wrote:
| That is funny because the occult/mystical system of
| Anthroposophy is built on the foundations of a Goethean
| approach to science.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Enter: the enduring appeal of superheroes.
|
| Notably, entering as our supernatural folk heroes started to
| fade in the mass communication age.
| messe wrote:
| > H L H Hn I Y Hn' s HI?
|
| > "Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?"
|
| > n
|
| > "Oh, come on. You can't expect me to believe that. It's an
| astronomical fact."
|
| > H sn L n H RIsn
|
| > "Really? Then what would have happened, pray?"
|
| > R BLL LIng gs L H ILLIn H RL
| lukebechtel wrote:
| Just finished hogfather and loved it.
| andrewla wrote:
| Blocked & Reported (the podcast) did two episodes on this [1] and
| [2] that breaks down most of the controversy. This has completely
| ruined me on anything even adjacent to this, like whether Koko
| the gorilla could actually communicate.
|
| [1]
| https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-210-facilitatin...
|
| [2] https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-242-the-
| telepat...
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Of course Koko could communicate. The beef is over whether she
| engaged in true use of human language.
| Loquebantur wrote:
| A podcast manages to convince you, but you cannot tell what
| exactly the issue is that renders "anything even adjacent"
| logically impossible?
|
| What about the possibility of being fooled the other way
| around, along with the majority? Truth isn't decided by
| majority vote after all.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Sure. But often one of the two sides has an obvious agenda.
|
| I thought of James Randi and "spoon bender", Uri Geller. I
| suppose if you're cynical enough you can presume that both
| are desperate for airtime, self-promotion and we should
| therefore be skeptical of both.
|
| Randi though for me has much less to gain in exposing frauds.
| schiffern wrote:
| Being convinced without the ability to explain the argument
| is troubling.
|
| But more importantly, mainstream scientists have the
| "obvious agenda" (well documented by now) to avoid ridicule
| and mockery. So if you're willing to weaponize ridicule and
| mockery, you can successfully suppress scientific
| investigation into whatever areas you choose.
|
| Let's not forget, the CIA invented the very term
| "conspiracy theory" to suppress investigation into illegal
| intelligence activities.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| I mean, at some point we are convinced as a convenience.
| You can use mathematical formulations describing _how_ a
| motor works without understanding why they are true.
| Similarly, I don't believe that there is a grand
| conspiracy involving chemtrails, even though I haven't
| proven that all the theories I've heard are false. I'm
| just fairly confident that this _could_ be done, given
| enough time and resources. But practically, I have to get
| on with my life.
| Loquebantur wrote:
| Being lazy incurs costs. With regard to "conspiracies"
| that cost is explicitly vulnerability to them.
|
| Neither "chemtrails", "UFOs&aliens" nor "telepathy"
| appear particularly "plausible". But that could just as
| well be a statement about your method of determining
| 'plausibility'?
|
| You invoke limited personal resources to justify
| complacency. Likely, you estimate the costs of being
| wrong as negligible since you never really thought about
| possible implications and do not know about any being
| particularly relevant to you. That's an argument from
| ignorance.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| Ya, I agree, my main point is that arguments from
| ignorance are acceptable sometimes. My main claim to
| schiffern is something like "Being convinced without the
| ability to explain the argument is sometimes fine." As
| specific examples, I propose chemtrails and how-motors-
| work. I think it is totally acceptable to dismiss the in-
| depth explanation for most people, because for most
| people they just aren't that important.
|
| Are you claiming that you never dismiss anything without
| fully understanding it? Do you completely understand all
| of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Baha'i, etc? I
| think it is possible to generate an infinite list of
| things you don't fully understand. And yet you of course
| have to take a practical stance on some of these things
| for your everyday life.
| robocat wrote:
| > the CIA invented the very term "conspiracy theory"
|
| I find the best conspiracies are supported by facts
| schiffern wrote:
| Catch 22. The best way to avoid hard facts is to scare
| away scientists. ;)
|
| But I agree, this is just garbage pseudoscience. I
| listened to the Banned & Reported episode, and TL;DR the
| Telepathy Tapes experiments had a non-blinded
| 'facilitator' _touching_ the blindfolded 'psychic.' My
| mind immediately went to Clever Hans, before the podcast
| hosts even brought it up later in the episode.
|
| Just watch any Derren Brown video to see how easy it is
| to 'cue' someone from across the room. This is James
| Randi 101, folks...
| sunscream89 wrote:
| I am shocked that I cannot comment that we are not alone in our
| own minds. That an entire culture exists among us who can network
| our minds and meddle in our thoughts.
|
| Or that conventional society is cognitively dissonant for
| ignoring this prevailing truth, even if the examples are confused
| and unscientific.
|
| Science is not ultimate truth.
|
| Science is constrained ignorance in pursuit of existential
| truths.
|
| We are not alone in our own minds and an entire long standing
| culture exists among us who can mess with our thoughts.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Sounds like schizophrenia.
| sunscream89 wrote:
| It is very like schizophrenia.
|
| In fact, I doubt most accounts of voices in our minds could
| be technically considered schizophrenia by any scientific
| measure of the brain.
| nemosaltat wrote:
| Nemo saltat sobrius... nobody dances sober nisi forte
| insanit... unless he is insane
|
| Your user name, HN join date, and comment history (largely
| flagged) are intriguing to me. Do you have any longer form
| version of your ideas publicly available?
| sunscream89 wrote:
| I share my normal as of you congenial side to acrue
| karma, so that I may burn it saying truthful things the
| mind coddled intelligentsia do not want to hear.
|
| For me, these are the hare.
|
| I will message something from your profile. Thanks for
| taking an interest in the greatest estrangement of our
| humanity.
|
| I have had a hand full of former HN accounts. Some search
| condition ("thought control") may reveal them all.
| thisisbrians wrote:
| I can chime in to say: the scientific method, so far, cannot
| explain consciousness, and that the whole materialistic basis
| for physics is facing a crisis in the face of quantum
| mechanics, etc. Most of us have utmost confidence in a method
| that so far has nothing to say whatsoever about the most
| important quality of our existence: that we are aware.
| sunscream89 wrote:
| Consciousness is the inflection upon the potential of
| existential being. One might say existential reality peering
| back upon itself.
|
| Awareness is merely a temporal feedback in the higher order
| cognitive biotechnology.
|
| Awareness is the tip of consciousness. Consciousness is
| programmable, can be manipulated, augmented, even inhibited.
| All with or without awareness.
| wredcoll wrote:
| The "scientific method" doesn't explain anything. It's a
| method for evaluating claims people make.
|
| The fact that there is no scientifically verifiable theory of
| consciousness has no bearing on the science that helped
| people create, say, my computer monitor.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| This place has always been babylon central.
|
| I also remember when hating Apple was cool you could not say
| one single good thing about the iPhone Mac etc they would just
| pile on you like it's high school all over again.
|
| Remember the cool people are out and about, the un-cool will
| always be over-represented in internet discussion.
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| Can you give an example of what kinds of thoughts are "meddled"
| with?
| sunscream89 wrote:
| I risk great karmatic death by over sharing.
|
| I'll name a few, though you won't like them and it is
| important to know the super elite can mess with your mind
| while stone cold sober like you're drunk out of your senses
| and you their hypnotized puppet. The mass mob culture train
| for years to perfect "special effects" which range from
| audible voices to weird sexual things, like infamous gaydar.
| Thought control culture is responsible for sexual dysphoria
| for instance. It's like a mostly anonymized internet only
| networks among our minds. No inherent rules, only hierarchies
| among the mobs.
|
| Special effects include: voices, spinning thoughts, emotional
| shifts. They can even give you farts.
|
| Individually these things are mostly harmless and they
| obviously do these things because they are a culture of ...
| jerks. Combined they can drive someone mad. Someone public
| shooting mad.
|
| For the mentally (intellectually or emotionally) advanced,
| there are whole inner worlds within ourselves just as or more
| compelling than whatever is going on outside. Mostly they
| play there, and then screw with us when they want something.
|
| What are they up to? They are the game masters. And their
| mobs caught up in their drama. Protected by the comfortable
| lie of modernity, these fiddle with us and influence our
| mindsets to drive our illusions of self determinism.
|
| Anything more specific and I may be considered inflammatory.
| sys32768 wrote:
| Reminds me of how in the early 1980s we used my great-
| grandmother's Ouija board to spook ourselves to no end.
|
| It was telling us names, giving us addresses, and all sorts of
| serious stuff you wouldn't expect adolescents to make up.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| PSA the _appeal_ is the only perplexing part,
|
| and ITT many of us agree, it's not perplexing, it's just humans
| engaging in the same magical thinking and coping strategies we
| always to.
|
| The "telepathy" is 100% a fabrication of parents desperate to
| believe their situation and kids are something other than they
| are.
| marze wrote:
| I was interested to learn recently that Alan Turing believed
| telepathy was a real thing. At least that is what someone wrote.
| ianburrell wrote:
| He brought ESP up in his paper about the Turing Test. My
| understanding is that it is possible counter argument to his
| proposed machine intelligence.
|
| Belief in ESP back then is more understandable since they
| didn't have the experiments that disproved it, or the knowledge
| of biology that doesn't show a mechanism.
| speak_plainly wrote:
| An ideal listen for anyone looking to sharpen their critical
| thinking. The reasoning moves are subtle, and it's easy to miss
| the small leaps and omissions that reveal how persuasive but
| unsound arguments work.
|
| If you want to test your logic radar, keep a Reasoning-Error
| Bingo Card handy -- here are some of the most common moves to
| watch for:
|
| - Anecdotal Evidence as Proof - moving personal testimonies
| presented as sufficient evidence.
|
| - Cherry-picking - highlighting the few "hits" or successful
| moments and ignoring null or failed sessions.
|
| - Facilitator/Ideomotor Bias - unacknowledged influence of
| helpers who already know the answers.
|
| - Lack of Experimental Control - demonstrations without blinding
| or verification procedures.
|
| - Equivocation on "Spelling" and "Communication" - shifting
| definitions of what counts as independent expression.
|
| - Over-extension/Universal Claim - extrapolating from a handful
| of cases to "all nonspeakers."
|
| - Appeal to Emotion and Narrative Framing - using distressing or
| inspiring stories to disarm skepticism.
|
| - Appeal to Authority - invoking credentials, research funding,
| or famous supporters in place of data.
|
| - Confirmation Bias/Omission of Counter-Evidence - excluding
| decades of research debunking similar methods.
|
| - Shifting the Burden of Proof - implying critics must disprove
| telepathy rather than producers proving it.
|
| - Quantum-Language Hijack - invoking "quantum entanglement" or
| "energy fields" as pseudo-explanations.
|
| - False Dichotomy ("open-minded vs. materialist") - framing
| skepticism as moral or emotional failure.
|
| - Paradigm-Appeal Fallacy - claiming we're witnessing a
| scientific "revolution" instead of providing data.
|
| - Ambiguous Success Criteria - redefining what counts as a
| correct answer or "connection."
|
| - Halo Effect through Compassion - moral halo from helping
| disabled children transferred to truth of the claim.
|
| Ironically, in trying to transcend "materialism," the series
| repeats Descartes' old mistake -- treating mind and matter as
| mutually exclusive instead of as aspects of a single natural
| order. That move saddles them with the same impossible burden
| Descartes faced: explaining how an immaterial mind could causally
| interact with the physical world on top of everything else they
| need to prove.
| martin-t wrote:
| This should be taught in primary school.
|
| I had a realization that logical biases and fallacies form
| well-known patterns only at uni and only on my own.
|
| I then had a much worse realization - that most people still
| don't know about them and that they don't care.
|
| You can't make people care, that only comes when they are the
| ones getting hurt by others being manipulated. But you can give
| them tools to know what they should care about when that
| happens.
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