psychic chess masters

The losing move in your next game of chess will be made by either you or your opponent some time after pawn to e4. Take heed.

I'd like to know how aliens and extra-terrestrials have been factored into a topic about there being psychic chess masters.....

"I'd like to know how aliens and extra-terrestrials have been factored into a topic about there being psychic chess masters....."

Yeah, I know what you mean.  I think some skeptical people were lumping UFOs with paranormal things as a bunch of unproven bunko, and it took a life of its own.  I don't know... wait, ... I'm getting something

You have not cleansed the doors of perception. Nothing has opened up your third eye.

I bet if you took mushrooms or psychedelic drugs, life would start making sense, and you'd understand that the paranormal, metaphysics and psychic phenoma exist and are actually the norm.  

I believe The Doors sang about this:

When You're Strange

Who could see this next idea coming? Take this board and photo-shop it into another photo from the internet. Or take photos of two people and make it look like they are playing chess.

Pfft.  All I see is the pieces in the final position of the finished game and the two players walking away from the board.

your meowve.

Seriously though, the psychic and prophetic abilities do exist.

But they are not accessible to people who are overly bound the the coarser vibrations perceptions of mundane attachments.  It's like background noise most people don't even notice.  Plus they have weak receivers by not practicing paying attention.  Because they have no perception personally, they assume it exists for no one.

Then there is the question, why doesn't it work on demand 100% of the time?  Well, it is possible that demand and pressure and expectation interferes with the process just like in quantum physics, observing something changes it.

The point is, it's a wash.  Just because you feel psychic phenomena haven't been proven to your satisfaction doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or you have even figured out if it does, or if it is even possible to prove, even if it does exist or is actually common.

Well, not exactly this one.

The question is rather : why does it work in 0% of the cases under proper conditions ?

But you expect anyone to believe that your diagram? Which of course does not provide evidence of any experiments, nor disclose the method of testing or the results, much less all of the experiments, nor things that occur outside the confines of an experiment.  Again, citing what is known about quantum physics, ... observing something changes it.  

It might be that the phenomenon being observed doesn't hold up to that kind of scrutiny or is distorted or interfered with by it, but very real nevertheless.  Perhaps it is fragile like a thin layer of smoke.  When you intercede with expectations, thoughts, coarser stuff, it is like wind that dissipates the smoke, by analogy.

The point is, you don't know and maybe never will.  All you know is that it hasn't entered your perception, but may be real and common.

Maybe it's like trying to catch your shadow.

This "diagram" does not come from serious study, you know.

Ok, I now admit that possibly, there are psychic things, but we just cannot observe them. Unlike quantum mechanics where we can make probabilistic experiments, the psychic stuff remains hidden when someone tries to measure it.

I have some trouble seeing how it is different of that not happening, but that's just me.

Actually, amazing psychic skills have been displayed, even by those who are the more skeptic here. See on page 1, you will find, 619 posts before yours, its answer. Estragon must be a self-ignored psychic :

I think the safe view of most things we haven't experienced or *disproven* is "maybe".  I understand, appreciate and use the scientific method all the time in my field of engineering.  I wouldn't be able to survive in my career if I didn't. My success depends on repeatable concrete, accurate, functionally relevant results.

But I also did my share of meditation in my youth. Also some fasting, and some marijuana, and the rare psychedelic, although I haven't used recreational drugs for many years.  But I've had experiences that convinced me that there are other layers to existence most people normally aren't aware of and may never be, until they have certain key experiences in the course of their life, illness, decline or death, when certain things are stripped away from their 'solid' world view.

Having said that, I haven't had too much in the way of 'paranormal' phenomena in my life as I've become more materialistic, older, have stopped doing yoga, meditating, just 'being'.  The work-a-day world and pressures for mundane material success and materialistic priorities tend to squelch the metaphysical view of the world, at least if it isn't a high priority and discipline and effort aren't applied to it. 

I guess some might say that materialistic attachments are the opposite of spritual insights.  The more attached one is the less free and open one is.  And the attachments bring in all kinds of heavy pressures and burdens and limits to maintain the attachments, which build on the theme.  So they're divergent positions.

And finally, I have to reiterate that we really don't know much about ultimate reality, despite our scientific attempts to understand it.  It is *so* vast.  We don't really know the origins of consciousness, matter, energy, the universe, time, or existence itself.  And then we have some concepts and models to discuss, but still miss so much. The Big Bang only takes us back to the Big Bang, and 'singularity' is just a word.  What happened before that, or how things got the way they are/were at the big bang will probably forever be a mystery.  If we don't understand our origins, and don't have minds expansive enough to comprehend eternity, infinity the vastness of the universe, and all kinds of things we have neither or facilities to investigate, I think we need to be very humble about asserting what is real and what is not.  However, in terms of surviving in a physical body in the material world, using science and testable obvservable phenomena as guidelines to shape thought, practices and interactions are extremely useful, to a point.  They definitely produce targeted results.  But if we don't know what to target or why, we can be going off into the weeds.  One can be too clever for one's own good.  Our pursuit of science and technology does a lot of harm as well as good, and it might be that simpler more organic approaches are healthier and more enduring ultimately.  Who knows?

That's a gem, really.

Now get back in the woods, and don't use silex for fire, if you want me to take that theory seriously. I'm not betting a lot about your life expectancy, despite your "more organic" approach of the world, getting rid of the pesky science dogma.

Otherwise, yes, maybe, our understanding of physics is completely wrong, and other stuff happens. Maybe, maybe, even, there are measurable effects of such stuff.

But as long as none comes with a theory that predicts these stuff (predict, as opposite to explain), and is validated, the scientific attitude is not "well, maybe", it's "that's nonsense".

Yes, it really is a gem.  And of course your hyperbole and absurd mischaracterization of what I wrote is irrelevant pompous nonsense.  I didn't say 'get rid of science', or even come close to suggesting that you or I should march straight into the woods and live on our own.  I speculating about a possibility that if humanity turned to simpler and more organic lifestyle (and implicitly that if it had the communities, culture and structures to support that modality and make it viable because we are a social species built to survive through cooperation and community), that it might be more durable than our current applications of science and [mis]use of technology through its inexpert selfish shortsighted profit-motivated application.

I am not denying the obvious benefits of science, which are quite impressive.  I'm saying ultimately it might be that closer to nature and simpler is more viable.  A good case can certainly be made for that, though I'm fully aware that some key inventions could potentially resolve some of the current technologically induced problems and then some, and maybe take us to a more perfect and durable way of living.  But maybe there's something about 'going the long way around' (nature has had billions of years) to get us back to healthy durability is not as efficient, and it turns out to not be practical. I don't know. I can see arguments both ways.

I'm getting at the possibility that the long term net of science might not be gain.  Of course there are pockets of incredible accomplishment.  But what about the waste product associated with the achievements?  The resource consumption and destruction and all the harm that may have been wrought in the creation and as a side effect in the future of those benefits?  Do we really have the wherwithal to comprehend where it all comes out in the totality of things vs. a more natural approach?

So please stop putting words into my mouth and going off on tangents and extremes at my expense.  It impugns your own credibility, not mine.

reflectivist  wrote "One can be too clever for one's own good."

So true... especially when it comes to the New Testament. So many smart people waive it off without having tried any of its claims. Jesus taught people how they can commune with God... that is more of a spirtual practice than a religious dogma. His teaching is less about dos and dont's and more about try and see. 

So, the benefits science brought us so far are good, but the ones it will bring us later will be outweighted by the drawbacks.

Have you a single reason to believe this could be more true now that it will be in 100 years, or than it was 100 years ago ?

Oh yeah, sorry, you don't know, but that's a possibility.

Why the snarky nonsense?  I'm posing reasonable questions.  And you are omitting many obvious downsides of science and technology.  There's is much evidence to support a reasonable postulation that we are, through technology and science, closer to extinguishing life on the planet than we've ever been or could be before it.  There is no guarantee that we won't wind up committing mass suicide or genocide by creating all of this ambituous innovation with shortsighted greedy motivation.  Our progress is very out-of-balance; recklessly, haphazardly integrated. For example, if we mine gold and destroy a whole rainforest, is that a net gain just because gold is cool?  That's just a metaphor for millions of ways we produce fantastic, notable, seemingly laudible achievements at even greater unsustainable implausible costs.

Look at some of technology's seemingly cool achievements - antibiotics were a silver bullet, but now they may make us even more vulnerable to more maladies than before, and might not be the long term net gain we assumed.  So then, we say, invent a new approach or antibiotic - let's always stay one jump ahead of the headless horseman.  Can we outrun it forever?  What about genetic engineering? So Monsanto, for profit starts tampering with the food.  Plenty to suggest GMOs are a disaster.  We start putting genes in other animals, creating mutants... everyone knows the huge risks associated with that, but profiteering, shortsightedness, ambition, greed,   hubris, curiosity, recklessness keep us proceeding with the experiment without weighing carefully the downsides or best approach.  Is that not a potential recipe for disaster?  Why are you so confident science won't get us into more trouble than it saves us from, in the long run?   Consider nuclear weapons, and reactor disasters like Fukishima, which is far far far from over.  It's still a nightmare.  They are now creating vast amounts of highly radioactive toxic waste water they are having a very very difficult containing it.  And it's gotten way into our ecosystem with half-life of some materials being millions of years.

Remember, my initial point referred to the durability, not accomplishments of science, versus nature.

Allow me to say this :

"When seeing our wars, many people are lamenting that the globe is in turmoil, and predict the end of the world by soon. But many worse things already happened, and we are still here."

Ok, actually, that's not me. I just loosely translated. That's from Montaigne, roughly 450 years ago. (Old) French version here.

OK, and how did he surmise the end of the world might arise from those wars, as opposed to modalities of potential destruction from myriad assaults of science and technology on the fragile life support systems of the planet? The elephant in the room, of course, is going extinct... er, uh, I mean is that technologies have evolved precipitously and grown exponentially in potency and scope, since his conjecture, and are exhibiting measured and severe deterioration of the ecosphere on numerous fronts.  

There is a well-established concept of threshold toxicity, which purports that a certain amount of abuse can be tolerated by some toxins until a threshold is hit, then, bam, game over. One might not even notice anything until that threshold is hit and then drop dead. Yet, you quote someone who implied that there was no imminent doom for our 4 billion year old planet 450 years ago, that we are still here, ergo, it hasn't happened yet, so anything we do in the meantime is inconsequential?  You go so far as to proffer in previous posts, that scientific progress implies the long term viability of our civilization or humanity.  That we, not only can, but, will invent our way out of our mess.
I assume you are too smart to seriously believe that quote is honestly relevant to our current global condition.  Perhaps you are just kidding.
In all of our hubris, we are trying to reinvent nature. We think we can do it better, even though life and its delicate, vast, subtle, scarcely understood intertwined relationships, has had billions of years to evolve, whereas our technology is only hundreds of years old, and our contemporary brains, the brains of our species, behind that science, only thousands.