but if you do that, the thread won't be over!!!!


OMG PARADOX ALERT

2/2/2010 7:48:36 PM

ya'll know you only use 10% of your brain right ...

just imagine what would be possible if we could unlock the rest!!

2/2/2010 9:37:28 PM

Just in case you weren't kidding with the first part, and because too many people think it's true:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10%25_of_brain_myth

2/3/2010 12:48:13 AM

^^ are you joking?
You use your ENTIRE brain, it’s just that typically, at any given moment, you might not be using more than 10%.

That’s like pointing out that since I don’t run my air conditioning and heating all at the same time, i’m only using my HVAC to 50% of it’s capability! wow!

2/3/2010 1:02:58 AM

i took the big picture of Oprah to indicate that yes, NerdChick is in on the joke

2/3/2010 1:12:38 AM

Hahaha you goons

2/3/2010 3:25:36 AM

Quote :

"^^ are you joking? You use your ENTIRE brain, it’s just that typically, at any given moment, you might not be using more than 10%"

are you joking?
That's retarded. There's never a point in your life when you're using only 10% of your brain. (except if you're in a coma or something.) Most of your brain stays pretty active just about all of the time.

2/3/2010 9:28:23 AM

Quote :

"That's presuming that the mechanism requires that someone realize that their positive thinking alone is what matters, and not merely thinking positive things."

Quote :

"If I were to argue from the position of believing this psuedo-science/BS/whatever, I would argue that primitive humans (or whatever we descended from) just didn't have the knowledge to "unlock" their powers. Only now that we've advanced to this point can we begin to understand the true power of the human brain."

I'll go ahead and put it out there that we're chasing scarecrows, since we really haven't yet seen an argument for this that makes sense. That said, those were some good calls. I think we're getting closer to a manufactured argument for it.

No matter how you turn it, an argument for ESP is probably going to need some element that says that we're just now 'aware' enough to turn on such a skill, and presumably... we only attained this after post-industrial society. Granted, this argument falls into the same traps that many manifest destiny scholars did, which is to say that it requires that there is something special about us.

Personally, I would find the "Harry Potter" argument for ESP to be the most convincing (out of the options), meaning it is in fact commonplace for people to have ESP powers, but they find their monopoly so lucrative to their own person that they decide to fly around on their brooms and not tell the rest of us about it. The argument has a caveat that it's VERY selectively active in certain individuals, but I think it's defensible compared to the other arguments present. The amusing consequence of this would be that those who write books about physic power are in fact yahoos like the rest of us because:
a.) their work mentions nothing about the secret society of magic users and
b.) they have no ability to demonstrate their power

I think people will find a sour taste in the H.P. argument because it's basically the same as the vampire argument. Really, vampires are just as likely. But on the flip side, we must consider the secret societies that do not occur in popular literature. After all, how does the occurrence of mentions to a secret society in popular culture affect the likelihood of existence? Well, if I was more than just a mere muggle then I wouldn't have to be using this clunky old tool of logic, now would I?

Finally, I arrive at a 3rd and most likely account of extraordinary mental powers - we don't have them but could. Now we're back to the old episode of Star Trek where they encounter the advanced race that were so enlightened that they turned into a ball of light. They could probably kill us all with their minds, but they're just so fregin' cool that they don't. Nonetheless, I expect many people ALSO find this account to be highly unsatisfactory in that it contains very little explanatory power. We all knew the universe has crazy stuff that we don't know about. Add onto that, there's no reason to believe there's any strong correlation between what we think an advanced creature with ESP would be able to do and what the laws of nature actually allow - you know... aside from our knowledge of physics (at which point we regress to reading about super soldiers in Scientific American). At least in the H.P. world, there is the possibility of 'leaks' reaching our world and giving a clue to a magic society.

That wraps it up, aside from the possibility that there is no such thing as magic powers at all. Or that magic simply becomes non-magic the moment we discover it. And maybe we're just a society destined to destroy ourselves in nuclear or antimatter war... like all the societies before us... and the ones after us.

2/4/2010 8:40:45 PM