Evolution towards psychic abilities

[MadScientist]

I just gave it a thought from another angle and came up with this..

 

I'm pretty certain I've no psychic abilities and I assume nobody in here has either, the lack of psychics proving they're real psychics.

 

But for us to evolve these abilities the universe is going to have to apply pressure or another kind of reason for us to evolve them.

The composition of the human brain can't have altered all that much since we evolved into uprighters.

So why haven't we already evolved pyhcic powers??

If psychic powers are possible wouldn't it have been more advantageos for the earliest forms of life too?? Wouldn't even the earliest mammals have needed it, if something "strange" told them there were predators around the next corner, they'd have evolved that strange sense, wouldn't they??

 

If a shark can detect those minute electrical impulses from prey or other animals can read the magnetic fields. Natural psychic abilities must require something far more advanced than those strange senses.

 

 

 

 

Quick typo for some humour, psychics, psychicks, psy chicks... Wouldn't it be crazy if we (as males ) found out that women had psychic abilities and were a much more highly evolved species than men. They'd evolved this ability to work as a single consciousness that made our individual male brains look like empty peanut shells. So they had all their reasons for never telling us too much about them, being "psychicks" they can stop any women who wanted to tell a man the truth.

Think about that the next time you're in close proximity to a psychick.

[RICHARDBATTY]

I just gave it a thought from another angle and came up with this..

 

But for us to evolve these abilities the universe is going to have to apply pressure or another kind of reason for us to evolve them.

The composition of the human brain can't have altered all that much since we evolved into uprighters.

So why haven't we already evolved pyhcic powers??

If psychic powers are possible wouldn't it have been more advantageos for the earliest forms of life too?? Wouldn't even the earliest mammals have needed it' date=' if something "strange" told them there were predators around the next corner, they'd have evolved that strange sense, wouldn't they??

 

[/quote']

I agree. I could see it being usefull if we were still hunted by wild animals or needed to hunt and co ordinate hunting with other humans for survival. On the other hand the information and concepts we have to deal with now require an expanded conciousness and this may lead to psychic abilitys. Don't you just love it when you contradict yourself in your own post.

[Sayonara]

Put it this way: there's only a pressure to become "better" hunters if the competition for your resources threatens your ability to get what you need.

 

Even if that pressure was there, in humans it is far more likely to cause social or behavioural change than the sudden proliferation of some ultra-rare gene that might not even exist.

 

Just like in your "evolving psychic powers throughout the universe" idea where you tried to explain how populations and communities in the galaxy might have evolutionary effects on each other through instant communication, without attempting to explain how it arose in the first place.

 

Evolution does not predict. It only describes changes that have occured.

[MadScientist]

Put it this way: there's only a pressure to become "better" hunters if the competition for your resources threatens your ability to get what you need.

 

Nice one!!!

Not knowing enough about evolution I have to ask a couple of questions...

 

Are you taking into consideration things like your main prey disappearing, environmental changes that cut you off from your prey or.. I suppose you must be because obviously those affect your ability to get that prey.

 

Even if that pressure was there, in humans it is far more likely to cause social or behavioural change than the sudden proliferation of some ultra-rare gene that might not even exist.

 

This one got me thinking!!

Simple bacteria have simple DNA, I'm pretty sure that's correct.

And genes are sections of DNA, right??

 

Don't simpler life forms have simpler DNA/genes?? That's what I remember being told anyway.

So an amoeba doesn't have the genes to turn some cells into eyes and others into ears..

If a rat has simpler DNA than ours but more complex than an amoeba.

That's got to mean that as a species evolves it mutates new genes that can turn things into eyes and ears and complex brains..

I'm pretty certain that's basically right, right??

 

So isn't there every chance our genes might become even more complicated than they already are??

What's the thinking on that one?? Will it definitely happen or is there some limitating reason as to why our DNA can't improve itself again??

 

What I was thinking was, if a simpler form of life suddenly gets a bit more DNA and develops simple eyes. If you didn't know about that gene for some reason you couldn't predict the evolution of eyes.

 

Just like in your "evolving psychic powers throughout the universe" idea where you tried to explain how populations and communities in the galaxy might have evolutionary effects on each other through instant communication, without attempting to explain how it arose in the first place.

 

Evolution does not predict. It only describes changes that have occured.

 

And that ruins what I was thinking about above.

 

What about genetic engineering then??

Couldn't we experiment on simpler DNA to give those life forms some new "features" and any good ones we could add to our own??

 

Is that something we know we'll never be able to do or something we might be able to do?? Even if it means altering the state of the atoms..

 

Because if you could find some useful new "feature" and put it into human DNA, that would then be in the evolutionary make up for humans, wouldn't it??

[tecoyah]

In my opinion, the growth of spiritual understanding (for lack of a better description) is a function of evolution. There are relatively ancient practices, in use today that can be considered meta in the way they work. I am a level II Reiki practitioner and can tell you the effects are Real. This is merely a form of energy manipulation, and is somewhat dependent on the person receiving the treatment to believe it works. There are quite a few things in this world that go beyond logical explanation, but that , at least to myself, does not destroy the validity they may have.

[Ophiolite]

Tecoyah, I had never heard of Reiki until your post. Now, armed with ten minutes of internet surfing, I am gifted with the ignorance that passeth all understanding.

The ability of the mind, to a degree, (and let's not get wrapped up in a discussion on what that is!) to heal the body is increasingly recognised as being valid. From my very brief reading it appears that Reiki falls into this same school. Would that, in your opinion, be a fair statement, and if not, in what way do you see Reiki differing from it?

Spiritual understanding (and again let's not quibble initially over precise meanings) is likely related to self awareness and complexity of thought process, so it is reasonable that as consciousness emerged and complexity grew, that so to should spiritual understanding. So, yes, in that sense it would be an evolutionary by-product.

[MadScientist]

In my opinion, the growth of spiritual understanding (for lack of a better description) is a function of evolution. There are relatively ancient practices, in use today that can be considered meta in the way they work. I am a level II Reiki practitioner and can tell you the effects are Real. This is merely a form of energy manipulation, and is somewhat dependent on the person receiving the treatment to believe it works. There are quite a few things in this world that go beyond logical explanation, but that , at least to myself, does not destroy the validity they may have.

 

Totally agreed but I see the following as fine details you left out.

 

Evolution gives us intelligence, self awareness and a LOT of questions that need answering. One of which is "Why am I here and how did I get here??"

They look around themselves and see how much "stuff" there is and deduce - "Whatever made all this and this powerful thing I am must have been far more powerful than anything I can see. So it must be something I can't see. I've seen enough of the world to know there's nothing here that can do it.."

 

Sorry Ophi, didn't read your post before but I might as well leave this in.

[tecoyah]

Yes....you could easily define Reiki as a function of the mind...there is far more to it, but that will certainly do.

[Guest Chrispy]

I'm pretty certain I've no psychic abilities and I assume nobody in here has either' date=' the lack of psychics proving they're real psychics.

[/quote']

You're in luck, I found this thread through Google and I just happen to be what you would call psychic.

 

I really don't know what to say, I've had a feeling I was different from other all my life (growing up a blonde in the southwest US will do that, too) but it was only recently I looked up several psychic tests and such and all lead me to the conclusion I am psychic- in fact, I am the rarest kind: an Ultra-Sensitive. Whereas, I'm told, other psychics must concentrate it comes like a second nature to me, but with one serious drawback: I cannot shut it off. This is really bad because one of the powers I exhibit is Empathy (everyone remember Counselor Troi from Star Trek? "Captian, I sense hostility.." ) When I get near people, I sort of sense their emotions and feelings but since I can't control it very well, so social situations make me uneasy. I also try to block it out as best I can, but in doing so, people think I'm rude that I won't maintain eye contact or shake hands. I also show precogitive powers, I practice with a deck of cards or dice now. In the beginning, I tried easy stuff like a coin or trying to predict a card color (50/50 chance for each) but now I'm getting to the point I can get suit, and sometimes the actual card. As for genetics, so far my father, mother and brother have have not shown any similar talents that I am aware of. If it is a gene, it must be recessive on my mother's side somehow, as I share more traits with her (lighter skin, blonde hair because my father has brown-black hair, and height). I'm not sure what else you'd like to know, but keep in mind I'm a regular person with these abilities I myself do not fully understand.. Although I am somewhat of a wierdo, I'm not a crystal hugging hippie!!

[Ophiolite]

I just knew you were going to post that!

[CPL.Luke]

my personal belief is that being an empath is a natural thing, common to all humans. (this is not a spiritual or magic explanation for it)

 

its called facial expressions.

 

http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/personal/andy.calder/perception.shtml

 

I also saw a discovery channel program on the topic

 

the fact is that everyone demonstrates their emotional state through their face/eyes/posture/etc.

 

as for why some people seem to be more sensitive to emotions, is that some people through out the events in their lives have learned to read the subtleties of emotional expression better than others

 

precognition is literarily impossible, but is more of a byproduct of people ignoring the misses and accepting the hits.

 

have you ever recorded your hits and misses?

 

here is a really good test.

 

go find a ti-83+ (if you have one)

or google a random number generator.

set it to chose any number at random from 0-9 (or whatever you would like)

guess what number it will chose

tell it to start

then see what your hit percentage is

 

while technically a 10% margin is what you should have.

Imho anything below 33% over a short duration (10-20 trials) can be counted as statistical error, over a long duration (over a hundred trials) the result should be closer to 10% but not exact you could have slightly more (any staticians out there)

 

 

most phsycics and supposed pre-cogs I don't believe because, I know of a coin trick I came up with myself a few years ago. if you spin or flip a coin I can get near 100% accuracy. this is not from any phsycic power. if the coin is spin around you can see the side thats going to be on top as the coin slows down. with a flip assuming its not flipped to fast you can see the side thats going to land just before it actually lands.

 

as for the rest of the thread, while the evolution towards phsychic abilities could work in my oppinion except for two things

 

1) whats the mechanism for which thought could be transmitted (some animals use different colors of light emitted from mixing chemicals together to communitcate, this could happen for humans but would take genetic manipulation and both parties would need the gene added in order to communicate telepathically)

 

2) evolution is a series of random mutations. evolutionary changes occur without ryme or reason. however the reason why evolution seems to result in advantageous mutations is because if it is non-advantageous the resulting creature will most likely not breed because of an early death, or sterility etc.

 

if you find a mechanism through which phsycic abilities can work, you need to find a scenario where the early transitory forms can continue to breed and spread the genes that would be responsible for the phsycic abilities.

 

not to mention the fact that you would have to wait for the random chance of mutations to catch up with the probabilities involved.

[MadScientist]

You're in luck' date=' I found this thread through Google and I just happen to be what you would call psychic.

 

I really don't know what to say, I've had a feeling I was different from other all my life (growing up a blonde in the southwest US will do that, too) but it was only recently I looked up several psychic tests and such and all lead me to the conclusion I am psychic- in fact, I am the rarest kind: an Ultra-Sensitive. Whereas, I'm told, other psychics must concentrate it comes like a second nature to me, but with one serious drawback: I cannot shut it off. This is really bad because one of the powers I exhibit is Empathy (everyone remember Counselor Troi from Star Trek? "Captian, I sense hostility.." ) When I get near people, I sort of sense their emotions and feelings but since I can't control it very well, so social situations make me uneasy. I also try to block it out as best I can, but in doing so, people think I'm rude that I won't maintain eye contact or shake hands. I also show precogitive powers, I practice with a deck of cards or dice now. In the beginning, I tried easy stuff like a coin or trying to predict a card color (50/50 chance for each) but now I'm getting to the point I can get suit, and sometimes the actual card. As for genetics, so far my father, mother and brother have have not shown any similar talents that I am aware of. If it is a gene, it must be recessive on my mother's side somehow, as I share more traits with her (lighter skin, blonde hair because my father has brown-black hair, and height). I'm not sure what else you'd like to know, but keep in mind I'm a regular person with these abilities I myself do not fully understand.. Although I am somewhat of a wierdo, I'm not a crystal hugging hippie!! [/quote']

 

I can see Cpl.Lukes point of view that the empathic ability is just you being really good at picking up signals from people that most of us don't notice. Then overreacting to them, as if you put yourself in the other persons shoes and if it's a negative feeling you get you don't like it so you shun it.

 

I'm not saying that's the case, just that as a non empath that's how I explain it.

But if you feel strongly enough that it is some kind of esoteric sense you've got and you're trying to test your precognitive abilities, I think you're going the wrong way about testing/developing them.

Since you can already sense with people use your precognitive on people too.

Look out of a window onto a busy street and predict the sex of the next person to walk by or what mood they're in or clothes they'll be wearing.

 

Or I'd get someone to hold the card up, which would be more of a test of your extra senses relating to people, in this case telepathy. If you can read emotions so easily...

 

The one thing I cannot understand about this kind of thing though, is why isn't more evidence of it provided to us non special people??

Why isn't it on the TV more??

If Uri Geller can become so famous for a spoon bending trick you'd think some people with real abilities would become just as if not more famous.

Which is why I remain a hopeful sceptic.

[Guest Chrispy]

Well, your hypothesis that I'm reading facial expressions is wrong. Like I said, I try to distance myself from others and I don't look directly at them. In fact, I can sense people with my eyes shut. As for precognition, it does work with people, for example: one of my classmates got pregnant and I knew before she told me, I also knew the sex of the child after about one and a half months, when scientifically speaking I belive the fetus has no sex. Agian, that would be 50/50 but other things occur regularly such as seeing a friend I haven't spoken to in a while. I'll find myself thinking before about that person and then we'll run into each other. I know you'll probably walk all over this, but I do have off days where none of my predictions are correct, but those days I'm feeling like crap so it's like if you went to work and tried to get several projects done and that only made you more distressed because it didn't work out.

Oh, and while I'm thinking of it: when I try to figure numbers, I fail pretty much every time BUT then I DO succeed in predicting! Okay, here is how that would work: I take a die and roll it, calling out 4 before I even throw it... It's a 1, so I was wrong. I try again and say 5, it's a 4. I say 3 and it's a 5, I say 2 and it's a 3.. get the pattern? I'm predicting the number in advance, but for the NEXT roll. Even if I'm just making a lucky guess, what is the chance I get even the exact pattern of 3 rolls? (No, really any staticians out there tell me, I want to know)

 

Anyway, it's been my expirence that the social ramifications of these powers are much more evident and nearer to the person than the evolutionary changes.. Tell you what, though.. in about 20 more years when I'm married and have teenagers I'll report back, kay?

[CPL.Luke]

what was the range of numbers?

 

i believe the probability would be 1/1000 if it was 1-10

 

however if that is not repeated multiple times (the pattern persists after many trials) (more than 10) I would consider it a statistical anomaly.

 

if you could maintain the pattern for that long, I would try a different random number generator (I'm sure you could find dozens of these). This would ensure that the program your using works, and is not just following some pattern that you subconsciously found (or something else)

 

also it doesn't count if you run the experiment thousands of times and you get a pattern out of it. this would just be because you did it so many times you got lucky

 

do it with a couple of random number generators, and if you can write a paper on it and get famous for being a true precog.

[psi20]

Chrispy, I don't know what kind of scenario and restrictions are put on the scenario, and I'm no statistician, but here's what I got for a probability.

 

A, B, and C are the numbers on the 1-6 die.

Call ____ . Roll ____. Call ____. Roll A. Call _____. Roll B. Call ____. Roll C.

 

Say those were the numbers that were rolled. Then you would've had to call

 

Call A. Call B. Call C. Call anything. Which means 1/6 * 1/6 * 1/6 * 1, which rounds to be .46%.

 

If A, B, C are all different, it would yield .58%.

 

That's pretty slim, but if you do it many times you'll be able to get it. However, I've heard of this before, and it's been dubbed "the psi-after effect" by a psychic named Beverly Jaegars. She believes psychic abilities can be learned. I think she also believes they can be inherited.

 

Although psychic abilities might give you an edge in life, they can also drive you nuts. Some people, I don't doubt their abilities, can see spirits. Some of these spirits can be murderers, rapists, stranglers, etc. So it can drive the psychic crazy.

[psi20]

Speaking of the random number generator, my friend and I tried that. We had a 50/50 chance of getting what number it was (1 or 2). She did this for an hour or so. She had an amazing result far higher than 50 %, or maybe it was around 60% and the amounts of hits far exceeded the amounts of misses making it seem like it was way higher than 50%, but one thing I'll remember for sure is that she had 10 in a row.

[LucidDreamer]

What's strange is that when researches test ESP abilities with computer random number generators they almost always show a slight ability to predict numbers.

[CPL.Luke]

well you will always get either a higher or lower percentage than 50% for a coin toss or higher/lower than 10% for a 1-10 random number generator.

 

 

also according to statistics all events are independant. In other words if you flip a coin and call it heads, and it is heads, then you flip it again and call heads, the probability of it being heads again is equal to the probability that it was heads last time.

 

so you can go on a ten run streak of being perfect, as it is always equally likely that you will guess right.

 

 

now true proof of pshycic abilities to me would be a 70-100% hit rate on a 1-10 random number generator. then, being able to replicate the results on demand.

[MadScientist]

About using random number generators on a computer...

I'd have thought it would make the process of prediction more difficult, to visualise the number shown on a computer monitor, all those photons hitting the mesh to illuminate them. Wouldn't a dice or coin toss be easier to visualise for predictions since it's something you can both see and touch already.

[JHAQ]

"Natural " selection no longer applies to H. sap except perhaps by resistance to some otherwise lethal diseases . Human evolution is regressive due to modern medical techology perpetuating ( to reproductive success ) in the human genome line deleterious genes

[Verusamore]

Psychics , interesting ..

What if someone were to understand everything about medical health ,

If I were to know the current physiology and wellbeing of an individual just by perceiving there exteriors ,then it would be possible for me to understand what had triggered there current state of health/wellbeing into the past and then to lead this onto knowledge of potential future outcomes of to what they might just end up to be .

 

If I adapted myself to chaos and understood it then most certainly I would be a psychic ,

is it ever possible for a human to understand the nature of chaos ?

[Sayonara]

"Natural " selection no longer applies to H. sap except perhaps by resistance to some otherwise lethal diseases .

What about resistance to abiotic effects, such as UV light or extremes of temperature?

 

Are those not pressures for natural selection?

[Verusamore]

#121 ,

>If I adapted myself to chaos and understood it then most certainly I would be a psychic , is it ever possible for a human to understand the nature of chaos ?

 

This answers the question of having psychic ( telepathic ) abilities of No , there is no such thing , but super super computers may able to one day understand all of human cognitive features such as;

 

Financial and economic prediction (banking and investment companies)

Fraud detection (insurance and communications)

Scheduling and planning (transportation and manufacturing)

Medical diagnoses

Information retrieval

Weather forecasting .

 

Just imagine Orwells Big Brother .

[Sayonara]

The society in Big Brother wasn't really famous for distributing accurate information.

[Verusamore]

Ok maybe not Orwells Big Brother but a high form of Artificial Intelligence that will understand all of such as things .