Seeing into the Future

[John Phoenix]

I myself have done this this on two occasions. I have seen images of myself doing something or going someplace and see exactly what is going to happen in a few minutes.

 

I will give you an example. When i was school age 6th grade I was walking home from the bus stop. I was about to walk from the sidewalk to my front door when I had this image pop into my head. In the image I saw myself walking into the house and my mother was right inside. The first thing she told me was that my uncle had passed away suddenly in his sleep the night before.

 

I thought this was odd, and paused on the sidewalk for a second to reflect on this. I continued up to the house and as I opened the door the exact scene I described played out before me.

 

I have heard one theory say that if you knew where all the atoms of everything was in the universe at one time you could not predict but form probabilities as to that will happen next.

 

I am not claiming to be able to predict the future but there are millions of these types of experiences that happen to humans all the time.. they just happen without someone trying to do it.

 

Do you think there is any way science can explain this?

 

I don't want to hear any silly answers like this isn't possible because we don't have evidence for it.

 

I would like to hear from people who have studied this professionally and tell me if you have found anything to explain this.

 

There is also a related matter of people knowing the moment someone close to them far away dies, or when someone knows they will die and relates this to someone before the death happens. This happens all the time. We know this has to be a real phenomenon as it does happen. Any clues as to explain it?

 

Again, no silly answers that say these people were just delusional or that these things are just memory playing tricks on people. That can happen, but to say this explains all of them is just not conceivable. and would be conjecture.

Edited September 9, 2009 by John Phoenix

[iNow]

It's possible that it has something to do with a glitch in memory, whereby you encode information as if it happened chronologically sooner than it actually did.

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I suppose it's also possible that we fundamentally don't understand the nature of time, but there being a glitch in the encoding of memory seems more plausible.

Edited September 9, 2009 by iNow
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[Syntho-sis]

Deja Vu

 

Epileptics experience this all the time in one sense. Except their version of "seeing into the future" is caused my a memory malfunction in which memories are not processed chronologically and upon recall the fully formed memory may seem to be preceding another fully formed memory.

 

Occasionally though, in certain species of predators, precognition is demonstrated in which the organism will predict the exact movement of it's prey and head them off.

 

When you think about it, you are always playing out the potential future in your mind, although this is often influenced by subconscious thought, occasionally our minds will rely on past information to make accurate descriptions of an event to come.

 

But nobody has the ability to accurately predict everything that will occur from one moment to the next..

 

Which is pure precognitive thought..

[insane_alien]

its very bad idea to rule out memory problems. especially as you seem to think that such errors are very uncommon(as to be impossible for it to happen to all the cases).

 

but here's the kicker, such glitches in memory are EXTREMELY common. you'll typically get a few per day whether you notice it or not. the common side effect they have is known as deja vu.

 

and seeing as we are only looking at 'positive' cases (and not one where the subject had no idea about what was coming up) then it will inherently filter in favour of such a memory glitch occuring making the chances thatthe all had a memory glitch go up from one in a million to almost definite.

 

the reson we get dejavu is because that due to the response times of our nervous systems, we have to be able to calculate whats going to be happening a few milliseconds down the line so our brains are extrapolating forward a bit all the time.

 

this is needed for everything from typing this post to catching a ball to spearing a fish. this process malfunction every now and then though.

 

so disbarring these answers is unlikely to get you anywhere near the truth.

[padren]

When I read the title of the thread I saw myself going and, it turns out I was seeing the future!

 

Again, no silly answers that say these people were just delusional or that these things are just memory playing tricks on people. That can happen, but to say this explains all of them is just not conceivable. and would be conjecture.

 

How can anything not be conjecture on a topic like this? You can't verify any of the anecdotal evidence to separate out people who truly believe they experienced such an event and those just claiming to. You also can't verify those that experienced it did so without retroactive memory mucking. We also have no way to establish any control constraints as we have no idea how many false hits have go unnoticed on a daily basis. You may want to talk to people who have done real studies but real studies require controls that you can't get from this topic - all you could get honestly is a collection of interviews.

 

If you want to discuss this topic productively you probably want to get to some sort of truth in the matter - but do you really think that is possible? Out of all the range of possibilities we could conjure up and decide sound fair do we really have the tools to know if we are on the right track? If we can't even verify the base information and all we can do is produce conjecture that sounds good that cannot be tested or falsified then aren't we more likely to come to a wrong conclusion that is less accurate than saying "I have no idea" how to explain it? Is it quantum physics or is it angels whispering in our ears? Some "super soul" connected to a gestalt source of all knowledge? Time echos?

 

My point is we have next to no objective information, no way to provide context, and no real set of mechanics that could explain the alleged phenomena. That has no bearing on whether such a phenomena exists or not - just whether it can be discussed and refined productively.

[John Phoenix]

It's possible that it has something to do with a glitch in memory, whereby you encode information as if it happened chronologically sooner than it actually did.

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I suppose it's also possible that we fundamentally don't understand the nature of time, but there being a glitch in the encoding of memory seems more plausible.

 

That's still saying it is a trick of memory.

 

Someone posted on my reputation comment that I refuse to see evidence to the contrary. I can't see how the above is any sort of evidence.

 

You may be right that this may happen to some humans, but I think you would be remiss in your findings to apply the above to all humans who have this experience.

 

I do think it's more possible that we do not understand the nature of time. Everything we believe about time is from theories and none of them backed up by so hard evidence that new information can not change the way we view time. This happens to theories all the time when new information is presented so there is no reason to believe we already know all there is about time.

 

INow, I did not know you were a scientist who studied that field professionally? Where did you work, what was your area of expertise and can you point me to peer reviewed papers you published on the subject?

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When I read the title of the thread I saw myself going and, it turns out I was seeing the future!

 

 

 

How can anything not be conjecture on a topic like this? You can't verify any of the anecdotal evidence to separate out people who truly believe they experienced such an event and those just claiming to. You also can't verify those that experienced it did so without retroactive memory mucking. We also have no way to establish any control constraints as we have no idea how many false hits have go unnoticed on a daily basis. You may want to talk to people who have done real studies but real studies require controls that you can't get from this topic - all you could get honestly is a collection of interviews.

 

If you want to discuss this topic productively you probably want to get to some sort of truth in the matter - but do you really think that is possible? Out of all the range of possibilities we could conjure up and decide sound fair do we really have the tools to know if we are on the right track? If we can't even verify the base information and all we can do is produce conjecture that sounds good that cannot be tested or falsified then aren't we more likely to come to a wrong conclusion that is less accurate than saying "I have no idea" how to explain it? Is it quantum physics or is it angels whispering in our ears? Some "super soul" connected to a gestalt source of all knowledge? Time echos?

 

My point is we have next to no objective information, no way to provide context, and no real set of mechanics that could explain the alleged phenomena. That has no bearing on whether such a phenomena exists or not - just whether it can be discussed and refined productively.

 

And that's exactly why I am not asking you to answer this thread. I am asking scientist who studied this professionally to answer this thread.

 

Insane_Alien, your still only telling me why it's more probable to be a memory problem. This does not account for the times when it is not a memory problem.

 

I knew all you regulars would answer this thread in your own 'debunk' ways. As I don't have all the fancy extra info you wish me to provide, that is why I asked for scientist who have studied this professionally to answer. They will be in a position not to need any of that extra stuff you ask for.

 

I will not post anymore on this until i read something from a credible scientist who has worked in this field. I can wait. I am patient.

Edited September 9, 2009 by John Phoenix
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[padren]

You may be right that this may happen to some humans, but I think you would be remiss in your findings to apply the above to all humans who have this experience 1.

 

...

 

I do think it's more possible that we do not understand the nature of time. Everything we believe about time is from theories and none of them backed up by so hard evidence that new information can not change the way we view time. This happens to theories all the time when new information is presented2 so there is no reason to believe we already know all there is about time.

 

...

 

INow, I did not know you were a scientist who studied that field professionally?3 Where did you work, what was your area of expertise and can you point me to peer reviewed papers you published on the subject?

 

...

 

And that's exactly why I am not asking you to answer this thread. I am asking scientist who studied this professionally4 to answer this thread.

 

...

 

Insane_Alien, your still only telling me why it's more probable to be a memory problem. This does not account for the times when it is not a memory problem.5

 

...

 

I knew all you regulars would answer this thread in your own 'debunk' ways. As I don't have all the fancy extra info you wish me to provide, that is why I asked for scientist who have studied this professionally to answer. 6They will be in a position not to need any of that extra stuff you ask for.

 

...

 

I will not post anymore on this until i read something from a credible scientist who has worked in this field. 7I can wait. I am patient.

 

1 & 5: If it doesn't explain all instances, how can anything in this discussion isolate useful facts that could give a more accurate explanation? What exactly do we have to go on?

 

2: Wouldn't we need that new information first? We don't discount theories due to anecdotal stories but due to an accumulation of empirical evidence to the contrary. No one even needs to claim we understand time well to point out the total void of theories that could explain some sort of natural accurate capacity for clairvoyance in human beings.

 

3,4,6,7: You can ask all you like for scientists that have done credible studies on this but you missed the whole point of my post: This is not a field of research that can be studied with any degree of credibility. If you want a credible scientist to do credible research and has published a peer reviewed paper he'll have to have setup some very rigorous standards that cannot be met through simple anecdotal accounts. You may as well ask for a scientific study on the actual number of angels that can stand on the head of a pin. It doesn't mean that there aren't angels nor that there isn't a specific number that can stand on the head of a pin... it just means no one is liable to ever publish a credible scientific paper exploring the topic in any meaningful way.

 

I hope that clarifies my position.

[Sisyphus]

If the only answer you'll accept is "a scientist working in the field" (what field?) confirming that you are in fact psychic or in a time warp or something, then you're never going to get a satisfactory answer. But only being willing to accept the answer you're already looking for is a terrible way to approach any question. Especially if you rule out the obvious likely answer, a "trick of the memory," and therefore wouldn't accept the professional opinion of, say, a neurologist.

 

Anyway, I anticipate and imagine events that might happen all the time. We all do. It would be entirely expected that a few times in your life what you imagine happening very closely resembles what actually does end up happening. It's certainly happened to me, and as time goes by the memory of the anticipation merges with the memory of the event, so it seems like you predicted it exactly. This too is normal - it's how memory works.

 

Now, obviously I can't know for certain what the explanation of your particular experiences, but it is incorrect to say that a "trick of memory" can't explain every such occurence. Of course it can. Why not?

[JillSwift]

I will not post anymore on this until i read something from a credible scientist who has worked in this field. I can wait. I am patient.

This makes me just madly curious how you wold respond to such a "credible scientist" who were to say that in all their studies, no evidence of prescience of any sort was found, and that every tested subject got the same number of "hits" as random chance.

 

Come to that, I'd love to know what your definition of "credible scientist" is, as it relates to this sort of study. For me, it's "Anyone whose methodology is sound". And for all studies on this and similar subjects, the sound methodology fails to uncover evidence of the phenomenon being tested - never mind hints into the mechanics of them.

 

Of those studies who's methodology finds many critical of it, you tend to find the discarding of "misses" to improve performance, failure to use blind studies which allows too many variables uncontrolled, etc. etc.

 

Anyway, I'm not expecting an answer, as you said you'd not be replying to anyone not a credible scientist who has studied this specific phenomenon. Good luck.

[John Cuthber]

Re "to say this explains all of them is just not conceivable"

I assure you that I have no difficulty whatsoever conceiving this.

Your assertion is, therefore, incorrect.

 

Incidentally, I don't know if you count mathematicians as "credible scientists" but a bloke called John Allen Paulos has written a couple of books that do cover this sort of thing. He is well qualifies to explain how come coincidences happen a lot more often than people expect. Not exactly the matter in hand, but a closely related one.

[Mr Skeptic]

I myself have done this this on two occasions. I have seen images of myself doing something or going someplace and see exactly what is going to happen in a few minutes.

 

Fancy that, same here, and also twice. In my case, they were dreams that later happened. Both were very short. The first was simply a flash of a scene I later saw with a plaque from John Hopkins. But that could easily have been my memory playing tricks on me.

 

In the second case, it was much harder to explain by chance. I dreamed that I was walking in a certain place with my brother and a friend's sister. I said, "This is a mighty long block" and she responded, "Don't worry I didn't bring you here to kill you." Which later made sense in context. Interestingly, as soon as I spoke the words I recalled my dream and what she would answer. I never found a satisfactory explanation for that, as the odds of that conversation happening were very low, and I'm not much of a dreamer.

 

Since then I've had other dreams which were of a similar sort and yet didn't come to pass at all. Maybe it really was just a fluke of chance.

[Klaynos]

Beside memory glitches, which are staggeringly common.

 

How many times do you think about what might happen next. It is in our nature to do so, we try and predict continually to give us an edge over what is about to happen. Normally these are vaguely correct, occasional they are very accurate, it's just statistics, if you think enough things you will sometimes be right.

[swansont]

Since then I've had other dreams which were of a similar sort and yet didn't come to pass at all. Maybe it really was just a fluke of chance.

 

It is absolutely necessary to recognize this, because otherwise you are prone to selection bias, i.e. "remembering the hits and forgetting the misses"