quote:

Originally posted by Renegade But what if a psychic said that I would be run over by a bus and I use my free will to escape the prophecy by shooting myself?

Then you'd be hit by a bus, on your way to pick up the gun.

I don't want to comment to much on the existence/non-existence of paranormal phenomena, as this was already covered in the "Are we real?"-thread, but my stand on this is that nobody knows whether or not there is such a thing as free will, and if not prediction of the future would be theoretically possible. I'm not running my life in accordance with newspaper-astrology, but if somebody told me that I would get mugged if I followed him out of a bar, I'd certainly stay in my seat.

lol

Please don't drag me into a Free Will vs Determinism discussion, we'll be here all night.

But since you asked ( ), I don't really believe in either. Free will is a myth in my eyes. I think this was view was solidified when I saw a documentary about the human brain a few months ago.

While I don't profess to understand the science behind it all, basically there is strong evidence to suggest that by the time an individual consciously decides to commit an action, brain activity has already peaked and is in decline by this stage, meaning, depending on how you interpret this data, that actions are not performed by us of our own free will, but by the more "instinctive" part of the brain, deep in the unconscious. What we call "consciousness" is not the force that determines what actions we perform, but rather simply the one that makes sense of them. We believe we have free will because we seem to be consciously deciding what we do and don't do, where as in fact by the time we make these "decisions" the brain has already committed to that particular action. There are also philosophical reasons why I believe that true free will is an illusion, but it would take far too long to get into here.

As for determinism? Well, I don't really think that there can be too much doubt that causality exists (event B will occur as a direct result of event A) but strict determinism (which is what is necessary for clairvoyance to work) implies that if one knows the exact state of the universe at any particular point in time, they have the ability to predict, with unerring accuracy, the entirity of the future and the entirity of the past. I disagree with this logic, firstly because the Chaos theory states that everything is prone to change, so knowing the exact state of the universe will be no use in being able to determine, with certainty anyway, any future events (unless you want to argue that change is predictable, which would send you into a sort of Cartesian loop, as knowing that change is to occur to the original state of the subject - in this case the universe - implies absolute and infinate knowledge that can only exist given strict determinism. So, ultimately, determinism needs to be proven in order to prove determinsim). Secondly, as no-one will ever know the exact state of the universe, determinism becomes a fairly esoteric and idle inquisition anyway, that is no way applicable to humanity (though causality, a slightly different thing, is). Nonetheless, these doubts about determinism - even if you assume that the clairvoyants do know everything about the universe - cast serious doubts on the validity of so-called psychics.

Well, I don't know where that came from. Sorry for wasting your time everyone.

Oh, btw, about Nostradamus:

http://www.snopes2.com/inboxer/hoaxes/predict.htm

This site explains that some of the quotes being posted here weren't even made by Nostradamus, and goes some way to debunking the myth of clairvoyance. Happy reading.

Nostradamus definately is up for interpretation. Many believe his prophecies are just lucky guesses, since he wrote so many, and also that since they were written crypticly, that they may have been mis-interpreted.

He wrote plenty that were totally crazy, but the few that came close sure make you wonder... Maybe just lucky guesses, I'm personally not worried about it.

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Administrator of the Shroomery

quote:

Originally posted by twilochik you could also interpret that as the civil war...or any other war...these prophecies are to general...if they really knew something they would say time and date...but they dont...and that says something to me....kinda like a "physic" saying I know you know someone with the name beging with the letter "m"...."m" is one of the most common name starters

U can interpret it any way U like

Nostradamus was right in all the prophecies he made so far. for the last about 400 years.

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Kultified TrancEr

quote:

Originally posted by hypronix U can interpret it any way U like Nostradamus was right in all the prophecies he made so far. for the last about 400 years.

u just contradicted urself...u said we could interpret it anyway we like...which means we can interpret it ANYWAY so that it matches his prediction...if we can do that for all his predictions [which we can], the credibility of his predictions is greatly minimized...

peace

quote:

Originally posted by AnotherWay83 I Dont Mean To Cause More Fear, But This Is Different

No, you'r not causing any fear, you're just annoying the hell out of me. If you have any fear, keep it to your self. Starting stupid threads like this won't make the victims live again. There are just too many annoying threads about this.

quote:

Originally posted by AnotherWay83 u just contradicted urself...u said we could interpret it anyway we like...which means we can interpret it ANYWAY so that it matches his prediction...if we can do that for all his predictions [which we can], the credibility of his predictions is greatly minimized... peace

no, I guess U didn't got my point. Thor said his prophecies might be just lucky guesses, and are subject of interpretation. and even if before the event it's hard to figure out what his prophecies suggest, afterwards it becomes obvious.
so even if U don't want to believe it, it'll happen. U will just not be prepared for it. (that's why it's kind of hard and risky to interpret his prophecies; a misinterpretation might result in the people to get in panic and... so on)

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Kultified TrancEr

whoa...alienfactory...i wasn't the one who started this thread...and i never said that...how come my name shows up in the quote??

peace