Preta-natural OffshootThread

[Starlock]

Here's a response I wanted to post up yesterday to the Preta-natural thread. At first I thought I could't post because the guild itself was being finicky... if only it were that simple. rolleyes At any rate, Nuri (or associated MODs), feel free to C&P this response and place it in the thread I intended to post it in, but cannot. I don't wish to clutter up the boards whenever I wish to respond to TeaDidikai's threads, but... well... it's nothing that I can help at this point. Many of them are quite intersting and I'm not going to just stop responding to them. (sigh) Anyway...

TeaDidikai

Starlock

I'm a bit curious to perhaps hear some examples of those you have met that you feel will forever remain psychically deaf. What is the basis for this assessment? How can this sort of thing be determined? I suppose I question this because to say someone will never be able to do something is making quite a strong statement.

The most obvious from my personal experience would be my mother.

As for the basis for the assessment- a few factors play into it which are not limited to a complete and total lack of resonance outside of the self. It would be impressive if it didn't make me ill.

Hmm... I suppose since I haven't run across anyone like this, such a person is outside my realm of experience. Given that, I still don't quite understand the phenomena and would apprechiate some additional elaboration. What does it mean to lack resonance outside the self? Perhaps I have met someone like this but didn't know what to look for?

TeaDidikai

Starlock

I think the potential for change is always there though, just as the potential for the supervolcano in the northwestern US to blow it's top is always there. Chances can be abysmally low that it'll happen 'right now' but there's ever a chance of occurence.

Show me where the potential for me to grow a second nose on my left a** cheek of my own accord is.

Nope. Some things are impossible.
You have a personal problem with being told No. You might want to get over that.

Heh. On this topic in particular, there's good cause to have reluctance to firmly state 'this person will always and forever be deaf/blind/etc to magical things' partly because 'magical things' is a very broad term. I'm not sure where I'd draw a cutoff line. Would, for instance, flipping a coin and getting ten heads in a row count as an aptitude even though by another angle it could be dismissed as luck? Magical paradigms usually state that there is no such thing as cooincidence and that cooincidence itself is divinely intervened or magically inspired. This throws in some complications. Perhaps all have a talent/aptitude, but it goes unknown or by another name? Perhaps certain people have many aptitudes and certain people have fewer ones? Might there be some globally gifted and some globally daft? (shrugs) I don't know. Much of this seems to be a function of how psychical/magical aptitude is classified... answers vary depending on one's premises.

Oh, and by the way... so do you and you might want to get over that as well. blaugh Besides, there's no discussion without an alternative viewpoint or people who bother to ask questions.

TeaDidikai

Starlock

And again, since much of magic/psychical working is mental, if I tell someone "some people never develop this talent" that will reverberate in their minds and may consequentially put a binder on them. If a person believes they'll never develop a talent, chances are high that they never will, eh?

Again. No. "A bright child will find a way to overcome poor instruction". My Nana said that a lot when I was growing up.

Not all of them do. Some bright children find a way to overcome poor instruction. Others end up floundering in a sea of poor self-esteem. It's a beautiful saying, but unfortunately it isn't always true.

TeaDidikai

Starlock

Putting it simply, there is a valid scientific explanation for these so-called sixth-senses. I've yet to see or hear of anything that fails to be explainable with an understanding of human physiology and psychology.

How about auric sight that has been tested to NOT BE retinal burn.

Scientifically? Published in a journal somewhere? Please, show me a citation! Good proof of something like this would be phenomenal!  

[Kuroiban]

Oh brother...

TeaDidikai

Starlock

I think the potential for change is always there though, just as the potential for the supervolcano in the northwestern US to blow it's top is always there. Chances can be abysmally low that it'll happen 'right now' but there's ever a chance of occurence.

Show me where the potential for me to grow a second nose on my left a** cheek of my own accord is.

Nope. Some things are impossible.
You have a personal problem with being told No. You might want to get over that.

Heh. On this topic in particular, there's good cause to have reluctance to firmly state 'this person will always and forever be deaf/blind/etc to magical things' partly because 'magical things' is a very broad term. I'm not sure where I'd draw a cutoff line. Would, for instance, flipping a coin and getting ten heads in a row count as an aptitude even though by another angle it could be dismissed as luck? Magical paradigms usually state that there is no such thing as cooincidence and that cooincidence itself is divinely intervened or magically inspired. This throws in some complications. Perhaps all have a talent/aptitude, but it goes unknown or by another name? Perhaps certain people have many aptitudes and certain people have fewer ones? Might there be some globally gifted and some globally daft? (shrugs) I don't know. Much of this seems to be a function of how psychical/magical aptitude is classified... answers vary depending on one's premises.

Oh, and by the way... so do you and you might want to get over that as well. blaugh Besides, there's no discussion without an alternative viewpoint or people who bother to ask questions.


Alternitive view points? Yes. Rational alternitive viewpoints? That's another goose.

The conversation was about the abbility to percieve beyond the five senses. Those are the abbilites to hear, smell, hear, taste, and feel. This isn't talking about every metaphysical/new age classified ability in the book. That's just first off.

The second is that not every single statment you make is logically viable, or even close to sensiable. Saying that anything is possiable means that you are implying that any imaginable circumstance is capable. This goes past Volcanos sprouting. It includes weird crap like volcanos that erupt liquid elvis, and other absurd crap.

That is an impossibility. If one thing is impossiable, other things CAN be impossiable. Logical process of thought.

I'm not sure I agree with Tea on this, but it's logical in premis; people can be born without legs and arms, so the abbility to precieve spirits, thoughts, or anything else not within the realm of the basic five senses makes........uh........sense.

TeaDidikai

Starlock

And again, since much of magic/psychical working is mental, if I tell someone "some people never develop this talent" that will reverberate in their minds and may consequentially put a binder on them. If a person believes they'll never develop a talent, chances are high that they never will, eh?

Again. No. "A bright child will find a way to overcome poor instruction". My Nana said that a lot when I was growing up.

Not all of them do. Some bright children find a way to overcome poor instruction. Others end up floundering in a sea of poor self-esteem. It's a beautiful saying, but unfortunately it isn't always true.

Could be argued either way; depends, ultimately, on the brightness of the child.

TeaDidikai

Starlock

Putting it simply, there is a valid scientific explanation for these so-called sixth-senses. I've yet to see or hear of anything that fails to be explainable with an understanding of human physiology and psychology.

How about auric sight that has been tested to NOT BE retinal burn.

Scientifically? Published in a journal somewhere? Please, show me a citation! Good proof of something like this would be phenomenal!

Oi. rolleyes  

[Starlock]

Ah, well... your quotations got a bit messed up, but that's okay. I had to put them all in manually myself. xd

From certain philosophies, everything is possible, though not neccesarily in the context of objective reality or commonly observed phenomena. Let's see if I can phrase this right...

... while everything is possible, the form that possibility takes is the distinction. Within the otherworlds or alternative realities, a volcano very well could erupt liquid Elvis (oh, that was pretty amusing by the way...). If it is imagined, it is possible in some form, even if it only be within the mind. Most don't, of course, weigh possibilities by all possible realities; they limit their reality to what can be refered to as "objective reality" described by science. And in that reality, of course it isn't possible for a volcano to erupt liquid Elvis. This is not *universally* impossible, but functionally impossible with respect to the objective reality. That's the distinction. Mostly just a little mindgame to play and no, of course it doesn't make sense with respect to objective reality. It isn't supposed to.

This issue becomes a bit unique though, in that the very subject of discussion here is something which generally lies outside of objective reality in the first place. So, what then? What criteria of 'possibility' can we follow when the subject lies outside the normal frame of reference? The very idea of senses beyond the five suggests something broader than the common cannon of objective reality measured by science; does this suggest that such abilities could also violate our usual rationale about what is possible and what is not possible? (shrugs) Hell if I know... I'm just throwing out ideas. I find TD's premise logical as well, but there are other viable premises out there and logic only gets you so far. Since we're dealing with nonfalsifiables, it's hard to prove anything; all you have is hypotheticals. It's interesting to consider both possibilities... and probably some others that haven't even been presented yet! wink  

[Starlock]

Oh, this is another thing I saw in the posts by others that I wanted to respond to but could earlier... wanted to do this yesterday but didn't get to it. xd

missmagpie

Nothing is permanent. Like many talents, if you don't work at something sometimes it leaves you. Music degrades if you do not practise. Ageing pianists get arthritis and can't play anymore (or get botox treatment). Your talent for walking will leave eventually when you have two false hips and varicose veins.

Psychic talent might well leave if you don't work at it. Someone who may be naturally talented may have it beaten out of them if always told that such things don't exist. When people get old and mentally unstable their psychic skills may degrade. Nothing lasts forever.

Aw now I've got that Paul Simon song stuck in my head... "Everything put together, sooner or later falls apart..."

This is a very interesting idea, particularly with respect to magical ability. There's the idea out there that the young have greater magical aptitude than adults, partly because of their open-mindedness (or naivity depending on how you choose to look at it). If those talents aren't fostered in youth, they can fizzile out and become impossible to capitalize for an adult unless the adult unlearns what they have learned (with respect to disbelief in magic). Simply believing in magic and psychic abilities alone can be a big hurdle for new practitioners to overcome.