Do you believe in any of the following...?

To tie some of this together, I believe the famous psychic Edgar Cayce made some sort of prediction about their being a hidden chamber undernearth the Sphinx containing the secrets of the Universe or something like that.

It'd be interesting if someone did actually find a chamber like that. How could he have possibly known about it?

No. But it hasn't been proven.

Biologically? No, I don't believe so.

However, I suppose technology might approximate it to a large enough extent that mind reading could be considered possible. If a machine existed that sufficiently mapped your brain's synaptic patterns onto mine, I might be able to share your thoughts in a way similar to mind-reading. But a shared consciousness? I doubt it. We each only have one mind; could one mind support two simultaneous consciousnesses? Could they remain distinct or would they simply interfere and keep us from experiencing either?

A cruder version of this machine might simply decode what you are thinking: say, cookies. The machine then, knowing my brain structure, stimulates my synapses into visualizing cookies. I'm not actually sharing your thoughts, then, but the thought-data is being relayed.

Hmmm...

I'm going to conclude:

Shared consciousness? Impossible.
Transmission of thought-data? Possible.

Cybernetics makes them both possible.

Has anyone heard about living animals locked in limestone or coal?

Apparently, when miners or other people have been breaking apart limestone or coal throughout the world a few times they have come across toads, lizards, newts, and turtles encased in the rock which are still alive, at least for a short time after being freed. The rock that encased them has the indentions of the animal, as if it were a mold, and had to be thousands of years old - the descriptions of some of the animals indicate that they are unknown or extinct species.

One account is of a winged creature with a 10' wingspan and a long toothy beak that was readily identified as a pterodactyl, but it croaked and died as soon as it was released from the rock.

Another account is of three rhinoceri found deep in a small cave with no apparent way that they could have gotten in there, but they were all long dead.

I hadn't heard about these until recently. I haven't been able to find any pictures of the animal 'molds' that you would think people would have kept and photographed, even if the animals died or escaped. And jeez, people 150 years ago knew to be excited about an extinct pterodactyl, why didn't they take loads of photos and preserve it? All there are are the accounts, no information as to where the physical evidence is today. It's a little fishy, but if it were true it'd be pretty neat!

That's all I'm sayin'.

As I said in my earlier post - I can't explain some things, but that doesn't mean its "magic".

I don't remember who said it, but "any technology far enough advanced is indistinguishable from magic".

MindReading makes sense, because people can tell what someone will say from the way the other persons face changes, subtle differences in bodylanguage. I think mind reading is just people who are expectionally good at this, in the same way that some people are naturally geared to run, or perform ballet, others are naturally geared for interaction.

Faith healing - A mixture of the above, and the placebo effect. Ifyou believe someone can tell what's wrong iwth you and they shouldn't be able to, causing you to attribute "mystical" powers to them, and that if it works, it's better than real medicine, you're then going to believe that those powers will heal you; a very stong placebo effect. I don't think a true cynic could be healed by that - anyone who actually has it done, isnt 100% cynical about it, or they wouldn't be there.

And I think anything else that cannot yet be explained with logic, WILL be explainable at some point in the future.

It's not that I don't believe in some of these things, I just don't believe in Magic.

That's in my sig. It was Arthur C. Clark.

Very possible...but that's not the same as dismissing the belief that something might exist up until the point that it's explainable as "irrational".

You crept into my mind with your evil subliminal messaging!!!

Either that or I'm psychic

It depends how you explain it.

If you say you believe it as "another level" sort of thing, if your explaination is based in irrationality, then you cant expect anybody to treat it rationally.

Is the statement, "God is an astronaut" a rational one?

If not, suppose in the year 2013, we learn definatively that most or all divinities/miracles/prophecies were a result of extra terrestrial intelligence (kinda like Stargate) would the above statement magically transform from irrational to rational...or would it still be irrational albeit true?

It is not the object of the belief which is irrational. It is the belief itself.

So - yes, it is currently irrational to believe in some things which in the future it may be irrational not to.

So rationality is in the eye of the beholder?

One of the weaknesses of logic is that if something is irrational it can't be true.

No. That doesn't follow. A belief is rational if it can be logically surmised from the evidence that exists.

Then the rational can be false just as the irrational can be true?

So then how can one be logical about something that cannot exist or cannot be proven nor disproven?

Just because it's true, doesn't make it irrational. Because there is no rational basis for that statement, until the point of discovery.

It becomes a rational statement after that, when it is said with the knowledge of proof of existence.

So anything that is irrational cannot be true?

Quite simply, you can't.


The existence of a belief in God is logical, the belief itself is not.

No, anything that is irrational is unlikely to be true, and should be treated as such.

So racism exists therefore it must be true?

Give me a minute, that seems quite a jump, I need to reread how you got there.

On first sight though, I would say racism exists, therefore there is a reason for peoples beliefs, therefore those beliefs need to be seen if there is any valid basis to them, and therefore the belief system needs to be adjusted accordingly.

Darwinian approach to arguments.

Actually it was kind of a trick question.

I thought it might be, thats why I wanted some time to re-read - plus, I wasn't sure if you were asking if racism existed, or if it was correct in it's assumptions.

How was my answer?

A good round about way of not answering.

So did you mean the concept of race superiority, or the claim that people act in certain ways to other races, be it conciously or subconciously?

Aka was your statement saying:

Given that you said if something is irrational it is unlikley to be true, does that mean that the idea that some races are superior to others is actually non existant, because the idea itself is not rational

OR

does that mean that it is irrational for someone to treat a customer worse because of their racial origin, and therefore that event cannot exist, the event must have been caused by something else?

It can be, yes.