Is there a justification for the nonempiricism of magic?

[Lacquer]

Augh, can we please stop replying with these huge, sprawling posts?

 

Can people stop the current back and forth and just present concise arguments?

[Flexionsensor]

The issue isn't if it exists, it's WHY ON EARTH would someone be able to poof a tree into existence, but not record it or something like that. Seriously, I wanna see your telekinetic pyro death beam!

[Sands]

If it's easy to prove and it still isn't proven, then tough luck, son.

[Chupi]

If it's easy to prove and it still isn't proven, then tough luck, son.

 

Lack of proof does not equal disproof. All this really shows is that if it's possible, it's rare and not reliably reproducible.

 

I'm not going to argue it one way or the other since I'm not really certain what is and isn't possible. But people who definitely don't believe in meta shouldn't come into the meta board if all they're going to do is tell people their beliefs are wrong. It's not productive, and I know the non-meta people on this site don't much care for the occasional person who comes in to inform us that tulpae aren't possible.

[Sands]

Didn't say that, just said tough luck son. We are talking about something that is easy to prove, though. If I could shoot lasers out of my nipples, I sure as hell would show that to others and boom, proven. It's possible to shoot laser beams out of your nipples.

 

This is still a scientific forum though and I don't mean non-meta here. I mean like, you know, we got debates and stuff. The scientific (now I mean non-meta) side is willing to take skeptics and talk, like you said. Plenty of people have been unsure at first and then been talked into understanding. Meta side won't take skeptics?

[dillionchurchill]

Alright, alright folks xD I spose I'll quit being lazy and roll up my sleeves on this one, and give you some source citations.

 

 

Bitches love source citations.

 

 

I didn't WANT to do this before because it wasn't the OP's intention. I definitely don't justify my beliefs in meta through reading about experiments scientists have performed. That's pretty shallow, seeing as more faith-based approaches tend to lend themselves to more meta success.

 

In other words, with meta, if you're looking for cognitive justification for having faith, you're doing it wrong, most of the time.

 

But now this isn't about how I justify my beliefs in meta anymore. This thread has apparently become about:

 

The issue isn't if it exists, it's WHY ON EARTH would someone be able to poof a tree into existence, but not record it or something like that. Seriously, I wanna see your telekinetic pyro death beam!

 

Or rather, how could anything be held as credible if it by nature doesn't produce evidence?

 

Welp. Turns out, it DOES produce evidence. Let's get crazy.

 

US Airforce Teleportation Physics Study - This is an in depth report of the Airforce's research into possible theories concerning physical teleportation of objects. It was declassified apparently in 2004. Note that dates covered are 2001-2003. Meaning that this information is likely far outdated, and that topics within have advanced very far since then.

 

Chapter 5 of this document concerns "p-teleportation", which the Airforce defines as "the conveyance of persons or inanimate objects by psychic means." The entire chapter discusses various forms of psychic phenomena and recorded instances of them, specifically focusing on those regarding psychic teleportation.

 

The chapter opens with this impressive list.

 

Rigorously controlled modern scientific laboratory PK, and related psychic (a.k.a. “psi”, “paranormal” or parapsychology), research has been performed and/or documented by Rhine (1970), Schmidt (1974), Mitchell (1974a, b, see also the references cited therein), Swann (1974), Puthoff and Targ (1974, 1975), Hasted et al. (1975), Targ and Puthoff (1977), Nash (1978, see also the references cited therein), Shigemi et al. (1978), Hasted ( 1979), Houck (1984a), Wolman et al. (1986, see also the references cited therein), Schmidt (1987), Alexander et al. (1990), Giroldini (1991), Gissurarson (1992), Radin (1997, see also the references cited therein), Tart et al. (2002), Shoup (2002), and Alexander (2003).

 

I leave this up to you fine folks to sift through, as ALLLLLL of these experiments listed here are cited in that document. You wanted the cold hard science, right?

 

As for me, I never cared to, having believed in all this stuff before I ever found these documents. Please do let me know if you find anything interesting.

 

If you want more, I can start going through The Source Field Investigations book I've mentioned, as it has literally 45 pages of citations of scientific experiments and reports, ranging from telepathic interconnectedness of thought to physical levitation induced entirely by focus and intention.

 

But for now I'll just leave it at this.

 

 

Anticipated response: How can you believe any of this garbage? Obviously this is fake!

 

 

 

My response: Because I believed every bit of this already. -.-

 

[Slushie]

US Airforce Teleportation Physics Study

Looking into the 5th chapter of that report, I can't find a single actual verifiable scientific study cited. There's a lot of firsthand reports and unscientific articles, and a couple of papers I can't even find outside of that report. I can't find any information on the Chinese journals he cites articles from and so have no idea as to their veracity, let alone that of said articles.

 

So no, this isn't exactly the mind-blowing evidence you probably thought it would be. If you have more, as you say, please do post them.

[Flexionsensor]

I meant publicly announcing it. Like ^ said, I can't find any cited sources in there, so I wanna see it on the news. Simply because it is not reliably reproducible doesn't mean you can't get a camcorder and send footage to the nearest news station. Leave it to them to analyze the pictures. Not that hard.

 

Still, I can't understand why the Airforce is constantly the "scientific, expiremental, alien-speaking-to division... Shouldn't the army use DARPA or something like that?

[waffles]

The CIA have that Chinese paper translated apparently, though it's not freely available. Any US citizens here willing to exercise their rights under the FOIA? That's here as 'RESEARCH INTO PARANORMAL ABILITY TO BREAK THROUGH SPATIAL BARRIERS'.

The footage mentioned will, presumably, not be included. Most other confident citations in that section come from the same Chinese journal, whic resisted my best attempts to be found; I also don't speak Chinese.

Uri Geller was cited a lot as well; he's one of those guys who makes his living off his 'magic' and therefore isn't going to be scientific about it, but he subjected himself to a few preliminary trials. Those trials are potentially dubious, but crucially, all led on to a subsequent investigation which never happened. I'm not sure what to make of him really, but suffice to say he is not scientifically admissible.

 

The rest of that paper deals with either theoretical space-time bending (pretty standard) or quantum effects (very standard), neither of which are particularly special.

[dillionchurchill]

Ah! But you all miss my point in posting that.

 

My point was not "here is conclusive evidence that PK is possible." My point was "here is evidence that the United States Airforce takes the existence of PK very seriously and has for quite some time now."

 

So no, this isn't exactly the mind-blowing evidence you probably thought it would be.

 

You must've missed where I said I anticipated none of this to be taken seriously. I'm keenly aware of the resistance with which many tend to respond to ideas outside of their current beliefs.

 

As for why this stuff never goes public, well, in the BEST cases it's received exactly how it was in this thread. Science or no science, experimental documentation or not, nobody allows it in their thinking, save for us experimental eccentrics who play with it ourselves.

 

From the start, the question was "How do you justify believing in something that doesn't leave evidence?" The airforce seems to disagree that it leaves no evidence. GOOD LUCK seeing that on the news any time soon, no matter how legitimate the scientific documentation.

 

There's documentation alright, but its chewed up and spat out soon as it's discovered. The "evidence" tends to fall into obscurity just because of how our culture treats it.