a skeptics look into metaphysics

[Lacquer]

Not only what people have already said, but aren't Research topics here supposed to have hypotheses, methods, experiments outlined, motive for research, etc? Not just "here's a topic, go research it". At that point, it's no different than a general discussion topic, with the addition of "research" to give the OP an incorrect feeling that the thread is justified. This and maverickthecat's Research threads don't follow the proper format.

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Also,

This belongs in meta, unfortunately Forge has the ability to undo my actions in relation to this thread. I will have to get Pleeb or Amadeus involved if this keeps up though.

 

>Amadeus

Gone.

[Chupi]

This belongs in the meta board and that is final unless Pleeb decides otherwise.

 

Yes, I tend toward meta now, and I think persuading more people to at least look into it is a fine idea, but this thread doesn't belong here for a couple reasons:

• Many people here are outright hostile to it, as we've seen, and shoving it in their faces isn't going to help anything. Actually it's more likely to cause a backlash.
  
• It makes our community look even more like a cult or new age bull than it already does. This applies both to newbies and to academic types, who we are still trying to attract to look at tulpae from a scientific standpoint.
  

 

So, I'm moving this to the meta board permanently, but leaving a redirect "moved" link in research.

 

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Also the metaguys say they could prove astral projection, but refuse to prove it. Why? Fuck if I know, too high and mighty seems like the reason. That's the number one warning sign of bullshit, saying you can do something that could be proven easily and then not proving it.

 

This is a valid question for a skeptic to raise, and not long ago I would have responded similarly.

 

I'm not far enough into this to know just how well you have to know someone to project to their wonderland successfully. I know that Forge had to spend most of a day getting to know Pleeb before he could do it. He actually tried it with me and failed, but at the time all he knew about me was that I dismissed him a bit mockingly when he came to #tulpa.info claiming to be able to project into wonderlands, then ten minutes later PMed him asking how he does it. (In the mean time Pleeb had told me a bit of his experience.)

 

So, I know there's more involved in finding someone than just some magic traceroute over the Internet. I'm not the only Chupi on the Internet, and I'm certainly not the only person with my real name, which he could get from my /whois if he wanted.

 

However I can sort of see why one wouldn't want to go around demonstrating it to everyone who calls bull on them. I know that if someone had tried demonstrating anything like this to me a year ago, it wouldn't have helped convince me. I'd seen the sorts of tricks that street psychics use, and even if I couldn't figure out how this one demonstration was faked, I'd have concluded there must be some trick.

 

Also, if a demonstration does convince someone, there's a fair chance they'll treat you basically like a freak show -- have you demonstrate it to friends and basically use you for entertainment. This is fine if it's the goal of the demo, but in Forge's case it wasn't. At least at the time his message wasn't "hey, look what I can do", but "you can learn to do this without too much more practice". While a demo can be useful to help a novice make himself believe more fully that it's possible, it's not likely to turn a hostile skeptic into a dedicated student.

[abcdefg]

it's not likely to turn a hostile skeptic into a dedicated student.

 

That is complete Bullshit as this can be a reproducable test which would lead anyone to believe it if done correctly. Also what really bothers me is this:

 

I'm not far enough into this to know just how well you have to know someone to project to their wonderland successfully. I know that Forge had to spend most of a day getting to know Pleeb before he could do it. He actually tried it with me and failed

 

So even with a Sigil dedicated to only YOUR wonderland you need to get to know the person more? Others say Pleeb is easily readable and if Forge spent time with him and maybe Morgan was in on this I can see how he could've been deceived.

 

 

 

Edit: Who the fuck put this back to research?

[Sands]

I'm not far enough into this to know just how well you have to know someone to project to their wonderland successfully. I know that Forge had to spend most of a day getting to know Pleeb before he could do it.

 

Hold on. They had to get to know each other? Why? What does that have to do with astral projection? Lemme tell you what. Nothing. Because Forge is a scam. He had to get to know Pleeb because he can't do exactly what the other psychics do, because he doesn't have the 1337 skills (or the body language to follow) to read Pleeb fast enough. So he needs a foundation. Forge knows both Pleeb and Tess (Morgan is even his girlfriend as far as the wild stories go?), he can read and manipulate them as much as he wants. That's his skill. He can't do it with a stranger even though you just need a sigil for this to work and a person who can astral project? There's no proof of astral projection, then. It would never end up being a thing because it's unreliable, even if it was real.

 

If you can prove it, people will believe it. If you say you can prove it but don't, you don't have a way to prove it. Simple as that. This shit would make you famous and rich, not to mention how it would change our world, yet no one has proven it before. Pleeb is fucking easy to influence and change, there have been so many times when I have talked with Pleeb about something and he felt really strongly about his opinions and said this is what he wanted to do, except that after he was done talking with other people about this thing, his opinion had suddenly changed completely. I can see why Forge wanted him, he's simple and the owner of this place. That's a fucking jackpot.

 

You know why they want others to try? So when a skeptic fails, they can tell them they just can't do it and it doesn't disprove anything. This all is a scam. Unless they (the people claiming they can do it and have, like how we apparently have proof of Forge doing it) can astral project into all of us and not select individuals they must know better before they even have a chance, this is complete bullshit.

 

Why are we talking about astral projection so much, though? It has nothing to do with tuppers. This test hasn't helped the community at all.

[Daf]

I've always said Forge is a con-artist ever since he tried to trick a 7 year old slime girl into believing in the astral by sending a bear over to play with her.

[Avalanche]

I've always said Forge is a con-artist ever since he tried to trick a 7 year old slime girl into believing in the astral by sending a bear over to play with her.

 

Seems legit.

[Chupi]

That is complete Bullshit as this can be a reproducable test which would lead anyone to believe it if done correctly.

I can't speak for everyone, but I know it wouldn't have worked on the me of a year ago. No amount of demonstration would have. I would've assumed there must be some trick being done that I'm not seeing. Why? Because I strongly believed such things to be impossible, and perceived the thought process defending such beliefs and assumptions to be rational thinking.

 

When presented with any claims of something like meta, at least when fully awake, I figured there must be some logical explanation because what's being claimed is impossible. I'd seen a fair number of the tricks stage magicians and street psychics use, and many weren't apparent until explained. I didn't consider why it was necessarily impossible, I just knew that it was. If asked, I would have said it's because there's no credible evidence for it and that it goes against how we know reality to work. No one piece of evidence would be credible because it's impossible, and it's impossible because there's no credible evidence.

 

What finally got me to open up to the possibility was observing the same "rational" thought process mark something I know to be true as impossible. I had a strong belief and assumption that I perceive reality as it is (regardless of how much I consciously know my senses to be flawed), and can't change reality through thought alone. Then a couple times I saw glimpses of Lyra imposed and fully solid, then not again for a long while. Some time later I looked back on the memory of seeing her and it felt fake, almost like a dream, even though I absolutely know that it happened. Then I noticed that it seemed fake in the same way that obviously impossible things do. At this point, I consciously realized that this thought process isn't rational at all, it just blindly defends things I believe even in the face of evidence to the contrary, not much different than those who ignore mountains of accepted scientific evidence and cling to their irrational beliefs. Only for me it was preloaded with beliefs generally considered to be rational by Westerners.

 

So even with a Sigil dedicated to only YOUR wonderland you need to get to know the person more? Others say Pleeb is easily readable and if Forge spent time with him and maybe Morgan was in on this I can see how he could've been deceived.

I'm not certain really... Forge had to get to know Pleeb some to get to his wonderland, but all that was needed to get to the shared places was a sigil.

 

I don't care how easily readable someone is. Only so much can be gained from plain text communication. A general idea of personality, interests, way of thinking, sure. But some of the things described in the bullet-point "UPDATE" section are highly unlikely to be guessable, no matter how perfectly you know someone.

 

Sure, I considered the possibility of everyone colluding. But as Pleeb got farther into this, the more people would need to be colluding to produce what he reported. A few things in that document would require either incredibly lucky guesses or that Pleeb is on it as well -- which, knowing him, he would not do.

 

So, on one hand I had some crackpot theories of how reality works, which don't actually conflict with science, and on the other hand I had a crackpot conspiracy theory of the "ever-growing conspiracy" variety (as more people try this and get something, more people need to be involved to pull it off). So, I decided to consider the alternate theories of reality as possible. I figure if I'm wrong and it is a conspiracy, it'll crumble before too long. That sort of thing doesn't last long once there's more than a certain number of people involved, especially when it's on the Internet and mostly anonymous.

 

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I've always said Forge is a con-artist ever since he tried to trick a 7 year old slime girl into believing in the astral by sending a bear over to play with her.

This pre-assumes it is not real.

[Sands]

So you're telling me if a kid comes to you telling they got this super rare, strong and awesome digayman pocket version card that's like a hologram and stuff and it can never lose, you wouldn't tell him to show it to you? You'd believe him blindly? You'd believe when your friend who probably can't tell a real card from a fake card says he's seen it, but the owner of the card still refuses to show you? You say he just doesn't want attention? Well, why the hell did he point out he had that goddamn card he refuses to show, then? You don't show the card, you don't have the card, because there's no reason you'd tell others of the card if you weren't willing to prove it, if you actually had it.

 

This doesn't make you worried at all, Chupi? How Forge had to get to know Pleeb before he could do it? I asked other people, Forge has only told others to make a sigil and then it should be possible. He wasn't able to do it with you and he didn't know you. He was able to do it with Pleeb, but only after he got to know him. If this getting to know the person phase is so important, why doesn't he tell everyone that is important? It was the make it or break it deal in this case, so it obviously was important. He's not telling those who want to do this a key piece of information, if this is real. Because just sigils didn't work despite people claiming that's all you need. I know when something stinks.

 

Do I believe Pleeb is doing this just to trick us? No, I don't think he knows. It's Forge who is tricking Pleeb. Pleeb just is simple. If you can only "prove" this with one person and can't do it again, nothing was proven. Thinking this is enough proof makes you pretty easy to manipulate yourself. What happened to "for science"? Science isn't one test that could easily be manipulated into having results you want, it's a lot of tests to notice the common pattern. And that requires more than one test subject.

[Avalanche]

I know when something stinks.

 

No argument there.

[Daf]

This pre-assumes it is not real.

Being open-minded and gullible isn't the same thing.