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Posted by Kris Krieger on April 3, 2008, 6:15 pm
[snip/edited]
>> For me seeing is believing.
>
> Interesting, that. Lots of dowsers have anecdotes that it works.
> However, it mysteriously stops working when skeptics look closely.
> This happens over and over again.
>
> Perhaps you could explain how dowsing works? Please don't spare any
> complexities. I may only have a degree in physics, but I'm prepared to
> learn how dowsers rewrite widely-accepted modern principles. I'm also
> curious how dowsing magically works in your anecdotes, but suddenly
> stops working when people look too closely.
Physics doesn't enter into it. Again, from what I've seen of, and read
about, a variety of "psychic phenomena" over the decades, much of it is a
subconscious expression of "intuition" - and by "intuition", what I mean
is a subconscious/nonconscious analyses of events/environment, which mayb
be non-verbal, non-linear, and non-deliberate, yet which is nevertheless
a valid and common way of observing the world and acquiring knowledge.
Humans learn to walk "intuitively", not by consciously creating and
following a list of procedures; the same is true of learing to recognize
which poeple are family members and which are strangers, and a host of
other things. Learning doesn't have to be verbal/prodecural/conscious to
be learning, and the same is true of informal analysis, such as teh
infromal/subconscious analysis that allows a person to translate visual
data int o perception and, for example, allows one to walk up a flight of
stairs, as opposed to continually tripping and falling.
Similarly, the common "I had a feeling that so-and-so was trouble", for
example, is not "psychic", but more typically, a subconscious awareness
of things like body language and speech patterns, many of which can be
taught (as in the "learn how to tell whether someone is lying" bits that
were on TV/cable not too long ago).
Similarly, the "pendulum" method of divination, where one direction menas
"yes" and the perpendicular direction means "no", is the above phenomenon
translated very subtly to a physical medium. THat is well-documented.
I've read and heard that dowsing might be similar - a subconscious manner
of indicating what is not a psychic sensing, but intuition/subconscious
expression based upon a lot of experience with, and understanding of,
conditions that usually indicate the presence of underground water or
related structures.
THe error is not in acknowledging the method, but rather, in ascribing
supernatuiral powers to that which is easily explainable via known
psychological principles.
>
> Perhaps you could explain why the guy "making money with his skill"
> hasn't gone for Randi's million dollar offer. If what you say is true,
> he could easily become a millionaire - merely by a successful feat of
> dowsing before a skeptical audience. I wonder why he hasn't done that?
> Perhaps he's way too busy fleecing the credulous and gullible.
>
THe answer is obvious, using teh logical extension of the above-mentioned
psychological principles: "butterflies", a.k.a. "nerves". Similar to
hwo a significant number of poeple experience a blood pressure spike when
they go to the physician, because they experience anxiety when in a
medical (oftentimes meaning unfamiliar and poorly-understood) setting.
Performance anxiety.
No big mystery, really.
ALso not mysterious is that, the more that superficial "science" rejects
a phenomenon that people have seen "work", the more people will ascribe
"magic" or "paranormal forces" to taht phenomenon. I deliberately put
"sceince" in qoutes there, because true science doesn't simply reject -
it investigates.
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