Force Powers

forceuser wrote: ... you risk me being kicked off or banned for life from this site by expressing true stories or what I believe based on witness them

There is no such risk.

Like many before me

Well I have been on this site only since 2011 and can't recall one person who was temporarily or permanently banned from it for merely expressing their beliefs or what they think are true stories. I can't vouch for the six years the site existed before my registration, but if there were problems like that back then, there seem not to have been many like it in recent times. Nobody is getting banned for sincerity or openness alone. For getting aggressive about it, maybe. But unless you plan to do that, I don't see what there is to be afraid of, nor why you waste any time pushing that excuse.

OK even if I destroy my name and make everybody mad and angry but yet help one person understand it is well worth it.

Alright, good. Let's get on with it, shall we.

This may sound odd but out of all the things that I have seen and experienced in my life it is actually only through TelekinesisI was able to convince myself these things were possible or even remotely true
Because at least through telekinesis everyone who was around can bear witness to it actually happened

And even that is not seriously without question

So I guess it's some time there will become a point were you just have to have faith

That does not compute. You say yourself that telekinesis is transparent and obvious. Everyone around an instance of it could witness it. Sure, we could always question whether our sense can be trusted and whether we did enough to rule out alternative explanations. But why on earth would we not ask such questions and just believe one conclusion before making the investigation? And that's assuming that we are discussing an event anyone of us actually witnessed. As it stands, you are inviting faith not even in concrete evidence you are sharing, but in mere tales of evidence existing somewhere out there. Is there some point at which one just has to have faith? Well, as someone trained to doubt (which really started here, I might add!) I for one would be hard to convince of that, but even if I were to entertain that there might be such a point, can we honestly say that were are anywhere near it yet, when we have nothing to go on, when there is not even a concrete recorded case we are talking about... when there isn't even a "there" there?

It's like if your family members told you your grandfather was dead from a car accident they can show you the tombstone they can show you the car that was physically smashed but really how do we know was it scientifically proven that it happened even if we dug up his body 20 years later Doing DNA testing
We still couldn't be sure because maybe when he was alive they took a test from someone else by accident or another family member and mixed up the records right
Or what type of equipment did they use for the testing was it 2 years old and outdated OK who's certified the equipment We can go on like this forever and ever and really we would never know if Your grandfather was really dead.

I agree, scepticism can go really far, and reasonable doubt can be far less than all doubt. There are however two points in which this example differs from the telekinesis claims you believe in:

First of all, people do actually die. It happens every day, some days more than others. All else being equal, people of advanced age, who are vastly overrepresented in the fraction of people who have grandchildren, tend to die more readily than their younger contemporaries. This is the case from deaths by car accident, too. If someone tells me my grandfather was dead from a car accident, while I may have my reasons to doubt that, we are at least talking about something that doesn't outright violate all of our understanding of physics. The reservations I might have about believing that an old man died from a severe injury or stress frankly do not compare to the reservations I might have about believing that somebody can move inert objects without mechaniclaly interacting with them.

A second problem is with the quality of the evidence presented. Yes, if we want to be really pedantically sceptical about it, then presenting a car wreck bearing a familiar license plate, a tombstone to commemorate the deceased, and a DNA lab report may not be absolutely conclusive, but how does this compare to the evidence of telekinesis? Where in your case - or anyone else's who thus far tried to make it here, indeed - are the items that have the sort of evidentiary weight that is akin to a funeral invitation or a death certificate?

It may be a matter of discussion whether such evidence is sufficient to substantiate a claim as mundane as an old man passing away, surely either position may be defensible. But if we have far, far less than that for a claim far, far more extraordinary than that, what really even is the argument here?

Glad To hear from you .
It's really not important even just on this thread the 1 or 2 people whose comments are gone same with their account.

But moving forward
I was only sharing just a few things And abilities that I have experienced with a handful of witnesses.
I try not to share anything else with you here that I don't have witnesses for.

As far as telling you did I have scientific test equipment strapped to me and my friends back every time we did something no.

I understand it goes against what you believe I understand we were all raised the same way and taught the same things in school I get it

I used to believe the same way

It's just after years of seen crazy things
For me it was nice to at least have other people witness even if it's only one simple ability of the force people Could at least see and verified at least with their eyes.
And for me that was great because at least it gave me a small hope I wasn't totally crazy
That at least I had a few witnesses to see some things
Before their eyes and not just mine.

But either way it seems kind of stupid and pointless to to talk about it when it goes against everything we believe and even.
The most trusted and spiritual and educated people on this forum can only see how it has no practical purpose.

But not even thinking about it very hard what about healing and giving people comfort in their mind healing their bodies
Easily taking contaminants out of water to make it pure to drink.
healing the Earth

And no I don't want to get into a debate about whether I've done that in the past I'm just making a very very simple observation.

But I think it's way more important that people on this forum just focus on their selves may be eating a good diet to live longer,
Go to school and work hard
And maybe add a little philosophy in for flavor

It takes literally a $20 camera to show basic proof. If you can't replicate it, the powers are pointless. I work with metrology, so if you want to ask questions about how data acquisition and interpretation works, I've written memos on it.

Also doing basic self improvement is definitely not more important than force powers, if you're true.

You're not persecuted by the man, you're just dealing with reasonable objections to your frivolous ideas.

Sometimes things cannot easily be controlled enough to replicate or even recreate... but that doesn't mean they didn't occur, or seemed to have occurred. Nor does it mean they did (if mis-truth is involved), and nor does it mean they occurred in the way they seemed to have.

Hearing premonitiory voices is rather common actually. I only a few days ago was listening to a recording from my partners now deceased great grandmother and she mentions a couple of 'warning' voices which saved her life. I myself have had them a few times, but it's not something I created, or seemingly can create myself.

I think the way to walk this line is to assert ones belief as their own, as a belief. And not assert ones belief as a truth. Elevating something to a truth really does invite some evidence to support it.

But its a fascinating topic, and I think it's more productive to support peoples interests, if its telepathy etc then so be it.... so long as it's not promulgated as some truth etc etc. But people express their interests with motivation usually, so its not unusual for the experience of ones interests to be an exaggerated experience. Each person should have the right to decide how they spend their time I guess, but the risk is if unsupported claims are presented as truth, then it is asking someone to believe without evidence - something which is never a good idea if it can at all be avoided. Asserting something instead as ones own belief based on personal experience doesn't degrade the potential validity or interest to others necessarily, it just makes it clearer to everyone what it is that is being discussed, so it can better be discussed, imo.

While you have some salient points, a lot of people don't have the requisite control to have consistent results. However, that paired with confirmation bias leads to misunderstanding the causal relationships of your results to your actions. While we could quibble over the induction problem or asking "what really is truth?", we all pragmatically make assertions about truth all the time.

I'm not going to touch your warning voices example.

Adder wrote: Sometimes things cannot easily be controlled enough to replicate or even recreate... but that doesn't mean they didn't occur, or seemed to have occurred. Nor does it mean they did (if mis-truth is involved), and nor does it mean they occurred in the way they seemed to have.

Yes, I completely agree with that, actually. It may well be that an occurrence (or alleged occurrence) is (or would be) strongly unique and nothing like it ever happens again. Little can be concluded from that uniqueness. However, insofar as we live making choices with it in mind, it may still be important to consider whether we have sufficient information to warrant believing that it had occurred. This is of course the sort of reasoning that may occasionally produce things like holocaust denial or flat earth beliefs in people who find historical records and artifacts or measurements unconvincing, at least in the amount or consistency they were presented with. I would argue that this is a risk worth taking, seeing as the alternative would be believing or disbelieving things before putting any thought to them.

Hearing premonitiory voices is rather common actually. I only a few days ago was listening to a recording from my partners now deceased great grandmother and she mentions a couple of 'warning' voices which saved her life. I myself have had them a few times, but it's not something I created, or seemingly can create myself.

Common or not, it still seems to be something extraordinary enough to be worth mentioning. It's not common enough to where we pay no more mind to it as just another mundane, ordinary thing. In light of that consider a few points:

With all due respect (and, as applicable, condolences), we are dealing with what sounds like recollections. Perhaps in the recording your partner's grandmother goes through notes she took when ever she perceived the warning voices; so far it sounded like she merely remembered them. Setting aside questions about the reliability of human memory in general (and its fading with the advance of age also), do we actually have information - accurate or otherwise - about the timing of the alleged perception and how it relates to the event it was "warning" about? Sometime before may actually not be enough. If the voice is being unspecific and too long in advance of the event in question, then it is more akin to a prophesy than a prediction, and we can only reinterpret it as relevant long after the event. If however the premonition was specific or in a timeframe just long enough to take action, there is the problem of confirmation bias Rex just mentioned. How many times did your partner's grandmother fail to react to a premonitory sense like that? Would she be reporting memories of sensing something coming that never actually came in the end? And of the times she took action that she says saved her life, just how certain are we that she would have been at the risk of losing it, had she ignored the warnings? Speaking of such events, how many times was her life or well-being under severe threat without any voices to warn her?

All in all I'm not saying your partner's grandmother wasn't clairaudient (though, needless to say, I have my doubts). But generally speaking I would invite to ask oneself questions like these about anyone claiming such powers, including oneself, before relying on voices of this sort. In fact, I think one is well advised to seek out medical attention, if one hears voices of any sort, benevolent or helpful or otherwise, before assuming that it must be divine communication or a psychic power.

Quite simply, I think people should be able to talk about their beliefs more freely then when asserting things as being true, because asserting something as true is usually taken by others to mean it also applies to them...... both in regards to how much the person can explore the belief themselves, but also how much it can be communicated about by others with different amounts of belief (incl. none). The only other thing that comes to mind is to be as specific as possible, because the stranger something is then harder it will be for anyone to comprehend what is being spoken about.

What is true? What is wrong?

If a person affirms a thing, that he believes in this thing can we say that it is true or that he is lying?

Religions are a belief based on someone who saw something and people who believed that person.

We ask for proof, a photo? Does the camera cover all image spectra?

Our life is largely based on science but is it a truth? Several reliable scientific "Truths" that turned out to be false several years later.

Are our mathematics correct? We think they are because qualified people tell us it was true. Maybe everything is wrong and we are teaching nonsense to all the children of the world. Nothing is really true, nor totally false.

The phenomena of life cannot always be explained and even when they are verified, nothing proves 100% that it is the right answer because it is an explanation compared to what we know.

If people don't believe in something, you stop progress. Currently there are no more real advances, we are content to improve what already exists.

If he believes that what he did is true, maybe he is right or that he is wrong but we cannot say that it is false because even with proof we would find the means to say that it is wrong because we cannot explain it.

Personally, I am not saying that you are wrong or that you are lying. Lots of things that are done today, exists only because people who were believed to be mad or accused of lying believed it.

Can man fly? Of course not, you are lying! Can man go underwater? Of course not, you are lying! Does God exist? Yes of course ! At the time, who was right and who was wrong? And today who is right and who is wrong?

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

Can we say that someone is wrong, only because we believe that what we have been taught is true? Again, it is belief, we believe that the teachings we have received are true but can you prove that this is the truth?

The answer only answer true and no. No one is really right or really wrong. What decides is the number of people who believe in it.

Cheb wrote: Religions are a belief based on someone who saw something and people who believed that person.

Not necessarily. There doesn't have to be anything a religion's initiator actually had to see. It can be enough for them to profess it with confidence and charisma. Scientology comes to mind as a religion the beyond-mundane beliefs of which were openly and transparently not based on the witness of any actual events of entities.

We ask for proof, a photo? Does the camera cover all image spectra?

It does not. What's your point?

Our life is largely based on science but is it a truth?

In my opinion, no.

Several reliable scientific "Truths" that turned out to be false several years later.

If I were to ask you to name two, chances are they'd be outside of my field, so I couldn't comment firmly. So I'll take this one from another angle. Let's say some scientific model accepted in the past is seen as "false" since some a later time. Did that change happen because we learned something new, gathered more evidence and constructed a new model? Or did it "turn out to be false" in virtue of the bulnk experts in relevant fields giving up the scientific enterprise altogether in favour of gut instincts or religious sensibilities instead?

Science is not (or at any rate not merely) just a set of propositions, handed down from men in lab coats as alternative "revelations" to be held as reliable capital-T Truths. It is first and foremost an approach to figuring things out, a method by which we go about studying nature. I tend to be careful about saying that anything we find this way is "true", but if we want to say that some scientific findings failed the test of time eventually, they are pretty much always replaced with better, more robust models, based in yet a vaster body of evidence and yet stronger, more conclusive reasoning.

Are our mathematics correct? We think they are because qualified people tell us it was true.

There is nothing to stop you from constructing a consistent set of inference rules and reformulating mathematics from the ground up. The reason you listen to mathematicians instead is because you have other, more pressing things to worry about in life. That's fine, most of us do. Most of us defer to the opinions of experts in some areas while focus on building expertise of our own in others. And most, indeed, believe mathematical theorems because they are presented as true by their teachers. Many never stop to think about the insufficiency of that again. But for those who do, the doors are open to prove each and every one of them on their own, or to review complete proofs written up by experts for convenience. Unlike with woo, most mathematically savvy people will not get offended at your questioning their theorems. Unlike with religious texts, most maths lectures don't contain threats of a fate worse than death to those who stray off the "faith".

Maybe everything is wrong and we are teaching nonsense to all the children of the world.

Sure, maybe. I'd say the chances are good that our best understanding is not perfectly complete. But again, a decent and honest teacher wouldn't try to present it as if it was. Some of the arguably best teachers will try to teach children by engaging their curiosity, encouraging them to discover what works well on their own, rather than just throwing down a stack of dry facts for the students to swallow. That being said, you and I are communicating through signals transmitted by radio-communication relays that would not work (the same) if Maxwell's equations were complete nonsense. Those relays could not be in space orbiting our home world (the same way) if Kepler's laws (and the rocket equation that helped us get them there) were complete nonsense. The computer devices we use to interface with the communications network would not exist (as they do) if our understanding of quantum mechanics in periodic potentials was complete nonsense. I can't speak about what type of screen you use for display, but mine wouldn't function (the same) if our understanding of fluid dynamics as it applies to liquid crystals was complete nonsense. And we couldn't have developed any of these fields anywhere near as far or as swiftly, were it not for those who did having enjoyed a firm training in mathematical reasoning. The point is that these things work. They produce results. Does that make them true? No. Are they the same kind of less-than-true as claims of telekinetic powers? No. Not even close.

Nothing is really true, nor totally false.

What about that statement itself?

Currently there are no more real advances, we are content to improve what already exists.

What do you mean by a "real advance", though? This state of affairs describes pretty much every time in all of recorded human history. Every advance ever made seemed more or less incremental at the time. It is only with hindsight that we get to forget most progress and to shrink time down so much that the rest seems like huge sudden leaps. The first wheel was far from perfectly round. The final printing press was more sophisticated than any of its prototypes. The first steam engine was loud and lethal. The first space flight was sub-orbital. At the same time, of course, there never used to be a carriage with only half a horse. There never used to be a computer processor chip with one and a half working cores either. Some advances are inherently leap-like, most are inherently gradual. What's the distinction between an "improvement" and a "real advance"? Would someone in five hundred years' time not look back at the turn of the millennium and speak of a huge leap from the wooden abacus of a century ago to the hundreds of many megahertz cores of today's graphics cards? Or would they have to say that even the processors of today are mere improvements upon the computational aids that already existed for the last four and a half thousand years?

Can man fly? Of course not, you are lying! Can man go underwater? Of course not, you are lying! Does God exist? Yes of course ! At the time, who was right and who was wrong? And today who is right and who is wrong?

A poor comparison, in my opinion. People who doubted that submarines or air planes could be constructed were doubtful that the technical challenges could be surmounted. Nobody said that it was impossible for a thing heavier than air to fly, because everybody had seen birds fly every day. Nobody said that it was impossible for a boat to be watertight and withstand the pressure, because fish are swimming at almos all depths every day. If you want to make the entrepreneurs of those days sound like the woosters of today, they should have said that man can fly by sprouting wings from taking a miracle wing growth drug, or go under water by growing gills a week after praying to god that they would. The nay-sayers who believed in a god might then well not have been quite so negative about the latter, ironically.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

And yet here you are, saying that some, most, or all of the knowledge we acquire or forego by any means is just as illusory as any other, that ignorance is really the only thing we actually have, and the pursuit of knowledge is in some sense a futile one.

Can we say that someone is wrong, only because we believe that what we have been taught is true?

Sure. Why not?

Again, it is belief, we believe that the teachings we have received are true but can you prove that this is the truth?

Depends. In some senses of the word, yes.

For some reason this challenge only ever comes up when defending wholly unwarranted beliefs, though. When we discussed the shape of fundamental particles a few weeks back and I asserted that they were point-like, upon challenges to my claim I never asked my interlocutor how they know anything at all, or whether they could prove that they were not a brain in a vat. I just linked to the publication of relevant measurements, referenced the plots most illustrative of my position and explained how I had to interpret the data to come to my conclusion. But when someone claims magical powers and I ask them for anything to substantiate it, someone's bound to get all existential and philosophical about it, and wonder what even is truth and knowledge, and how do I really know we don't live in a matrix. I don't. Neither do you. To bring back the example of the grandfather and car accident: Neither of us have reviewed the corpse. But one of us has a DNA lab report, while the other has the ramblings of a stranger on the street. To paint it like the playing field is level, like we are in the same state of relative ignorance, just because neither has "absolute knowledge" (what ever that would even look like) is frankly preposterous, even if it was not a complete digression off the topic at hand.

The answer only answer true and no. No one is really right or really wrong. What decides is the number of people who believe in it.

In matters of public opinion, yes, public opinion decides. Like whether the public at large perceives the idea that the earth is flat as really right or really wrong, that is a matter of public opinion. However, if we are going to say that there actually is an earth that really has a shape, that shape will be what it is, entirely irrespective of what its population believe it to be or decide to call it. I hesitate to call that its "true" shape, but if we are going to pretend that it makes any sort of sense to speak of reality at all (again, something nobody bothers questioning when ever there is actual evidence on the table), then it would have to be - among other properties - something that really doesn't give much of a damn whether or not people believe in it.

It's going to be hard to sell force powers on this site. That is, in part, because we all have to contend with the possibility of people coming here for other reasons; whether that might be trolling or scams or just someone catfishing people. It's not impossible that calling themselves "forceuser" is playing on their perception of our beliefs; assuming that we believe in force powers, and therefore using that to get attention and maybe even followers. However, this site is full of smart people. Most of the people I've interacted with on this site are very intelligent and that's one of the reasons why I love them.

But even calling yourself "forceuser" makes it sound like you have control over some form of "magical" force/ability. So it's not odd at all that people would question you about it because instead of telling the news media and becoming famous by convincing the world that magic does indeed exist, you come here, to a community of people who you believe are more susceptible to that idea. And in a way, we could feel mocked by that, as a community. Because if you can't prove it, why even say it? ...except that you thought we would believe you anyway... because we just want to believe in force powers like Christians want to believe in miracles and believe anyone with a good story involving such because they want to believe miracles exist.

Of course it is also possible that Christians do have experiences they cannot explain and cannot prove. Not having a camera handy when one is hit by lightning is perfectly understandable. But if you frequently get hit by lightning then people would naturally think you would set up cameras all around your house to capture it if it ever happened again. There are plenty of setups where a camera could record once movement is detected. Invest in something like that. If you're not even willing to do that; if you're not willing to invest in your own belief that you have powers and are a "forceuser" then you shouldn't expect anyone else to invest in that idea or belief either. And then what's the point of saying it? Saying it relies too heavily on other people believing you and they have no choice but to weigh your credibility. And if all you really talk about is having force powers then it looks all the more suspect.

So here is my honest recommendation.

1. Don't treat the community like a bunch of wizards with no powers; as if we all are desperate to believe magic exists, because we are intelligent adults who know the difference between fantasy and reality. Being a part of a star wars inspired community doesn't mean that we take star wars content as gospel.

2. Don't say you're doing experiments without any cameras set up. If you want to try to use telekinesis set up cameras first. If you believe it's real then you need to take it seriously before you expect anyone else to. And that requires that you get equipment and you set it up. If it were me and I had moved even a pencil 3 inches, best believe I would be trying every day for the rest of my life.

3. Science. We can trust science because it uses evidence and is falsifiable. In other words, if you can't prove it false (if it is) then it isn't science. If you aren't investigating other things that it could be, other than "force powers", its hard for me to take you seriously. And that's not me being hard on you. That's just common everyday sense. A ball has air inside. It can be picked up and moved by a sudden gust of wind. There might not be enough wind at the surface of the ground to move it, but when kicked into the air; especially where the wind can get underneath it, that's when even a little wind can produce radical results. Ever flown a kite? And maybe you don't remember that there were was any wind that day. Maybe your kid brain forgot that part because you were totally convinced that you did it all by yourself.

4. But that wouldn't even be consistent with the mythical "force powers" from star wars lore. I'm not saying if it really existed it would have to work in the same way as a work of fiction. However, your depiction is less like "The Force" and more like the God of the bible or Koran. Prophets claimed to be able to perform miracles. If you're not controlling it with your will then you are presenting it as more of an outside force doing it; but lacking communication skills so that it can respond on command. Almost, like you can hear it but it can't hear you. "The Force", in Star Wars, is not a person and therefore doesn't "talk" to anyone. It's will is an echo of the life forms that it binds together; sort of a "collective consciousness" of the universe. It is the CONNECTION between people that Star Wars focuses on and that connection is made to extend to inanimate objects. So if you hear a voice you should explain why its not Allah or Yahweh or some other mythical deity; but why you feel it is "The Force". Because this shows us your level of bias.

5. Normal participation. Don't try to get in the spotlight. If you make yourself the subject of conversation you cannot control where that conversation will go or how negatively it may shape perception of you. It also adds to the idea that you're probably doing this to get attention and therefore using what you believe is our desire to believe in "The Force" to manipulate us into giving you that attention in a way that you might suspect could be more positive than negative. But as I stated before, that would be a mistake. What you have to say would be taken more seriously if you were taken more seriously; meaning that you built up your credibility as any normal user would; by undertaking the IP, and becoming part of the community as an equal member of it; not as the "Chosen One" because you have powers and we don't.

6. Recognize that we are not here for mystical powers. We're here for self-improvement of a "spiritual" variety. That may have different meanings to different people and yes, occassionally there's always someone trying to prove that Reiki is some kind of "Force Power", but that's not why this community exists nor what it is built on.

I commend everyone for showing a lot of patience and restraint in this thread.