bluecherry
Oh no, I used the word "magician" correctly and purposefully in my above post. I would want really good magicians, illusionists, there to try to make sure you are not simply pulling a fast one on the scientists and merely tricking them with illusions. For just one example, as this was a test of gravity I was mentioning, the illusionist magician Chris Angel has done tricks where he appears to defy gravity, but they are still just tricks.
And by the way, I agree all ideas should be given consideration, and science DOES indeed give them consideration. Don't confuse things getting quickly eliminated (such as things that are logically impossible and absurd to the extreme, such as the FSM example of "the decline in the number of pirates causing global warming") with never being considered at all. And I'm glad you do agree with cell theory and germ theory of disease at least. xd I'd think your life might be in great danger if you didn't. I could imagine if you decided to go run around people with the Ebola virus because you didn't think there were germs you could catch. Really, they make sense is exactly the point. That's how science works over all, by trying to use what we do know, logic, and tests and exploration to find out more evidence all working together to see what makes sense. Science is entirely about finding the sense in the workings of the world to find truth. Sometimes that leads us to obvious conclusions, sometimes we find by following the facts that truth really is stranger than fiction. Some things may be harder for the average person to understand, but they do ultimately come down to what really does make sense. If something eventually comes up to show an old answer no longer makes sense, then you go back and work on the problem again factoring in this new evidence until you get what does make sense again. Science makes no claims of omnipotence. Nor omniscience. You can only work with what is possible (this includes the laws of physics and the things that cause apparent exceptions to them to come into play, you can't do this impossible, only find out new ways to do things in what is possible so that they may look like the impossible) and you can only work with what you know or try out what you suspect. Which is why expanding scientific knowledge is always good to do. It helps with accuracy.
And I've already stated that I personally do not know enough about "higher brain functioning" claims to be 100% positive about them, only that at this time I find them suspicious for their failures to be sufficiently demonstrable thus far under decent testing conditions as far as I myself have heard of. In fact, there's a million dollars up for grabs even to anybody who can do something similar to the challenge I gave you earlier, so in fact you don't have to take my Gaia stuff which is mere virtual value alone (though I was being entirely serious. As a question of reality I take it quite seriously. I'm not freaking out or anything, in fact I'm trying to keep this to a very civil and rational exchange. I just wanted to have some kind of possible reward up for grabs and to show my sincerity and commitment to the truth and to make it a little more interesting and desirable to actually try to prove your claims instead of just making them. Please do not mistake my zeal for stress), but a million dollars if you or anybody you know can demonstrate something of a "paranormal" nature sufficiently. See the challenge here. So far, many have tried, none have succeeded to live up to their claims in the test here. As for the Discovery channel thing, haven't seen it, maybe if it's on some time I'll watch it, but being on TV alone, even the Discovery channel, doesn't guarantee it is 100% reliable truth. Remember, the Discovery channel may be generally accurate and scientific, or at least try to be, but they are in the entertainment business in the end, so they may do things some times that are more for fun and to get viewers and not draw definitive conclusions because it may put off viewers. wink
Hm, ok then...you do know that Criss Angel,<- the correct spelling of his stage name, has already stated that his acts of "illusion" were done by...oh what's this, oh yeah, meditation...what now? If you were at least a bit more than informed about Criss, or Christopher Sarantakos you probably would've known that on the DVD of the 1st or 2nd season, he explained that his acts of "illusion" such as teleportation and his "walking-on-water" stunt, not to mention his wood-chipper stunt as well, were done AFTER he had meditated. Oh and to combat your claims on how noone has ever succeeded in the "challenge".....there are reasons why nobody has ever been able to succeed in that challenge. Let me ask you something, if you were persecuted in the past for being a "freak" and having paranormal powers, would you risk being persecuted again for the sake of a million dollars..I mean think about the old saying "money can't buy happiness". There's also many, many witches with ESP who are oathbound by Wiccan covens, making it nearly impossible to either stake the claim that they have psychic powers or how they were even able to obtain psychic powers. Then there's the matter of skeptics. And to combat your blind faith in science, let me ask you one more thing before I digress and teach my students on my guild. Science cannot answer all..yet..but if they could, wouldn't they be seen as gods? All-knowing and all-seeing? The keepers of infinite knowledge? And yet they deny this? How daft can they possibly be? Riddle me that!