I knew that was going to happen- The truth about premonitions

I knew that was going to happen… The truth about premonitions

Amelia Tait

But are these dismissals too quick? Too easy? Some scientists claim that the complex world of quantum physics could be used to explain the paranormal (other scientists say they’re unbelievably wrong.) What can stories like Garrett’s tell us about what we do and don’t know? What we are and aren’t willing to believe? About the disconnect between what some claim to experience and others claim is impossible?

Brian Josephson is your prototypical professor. With tufts of white hair atop his head, a knitted top and a glasses chain keeping his specs safe, he says via Zoom that, “The academic community is a kind of club. You’re supposed to believe certain things and you run into problems if you disagree.” In 1973, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on superconductivity. Later, during his time as a professor at the University of Cambridge, he began using quantum mechanics to explore consciousness and the paranormal.

Shermer is not a Sheldrake fan. “The idea that a biologist like Rupert Sheldrake is going to uncover some new force of nature that somehow Einstein and everybody else has missed… is just so unlikely to have happened, that almost any explanation like the ones I’ve been giving you are way more likely.”

Josephson’s rebuke of such criticisms: “People say that [science is] always subject to revision and yet they’re secretly convinced that certain things can’t happen.”

The only quote one needs to read from that article is this:

Is there any evidence to suggest this phenomenon is real – that humans can sense one another’s passing from a distance, that Garrett’s emotional afternoon was anything more than a coincidence? In a word, no.

It seems to me the Guardian is just promoting their standard party-line on such topics: the truth is, we live in a materialist world where any idea that consciousness might be more than the random collisions of atoms is scornfully dismissed.

The article gives three real-world examples. One seems completely inexplicable. The other two describe previous circumstances meaning there were reasons to expect some sort of news.

Presumably one could write an article weighted the other way, with two out of three cases being utterly inexplicable.

So what is the truth?

The only quote one needs to read from that article is this:


It seems to me the Guardian is just promoting their standard party-line on such topics: the truth is, we live in a materialist world where any idea that consciousness might be more than the random collisions of atoms is scornfully dismissed.

The article gives three real-world examples. One seems completely inexplicable. The other two describe previous circumstances meaning there were reasons to expect some sort of news.

Presumably one could write an article weighted the other way, with two out of three cases being utterly inexplicable.

So what is the truth?

I think the challenge is you have to lean toward the skeptical to get some of the Psi-sympathetic stuff in?

The fact the author was willing to get input from Josephson, and mention he's a Nobel winner, seems better than making it Shermer vs dime-story palm readers to me?

So what is the truth?

That’s a question that could take a long long time to fully answer. 

That’s a question that could take a long long time to fully answer.  _/_

That having been said, I think it may be available and shown to us in the blink of an eye.

That’s a question that could take a long long time to fully answer. 

Yes.

Though I used that word since it was in the title of the article.

The article gives three real-world examples. One seems completely inexplicable. The other two describe previous circumstances meaning there were reasons to expect some sort of news.

That's not to say that these prior circumstances could explain what each experiencer felt. Words are inadequate to describe our inner states, so the accounts as shared with others can't express what really happened, only hint at it.

Perhaps this  is also relevant:

When it comes to experiences like Garrett’s, he [Sheldrake] says empirical studies are impossible. “You can’t ask somebody to die at a randomly selected time to see if their nearest and dearest respond… So unfortunately, the evidence for cases to do with death has to be circumstantial.”

Many of the most powerful experiences occur in real-life, not just this current topic, but many other types too. Once cannot place everything inside a laboratory and control it. Which means science in particular needs to take what happens in real life very seriously, rather than focussing only on controlled experiments.

Also, though the title of the article uses the word premonitions, and implies this is about predictions of the future, the cases presented seem to be something else - real-time connections between widely-separated people. It seems to be about the present moment, not the future. If that was in the article heading, it would be more appropriate and perhaps invite more thought-provoking discussion.