Seeing blindfolded

Fair enough. We don't know how the detectors were configured.


I suspect that this is in a sense simply a reiteration of your first point in that an adequately calibrated photon detector would pick up light from such a pinhole.

I don't consider it a reiteration. The same photon cannot both strike the photodetector and enter the human eye. It has to be one or the other.

OK, but it would nevertheless be a pretty impressive feat for the professor to pull off just using pinholes, wouldn't it?

That depends. I don't have enough information.

[Laird]

I don't consider it a reiteration. The same photon cannot both strike the photodetector and enter the human eye. It has to be one or the other.

Hmm. OK, perhaps, technically, you are correct. But if the lack of detection of any photons depends upon all of them instead entering the human eye via a pinhole in the mask, then perhaps there aren't many of them to detect in the first place?

That depends. I don't have enough information.

What about the information that the host couldn't see anything, not even via a pinhole, when he put on the mask? Doesn't that count for something?

I will say, I always get into these sorts of troubles. On a previous occasion there was a video of Sean McNamara demonstrating telekinesis. I considered the video, indeed several of them, to be flawed. In that case it was the framing (narrow field of view) as well as tight editing in terms of cutting off the beginning and end of the activity. In fairness I've since that time seen some better videos.

The problem isn't that I don't believe these things might be possible, or that the video demonstrates just what it appears to show. Rather it is that there are so many flaws and loopholes that it would be necessary to be there myself or have some reliable other person there to do inspections and supervising.

On a personal note, I might add that I've been under pressure since yesterday due to something unrelated to this forum, and may be somewhat more grumpy than usual. Right now my own problem seems to have been resolved, but I'm still simmering.

I will say, I always get into these sorts of troubles. On a previous occasion there was a video of Sean McNamara demonstrating telekinesis. I considered the video, indeed several of them, to be flawed. In that case it was the framing (narrow field of view) as well as tight editing in terms of cutting off the beginning and end of the activity. In fairness I've since that time seen some better videos.

The problem isn't that I don't believe these things might be possible, or that the video demonstrates just what it appears to show. Rather it is that there are so many flaws and loopholes that it would be necessary to be there myself or have some reliable other person there to do inspections and supervising.

On a personal note, I might add that I've been under pressure since yesterday due to something unrelated to this forum, and may be somewhat more grumpy than usual. Right now my own problem seems to have been resolved, but I'm still simmering.;)

The photon detector/eye mask video just looked like a typical TV magic trick to me... honestly, this is not the sort of stuff we should be bothering with... that is focusing on persuading TV viewers that somebody can’t see through a eye mask is just a waste of everybody’s time...

My mum used to do blindfold psychic magic tricks at Newcastle quayside with her father when she was a child, they supplemented their income with it... made a good bit of money out of the public who thought they could beat her... one would be hard pressed to tell how the trick worked, but her and her father controlled the props, she had to memorise a *very* complicated prop order, as well as a special code that was related to the props, and her father communicated in that code to her, by hiding the code in his showman speech. Mum had to translate the code in her head, then relate that code to the props...

The point being, that focusing just on mums blindfold is often just the sort of misdirection a magician uses to focus the public away from the way a trick may actually work...

I find it a bit odd that - judging from the videos - at least three different groups making these claims seem to be using the same Mindfold mask. Presumably that's not just a coincidence, considering how many types of masks are on the market:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sleep-Masks/b?i...2826700031

[Laird]

This phenomenon has been mentioned in videos (semi)recently shared in other threads, so I'm referencing them here.

In the video @Sci shared in the What is really known about consciousness? Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogue 9 thread, it gets a shortish mention by Rupert from 12:25 - 13:48, then there's a deeper exposition from 19:30 - 23:36, and finally he makes a very brief back-reference to it from 25:14 - 25:34.

In the video @Sci shared even earlier in the Neuroscientist Speaks Out On The Hidden War On Consciousness, Alex Gomez, whom Rupert referenced in the above discussion, shares more of his own encounters with this phenomenon, in particular in the remarkable form of seeing objects in the future, from 41:58 - 49:23.