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Has Uri Geller been confirmed psychic?

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Reply 80
Original post by Fullofsurprises
One big difference is that a huge amount of systematic research has gone into electrons, electricity and electromagnetism and as a result, a great deal of well proven fact is known about these phenomenon, even if at the ultimate levels of detail, there are competing theories about the explanation for various phenomena, the particles and forces that generate them, what those truly are, etc. This isn't the case with many 'mystical phenomena' that are presented. I wouldn't use the example of something a Shaolin priest does as an example, because they are most probably the result of physical discipline and training and are not 'metaphysical' at all, but are replicable and explicable physical phenomena.

There might be other 'phenomena' that some claim exist, like for example, psychic telekinesis, or remote viewing, that experiments could be devised for and repeated many times under controlled conditions to test for the existence of. Whenever this has been done so far under genuinely replicable and controlled objective conditions that could not be 'gamed' by the participants, the results have been nil.


Exactly, electricity has been widely studied but no-one can explain what it is. Our familiarity with it means nothing in terms of explaining it.

I've studied parapsychology and I can assure you that some remote viewing experiments have come back as above chance, in a similar vein, as have astral projection experiments, one AP experiment showed nothing detectable with temperature, infra red, ultra violet, electromagnetic (all scientific equipment), however a kitten in the lab began acting weird. It depends on how 'gifted' the individual is, like I say there's plenty of frauds out there, but these experiments I talk about indicate that something is going on with these exceptionally gifted individuals (who seem in the minority).

I don't know where you get this assertion 'come back as nil'.
Reply 81
Original post by SamW78
Perhaps I wasn't specific enough, can any scientist explain how moving electrons are able to generate an electrical force? If indeed this is how electricity begins. And what causes the electrons to move in such a way to create electrical energy, as far as I know electrons that compose all matter move all the time, are they creating electricity in that state of movement? I would say no, because I would get an electric shock everytime I touch something.

In other words the explanation electricity works by moving electrons just doesn't cut it.

The point being..no-one can scientifically explain what electricity is, but we use it to power our computers. Similarly, no-one can scientifically explain what chi is but shaolin monks can use this force to stop their necks being pierced.


There's no such thing as an electrical force (well, coulomb force, but that's not particularly relevant)
What we call electricity is moving electrons.The reason you don't get an electric shock is because on a macroscopic scale normal objects have a neutral charge. When electrons move within an atom they do not move with any kind of coherence with respect to the electrons in the atom next to them - there is no net flow of electrons (which is called current). Plus, the electrons in most materials are bound to their atoms, whereas in metals/wires there are many de-localised electrons which can easily move around as current.

Potential difference causes electrons to move around a circuit. This movement is called current. The potential difference is usually cause by a discrepancy in charge within the batter/power supply. The change in charge between two places causes there to be a 'force' (technically not a force, but for the purposes of this let's treat it as such) which pushes the electrons around the circuit.

The point is, electricity is very well understood on a subatomic level. This is something that is taught to undergraduate physics students (like me six months ago) and is based upon mountains of experimental and theoretical backing.

My feeling is that if Chi were a real phenomena it would have been studied to great extent, would be well understood and used by everyone. As you say, it's an ancient concept so it has definitely come to the attention of countless physicists. And yet I have a degree in physics rather than chi.
Reply 82
Original post by Manitude
There's no such thing as an electrical force (well, coulomb force, but that's not particularly relevant)
What we call electricity is moving electrons.The reason you don't get an electric shock is because on a macroscopic scale normal objects have a neutral charge. When electrons move within an atom they do not move with any kind of coherence with respect to the electrons in the atom next to them - there is no net flow of electrons (which is called current). Plus, the electrons in most materials are bound to their atoms, whereas in metals/wires there are many de-localised electrons which can easily move around as current.

Potential difference causes electrons to move around a circuit. This movement is called current. The potential difference is usually cause by a discrepancy in charge within the batter/power supply. The change in charge between two places causes there to be a 'force' (technically not a force, but for the purposes of this let's treat it as such) which pushes the electrons around the circuit.

The point is, electricity is very well understood on a subatomic level. This is something that is taught to undergraduate physics students (like me six months ago) and is based upon mountains of experimental and theoretical backing.

My feeling is that if Chi were a real phenomena it would have been studied to great extent, would be well understood and used by everyone. As you say, it's an ancient concept so it has definitely come to the attention of countless physicists. And yet I have a degree in physics rather than chi.


No doubt this is a topic you have knowledge of.

Thank you for informing me about the process.

Although you explained the process that allows the flow of electricity, and why metals conduct electricity, no-one knows what it is and where it comes from.

Based on your explanation it seems to be inherent in electrons and flows when they are aligned, but again what is it and where does it come from?

Just as any scientist might ask what is chi and where does it come from, I don't know.
Reply 83
Original post by SamW78
No doubt this is a topic you have knowledge of.

Thank you for informing me about the process.

Although you explained the process that allows the flow of electricity, and why metals conduct electricity, no-one knows what it is and where it comes from.

Based on your explanation it seems to be inherent in electrons and flows when they are aligned, but again what is it and where does it come from?

Just as any scientist might ask what is chi and where does it come from, I don't know.


The question of "what is it" is somewhat misplaced as electricity IS moving elections. That's not the root cause of it, but the phenomena which we call electricity is nothing more than moving charge (all electrons have charge). The origins of charge in electrons is more difficult and we're moving into the realms of particles physics, strictly speaking electrical charge is based on the sum of weak isospin and hypercharge but to anyone who isn't a particle physicist these terms are completely meaningless (to me, too!). Now where this arises from is unknown, in the same way that we don't know where the property of particles called spin arises from - it's more of a theoretical question than anything.

I think perhaps you're asking what causes the electrons to move? As I said it was potential difference but I didn't explain quite what it is. The best analogy I can give is with gravity. Consider a ball on a book shelf. To raise the ball to the shelf above you have to exert energy on the ball to fight against gravity and move it. If the ball rolls off a shelf to the one below it then it releases energy by moving. What the ball 'wants' to do is fall as far as it can and get into the lowest energy state that it can.

Now imagine that the ball is an electron, and the shelves are parts of a battery. When you move all the electrons to one side, they want to move to the other. If you stop them from moving through the battery then they have to find another route. This other route is the electrical circuit. Sorry if this isn't clear as I'm trying to condense a few months of full time study of physics into a few paragraphs.

Again, with the exception of where the actual charge of an electron comes from, electricity is very well understood.

Chi on the other hand, chi is just not accepted as a real thing by the scientific community. There is no mechanism I can think of which would allow it to happen, furthermore I suspect that it would be in violate with a few physical laws. I can't say for sure without someone proposing a specific mechanism for it to work.
his only power is the ability to con morons into buying the **** he sells.
Original post by SamW78

This is different to scientific evidence of psychic ability such as PK or ESP. To which, such abilities cannot be explained scientifically, but their artifacts such as a moving cylinder can be observed.

Original post by SamW78
When you see a shaolin monk resting his full body weight between a spear and his neck, you will know that no amount of conditioning can 'toughen' the neck to not become pierced.

Original post by SamW78

Electricity doesn't make sense


Be open-minded, but not so open that your brain falls out.

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