Post #39,038
5/17/02 2:32:35 PM
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New element
in models of [link|http://unisci.com/stories/20022/0516026.htm|awareness].
I dunno, though. If this is the case, I would think that there would be 'measurable' (or at least documentable) changes in behaviour, creativity, or understanding when exposed to high magnetic or electric fields. Does MRI wipe out, say, intuition for the duration of the test? After a while? Sounds too 'blue sky' for me...
Imric's Tips for Living- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
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Post #39,044
5/17/02 2:43:32 PM
5/17/02 3:38:53 PM
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I've seen something to suggest this
There was a show for a while on Fox that examined unexplained phenomenon -- or at least ones that some people didn't accept the explanation for -- in a skeptical manner.
One of the tests they did was to hook the investigator up to a powerful electomagnet. He reported having the strong sensation of there being someone else in the room with him, even though he knew that there wasn't. They then visited a supposedly haunted house. It was nearly directly under high-tension power lines. There was also a large, unexplained spike in local measuments of the earth's magnetic field.
The hypothosis was that strong magnetic fields may cause the sensation of there being another "presence" with you. Some people may be more susceptible than others to these fields. Through history, this experience has been explained variously as demons, witches, aliens and ghosts.
[ edit was a typo ]
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Microsoft offers them the one thing most business people will pay any price for - the ability to say "we had no choice - everyone's doing it that way." -- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=38978|Andrew Grygus]
Edited by drewk
May 17, 2002, 03:38:53 PM EDT
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Post #39,046
5/17/02 2:50:13 PM
5/17/02 2:52:10 PM
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I dunno.
I've always thought the association between electricity, magnetism, and the 'supernatural' is there because to most people, electricity and magnetism are 'magic'...
Imric's Tips for Living- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
Edited by imric
May 17, 2002, 02:51:29 PM EDT
Edited by imric
May 17, 2002, 02:52:10 PM EDT
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Post #39,064
5/17/02 3:38:02 PM
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Not this guy
The investigator for this segment was the guy who sold Fox on the idea of doing the show: Michael Shermer, author of "Why People Believe Wierd Things" and "How We Believe" and one of the top guys in the [link|http://www.skeptic.com|Skeptics Society]. He is like [link|http://www.randi.org/|James Randi]: a professional debunker. If he said he "felt" something, he did.
===
Microsoft offers them the one thing most business people will pay any price for - the ability to say "we had no choice - everyone's doing it that way." -- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=38978|Andrew Grygus]
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Post #39,115
5/17/02 11:58:49 PM
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Thou sayest
And re the above 'experiment' - I'm biased: I've spent decades around magnetic, electrical fields, DC and AC from VLF on up. At one point I had my head very near the pole-tips of the electron synchrotron (a mere 340 MeV thing). Between the poles was a 15 KG (Kilo Gauss) peak-field and, near as I could get was flux leakage after saturation, of ~ 9 KG. I saw "sparks".. flashes which coincided with the 6 ppm rep rate of the pulsed field. No apparitions nor intimations of immortality.
Ditto standing inside a Cockroft-Walton ion source PS, elevated to 480KV-DC above ground (now there - the alloy shell would have been a decent electrostatic shield). Been near to the magnet leads passing 8000 amps at 16 KV for a large accelerator's main guide field.. Etc. Etc.
Maybe I'm not a sensitive. The above sounds a lot like some Tee Vee program of several years ago which featured Hollywood spec. effects and purported to "ask questions" about the "unexplained". Brain resists remembering what this series was called - it sucked.
CS Lewis - much more sophisticated dabbling.. Gotta get around to doing a review of the trilogy I'm about to finish.
Ashton
PS
The Lab Director reported on similar "sparklies", upon having a handful of [very carefully regulated!] high energy heavy ions run through his macula / retina, in an effort to correlate with what some astronauts reported.. RHIP = why he got to play.
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Post #39,112
5/17/02 11:29:14 PM
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Sounds like junk science to me..
One of the objections to an electromagnetic field theory of consciousness is, if our minds are electromagnetic, then why don't we pass out when we walk under an electrical cable or any other source of external electromagnetic fields? The answer is that our skin, skull and cerebrospinal fluid shield us from external electric fields. 'Postulating' such a thing sans the slightest familiarity with the physics (apparently) or ref to many known cases of minor-elecrocution (?) from DC to HF, into the high microwaves + omission of all ideas of even such as capacitive coupling yada yada .. is either sloppiness or cluelessness. One such example is enough. Finally - imagining that "consciousness" - the very Mystery of any life "aware of itself" ! - shall yield to the simplistic digital logic of the day, (merely because it's so convenient to deal with that logic - so let's make the question fit the method) seals it for me. Dunno what the Univ. of Surrey is like - but Johnjoe isn't apt to gain them any Nobels.. maybe an Emmy? Ashton
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Post #39,197
5/19/02 3:22:01 AM
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One study Mcgill comes to mind
that studied rats born in a high magnetic field could only preform normally when inside a similar field. Outside of it would act outside the bell curve as far as violence, sexual preclivity etc. Now I think that since we are a 95% bag of water and minerals that electro magnetics can affect us but is not the whole cloth of our beings.
thanx,
bill
TAM ARIS QUAM ARMIPOTENS
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