The HeartMath people refer to precog as intuition but if you read their three case studies you see they’re really witnessing precog. William Tiller not only provides a scientifically rigorous framework for the existence of psi abilities, he answers the question of Dark Matter/Dark Energy at the same time . . . and in a very elegant manner. Read all of his freely distributed white papers. If you still have doubts after all of this, watch the documentary, The Yogis of Tibet, found here: http://theyogisoftibet.com/. And if you’re still not convinced check out the studies conducted by Herbert Benson and his crew, especially the work of Sara Lazar available here: http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/~lazar/.

If you’re not convinced after all of that then go back to sleep; I’m sorry I woke you.

If nature were that strong in this regard, how can one explain that people with better education are generally more skeptic than others?

I think nurture is underestimated, especially since people outside the social sciences tend mostly look at instituational influences, and maybe geography (along the fallacious lines of “you are biased because you live there, therefore I know better”) and income.

Concerning not having preferences:I meant to say that these preferences are a matter of degree and can be partly countered by values like striving for objectivity.

Values and goals, and aiming high, imho are useful for what they make you do (or don’t do) and not necessarely for reaching them.If someone does not even try to be balanced (e.g neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but realistic) he’ll probably be a good deal more subjective, sometimes even unscientific.

I think it is nearly impossible not to have preferences, and the best we can do is not to let our preferences interfere too much with experimentation.

Healthy science needs both enthusiasts and skeptics, and everyone falls in the role that comes most natural to them.

I think one should never have preferences (as far as that is possible), if he seeks the truth.And I do not have an opinion over whether we have these skills or not, I am just quite sure I don’t ^^

I like to use sites like the one I posted in order to get a quick overview of what both sides have to say.Then I decide if I want to get further into it.After all, one/most people has only so much time to read and do what he wants.

Have a nice day;)

Concerning Dean Radin:
http://www.skepdic.com/refuge/entangledreview.html

I think someone who is really good at networking is much more powerful than some lonely person.

Concerning your questions: The need question on an individual level is imho not that important.Those traits etc that lead to reproduction are those that prevail in the long run.That’s why most of us have them.

Also, humans are much weaker and slowly developing than most other large creatures, which means we need to search safety in numbers.

And yeah, some brands of transhumanism come across as pretty collectivist.I dislike them.

All this however does not mean I have expressed my opinion anymore than asserting these things (unity of everything, you just do not know it, but i feel it) to be in the realm of spirituality (at least as for today).

In my opinion, almost everything is a scientific problem, at least in in the long run.Even the misunderstandings between people concerning simple text messages ;)

Have a nice day :)

I am not aware of any reproducible experimental evidence, but as Arthur Clarke said, there are so many reports that it can’t be all crap.

I look forward to seeing new experimental results and, if the result is that we have no latent psychic powers, it is good to know that we will be able to engineer them.

It’s one thing if we are ever applying technology to better our own lives and to eventually fulfill all the promises of religion…it’s another thing to start injecting things for the sake of it. I understand how the Singularity is going to start to seemingly fulfill, well, as much as we can imagine apparently…that shouldn’t be a void to start throwing in every sort of philosophical/fantasy idea you can think of.

I guess what it boils down to is, that ‘religion’ has such a negative connotation here, and I understand that…but it’s too easy to get ahead of yourself, especially if you are really passionate about the Singularity.

I can understand why it wouldn’t seem like a religion…To transhumanists/singularitarians…this is merely the ‘next step’ – but thing is, It’s like to the people of every religion already too…it makes so much sense to them, it supposedly explains the origins of everything, what will happen in the future and how we must prepare ourselves…and the implications of the Singularity, where everyone is endowed with God-like abilities sounds, well, biblical.

Perhaps this is all semantics and nothing more, but people who believe in this stuff need to watch their behavior — to be more modest and humble, especially since the vast majority of people never even heard of this stuff…everybody has their own ideas and everybody wants to be the winner on the other side who gets to say “I told you so”.

The wish that people are actually imbued with latent potential of such sort always felt like the stuff of fantasy novels then what is actually real…and again, it’s all moot because we will be able to essentially have such abilities, and more, through the tech that is yet to come; especially considering, as you say, that we will be able to vastly extend all our biological capabilities, even mysterious ‘psychic’ potential that we may supposedly have — so we’ll be getting our cake and eating it too.

Oh no, give me a purely tech telepathy that I can switch off. :)