Do you believe in ESP? Why or why not?

Question

ESP, (extrasensory perception) is when people can read minds, see through walls tell the future, ect. Animals and people both have it.

Answer 1

yes it is possible

some by birth will posses such powers like moving objects by jus seeing... and see future

Answer 2

Yes I do.Many times that I have thought about a person that I haven`t seen for years and I happen to meet her/him in the street.This always occurs to me.

Answer 3

I knew you were going to ask that. and the answer to your next question is June.

Answer 4

I have yet to find any evidence to suggest ESP is legitimate.  There has been more research in this area than any other parnormal subject.  If there were something to it we probably would have found it by now.

Answer 5

I don't believe in it.Simply because,it's never been done.Check into it with and open mind.It's the only honest conclusion.

Answer 6

I very much do, as I've had some experience. I can't see through walls of course, but I can feel other people's emotions and I do get the occassional thought, though I wouldn't say I could read someone's mind. That implies that i can look into someone's head and tell you word for word what they're thinking. That I can't do, but I could probably tell you the gist of it, if I can connect to them.

thought bandit... send me a picture of your face, where I can see your eyes. That's it. Just an image. No name no birth date no questions. I bet I can tell you things about yourself.

sorry, I truly mean no offense. I just tend to see it as a challange when a skeptic says prove it to me. ;)

Answer 7

Clairvoyance?  Sure, I do it a lot but I'm not very good at it.  I'd say my score was equal on terms with the guessing mean.

I'm better at reading body language, which is barely ESP.

Answer 8

Yes! I have experienced it several times.

Answer 9

First, Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) is a blanket term and does include reading the mind others (properly called telepathy which is there is no acceptable test for), it also does include at times seeing into the future (precognition). ESP does not include seeing through walls (X-ray vision) though you might have meant the ability to see information normally hidden like remote viewing into a building.

I believe in it based on the extensive evidence from scientific experiments that strongly supports the conclusion of it's existence.

Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. Effects of similar magnitude to those found in government-sponsored research at SRI and SAIC have been replicated at a number of laboratories across the world. Such consistency cannot be readily explained by claims of flaws or fraud.

(link below)

Rosenthal, after considering the possible influence of various flaws upon study outcome, concluded that the overall hit rate of the studies could be estimated to be 33 percent, whereas chance expectancy was 25 percent.

(link below)

Psi

Answer 10

Well there is *something* along those lines, given my own experiences, but I think it's just some natural thing that we don't yet understand.

Though most instances of ESP are relatively minor things. When I used to have an hour commute to school (college) every day I used to do it frequently with the radio... Could be going along with some song that's on, and randomly I get some other song in my head in the middle of it and it ended up being next, even if there was a commercial break. Not even like just a lucky guess, it happened often enough it was rather odd...not to mention I wasn't guessing, it just intruded into my head when I was happy listening to the other song. lol I think maybe just the heightened awareness of driving major roads kind of opened up a further awareness of the senses in general and helped with that.

I used to also be able to just *know* there was a police car around before I'd see it come through the traffic. I distinctly remember once, on my way to school, watching in my rear view mirror, just knowing there was a police car somewhere in the traffic behind me. A moment later, sure enough, it came out of it and went on passed me.

I don't really believe in psychics, but I do believe more in some kind of bond between people. Like mothers who know something bad has happened to their child.

Answer 11

if its real how come we never find people who have it. Wouldnt someone with that ability seek fame. I know i would. Besides, i dont think anyone but God should be able to see into the future.

Answer 12

I can't read minds, see through walls or tell the future.

Maybe if you think you can you'd like to prove it to us in some way- that shouldn't be too difficult for you?

Answer 13

yeah

Answer 14

I believe it because it happened to me. I didn't realize that 's what I was doing. I thought they were my own thoughts..and wondered why they "popped into my head". Other people realized it before I did. It got me into a lot of trouble..because a lot of times I'd say what I was thinking...out loud.  Should have kept my mouth shut!

(I don't mean seeing through walls...but ..I guess when you do remote viewing you're doing that..so I guess I did .) I did these things for about 10 years. I don't do it anymore.(Or maybe I do ..but won't listen anymore.) I did connect with someone on here that way ..in a way..about a week ago. Someone said something to her...then when she got on YA she saw I had just said the same thing to her..and also written it  in a question.

Hmmm...maybe it's still happening.

Answer 15

i totally believe in it because  i have it.

i can sense what other people are thinking, not to say i know EXACTLY word for word but  i can sense feelings. also i experience deja vu often and have sensed a few spirit presences. also a lot of other random things have happend to me that i cant exactly recall all of them right now but. yes i totally believe in ESP

and i dont care if people say its fake or not proven, because its obvious that they've never experienced  it for them selves.

Answer 16

Some maybe and some no. But then I think if one is possible, then why not the others.

Reading minds... maybe

See through walls... 100% NO

Seeing the future... possibly so

Animals have better senses than humans. Any most "ESP" is just intuition or complete bullchit. About 90% of so-say Psychics are frauds.

Answer 17

h**l no. it cant be proven physically and people can easily cheat others by pretending

Answer 18

well yes,

Extrasensory perception (ESP) is the purported ability to acquire information by paranormal means independent of any known physical senses or deduction from previous experience. The term was coined by Duke University researcher J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy, the sensing of thoughts or feelings without help from the 5 known senses, precognition, the knowledge of future events, and clairvoyance, the awareness of people, objects or events without the help of the 5 known senses. ESP is also sometimes casually referred to as a sixth sense, gut instinct, a hunch, a weird vibe or an intuition. The term implies sources of information currently unexplained by science. Popular belief in ESP is widespread, but skeptics are still not persuaded that there truly is a sixth sense because of the lack of reliable theories and information.[1][2][3]

The existence of ESP abilities is highly controversial, and no scientifically conclusive demonstrations of the existence of ESP have been given.[4] Parapsychology explores this possibility, and some experiments such as the ganzfeld have been suggested as good evidence of ESP,[5][6] however its existence is not generally accepted by the scientific establishment.

Contents

[show]

    * 1 History of ESP

          o 1.1 Extrasensory perception and hypnosis

          o 1.2 J.B. Rhine

          o 1.3 Early British research

          o 1.4 Sequence, position and psychological effects

          o 1.5 Cognitive and humanistic research

    * 2 Scientific investigation of ESP

    * 3 Skepticism

    * 4 See also

    * 5 References

    * 6 Further reading

[edit] History of ESP

The notion of extrasensory perception existed in antiquity. In many ancient cultures, such powers were ascribed to people who purported to use them for second sight or communicate with deities, ancestors, spirits, and the like.

[edit] Extrasensory perception and hypnosis

There is a common belief that a hypnotized person would be able to demonstrate ESP. Carl Sargent, a psychology major at the University of Cambridge, heard about the early claims of a hypnosis – ESP link and designed an experiment to test whether they had merit. He recruited 40 fellow college students, none of whom identified him- or herself as having ESP, and then divided them into a group that would be hypnotized before being tested with a pack of 25 Zener cards, and a control group that would be tested with the same Zener cards. The control subjects averaged a score of 5 out of 25 right, exactly what chance would indicate. The subjects who were hypnotized did more than twice as well, averaging a score of 11.9 out of 25 right. Sargent's own interpretation of the experiment is that ESP is associated with a relaxed state of mind and a freer, more atavistic level of consciousness.[citation needed] Skeptics believe that Sargent's experiments lacked proper controls.[citation needed]

[edit] J.B. Rhine

In the 1930s, at Duke University in North Carolina, J. B. Rhine and his wife Louisa tried to develop psychical research into an experimental science. To avoid the connotations of hauntings and the seance room, they renamed it "parapsychology." While Louisa Rhine concentrated on collecting accounts of spontaneous cases, J. B. Rhine worked largely in the laboratory, carefully defining terms such as ESP and psi and designing experiments to test them. A simple set of cards was developed, originally called Zener cards[7] (after their designer) — now called ESP cards. They bear the symbols circle, square, wavy lines, cross, and star; there are five cards of each in a pack of 25.

In a telepathy experiment the "sender" looks at a series of cards while the "receiver" guesses the symbols. To try to observe clairvoyance, the pack of cards is hidden from everyone while the receiver guesses. To try to observe precognition, the order of the cards is determined after the guesses are made.

In all such experiments the order of the cards must be random so that hits are not obtained through systematic biases or prior knowledge. At first the cards were shuffled by hand, then by machine. Later, random number tables were used and, nowadays, computers. An advantage of ESP cards is that statistics can easily be applied to determine whether the number of hits obtained is higher than would be expected by chance. Rhine used ordinary people as subjects and claimed that, on average, they did significantly better than chance expectation. Later he used dice to test for psychokinesis and also claimed results that were better than chance.

In 1940, Rhine, J.G. Pratt, and others at Duke authored a review of all card-guessing experiments conducted internationally since 1882. Titled Extra-Sensory Perception After Sixty Years, it has become recognised as the first meta-analysis in science.[8] It included details of replications of Rhine's studies. Through these years, 50 studies were published, of which 33 were contributed by investigators other than Rhine and the Duke University group; 61% of these independent studies reported significant results suggestive of ESP.[9] Among these were psychologists at Colorado University and Hunter College, New York, who completed the studies with the largest number of trials and the highest levels of significance.[10][11] Replication failures encouraged Rhine to further research into the conditions necessary to experimentally produce the effect. He maintained, however, that it was not replicability, or even a fundamental theory of ESP that would evolve research, but only a greater interest in unconscious mental processes and a more complete understanding of human personality.[12]

[edit] Early British research

One of the first statistical studies of ESP, using card-guessing, was conducted by Ina Jephson, in the 1920s. She reported mixed findings across two studies. More successful experiments were conducted with procedures other than card-guessing. G.N.M. Tyrrell used automated target-selection and data-recording in guessing the location of a future point of light. Whateley Carington experimented on the paranormal cognition of drawings of randomly selected words, using participants from across the globe. J. Hettinger studied the ability to retrieve information associated with token objects. All reported evidence suggestive of extrasensory perception.

Less successful was University of London mathematician Samuel Soal in his attempted replications of the card-guessing studies. However, following a hypothesis suggested by Carington on the basis of his own findings, Soal re-analysed his data for evidence of what Carington termed displacement. Soal discovered, to his surprise, that two of his former participants evidenced displacement: i.e., their responses significantly corresponded to targets for trials one removed from which they were assigned. Soal sought to confirm this finding by testing these participants in new experiments. Conducted during the war years, into the 1950s, under tightly controlled conditions, they produced highly significant results suggestive of precognitive telepathy. His findings were especially convincing for many other scientists and philosophers regarding telepathy and the claims of Rhine. Critics offered claims of fraud, the invalidity of probability theory to science, and the possibility of unconscious whispering, as accounting for Soal's results. These charges against Soal, and spirited defenses by his colleagues, continued until after his death in 1975. In 1978, parapsychologists largely abandoned any further defence of the findings when a computer-based analysis identified inexplicable sequences in the target lists used for one of Soal's experiments.

[edit] Sequence, position and psychological effects

Rhine and other parapsychologists found that some subjects, or some conditions, produced significant below-chance scoring (psi-missing); or that scores declined during testing (the "decline effect"). Personality measures have also been tested. People who believe in psi ("sheep") tend to score above chance, while those who do not believe in psi ("goats") show null results or psi-missing. This has became known as the "sheep-goat effect".

Prediction of decline and other position effects has proved challenging, although they have been often identified in data gathered for the purpose of observing other effects.[13] Personality and attitudinal effects have shown greater predictability, with meta-analysis of parapsychological databases showing the sheep-goat effect, and other traits, to have significant and reliable effects over the accumulated data.[14][15]

[edit] Cognitive and humanistic research

In the 1960s, in line with the development of cognitive psychology and humanistic psychology, parapsychologists became increasingly interested in the cognitive components of ESP, the subjective experience involved in making ESP responses, and the role of ESP in psychological life. Memory, for instance, was offered as a better model of psi than perception. This called for experimental procedures that were not limited to Rhine's favoured forced-choice methodology. Free-response measures, such as used by Carington in the 1930s, were developed with attempts to raise the sensitivity of participants to their cognitions. These procedures included relaxation, meditation, REM-sleep, and the Ganzfeld (a mild sensory deprivation procedure). These studies have proved to be even more successful than Rhine's forced-choice paradigm, with meta-analyses evidencing reliable effects, and many confirmatory replication studies.[16][17] Methodological hypotheses have still been raised to explain the results, while others have sought to advance theoretical development in parapsychology on their bases. Moving research out of the laboratory and into naturalistic sett

Answer 19

Yes strongly because I have experienced this phenomenon when I was eight. I was sitting down playing with my toys in the living room along with my brother. Suddenly as if I knew already, I told my brother that the front door was going to upon watch. It did and I was right my father had just come in with some fast food and my brother said "How did you do that". And i responded with I don't know. But those experiences stopped as I got older for some reason and I never has one again.