"Janis Jabar" <janis172003@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:66fe393b.0411291858.45195d7e@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> There is humor involved, but the human nervous ststem is more dynamic
> than you might think. Most likey if your Paleolithic ancestor had not
> used a form of Physical Radiesthesia to hunt you would not be here to
> roll around on the floor in smug delight.
'Radiesthesia' violates the principle of Ockham's Razor.
The real effects attributed to Radiesthesia can be attributed to the
manipulation of attention to normal senses, a skill often acquired by
people
who have regularly practiced a physical discipline - be it Zen meditation,
Tai Chi, or Greco-Roman Wrestling.
The senses are *always* alert to the subtlest clues - hearing, for
example,
can detect periodic pressure changes in the air that amount to displacing
air molecules by less than their own diameter. The disciplined mind
trains
itself to disregard 'normal' stimuli before they reach conscious
awareness,
and to file the data directly in memory without a conscious thought.
Afterwards these memories can be accessed if necessary.
I am often able to find things that I have never consciously noticed
because
I *have* seen them and remember where they are, even if they have
subsequently become concealed (as I did earlier this evening with my son's
bag of gaming dice).
I sit here in "silence" until I turn my attention to the ordinary sounds I
am hearing, all simultaneously - the heater blowing, the hard drive
bearing
spinning, the motor turning the gel for the Christmas tree lights, the
occasional squeak of my well-oiled chair, and even the rare motor vehicle
on
the main road 400 meters away. These sounds I hear regularly, and I can
selectively ignore them.
I can disregard *all* of those with less than a thought, simply by turning
my attention to my keyboard and my words, but they are still there if I
need
them.
Sounds I *don't* hear regularly I can't pre-set my mind to ignore. Should
an
out-of-the-ordinary sound arise (as the browsing of the deer did
yesterday)
I can turn my attention to it in an instant, even if I can't quite
*consciously* hear it. Even when a stealthy creature such as a deer moves
without making an audible sound, it *reflects* sound, and subtly alters
the
characteristics of the ambient sound. This is a passive form of the
echo-location used by marine mammals, bats and blind humans. Next time
you
are walking down a street and see yourself about to pass a wall, a bush, a
parked car, try this experiment: close your eyes as you walk and try to
tell when you have reached the object by the changes in the sound.
This is your radiesthesia - selection of attention to highly sensitive
sensory stimuli and their interaction with memory. We all have it, but it
is
so subtle we often overlook it an have to concoct ad hoc rationalizations
for its observable effects, sometimes by hypothesizing something that does
not stand up to empirical scrutiny.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
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