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Psychic Ability






New studies show people can anticipate future events.



   Social psychologist, Dr. Bem conducted a series of studies that will soon be published. Across many experiments, Bem examined the idea that our brain has the ability to not only reflect on past experiences, but also anticipate future experiences. This ability for the brain to "see into the future" is often referred to as psi phenomena.



  Bem's studies are unique in that they represent standard scientific methods and rely on well-established principles in psychology. Essentially, he took effects that are considered valid and reliable in psychology - studying improves memory, priming facilitates response times - and simply reversed their chronological order.



  Bem examined whether a well-known priming effect could be reversed. People are shown a photo and they have to quickly indicate if the photo represents a negative or positive image. If the photo is of a cuddly kitten, you press the "positive" button and if the photo is of maggots on rotting meat, you press the "negative" button. Subliminal priming occurs when a word is flashed on the computer screen so quickly that your conscious brain doesn't recognize what you saw, but your nonconscious brain does. So you just see a flash, and if I asked you to tell me what you saw, you wouldn't be able to. But deep down, your nonconscious brain saw the word and processed it. In priming studies, we consistently find that people who are primed with a word consistent with the valence of the photo will categorize it quicker. So if I quickly flash the word "happy" before the kitten picture, you will click the "positive" button even quicker, but if I instead flash the word "ugly" before it, you will take longer to respond. This is because priming you with the word "happy" gets your mind ready to see happy things.



  In Bem's retroactive priming study, he simply reversed the time sequence on this effect by flashing the primed word after the person categorized the photo. So I show you the kitten picture, you pick whether it is positive or negative, and then I randomly choose to prime you with a good or bad word. The results showed that people were quicker at categorizing photos when it was followed by a consistent prime. So not only will you categorize the kitten quicker when it is preceded by a good word, you will also categorize it quicker when it is followed by a good word. It was as if, while participants were categorizing the photo, their brain knew what word was coming next and this facilitated their decision.



Melissa Burkley, Ph.D. in The Social Thinker





  Innatism is a philosophical doctrine that holds the mind is born with ideas, it is not a 'blank slate' at birth. It asserts not all knowledge originates from experience and the five senses. Often there are ideas considered necessarily true, but, not everyone has agreed to, universally. Gottfried Leibniz would say it is not because they do not possess the knowledge, but, have not yet become aware of the innate idea. He would argue principles, already embedded in our minds can, evidently, be brought to the surface. This is like needing to only hear the first few notes of a song in order to recall the rest of the melody.



  John Locke, an antagonist to the innate concept, argues the mind is, in fact, devoid of all knowledge at birth, that it is tabula rosa or a blank slate. He argues all ideas are constructed in our minds by way of constant composition and decomposition of input from the five senses. Locke also has a problem with an innate idea that can be imprinted on the mind without the owner realizing it. Referring to the analogy, we may not be able to recall the entire melody until we hear the first few notes, but, the picture completes because we already knew the rest of the melody.



  And here, I contend, beware of headstrong. Many times we determine what is going on and, frankly, there is no turning back. We call it as we see it, but can you see it to fruition? Strive for the bigger picture.



Wikipedia