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From: ALPERN%SJRLVM4.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Comment about Uri Geller [Long and flame content]
Message-ID: <278@sri-arpa.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 17-Jun-85 11:58:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.278
Posted: Mon Jun 17 11:58:23 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Jun-85 05:06:28 EDT
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From:  David Alpern  <ALPERN%SJRLVM4.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA>

Bill Tanenbaum (ihnp4!ihu1e!tan),

I'm not sure who has the self-delusion here.  There are occurrences
in the human cognitive system that we don't yet have theories to explain.
Whether Uri can or can't bend spoons psychically is one thing, but
sudden bursts of knowledge, apparently unexplainable (i.e. the person
involved can't figure out where he would have learned it, etc.) are
common - but as far as I've heard, mostly uncontrolled.  It's possible
much of this has to do with someone remembering a fact but not where
or that he was told it.  But stories have been around for centuries of
women who knew that that day was the one there husband would return from
sea - or that he had just died.  And too many of the people I know,
myself included, have had such experiences themselves.  I refuse to
close my mind to the possibility of something rare just because it is
both rare and hard to explain.  If we all did, the search for the
magnetic monopole and the like would never continue - and the earth
would still be flat, as far as man cared.

Are any of the SRI folk who were involved in the distance viewing
experiments on this discussion group?  Maybe we can get into some of
what was/was not found there, and get a better feel for these things
in a scientific environment - without being close-minded from the start.

- Dave