all about feelings.. and evidence

[alias]

is it possible to have evidence for the way a person feels? be that about an object,belief system, or somone in particular.. so, how would somone have or even need evidence to know that they love another person.... this kind of thing..

and...

what if somthing unexplainable happend and it was seen by handful of people from different secular disciplines saw it? somthing like setting fire t paper with ones wn hands, or boiling water with ones own hands, or using infra red cameras to see the real tempreture of the hands and it reachng up to 200-222 fahrenheit.

i no these are 2 seperate qz, just want to know the views of the public..

[AlP]

is it possible to have evidence for the way a person feels? be that about an object,belief system, or somone in particular.. so, how would somone have or even need evidence to know that they love another person.... this kind of thing..

In a sense yes. Psychology and neuroscience are both doing rather well at measuring what's going inside brains. The electroencephalogram (EEG) can detect electrical activity in the brain. Positron emission tomography (PET) tracks brain activity by tracking how quickly it consumes its fuel: glucose. That works by giving a person radioactive glucose which can be followed as it moves around the brain. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) lets us look at the physical composition of the brain.

I don't know much about this but I think a PET scan might be most useful for figuring out how a person feels. Different parts of the brain light up depending on how you are feeling or thinking.

what if somthing unexplainable happend and it was seen by handful of people from different secular disciplines saw it? somthing like setting fire t paper with ones wn hands, or boiling water with ones own hands, or using infra red cameras to see the real tempreture of the hands and it reachng up to 200-222 fahrenheit.

Some people would probably look for an explanation I suppose. People can't set fire to paper or boil water with their hands alone.

[alias]

iv seen a bbc documentry on it. boiling water with hands... and setting paper alight with their hands....

its way way out of the ordinary.. and for ''proof'' an infra red camera was used..

i think that people mistake spiritual sciences with religon. because they both exist, and are both different. these phenomenon that i have braught to light, do exist. it would exist under the catagory of a spiritual science..

o yea, people can eat coal that is red hot without getting their tongue burned.. its too weird. i cant flaw it.its simpily extra-ordinary.



thanks for the answer to the first q.. however, though your answer is very helpfull, so much so that i will take it on board, i think there may be a flaw in it...

what is being measured is the 'aftrmath' of the initial feeling.. that is what you sugested.

the way it works is that an initial feeling happens, then all the other hoemones and other stuff happens.. all this other stuff that happens is hat you are saying to measure.. and yes. i agree that this will provide for the >overall< feeling.

i wish to know that, in the initial moment (less than a batter of an eye lid) that one feels somthing, what evidence can be used for that.. maybe brain waves?? but brain waves are just an indication after the initial feeling is felt.. the gap is very small, but there is a delay. one feels somthing, then all else, brain waves,hormones etc, they all come after.

so for this reason i feel  that feelings cannot have evidence.. (regarding the initial moment..)

[AlP]

iv seen a bbc documentry on it. boiling water with hands... and setting paper alight with their hands....

its way way out of the ordinary.. and for ''proof'' an infra red camera was used..

i think that people mistake spiritual sciences with religon. because they both exist, and are both different. these phenomenon that i have braught to light, do exist. it would exist under the catagory of a spiritual science..

o yea, people can eat coal that is red hot without getting their tongue burned.. its too weird. i cant flaw it.its simpily extra-ordinary.

I have a lot of respect for the BBC. I'm British though and biased =). That said, just because something has been shown on TV, even if infrared cameras were used, is not necessarily good evidence. I don't know of a single TV broadcaster that has sufficient credibility to lead me to accept claims of the sort you are making. These extraordinary claims would need to be verified by a lot of different people with much better credibility before I would come close to believing them. And even then I would remain extremely skeptical.

thanks for the answer to the first q.. however, though your answer is very helpfull, so much so that i will take it on board, i think there may be a flaw in it...

what is being measured is the 'aftrmath' of the initial feeling.. that is what you sugested.

the way it works is that an initial feeling happens, then all the other hoemones and other stuff happens.. all this other stuff that happens is hat you are saying to measure.. and yes. i agree that this will provide for the >overall< feeling.

i wish to know that, in the initial moment (less than a batter of an eye lid) that one feels somthing, what evidence can be used for that.. maybe brain waves?? but brain waves are just an indication after the initial feeling is felt.. the gap is very small, but there is a delay. one feels somthing, then all else, brain waves,hormones etc, they all come after.

so for this reason i feel  that feelings cannot have evidence.. (regarding the initial moment..)

I did some more reading to check what I said. I think I was wrong about what I said about PET being the best way to measure what people are thinking and feeling. It might be a good way but it seems that MRI is preferred by psychologists and neuroscientists.

It is good to be skeptical about the claim I made about our ability to measure these things. What you are essentially  saying is that correlation is not necessarily causation. This is good critical thinking. I suggest you read about psychology and neuroscience if this interests you. I am not even close to being an expert.

[PipeBox]

I did some looking around and I was able to find a video of a person eating burning coals (apparently) and a person who absolutely picked up red-hot coals with his bare hand.  In the case of the man who picked up the coal and held it for no less than 10 seconds, he had to be rushed to a hospital.  I can't help but assume that the man consuming burning coal, though the fire would have been quickly extinguished and the core temperature of the coal was like less, probably suffered grievous injury.  That people are willing to do these things, and that the camera cuts when they have finished their stunt, is not evidence that there were unharmed and should never be taken as such.  Your will is not going to stop the transfer of heat, though you might be able to warm your hands with a special technique in much the same way some monks can learn to not shiver in freezing temperatures, or utilize, simultaneously, both sets of vocal cords.  I was unable to find the BBC video of the man emitting 200+ degree heat with his hands, but I was able to find one through Ripley's Believe It or Not, which is just about the least reputable source of information, second only to tabloids.

The person, at least in the Ripley video, was a Qigong master, but with a little research I was able to find a lot of information about fraud in their domain.  Several have apparently faked an ability to remotely move objects, as revealed by hidden cameras or observers who were unwilling to keep the master's secret.  None of these people with such profound abilities are willing to demonstrate them in a controlled environment.  As much as I like the BBC, they report what they see, they are not experts on anything but possibly reporting.  A test of these powers up to scientific standards, or even the weaker standards of James Randi, has never been successfully undertaken by these gurus.  People that ingest 600 degree objects suffer the consequences, and people who heat up aluminum foil after wetting it with "water" and frauds.  I have little doubt people can heat up their hands a little.  Correct posturing for blood flow, with the proper muscle interaction might pull as many as another 10 degrees in the hands, which I would consider very impressive.  If someone can do better, I should like to see some legitimate investigation.  If I can learn to burn paper with my palms, I'd be one of the first in line to learn how.

Oh, can I just say I'm happy to have another Sikh on the boards, you guys are some of the most level-headed spiritual people I know of.  I still think a lot of the typical beliefs are assumptive, and I obviously don't find enough merit in Sikhism to subscribe to it, but I still like it as a religion, though you would tell me it isn't one.  Yes, this is an attempt at a compliment.  I clearly suck at compliments.

[SSY]

Mr Box has addressed the magic tricks mentioned, all I can add, is that I would not beleive someone could boil water with their hands, until they boiled my water, in my house, in my pot, and was then verified with my thermometer, even then, I would still be skeptical.


As for the feeling stuff, you say you feel something, then the physiological response happens, I disagree. The electrical activit in the brain IS the feeling. What do you think a feeling is?

[alias]

Even after all that, you still would be sceptical? That is just stubborn man. Failure to adapt is failure to succeed. To adapt is to excel. Sometimes a cup is just a cup. (of >your< boiled water!!!!   )

I know that you wil say that it’s the limbic system that is responsible for our emotions, and I would agree. I would not argue that point. I simply would suggest that a there is something other than the primitive emotional response that the limbic system is responsible for, and that is what I am looking for.

And thanks for the compliment pipe box, I now know that there is another sikh dude on the forums!! I would like to ask something from you, you stated that there are assumptive beliefs in the sikh religion, could you please state the views that you see to be assumptive? And what type of ‘merit’ would you be looking for. To me, your opinion would hold great value.

[Jolly Sapper]

Even after all that, you still would be sceptical? That is just stubborn man. Failure to adapt is failure to succeed. To adapt is to excel. Sometimes a cup is just a cup. (of >your< boiled water!!!!   )

I know that you wil say that it’s the limbic system that is responsible for our emotions, and I would agree. I would not argue that point. I simply would suggest that a there is something other than the primitive emotional response that the limbic system is responsible for, and that is what I am looking for.

And thanks for the compliment pipe box, I now know that there is another sikh dude on the forums!! I would like to ask something from you, you stated that there are assumptive beliefs in the sikh religion, could you please state the views that you see to be assumptive? And what type of ‘merit’ would you be looking for. To me, your opinion would hold great value.

In answer to the general gist of this post, take for instance laying on a bed of nails or walking on hot coals.

Most people know that a single nail can be pretty painful if it is stuck into you so.  The psychological effect of seeing somebody lay on a bed of nails is usually based on the previous knowledge that a single nail can hurt quite a bit.  In reality the weight of the person is distributed among all of the nails so that the person who is laying on the bed of nails is not hurt.

You can walk on a bed of hot coals without much in the way of physical harm if there are lots of large chunks of soap stone or pumice that give you something to walk on.  Both types of stones are porous and vent heat pretty quickly so the heat transfer from the coals through the stones to your feet takes a bit more time giving you the ability to quickly walk across the bed of hot coals.

Both of those scenarios seem pretty impressive but upon closer inspection there is a trick to each of them.

Now if the people eating coal or handling hot coals can be watched in person, if those people can repeat the process, maybe there would be something more interesting than either crazy people hurting themselves to prove a point or figuring out a nifty little social engineering trick.

[jbeukema]

is it possible to have evidence for the way a person feels? be that about an object,belief system, or somone in particular.. so, how would somone have or even need evidence to know that they love another person.... this kind of thing..

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://psy. ... AeaK0rTRDA

http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/cont ... rt/1/3/242

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 053105.php

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/b ... 2/art00002

http://www.news.wisc.edu/packages/emotion/

http://www.loc.gov/loc/brain/emotion/Program.html


Those who cite emotions and 'love' as an attack on science are doing nothing more than arguing from ignorance.


The above is the result of a 30-second search regarding scientific studies of the matter.

[PipeBox]

Sikh beliefs as far as I'm aware: the is a god, it is benevolent, and through ritual a higher state can be reached.  There may be more, or maybe I have misconceptions.

The merit it lacks, to me, is solid support for these beliefs.  You'll have to excuse me for preferring "I honestly don't know, but I see no evidence," over "I'm not certain, and I can't claim to know, but I have a vague impression of what is really going on."  It's how I am.  Put bluntly, you'd have to make me want to be a Sikh rather than how I am now, which I suppose is some bastard version of agnostic, ignostic, atheist, transhumanist, spiritual pantheist.  Anyone around here might tell you I'm a very soft atheist, but it's for that very reason that the only additional thing I see in Sikhism is a set of assumptions I have no drive to back.  I do not believe in anything metaphysical, and I've grown to find that the universe is so much more incredible when you accept the beauty and raw functioning of physics, the complexity and diversity of chemistry, and the potential of the four fundamental forces.  This is something I haven't been able to, and probably cannot impart on my religious friends.  It's all so very real to me, while they persist in attributing special, often undefined qualities to our origins, our minds, our feelings, our place in the universe, and so on.

Sorry that I missed your post before.  It's been over a week and I normally keep up with this sort of thing.  Hope that's not too dilute a post in reply, I tend to digress.