Dowsing

[Weatherlawyer]

So what's the problem?

[The Natural Philosopher]

It's also a very simple one to answer., It isn't anything until you make such a judgement call on the cat as to determnine, in human terms, which of the sets of deadness and aliveness it falls into.

Is the hair on your head alive? Or dead? does it cease to be alive when you cut it? Where does a cat end? What constitutes a cat in the first place? Is a cat minus a paw still a cat? Is a cat minus its fur still a cat?

The map is not the territory.

For humans who deal exclusively in maps, the only certainty is that there are maps, and there may be territory, and their would appear to be mapmakers.

The territory doesn't really care, one way or the other.

[Chris Bacon]

What I meant was that it is a very simplistic question compared to the full version. The answer to the above is just that the animal is in the same state as when you put it in.

[John Cartmell]

Statistically guaranteed. You may not know the fate of an individual atom - but you can guarantee the fate of a set percentage if you have a kilogram of them.

[Mike Halmarack]

Yes but what do you do with all the bored rocket scientists then? There's more of them hanging around than you can shake a stick at.

[T i m]

Eh?

Have you .. good .. I wasn't contradicting anything .. mearly reflecting on what you said?

When you said "we ignore 99.99 of what we smell" I wasn't sure if you were saying we 'subconsiously' ignore it or choose not to smell it (not bother etc)?

If we could choose what to ignore and what to take notice of, would our sense of smell be the same as that of animals 'known' to have a good sense of smell (as you have done the experiments) ;-)

All the best ..

T i m

[bigegg]

Is it? In a *sealed* box?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Not necessarily, depending on how airtight it is and how long its been in there.

In fact, the one state it will never be in, is the state it was when you put it in.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Subconsciously.

NO. I think dogs have noses bigger than Barbra Streisand for a reason..:-)

What I mean is that by and large we must be smelling stuff all the time

- but we seldom remark on it even to ourselves.

Chiefly we smell food, other people, and stiff we don't really like, like shit and mould. Those things we are aware of, because at some level its still important.

We smell chemicals too. If strong enough.

We seldom say 'I can smell rain' but believe me, you can..

If you garden, you can smell dry earth, and wet earth, and they are different.

WE are aware of gross pressure changes in aircraft, but its possible to detect slowly falling barometers as well. We are aware of birdsong, but nit generally the CONTENT of it, yet an afternoon spent very quietly just listening, reveals patterns - and those patterns change with the sun, the temperature and the wind sometimes. As well as the cats prowling about ;-)

In short we have all the apparatus - and I believe more senses than the

5 we think we have - to enable us to be wild animals in a wild environment - its just that MOST of this is completely irrelevant in a modern civilized environment, so we subliminally block it all out, the way you get used to the roar of traffic..

BUT sometimes bits of it break through in any way they can...you may 'see' ghosts, or auras, or hear voices, or feel cold or apprehensive..or your dowsing fingers may twitch. Or have weird dreams...Its happened enough times to me when awake, but mentally exhausted, and not thinking about anything at all..suddenly something pops into your mind, and its not just garbage, it relates to what's going on around you in subtle ways..its the old animal instincts surfacing, because you let them..

I've learnt to trust it enough to act on it, and its saved me from at least one nasty accident..

[John Cartmell]

And if anyone thinks that the 'Cat Experiment' actualy has anything to do with cats - then they'd best slink away quietly before they embarrass themselves further ... ;-)

[Guy King]

The message from John Cartmell contains these words:

The whole idea of the thought-experiment was to show how quantum events /don't/ scale up properly to the macro world.

[John Cartmell]

And whilst science rarely predicts the movement and changes of individuals it's pretty good at doing so statistically.

[Chris Bacon]

Of course it is, Humpty Dumpty. "The animal is in the same state as when you put it in".

[Chris Bacon]

The box was described as "sealed". When you put the cat in, it is in the same state as it was when you put it in. Can I be plainer? HTH.

[The Medway Handyman]

We actually have many more than 5 senses, more like 12.

Sight, sound, taste, touch & smell being the well known, pain, balance, thirst, hunger, thermoception (the sense of heat & cold), kinaesthesia (movement) and proprioception (body awareness).

[John Rumm]

Erm, in fact you will - under "Water Diviners". (gets 17 hits on Yell)

[dennis]

Someone with the makings of a good driver.. Actually expects other drivers to be idiots.

You obviously thought that this might happen, you probably do it all the time. However you only remember when it matters, like when it saves you. At other times it just doesn't quite make it to the long term memory.

[owdman]

If you look at the list they look like conventional water engineers who come under the heading 'water diviner' as they have selected that term amongst others as search key-words. I doubt that any of them offer 'dowsing' (in the para-psychological / quasi-magical sense) as a service. Or if they do the are new-age type frauds I would expect.

cheers

Jacob

[Guy King]

The message from "dennis@home" contains these words:

I used to love it when learners got to the stage where they'd say "I knew he was going to do that" 'cos it meant they were becoming aware of other drivers and were starting to look outside their own head and into the heads of others.

[T i m]

I do try ;-) Probably based on the fact that I'm also a long term motorcyclist / cyclist where riding 'defensively' can be more a matter of life and death than when in a car .. ;-(

The most interesting of my vehicles for this is the cycle tandem. Folk 'see' a solo cycle and assume solo cycle speeds and try to overtake accordingly ... only to find that I'm:

1) Much longer than they *assumed* 2) Going faster than they *assumed*

Can make for some interesting moments! ;-(

Well it's one of those junctions (a small roundabout littered with traffic lights) where there are known 'short cuts' through the traffic if you like taking risks with other drivers and/ or liberties with the Highway Code / RTA.

I wonder if there is a 'driving' sense we don't know about ... the one that tells you that the person you are following is likely to do something unpredictable and dangerous ...?

All the best Dennis

T i m