9th November 2005, 6:51 AM
Indeed... Of what good are psychic powers if their abilities are limited to ruining your stuff, predicting Oscar winners, and generally telling us things we already know about ourselves? Of what good is this amazing predictive power that only seems to be able to tell us things that we could have guessed would occur by other means? Of what good is this ability to predict future events that science currently can't when the average success rate seems equal to chance?
What I'm saying here is I'm a bit of a frugle person at times, and I tend not to buy superfluous bits of tech. I don't buy a Mac when my PC alraedy does everything I need in a computer. I tend not to buy IV tubes when eating food still is an option to me. For what purpose is paying money to a psychic when I can get the same information using basic reasoning skills? Why use some special means of bending things (that by all appearences doesn't look all that different than using muscle power) when I can do it myself and save a percent? On the times when they actually do venture a prediction that can't currently be checked by normal means, why would I bother when I can guess randomly about it on my own and have the same rate of success? In all fairness, let's say the powers actually exist and they really do get their info/powers via a 6th sense or 7th even. If the way in which they manifest themselves is indistinguishable from a reality in which such powers don't exist and it's merely delusions, then what's the point in even bothering with it? I may as well bother with that sleeping invisible and intangible dragon in my car hole.
What I'm saying here is I'm a bit of a frugle person at times, and I tend not to buy superfluous bits of tech. I don't buy a Mac when my PC alraedy does everything I need in a computer. I tend not to buy IV tubes when eating food still is an option to me. For what purpose is paying money to a psychic when I can get the same information using basic reasoning skills? Why use some special means of bending things (that by all appearences doesn't look all that different than using muscle power) when I can do it myself and save a percent? On the times when they actually do venture a prediction that can't currently be checked by normal means, why would I bother when I can guess randomly about it on my own and have the same rate of success? In all fairness, let's say the powers actually exist and they really do get their info/powers via a 6th sense or 7th even. If the way in which they manifest themselves is indistinguishable from a reality in which such powers don't exist and it's merely delusions, then what's the point in even bothering with it? I may as well bother with that sleeping invisible and intangible dragon in my car hole.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)