Thread: The REAL Sixth Sense?

(Excerpt from ABC News Online)

Blind man uses 'sixth sense' to detect emotion

A completely blind British man has been shown to possess an apparent "sixth sense" which lets him recognise emotions on people's faces, according to British scientists.

The researchers say the 52-year-old was able to react to pictures of human faces showing emotions such as anger, happiness or fear.

The man, identified only as 'patient X', has suffered two strokes which damaged the brain areas that process visual signals, leaving him completely blind.

But his eyes and optic nerves are intact and brain scans show that he appears to somehow use a part of the brain not usually used for sight to process visual signals linked to some emotions.

When researchers from the University of Wales showed the man images of shapes such as circles and squares, he could only guess what they were, and had a similar lack of success determining the gender of emotionless male and female faces.

But when presented with angry or happy human faces, his accuracy improved to 59 per cent, significantly better than what would be expected by random chance according to the researchers.

He achieved similar results for distinguishing between sad and happy or fearful and happy faces.

However, he was unable to tell apart images of animals which appeared either threatening or non-threatening.

Brain scans showed that when the man looked at faces expressing emotion, it activated a part of his brain called the right amygdala, which is known to respond to non-verbal emotional signs.

The findings, published in journal Nature Neuroscience, suggested the man was able to process information gathered by his eyes in a different part of the brain from the visual centre.

Dr Alan Pegna, who led the study, said: "This discovery is ... interesting for behavioural scientists as the right amygdala has been associated with subliminal processing of emotional stimuli in clinically healthy individuals.

"What patient X has assisted us in establishing is that this area undoubtedly processes visual facial signals connected with all types of emotional facial expressions."

well, i for one believe in the sixth sense, though maybe not in the same way you do. I believe that the sixth sense is the gmail notifier: http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/ind...ex?promo=gdl-en its like, whenever theres a new peice of mail, a beep rings through my head... and i know i have mail

i dont think 60 percent is exactly science in that example

Which is true. @ Jay dawg. It doesn't Prove anything. I agree.

But from a scientific standpoint, you can't deny that in that particular experiment, the evidence Toward his having a sixth-sense does outweigh the evidence against it. It is with this logic that scientists skepticize over the paranormal when the results are reversed. Does it not work both ways?

And Lol @ Soth. 8)
But nah, its not that I necessarily BELIEVE in a sixth-sense. I simply don't doubt its existence. Not even a scientist can say that there is enough evidence to Disprove a sixth-sense, just as there is not enough to actually prove it does exist. I think the man fallicy (sp) behind Believers and Skeptics is that both sides are too ready to fight the "My view is TRUE because..." war, when nobody realises there isn't enough evidence either way to declare who is right. This is why I'm quick to name a skeptic a pseudoskeptic when they display ignorance toward this point. It shows they are not as atuned to looking at the "Big Picture" as they like to boast themselves to be.

i agree. BUT you could also say that if it was a true sense, it would be more than slightly above chance. i would assume if it was real it would be somewhere near 90 percent if not 100.

aside from that example i do believe in mental senses with enough enlightenment

Well not necessarily. That would be assuming that the sense is That fined tuned, which it doesn't have to be, to be considered a sense. Especially being a sense that is humanly that abnormal. It is possible for someone's sense of sight to be faulty, even completely distorted. It can be sensitive to light, distance, a number of things. Just like with newborn babies. Even before their sense of sight is Perfected, it is still called a sense. But there are degrees to how tuned a sense can be. Simply because it doesn't work all the time doesn't mean that its not a legitimate (sp) sense. And still I'm not saying that it even Is a legit sixthe-sense, however, simply by the scientific point of view, the fact that the experiment yielded more positive than negative results is not something that can be over-looked or rationlized with an assumption. That would be straying away from your creed as an "open-minded scientific explorer" and dropping yourself into "its all fake until I see irrefutable proof, even if I'm faced with compelling evidence in front of me, I refuse to even believe in the possibility." Alot of scientists and so-called "critical thinkers" follow this process of thinking, which is why so-often science is constantly proving that 'scientific fact' is just as subject to change as 'scientific theory' because later on a scientist that continued to experiment with a possibility that all others deemed as Scientifically Impossible comes along and proves them wrong. Discovery itself is based partially on this degree of unbiased observation and open-mindedness.
But yes, in my opinion, a sense can be last than perfect, even Sometimes completely unreliable (hearing comes and goes as we get older, as does sense of sight) however these things are still properly considered senses, even when they don't work under every desired condition.

Originally posted by jay dawg
i agree. BUT you could also say that if it was a true sense, it would be more than slightly above chance. i would assume if it was real it would be somewhere near 90 percent if not 100.

I disagree. Just because his level of accuracy was not up to par with say his level of accuracy with his sense of smell, does not mean that this supposed 6th sense does not exist. Being that he never had the need for this sense until he was rendered sightless, this new sense needs time to develop. For so long he had relied on his eyes to take in information, now that he no longer can see, his brain is developing new ways to process visual information with parts of the brain not normally associated with visuals. This is not the first occasion on which I've heard similar tails of hidden senses. The brain is a marvelous and mysterious mechanism, we must never underestimate it.

5 senses are local, the sixth sense its so obvious is consciousness it self!

We say when we see..we see with our eyes, but no, we see with our consciousness!
The image of what we see is formed and experienced by us inside our consciousness.
when i feel its my conscious that feels etc. We cant locate conscious yet
We are not at the end of science, i can only conclude were just beginning to unreveal that what we call reality.
Many ppl think the neurons inisde the brain form our consciousness,, thats an old unlogic idea!
The collective of all electric signals together are the carrier of that consciousness.
At least that means consciousness is a electromagnetic wave pattern and not something physical. Well thats a start to begin with, with that view.

It's called mirror-neurons or something.

there are 6 senses in my opinion, sight,sound,smell,touch and taste. the sixth sense is intuition. your first split second guess at something is your intuition or instinct good feeling bad, you feel like something is going to happen..... then it does and your like wow im a physic purely insticnt at its peek.

Lucid Apple said:

5 senses are local, the sixth sense its so obvious is consciousness it self! [/b]

From everything I've taken in, I've come to lean toward this theory also. Most recently, I read a book by David Icke called "Infinite Love is the Only Truth. Everything Else is Illusion." And he wanted to make known, first off, that "Love" wasn't the hippie, treehugging "Love me Maaan" type. Lol.
And while I agree with many of his points, and disagree, his collective text was on Consciousness itself, and that it is all there really was. But it opened so many different thought processes to me, and I saw an almost eerie similarity between alot of what he was saying, and things I'd already felt to be true just through life experience. Again, his take on consciousness was very compelling, and if it was truth, then consciousness is the only Real sense. And we are drawn and contained, into illusioned other senses (much like dreaming) shedding a little light on the old saying "Flesh is a Trap." But this could be true in the way of metaphysics, and quite specifically, a sixth sense. Someone said intuition was the sixth sense, and this many not be far from the truth. In my view, intuition is simply a window into your true consciousness: your knowing of all there is to know. Consciousness, by many, is believed to be a single, shared wavepattern. And of this consciousness are seperate Individual consciouses (sp?) but all stem from a one True conscious.
Now from what we know of human nature, I think that in itself is not hard to believe, simply because inside of one human being, can live Many different consciouses, or in other words; personalities.

Now, if this is True, this connection between us all, it could be coupled with what some believe about the universe being a trap to divide and preoccupy the one true conscious by taking its many individual consciousnesses (we, the people) trapping them in flesh, trapping them again in races, trapping them yet again in cultural differences, trapping them again with campaigns of hometown pride, male/female, trends, family-before-strangers, and all the other ways that our consciousnesses (sp?) are seperated from each other on an completely ununifiable level.

Again, I have my pro- and antagonistic oppinions on his views, but if this Were the truth, it would explain metaphysics, and even the mystery and intangibility behind them. If everything we experience in this 'five-sense prison' as its been called, intuition is just an awakening of the "I know" factor of consciouness. If a single consciousness is all we are, then there is Nothing in this 'universe' that is not Known somewhere in all of our collective 'mentality.'

Expanding this, he has gone to explain his view on the illusion of time, and the 'if you aren't conscious of it, your experience of time can bend,' which I've experimented with, and been surprised at some of the outcomes. Also, he went into simply Knowing something was going to happen, a lot like Knowing something will happen in your dreams, and it coming true. And while we as humans are conditioned every day of our lives from the very start to believe that these things are 'make believe' we sometimes slip and prove to ourselves that they are not, in unexplainable, often scary, events. With this, I wanted to have a little fun and try toying with the possibility of chance. I was listening to a Crystal Method cd. (something I've always loved and have a strong personal connection to, if that makes any difference to the experiement) And while putting mediaplayer on random I told myself i KNEW what each song was going to be, letting absolutely not a sliver of doubt enter my mind.
. And out of the 10 songs on the CD, I got the first 4 in a row.
8)
After that, I've toyed with this a lot, not expecting any particular outcome, but simply putting into my mind that I KNOW something in that split second and trying it. And while I'm not statistician (word?) I'm surprised, myself at the ratio. While playing Budokai against my cousin this weekend, he was getting upset because I was pre-empting a lot of his moves. (This is of no significance. I just kick Ass at this game. ) But he's like "Damn, how do you keep doing that." This was when I first read that debate on Telepathy I posted about, so I decided to have some fun. I told him I was 'telepathic,' and I knew what he was going to do. Lol. He's like "Nuh uh..then prove it, what number am I thinking of?!" And while, really, I was just playing, I thought this would be a great time to try another experiment. So I told myself I KNEW what he was going to pick. I said "1 through 10?" he said "Yeah." I said "Seven." He said "HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!" Lol. Classic.
Not saying that Is or Isn't evidence of something deep within us, that with the proper "pull-your-head-away-from-the-physical-world-and-just-KNOW" conscious ignition we couldn't awaken, but it sure is evidence of Possibility, which is a good (and Entertaining) start, to me. 8)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\\\"Oneironaut\\\")</div>

Lucid Apple said:

5 senses are local, the sixth sense its so obvious is consciousness it self! [/b]

From everything I've taken in, I've come to lean toward this theory also. Most recently, I read a book by David Icke called \"Infinite Love is the Only Truth. Everything Else is Illusion.\" And he wanted to make known, first off, that \"Love\" wasn't the hippie, treehugging \"Love me Maaan\" type. Lol.
And while I agree with many of his points, and disagree, his collective text was on Consciousness itself, and that it is all there really was. But it opened so many different thought processes to me, and I saw an almost eerie similarity between alot of what he was saying, and things I'd already felt to be true just through life experience. Again, his take on consciousness was very compelling, and if it was truth, then consciousness is the only Real sense. And we are drawn and contained, into illusioned other senses (much like dreaming) shedding a little light on the old saying \"Flesh is a Trap.\" But this could be true in the way of metaphysics, and quite specifically, a sixth sense. Someone said intuition was the sixth sense, and this many not be far from the truth. In my view, intuition is simply a window into your true consciousness: your knowing of all there is to know. Consciousness, by many, is believed to be a single, shared wavepattern. And of this consciousness are seperate Individual consciouses (sp?) but all stem from a one True conscious.
Now from what we know of human nature, I think that in itself is not hard to believe, simply because inside of one human being, can live Many different consciouses, or in other words; personalities.

Now, if this is True, this connection between us all, it could be coupled with what some believe about the universe being a trap to divide and preoccupy the one true conscious by taking its many individual consciousnesses (we, the people) trapping them in flesh, trapping them again in races, trapping them yet again in cultural differences, trapping them again with campaigns of hometown pride, male/female, trends, family-before-strangers, and all the other ways that our consciousnesses (sp?) are seperated from each other on an completely ununifiable level.

Again, I have my pro- and antagonistic oppinions on his views, but if this Were the truth, it would explain metaphysics, and even the mystery and intangibility behind them. If everything we experience in this 'five-sense prison' as its been called, intuition is just an awakening of the \"I know\" factor of consciouness. If a single consciousness is all we are, then there is Nothing in this 'universe' that is not Known somewhere in all of our collective 'mentality.'

Expanding this, he has gone to explain his view on the illusion of time, and the 'if you aren't conscious of it, your experience of time can bend,' which I've experimented with, and been surprised at some of the outcomes. Also, he went into simply Knowing something was going to happen, a lot like Knowing something will happen in your dreams, and it coming true. And while we as humans are conditioned every day of our lives from the very start to believe that these things are 'make believe' we sometimes slip and prove to ourselves that they are not, in unexplainable, often scary, events. With this, I wanted to have a little fun and try toying with the possibility of chance. I was listening to a Crystal Method cd. (something I've always loved and have a strong personal connection to, if that makes any difference to the experiement) And while putting mediaplayer on random I told myself i KNEW what each song was going to be, letting absolutely not a sliver of doubt enter my mind.
. And out of the 10 songs on the CD, I got the first 4 in a row.
8)
After that, I've toyed with this a lot, not expecting any particular outcome, but simply putting into my mind that I KNOW something in that split second and trying it. And while I'm not statistician (word?) I'm surprised, myself at the ratio. While playing Budokai against my cousin this weekend, he was getting upset because I was pre-empting a lot of his moves. (This is of no significance. I just kick Ass at this game. ) But he's like \"Damn, how do you keep doing that.\" This was when I first read that debate on Telepathy I posted about, so I decided to have some fun. I told him I was 'telepathic,' and I knew what he was going to do. Lol. He's like \"Nuh uh..then prove it, what number am I thinking of?!\" And while, really, I was just playing, I thought this would be a great time to try another experiment. So I told myself I KNEW what he was going to pick. I said \"1 through 10?\" he said \"Yeah.\" I said \"Seven.\" He said \"HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!\" Lol. Classic.
Not saying that Is or Isn't evidence of something deep within us, that with the proper \"pull-your-head-away-from-the-physical-world-and-just-KNOW\" conscious ignition we couldn't awaken, but it sure is evidence of Possibility, which is a good (and Entertaining) start, to me. 8)[/b]

Deep and very well put, i enjoyed reading this

And all this from a Man (David Icke) who proclaimed to be 'Jesus Christ' on British National television.

Thank you @ Sand.

And LOL at the Jesus Christ thing. Never heard that, but if its true that's hilarious. 8)
Although I'm not too concerned with who he is as a man, simply that his view on consciousness had opened a different train of thought to speculate. He took the time to go into every aspect of what he believed about it, giving a bunch of references which I patiently side-searched on google while reading through it, and just gave me a bunch of different information to ponder over. Even in if he did 'say he was Jesus Christ' on tv (do you know his reason for doing so?) it doesn't mean that every perspective he has to offer on a given subject is irrational.
Alot of what he was saying about consciousness parelleled a lot of my own experience, so it was just something to take into account, which I have, and would recommend to anyone to read. Trust me, he's got some OffTheWall shit in there, something about serpents controlling the trap of collective consciousness we call life.
Heh. Like I said: I was far from in tune with some of the things he was saying, but there was a lot in the text that made me stop and go "hmmmm." He even got into the speculation over quantum physics and the possibility of metaphysics, which has been a hot topic around here, lately. He made enough good points, in my opinion, to at least give the book a once-over.

No shit, though? Jesus Christ? lol.