avi@pegasus.UUCP (Avi E. Gross) (02/24/84)
CONTEXT: We are discussing whether a particular individual had ESP because they could occasionally tell when the phone was about to ring. I want some clarification. I assume that a typical telephone call is completed within under 5 seconds from the end of dialing and the first ring. (At least this should be true for a call made though At&T :-) Therefore, if the guy knows the phone will ring 30 seconds before, then I can not believe that they can detect an ultrasonic buzz which does not exist. If they can also identify who is calling - even for random calls - then ... My bias still leads me to question the existence of ESP, although I have had my share of times when I know who will be on the phone. I used to sometimes guess who was on the phone -- just for the fun of it. One saturday, my friend Al called to finalize arrangements for a party. I promptly answered with "Hi Al" and completely floored him. It took fifteen minutes for me to explain how I "knew" that it must be him. I gave him reasons like: "none of my orthodox friends and relatives would call on the sabbath", "everyone else who I usually hear from has already called today", "I was expecting to hear from you before you went to the library at five". I pointed out that if it was a wrong number, then I was not really taking much of a risk of embarrassing questions. He was still puzzled by the way I could make up my mind so suddenly -- because I picked up the phone during the first ring and immediately greeted him. The point is, that if you do think rapidly, and take some risks, you can be right 90% of the times that you choose to hazard a guess (I kept track). Nobody will remember all the times that you just answered "Hello, who is this". There was nothing magical about it, although I could easily have convinced him that I was clairvoyant (It would have explained so MANY other things that I did which made him wonder). I have known people with paranormal sensory abilities. In my Quantitative Analysis chemistry course, we had one guy who was able to get perfect results on his titrations. The rest of us mortals had to overtitrate just a bit, so we could see when the solution changed from colorless to light pink. He would always stop while the solution was still clear, but adding even an eight of a drop resulted in the color change. Interestingly enough, he did not claim ESP. He was color blind, and everything looked grey to him. When the solution looked perfectly transparent to us, it already looked hazy to him. He had the ability to sense in a way we didn't, but it was all explainable on a BIOLOGICAL level. I assume other people have similar abilities with being able to hear buzzes and squeaks at frequencies that I can't detect -- similar to the way dogs can hear ultrasonic whistles. -- -=> Avi E. Gross @ AT&T Information Systems Laboratories (201) 576-6241 suggested paths: [ihnp4, allegra, cbosg, hogpc, ...]!pegasus!avi