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> Since the eyes obviously do not really extrude a beam of energy, this view is typically dismissed by science. If you start with an assumption, the end result

> Since the eyes obviously do not really extrude a beam of energy, this view is typically dismissed by science. If you start with an assumption, the end result will probably be compatible with the assumption. Rupert Sheldrake wrote a book titled The Sense of Being Stared At [0]. I recently found a copy at a thrift store (it was on my stack of books that I've yet to read). Dr. Sheldrake does not adopt materialist science's assumptions. Perhaps the eyes do not exactly emit invisible energy, but something is probably happening that deserves to be investigated. Here's a quote from Rupert Sheldrake's book (pg. 125): [anecdote of girl's experience of catching creeper following her] In frightening situations such as this, the sense of being stared at is particularly memorable. But most people have experienced it for themselves, usually in less dramatic circumstances. In my own surveys of adults in Europe and in the United States, 70 to 90 percent said they had sensed when they were being looked at from behind. Surveys by other researchers have given similar results. Gerald Winer and his colleagues in the Psychology Department of Ohio State University have found that these experiences are even commoner among children than adults. Ninety-four percent of sixth-grade schoolchildren (aged eleven and twelve) answered yest to the question, "do you ever feel that someone is staring at you without actually seeing them look at you?" So did 89 percent of college students. The sense of being stared is often alluded to in short stories and novels. "His eyes bored into the back of her neck" is a cliche of popular fiction. Here is an example from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes: [...] > We proposed (9) that a simplified model of vision may be related to a belief that is extraordinarily persistent across human cultures: the belief that the eyes emit an invisible energy. (emphasis added) [edit: perhaps the belief is persistent because there's something to it.] Simplified models are one thing. Simplistic models are non-helpful. Discussion question: In my experience, I've noticed a few times when I've been stared at, and I've stared at people who've spontaneously looked right at me. Do you have any memorable experiences of this phenomenon? Perhaps people are most likely to notice they're being stared at when the starer is the opposite gender? I guess I'm going to have to read Dr. Sheldrake's book. [0] https://www.sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/the-sense-of-being-stared-at-and-other-unexplained-powers-of-human-minds https://www.sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/the-sens...

NotAnEconomist 8y ago
How do you control for just happening to look when someone else is happening to look, or worse, attracting looks when you check for someone looking? Here's a common interaction, which would create that feeling without anything at all underlying it: 1. A person is sitting at a table, with me sitting at a table behind them -- both of us facing the same way, ie, me facing their back. 2. I was staring a few feet to the side of the person -- zoning out in space, and not looking at anything besides the wall pattern. 3. That person has a transient feeling someone is watching, and turns to look. 4. The motion of their head turning causes me to leap to alert, as there's suddenly motion in my peripheral vision -- I move my eyes to focus on the motion, and resolve what it is. 5. We make eye contact, validating their initial belief. 6. The other person has taken a step to condition themselves, similar to Skinner's dancing pigeons. Repeating this interaction over decades leaves them believing in a sense they don't actually possess. Add in some bias in what people remember, eg the times they make eye contact instead of the many times no one was looking, and it's a powerful way to end up confused about the world. I'm not sure how you'd suss this one out without an extra interaction which necessarily confounds the results (eg, an extra observer -- but since we're testing observer effects, that's messy and a half).
- taxicabjesus 8y ago
  > How do you control for just happening to look when someone else is happening to look, or worse, attracting looks when you check for someone looking? I'm sure you could figure out an experimental protocol. The book I referenced, The Sense of Being Stared At, presumably applies mathematics and statistics to the experiments. But I haven't read it, and I don't care enough at the present time to really dig into the text and respond to your whole comment. Chapter 11 is titled "Experiments on the sense of being stared at". Page 168 begins the discussion of Titchener and Coover's papers. The present PNAS paper's authors say these papers supposedly "showed that [...] people cannot actually detect the gaze of another in the absence of specific sensory information" [quote from the submission]. Sheldrake says, "Titchener's paper was very influential, and was widely cited by skeptics for more than 100 years, even though he said nothing about the actual experiments except that they were negative." Coover's paper was discussed a bit, then "By reinforcing Tichener's negative conclusions, Coover's work seemed to put an end to the matter from a scientific point of view. His paper was published in 1913." Someone supposedly re-did Coover's experiment in 1939, and found the results statistically significant. If you're actually interested in the subject, the ebook version of Sheldrake's book is $12 or so. Otherwise you're just fighting with a straw man [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

NotAnEconomist 8y ago

How do you control for just happening to look when someone else is happening to look, or worse, attracting looks when you check for someone looking? Here's a common interaction, which would create that feeling without anything at all underlying it: 1. A person is sitting at a table, with me sitting at a table behind them -- both of us facing the same way, ie, me facing their back. 2. I was staring a few feet to the side of the person -- zoning out in space, and not looking at anything besides the wall pattern. 3. That person has a transient feeling someone is watching, and turns to look. 4. The motion of their head turning causes me to leap to alert, as there's suddenly motion in my peripheral vision -- I move my eyes to focus on the motion, and resolve what it is. 5. We make eye contact, validating their initial belief. 6. The other person has taken a step to condition themselves, similar to Skinner's dancing pigeons. Repeating this interaction over decades leaves them believing in a sense they don't actually possess. Add in some bias in what people remember, eg the times they make eye contact instead of the many times no one was looking, and it's a powerful way to end up confused about the world. I'm not sure how you'd suss this one out without an extra interaction which necessarily confounds the results (eg, an extra observer -- but since we're testing observer effects, that's messy and a half).

taxicabjesus 8y ago
> How do you control for just happening to look when someone else is happening to look, or worse, attracting looks when you check for someone looking? I'm sure you could figure out an experimental protocol. The book I referenced, The Sense of Being Stared At, presumably applies mathematics and statistics to the experiments. But I haven't read it, and I don't care enough at the present time to really dig into the text and respond to your whole comment. Chapter 11 is titled "Experiments on the sense of being stared at". Page 168 begins the discussion of Titchener and Coover's papers. The present PNAS paper's authors say these papers supposedly "showed that [...] people cannot actually detect the gaze of another in the absence of specific sensory information" [quote from the submission]. Sheldrake says, "Titchener's paper was very influential, and was widely cited by skeptics for more than 100 years, even though he said nothing about the actual experiments except that they were negative." Coover's paper was discussed a bit, then "By reinforcing Tichener's negative conclusions, Coover's work seemed to put an end to the matter from a scientific point of view. His paper was published in 1913." Someone supposedly re-did Coover's experiment in 1939, and found the results statistically significant. If you're actually interested in the subject, the ebook version of Sheldrake's book is $12 or so. Otherwise you're just fighting with a straw man [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man