4 ms·

It’s called the ideomotor phenomenon: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_phenomenon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_phenomenon You are making

by dghf 4y ago

It’s called the ideomotor phenomenon: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_phenomenon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_phenomenon You are making the rods move by subconsciously moving your hands.

engineer_22 4y ago
I'm sorry but it's not that. Please try it. Edit: ok, devil's advocate. Maybe it IS that. How then, does a humans subconscious know where a pipe is buried below ground without any visible indication?
- jstanley 4y ago
  But you said yourself that you're having the locations of the utilities marked ahead of time.
- dghf 4y ago
  As mentioned by others in the comments on the post, one possibility is that there are, in fact, visible indications. In one of the videos you linked to, the guy doing the demonstration pointed out a visible line in the gravel that showed where a cable was buried, before showing how the rods crossed when he was directly above it. Also, unless I misunderstood you, you advocated trying the experiment with utilities marked by flags and spray paint. More subtly, someone with industry experience could be picking up on less obvious cues, as @VLM suggested in this comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34558567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34558567): > As an engineer I know to look for a slight depression in the ground, maybe so slight most can't notice, and the smell of wet dirt is different, and pipe comes in coils or segments of length X so even unconsciously I might eventually learn to detect at spots multiples of X away from the water main. I imagine I could unconsciously become a highly skilled dowser just by working it hard enough for enough years and storing enough data. Another possibility is something akin to publication bias: successes get remembered and celebrated, and misses get forgotten. As far as I know, dowsing ability has never been demonstrated under controlled conditions, with those attempting to do so performing no better than chance.
- serf 4y ago
  >Edit: ok, devil's advocate. Maybe it IS that. How then, does a humans subconscious know where a pipe is buried below ground without any visible indication? it doesn't, but it does a bang-up job of removing the failed attempts from recent memory since the experience of a failure is less rewarding. after a few days of dowsing rod practice you'll only remember the successes intensely, because the failures will be routine and mundane.

by dghf 4y ago

engineer_22 4y ago

I'm sorry but it's not that. Please try it. Edit: ok, devil's advocate. Maybe it IS that. How then, does a humans subconscious know where a pipe is buried below ground without any visible indication?

jstanley 4y ago
But you said yourself that you're having the locations of the utilities marked ahead of time.
dghf 4y ago
As mentioned by others in the comments on the post, one possibility is that there are, in fact, visible indications. In one of the videos you linked to, the guy doing the demonstration pointed out a visible line in the gravel that showed where a cable was buried, before showing how the rods crossed when he was directly above it. Also, unless I misunderstood you, you advocated trying the experiment with utilities marked by flags and spray paint. More subtly, someone with industry experience could be picking up on less obvious cues, as @VLM suggested in this comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34558567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34558567): > As an engineer I know to look for a slight depression in the ground, maybe so slight most can't notice, and the smell of wet dirt is different, and pipe comes in coils or segments of length X so even unconsciously I might eventually learn to detect at spots multiples of X away from the water main. I imagine I could unconsciously become a highly skilled dowser just by working it hard enough for enough years and storing enough data. Another possibility is something akin to publication bias: successes get remembered and celebrated, and misses get forgotten. As far as I know, dowsing ability has never been demonstrated under controlled conditions, with those attempting to do so performing no better than chance.
serf 4y ago
>Edit: ok, devil's advocate. Maybe it IS that. How then, does a humans subconscious know where a pipe is buried below ground without any visible indication? it doesn't, but it does a bang-up job of removing the failed attempts from recent memory since the experience of a failure is less rewarding. after a few days of dowsing rod practice you'll only remember the successes intensely, because the failures will be routine and mundane.