Supposed psychics

[Wahkah]

Hi, there! I've a family member who's always been able to see spirits of sorts. Be it dead relatives he has never met to creatures that don't exist. He's been tested for schitzo and he failed the test. He's also had other medical stuff done to check his brain out and see if he has an instability. But, to the point, he's really spot on with his supposed messages. I don't really care for the whole lecture on no god, as I'm atheist. So, can we just discuss what it might be? He's also told me of stuff like my cousins getting pregnant before they announced it to anyone. To be precise, he predicted 2 pregnancies (people with the same name), within the family, before the conception. We don't keep in contact with them, and it's pretty much an anomaly. The other time, he said he got a message from some short lady who we've never met nor seen due to her passing before his mom gave birth to him. She also doesn't speak about the family due to being overly worked and not having time. Back to the point, the lady told him about an instance where someone was going to get hurt -- preventing said incident. I'm definitely not advocating believing in a higher power, nor advocating being in the community of said religions. But, I can see this being in the grey area, do you know what I mean?

[Cirion Spellbinder]

Welcome Wahkah!
I don't believe you've made an introduction. You should do that !

Have you noted the amount of times this supposed psychic has been wrong, because from what I am reading it seems like you are only taking the instances in which the psychic was correct into account? What do you mean by gray area? That makes me think of New Agey things. Is that what you mean?

I apologize for the run-on sentence...

[Wahkah]

Welcome Wahkah!
I don't believe you've made an introduction. You should do that !

Have you noted the amount of times this supposed psychic has been wrong, because from what I am reading it seems like you are only taking the instances in which the psychic was correct into account? What do you mean by gray area? That makes me think of New Agey things. Is that what you mean?

I apologize for the run-on sentence...

Hi! To this day, he's super immature and he's not really so educated. So, he does make stupid decisions and speaks out of turn and whatnot. But, in all honesty I haven't seen any real psychics except for him. If psychic is the term to use? If I'm correct all people who claim to be psychic are fake. To me, psychics don't exist. But, I literally can't deny what I've seen him/ heard him say. As an atheist, i deny any existence of a god. As a family member, I'm in awe. And that's saying quite a bit. No worries about the run on sentence. When I say grey area, I mean possibly people with genetic difference? I really have no idea.

[garrethdsouza]

What's more likely, that all the psychics are fake and you found a real one (then you'd have to explain all the mechanisms via how this phenomenon takes place, which would be more complex and hence lower probable) or a few coincidences?
If psychics are so able to predict the future he should be able to make a fortune in the stock market. Or is it some abstruse reason why he can't do this?
https://xkcd.com/373/

How about asking him to tell you a number you've memoried, that would be demonstrable proof.

[brimstoneSalad]

1. Predictions are vague, and can come "true" any number of ways.

I can make any number of vague predictions which would come true. This is how cold reading works.
And if you don't think his predictions were vague, you are wrong because:

2. Memory itself is malleable. The brain is not a tape recorder. You will not remember the exact prediction, so when it seems to come true, your brain will access that memory and add more details into it after the fact.

You have to write these predictions down with exacting detail, on paper where they will not change with time, or after the supposed event. Only then will you be able to discern the discrepancies, and see how vague the predictions actually were.

3. Confirmation bias, or even just a simple memory bias.
He makes a lot of random comments and 'predictions' that you simply forget completely.
You forget the things he says that don't "come true", or that you don't notice coming true, and remember the ones that do (or seem to).

As Cirion Spellbinder said, you have to keep track of the misses too. And the only way to do that, as I mentioned, is to write ALL of them down. Then you will have a list of predictions with the actual wording (preserving how vague or inaccurate they may be), and how many of them came true and to what degree.

You can't trust your memory on this kind of thing. When you remember events (if you even remember them, which is unlikely if they weren't reinforced by him reminding you), your brain edits them in the process. It's extremely unreliable.


EDIT: Also, welcome! You should make an intro post.

[TanithDaUnicorn]

Yes, my mother is also a psycic, some creepy stuff, she predicted a murder as it was happening, Makes you wonder what we don't know yet o.o