Add Homonym Attacks! #11
Ad Hominem: Appealing to personal considerations rather than to logic or reason.
Ad Hominem Attack: An argument that focuses on a personal attack as opposed to the subject in question.
Add Homonym Attacks!: The process by which one inserts a homophone and it bites you.
(It also serves as the title to Inside Pulse’s representative column in the world of Critical Thinking, Science and Skepticism.)
It’s the Ideomotor effect!
The ideomotor effect is like a scaffolding supporting a world of crazy beliefs.
The ideomotor effect is something akin to magic, but unlike magic, there is evidence of its existence.
Why is the plachette moving on the Ouija board?
It’s the ideomotor effect!
Why is that un-gimmicked table moving for a medium?
It’s the ideomotor effect!
How come the dowsing rod is shaking?
It’s the ideomotor effect!
Why does such and so hypnosis seem to be making the fella do such and so?
It’s the ideomotor effect!
What IS the ideomotor effect you ask?
Well, about 150 years ago, a reasonable fella was trying to explain the actions of some mediums and dowsers. (I believe his name was Carpenter, but I ain’t gonna dig through a lot of research during the holidays. I gave my hired goons the week off. No pay of course.) Anyway, this theorized that muscular responses could be initiated apart from conscious effort to do so.
In short, suggestion and expectations can affect motor function.
Don’t believe me?
Don’t believe that your motor behavior can be f*cked with so easily?
Okay, a little experiment is in order.
An AHA! Experiment
Sit in chair, if you aren’t all ready.
With your dominant leg, move your foot around in clockwise circles.
Doing that? Good. Keep that up.
Now trace the number 6 on your desk or computer screen or what have you.
Your foot is going counterclockwise now isn’t it?
Freaky huh?
Great Expectations
The former experiment isn’t quite the ideomotor effect. It is just a demonstration of how we don’t have complete control of our bodies. It wasn’t about suggestion or expectation; it was about confusion.
The ideomotor effect is a game of expectations. If you think your hand is supposed to move, it just might not wait for you to tell it to move. You don’t realize that you are doing it. It feels like something is being done to you.
A lot of folk think we only use 15 percent of our brain or whatever that number is. But that is an urban myth. The confusion of he thing came from a story saying something along the lines of, “we only know the function of about 15 percent of our brain.”
The number is probably higher than that now, but the brain remains one crazy hunk of meat.
Anyways, back to expectations. Knowledge of the ideomotor effect seems to decrease it effectiveness. It might be that the scaffolding tumbles when we are finally able to see it. (As was the case for Elijah Snow and his memory blocks.)
Or it might be that when we live in the real world, and stop believing in nonsense then nonsense ceases to be.
At any rate, a Ouija board has never done shit for me. Nada. I’ve tried to cheat answers with a group in the past, but so was another person in he group.
Although, for the believers, I will add this part: Maybe it didn’t work because of all of my NEGATIVE ENERGY.
Although, I’m not exactly sure what that would be. Does Frozone from The Incredibles give off negative (cold) energy? Or would it be like energy absorption? Like Bishop.
At any rate, I’m like a black super-hero.
For Further reading on Ouija boards, check out :
http://www.museumoftalkingboards.com/history.html
also, Lucard had a column on it some six months ago. Find it yourself; my research monkeys are on holiday.
