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The JREF recently did three days of taping for an hour-long network prime-time TV show on psychic abilities that will air this week. Tomorrow, we'll announce when and where to watch. From one session last month, here's a photo of JREF's Million Dollar Challenge Director Banachek testing a psychic's abilities. (I won't spoil the surprise by telling you whether she won the million.)

Banachek-test-for-TV-crop

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"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool." - Richard Feynman

We (meaning people) are really good at fooling ourselves. Our brains excel at that task perhaps in excess of all others. I suspect this derives from one of the basic functions of our brains - consciousness, which is a constructed illusion of our own existence.

This is not to say that we do not exist, or that our consciousness is not constructed from real information about the world. Our senses have a practical relationship to reality that serves us well. But the end result, our stream of consciousness, is massively constructed. Information is filtered, interpreted, and altered, then stitched together with the gaps filled in seamlessly.

Our brains are constantly making assumptions about what is probably happening, projecting our vision into the future, and altering one sense based upon information from other senses.

At the highest level of functioning, our reasoning ability, our brains spend a lot of time and effort serving our basic emotional needs. So we construct a fictional reality from a highly egocentric perspective. The default mode of human behavior is to engage in "motivated reasoning" - to rationalize away the negative, and emphasize the positive.

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This week: Randi’s 83rd birthday! Stay tuned early next week for an important announcement about the JREF’s role in a national TV news special on the paranormal.

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Where guerilla art meets monkey business.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1787791/

Directed by Jon Foy

Starring Justin Duerr and Colin Smith

4 stars (out of 4)

This film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival where it won the best directing award. It begins a theatrical run on Sept. 2nd. Screening information can be found at http://www.resurrectdead.com. Currently the film is available across most V.O.D platforms including VUDU, Amazon and ITUNES, and will soon be showing in theaters.

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The JREF is excited to announce that our own James "The Amazing" Randi will be embarking on a whirlwind lecture tour across Canada this September.  The tour will be graciously hosted by the Center for Inquiry Canada and will see Randi traveling from coast to coast with plenty of stops on the way. We encourage all of our Canadian friends and supporters take this opportunity to meet the amazing one himself and hear his unique perspective on science, magic, and how even the smartest among us can easily be fooled. James Randi lecturing

Randi will be appearing in the following cities, with time and venue details to be announced very soon:

Vancouver, BC (9/22)
Kelowna, BC (9/23)
Calgary, AB (9/24)
Edmonton, AB (9/25
Saskatoon, SK (9/26)
Toronto, ON (9/27)
Ottawa, ON (9/28)
Montreal, QC (9/29)
Halifax, NS (9/30)

 

See you there!

  1. "Today In Skeptic History" Now In iPhone App Store
  2. Enda Kenny Speaks Out
  3. Your Skeptic Stories
  4. The JREF at Camp Inquiry