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Comment by superb-owl | Hacker News Reader

Here's a clip from physicist Leonard Susskind where he discusses some "psychic" experiences with a Russian colleague. He offers a pretty good mundane explanation, but it's still pretty incredible.

https://youtu.be/jhnKBKZvb_U?t=3731

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I used to do a lot of solitary road trips exploring America. I noticed that drivers in the car next to me could tell when I was looking at them even though they were staring straight ahead. And they would notice me looking at them all at once and their head would snap to look at me. I tried experimenting with this by looking at them from further back. I never did figure out how they knew.

I have noticed that too, but didn't really think about that angle until you said it.

Another example is women seem to know if a male is looking at them. They will pull their shirt down to cover rear end but it’s completely impossible they could have seen the observer, they can sense it.

This isn’t magic, we can feel what each other are feeling even at some distance. The only reason it feels at all mystifying is because our dogmas about the nature of thought separate feelings into a separate category of triviality, rather than taking them seriously as phenomena produced by our body and environment in concert.

"They will pull their shirt down to cover rear end but it’s completely impossible they could have seen the observer, they can sense it."

Women usually have better peripheral vision than men. Also we hear and smell many more things, than we consciously notice.

Males of course can't notice if women adjust clothing when they aren't looking, if they adjust clothing sufficiently often then it's as if they adjust clothing whenever you're looking

That plus subconscious monitoring of nearby males and how they move, if you're a woman roughly speaking if one is in your blind spot it's sufficiently probable he would be using that chance to look at you (or parts of you).

Another example is snipers, when sniping, avoid watching their target-person (through the scope) for more than a few seconds at a time. Because the target gets nervous and flighty.

Some couples in love have uncanny synchrony.

That's really interesting. I have a theory that our minds are connected in a field of consciousness, so this is another piece of data.

I severed my connection to the Khala and became dark templar long ago.

This is freaky. I was just thinking about how snipers are like dark templars: ineffective if seen. And we posted around the same time

Do you have a source for this?

It is orienting reflex[1]. You car comes from a blind spot, triggers the reflex, they turn their heads. Then would return to a staring straight ahead, if they didn't noticed that you are staring at them. If they did they would look at your eyes to see any signs of what is it you want from them.

> I never did figure out how they knew.

Did you tried to figure out do they know that you are not looking at them? Would they look at you if you are not looking?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienting_response

If I came up alongside them without looking at them they would not snap their head to look at me. Most of the time drivers do not look at the driver in the car next to them. However, if I came up alongside them while looking at them, most of the time they seemed to be able to sense they were being looked at and turn to look at me.

This article describes one situation of sensing when someone stares at you:

https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/why-is-it-you-can-se...

However, in the situation I describe, they are looking at the road ahead and not noticing me or where I might be looking. They seemed to be able to sense that I was looking at them before they even noticed that I was there.

"However, in the situation I describe, they are looking at the road ahead and not noticing me or where I might be looking. "

There is something called peripheral vision

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral_vision

If there is a movement in the corner of the eyes, like someone turning their head towards you, you can spot it subconsciously, or if you trained it a bit, consciously.

Yes, I'm aware of that. That's why I experimented with being further behind out of their peripheral vision

> If I came up alongside them without looking at them they would not snap their head to look at me.

How did you know they were not looking at you if you were not looking at them? I suspect the answer to the mystery lies here.

I could see them in my peripheral vision. As long as I did not stare at them they did seem to mind

Yes. Peripheral vision! That's it!

Ok. Solved. They used their peripheral vision. When you looked at them they saw it, and would look at you

My gut tells me 1.) We are very good at recognising if something/someone is looking at us, 2.) Our peripheral vision is wider than we realise and information from it somehow goes straight to the unconscious mind.

That being said I don't think some sort of telepathic phenomenon happening here would be the strangest thing in this universe

That is pretty incredible and all the more interesting given his colleague's purported background of being recruited and trained as part of some soviet cold war psychic force.

It's funny... On one hand, I don't believe in psychc phenomenon. But on the other, I have certainly seen and experienced some things in my life that are very difficult to explain.

I've become a lot more aware over time though of the very subtle ways in which information can leak about things. People are often awash in information which they are totally oblivious to.

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