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Tags Mandela effect , memory

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Old 14th March 2018, 10:19 PM   #201
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Look, find me one person who was a resident/citizen/anything of South Africa in a timeframe ranging from, oh, around 1962 into recent years who believes Nelson Mandela was dead until 2013, when he "died again." That's all I'm saying. There's a reason this "effect" only happens with regard to stuff that's kind of peripheral to our daily lives. Like movies, book titles, ads, and foreign public figures. Our memory banks don't need that stuff, so it gets bungled and overwritten.

Do supporters of this Mandela Effect ever claim they wake up one day only to find that their car has a different license plate than they remember? That their spouse has a mustache when they didn't the prior evening? That arithmetic has changed? And if so, has schizophrenia been clinically ruled out?

I'm not being a dick. These are important questions to ask yourself if you're starting to accept this tosh.


ETA - And yes, yes - I'm aware of the semi-fringe Mandela Effect characters who claim things like the sun is brighter/colored differently than they remember, or New Zealand is in a different place on the map. The myriad possible explanations are still mundane as hell. Map scales are not all made by the same uniform process (some are more scale-accurate than others, etc.), human memories suck, most people don't gaze upon world maps that often, etc. (Does anyone from New Zealand think their country has moved? I'm honestly asking.) As for the sun, people's eyes often become less tolerant of bright lights as they age, human memory again sucks, people who are paranoid start to imagine crazy ****, probably global warming and the ozone layer's ailments, etc.

Seriously. If the people who are worried about this put half the time they dump into fantastical redditing volunteering at soup kitchens or some ****, this country might stop being the world's veritable Nickelback/Carrot Top/Carlos Mencia.

Last edited by Butter!; 14th March 2018 at 10:34 PM. Reason: clarity
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Old 15th March 2018, 01:54 AM   #202
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Great post, isissxn!
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"Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht
"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx
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Old 15th March 2018, 01:56 AM   #203
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Originally Posted by Axxman300 View Post
Steven Biko.

Close enough.
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"Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht
"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx
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Old 15th March 2018, 03:50 AM   #204
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I most admit, I am quite fascinated by the Mandela effect. It's like a crowd sourced Phillip K. Dick novel, or Fringe spin-off. And could possibly lead to new insights about the nature of the human mind.

But even ignoring all the quantum mysticism, there is need for skepticism. The claim is that "thousands" or even "millions" of people have the exact same wrong memory. But do they?

E.g the Berenstain Bears. I had never heard about them, but I googled and it's clear that people misspell their names in countless ways. It can be quite comical, people will swear they are excellent spellers and have very good memories and they vividly 120% remember it as Berenstein, then the next sentence they write Bernstein or Berenstien or even Bearstein.

Other ME's allow quite a lot of wiggle room. Nelson Mandela according to ME lore died "sometime in the 80's". But an ambiguous context-free quote from Google Books that mentions a date in 1991 somehow counts as a hit. New Zealand "moved" from somewhere else relative to Australia. Some say north, some west, northeast seems the most common, but they don't even give a ballpark figure for distance.

The inherent suggestibility of people also inflates the number of individuals who misremembers the same way.

And exaggeration by true believers, and bloggers who need clicks for their ads.
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Old 15th March 2018, 04:36 AM   #205
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Originally Posted by Thermal View Post
Writing what out? He didn't say anything. If a link is deemed worthy of posting, shouldn't it contain...something? I am not objecting to the content. I object to the utter lack of it.
it may not be the most exciting content, but it is content that is relevant to this thread,

that being the possibility that some of these mandela effects are the result of large scale experimentation in suggestibility and exploration into the mechanics of altering the memory of societies and individuals.

which is something worth entertaining as a possibility IMO
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Old 15th March 2018, 04:40 AM   #206
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Originally Posted by isissxn View Post
Do supporters of this Mandela Effect ever claim they wake up one day only to find that their car has a different license plate than they remember? That their spouse has a mustache when they didn't the prior evening? That arithmetic has changed? And if so, has schizophrenia been clinically ruled out?
There are some who claim human anatomy has changed, e.g eye sockets and the location of the heart and other organs. To me (and a lot of patient commenters) it's a mix up of popular misconceptions about anatomy and surgery. And possibly a feeling of unease over their aging bodies.

There is a weird defensiveness among the ME supporters about not remembering everything perfectly, as though it equates to being crazy. It doesn't of course.

But then there is the ME-lore concept of "flip-flops". E.g a common ME belief is that Flint-stones used to be Flin-stones. Except some claim that they remember the discussion was reversed, the cartoon was called Flin-stones and people misrembered it as Flint-stones. I am wholly unqualified to diagnose anybody for schizophrenia, but this seems to indicate at least some form of cognitive problem.
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Old 15th March 2018, 04:52 AM   #207
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Originally Posted by isissxn View Post

Seriously. If the people who are worried about this put half the time they dump into fantastical redditing volunteering at soup kitchens or some ****, this country might stop being the world's veritable Nickelback/Carrot Top/Carlos Mencia.
Maybe this is how you remind them of what they really are.

Originally Posted by Didactylos View Post
But then there is the ME-lore concept of "flip-flops". E.g a common ME belief is that Flint-stones used to be Flin-stones. Except some claim that they remember the discussion was reversed, the cartoon was called Flin-stones and people misrembered it as Flint-stones. I am wholly unqualified to diagnose anybody for schizophrenia, but this seems to indicate at least some form of cognitive problem.
It used to be the Flintsteins, Fred and Rebekah.

Last edited by Porpoise of Life; 15th March 2018 at 04:55 AM.
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Old 15th March 2018, 04:55 AM   #208
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but they say that Sunny guy from the raisin bran cereals lost his sunglasses.

Still, there are Yahoo question threads from ten years ago about why the sun is wearing glasses.
they say that skeptics can not explain that.
Im not American so Im not familiar with that brand.
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Old 15th March 2018, 04:56 AM   #209
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Originally Posted by isissxn View Post
ETA - And yes, yes - I'm aware of the semi-fringe Mandela Effect characters who claim things like the sun is brighter/colored differently than they remember, or New Zealand is in a different place on the map. The myriad possible explanations are still mundane as hell. Map scales are not all made by the same uniform process (some are more scale-accurate than others, etc.), human memories suck, most people don't gaze upon world maps that often, etc. (Does anyone from New Zealand think their country has moved? I'm honestly asking.) As for the sun, people's eyes often become less tolerant of bright lights as they age, human memory again sucks, people who are paranoid start to imagine crazy ****, probably global warming and the ozone layer's ailments, etc.
Plenty of people in the chemtrails conspiracy crowd claim that they remember the sky being bluer, there being less clouds, there not being certain types of cloud, etc.

It's strange that arguing with a lot of people about the the foibles of human memory just makes them double down and assert louder that their memories are unassailably reliable.
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Old 15th March 2018, 04:57 AM   #210
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Originally Posted by Veliki George View Post
but they say that Sunny guy from the raisin bran cereals lost his sunglasses.

Still, there are Yahoo question threads from ten years ago about why the sun is wearing glasses.
they say that skeptics can not explain that.
Im not American so Im not familiar with that brand.
Link to those yahoo questions by any chance?

I'd bet anything they are confusing the sun character with the California Raisins, Two of which Wear sunglasses.

They also had some decals with the sun wearing glasses, It's a common joke.
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Old 15th March 2018, 05:08 AM   #211
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Originally Posted by Nay_Sayer View Post
Link to those yahoo questions by any chance?

I'd bet anything they are confusing the sun character with the California Raisins, Two of which Wear sunglasses.

They also had some decals with the sun wearing glasses, It's a common joke.
I still can't send links, but just Google raisin bran sunglasses yahoo
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Old 15th March 2018, 05:10 AM   #212
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Relying on Yahoo Answers for anything is usually a terrible idea.
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Old 15th March 2018, 05:12 AM   #213
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Originally Posted by esspee View Post
that being the possibility that some of these mandela effects are the result of large scale experimentation in suggestibility and exploration into the mechanics of altering the memory of societies and individuals.
That's a very silly idea.

How exactly are people being made to falsely remember that Nelson Mandela died in the 1980s? Whenever people look into it, they always find that there's no record of him dying in the 1980s. So where are the false memories coming from if they're the result of some bizarre experiment?

This makes no sense at all.
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Old 15th March 2018, 05:37 AM   #214
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Originally Posted by JesseCuster View Post
That's a very silly idea.

How exactly are people being made to falsely remember that Nelson Mandela died in the 1980s? Whenever people look into it, they always find that there's no record of him dying in the 1980s. So where are the false memories coming from if they're the result of some bizarre experiment?

This makes no sense at all.
i said some of the mandela effects.

Like the more simple ones that are to do with media, like spellings, names of products, things in popular culture such as Dolly's braces.

And there are many ways that memories could be altered, such as subliminal messages in mass media. And by subliminal i do not mean flashed images, i mean the more subtle and effective methods

Discussed in the video i posted
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Old 15th March 2018, 05:45 AM   #215
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An rudimentary example of such an experiment could be the following:

A research group identifies something that the public regularly mix up.
Maybe 80% of people remember adult nappies as 'depend' and 20% as 'depends'.

Using various media sources and techniques they can try to alter this ratio within the population.

They can then measure the effectiveness of the effort and method by re-testing the population.
Maybe they shift the ratio to 60% thinking it is 'depend' and 40% 'depends'.

Just a very basic example to give you an idea of how this is NOT a silly idea.

Such technology if elaborated and developed to be very effective could have great potential for propaganda purposes, for engineering consent, for defense and military purposes and for influencing public opinion at home or abroad of historical events.

Last edited by esspee; 15th March 2018 at 05:46 AM.
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Old 15th March 2018, 05:58 AM   #216
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Originally Posted by Veliki George View Post
but they say that Sunny guy from the raisin bran cereals lost his sunglasses.

Still, there are Yahoo question threads from ten years ago about why the sun is wearing glasses.
they say that skeptics can not explain that.
Im not American so Im not familiar with that brand.
Here is a vintage Raisin Bran box, probably from the 1960s-70s. In later years the Sun character was given a more detailed face and open eyes. Kelloggs never put sunglasses on the Sun. But there certainly were Raisin characters with sunglasses. And that makes sense too because they become raisins by sitting beneath the bright sun.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2066/...2ce9fd207a.jpg
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Old 15th March 2018, 06:01 AM   #217
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Originally Posted by esspee View Post
An rudimentary example of such an experiment could be the following:

A research group identifies something that the public regularly mix up.
Maybe 80% of people remember adult nappies as 'depend' and 20% as 'depends'.

Using various media sources and techniques they can try to alter this ratio within the population.

They can then measure the effectiveness of the effort and method by re-testing the population.
Maybe they shift the ratio to 60% thinking it is 'depend' and 40% 'depends'.
So 'The Mandela Effect' is perhaps just making a few more people think incorrect things that some people already believe for well understood reasons? Can you explain how you think this actually works? Like hypothetical examples of how 'various media sources and techniques' (a rather uselessly vague phrase) could be utilised to perpetuate these false ideas without any record in the media of the false ideas actually existing in the media?

I've an idea myself for how you can get people to believe this kind of crap. Put up a post on Reddit claiming that you remember something that isn't true and before you know it, people will come crawling out from under the woodwork agreeing with you and saying they remember it as well. No need for grandiose social experiments involving placing false facts in the media (for which there's no evidence anyway).

Quote:
Such technology if elaborated and developed to be very effective could have great potential for propaganda purposes, for engineering consent, for defense and military purposes and for influencing public opinion at home or abroad of historical events.
The fact that you can imagine up some potential use of some imagined experiment for which you have no evidence does not make it at all plausible. Lots of silly ideas would be useful to lots of people if they were true. That doesn't mean they aren't silly ideas.
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Old 15th March 2018, 06:02 AM   #218
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Originally Posted by Porpoise of Life View Post
Relying on Yahoo Answers for anything is usually a terrible idea.
I remember when Yahoo Answers was always 100% accurate and factual. They changed it. Does anyone else remember when Yahoo Answers was flawless for facts about everything in the world?
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Old 15th March 2018, 07:27 AM   #219
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Originally Posted by esspee View Post
it may not be the most exciting content, but it is content that is relevant to this thread,
Yeah, but there was no actual content. Nothing but some vague musings while walking dogs. Pisses me off to have wasted almost 4 minutes of my time above ground. The only upshot is that I know now not you watch vids you link. Was that your desired outcome? It is the predictable one.

Quote:
that being the possibility that some of these mandela effects are the result of large scale experimentation in suggestibility and exploration into the mechanics of altering the memory of societies and individuals.

which is something worth entertaining as a possibility IMO
It is a possibility. Is there evidence of such experimentation? If not, it is the equivalent of speculating that alternate universes are colliding. Unless speculation provides some new perspective, it doesn't help much. Paranoid speculation only sheds light on being paranoid.
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Old 15th March 2018, 07:33 AM   #220
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Originally Posted by Checkmite View Post
It is stupid.

I think I remember reading somewhere that the "parallel universe travel" explanation of the Mandela Effect was originally proposed as a joke. I could be wrong about that - but see that's the thing; in the "home universe" that I originally came from, sometimes a person would misremember things and someone else could come along and say "no that's wrong it was this way, see look at these old things" and the first person would say "oh I see, obviously I misremembered, thanks for clearing that up for me". But obviously I've now slipped into a parallel world where when people remember something one way and are then given evidence that their memory is wrong, they now just insist their memory is impeccable and it's reality that is obviously wrong.
I think it is ego but much more banal than your explanation. People just can seem to accept that their memory is as bad as everyone else's.
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Unfortunately parallel-universe slippage isn't the only explanation that crackpots have envisioned for the Mandela Effect. There's also a significant number of others who seem to believe that some unknown force is deliberately editing historical events, things like movie lines and children's author's names, and others' memories of same, for potentially diabolical reasons.
Sure, they start out with trivia to prepare the ground for much bigger changes for.....reasons....profit....?

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Old 15th March 2018, 07:40 AM   #221
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Originally Posted by Veliki George View Post
but they say that Sunny guy from the raisin bran cereals lost his sunglasses.

Still, there are Yahoo question threads from ten years ago about why the sun is wearing glasses.
they say that skeptics can not explain that.
Im not American so Im not familiar with that brand.
I recall that the sun started wearing sunglasses during one of their ad campaigns, but it was a short-lived thing. I remember thinking about how they were trying to make their brand cooler or something. There was no confusion with raisins, it was a very specific image tied to that sun, whose rays became more vibrant as well. It is faulty recollection shared by many, and skeptics can explain it handily.
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Old 15th March 2018, 07:57 AM   #222
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It could be that a cartoon of the sun wearing sunglasses is a very common image, so common that lots of folks conflate that image with an iconic brand image. Nah, that's crazy, its probably just an alternate reality version of that that brand.

We need a Sliders reunion episode in which they visit the universe responsible for all the most common Mandela effect examples. Ok, maybe just a 10 minute funny or die sketch? Ok, it wouldn't be that funny but still.
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Old 15th March 2018, 08:22 AM   #223
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Originally Posted by dann View Post
In the case of the actual Mandela effect, I think it's very easily explained:
Wasn't there this black dude, pretty famous for fighting against apartheid, and then he died in jail?
Yes, indeed! (Only, it wasn't Mandela.)
It has always been my theory that people were mis-remembering Steve Biko. (September, 77. Port Elizabeth, weather fine...)
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Old 15th March 2018, 08:33 AM   #224
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Originally Posted by isissxn View Post
New Zealand is in a different place on the map.
I frequently 'remember' that NZ is to the north and east of Aus. I always figured that it was just me being crap at remembering geography. It's nice to know it's the world that's changed, not me that's just a bit crap.
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Old 15th March 2018, 09:01 AM   #225
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Originally Posted by 3point14 View Post
I frequently 'remember' that NZ is to the north and east of Aus. I always figured that it was just me being crap at remembering geography. It's nice to know it's the world that's changed, not me that's just a bit crap.
That's not Mandela effect.

It's plate tectonics.

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Old 15th March 2018, 09:04 AM   #226
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Originally Posted by Hellbound View Post
That's not Mandela effect.

It's plate tectonics.


Jesus, I'm only 44, that's some bloody rapid geography going on there!



I figure the Mandella effect is just a way to work out what portion of the population have an ego so grossly inflated that they're prepared to believe the world changed rather than accept that they can't remember stuff right.

Occam would have spent about six seconds on this one.
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Old 15th March 2018, 09:13 AM   #227
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Originally Posted by 3point14 View Post
the Mandella effect...
It happens when you are absolutely certain that his name used to be spelled this way.
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Old 15th March 2018, 09:28 AM   #228
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Originally Posted by 3point14 View Post
Jesus, I'm only 44, that's some bloody rapid geography going on there!



I figure the Mandella effect is just a way to work out what portion of the population have an ego so grossly inflated that they're prepared to believe the world changed rather than accept that they can't remember stuff right.

Occam would have spent about six seconds on this one.
I'm probably repeating myself but, yes this. It really amazes me that anyone could learn that it was always Berenstain Bears not Berenstein Bears and walk away thinking anything other than, "Wow, memory is weird man!" let alone thinking, "**** the whole universe changed!"

Its not even an anomaly. Pretty much all the evidence is that we construct are memories and we do it badly. The Mandela Effect was explained before it was even observed.

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Old 15th March 2018, 09:42 AM   #229
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Originally Posted by ahhell View Post
I'm probably repeating myself but, yes this. It really amazes me that anyone could learn that it was always Berenstain Bears not Berenstein Bears and walk away thinking anything other than, "Wow, memory is weird man!" let alone thinking, "**** the whole universe changed!"

Its not even an anomaly. Pretty much all the evidence is that we construct are memories and we do it badly. The Mandela Effect was explained before it was even observed.
Right, but having the clear, yet inaccurate, memory yourself that is shared by so many others makes it a little fascinating. It's one thing to realize you made a mistake in recollection. It's a little eerie when thousands of others remember the same thing.
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Old 15th March 2018, 10:49 AM   #230
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Originally Posted by isissxn View Post
But other people misremember it the exact same way?! Well, here's a thought. Human brains are all made out of the same stuff, and function in basically the same way (the healthy ones, anyway). And people within a particular demographic are exposed to a lot of the same pop culture influences. Is it really so unbelievable, then, that said people might end up with a lot of the same memory mistakes?

I know we're all special and unique and ****, but there are only so many things a brain can do. It just doesn't amaze me that much. What amazes me is the hoops people will jump through to invent mysticism where only boring brain farts exist.
I keep telling people this.

The human brain is busy receiving input from all five senses and sorting it all out to keep on an even keel. I'm not a shrink, but in my daily life I catch myself disregarding incorrect perception four of five times a day. I'll think I see someone in a secure area on my security cameras, and run down to intercept only to find no one, and upon reviewing the footage there was never anyone on the screen. The problem is I have 12 cameras to keep track of on top of my other duties, and sometimes my brain drags nonexistent movement onto a screen covering an area where we've had problems with intruders.

And yes, just as often there are intruders.

Goes the other way too, like the time a tanker truck was hiding in my blindspot. Somehow I had missed the thing come up behind me.

The truck and the people popping up on my cameras don't drop out of a parallel universe, I'm just focused on other things, so part of my brain is on auto-pilot as I suspect other people's are too. It's part of the fun of being human,
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Old 15th March 2018, 11:00 AM   #231
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Originally Posted by Thermal View Post
Right, but having the clear, yet inaccurate, memory yourself that is shared by so many others makes it a little fascinating. It's one thing to realize you made a mistake in recollection. It's a little eerie when thousands of others remember the same thing.
Yes, that is what it makes it fascinating. If it were just me, I wouldn't give it a moment's thought. If it's a lot of people all claiming the same thing, then it gets a little weird. Nor is it just "going along with the crowd". I distinctly remember thinking "that can't be right!", when I heard it was spelled -stain.

The most parsimonious explanation is some mass failure of memory, maybe based on how the author's name is pronounced. But I wonder what someone like Dmitri Mendeleev would have predicted about the outcome of the double-slit experiment.
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Old 15th March 2018, 11:06 AM   #232
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I've found so many residuals of They Live! in German. It is Sie Leben in German, but so often I find Sie Leben! with exclamation point.
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Old 15th March 2018, 12:25 PM   #233
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Originally Posted by Thermal View Post
Yeah, but there was no actual content. Nothing but some vague musings while walking dogs. Pisses me off to have wasted almost 4 minutes of my time above ground. The only upshot is that I know now not you watch vids you link. Was that your desired outcome? It is the predictable one.



It is a possibility. Is there evidence of such experimentation? If not, it is the equivalent of speculating that alternate universes are colliding. Unless speculation provides some new perspective, it doesn't help much. Paranoid speculation only sheds light on being paranoid.
well as a possible explanations go, i think perception/memory experimentation ranks higher than overlapping alternate dimensions,

As a possible explanation it had not been part of the discussion on this thread, and so i thought it only fair to add it.


BTW, suggesting a new and possible explanation is not the same thing as stating that it IS the explanation.


In fact i think a lot of the effects, such as names like depend and depends, those kind of close things, could be put down to marketing.

Brand names and even stage names often are more 'sticky' to the human mind when they are just slightly off what is expected.
And so not only are such names more likely to be successful as products, and chosen by companies as a result of market research, but also marketing people will actively seek out such 'slightly off expected' names intentionally.

One good example of this is Cliff Richard. Cliff has said himself that the name Richard was chosen over the more common Richards (popular second name in the UK) because people would expect it to be Richards get it wrong and then argue over it, or have a double take when reading it or hearing it.

Last edited by esspee; 15th March 2018 at 12:40 PM.
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Old 15th March 2018, 02:22 PM   #234
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Originally Posted by Didactylos View Post
But then there is the ME-lore concept of "flip-flops". E.g a common ME belief is that Flint-stones used to be Flin-stones. Except some claim that they remember the discussion was reversed, the cartoon was called Flin-stones and people misrembered it as Flint-stones. I am wholly unqualified to diagnose anybody for schizophrenia, but this seems to indicate at least some form of cognitive problem.
There was another version involving the movie Apollo 13. Some swear up and down that Tom Hank's line, which is "Houston, we have a problem," was originally "Houston, we've had a problem". Back when I used to try reasoning with these people, I 'splained that it was probably because somewhere along the line they learned that Jim Lovell's historical statement was "we've had a problem" and the movie misquoted him, and they likely just conflated to the two lines but of course that wasn't it at all.

At any rate, many months after that discussion (and long after I'd given up taking any of these people seriously), one of the participants breathlessly begins a new one declaring that the line had been switched back! Just the other day he watched Apollo 13 and Tom Hanks says "Houston, we've had a problem"...except a number of individuals who actually own the movie were quick to bring up that they checked and found the line was still "We have a problem" in their copy, and a large discussion ensued over whether the line had switched yet again [dimensional-slip theory] or whether the "Effect" simply hadn't gotten to those peoples' copy of the movie yet [unknown editing-force theory].
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Old 15th March 2018, 02:30 PM   #235
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Originally Posted by Veliki George View Post
but they say that Sunny guy from the raisin bran cereals lost his sunglasses.
There's a bunch of these. They also say Mr. Monopoly lost his monocle (he never had one) and that Pikachu's tail is supposed to have a black tip like the character's ears (it never did, at least in official art).
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Old 15th March 2018, 03:03 PM   #236
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Here is a really bad way to explore the Mandela Effect and it might be a really common way as well.

A James Bond fan website did a Twitter survey with relation to Dolly's braces. They found that 47% of the respondents "remembered" Dolly wearing braces. But not so fast!

The obvious problem was that the questionnaire was multiple choice. Another problem is that the question being asked is not necessarily legitimate. It went like this...

What factor first attracted Jaws to Dolly in Moonraker (at first sight)?

Pigtails
Braces
Boobs
Glasses

Those were your choices. She does have pigtails, big boobs and glasses. But she doesn't have braces. Putting that aside, it's not necessarily apparent if Jaws is attracted to any particular body feature on Dolly.

Now, a person who is relatively unfamiliar with the scene might think that the pollster is totally honest. Jaws is attracted to one thing, and Dolly has all of the listed things. The person may have no memory of seeing braces because she didn't have braces. They know for sure that Jaws has metal teeth because everyone knows that. So if they use logic they would think that braces ought to be the attractor even though they have no memory of seeing them at all. For this person, choosing braces seems to make sense and is likely to be the correct choice.

But it's not really a false memory as much as it is a trick of the pollster. Even a person who strongly doubts the braces might still pick it.

Now, a person who is quite familiar with the scene is going to get confused. The question makes no sense and there is a bogus answer sitting in there because she wasn't wearing braces. How is this person supposed to respond? Maybe they don't choose at all and just ignore the whole thing.

You see, it really would be best not to ask as a multitude choice question. Ask the respondents to write in their own answer to the question. If they remember braces as being the initial attractor they will write it. Now how many answered braces?

Or ask the question differently. "What were a few of Dolly's most prominent visual aspects which Jaws saw?" If they remember braces they will write it. Maybe the braces are the only thing they remember and that's fine.

So I think you can see that it appears (at least to me) that this Mandela Effect might be misrepresented and sometimes isn't really a false memory per se. The pollster may be causing a spontaneous Mandela Effect when one was never really there in the first place.

A person who has no memory of her wearing braces at all could tell you that she wore braces. It's because of the way it was presented to them, not because they remember something that never was.

Here is the link to the survey article: https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/arti...ot-wear-braces

The results...

21% Pigtails
47% Braces
19% Boobs
13% Glasses
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Old 15th March 2018, 03:34 PM   #237
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Originally Posted by William Parcher View Post
Here is a really bad way to explore the Mandela Effect and it might be a really common way as well.

A James Bond fan website did a Twitter survey with relation to Dolly's braces. They found that 47% of the respondents "remembered" Dolly wearing braces. But not so fast!

The obvious problem was that the questionnaire was multiple choice. Another problem is that the question being asked is not necessarily legitimate. It went like this...

What factor first attracted Jaws to Dolly in Moonraker (at first sight)?

Pigtails
Braces
Boobs
Glasses

Those were your choices. She does have pigtails, big boobs and glasses. But she doesn't have braces. Putting that aside, it's not necessarily apparent if Jaws is attracted to any particular body feature on Dolly.

Now, a person who is relatively unfamiliar with the scene might think that the pollster is totally honest. Jaws is attracted to one thing, and Dolly has all of the listed things. The person may have no memory of seeing braces because she didn't have braces. They know for sure that Jaws has metal teeth because everyone knows that. So if they use logic they would think that braces ought to be the attractor even though they have no memory of seeing them at all. For this person, choosing braces seems to make sense and is likely to be the correct choice.

But it's not really a false memory as much as it is a trick of the pollster. Even a person who strongly doubts the braces might still pick it.

Now, a person who is quite familiar with the scene is going to get confused. The question makes no sense and there is a bogus answer sitting in there because she wasn't wearing braces. How is this person supposed to respond? Maybe they don't choose at all and just ignore the whole thing.

You see, it really would be best not to ask as a multitude choice question. Ask the respondents to write in their own answer to the question. If they remember braces as being the initial attractor they will write it. Now how many answered braces?

Or ask the question differently. "What were a few of Dolly's most prominent visual aspects which Jaws saw?" If they remember braces they will write it. Maybe the braces are the only thing they remember and that's fine.

So I think you can see that it appears (at least to me) that this Mandela Effect might be misrepresented and sometimes isn't really a false memory per se. The pollster may be causing a spontaneous Mandela Effect when one was never really there in the first place.

A person who has no memory of her wearing braces at all could tell you that she wore braces. It's because of the way it was presented to them, not because they remember something that never was.

Here is the link to the survey article: https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/arti...ot-wear-braces

The results...

21% Pigtails
47% Braces
19% Boobs
13% Glasses
So what you're suggesting is that researchers of Woo rig their question?

Say it ain't so.

I would have sworn braces, but then I haven't see the movie in thirty years (not a favorite) so my exposure is at best three viewings 39 years ago.
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Old 15th March 2018, 03:57 PM   #238
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Originally Posted by Fudbucker View Post
I just ask the same question: what makes it "woo"?
What makes it woo is you expanding MWI into a pseudoscientific "explanation" for any damn thing.
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Old 15th March 2018, 04:49 PM   #239
William Parcher
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Originally Posted by Axxman300 View Post
So what you're suggesting is that researchers of Woo rig their question?

Say it ain't so.

I would have sworn braces, but then I haven't see the movie in thirty years (not a favorite) so my exposure is at best three viewings 39 years ago.
This could be so complicated that the pollsters are naive and ignorant of what their poll is doing. They may also misrepresent the results and not realize that they are doing it. Some woo is like that. A person who has no recollection of Dolly wearing braces might answer that she wore braces and then still not remember that even after answering. That's not supposed to be what the Mandela Effect is.

They might tell us that 47% of people polled remember her wearing braces which would then potentially imply that 53% do remember that she is not wearing braces. But that's not necessarily true either. Some might think she has braces but that Jaws was first attracted to her boobs. Also it's important to understand that some would refuse to answer because the survey has no correct answer and they remember her not wearing braces.

It seems that you must somehow probe a person's memory without prompting them at all in any way. You can't mention braces at all in the question or the context. You have to somehow find out if their pure recollection is that she wore braces. Like this...

"Tell me what you remember about the appearance of Dolly in Moonraker."

If they remember that she wore braces they ought to tell you right away. It would be the significant answer and feature because she mates up with Jaws who has metal teeth. It would mean that it's a memory that was already in their brain and wasn't suddenly planted there by you.

Note the difference between...

"Describe the cartoon Sun on the Raisin Bran box." and:

"Does the cartoon Sun on the Raisin Bran box wear sunglasses?"

The first one asks you to describe your already existing mental image memory. The second creates a fresh mental image and asks if that already resided in your memory. It could cause you to answer as if you have a specific memory when you really don't.
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Old 15th March 2018, 05:50 PM   #240
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So, anyone ready for the "Episode IV" argument?
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