Repeat after me: there's no such thing as a psychic. All psychics are simple con men, who prey on vulnerable individuals in order to receive easy cash. That is all.
While I agree that it's all baloney, I'd argue that many of them aren't "con men", since they honestly believe they have psychic powers. They're just wrong, and are confused by confirmation bias.
In this instance, when the specific people are looking up people's Facebook accounts to mine information on them, we can say that they know what information they gathered through natural means.
Now.. I have no qualms in calling out fraud where I see it. But care in throwing it all out.
We, earlier this week, read about someone who attended a meditation retreat left in handcuffs because meditation did crazy things to the mind. I mean, he was just eating and sitting and sleeping silently. We have holes in understanding of consciousness, and can't even tell if something is sentient or thinking.
And then, we have people feeling emotions in areas. These emotions can be shared. many people can feel being stared at.
The hole seems to be the intersection of: consciousness, mind, and emotion.
Can we point at emotion? Can we throw it against a wall? Can we describe anger without emotions? How do we measure it? Why can some people feel the anger in an area? Same for mind and consciousness - show me an example. Quantify it.
What's confusing is that your declaration of "They're just wrong, and are confused by confirmation bias." is that the very statement is confirmation bias of sciencism. Either there is proof (positive or negative), or there is not. Do not confuse lack of proof as proof of lack.
The fact that we can't yet show a mechanism for <whatever> does not make it reasonable to assume some sort of supernatural explanation. Your logic opens the door for believing any wacky idea a person has should be taken seriously. They shouldn't. Show a mechanism or proof of the effect. Otherwise it's nonsense.
Lack of proof does not mean proof of nonexistence. And if we look at things like the aether, was made a distinct proof that it didn't exist as conjectured (although its rearing its head as a quantum Foam).
But I await for proof, be it positive or negative, of emotion and consciousness. Because all you did was throw insults.
> Show a mechanism or proof of the effect. Otherwise it's nonsense.
One can highlight open questions with no apparent answers. And it absolutely doesn't make those questions "nonsense". But this view is called Scientism, and is not science. "Proof or its fake" is absolutely not science.
> Lack of proof does not mean proof of nonexistence.
It is certainly evidence of nonexistence. Do you believe every single claim you've ever heard because you can't conclusively disprove it 100% of the time always? Of course not, you use your reason and assume that more positive claims are false until proven otherwise.
Charles H. Duell was the Commissioner of US patent office in 1899. Mr. Deull's most famous attributed utterance is that "everything that can be invented has been invented."
We laugh at it today, because some patent commissioner couldn't see past his own limited view, and made that claim.
Yet, when I postulate questions about things we have very little science with, I'm dismissed. I ask for science to be used with emotions; yet Im the dumb one. I want scientific method to determine consciousness; yet I'm the non-scientific one.
If taken to the extreme, this logic can be used to prove literally anything. "Haven't seen any proof of invisible back-massage fairies? Well, don't confuse lack of proof as proof of lack!". When your framework can be used to prove something false, it means that the framework is unreliable.
I don't really know what "sciencism" is, but we know that the scientific method has been demonstrated to work in producing results that are useful to us. I am typing this message on an electronic keyboard, plugged into a computer, plugged into a giant-ass interconnected network hitting satellites and fiber-cables and whatnot, all of which were developed by scientists or engineers following a scientific method.
To use your wording, however, while I can't conclusively say "lack of proof is proof of lack", I can easily say "lack of proof is strong evidence of lack". Occam's razor tells us to discard unnecessary assumptions.
Technically, this isn’t true since there’s no way to prove or disprove such a phenomenon, currently. It’s beyond the limits of science. Further, it’s certain that some subset of professional psychics and their clients do believe in their powers. this says nothing as to whether there’s shared delusion occurring.
This isn’t to discount the reality that many psychics are knowingly conning their customers.
"Prove" is a funny word. No, I can't "prove" there are no pink elephants in interstellar space. But based on our understanding of the universe, we can dismiss it out right. Claims of psychic powers are basically the same.
There IS a way to prove it--at least to yourself: learn Remote Viewing and you'll have direct experience. In the meantime, read about how the CIA has been using this non-local consciousness technology for decades:
What stronger proof is there than direct experience?
Edit: I would never want anyone to "believe" me, nor would I recommend anyone "believe" anything. There is only direct experience which brings knowledge, this is the standard for consciousness work.
That's like saying there isn't anyway to prove or disprove a phenomenon of robbing a bank in broad daylight. It's beyond the limits of science. There was a quantum mechanical interaction that made it appear as if I was there, but I wasn't actually there.
We don't know anything with absolute certainty, we know many things with overwhelmingly great certainty.
Except you can observe a bank robbery, so that analogy is just a self-serving hypothetical.
I think psychics are a bunch of baloney too, but by definition the supernatural is not natural and not provable/disprovable. Let's not pretend that the act of disproving has some magic reach because then psychics or creationists or whoever will latch onto that overreach as a defense.
As I said above, you're right in that we can't prove a negative. But it's not a claim outside of science. They make claims which can be tested. When tested, their claims fail. When you repeat that enough times, you have amassed an incredible amount of negative evidence. When the body of negative evidence becomes overwhelming, it's reasonable to conclude that thing likely does not exist.
If there really was a psychic, it would be much smarter for them to keep quiet about it and become a billionaire stock trader. Thus, even allowing for the possibility of psychics, the ones that are advertising their services to consumers for money are either stupid or fake.
While many are probably con men (and perhaps many scientists, too), there has been pretty interesting research on psychic phenomena. I haven't been able to reproduce their results, though.