mooncycle wrote:BobbyS wrote:None whatsoever - why would your subconscious brain reverse everything it hears to check for hidden instructions?
i would honestly doubt that it has no effect. there are plenty of things in the subconscious mind that are out of order or misinterpreted from conscious thinking. dreams are just one example. i want a second opinion, please.
A complete novice's free opinion (and worth every penny). . .
Three main logical weaknesses to "backmasking". The first is that the subconcious mind needs to reverse-play everything it hears. This creates a conceptual problem in that the mind needs to not just hear what is coming in through the ears but remember it
precisely. When the mind hears "it is sunny outside" and comprehends that, part of it is recognition of sounds to meaning . . . in other words, the mind identifies the thougts and concepts that the particular sounds refer to. This type of sound association does not require CD-quality listening and memorization skills, something most people don't have as demonstrated by the frequency with which people "mis-hear" things. If the mind was going to re-play sounds backwards to uncover meanings, it would have to perfectly retain every detail of the sound with absolutely no loss or distortion whatsoever . . . an arguably super-human requirement.
The other problem is more obvious with backmasks allegedly embedded in the middle of noises (re:the legendary "My Sweet Satan"). If the sub mind is theoretically capable of reverse playing the sound it not only has to overcome the above hurdle, but in addition has to "edit" where and when it reverse-plays sounds. If a 10 second backmask is hidden in a 5 minute song at 2:00-2:10, the the mind would have to reverse either the entire song, or just reverse those 10 seconds. If the mind reverse-plays 1:53-2:03, it would get nothing. If it reversed 2:08-2:18, it would get nothing. So, if the mind really is reverse playing sounds looking for hidden commands, it either makes an absolutely perfect copy of
every single sound heard during the day, then reverses and plays them all at once, or it constantly reverse plays perfect memories of sounds in smaller chunks (say, every 10 minutes) while simultaneously listening and comprehending to what is currently occuring . . . again, an arguably impossible situation. There is, of course, a third option . . . that the mind somehow recognizes a backmask, then immediately reverse-plays only that part. But that would raise the question of how the mind recognized the backmask without reverseplaying it in the first place.
The third logical issue in questioning backmasking . . . why? Why would the mind reverse play everything it hears? Sure, it could be looking for hidden meanings, but why reverse-play all sounds? Why not splice every alternating secound of sound to see if there is a message? Why not splice every third second of sound to try and make a message? Why not replay sounds at different speeds and frequencies? Why not a combination of all of the above? If the sub mind is seeking hidden messages, why would it think to reverse-play sounds and nothing else? If it's trying every possible manner of sound manipulation to find hidden messages . . . well, there is an infinite variety of things it could do (the above a just a few suggestions). While I agree the mind can do amazing things, I just don't think it could be trying thousands (hundres of thousands, millions) of sound manipulations constantly . . . it's just too much to do. That puts the issue back to the idea that the mind reverse-plays sounds and
only reverse-plays sounds looking for hidden meanings, bringing it back to the question of why it would do that? It's exceedingly difficult to backmask even with the aid of technology (I mean, it's exceedingly difficult to backmask without making it sound like a backwards recording). Why would the mind develop a skill that it has had absolutely no need for?
Is backmasking possibly effective? Anything's possible, but the coneptual hurdles involved in the process make me very skeptical.