Evidence for psychic phenomena

[Ivan Seeking]

Is there something suspicious about Randi's power to accept and reject who ever he wants? Scientific journals also choose who they allow to publish, but you don't have problem with that? Have there been incidents that suggest that Randi has abused his power?.

We have no way to know and that's part of the problem. But the point is moot. The forum rules clearly define what is acceptable as a scientific reference, and what's not. These rules apply to every forum at PF. Only papers published in an appropriate, mainstream, peer-reviewed journal, may be used as a scientific reference.

Just to be clear, this is not a point for discussion. The rules are the rules, and there is nothing special about Randi except that he has a million dollars to lose.

[late edit] As for journals not publishing qualified work: The scientific process is self-correcting. While it may take time [even centuries, as is the case with the so-called "legend of the milky sea"], eventually science will recognize the merits of valid claims. We have no reason to believe that Randi's challenge is self-correcting.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Next, Randi's challenge may stand as anecdotal evidence for one thing or another, but anecdotal evidence can never be taken as proof of a claim. That is also specified in the S&D posting guidelines.

 

[Descartz2000]

In regards to the case of Etta Smith:

How many other people have opinions and theories of a publicized case, and how many of them are wrong as to the specifics? It seems once in a while one of those individuals will hold the correct theory that proves true, not by their doing nor their 'psychic' powers, but purely by chance. How many times was Etta Smith wrong about her predictions or hunches? This is an example of pure serendipity, and nothing more.

 

[Mammo]

So, you are quoting me not making such a claim, saying I am making such a claim?


We are discussing the issue of whether the fact no one has, so far, passed Randi's test, can be taken as proof there is no such thing as psychic ability.

My argument: Only those people who voluntarily come forward to take the test can be tested. The fact that none of these has passed Randi's criteria, does not automatically disprove psychic ability. That's all I am saying: Randi's test does not disprove the existence of psychic abilities. I am not presenting evidence for psychic ability, I'm simply saying that Randi's test cannot be taken as absolute disproof of it, as zelos asserts. I do not have to prove psychic ability to assert it hasn't been disproven.

Your objection seemed to be: leaving the door open that there might be people who could pass the test but who wouldn't want to is overly speculative. Therefore, you would, I assume, come to the conclusion that Randi's test has absolutely disproved the existence of psychic abilities.

However, anyone with such an ability, or with any remarkable ability, could have extremely good reasons for shunning fame and attention for it, and it is not overly speculative to take this into consideration, and arrive at the conclusion that Randi's test isn't an absolute disproof of psychic abilities.


"Claims" by zen monks, Rabbis, Native American Shamen, etc. are not broadcast to the media or in peer reviewed journals. They come out in private discussions with people they feel comfortable with. There are even demonstrations sometimes, for what that's worth. These come out in second hand reports by people who've met and talked to them, as when people publish accounts of their travels. Whether or not any of them are authentic is immaterial to whether or not they would be lured into Randi's test by fame and a million dollars. They might respond to such a challenge by saying something like: "I can already turn myself into a bird and soar over the mountains, how is fame and a million dollars going to make my life any better than that?" (You can read The Teachings of Don Juan for many utterances of that sort by the Indian shamen of the title.) Such people would not take Randi's test, because of their lifestyle, despite their own belief they would pass it.

zoobyshoe;
I totally agree with your view point. It's common sense, of course. I think that the moral of the story with regard to the Russian girl, is that she became a mainstream qualified doctor. If you think you may have some psychic awareness, or that psychic ability does exist in some people, then fine. But this isn't likely to make you any money. Is it any use if you were psychic? I think probably not. You still need to get along and make a living just like anyone else.

I saw a qualified parapsychologist do a TV experiment to test whether people can tell if they are being stared at from behind. A large group of investigators were stationed behind a two-way mirror and stared intently at a queue of people waiting to go into a theatre. The results were quite amazing. Only one person reported having a feeling of being watched intently from behind the mirror. She was the only person who was on her own. Everyone else was engaged in intense chitter-chatter. The parapsychologist concluded that this was evidence against the idea of any psychic awareness. My conclusion was that it was evidence of psychic ability, but only in people with nervous/sensitive personalities. My best guess is that it is an ability from our evolutionary past, when we were the fearful ones who were constantly being hunted. It simply has no use in the modern day world.

 

[ZapperZ]

So, you are quoting me not making such a claim, saying I am making such a claim?


We are discussing the issue of whether the fact no one has, so far, passed Randi's test, can be taken as proof there is no such thing as psychic ability.

But if it is JUST Randi's test that hasn't been passed, then I'd say there's reason to doubt it. However, and this is crucial, no scientific test HAS been passed by ANY so-called psychic. If there is, then there's no more need to prove the existence of psychic phenomena, is there? Yet, after hundreds of years of claiming such a thing exists, we are still at first base in trying to show that it exists. What valid phenomena that you can think of has THAT long of a gestation period to prove that it exists?

My argument: Only those people who voluntarily come forward to take the test can be tested. The fact that none of these has passed Randi's criteria, does not automatically disprove psychic ability. That's all I am saying: Randi's test does not disprove the existence of psychic abilities. I am not presenting evidence for psychic ability, I'm simply saying that Randi's test cannot be taken as absolute disproof of it, as zelos asserts. I do not have to prove psychic ability to assert it hasn't been disproven.

Your objection seemed to be: leaving the door open that there might be people who could pass the test but who wouldn't want to is overly speculative. Therefore, you would, I assume, come to the conclusion that Randi's test has absolutely disproved the existence of psychic abilities.

My intrusion into this has nothing to do with Randi's test. I came in here because there appears to be an a priori assumption that (i) there are people with psychic ability and (ii) we just haven't been able to determine that they have such ability yet due to the shortcoming of our tests. I claim that both of those are speculation devoid of any physical evidence. Do you dispute that claim?

"Claims" by zen monks, Rabbis, Native American Shamen, etc. are not broadcast to the media or in peer reviewed journals. They come out in private discussions with people they feel comfortable with. There are even demonstrations sometimes, for what that's worth. These come out in second hand reports by people who've met and talked to them, as when people publish accounts of their travels. Whether or not any of them are authentic is immaterial to whether or not they would be lured into Randi's test by fame and a million dollars. They might respond to such a challenge by saying something like: "I can already turn myself into a bird and soar over the mountains, how is fame and a million dollars going to make my life any better than that?" (You can read The Teachings of Don Juan for many utterances of that sort by the Indian shamen of the title.) Such people would not take Randi's test, because of their lifestyle, despite their own belief they would pass it.

And this is an example of such speculation that I mentioned above. Nowhere in here is there the acceptance of the claim that these people are "psychic" based on any scientific evidence. In fact, it strengthen my claim that such a thing are accepted based on speculation. I have zero issues of people doing that. After all, religion is the same thing. However, I do have issues when people confuse it with valid, scientific evidence and decides that they can be interchanged. They cannot!

Zz.

 

[ZapperZ]

zoobyshoe;
I totally agree with your view point. It's common sense, of course. I think that the moral of the story with regard to the Russian girl, is that she became a mainstream qualified doctor. If you think you may have some psychic awareness, or that psychic ability does exist in some people, then fine. But this isn't likely to make you any money. Is it any use if you were psychic? I think probably not. You still need to get along and make a living just like anyone else.

I saw a qualified parapsychologist do a TV experiment to test whether people can tell if they are being stared at from behind. A large group of investigators were stationed behind a two-way mirror and stared intently at a queue of people waiting to go into a theatre. The results were quite amazing. Only one person reported having a feeling of being watched intently from behind the mirror. She was the only person who was on her own. Everyone else was engaged in intense chitter-chatter. The parapsychologist concluded that this was evidence against the idea of any psychic awareness. My conclusion was that it was evidence of psychic ability, but only in people with nervous/sensitive personalities. My best guess is that it is an ability from our evolutionary past, when we were the fearful ones who were constantly being hunted. It simply has no use in the modern day world.

I attended at least a couple of seminars given by parapsychology researchers from Northwestern University here (which, in case people don't know, is a highly respected and a top-tier university). In one seminar, the presenter gave almost exactly a review of this very study and made a claim that there is an "awareness" and showed the data. However, unless one is an experimentalist and realizes how to extract data, one would NEVER have realized that in one of the graphs, the vertical scale had been exaggerated to show a "slight" number in favor of such a conclusion. They showed two data bins with values such as 60.5 and 60.8 (I'm quoting these off the top of my head, but it is in the same ballpark values), and then blow up the vertical scale to show that there's a larger number of people having such an awareness (60.8). This is BUNK!

Anyone who has done any kind of experiment will tell you that when there is only a 0.3 difference over a statistical sampling of that LARGE of a number, such small difference not only is within a standard deviation, but it also cannot be distinguished from random chance! And that has been the modus operandi of this field of "study", in which many of the claim phenomena are always very weak, and cannot be distinguished from random "background noise" level. But the people they present such "data" to don't know that!

Zz.

 

[Mammo]

I attended at least a couple of seminars given by parapsychology researchers from Northwestern University here (which, in case people don't know, is a highly respected and a top-tier university). In one seminar, the presenter gave almost exactly a review of this very study and made a claim that there is an "awareness" and showed the data. However, unless one is an experimentalist and realizes how to extract data, one would NEVER have realized that in one of the graphs, the vertical scale had been exaggerated to show a "slight" number in favor of such a conclusion. They showed two data bins with values such as 60.5 and 60.8 (I'm quoting these off the top of my head, but it is in the same ballpark values), and then blow up the vertical scale to show that there's a larger number of people having such an awareness (60.8). This is BUNK!

Anyone who has done any kind of experiment will tell you that when there is only a 0.3 difference over a statistical sampling of that LARGE of a number, such small difference not only is within a standard deviation, but it also cannot be distinguished from random chance! And that has been the modus operandi of this field of "study", in which many of the claim phenomena are always very weak, and cannot be distinguished from random "background noise" level. But the people they present such "data" to don't know that!

Zz.

I appreciate what you are saying about the ability to distort statistics with bias towards a prior expectation of experimental results. If the seminar discussed the experiment I described earlier, did you see the film footage of the people during investigation? The lady in question was quite clearly reacting to something and looking repeatedly towards the mirror. It is this kind of evidence which is very subjective. Obviously it will never pass a 'scientific study', especially if the investigators are trying to debunk the possibility of psychic awareness. Your viewpoint is very standard and easy to understand, but there are people who have experiences which aren't readily explained by the scientific world view. It should also be remembered that science doesn't know everything, and there is a distinct possibility that the standard model will be debunked itself in the forthcoming LHC (large Hadron Collider) experiment.

 

[zoobyshoe]

But if it is JUST Randi's test that hasn't been passed, then I'd say there's reason to doubt it. However, and this is crucial, no scientific test HAS been passed by ANY so-called psychic. If there is, then there's no more need to prove the existence of psychic phenomena, is there? Yet, after hundreds of years of claiming such a thing exists, we are still at first base in trying to show that it exists. What valid phenomena that you can think of has THAT long of a gestation period to prove that it exists?

It sounds like you're saying if it were true it would have been proven by now, therefore we can consider it disproven. However:

...we can never prove a general negative.

I.e. we cannot prove psychic powers do not exist.

My intrusion into this has nothing to do with Randi's test. I came in here because there appears to be an a priori assumption that (i) there are people with psychic ability and (ii) we just haven't been able to determine that they have such ability yet due to the shortcoming of our tests. I claim that both of those are speculation devoid of any physical evidence. Do you dispute that claim?

My re-entrance into this thread was exclusively to help counter the notion that we can consider psychic phenomenon disproven because of Randi's test. This should not be construed as support for any a priori assumptions about anything on anyone's part.

And this is an example of such speculation that I mentioned above. Nowhere in here is there the acceptance of the claim that these people are "psychic" based on any scientific evidence. In fact, it strengthen my claim that such a thing are accepted based on speculation. I have zero issues of people doing that. After all, religion is the same thing. However, I do have issues when people confuse it with valid, scientific evidence and decides that they can be interchanged. They cannot!

You're changing the subject. That paragraph was presented to address this:

So the monks "claim" to have psychic ability. So? They obviously are not THAT shy to make such a claim. And people claim to do many things every day. Why is this any different?

In other words it was presented to clear up the contradiction you felt existed between "shy" and making claims of psychic powers. I hope it cleared that up in your mind.

 

[Count Iblis]

As far as we know, people with paranormal abilities do not exist. Every time you do a well designed test, you don't see any anomalous effects. However, when you do not constrain psychics in the way they interact with their subjects, they seem to be able to tell things they couldn't possibly know. Part of this can perhaps be explained by the psychics getting indirect information from what the subjects are telling them. But non verbal communication presumably also plays a role.

It may be the case that people who seem to have psychic abilities in reality have abilities similar to savants, see e.g. here:

http://www.centreforthemind.com/publications/SavantNumerosity.pdf

E.g., there are people who can look at a screen with a large random number of dots and tell you within a second exactly how many dots there are. There are people who given a date can tell you within a second what day of the week that date falls. They don't consciously compute the answer in their heads. They'll tell you that when they hear a date they can "feel" what weekday corresponds to it.

Neurologists have some idea about how savants can have such abilities. It presumably has to do with them having access to lower level information that normal people don't have access to.

Now, you could imagine that psychics have savant like abilities when it comes to being able to read non verbal information from the faces of people. But then, just like a savant can "feel" the correct number of dots on the screen without counting them, a psychic simply feels the information when looking at his/her subject. They don't consciously do an effort to interpret the facial expressions to try to guess whatever information they are after.

So, to the psychic, it may feel like some ghost is giving him/her the information. They are then not (necessarily) charlatans in the sense that they are not consciously deceiving people; they really believe in their abilities.

 

[Rants]

being able to read non verbal information from the faces of people

That makes sense, and explains how "psychics" can sometimes make correct guesses about a person's personality while being unable to put gambling venues, financial advisers, and police detectives out of business.

 

[Mech_Engineer]

It sounds like you're saying if it were true it would have been proven by now, therefore we can consider it disproven. However:

I.e. we cannot prove psychic powers do not exist.


My re-entrance into this thread was exclusively to help counter the notion that we can consider psychic phenomenon disproven because of Randi's test. This should not be construed as support for any a priori assumptions about anything on anyone's part.

I think the point is that when you follow the scientific method, the hypothesis "psycic powers exist" is easily disproven. It is not the job of the skeptics to prove such powers do not exist, it is the job of the believers to prove that it does. The lack of complete and conclusive evidence that psychic powers do not exist cannot in itself be used as proof that such powers do exist.

It's fundamentally impossible to prove phycic powers do not exist for all cases, but its a moot point because there have been no cases that credibly and repeadedly show psychic powers do exist. Each case exposed to a repeatable environment and the scientific method is easily disproven.

 

[ZapperZ]

It sounds like you're saying if it were true it would have been proven by now, therefore we can consider it disproven. However:

I.e. we cannot prove psychic powers do not exist.

You cannot prove an infinite number of other speculation as well because they are non-testable. However, since there HAS been claimed of "psychic phenomena", do you think the burden of proof is on those who make such a claim, or the burden of disproving it lie in the rest of us? That latter would be silly, because we have to spend a lot of resources debunking each of these nonsense. Would you care to put your taxpayers dollars in proving each of the pharmaceuticals introduced into the market to be unsafe, or do you think the burden is on the pharmaceutical companies to prove that it is safe?

This is not someone waking up in the morning and decided to suddenly prove that "glubongola" doesn't exist out of think air. It is about people who make such claims showing that what they claim is valid. If the best that can be done is make the weak argument that such a thing can't be falsified, then it has automatically been shown that it cannot ever be confirmed to be valid because it is unfalsifiable! So you may think making such a statement is a way out, but it really is a condemnation of it!

My re-entrance into this thread was exclusively to help counter the notion that we can consider psychic phenomenon disproven because of Randi's test. This should not be construed as support for any a priori assumptions about anything on anyone's part.

And I came in because of the speculative nature that was used as the explanation for it!

You're changing the subject. That paragraph was presented to address this:

In other words it was presented to clear up the contradiction you felt existed between "shy" and making claims of psychic powers. I hope it cleared that up in your mind.

I don't see how that is changing the subject, when that has been the subject all along.

Zz.

 

[ThomasT]

If you think there may be something to it all, what you think is the best evidence for psychic phenomena?

When I have reviewed various claims of psychic phenomena, one thing that I have noticed is that some skeptics will correctly state that there is no known proof of claims of psychic events, while others will state that there is no evidence to support such claims. I take issue with the latter. I think there clearly is evidence, and some of the best evidence that I've seen comes from police reports.

Here is one example: The case of Etta Smith. ...

I have seen the investigator in the case interviewed and state that he believes her story. Obviously this can't be used as proof of anything, but to me this seems to be evidence. What more can we expect? She doesn't otherwise claim to be psychic. Even if the phenomenon is genuine, we can't assume that people like Smith have any control over this ability.

From the links provided, and my own short Google search, the only evidence for Smith's claim that she doesn't know the cause of her knowledge (her feeling, her vision, whatever) of the location of the body is Smith's claim, which isn't evidence for the truth of her claim.

'Psychic phenomena' seem to be defined, more or less, by the inability to specify (or a fuzziness regarding) the physical connections between psychics and their associated phenomena.

Wrt the case of Etta Smith, K.J.Healey asks some of the right questions, and provides some interesting details:

I have a question regarding information about the OP.
I read the information provided and I was wondering if you knew anything else about it such as :

Does she pass by the location of the body on her way to or from work, or during a routine day?

Was the body visible from the road? 400 feet isn't that far, you can easily make out a body at that distance.

The reason I ask is, perhaps she saw it on the previous day and subconsciously put two and two together and decided to check it out?

And on a side note, why would anyone bring children to a place where you might think there is a dead body?
...
Actually I just was looking around in google Earth for the locations, and if you use what is said in the articles:
She lives in Pacoima, CA
She works at Lockheed near Burbank (I assume they mean Lockheed Martin Info & Tech at 505. W. Woodbury Rd, Altadena, CA) Due to no other lockheed properties near (other than banks). (its basically burbank)

That means that everyday for work she drives both ways down I-210 to get from home to work. I-210 is also the main road that goes through Lakeview Terrace, the area that she found the body. If it was found 400 feet from I-210 I could see her glimpsing the body on her way to work that day, not knowing what it was, and thinking about it later.
Try putting those locations in google earth. Do a Lakeview Terrace, Burbank, CA to get some idea of where the "lakeview" area is in the foothills. Its not very large, and 210 goes right over the bottom of the "canyon", which is really just an old riverbed from the looks of it, at the bottom of the valley.

I'm not saying she isn't psychic, just that sometimes people remember things and, if they're intelligent enough, put it together in their head and check it out.

There are a few other possibilities as well -- none of which have been conclusively discounted afaik.

I'm forced to tentatively conclude that the Etta Smith case isn't an example of, or evidence for, 'psychic phenomena'.

But whether she's "a woman who cared too much" or was just playing the system, she did score (although not nearly as much as she and her attorney would have liked).
----------------------

There is no mind-matter interaction as you imply here. There is no entity called "mind" that exists in and of itself separate from matter. What we call "mind" arises from matter.

hmm.. so could I say this, as well?

There is no software-hardware interaction as you imply here. There is no entity called "software" that exists in and of itself separate from hardware. What we call "software" arises from hardware.

Yes. One might think of hardware as referring to some set of physical objects, and software as an encoding of the behavior of those objects. The behavior is encoded in various hardware configurations as either instructions or records.

 

[zoobyshoe]

As far as we know, people with paranormal abilities do not exist. Every time you do a well designed test, you don't see any anomalous effects. However, when you do not constrain psychics in the way they interact with their subjects, they seem to be able to tell things they couldn't possibly know. Part of this can perhaps be explained by the psychics getting indirect information from what the subjects are telling them. But non verbal communication presumably also plays a role.

It may be the case that people who seem to have psychic abilities in reality have abilities similar to savants, see e.g. here:

http://www.centreforthemind.com/publications/SavantNumerosity.pdf

E.g., there are people who can look at a screen with a large random number of dots and tell you within a second exactly how many dots there are. There are people who given a date can tell you within a second what day of the week that date falls. They don't consciously compute the answer in their heads. They'll tell you that when they hear a date they can "feel" what weekday corresponds to it.

Neurologists have some idea about how savants can have such abilities. It presumably has to do with them having access to lower level information that normal people don't have access to.

Now, you could imagine that psychics have savant like abilities when it comes to being able to read non verbal information from the faces of people. But then, just like a savant can "feel" the correct number of dots on the screen without counting them, a psychic simply feels the information when looking at his/her subject. They don't consciously do an effort to interpret the facial expressions to try to guess whatever information they are after.

So, to the psychic, it may feel like some ghost is giving him/her the information. They are then not (necessarily) charlatans in the sense that they are not consciously deceiving people; they really believe in their abilities.

I think you make some excellent points. Even if someone were to pass one of these tests with flying colors I'd be much more inclined to examine that in light of savant-like expertise than any sort of hitherto undetected energies or whatnot.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I think the point is that when you follow the scientific method, the hypothesis "psycic powers exist" is easily disproven. It is not the job of the skeptics to prove such powers do not exist, it is the job of the believers to prove that it does. The lack of complete and conclusive evidence that psychic powers do not exist cannot in itself be used as proof that such powers do exist.

It's fundamentally impossible to prove phycic powers do not exist for all cases, but its a moot point because there have been no cases that credibly and repeadedly show psychic powers do exist. Each case exposed to a repeatable environment and the scientific method is easily disproven.

Yes, I agree with all this.

 

[Mammo]

I appreciate what you are saying about the ability to distort statistics with bias towards a prior expectation of experimental results. If the seminar discussed the experiment I described earlier, did you see the film footage of the people during investigation? The lady in question was quite clearly reacting to something and looking repeatedly towards the mirror. It is this kind of evidence which is very subjective. Obviously it will never pass a 'scientific study', especially if the investigators are trying to debunk the possibility of psychic awareness. Your viewpoint is very standard and easy to understand, but there are people who have experiences which aren't readily explained by the scientific world view. It should also be remembered that science doesn't know everything, and there is a distinct possibility that the standard model will be debunked itself in the forthcoming LHC (large Hadron Collider) experiment.

Zapper Z;
You didn't answer my question regarding your parapsychology seminar. I assume it was a similar two-way mirror experiment. Was the film footage of the individuals who reported having a feeling of being watched shown? Or was it simply statistics that was discussed?

 

[ZapperZ]

Zapper Z;
You didn't answer my question regarding your parapsychology seminar. I assume it was a similar two-way mirror experiment. Was the film footage of the individuals who reported having a feeling of being watched shown? Or was it simply statistics that was discussed?

It was simply statistics being discussed. She brought up several different areas of paranormal studies and showed statistics to try to convince the audience of the validity. It wasn't very convincing because I walked away from it even more skeptical, and with the idea that these people do not know how to do statistical analysis.

The thing here is that, in physics, and especially high energy physics, we know very well how to look for extremely small, minute events. When you have a gazillion interactions and you only get... what... 7 top quark events, that's very, very small! So we know how to look for them and we know how to make sure they are there, rather than some background noise or random events. That's why many claims of the existence of something requires at least 5 sigma confidence. There doesn't seem to be the same level of care in paranormal studies in reporting the statistics, at least, not from this particular talk.

I'd say that she was lucky that she presented this in front of a general audience. If this was done, say, in front of scientists/physicists, she would have been chewed alive!

Zz.

 

[Mammo]

It was simply statistics being discussed. She brought up several different areas of paranormal studies and showed statistics to try to convince the audience of the validity. It wasn't very convincing because I walked away from it even more skeptical, and with the idea that these people do not know how to do statistical analysis.

The thing here is that, in physics, and especially high energy physics, we know very well how to look for extremely small, minute events. When you have a gazillion interactions and you only get... what... 7 top quark events, that's very, very small! So we know how to look for them and we know how to make sure they are there, rather than some background noise or random events. That's why many claims of the existence of something requires at least 5 sigma confidence. There doesn't seem to be the same level of care in paranormal studies in reporting the statistics, at least, not from this particular talk.

I'd say that she was lucky that she presented this in front of a general audience. If this was done, say, in front of scientists/physicists, she would have been chewed alive!

Zz.

Thanks for that. I know what you are saying about the general lack of scientific ability of people who promote the psychic phenomenon. Despite this, I still believe there is a case for some people being subconsciously aware of being stared at. You'll never be convinced of this, and that's fine with me. My hairdresser believes in the 'awareness of being watched phenomenon' incidentally.

 

[ZapperZ]

Thanks for that. I know what you are saying about the general lack of scientific ability of people who promote the psychic phenomenon. Despite this, I still believe there is a case for some people being subconsciously aware of being stared at. You'll never be convinced of this, and that's fine with me. My hairdresser believes in the 'awareness of being watched phenomenon' incidentally.

But does she know that she's being watch EACH time? How can she tell if she has missed something, because obviously the times that she didn't realize she was stared at did not count as a "failed" data point. So of course she thinks she has the ability without realizing how many other times she didn't have such awareness.

Zz.

 

[zoobyshoe]

You cannot prove an infinite number of other speculation as well because they are non-testable. However, since there HAS been claimed of "psychic phenomena", do you think the burden of proof is on those who make such a claim, or the burden of disproving it lie in the rest of us? That latter would be silly, because we have to spend a lot of resources debunking each of these nonsense. Would you care to put your taxpayers dollars in proving each of the pharmaceuticals introduced into the market to be unsafe, or do you think the burden is on the pharmaceutical companies to prove that it is safe?

This is not someone waking up in the morning and decided to suddenly prove that "glubongola" doesn't exist out of think air. It is about people who make such claims showing that what they claim is valid. If the best that can be done is make the weak argument that such a thing can't be falsified, then it has automatically been shown that it cannot ever be confirmed to be valid because it is unfalsifiable! So you may think making such a statement is a way out, but it really is a condemnation of it!

I understand and accept burden of proof. It's what my initial casual support of Mammo's point was about. Zelos made this claim:

there is a prize to the one who can prove phsycic phenomena under controlled enviorments, none have even tried even when they have advertised it. This means that no one tries becuase they know they will fail (if someone has tried without my knowledge they did fail cause none have been reported sucesfull)

"No one tries because they know they will fail". This is a claim. The burden of proof of that claim, by your own standards, is on zelos, or you, if you support his claim, to prove that all who won't take the test won't take it for the reason that they know they will fail. Would you care to step in for zelos and prove to me that this is the only possible motivation for not taking the test? I think you should because you objected to Mammo's suggestion there might be other reasons for not taking the test, calling that suggestion speculative. If that suggestion is speculative then you must have some proof that the only reason people won't take the test is because they know they will fail. The issue is motivation. There has been a claim made about motivation.

I don't think that claim should be unchallenged because, from my extensive (relative to you) reading on the subject of mysticism, I am aware that there are people who claim psychic powers ("claim" in the informal manner described to you earlier), but who would not take such a test despite complete confidence (warranted or not) they would pass it.

And I came in because of the speculative nature that was used as the explanation for it!

And I came in because of the speculative nature of the explanation for why no one will take the test.

I don't see how that is changing the subject, when that has been the subject all along.

How someone can be described as shy and still make a claim for psychic powers has been the subject all along? That was only the subject of one exchange: you asserted they couldn't be that shy if they made such claims, I explained, but instead of addressing my explanation of how someone can be described as shy and still make claims for psychic powers you went off on a tangential discourse about how people's belief in such things is always speculative.

 

[Evo]

I understand and accept burden of proof. It's what my initial casual support of Mammo's point was about. Zelos made this claim:



"No one tries because they know they will fail". This is a claim. The burden of proof of that claim, by your own standards, is on zelos, or you, if you support his claim, to prove that all who won't take the test won't take it for the reason that they know they will fail. Would you care to step in for zelos and prove to me that this is the only possible motivation for not taking the test? I think you should because you objected to Mammo's suggestion there might be other reasons for not taking the test, calling that suggestion speculative. If that suggestion is speculative then you must have some proof that the only reason people won't take the test is because they know they will fail. The issue is motivation. There has been a claim made about motivation.

I don't think that claim should be unchallenged because, from my extensive (relative to you) reading on the subject of mysticism, I am aware that there are people who claim psychic powers ("claim" in the informal manner described to you earlier), but who would not take such a test despite complete confidence (warranted or not) they would pass it.


And I came in because of the speculative nature of the explanation for why no one will take the test.


How someone can be described as shy and still make a claim for psychic powers has been the subject all along? That was only the subject of one exchange: you asserted they couldn't be that shy if they made such claims, I explained, but instead of addressing my explanation of how someone can be described as shy and still make claims for psychic powers you went off on a tangential discourse about how people's belief in such things is always speculative.

My answer is that they could be charlatains. Why would you claim to be physics and refuse to be tested? Maybe because you're a fake? What could be the motivation to be tested? A million dollars seems like quite a motivation if you are the real deal.

Not saying that your scenario isn't possible, but if you thought you were really psychic, wouldn't the chance to make a million dollars at least tempt you to prove that you are for real?

 

[Mammo]

My answer is that they could be charlatains. Why would you claim to be physics and refuse to be tested? Maybe because you're a fake? What could be the motivation to be tested? A million dollars seems like quite a motivation if you are the real deal.

Not saying that your scenario isn't possible, but if you thought you were really psychic, wouldn't the chance to make a million dollars at least tempt you to prove that you are for real?

The Russian girl, mentioned earlier, did just that. The testing was devised by Randi and therefore biased to give a negative result, in my opinion. Anyone who saw this TV programme would surely be disuaded from trying themselves.

 

[zoobyshoe]

A million dollars seems like quite a motivation if you are the real deal.

Not saying that your scenario isn't possible, but if you thought you were really psychic, wouldn't the chance to make a million dollars at least tempt you to prove that you are for real?

The kind of people I'm referring to have strict moral codes of one kind or another. An Hassidic Rabbi, for example, would not take such a test despite full confidence they would pass it because they would consider it sinful to make money and acquire cheap fame by publically parading a sacred power from a divine source.

 

[Mammo]

But does she know that she's being watch EACH time? How can she tell if she has missed something, because obviously the times that she didn't realize she was stared at did not count as a "failed" data point. So of course she thinks she has the ability without realizing how many other times she didn't have such awareness.

Zz.

I understand what you mean, although he is quite technically minded, being an amateur military historian. BTW I've just remembered a book I read years ago, which I got from a local bookstore. It was about Russian KGB espionage experiments into 'mind control'. I was fascinated by the account of a top scientist reporting how he tested the ability of the general public being able to detect whether they were being watched by him from his high floor window. He said that only a few certain types of people responded, and that it didn't work on people in general. You'd have to read the book yourself of course to gauge an opinion.

The consequences of this possible phenomenon are far reaching. It would put a whole new angle on ufo experiences, for example.

 

[ZapperZ]

I understand what you mean, although he is quite technically minded, being an amateur military historian. BTW I've just remembered a book I read years ago, which I got from a local bookstore. It was about Russian KGB espionage experiments into 'mind control'. I was fascinated by the account of a top scientist reporting how he tested the ability of the general public being able to detect whether they were being watched by him from his high floor window. He said that only a few certain types of people responded, and that it didn't work on people in general. You'd have to read the book yourself of course to gauge an opinion.

The consequences of this possible phenomenon are far reaching. It would put a whole new angle on ufo experiences, for example.

But this remote sensing isn't new. Even the US military foolishly tried it during the cold war.

I believe Bob Park covered this aspect in his "Voodoo Science" book. If not, he certain has tackled it in his weekly "What's New" column. As with psychics, they never seem to work when being put under a systematic, controlled test.

Zz.

 

[Mammo]

But this remote sensing isn't new. Even the US military foolishly tried it during the cold war.

I believe Bob Park covered this aspect in his "Voodoo Science" book. If not, he certain has tackled it in his weekly "What's New" column. As with psychics, they never seem to work when being put under a systematic, controlled test.

Zz.

I don't believe in the 'remote viewing' idea because I can't imagine a mechanism that would work, nor have I seen anything that has convinced me of it even possibly being a real phenomenon. The 'sense of being watched' is different from all the other claims. A simple line of sight fits particle physics theory, and the grey matter of the brain could be the receiver. It's more logical compared to all the other claims of psychic ability. I believe that it should be thoroughly re-tested, although I know that not a single qualified scientist would dare venture into this territory. It's simply out of fashion for one thing. Old hat.

 

[ZapperZ]

I don't believe in the 'remote viewing' idea because I can't imagine a mechanism that would work, nor have I seen anything that has convinced me of it even possibly being a real phenomenon. The 'sense of being watched' is different from all the other claims. A simple line of sight fits particle physics theory, and the grey matter of the brain could be the receiver. It's more logical compared to all the other claims of psychic ability. I believe that it should be thoroughly re-tested, although I know that not a single qualified scientist would dare venture into this territory. It's simply out of fashion for one thing. Old hat.

But it HAS been tested! That talk that I attended mentioned such a thing. If this is real, we would have been inundated with news reports on this already.

Furthermore, there's a problem with using physics to justify such a thing. More often than not, it is a bastardization of physics when such a thing is used, meaning they take the superficial understanding of some principle of physics, but ignore others. Entanglement is often invoked by these mystics to justify a lot of their beliefs, but then they fail to considers other issues surrounding entanglement, such as how difficult it is to maintain coherence of the entangled particles with each other.

Invoking something out of physics to justify such a thing has never been a good tactic.

Zz.

 

[Mammo]

But it HAS been tested! That talk that I attended mentioned such a thing. If this is real, we would have been inundated with news reports on this already.

Furthermore, there's a problem with using physics to justify such a thing. More often than not, it is a bastardization of physics when such a thing is used, meaning they take the superficial understanding of some principle of physics, but ignore others. Entanglement is often invoked by these mystics to justify a lot of their beliefs, but then they fail to considers other issues surrounding entanglement, such as how difficult it is to maintain coherence of the entangled particles with each other.

Invoking something out of physics to justify such a thing has never been a good tactic.

Zz.

No, what I saw was the highest qualified UK parapsychologist make a sweeping statement that the phenomena doesn't exist, when I clearly saw evidence to suggest the contrary. It's all about bias and preconceived world-views. It would have been career suicide for the scientist to pursue the anomaly of the woman who reacted to being watched, which he himself said was interesting. But he chose not to, declaring that statistically it was proven that there was no effect.

The exploration of a physical mechanism for any claimed psychic ability is not bad practice. It should also be remembered that physics doesn't know everything, and the standard model may well be debunked itself in the forthcoming LHC experiment. Until then we will just have to wait. If the standard model is proven to be incorrect, then there will be sufficient motivation for the experiments to be repeated in detail. I believe that the implications are enormous, especially with regard to ufo experiences. It could be that cryptozoological bioluminescent 'things with wings' are responsible for giving any potential visitors from outerspace bad PR. This is something with worldwide implications.

 

[ZapperZ]

No, what I saw was the highest qualified UK parapsychologist make a sweeping statement that the phenomena doesn't exist, when I clearly saw evidence to suggest the contrary. It's all about bias and preconceived world-views. It would have been career suicide for the scientist to pursue the anomaly of the woman who reacted to being watched, which he himself said was interesting. But he chose not to, declaring that statistically it was proven that there was no effect.

The exploration of a physical mechanism for any claimed psychic ability is not bad practice. It should also be remembered that physics doesn't know everything, and the standard model may well be debunked itself in the forthcoming LHC experiment. Until then we will just have to wait. If the standard model is proven to be incorrect, then there will be sufficient motivation for the experiments to be repeated in detail. I believe that the implications are enormous, especially with regard to ufo experiences. It could be that cryptozoological bioluminescent 'things with wings' are responsible for giving any potential visitors from outerspace bad PR. This is something with worldwide implications.

Let me, once and for all, straighten out this "standard model" crap with the LHC. If they don't find the Higgs, the standard model DO NOT GET SCRAPPED!

That's like saying we throw away Newtonian mechanics just because it has been shown to be not valid everywhere. You will note that many Higgless models also use almost everything that was known using the Standard Model. Many of the theorists that I talk to at work have ready alternatives without the Higgs, and NONE of them has ever said that the Standard Model will be gone, especially when they use the very same parameters out of it. The standard model didn't topple when we found the neutrino oscillation. Why? Because how we got the mixing angle out of it came with the help of the Standard Model itself!

Secondly, this isn't the issue of physics not being able to explain everything. It is the issue of bastarding physics principle as justification to validate such paranormal claims. It means that if the physics is wrong, then those who make claims based on it are even in deeper crap in terms of valid justification. Your "line of sight with particles" will collapse if your based your justification on the physics involved. So now you have no more valid justfication.

Zz.

 

[jostpuur]

Ivan Seeking, aren't you being excessively aggressive against Randi with that argument about magician being a different from a scientist? I don't think that anyone in particular has confused JREF with a scientific source. There has not been such explicit statement, at least. Also, indeed, for example I used a wording "scientific journals also", indicating that scientific journals are different from possible Randi's reports.

Is there something suspicious about Randi's power to accept and reject who ever he wants? Scientific journals also choose who they allow to publish, but you don't have problem with that?

So (even though I probably wasn't very careful intentionally, originally, frankly) my post did not contain an implicit assumption that JREF would be a scientific source (anyway).

But isn't Randi's challenge highly relevant still, concerning the scientific data? If somebody (or some group) proves, in controlled circumstances, the existence of psychic abilities, publishes measurements about this phenomena in credible scientific journal, then this person (or group) will also get the Randi's prize. So we can deduce, that since nobody has claimed the Randi's prize, hence nobody has published proof about existence of psychic abilities in a credible scientific journal. This deduction does not rely on a false assumption that JREF would be a university or college, or something else which it is not.

So Randi's challenge has the positive effect, that if somebody talks about existence of scientific data of psychic abilities, I don't need to start going through some journals to check those claims myself.

I am interested to to know if there are people who have published in credible journals, and feel being ignored by the Randi.

While I applaud Randi for his debunking of charlatans, he is not a scientific resource and his challenge means nothing.

The forum rules clearly define what is acceptable as a scientific reference, and what's not. These rules apply to every forum at PF. Only papers published in an appropriate, mainstream, peer-reviewed journal, may be used as a scientific reference.

Just to be clear, this is not a point for discussion. The rules are the rules, and there is nothing special about Randi except that he has a million dollars to lose.

Your opinion that Randi's challenge means nothing, is you own, and is not in particular protected by the forum rules. You should not attempt to create confusion between your opinions, such as this, and forbidden discussion topics.

 

[Count Iblis]

I found this article:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.0382

Published in some obscure, pseudoscientific journal.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Your opinion that Randi's challenge means nothing, is you own, and is not in particular protected by the forum rules. You should not attempt to create confusion between your opinions, such as this, and forbidden discussion topics.

What you are really objecting to is that I won't make a special exception to the rules for Randi. The rules apply to all forums. If you don't accept them, you can leave.

 

[Count Iblis]

If Randi isn't good enough, will Prof. Dr. G. 't Hooft do?

http://www.phys.uu.nl/~thooft/parabet.html

 

[Pythagorean]

I've never really read in depth about the psychology of professional "hit" men but I think it's safe to assume that because their motives are completely different you'd find a completely different way of handling the body.

You might be interested in this interview. There's "naturals" who don't have a fear response (like The Iceman) who are actually physically/chemically born without the adrenal fear response. The psychological profiler mentioned that people like this can be useful to society to, in jobs like firefighting and police work. Here's the interview with him:

A quote from the show "Richard Kilenski is not a serial killer."

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5740692213665972395

But then I think the kids who are raised into it and get desensitized and repress their feelings about it as a survival mechanism are a bit different and more susceptible to emotional decisions.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

If Randi isn't good enough, will Prof. Dr. G. 't Hooft do?

http://www.phys.uu.nl/~thooft/parabet.html

Only papers published in a mainstream academic journal may be used as a scientific reference. That is a minimum requirement in all forums.

Consider this: We don't allow the JSE to be used as a scientific reference either, but it is peer-reviewed [by scientists]!
http://www.scientificexploration.org/

One can hardly cry foul over Randi.