Precognition paper to be published in mainstream journal

[JaredJames]

In the meantime, I won't dismiss the possibility there is something to ESP. But, that's just me.

Well the way I'm seeing it, since the 1700's (you picked the number, might as well run with it), there's been only a handful of papers published supporting ESP. All the other research has come up with nothing.

Now on a weighing scale of pro / anti, pro really isn't pulling it's weight in the evidence department.

 

[dm4b]

... studying the "Idiots guide to String theory" is not even CLOSE to weird on this forum.

well, darn, I'll have to try harder ;-)

(Can't blame me, seeing as your intro here went straight for the kill.)

sweet, I love making a good 1st impression.

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If you guys must know more, I took QFT in school but did not get to String Theory. I started studying it on my own via Tong's book (more like pamphlet) and Zwiebach's book. I'm currently on Quantizing the Closed String.

So, yeah, I am an amateur at best when it comes to String Theory, but I think it's plenty to attest to the fact that I think it is "valuable".

 

[nismaratwork]

well, darn, I'll have to try harder ;-)



sweet, I love making a good 1st impression.

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If you guys must know more, I took QFT in school but did not get to String Theory. I started studying it on my own via Tong's book (more like pamphlet) and Zwiebach's book. I'm currently on Quantizing the Closed String.

So, yeah, I am an amateur at best when it comes to String Theory, but I think it's plenty to attest to the fact that I think it is "valuable".

You can't try harder without taking powerful drugs or being genuinely delusional. Believing in ESP or aliens isn't even a negative here if you stick to the "rules of evidence"... the real crackpots tend to be mopped up very rapidly by our kindly neighborhood Ivan.

By the way, nothing wrong with being an amateur.

 

[dm4b]

Well the way I'm seeing it, since the 1700's (you picked the number, might as well run with it), there's been only a handful of papers published supporting ESP. All the other research has come up with nothing.

Now on a weighing scale of pro / anti, pro really isn't pulling it's weight in the evidence department.

What handful of papers? references please! and from respectable mainstream scientific journals? I know of one - Bem's. I'd like to know of more ... but just don't.

All research has not come up with nothing. At least say it came up with something, but you believe the methods used invalidate the data and therefore the conclusions claiming there was something. Because to say that all other research has come up with nothing is not factually correct.

I follow the work of some organizations like Edgar Mitchell's Institute of Noetic Sciences, and they have done plenty of work along the same lines of and as convincing as Bem's. (But, none of it published in a mainstream scientific journal)

Like, what did Bem get ... a 53.2% chance. So, pretty darn close to nothing ... but not quite ;-)

And you won't get an argument from me on pulling weight ... even if Bem's work gets validated ... I'm still not sure 53.2% (or w/e it was) is enough for me to buy into it.

 

[nismaratwork]

I find the most telling test to be the lack of takers for Randi's challenge. You'd think someone would be in for a cool million USD if they weren't just a bit of Geller.

 

[JaredJames]

What handful of papers? references please! and from respectable mainstream scientific journals? I know of one - Bem's. I'd like to know of more ... but just don't.

Actually I only know of bems, but I put a few because I figured someone would call me on it (saying there's only one). If there is, then it's just the one.

All research has not come up with nothing. At least say, it came up with something, but you believe the methods used invalidate the data and therefore the conclusions claiming there was something. Because to say that all other research has come up with nothing is not factually correct.

If your methodology is flawed, your findings are flawed. AKA, you've come up with nothing.

Like, what did Bem get ... a 53.2% chance. So, pretty darn close to nothing ... but not quite ;-)

Frankly a 3% chance is too low for my liking. There was nothing I saw in the paper that suggested anything psychic (heck one of the tests was recall words).

 

[dm4b]

If your methodology is flawed, your findings are flawed. AKA, you've come up with nothing.

Unfortunately, it never seems to be that black and white. Have you seen the back and forth between Bem and Wagenbacher on the (lack of) use of Bayesian statistics, because it's a good example?

You've got expert statisticians on both sides, one side saying the methodology is sound and the other saying it is flawed. Bem got positive results, but one side says it's nothing, while the other says it's something.

There are several studies that have been sitting around for a while, that have not been this heavily scrutinized. So, I don't think enough has been done to say the methodology is definitely flawed on these past studies. Bem cites some of them in his paper.

Maybe the attention Bem has drawn will put these old cases to rest too, one way or the other.

There was nothing I saw in the paper that suggested anything psychic (heck one of the tests was recall words).

Well, it dealt with retrocausality though, so it wasn't simple recall

 

[Darken-Sol]

i do a little mixed martial arts. there's times when i "know" what's coming upwards of around a full second ahead of time. i can percieve, process, and react to the danger in about a third of a second. the thing is i can have a knee in some ones guts for about a second before they even realize that their punch never connected. some of it seems like precognition, and some reflex delay. perhaps i only suspect the strike. there are also times when i "know" i am going to take a hit. i don't even bother reacting to avoid it anymore, it seems futile. is this precognition? i know not. i wish it worked for the lotto though.

 

[JaredJames]

i do a little mixed martial arts. there's times when i "know" what's coming upwards of around a full second ahead of time. i can percieve, process, and react to the danger in about a third of a second. the thing is i can have a knee in some ones guts for about a second before they even realize that their punch never connected. some of it seems like precognition, and some reflex delay. perhaps i only suspect the strike. there are also times when i "know" i am going to take a hit. i don't even bother reacting to avoid it anymore, it seems futile. is this precognition? i know not. i wish it worked for the lotto though.

No, you are simply using your knowledge to make decisions.

You are pre-empting a strike and taking action or choosing not to.

Weighing up all factors involved, generating in your head what you consider to be the "best" solution giving what you consider to be the outcome of choice.

Put simply, once you have enough experience in a subject, you can apply that knowledge and make judgements. Nothing mystical or precognitive, just knowing your field well.

Please note, this thread isn't about discussing precognition.

 

[Pythagorean]

Our brains, and especially our visual system, specialize in prediction. They're not always right though, and if you know the mechanisms, you can easily trick it (optical illusions are such an example).

As for martial arts, there's telegraphing; opponent generally reveal their next move up to a second ahead of time with facial expressions and muscle tensing. If you've spent long enough sparring, you may "subconsciously" be able to predict motion from these cues.

But there's no magic here, your brain is making predictions from sensory input based on previous experiences with those sensory patterns.

 

[Darken-Sol]

i wasn't trying to hijack the thread. i figured in the case of fighting i was just thinking faster. back to the paper, i think if the tests were set to show pics at a certain interval, then with a fraction of a second delay the results could be faked.

 

[Jack21222]

http://www.badscience.net/2011/04/i...ill-do-anything-about-this-problem/#more-2024

A team of researchers has replicated the experiments, and found nothing. When they went to publish the results, they were rejected publication because they "never publish studies that replicate other work."

 

[pessimist]

so what's the latest on this?

 

[mheslep]

...

Edit: Also, here is a peer-reviewed paper that discusses many of the flaws in study design and bias discussed in this thread:
Ioannidis JPA (2005) Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. PLoS Med 2(8): e124. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124

I see that 2005 paper has 597 cites now, with downloads the highest in PLoS history. Ioannidis has really turned the lights on.

 

[moejoe15]

I see only 2 possible explanations for precognition (which I have experienced). The first is the future is fixed and we can occasionally glimpse it, the Akashic records. The second is that the future is in outline but isn't fixed, it can be seen but can also be changed.

The problem with the first alternative is that free will is an illusion and that our lives run a set course and we are just actors reading the lines. I don't like that possibility even though it would appear to us as if we do have free will because we don't know the future.

The second possibility is much more likely because almost any explicit prediction can either be changed or brought about. Some have. This is why real psychics, if they exist, don't give out explicit predictions as often as unclear ones. If predictions were always explicit they could be thwarted or made to come about, as the Jews did creating Israel.

What good would it be if Nostradamus was explicit? When he predicted that the king would be killed by a lance it wasn't explicit. If it was and the king decided not to joust the prophesy would not have come true, no one would have known that it would have and Nostradamus would be a footnote instead of a celebrated psychic.