Is Psi Real? A Look at the Evidence and Controversy Surrounding Psi Research

[cd27]

is there any proof for psionics?

cd

 

[Smasherman]

http://www.randi.org/research/index.html

Until someone passes this test, I'd say no.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

James Randi is hardly the definitive measure of fact and fiction. I would stick with science.

 

[Smasherman]

I'm just saying that there's a one-million-dollar prize (an excellent incentive), but no-one has claimed it*. Of course scientific papers and such would be a better method, but I don't have links to those.

cd, here's a link to a site that offers information on psychic stuff. They have no real credibility, but if you're looking for hands-on proof, this is probably a good place to go**.

http://www.psipog.net/

I have a few personal experiences that suggest the existence of ESP and one experience that makes it ludicrous for me to disbelieve ESP.*I read the requirements and it's fully conceivable that they just turn down real psionics.

**I recommend getting a neutral third-party to witness anything you do, once you can (or believe you can) do something psychic. I've practiced some and would say that I've done “something”, but it could very easily be self-delusion.

 

[cd27]

yea, I've been to psipog, pretty good site. i have to had some experiences.

cd

 

[zoobyshoe]

"Psionics"? First time I've ever heard the word. What is it? Ebonics with a paranormal flavor?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I'm just saying that there's a one-million-dollar prize (an excellent incentive), but no-one has claimed it*. Of course scientific papers and such would be a better method, but I don't have links to those.

Btw, that was just a personal comment and not spoken as a moderator. I think Randi is given far too much credit. I won't get into this again, but just for starters, as long as he gets to pick and choose who is eligible, right then and there I think that discredits him as an objective source - not to mention the million bucks on the line!

 

[SGT]

James Randi is hardly the definitive measure of fact and fiction. I would stick with science.

Do you think Dr. Susan Blackmore and Dr. Richard Wiseman are good enough scientists?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Who gets to pick the candidates for the test?

I can point to Ph.D's at Amway too.

 

[zoobyshoe]

James Randi is hardly the definitive measure of fact and fiction. I would stick with science.

What Randi does is expose and deflate frauds on the lines of, say, Uri Geller. None of these people can pass his test and collect his prize money because they're frauds.

Whether or not psychic powers exist there are people out there fostering a belief in it so that they can exploit that belief. I don't think you should be implying there's something not kosher about Randi for his efforts to expose these people.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Well, that's not all he does, but that is who he picks for his million dollar prize competition. As far as I'm concerned he is a plague on the spirit of science and discovery. This, because he is an angry man with an agenda.

 

[SGT]

Who gets to pick the candidates for the test?
I can point to Ph.D's at Amway too.

Do those Ph.D's research paranormal phenomena? The ones I mentioned, do.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Well, that's not all he does, but that is who he picks for his million dollar prize competition. As far as I'm concerned he is a plague on the spirit of science and discovery. This, because he is an angry man with an agenda.

I wish you could find the E-Mail you sent him that ticked him off. I'd be interested to read it.

 

[Smasherman]

Btw, that was just a personal comment and not spoken as a moderator. I think Randi is given far too much credit. I won't get into this again, but just for starters, as long as he gets to pick and choose who is eligible, right then and there I think that discredits him as an objective source - not to mention the million bucks on the line!

Oh, ok. See, I give people links to the million dollar prize and psipog when they show an interest. Both sides of the issue, I suppose.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

http://www.dprogram.com/twin_telepathy.html

Here is the first article I could find regarding this. It's about an experiment that supposedly can prove "Twin Telepathy".
Has anyone else heard much about this?
I'll see if I can find more on this in a minute if I can.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=56884

Actually there's even a thread I already posted in on Telepathy with a link to this article that I had forgotten about. The discussion on it didn't really go any where. Maybe I should start my own thread.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

http://www.tv.com/proof-positive/episode-10/episode/368913/summary.html

Apparently a show on Sci Fi called Proof Positive ran a show on twin telepathy with an experiment. It apparently came out positive with at least one of the four sets of twins used. I haven't been able to find out if they used the same polugraph experiment or not since I am having trouble finding a description of what exactly happened on the show.

 

[SGT]

http://www.dprogram.com/twin_telepathy.html
Here is the first article I could find regarding this. It's about an experiment that supposedly can prove "Twin Telepathy".
Has anyone else heard much about this?
I'll see if I can find more on this in a minute if I can.

Someone should research why paranormal phenomena work so well in uncontrolled tests and so poorly in controlled ones.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Someone should research why paranormal phenomena work so well in uncontrolled tests and so poorly in controlled ones.

Someone might want to actually run this as a controlled experiment considering that I haven't found any other mentions of it anywhere else except for the three that weren't controled.

 

[WingsOfChaos]

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/stargate.htm"

and James Randi is an idiot. and if you're using his challenge as an argument against psychic skills, then you should also be using http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=67&kws=250,000" as evidence against evolution, but since evolution has been pretty much proven, that means it's the challenge that's BS.

 

[ZapperZ]

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/stargate.htm"

and James Randi is an idiot. and if you're using his challenge as an argument against psychic skills, then you should also be using http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=67&kws=250,000" as evidence against evolution, but since evolution has been pretty much proven, that means it's the challenge that's BS.

James Randi isn't the ONLY one who has challenged "psychic skills". Bob Park, who is a very respected senior physicist at UMD, has also blasted away several of the so-called "proofs" of psychic ability in his "Voodoo Science" book. If you think you have valid scientific rebuttal for everything he has shown, I'd like to see you publish that in a peer-review journal.

How the methodology connects with "evidence against evolution" escapes me.

BTW, are you aware that you're resurrecting a rather old, dead thread?Zz.

 

[WingsOfChaos]

ah, no I wasn't aware of that. I didn't think it would matter as no one seemed to have brought up project stargate's success, also Nina Kulagina successfully stopped a frog's heartbeat (should I say allegedly?) using telekinesis, the thing is a frog's heartbeat won't stop until a good while after it's dead, which is what makes this so interesting, in my opinion, psychic skills are one of those things rejected by modern science despite fair amounts of evidence, like cold fusion... I'm sure you'll ask for evidence for cold fusion... actually, if you didn't, I'd think you were a moron, as most scientists reject it.

so here http://www.ornl.gov/info/press_releases/get_press_release.cfm?ReleaseNumber=mr20020305-00 a few
links

I realize it doesn't have anything to do with psychic abilities, I'm just saying modern science is wrong quite a bit. It probably always will be wrong sometimes.

http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/air2.html

hm... I think I won't be back here for a while, I might check on your reply, but I'm not going to constantly argue on this, I have better things to do than try to convince people of things that they don't want to believe in, I only did this because I was bored at the time.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

From what I understand, the real debate about any alleged proof of so called psionics lies in the use of meta-analysis.

Also, please do not jump from one subject to another. This only discredits your efforts to make any point at all.

From the Credible Anomalies Napster, post #19: The Anomaly Formerly Known As Cold Fusion
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=58374

There is credible controversy over the proper explanation for the results obtained by various groups.

DOE Report: Dec 1st, 2004
http://www.science.doe.gov/Sub/Newsroom/News_Releases/DOE-SC/2004/low_energy/CF_Final_120104.pdf

Reviewers comments
http://newenergytimes.com/DOE/2004-DOE-ReviewerComments.pdf

Scientific Papers Selected for the 2004 U.S. Department of Energy Cold Fusion Review
http://www.newenergytimes.com/doe/7papers.htm

2005 APS March Meeting
Monday–Friday, March 21–25, 2005; Los Angeles, CA

Session U33 : Cold Fusion

http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR05/SessionIndex/55/?SessionEventID=28515

Any discussion about Cold Fusion should be continued in a new thread.

 

[russ_watters]

I didn't think it would matter as no one seemed to have brought up project stargate's success

Success is a matter of opinion. I look at that link and see a worthless boondoggle. The alleged successes are just statistical anomalies: make enough guesses and eventually everyone wins the lottery. From the article:

In 1984 the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council evaluated the remote viewing program for the Army Research Institute. The results were unfavorable.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Russ, I have had contact with one of the grand masters of remote viewing - allegedly ex-CIA[?] Ed Dames - and let's just say that you and I would likely find much agreement when it comes to Dames. However, if remote viewing worked, do you think the government would make this public? Considering the military value of such an ability, I would expect this to be a most highly classified subject.

 

[russ_watters]

Certainly, but what do intel services put more effort into hiding, big successes or embarassing failures?

 

[turbo]

The older brother of one of my closest friends has been working for a "group" in MD for about 40 years studying paranormal abilities. He's pretty closed-mouthed about the details, but my gut feeling is that some black-budget agencies are using discretionary money to keep these bases covered. It's like the people who claim to have prescient abilities. If even a tiny percentage of these claims are true, the phone calls to the authorities should have spiked like crazy in the days before 9-11. Guessing and Monday-morning quarterbacking fuel these nutty claims. 'Nuff said.

 

[WingsOfChaos]

whatever... I think this'll be my last reply in this thread, I've had many dreams that literally came true, but I doubt that would convince you. See you around, people. of course, I don't want e-mails from people, so if anyone wants to actually try it before calling it BS then... http://www.psipog.net" skeptics are welcome on the forums, provided they are real skeptics, and not jackasses. I hope to see some of you there, but just so you know, not everyone there is intelligent, so be warned, we do get a lot of morons.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

If even a tiny percentage of these claims are true, the phone calls to the authorities should have spiked like crazy in the days before 9-11.

I don't think this is necessarily true. It presupposes the limits of control of such abilities. In particular, it supposes that ability is enhanced by subjective interpretations of significance.

 

[turbo]

I don't think this is necessarily true. It presupposes the limits of control of such abilities. In particular, it supposes that ability is enhanced by subjective interpretations of significance.

On the contrary, if precognition is real, the after-the-fact claims that "I knew this disaster would happen" would have have been preceded by a big spike of warnings prior to 9/11. There were no such warnings, and there is no such thing as precognition.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

On the contrary, if precognition is real, the after-the-fact claims that "I knew this disaster would happen" would have have been preceded by a big spike of warnings prior to 9/11. There were no such warnings, and there is no such thing as precognition.

Not at all. Any after the fact claims only speak to those claims. Again, what reason do we have to believe that we should expect any more precognitive events as per 911 than on any other day?

Also, do you run down to the local TV station if you have a dream that something is going to happen?

Finally, how do you know that there were no claims in advance? If on 9/10 I told my brother what was going to happen on 9/11, would that constitute proof now? Would you even know?

 

[setAI]

I am a big fan of skeptics like Penn and Teller and James Randi- they go after the charlatans and fakes- but I think they-like many uber-reductionists have thrown the baby out with the bathwater- or as Richard Dawkins would say they have missed the perinormal while trying to debunk the paranormal [that is more subtle- more general but measurable 'Psi' effects- not magical feats but subtle environmental signals and modulation of random observations- consider that the SAME neural responses against chance are found in WORMS as in humans! no special powers for the talking monkey!]

I would recommend reading Dean Radin's new book http://www.deanradin.com/NewWeb/EMblurbs.html - it contains references and data from huge quantities of peer-reviewed experiments that show there is something to Psi- the references and hard data here is very impressive- take out the questionable and biased experiments and you are still left with a mountain of rigorously controlled experiments

one of the main points of the book is how for many decades there has been a HUGE amount of experimental data that was not cooked or biased that shows undisputable results against chance- but even when this stuff is published and acknowledged it is still ignored by the mainstream as if the discoveries were never made!

so you still hear the old "extraordinary proof" spiel even though there HAS been many many peer-reviewed experiments that provide just that! and have been published in the right publications- but were simply ignored- not disputed- ignored-

another illuminating thing: there were a number of Ganzfield and RNG-PK experiments using random number generators that were essentially the same experimental framework as the Bell Inequality experiments- yet Bell's Inequalities are the foundation of quantum mechanics- yet the SAME EXPERIMENTS merely NAMED differently- in reference to psi research are ignored entirely- yet they show the same results- yet neither set of experiments claim any interpretation of the data- it's only the stigma of the paranormal that seems to make these findings ignored-

pretty shameful- especially from sciences that are quite incomplete and ignorant of the systems they study [namely psychology / neuroscience and the micro scale physics where quantum and classical dynamics meet]-

of course one must avoid 'quantum flapdoodle' like "what the bleep" like the plague- yet at the end of the day we must recognize that all the arguments against Psi are based on classical physics- which are unphysical approximations- and that the Schrödinger Equation shows that a quantum system is in a superposition until observed- but what is the ultimate nature of an observer ? I think that 'existential feedback' of trying to pin-down a single observer out of the complex interactions of a trillion synaptic connections abstractly interacting with the environment may offer more insights to Psi than anti-flapdoodlers will wish to admit!
Psi doesn't work in a classical world- but we DON'T LIVE in a classical world-