Psipog

...On the other hand it seems like if they are right at least some of them would come forth and prove their powers to the world.

Jeremyhfht, Is it really likely that so many people would be mentally ill enough to thing they have powers?

Sean Connelly, the owner of Psipog says, "Before you make the psi ball, you have to decide where to make it. You can make it anywhere you want. You can make it in your hands, at your third eye, across the room, or in china!" If this is true it would be a very dangerous weapon. In that case if evil people get a hold of this power (say Al Queda) they can be very dangerous. Everybody should learn these skills then to protect themselves.

 

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...I've never seen such gross ignorance of metaphysics before.

Not only are you going, despite my earlier post warnings, into HOLLYWOOD territory, but you're judging the entire practice based on your fantasy assumption.

Screw this. I decline to comment further. The day people pull their head out of their asses to actually research something will be the day I die.

 

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People who don't value fantasy as much as truth are not likely going to bother with fantasy.

In the case of psipog, there is no 'what' to research... unless you mean human behavior, but that has kind of been done to death with respect to fantasy.

 

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Youre making appeals to reality as usall without really fully understanding what reality specifically constitues.
At best reality is really just the sum total of what we can agree exists and how it opperates, and even then we're only really dealing with aspects of reality that we can actually detect and decipher.
Therefore there's really no reason to talk about reality as if we know what it constitutes in absolute terms.

As i believe ive mentioned before i think youre falling into the trap of treating science as a closed book in which everything should fall under prosaic explaination.
I also get a strong sense of that enlightenment era reactionism and witchhunting over anything that might seem supertitious or 'paranormal' when i read your posts.
Which of course isnt really applicable anymore in a world where modern intellectual thought is comprised of people like Bohm and Whitehead who would have probably been shunned as mystics in the 1800s.

In short there's nothing remotely untenable about action at a distance or mediumless information exchange, we already know the universe offers up these avenues of expression as distinct options.
I think the problem is alot of people are still stuck in a kind of proto-science era of dogmatism and reactionary methods of enquiry which science has already begun to move on from.

 

Incorrect. This is a combination fo knowning some of what constitutes reality and what does NOT constitute reality.

Reality is agnostic to what human agreements are however you are quite correct in that we are only dealing with aspects of reality that we can gain visibility into.

There is no reason to use that as an excuse to entertain fantasy as being real.

Quantum mechanics is anything but prosaic. This is a matter of truth (or approximating it). We know humans have claimed fantastic abilities for eons. We know there is no evidence for such claims. We know that humans want such abilities to be true. We know that humans can value many other things above truth. Knowing this, it would seem that all fantastic paranormal ability claims are false; however, the door for evidence is always open as reality is the final authority on what is and what is not true.

Sometimes I like to burn retarded claims at the stake.

I have no problem with hypothesizing, speculating, theorizing, etc. PsiPog is an asserter of truth and is incorrect.

Humans cannot make energy balls, pass them by hand, or make them manifest in Tokyo. I am not saying that reality does not allow for phenomena that would appear fantastic to humans. Clearly it does. I am saying that humans have no fantastic abilities expressed in PsiPog.

Sometimes other people like to burn retarded claims at the stake too.

 

Again i think there's a huge inherent problem in talking about reality/fantasy in wholely black & white terms.
Some of what constitutes reality could simply be a set of blind alleys that modernism has lead us down.
By the same token, a considerable proportion of fantasy could simply be things that are currently explainable - but very real.
Basically there's a huge grey area inbetween fantasy and reality going on, and im unconvinced that black and white thinking will lead us towards anything other than dogmatism and irrationalism.

You as a humanbeing not recognising or noting the validity of collected evidence (which is of course your right) isnt the same as thing as - no evidence existing atall.

What we objectively know is that there is a great deal of evidence out there for psi ability (which i assume is what we're talking about here) and there is a distinct divide as to how compelling this evidence is (or not).

Well applying that logic - 'any' claim must be false, since there is always the potential to lie or indulge in what you would want to be true rather than what actually is.
I this type of logic is almost a kind of self-defeating pathological skepticsm which quickly degenerates into out right dismissal.
I think this type of thinking is ultimately impractical.

Did you used to be an avid believer in all things paranormal? it really seems like youre reacting against something from the past.
Could be wrong of course, just curious though.

Fair enough, i cant say im sold on these manifested 'balls of energy' either.

 

I agree and It doesn't apply to psipog.

There is no evidence to suggest that.

It only appears black and white when chreished beliefs are dismissed as hogwash.

There are mounds and mounds of evidence for OTHER things. Evidence of poor experimental controls. Evidence of human trickery. Evidence of self-deceipt. Evidence of human behavior.

I disagree. There is a great deal of evidence out there that is 'claimed' to be supportive of psi ability... and none of it does. It's not a matter of not being compelling... it's a matter of it not being supportive alltogether.

I would expand that 'logic' a little. Any claim which has been shown to be false and has no supportive evidence is false.

I did believe in 'God' and I think it was around the age of 11 or 12 that I grew out of it. Like I said, sometimes I just like to burn retarded ideas at the stake.

Well there's no evidence for their existence so it's not surprising

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Well actually there is, there's a great deal of phenomena which were once brushed off as fantasy which we now know are quite real.
Therefore we can infer that fantasy can often simply be misunderstood reality.

There's evidence for those things too yes, just as youd find in just about any other sphere of human interaction.

No this is the thing, it doesnt really matter whether you disbelieve in psi or not, compelling evidence is simply accepted as evidence which is 'statistically significant'.
Which means that that the data peaks over what normally would constitute random chance/insignificant data.
There are a number of psi experiments which offer up satistically significant data, if that doesn't compell you to consider the validity of psi phenomenon that's absolutely fine.
But that's not the same as no significant data existing atall - we have agreed upon criteria for what is and isnt statistically significant; it's entirely objective and has no basis atall in your own personal beliefs one way or another.

i.e. - Your interpretation of the data has no baring on it's objective statistical significance.

Youre vastly over-simplifying the complexity of the scientific method here i think.
Again it all seems like black and white thinking which doesnt really work in science.
Most experiments dont give 100% positive results or by the same token offer up 100% negative results. Most data occupies a subtle grey area which requires you to be agnostic rather than engaging in your own beliefs.

I dont really have a problem with that, but if you are going to dismiss retarded ideas i think you have to be convincing about it.
Telling everyone who experiences something anonmalous that theyre hallucinating while claiming that 'no evidence' exists for anything remotely weird i doubt is going to convince anyone.

 

Even Dawkins himself, a scientific fundamentalist if there ever was one, concedes this possibility http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqNueGGP_uE

Your stance on reality boils down to this: that which has not yet been conclusively proven by science is not true. Its completely simplistic, close-minded, and the opposite of scientific inquiry which requires that one have no arbitrary biases.

 

If you're referring to that pilot example then like I had originally asked... who was doing the brushing off?

It's not surprising that every double blind experiment performed to date has yielded no results.

There are flaws in those experiments. When dealing with human paranormal ability claims, you really have to isolate the claim (double blind is the only way to go).

The statistical significance is a result of experimental failures.

Existence of a claim is the easiest thing in the world to provide evidence for. If I claim to be able to play the piano, I can provide real evidence. If I claim to be able to move objects with my hands, I can provide real evidence. You get the point.

In the case of Psipog, I think it's more delusion than anomolous subjective experiences. There doesn't have to be any other argument than "show me the evidence". Claimers of fantastic paranormal human abilities will be around as long as human psychology remains as it is today and rather than entertain their ideas we should put an evidence filter in front of them.

 

Yep.

It's also incorrect. My stance is that reality is truth. If a person has a speculation, hypothesis, etc. then all is good. The moment a person passes of a fantasy as truth they are going to be met by "show me the evidence!"

 

The problem is you dismiss evidence when it doesn't fit into your preconceived notions about what constitutes reality.

 

No im not refering to sprites specifically im refering to any number of reported phenomena which have since been confirmed to be much more than sheer fantasy.
Pretty much all of the accepted arial phenomena we see in our skies today (apart from your garden variety thunder and lightening) where once dismissed as hoax or the product of an over-active imagination.
And yes this was actually scientists comming out with this stuff not just joe-public

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Quite simply and absolutely - not true.

Well this is the problem isnt it - any experiment that yields interesting results can simply be dismissed as being the end result of poor experiment design if you dont like the implications.

Essentially i think 'any' psi experiment that yealed positive results would for you (by definition) be the result of poor experimental design.
You wouldnt even have to look at the data of the experimental criteria to know that!

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I think grover was right, what ever it is your practicing it really isnt science, because your not really basing any of your beliefs on the scientific method atall. Youre really just using science as a sort of ineffectual prop for what you already hold to be true, when in alot of instances science doesnt actually agree with you atall.

Id be willing to bet you couldnt cite even one experiment off the top of your head with statistically significant results and show me how poor experimental design has lead to the results being skewed.

I agree, although in your case im not really sure what the point of gathering evidence would really be for (since you already have access to truths that lies outside of science).
Unless of course experimentalism here is just a round-about way of 'outing the fraudsters' which i suspect it might be.
In which case youre entering the pseudo-science world of the debunker who bases reality on little more that a set of assumptions and beliefs that he/she arrived at in their early teens.

 

If that's the case then it really didn't matter did it? Science (the process) is agnostic to what people think; therefore, the dismissers (supposedly scientists) were invalidated by reality.

Show me a single one then.

Well no. Looking at the experiment design and execution is what shows the flaws... not the results; however, because we know how much humans can screw things up in paranormal human ability experiments, positive results do become an indicator that the expriment was in fact flawed and follow up always uncovers the flaws.

Science explores the 'what'. There is simply no 'what' to explore in this case.

You are always welcome to ask for evidence of any claim I make and of course I will provide:

Charles Honorton's autoganzfeld studies. 35% rate vs. expected 'random chance' 25% hit rate. Biggest critical flaw: human communication (it was not double-blind).

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_n2_v60/ai_18960809

Gathering evidence provides strong insights into human psychology. How values and emotional needs often trump truth for example. It also filters in valid claims (ex. aerial phenomena). It also prevents valuable expriement time from being wasted when the 'what' is known human psychology disguised as a paranormal human ability.

 

I dismiss evidence that doesn't support the claim.

 

Ganzfeld experiments

We already went through this in the empathy thread here:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=18938&page=6

Posts 109 - 115 (in particular 115). The experiments were double-blind.

Here is what I said in post 115 for your convenience:
"Um, Crunchy I don't think you understand. The experimenter does not know what target has been selected. Get it, the experimenter is blind. Making the experiment double-blind.

If the experiment were single-blind then both the sender and experimenter would know what target had been selected. It is a double blind study., didn't you notice that the entire point of the article was to question if it was POSSIBLE(however farfetched) that the blindness of the experimenter had been compromised.

The name of the article is : "Exploring possible sender-to-experimenter acoustic leakage in the PRL autoganzfeld experiments - Psychophysical Research Laboratories." Basically their counterargument is that MAYBE the results supported the hypothesis because the experimenter was POSSIBLY picking up auditory clues from the sender in another room such as IF the sender WERE to stomp their feet (again absolutely no evidence this actually occured or that even if it did that that experimenter could hear it and correctly interpret what the sound meant. AND then after all that(assuming it occured at all) the receiver has to pick up on the experimenters cues to allow them to correctly guess. Give me a fucking break. More psuedo-science from the fundamentalists. There is not a single ACTUAL error or case of contamination that they can point to. Zero. Pure speculation.

-In related news anomalies in the fossil record provide further proof that Satan planted the dinosaur bones."

 

They were not double-blind (closer but not quite):

Yes we did go over it in that thread. The bottom line is there was auditory information communicated from the receiver to the sender & experimenter in real time and there were multiple opportunities for unconscious experimenter cueing (which have been shown to have large effects on psychological experiments). A double blind experiment cannot have any of that in any way or form. No communication, no opportunities for queuing, nothing.

 

Crunchy,
There was nothing found in the Ganzfeld experiments which compromised the experiments. That article is people coming up with theoretical things that could compromise an experiment if they occured. It has absolutely zero evidence that the experiment was in reality compromised. It's exactly the same as Christian Fundametalists looking for apparent possible anomalies in the evidence for evolution - total bullshit.

 

in the long run yes, but up untill that point the people reporting those phenomena have to put up with a tide of complete nonsense and name calling from people terminally unable to engage in the process of consideration and speculation.
There's really nothing wrong with saying the data is 'inconclusive' but there's something very wrong with scientific witch-hunts in which people are either branded liars or fantasists.

Quite an interesting experiment in recent times is where a group of researchers collaborated in an atempt to debunk homeopathy.
What in fact happened was that 3 out of 4 of the labs involved recorded statistically signifcant results, with (from what i remember) quite a few of the original naysayers eating some very humble pie after the data had been analysed.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_252/ai_n6160487

The interesting thing here is - i dont actually believe in homeopathy.
But the point is, i dont use that as a basis in which to go around claiming that 'no evidence exists for it'.
As i said earlier you cant use your own beliefs to make false claims about positive data being 'non-existant', no matter how much you would like that to be true.

Positive results would only be an absolute indicator of poor experiment control 'if' we knew with complete certainty that nothing remotely paranormally actually existed.

Ultimately if you want to invoke a flaw in the methodology you have to really point out exactly where you think the flaw is.
If you cant find any - then you have to assume there is no design flaw and accept the data as it is.

Well this is the thing you have to actually dedicate a certain degree of time and energy to probing the validity of claims.
Otherwise youre trapped in a tautological loop of 'there's no evidence because we dont believe there will be any evidence out there to find'.

Thanks! its a rather long article though, so im gonna have to continue reading it tomorrow in order to make any kind of intelligible remark on it

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Well i think youre right in as much as emotional need almost always gets in the way of experimentation.
Which is essentially the whole reason behind single-blind and double-blind testing. It's certainly an ongoing problem in science whatever you try and do to get around it.
What im not sure on is is what you mean by when you say the 'what' is simply disguised human psychology.
What 'what' are you refering to? if youre talking about telepathy then even alot of psychologists these days actually agree that there's something going on way behind cold reading and neuro linguistic programming, or any other form of known psychological trickery.

 

It's a small price to pay and vindication is utlimately theirs

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.

I agree and Psipog does not fall under 'inconclusive'.

Well homeopathy exists... that is a known

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. Whether it works or not depends on the specific "treatment". The article you provided shows that the treatment in question works... maybe not well... but enough to yield a minimal positive result. The chemical reactions that produce the results are not sentient so we can trust them. Either way, I think medical science is a much better and safer choice then using a system devoted to poison.

There has never been a positive paranormal result to my knowledge with solid double-blind exprimentation protocol behind it.

Thats fine as long as knowledge of human delusion from all the failed claims is used to avoid unnecessary time and energy re-invalidating of the "same old thing".

Agreed.

Psipog for example. Telekenesis, Pyrokensis, Clairvoyance, you name it. It is all human psychology disguised as objective phenomena.

Take any of the Psipog 'what's and that's what I am referring too. On the subject of 'telepathy' I think Quantum Quack has an interesting hypothesis of discreet information being sent by some people and received by others via pheremones... but it is a hypothesis... not a claim of existence.