Psipog

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by Vladimir, Apr 23, 2007.

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  1. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    There was verbal communication (definitive not theoretical) from the target to the sender/experimenter in real time. There were opportunities for cues between everyone (definitve not theoretical). The only thing that's theoretical is what might have happened within the confines of these circumstances. A real double-blind experiment would not have any of this. The positive results of auto-ganzfeld as opposed to ganzfeld were much lower and not surprisingly it was due to experimental process improvements. That should be a tipoff of just how much communication and cuing can affect an outcome. If the experiments had no inter-human communication using the "known" senses in pure double-blind environment then we would have some very minimal supportive data that humans achieved statistical significance... then the question would be come why and you're off to a whole new round of experiments that actually have a 'what' to examine. Even if that were to happen (which would surprise me), I have no doubt that the underlying reason would anything but 'paranormal'.

    I think you are confusing skepticism from Xian fundies. One group is saying "show me the evidence" (often "show me the self-evident evidence"). The other is saying "I value my belief over truth".
     
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  3. heliocentric Registered Senior Member

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    You think it's a small price for people to have their reputations destroyed and ruined whilst they sit around waiting for their day of 'vindication' - which they may never actually see in their lifetime? :bugeye:

    We might not agree on some things but you're obviously a reasonably rational person, surely you can see that labeling anything outside of known science as fraud, whimsy, and misconception is simply bad science.
    Infact id go as far as to say that it's not science atall - it's hysterical dogmatism.
    Real scientists generally have to put their own assumptions and belief to one side while investigating things which often dont have a shread of evidence in favour of them.
    The whole methodology of science relies on these 'little leaps of faith', simply aligning oneself with currently accepted truths and dimissing anything on the periphery of human understanding will not get us anywhere.



    Ah ok, so it's essentially subjective experience that you find troublesome - i understand your position a little better in that case.


    Well depends on what you actually mean by 'paranormal' certainly the homeopathy experiments i cited definitely fall into the realm of the paranormal for alot of people.
    Although if you're looking for something more psi related read up on Elizabeth Targ's statistically significant doubled-blinded prayer study - all done very proffesionally, and conforming to the doubled-blind standard.
    You might find this interesting too...
    So effectively psi researchers are doing far better, tightly controlled experiements than in any other area of science.

    Can you give an example of a failed claim?




    Well as me and grover have discussed it's fine if you want to believe that, but you really can't go around acting as if the entire scientific community both conforms and validates that view.
    Many psychologists certainly would not agree with you, i can confirm that ive spoken to a few on this subject personally.


    It's an interesting one - and yes if positive psi results always occured when the 'reciever' was in the same room as the subject then he might be onto something. Alas this is not the case, pheremones are a blind alley, but a good idea never the less.
    I think this all raises an interesting point though - and i really think this is the key issue that people can't accept about psi - the possibility of mediumless information exhange.
    I think 99 times out of a hundered this is what people are actually arguing against when tackling psi phenomenon.

    What's so puzzling about this view is that we objectively know the sending and the reciept of information via no known medium is entirely possible and does occur.
    It's been experimentally proven in quantum mechanics a dizzying number of times.
    So this all begs the question; if we know information can be exhanged without having to travel or be representated through a medium why is this argument even invoked?
    Are people really arguing against psi phenomena on the basis of actual science of on the basis of a set of assumptions they arrived at in their early teens?
    It seems more often than not people will argue on the basis of what they believe science says about reality - rather than what it actually does.
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2007
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  5. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    I think people have to be responsible with the claims they are making and understand how to communicate experience without issuing claim if they have no evidence.

    Of course and at the same time ignoring what we've learned about human psychology and not applying it as a claim filter is also bad science.

    Investigating an idea is simply a hypothesis. If there pre-exists hard contradictory evidence to the hypothesis then the investigation is probably
    an utter waste of time.


    Was that really a surprise?


    "any phenomenon that in one or more respects exceeds the limits of what is deemed physically possible according to current scientific assumptions."

    The Elizabeth Targ experiments used alot of subjective criteria to quantify the results (the experimental process would appear ok and the analysis relied on subjective criteria). More importantly, in the experiment not one prayed-for person's CD4 levels had improved and that is the hardest indicator of the immune system functionality.

    They have too. In fact any psychological experiments really need to be.

    Ask and ye' shall receive:

    http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=44374

    This isn't a matter of concensus. This is a matter of what is true.

    Well, I have yet to see 'psi' results occur at all

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    .

    IMO, people are arguing that other people's claims of psi ability are fantasy because they cannot back up their claims with evidence.

    This is a common mis-interpretation that even I shared at some point. Take quantum entaglement for example. If one of two entagled particles any distance apart changes direction the other one instantaneously does. This isn't the result of mediumless communication. It is the result of a particle relationship.

    I don't think that's the argument. I think this is just about claim without evidence.

    I think it's just absence of supportive evidence.

    That's a human condition and science is fortunately agnostic to that conidition

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  7. heliocentric Registered Senior Member

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    I think the onus is just as much on us (those without specific knowledge or experience of their claim) to remain level headed in assessing their judgment.


    I dont think i could argue with that; id for instance definitely be in favour of experts in cold reading and nlp to look over and get involved in discussing psi data.


    But the point is (comming back to what i initially first said infact) is that statistically significant data exists - which has both conformed to zero blind, single blind, and double blind experimentation.
    You really can't go around saying there's no evidence for psi phenomena, if you so wish then yes- go ahead and claim the evidence is flawed (even though we've established that psi experiments have the tightest controls of any other form of experimentation) but that is something entirely different from 'no evidence existing atall.


    So on this basis of this false claim, no other claims of this nature can be true?


    Couldnt agree more, which is why i think it's so important to discuss methodology for aquiring truth.


    To be honest, im probably lucky in this respect because ive seen alot - both first hand, second hand, and from writing reports/experiments etc.
    To honestly critique this sort of stuff i think it's so important to have a basic grounding in cold reading, body language cues, nlp, and hypnosis.
    Most of what i do come across admittedly 'can' be explained away, but there is a small proportion of people who exhibit abilities way beyond any known psychological mechanism or discipline.
    As i say this isnt just me saying this, ive spoken to experimental psychologists who earn more in a day than most people do in a month who completely agree with me.


    Id rather we critique any known evidence openly rather than me saying 'there is evidence!' and you saying 'no there isnt!'
    If we go down that road, then we have nothing more than a punch and judy act going on

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    'particle relationship' is a very nice linguistic turn of phrase to side-step the problem of information exhange faster than c.
    When you actually deconstruct the sentence... 'It is the result of a particle relationship.'
    You should be able to see that youre actually just explaining away a known phenomena, rather than trying to actually get to grips with it.
    If you tried to use a sentence frame like that within philosophy (where linguistics are continually scrutinised and torn apart) youd be called out on it in a second, you just cant get away with stuff like that anymore.

    Thankfully this layman view generally isnt adopted by philosophers or quantum physicists. What we either have is information located at the 'recievers' position already, or we have higher dimensional realities beyond our grasp where the two particles you could say - occupy the same local space.
    Which would actually explain and solve the problem of faster than light travel.





    See my earlier comment about punch and judy - clearly we cant continue along the 'there is evidence/there isnt evidence' line anymore.


    That's debatable it may be it might not be - empirisicm has alot of conceptual holes it in as a viable process.
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2007
  8. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    That's all good so long as we're learning from the deluded and not wasting our time repeating the mistake of giving the deluded valuable time again.

    Experts? Doesn't there have to be a 'what' for skill prevelance?


    The subjective data is significant in your example. The objective data is not and that's the data that really matters.

    Psi experiments have collected lots of evidence for human behavior... not Psi. That's the way it is. Don't you find it odd that Psi claims are phenomena that should be self-evidence yet there is nobody who can demonstrate this self-evidentness?

    On the basis of the psychology behind this claim and the same pattern that is found in all claimers of this type clearly shows every claimer is lying.

    If there are I have not met any of them and NONE of them are on psipog. They should really go and get a quick mil from Randi.

    I think you need to get a video camera and show the 'what' rather than rely on agreements of people who make alot of money.

    Show me a claim with a self-evident objective performance and we'll critique away.

    So this is not the case. C is the maximum distance that a photon can travel in 1 second in a pure vaccum. In a non-pure vaccum that speed can be tripled or higher (it's been done over and over again). That's information travelling faster than C.

    Now lets talk about information transfer vs. a relationship. In information transfer you have two (or more) repositories and the information from one travels to the other over a distance. In the particle relationship that I described there is only one repository shared by both particles (rather than each particle having it's own and copying information from one to the other).

    I hope that makes more sense.

    I hope I have explained the difference enough for you to understand.

    It's not a layman view. Ask a known professional physacist on the board if quantum entaglement is a result of information transfer or a relationship (ex. James R).

    As for philosophy, I don't put much stock into it for understanding reality.

    Like I said, humans have made photons can move faster than C. Oddly enough, your first sentence is pretty close to describing an entagled particle relationship. One repository, two particles.

    You're welcome to bring some hard objective evidence to the table for some specific claim.


    That's debatable it may be it might not be - empirisicm has alot of conceptual holes it in as a viable process.[/QUOTE]

    Science... not empiricism.
     
  9. heliocentric Registered Senior Member

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    You dont know what nlp or cold reading is then?

    It's unclear what the subjective and objectivity quantities of the experiment are (as you see them), in a broader context objectivity and subjectivity can often be interchangable. Can you clear this up?


    No crunchy as i said there's a whole host of people working in psychology who absolutely disagree with this assesment. Your call to absolute authority on this is neither accurate nor makes any sense other than a piece of opinionating.

    Ive seen quite a few people accurately demonstrate their ability.


    Not when the claimer gets 'hits' far beyond what is possible via cold-reading, nlp methods.


    The last thing we need is to bring quacks like Randi into all this.


    Well youre strawmanning my position here somewhat (whehter intentionally or non-intentionally).
    My view is assembled from an incredibly broad spectrum of disciplines, first hand experience, second hand accounts and experimentation.
    I imploy what someone like Ken Wilber would call integral science, rather than an over-simplified dogmatic form of empiricism (narrow science).


    What on earth does 'self-evident' mean in this instance?
    You're just invoking vauge non-specific notions simply so we can side-step all the pesky statistically significant data and move straight onto evidence that appeals or appears self-evident to you.
    You're simply being devicive and uping the stakes by increasing the vaguarity of your demands with each successive post.



    From what i understand there is some controversy over this, but it isnt really central to the argument either way so im not unduly concerned.
    Where does this 'repository' exist if it is 'shared'? is it physical? if it is physical where is it located?
    Can you ultimately describe what a repository materially or nonmaterially actually represents in this instance?
    You have to be really really specific about these sorts of things - we're trying to understand the mechanics of the situation (hence - quantum mechanics). So you can't really rely on turns of phrase to make the problem go away which, i sort of feel is what youre trying to do.

    However if youre trying to say that there's a spacial point where both particle co-exist (thus eliminating the information exhange problem) then yes that may well be a possibility, and i can definitely buy into that.
    Reality would be something more akin to Bohm's ''undivided wholeness" than the seperated events that we commonly percieve it as being composed of.

    You certainly wont find any quantum physicist saying that particles mearly share a relationship and thats all there is too it.
    Yes you 'might' find them using that as a turn of phrase, to make things linguistically easier - but the key difference is quantum physicists know that that's all it is, whereas im not sure you do.
    You're really trying to turn science into over-simplified dogma, quautum mechanics interpretations arnt nearly as cut and dry as youd believe, there are many different theories knocking around that atempt to explain action at a distance.

    Whatever theory you do buy into though, you wont find anyone saying 'they share a relationship and thats it, nothing to see move along now please'.
    That would be taking the 'mechanics' out of quantum mechanics, completely pointless. We're trying to explain phenomena, not explain them away.


    A little on hidden variable theory, to demonstrate that information exhange at a distance isnt just something that ive considered, its a recognised part of quantum theorising.




    I think youd be suprised if you knew how much of modern rationalism and empiricism is actually derived from enlightenment era philosophy. Its pretty important.



    I think ive cited enough for now, although if i think it will be helpful to cite anymore i certainly will yes.
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2007
  10. grover Registered Senior Member

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    No, actually the auto ganzfeld had a slightly higher positive results than the ganzfeld (not "much lower") See page 4: http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/psi/delanoy/delanoy.pdf

    The fact that you're wrong on the difference between ganzfeld and autoganzfld should tip off you to how badly you are distorting the facts in order to see what you want to see.

    I'm not confusing anything. Christian fundamentalists find ways to dismiss evidence of evolution because it doesn't fit into their preconceived worldview just as you dismiss evidence of psi because it doesn't fit into your preconceived worldview. Both groups are taking their worldview as the starting point as to what is acceptable evidence as opposed to taking the evidence as a starting point to form an acceptable worldview.
     
  11. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    I biased-judged them to be "psi phenomena" based on the name of the first one and the ambiguous acronym of the second; however, based on your response I can only presume they are not. Maybe the type of cold reading being reffered to is genuine observation and cuing whereas nlp might be something along the lines of natural language processing (I am guilty of throwing around acronyms myself).

    A subjective quantity would be the result of the question "How are you doing?" and an objective quanitity would be the result of a CD4 test.

    I know they do. Based on existing evidence I can only say they have been fooled.

    Tell me about the most significant ones (in your opinion).


    I have yet to see that happen.

    Quacks? He's a magician offering a bounty to anyone whom can prove their self-evident claim.

    Like those psychologists, I think you are deceived.

    It means, no room for interpretation or judgement... i.e. it is what it is. An example of self-evident would be if I claimed telekenesis and then demonstrated it by bouncing a tennis ball in front of me using nothing but thought.

    Fair enough; allthough, I never have heard about the controversy... especially considering reality agrees with the result.

    As far as I can tell, it's part of both particles simultaneously and quite physical. I couldn't tell you how it happens.

    Properties.

    I am not sure there is a problem.

    It's not about what I am saying... it's about what QM is saying... which is they share a relationship.

    Do a poll with some physacists and find out what they are really thinking.

    I don't think it explains anything away. It just describes what is going on. Alot of the details are presently unknown. About the only thing it does negatively to your psi position is dismiss that information is transferred between long distances instantaneously.


    It's does not appear to be compatible with quantum field theory (which is experimentally verified).

    I think human psychology is far more important towards understanding why people think psi exists.
     
  12. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    From that source I posted earlier:

    "Between 1974 and 1981, forty-two ganzfeld experiments were conducted ... produced positive results and a meta-analysis found a successful hit rate of 38% when 25% was expected by chance."

    "The results of the autoganzfeld were published in 1990 in the Journal of Parapsychology. There were eight experimenters involved in eleven studies ... they produced a hit rate of 34% when 25% was chance expectation."

    Looks like a 4% drop which seems pretty significant considering 25% is the threshold.

    Christians typically don't care about evidence; allthough, like Christians I think you have gotten sucked up into a psi delusion. Show a single self-evident demonstration of psi and my mind will be changed. Give me a 100% hit rate for telepathy, clairvoyance, telekensis, pyrokensis, remote viewing, astral projection, you name it.

    For example, I can play the piano and demonstrate it with a 100% hit rate. I can comb my hair and demonstrate it with a 100% hit rate. I can move my left arm and can demonstrate it with a 100% hit rate.
     
  13. heliocentric Registered Senior Member

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    No probs, NLP = neuro linguistic programming, and is used to both influence/feed information to people to create a specific outcome, or can be used to aquire information from people without them realising theyve given anything away.

    Here's a video demonstrating some classic NLP
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=befugtgikMg

    Cold-reading is different to NLP, but very similar, its basically the process of getting information that (to the untrained eye) can look very much like telepathy.
    Its basic how a classic fraudster will 'read minds' and its very very easy to spot once you know how it works.


    Dont you see the fallacy in making that claim though?
    With all due respect, you dont actually know the psychological processes by which people can 'look' like theyre reading your mind so i fail to see the basis on which you can accurately assess when someone is and isnt faking it, or even when its soley one or the other.
    Youre making subjective judgments without the background in psychology to accurately acertain how and what is going on.
    And despite this hole in your knowledge youre calling into question the judgement of people who are trained and who do have knowledge of those processes.
    Isnt this just an extention of people who post in science forums saying they 'know why SR/GR is wrong' even without the proper backing to really understand special or general relativity?



    Lately ive been incredibly impressed by a woman called Sally Morgan, i thought she was just a flake initially but appearances can be decieving.
    She has all the hallmarks of the real thing - can get the information she needs blindfolded and with the subject absolutely mute, and can read minds whilst not even being in the same room as the subject (ruling out pheromones).
    I hope she puts herself forward for some sort of study at some point, id love to see her methods under the lense.

    Well youre quite welcome to believe that, but without any grounding whatsoever in psychology i dont think anyone is going to take you seriously.
    Again it's like the people in the cosmology forums saying einstein was wrong when all theyre basing it on is half a graham greene book they once read.


    No room for any interpretation or judgment?
    Every experiment ever conducted in any field is open to interpretation and judgement. Im sorry but you just cant take subjectivity out of the loop youre asking for the impossible and simply ramping up your demands to a degree that noone in science can reasonably achieve.


    Yes they do share a relationship, but youre taking that to be an explaination for physical/mental phenomena when it really doesnt explain anything.

    Saying 'they share a relationship' is basically fine with me as long as you accept and understand that that isnt an explaination of the mechanics behind the phenomena, and from what im aware - never has been intended as such.



    No it doesnt this is the thing - you can either invoke higher spacial dimensions to solve the problem of (mediumless) information exhange, in which case we have bohm's zen-like 'undivided whole'. Which would actually perfectly explain all psi phenomena - how can two systems communicate over large distances via no known medium? simple,theyre the same thing, theyre undivied - the information doesnt have to travel or go anywhere.

    The other option is - we rule out these higher spacial dimensions and the particles are simply passing information about their states over large distances, its simply that we dont understand how this process could work yet since there appears to be no physical medium through which theyre communicating.
    In either instance mediumless information exhange between states ist a problem, as you yourself might say 'reality agrees with it'.



    Well it's an interpretation based apon experimentation, the point is - alot of what i talk about isnt just jumbo jumbo im making up on the spot; it's real science and psychology - its just stuff you arnt personally aware of. That's all i was demonstrating by posting that quote.
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2007
  14. grover Registered Senior Member

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    715
    I see, so the 4% drop is statistically significant but the 9% above pure chance isn't significant?

    You don't care about evidence either (you think 4% is significant becaue it confirms your preconceived ideas but dismiss 9% when it goes against your ideas). You demanding a 100% hit rate is a straw man argument - I'm not arguing that a 100% hit rate exists, if a hundred percent hit rate existed there would be no debate. The reason there is a debate because again and again in experiments a hit rate statistically above chance occurs.
    Good, I'm glad you can move your arm. Can you shoot a basketball from half court with a 100% hit rate? Can you blows someones head off from 2000 yards with a 100% hit rate? That's a nice little strawman argument ya got there. Its no differnet than Christian Fundamentalists demanding to actally see evolution happen.
     
  15. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    The 9% is quite significant and so is 4%. The point I was trying to make is that there was a correlation between removing human cuing influence and results. If in that 9% there was no communication / cuing opportunity then there would be something. Specifically, that humans were able to achieve statistical significance. The next step after that would be to figure out how.

    The reason the debate occurs is because the statistical significance can be attributed to information leakage. I am telling ya', if the leakage goes away and the results are still positive then you've got a 'what' to explore (which is consequently different than a confirmation that psi exists).

    If I miss a basketball or gun shot, I can immediately tell whether or not I missed the shot. That's the way it is with any real skill that is subject to alot of variables. Psi 'skills' seem as fundamental as talking, yet nobody can talk with a 100% success rate. If it is subject to alot of variables then why don't the psi-folks know when they've missed?
     
  16. grover Registered Senior Member

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    715
    Where does it say that in the article? I can't find it.
     
  17. grover Registered Senior Member

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    715
    Another strawman, who says psi is as fundamental as talking?
     
  18. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Hope I didn't accidentally pull it out of a related article as I recall it being on the first couple of pages.
     
  19. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    I didn't say it was. I said it seems like it. I can see the future. I can read other peoples minds. Regardless, the misses are never seemingly known by the practicioners of psi.
     
  20. grover Registered Senior Member

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    715
    Oh, but you can't be 100% sure. How interesting.
     
  21. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Of course I could, I would simply invest some effort. In fact I could have put a protocol in place to ensure the exact page, line number, and re-copied URL was provided with the original quotations so any error would have not occured.

    To err is human. To take a shot at the hoop and not know if it goes in or not... well that's just nutty.
     
  22. grover Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    715
    No, you've shifted your argument. First you were trying to argue that psi was questionable because they couldn't do a 100% hit rate. When I pointed out that there are many things people can do without a hundred percent hit rate you shifted your argument that now the issue is that they should know with certainty whether or not they succeded. Now that I've pointed that there are other mental faculties that humans can't see with 100% certainty you bring up another flawed argument :"Of course I could, I would simply invest some effort. In fact I could have put a protocol in place to ensure the exact page, line number, and re-copied URL was provided with the original quotations so any error would have not occured."

    This would be the exact equivalent of the person doing the psi checking to see if they got a hit. Of course if you have a means of checking your memory like looking up a URL you can determine if your memory is correct or not, just as if the person looked at the card they were trying to guess they could figure out if they were correct or not. Memory is very unreliable (meaning people are often certain of a memory that later turns out to be false, or uncertain of a memory that is true) but that doesn't mean it isn't a real faculty of the human mind.
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    And I still want the article where it stated that the autoganzfeld had a lower hit rate than he ganzfeld.
     
  23. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Incorrect. My position is that Psi is unsupported due to lack of supportive evidence.

    You bet.

    It's not flawed. It's true. I was simply sloppy in the delivery of information. If I were in a sitaution where I was claiming to perform the mistake would not likely have been made.

    You would have to prove that Psi 'practicioners' are as sloppy as when I copy-and-paste while not paying attention.

    Yep, my memory is so unrealiable that I remembered the path of clicks which ultimately got me that information I posted. Naturally I will repost the correct URL for you... that came from my faulty memory. Unreliable. Faulty.


    http://skepdic.com/ganzfeld.html
     
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