Is ESP More Probable Than Advanced Alien Life?

[Red Baron Farms]

???

"Grue" is an undefined term. If "grue" was another word for "wood", would you "bet all your life savings" there's no "grue" in your house?

I'll take both bets. There are no grues in my house, and there is wood in my house. Probability that I loose either bet 0.0%. That's because grue isn't another word for wood. Grue is a word for a mythical monster. Now there are a few other definitions of grue, but they are adjectives not nouns. There are also a few nouns like rivers and municipalities and even a science fiction fanzine and a fictional alien race. However, none of those are in my house either. There are no grues in my house. Period. Probability of a grue in my house is 0%

 

[jt512]

I'll take both bets. There are no grues in my house, and there is wood in my house. Probability that I loose either bet 0.0%. That's because grue isn't another word for wood. Grue is a word for a mythical monster. Now there are a few other definitions of grue, but they are adjectives not nouns. There are also a few nouns like rivers and municipalities and even a science fiction fanzine and a fictional alien race. However, none of those are in my house either. There are no grues in my house. Period. Probability of a grue in my house is 0%

Thank you for illustrating so clearly why we should not take your posts seriously. If only you had done so sooner.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Thank you for illustrating so clearly why we should not take your posts seriously. If only you had done so sooner.

I know. You want to believe in at least the possibility of Grue, Flying Spaghetti monsters, dragons, orbiting tea pots and ...... wait for it ... ESP.

But you are simply wrong. The probability of all of them is zero until there is either or both:
1) A rational hypothesis
2) Evidence


Lacking either, they are nothing more than myths/imaginations with a probability of 0.0%.

That's just the way the world works man. You can take that to the bank too. You can feed your family with that. James Randi bet a million dollars on it. It was a completely 100% safe bet. It's the real world. You can play with your Bayesian calculations from now till the cows come home and it will still be 0.0% until you have either a rational hypothesis or evidence. Then and only then will a Bayesian probability calculation begin to have a non-zero prior.

 

[annnnoid]

I know. You want to believe in at least the possibility of Grue, Flying Spaghetti monsters, dragons, orbiting tea pots and ...... wait for it ... ESP.

But you are simply wrong. The probability of all of them is zero until there is either or both:
1) A rational hypothesis
2) Evidence


Lacking either, they are nothing more than myths/imaginations with a probability of 0.0%.

That's just the way the world works man. You can take that to the bank too. You can feed your family with that. James Randi bet a million dollars on it. It was a completely 100% safe bet. It's the real world. You can play with your Bayesian calculations from now till the cows come home and it will still be 0.0% until you have either a rational hypothesis or evidence. Then and only then will a Bayesian probability calculation begin to have a non-zero prior.

Sorry dude…these positions are just slightly lacking.

Something has zero probability without a rational hypothesis????

Dark matter / energy anyone…..! So far no one has a clue what these things are. Not a rational hypothesis in sight. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who will insist that there is zero probability of their existence. As for how consciousness (which generated what you just wrote) is created… there are no shortage of neuroscientists who flat out insist that we haven’t a clue how the brain generates it. Probability of the existence of consciousness is pretty good I’d say…with or without a rational hypothesis. And what is it that actually qualifies as ‘rational’ anyway? When does a hypothesis rise to the standard of 'rational' ? How about the MWI…which suggests there are an infinite number of universes!?!?!?!? How ‘rational’ does that sound? Not to mention the universe itself…when was the last time you met a rational hypothesis for where that came from?

Evidence…! Like jt512 said…there is lots of evidence that supports the ESP position. Whether that evidence is amenable to explicitly falsifiable or definitive conventional scientific adjudication is another matter entirely. The fact that it may not always be does not imply that the evidence is no longer evidence.

…not to mention…you might find the following interesting. It was written by someone with a masters in theoretical physics. It describes quite effectively how massively – and predictably – anomalous psychological phenomena are misrepresented by those who pretend to have the capacity to discredit them (Randi included). In this case it’s our old friend Prof. Massimo Pigliucci who demonstrates a level of bias and stupid science easily equivalent to any nut-job creationist.

http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.ca/2011/12/alternative-take-on-esp.html

If you’re not interested in reading the entire article…the summary is as follows:

Massimo publicly claim (s) that ESP has been refuted. “... research on the paranormal has been done for almost a century. We have done plenty of experiments, say on telepathy or clairvoyance or things like that, and we know it doesn’t work.” In his recent book, Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk, Massimo even implies that parapsychology is a pseudoscience on par with astrology.

It would be reasonable to expect, especially from someone as learned as Massimo, that these bold claims about research on telepathy and clairvoyance, and the status of parapsychology as a discipline, were derived from a thorough assessment of the parapsychology literature (a literature which includes informed skeptical criticisms of parapsychology experiments). However, in my assessment of the parapsychology literature, I have been unable to find an evidenced basis for Massimo’s claims. Not only that, my study of the literature has turned up evidence that strongly supports a conclusion contrary to Massimo’s.

....so perhaps the probability of ESP has passed that of alien life???

 

[Craig B]

Sorry dude…these positions are just slightly lacking.

Something has zero probability without a rational hypothesis????

Dark matter / energy anyone…..! So far no one has a clue what these things are. Not a rational hypothesis in sight. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who will insist that there is zero probability of their existence. As for how consciousness (which generated what you just wrote) is created… there are no shortage of neuroscientists who flat out insist that we haven’t a clue how the brain generates it. Probability of the existence of consciousness is pretty good I’d say…with or without a rational hypothesis.

Dark matter and dark energy are supported by good observational evidence, dark matter since the 1930s. If something is observed, it is of no moment that theory doesn't explain it. It's there. Consciousness is there, because even if it can't be explained, it can be observed. So, if ESP could be observed, with anything like the certainty with which these other phenomena have been observed, then ESP would exist, theory or no theory.

But it hasn't been observed, with that, or indeed any, degree of certainty. Nor does any theory require it. In fact none explicitly permits it.

Life is known to exist, therefore we can propose, without doing violence to any current theory, that it exists independently in more than one place.

 

[Darwin123]

Dark matter and dark energy are supported by good observational evidence, dark matter since the 1930s. If something is observed, it is of no moment that theory doesn't explain it. It's there. Consciousness is there, because even if it can't be explained, it can be observed. So, if ESP could be observed, with anything like the certainty with which these other phenomena have been observed, then ESP would exist, theory or no theory.

But it hasn't been observed, with that, or indeed any, degree of certainty. Nor does any theory require it. In fact none explicitly permits it.

Life is known to exist, therefore we can propose, without doing violence to any current theory, that it exists independently in more than one place.

I argued that the ESP is by definition a sense that can't be explained. If it is explained, then by definition it is not ESP.

The Rhine Institute of the Paranormal once funded a study to determine whether pigeons used ESP to navigate. I heard about this during a tour of their North Carolina facilities. Although I haven't tried to document it, the story sounds very reasonable to me. True or not, it illustrates a fundamental problem in ESP studies.

Scientists already accepted the fact that pigeons could navigate, but no one had an explanation of how it was done. So since the Rhine Institute had 'established' ESP in humans, or rather the investigators thought so, it seemed reasonable to conjecture that ESP also helped the pigeons navigate.


The investigators found that pigeons were very sensitive to magnetic fields. They have an magnetic compass which is embedded in their neck. They navigate chiefly by means of this magnetic compass. This was very easy to validate once they came up with the hypothesis. Pigeons readily respond to all sorts of magnetic fields, including man made magnetic fields.

The conclusion of this study was that pigeons don't use ESP to navigate. They have a sense that is sometimes called magneto reception. They can determine the strength direction of ambient magnetic fields relative to their own body centered coordinates.

I want to point out that this is now well established by scientists. Pigeons do have magnetoreception. I am not sure how big the role of the Rhine Institute was in establishing this. However, I find it reasonable to suppose that the Rhine Institute really did contribute to establishing this fact.

I propose that the Rhine institute could have concluded differently. They could have concluded that pigeons do use ESP to navigate. They could have redefined ESP to include magneto reception as a special class. However, they hypothesized that magneto reception is not ESP.

Magnetoreception is not known in human beings. At least not yet. Maybe humans have it, but they don't respond in such a straightforward way to magnetic fields. Humans do respond to extremely large magnetic fields, not found on earth under natural conditions. However, this is not really magneto reception since the physical effects of such strong magnetic fields on electrolyte solutions is hard to ignore.

One could conjecture that humans use magneto reception with weaker magnetic fields to communicate on a subliminal level. Some unknown type of neural processing would be necessary to subtract out the huge background created by the earths magnetic field. However, maybe humans have such neural processing. Maybe in the future people will find some of these test for ESP in humans were biased by magnetoreception. In order to remain consistent, the Rhine Institute would still have to conclude that humans don't have ESP.

The implicit hypothesis of these studies is that ESP can't have a 'natural' explanation. So if everybody uses this hypothesis, then I suspect that the likelihood of ESP being 'proven' is rather low.

Saying that you have to find a mechanism for ESP in order for it to be proven makes the job impossible. ESP by definition is a sense without physical basis. If you then say it has to have a physical basis, the probability of finding it is truly zero.

Finding ETs looks like a cakewalk in comparison.

 

[jt512]

I know. You want to believe in at least the possibility of Grue, Flying Spaghetti monsters, dragons, orbiting tea pots and ...... wait for it ... ESP.

But you are simply wrong. The probability of all of them is zero until there is either or both:
1) A rational hypothesis
2) Evidence


Lacking either, they are nothing more than myths/imaginations with a probability of 0.0%.

That's just the way the world works man. You can take that to the bank too. You can feed your family with that. James Randi bet a million dollars on it. It was a completely 100% safe bet. It's the real world. You can play with your Bayesian calculations from now till the cows come home and it will still be 0.0% until you have either a rational hypothesis or evidence. Then and only then will a Bayesian probability calculation begin to have a non-zero prior.

Excellent. Just ignore the refutation, and repeat the same argument. Well, at least this post was understandable. That's an improvement from the last one.

 

[Slowvehicle]

I doubt that he does, but most scientists don't—at least not explicitly. However, observation of how science works reveals that it is inherently Bayesian. That's why when some NASA postdoc thought she discovered bacteria that used arsenic instead of phosphorus in their DNA, no other scientists (except maybe her coauthors) believed her; or when the OPERA lab measured neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light, no one (not even the discoverers) believed the result.

The evidence from these experiments failed to overcome the prior probabilities against them. Likewise, science has not accepted the existence of ESP in spite of the large body of experiments (of which skeptics are mostly unaware) showing highly statistically significant effects. The prior probability of these phenomena is too low to be overcome by "ordinary" evidence, even a lot of it. Yet the amount of statistical evidence accumulated by parapsychologists in favor of ESP would be considered convincing for a more ordinary scientific claim, that is, one with a reasonable prior probability. Thus, scientists operate as Bayesians, even though they mostly don't do explicit Bayesian computations.

....you'll be providing links to these, right?

 

[jaydeehess]

Easily.

1. I wake from a nightmare in which my mother dies in a car accident
2. Upon waking, the phone rings with news that my mother died in a car accident.
3. My belief that some ESP-like phenomenon happened will increase.

Of course there's a competing theory: coincidence. And while I may ultimately decide it probably was coincidence, my personal belief in ESP-type phenomena will certainly receive a tremendous amount of confirmation from what happened. Maybe not enough to convince me ESP exists, but enough to perhaps raise my prior belief in ESP from .01 to .2.

Personal credulity or incredulity has a place in determining probabilities that can be accepted by others?

 

[Fudbucker]

I doubt that he does, but most scientists don't—at least not explicitly. However, observation of how science works reveals that it is inherently Bayesian. That's why when some NASA postdoc thought she discovered bacteria that used arsenic instead of phosphorus in their DNA, no other scientists (except maybe her coauthors) believed her; or when the OPERA lab measured neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light, no one (not even the discoverers) believed the result.

The evidence from these experiments failed to overcome the prior probabilities against them. Likewise, science has not accepted the existence of ESP in spite of the large body of experiments (of which skeptics are mostly unaware) showing highly statistically significant effects. The prior probability of these phenomena is too low to be overcome by "ordinary" evidence, even a lot of it. Yet the amount of statistical evidence accumulated by parapsychologists in favor of ESP would be considered convincing for a more ordinary scientific claim, that is, one with a reasonable prior probability. Thus, scientists operate as Bayesians, even though they mostly don't do explicit Bayesian computations.

I would also like to see this. The only thing that's really stood out for me was the PEAR project, which hinted that people might have a very low-grade ability to influence some random events.

 

[jaydeehess]

You can't loose if you bet that a grue isn't in your house. Bet it all. Bet all your life savings and all the life savings of all your friends and relatives. Borrow all you can. You can't loose. The probability of you loosing is 0.0% There absolutely is NOT any grues in your house, just like there are no flying spaghetti monsters in your house.

Flying spaghetti monster is self defining. I can be sure that no monster capable of flight which either eats spaghetti or simply looks like spaghetti is in my house.
A gruel is undefined, for all I know it is the Swahili word for wood dust. I am pretty sure it isn't but it may well be some common item. Therefore I ain't betting more than I care to lose.
In similar fashion I once in a while buy a ticket for the pick six out of forty nine lottery. I never spend more than ten dollars. I know that the odds of my losing the ten bucks is many millions to one. I'm ok with that. Others however spend $20, $50, $100 every week. I would not be comfortable losing $100 even if the odds were reversed. I will keep my money. That's me though, rational or irrational. Personal traits however are irrelevant in this thread discussion.

 

[Fudbucker]

Easily.

1. I wake from a nightmare in which my mother dies in a car accident
2. Upon waking, the phone rings with news that my mother died in a car accident.
3. My belief that some ESP-like phenomenon happened will increase.

Of course there's a competing theory: coincidence. And while I may ultimately decide it probably was coincidence, my personal belief in ESP-type phenomena will certainly receive a tremendous amount of confirmation from what happened. Maybe not enough to convince me ESP exists, but enough to perhaps raise my prior belief in ESP from .01 to .2.

Personal credulity or incredulity has a place in determining probabilities that can be accepted by others?

If that scenario is unconvincing to you, then just add:

2.5 The next night I dream that my father is diagnosed with cancer.
2.6 Upon awaking, my father calls to tell me he's been diagnosed with cancer.

If enough remarkable things happen, the coincidence explanation fails. The point at which it fails is different for different people, but only a fanatic would dismiss night after night of accurate dreams of future events as just being coincidence.

 

[jaydeehess]

If that scenario is unconvincing to you, then just add:

2.5 The next night I dream that my father is diagnosed with cancer.
2.6 Upon awaking, my father calls to tell me he's been diagnosed with cancer.

If enough remarkable things happen, the coincidence explanation fails. The point at which it fails is different for different people, but only a fanatic would dismiss night after night of accurate dreams of future events as just being coincidence.

Bringing this around to the OP then, is there any recorded example of anyone being so endowed as to reduce the probability of coincidence sufficiently as to make such an ESP as probable as a second advanced life form on the universe?

 

[jaydeehess]

1. I wake from a nightmare in which my mother dies in a car accident

1.1 Upon waking, the phone rings with news that my mother died in a car accident.

2. The next night I dream that my father is diagnosed with cancer.

2.1 Upon awaking, my father calls to tell me he's been diagnosed with cancer.

3. My belief that some ESP-like phenomenon happened will increase.

Renumbered for better clarity

 

[Fudbucker]

Bringing this around to the OP then, is there any recorded example of anyone being so endowed as to reduce the probability of coincidence sufficiently as to make such an ESP as probable as a second advanced life form on the universe?

There's a lot of anecdotal evidence, and some interesting results from some scientific studies, but my point has always been that the probability of alien life is on par with ESP. There is so little evidence to go on, that the existence of one is as likely as the existence of the other.

In other words, if Princeton University conducts PEAR2, and conclusively finds that some humans have an ability to influence random trials to a very small degree (say to the extent of 1 coin flip for every million flips), I would be as surprised as if we found alien life on Europa, which is to say, not really surprised at all.

 

[jaydeehess]

While on the subject of dreams.
In university I dreamt that I was working in a grocery store and wearing a long apron and restocking a frozen food section that was to my left as I stood behind a cart with boxes of frozen food.
I had never worked at a grocery store at that time.

Two years later I did get a summer job at a large grocery store but my stock responsibilities were dairy and snack foods aisles.
However, one day one guy called in sick and the manager came to me and asked me to refill his aisle, frozen foods. Shortly thereafter I found myself in the exact position, and doing the exact action, that I had dreamt of.

At that time, yes, I thought that precognition was very probable. However I have come to believe instead in coincidence as more probable in this case

 

[Fudbucker]

While on the subject of dreams.
In university I dreamt that I was working in a grocery store and wearing a long apron and restocking a frozen food section that was to my left as I stood behind a cart with boxes of frozen food.
I had never worked at a grocery store at that time.

Two years later I did get a summer job at a large grocery store but my stock responsibilities were dairy and snack foods aisles.
However, one day one guy called in sick and the manager came to me and asked me to refill his aisle, frozen foods. Shortly thereafter I found myself in the exact position, and doing the exact action, that I had dreamt of.

At that time, yes, I thought that precognition was very probable. However I have come to believe instead in coincidence as more probable in this case

It almost always is. If we do discover ESP abilities in people, I think they will manifest in an almost infinitesimally insignificant way. For example, some people might display a talent for remote viewing that is .000001% higher than what you would see by chance alone. Or some people might predict Zener cards a billionth of a percent more accurately than chance. It would be extremely hard to prove this.

I don't think there are X-men skulking around, hiding from para-psychologists.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Easily.

1. I wake from a nightmare in which my mother dies in a car accident
2. Upon waking, the phone rings with news that my mother died in a car accident.
3. My belief that some ESP-like phenomenon happened will increase.

Of course there's a competing theory: coincidence. And while I may ultimately decide it probably was coincidence, my personal belief in ESP-type phenomena will certainly receive a tremendous amount of confirmation from what happened. Maybe not enough to convince me ESP exists, but enough to perhaps raise my prior belief in ESP from .01 to .2.

belief =/= evidence

(the plural of anecdote is "anecdotes")

 

[Daylightstar]

... but my point has always been that the probability of alien life is on par with ESP. There is so little evidence to go on, that the existence of one is as likely as the existence of the other.
...

Why do you persist in making this distinction between alien life and life in the universe?
In what way does life in the universe in one location set itself apart from life in the universe in another location?

 

[annnnoid]

I would also like to see this. The only thing that's really stood out for me was the PEAR project, which hinted that people might have a very low-grade ability to influence some random events.

I’d suggest you check out this link.

http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.c...ke-on-esp.html

Written by a theoretical physicist. As I said earlier, he described his conclusions thus:

Massimo (Pigliucci…a well-known skeptic ‘debunker’ on a par with Randi) publicly claim (s) that ESP has been refuted. “... research on the paranormal has been done for almost a century. We have done plenty of experiments, say on telepathy or clairvoyance or things like that, and we know it doesn’t work.” In his recent book, Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk, Massimo even implies that parapsychology is a pseudoscience on par with astrology.

It would be reasonable to expect, especially from someone as learned as Massimo, that these bold claims about research on telepathy and clairvoyance, and the status of parapsychology as a discipline, were derived from a thorough assessment of the parapsychology literature (a literature which includes informed skeptical criticisms of parapsychology experiments). However, in my assessment of the parapsychology literature, I have been unable to find an evidenced basis for Massimo’s claims. Not only that, my study of the literature has turned up evidence that strongly supports a conclusion contrary to Massimo’s.

I guess what we have to conclude from this is simply that the probability of ESP is a function of who you ask. Pigliucci et al would say below absolute zero. Maaneli goes to some length to suggest they are frauds.

Who you gonna call????

...seeing as how this is central to the OP (establishing probabilities)...it's a question that has to be somehow resolved before the OP can be.

If we use Maaneli 's conclusions (that Massimo is basically a fraud and the evidence not only supports a contrary conclusion but strongly supports it) then that might be sufficient to buttress the probability of ESP beyond that of alien life.

...yes?...no?