Merged New telepathy test: which number did I write ?

[phunk]

Hi, I invite you to participate in a new, simple, telepathy test, of the kind you may have seen before. I shall also ask you to answer a complementary question, which is difficult, but important for me (and perhaps also important beyond me)

At about 9:00 p.m. on this Friday September 9 (Brussels, Belgium time), I wrote carefully one of the four words: "automobile", "boat", "plane", and "submarine" on my sheet of paper, and I surrounded it with a rough ellipse. Then, I wrote it again twice.

I shall repeat this word from time to time during this test.

I ask you to write it here (if you think you know it, even with a doubt). You may also answer "I don't know".

It may be useful, also, that you explain briefly how confident you are in your answer (for example: "almost sure", or "not sure, can't decide between ... and ...", or "completely random answer").

Thank you for participating.

So what's to stop you from waiting to see which word gets the most "votes" then saying that was the right one?

 

[JesseCuster]

Dave, in this test, you are perfectly entitled to answer "I don't know", or "I have no idea", or any equivalent formulation. However, I am a little concerned about your motivation. Could it be that you are concerned about "not betraying Team Skepticism", something like that (perhaps a kind of patriotism, like when a citizen or a soldier decides to remain loyal to their country, even when they are actually convinced that it is dead wrong)?

I think it's more likely that he recognises that this "test" lacks even a semblance of rudimentary scientific rigour and is pretty much meaningless.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Why don't millions upon millions of people who hear Michel thinking about starting another of his tests all sign up to the forum and post a reply?

Oh, I remember; it's because telepathy isn't real.

 

[Michel H]

So what's to stop you from waiting to see which word gets the most "votes" then saying that was the right one?

If this concerns you, I can post a SHA512 hash of a complicated sentence containing the selected word:
D8559A58B6C5546E6FE9A32BD6F4F6D2E0F2DB4E20D2278964143ADA981108B69070F26D17FE40054C484989EA5779F5E8DD5E440B08843DEA44B0FBC885B860

 

[Cat Not Included]

Hmm. I'm getting a strong vibe on this.

It is coming through clearly.

The word is obviously cabbage.

Bloody trick question.

 

[Sideroxylon]

I am 100% confident that I have no idea which word you wrote. And in the light of all the previous threads on this topic, I would strongly suggest that everyone else say the same and no more.

Dave

Your avatar features a train. What do you mean by it?

 

[JesseCuster]

Here's the reason: Humans suck at random. If we're supposed to pick something random, we almost never pick the first or last thing in the list, nor do we pick the exact center element. But we tend to anchor, so we more often tend to select something closer to the beginning of a list than toward the end.

Apparently if asked to pick a random number from 1-100, an inordinate amount of people will choose 37 because it seems random to them. Odd numbers seem more random than even numbers. Multiples of 5/10 seem too neat because we count things in those units. Too near the start, middle or end doesn't look too random etc. So people unwittingly choose 37 because it looks what they expect a "typical" random number to be,

I'm sure there's a potential scam in that knowledge...

 

[Emily's Cat]

Apparently if asked to pick a random number from 1-100, an inordinate amount of people will choose 37 because it seems random to them. Odd numbers seem more random than even numbers. Multiples of 5/10 seem too neat because we count things in those units. Too near the start, middle or end doesn't look too random etc. So people unwittingly choose 37 because it looks what they expect a "typical" random number to be,

I'm sure there's a potential scam in that knowledge...

That doesn't surprise me at all. IIRC, 7 is involved in "randomly" selected numbers waaaaaay more than it ought to be. I believe it's considered the must "unnatural" of the natural digits. Counting by 7s is difficult. There are mnemonic patterns to 2s, 3s, 5s and 9s that make them all very easy. 4s and 8s are next up on the list - they're doubles of 2s so it's not too hard to turn them into a nice mental cadence. 6s are a bit tougher, since they're a pattern of both 2s and 3s which adds complication. But 7s are the toughest. There's not really a solid pattern in there with a base-10 system, and there's not much of a cadence with respect to counting.

 

[Hokulele]

You should see a licensed professional.

And if you wanted to have even the slightest semblance of a scientific test, you would not have spent half the post talking about submarines.

Doctors are far more effective for assisting with hostile voices in your head than excursion tours.

 

[fagin]

I see a severe case of deja vu.

 

[p0lka]

Dave, in this test, you are perfectly entitled to answer "I don't know", or "I have no idea", or any equivalent formulation. However, I am a little concerned about your motivation. Could it be that you are concerned about "not betraying Team Skepticism", something like that (perhaps a kind of patriotism, like when a citizen or a soldier decides to remain loyal to their country, even when they are actually convinced that it is dead wrong)?

If that's an option and we don't just make a guess, then my answer is I don't know.
guessing would just fudge the fopatoes.

 

[Michel H]

... if you wanted to have even the slightest semblance of a scientific test, you would not have spent half the post talking about submarines.

Doctors are far more effective for assisting with hostile voices in your head than excursion tours.

Let's assume you are in a situation comparable to mine. You hear voices which are constantly "explaining" to you that you "kill people", and who are trying to convince you to commit suicide. On the other hand (I simplify), every time you read an article about rail transport, there is a train accident somewhere in the world on the next day, and you have a clear impression that the voices that harass you are distinct from you. Now, you go in a submarine, and you find that the nasty voices disappear completely when the depth becomes larger than 4 meters (you also noticed that the submarine pilot looked a little angry when you walked into the sub for the first time, you said to yourself "let's hope he won't have a bad idea!"). You have read a little about telepathy, electromagnetic theories of telepathy, and you know that electromagnetic waves get quickly absorbed in seawater.

What would you conclude?

 

[stanfr]

I took your four words, wrote them on cards, then shuffled the heck out of them and drew on of the four. Then I concentrated on this word and drew rough sketch of the thing on my desktop. Which word did I pick?
Hint: you have a 1 in 4 chance of guessing correctly!

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Oh dear grud not again.......

 

[phunk]

If this concerns you, I can post a SHA512 hash of a complicated sentence containing the selected word:
D8559A58B6C5546E6FE9A32BD6F4F6D2E0F2DB4E20D2278964143ADA981108B69070F26D17FE40054C484989EA5779F5E8DD5E440B08843DEA44B0FBC885B860

It doesn't concern me at all, I was just curious exactly how ridiculous of a joke this "telepathy test" is.

 

[phunk]

Let's assume you are in a situation comparable to mine. You hear voices which are constantly "explaining" to you that you "kill people", and who are trying to convince you to commit suicide. On the other hand (I simplify), every time you read an article about rail transport, there is a train accident somewhere in the world on the next day, and you have a clear impression that the voices that harass you are distinct from you. Now, you go in a submarine, and you find that the nasty voices disappear completely when the depth becomes larger than 4 meters (you also noticed that the submarine pilot looked a little angry when you walked into the sub for the first time, you said to yourself "let's hope he won't have a bad idea!"). You have read a little about telepathy, electromagnetic theories of telepathy, and you know that electromagnetic waves get quickly absorbed in seawater.

What would you conclude?

That you need to accept professional help.

 

[Michel H]

That you need to accept professional help.

By the way, phunk, doesn't your avatar show a man underwater, a scuba-diving person? Perhaps you know more than what you want to say?
Do you always trust doctors? Have you heard of dangerous side-effects of "medications"? Do you think the study of telepathy has reached an advanced stage in our society? Both Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley had personal physicians. Did this allow them to live a long life?

 

[Sideroxylon]

By the way, phunk, doesn't your avatar show a man underwater, a scuba-diving person? Perhaps you know more than what you want to say?
Do you always trust doctors? Have you heard of dangerous side-effects of "medications"? Do you think the study of telepathy has reached an advanced stage in our society? Both Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley had personal physicians. Did this allow them to live a long life?

The hypothesis of telepathy has been repeatedly rigorously tested and failed. It is a failed idea. How many commercial applications can you imagine for such an ability? Corporations care about pragmatic measures of truth. If there was a sniff of truth about such a notion they would be pouring money into it. They are not because it has been tested and it is a failed idea.

Your own tests are no tests at all. You absurdly grasp at any straw that you alone believe supports your idea.

 

[phunk]

By the way, phunk, doesn't your avatar show a man underwater, a scuba-diving person?

Yes, me.

Perhaps you know more than what you want to say?

I don't get your meaning.

Do you always trust doctors?

Usually, depends on the context.

Have you heard of dangerous side-effects of "medications"?

Of course. Often worth the risk compared to what they are treating.

Do you think the study of telepathy has reached an advanced stage in our society?

I think the study has come close enough to proving the negative that telepathy doesn't exist.

Both Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley had personal physicians. Did this allow them to live a long life?

Might have, if not for the fact that both of them heavily misused drugs.

As far as excuses for you not getting the treatment you need, that was pretty weak.

 

[Michel H]

Yes, me.

I don't get your meaning.

...

The meaning is this.
My telepathic investigations have led me to believe that one person on this planet (me), probably because of some genetic reasons, has a strong tendency to accurately communicate many of his thoughts to the other human beings, even when they are far away:

I am hearing Michel H's thoughts. All of them.
...

(incidentally, the same phenomenon seems to occur with many animals). I suppose this phenomenon is perceived "loud and clear", and well understood, but is also frequently denied (we live in a culture of lies; people learn religious lies and other lies in school when they are children, and they keep on lying for the rest of their lives). On the other hand, it seems to me that the only possible mechanism (for telepathy) is electromagnetic, and a rough order of magnitude calculation seems to confirm this. This has the consequence that all telepathic phenomena should rapidly stop in the sea (conducting seawater heavily absorbs electromagnetic waves): you should stop hearing my thoughts when you go deep enough in the sea, and I should stop hearing my persecutors' voices in the sea. However, the trouble is, this is just a theoretical expectation, I have no experimental evidence for this. I believe it would help me if some people who have gone underwater could confirm that you stop hearing me telepathically, deep enough in the sea. Of course, this would require great honesty from you, I am not sure this utmost integrity is there now. Once this phenomenon is confirmed by some reliable people, I could present to the psychiatrist the project of going myself in a submarine, with probably better hope of getting their support, interest, and encouragement.