• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Telepathy

So amid all the discussion of whether telepathy (or any other paranormal ability) “works” or not, I seldom see any discussion as to HOW it would work.

The physics of the thing, as it were. Seems to me that for telepathy to work, to have some manner of communication mind-to-mind, that the sender’s mind/brain would have to “encode” the thought or message in some way, and then transmit this information, and that the recipient’s brain would have to have some structure to receive the transmission and decode it as well.
Would this “transmission” be like radio, broadcast generally and only picked up by “sensitive” individuals, or “narrowcast” in such a manner that the recipient was targeted?

If the latter, how would that be accomplished. If the former, why wouldn’t large numbers of psychics be bombarded by a veritable sea of transmissions all the time? Can they “tune” their individual receivers like a radio dial?
I know all sorts of fictional scenarios have the psychic gradually learn in some way to focus on a particular message, and to block out the others, but no mechanism for these tasks is ever described.

We can quite easily measure radio waves, even fantastically weak ones from spacecraft millions of kilometers away. Yet no one has ever been able to measure what might be carrying these psychic messages.
Part of the electromagnetic spectrum? You wouldnt’ think so...
 
jt512 said:
Seems right based on what? Your calculation that the probability of winning by chance is 1 in 1.3 million or Startz's calculation that the probability is 1 in only 270?
Click to expand...

I think my 1 out of 270 was for a different experiment (putting down 52 cards and getting 5 or more right). In any event, the experiment here is to put down 5 cards and get them all right. The odds of getting the first one right is 1/52. Doing that and then getting the second right as well is (1/52)*(1/51). Etc.

The probability of doing that by chance is vanishingly small.

Anyhow, Loss Leader has proposed a very nice test. The "holes" in it involve Loss Leader cheating, which I for one am not worried about. KotA has indicated he would like to do a test.

All we really need now is for KotA to say "let's go."
 
Bikewer said:
So amid all the discussion of whether telepathy (or any other paranormal ability) “works” or not, I seldom see any discussion as to HOW it would work.
Click to expand...
That is because, according to the physics that we know, it is not possible.

We can detect electromagnetic radiation way beneath the noise level in the brain. You can be quite sure that another brain cannot pick up signals that weak.

In fact, we know all the fields that would have to be involved in telepathy, and none would work at the temperature range that brains work in.

On the other hand, our understanding of physics could be wrong, and any credible demonstration of telepathy would cause physicists to revise that understanding.
 
Bikewer said:
So amid all the discussion of whether telepathy (or any other paranormal ability) “works” or not, I seldom see any discussion as to HOW it would work.
Click to expand...

Realistically, though, that's secondary to proof that it does work. If it doesn't, then the fact that our current understanding of science offers no possibility of a mechanism is neither surprising nor cause for concern; if it's proven beyond reasonable doubt to work, then the absence of a mechanism is a missing part of our understanding of science, rather than a counter-argument. As the current status quo is that there is strong experimental evidence that there is no such phenomenon, discussion of how it would work if it did work is more in the province of science fiction.

Dave
 
Bikewer said:
So amid all the discussion of whether telepathy (or any other paranormal ability) “works” or not, I seldom see any discussion as to HOW it would work.
Click to expand...

It's pretty certain that any proposed explanation will use the word "quantum" many, many times.
 
steenkh said:
On the other hand, our understanding of physics could be wrong, and any credible demonstration of telepathy would cause physicists to revise that understanding.
Click to expand...

I suspect that any supposedly credible demonstration of telepathy would just make most physicists laugh. Perhaps one or two might wonder what went wrong in the telepathy experiment.
 
jt512 said:
I suspect that any supposedly credible demonstration of telepathy would just make most physicists laugh. Perhaps one or two might wonder what went wrong in the telepathy experiment.
Click to expand...


And they'd be right to do so. That's why the test should be repeatable by other scientists. I wouldn't ask an ant to believe in a boot on the basis of one trial.*


*Because the ant would be dead. It's not the best example.
 
Startz said:
I think my 1 out of 270 was for a different experiment (putting down 52 cards and getting 5 or more right). In any event, the experiment here is to put down 5 cards and get them all right. The odds of getting the first one right is 1/52. Doing that and then getting the second right as well is (1/52)*(1/51). Etc.

The probability of doing that by chance is vanishingly small.

Anyhow, Loss Leader has proposed a very nice test. The "holes" in it involve Loss Leader cheating, which I for one am not worried about. KotA has indicated he would like to do a test.

All we really need now is for KotA to say "let's go."
Click to expand...

Unless KofA claims his telepathy is 100% accurate, this is not a valid test. The correct way to design the test is to ask the claimant what his accuracy rate is, and then design the test to have acceptably low false positive and false negative error rates.
 
Startz said:
Anyhow, Loss Leader has proposed a very nice test. The "holes" in it involve Loss Leader cheating, which I for one am not worried about. KotA has indicated he would like to do a test.
Click to expand...

[Never mind. I had a security suggestion, but it had already been proposed.]
 
Last edited:
jt512 said:
Unless KofA claims his telepathy is 100% accurate, this is not a valid test. The correct way to design the test is to ask the claimant what his accuracy rate is, and then design the test to have acceptably low false positive and false negative error rates.
Click to expand...

True. But KofA seemed to indicate earlier that he was okay with this sort of test.

In any event, there's nothing formal here--no million dollars at stake. It's just to give KofA a chance to give some informal evidence of telepathy. If the test indicates positive results, something more careful can be set up.

King, are you there?
 
jt512 said:
Perhaps this has already been suggested, but to ensure against cheating by the test administrator, couldn't the selected cards be recorded in a text file, and then a secure checksum of the file be published? Recomputing the checksum on the file after the test would show whether the file has been altered or not.
Click to expand...

The test administrator could pick cards and post them, and then stare at different cards during the test.

A formal test would require witnesses/recording/etc. But I think trusting LL is just fine for the moment.
 
Startz said:
True. But KofA seemed to indicate earlier that he was okay with this sort of test.

In any event, there's nothing formal here--no million dollars at stake. It's just to give KofA a chance to give some informal evidence of telepathy.
Click to expand...

The proposed test, 5 out of 5 cards, is not a valid test, formal or informal, unless KofA claims he is 100% accurate.

If the test indicates positive results, something more careful can be set up.
Click to expand...

Requiring 5 out of 5 correct to be a positive result virtually guarantees that he will fail the test, even if he really has telepathic ability. The test is so biased against the claimant that it is virtually guaranteed not to "indicate positive results."

If you're serious about testing him, design a test that is actually useful. It's not that hard. Furthermore, there is no reason in the world that the test cannot be rigorous.

As I have suggested, if you're serious about actually doing this in a valid manner, the first step is to obtain from the claimant a quantitative claim: You need to ask him, "What can you do, and in repeated trials, what proportion of the time can you do it?" Only then can you design a test that is fair both to the claimant and to skeptical adversaries.
 
Last edited:
Spektator said:
"Though few are aware of it, all New York booking agents are descended from a tribe that has no word in its language for 'no.' The closest they can come is 'I'll get back to you.'" If I recall correctly, that came from Woody Allen. But maybe not. You know how it is.
Click to expand...
Ha!
 
jt512 said:
The proposed test, 5 out of 5 cards, is not a valid test, formal or informal, unless KofA claims he is 100% accurate.

Requiring 5 out of 5 correct to be a positive result virtually guarantees that he will fail the test, even if he really has telepathic ability.
Click to expand...


I had suggested picking all 52 cards from which he would have to get 5 right. I certainly don't demand that he take this test or agree to this protocol. Since he was somewhat vague, I've asked him if he believes this is a something his powers allow him to do. If he says it isn't, I can design a test of whatever his claimed ability is at whatever degree of certainty he thinks he can achieve.

I would never demand 5 out of 5 and nothing less. That's unfair even for science we know to be true. Testing of any sort has an error rate. Pretending that it doesn't precludes positive results.
 
jt512 said:
The proposed test, 5 out of 5 cards, is not a valid test, formal or informal, unless KofA claims he is 100% accurate.



Requiring 5 out of 5 correct to be a positive result virtually guarantees that he will fail the test, even if he really has telepathic ability. The test is so biased against the claimant that it is virtually guaranteed not to "indicate positive results."

If you're serious about testing him, design a test that is actually useful. It's not that hard. Furthermore, there is no reason in the world that the test cannot be rigorous.

As I have suggested, if you're serious about actually doing this in a valid manner, the first step is to obtain from the claimant a quantitative claim: You need to ask him, "What can you do, and in repeated trials, what proportion of the time can you do it?" Only then can you design a test that is fair both to the claimant and to skeptical adversaries.
Click to expand...

Sure. Fine.

King agreed in principle to a specific test. Some variants have been suggested. I'm sure that if King has reservations about which test to use that LL will be happy to make reasonable modifications.

The problem isn't really designing a fair test. The issue is that after saying he'd like to be tested, King hasn't posted in a week. Maybe he's not really interested. I hope he returns and carries through.
 
Loss Leader said:
I would never demand 5 out of 5 and nothing less. That's unfair even for science we know to be true.
Click to expand...

Really? How about if we made it a test of telephonic, rather than telepathic, communication: you generate a sequence of five cards, generate your hash and post it, phone me up and tell me the sequence of five cards, which I then write down and post on the forum. How many would you expect me to get right?

Dave
 
Dave Rogers said:
Really? How about if we made it a test of telephonic, rather than telepathic, communication: you generate a sequence of five cards, generate your hash and post it, phone me up and tell me the sequence of five cards, which I then write down and post on the forum. How many would you expect me to get right?
Click to expand...


Observational Error
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom