Merged New telepathy test: which number did I write ?

[Michel H]

If it is not statistically significant, then it clearly does not 'seem to' support your telepathy hypothesis.
...

The results of this test seem to support my telepathy hypothesis (in my opinion, at least), in the sense that the hit rate is (significantly) higher than 25% (not just 27 or 28% for example). "Support" does not mean "standalone proof" ; each wheel of your car (if you have one) provides "support", but you (generally) need four wheels before you can drive your car. I also found some qualitative and semi-quantitative evidence in favor of telepathy at the end of post #127, and in my two previous (unblinded) tests on this forum. In a statistical analysis, the "hit rate" is important too, not just the more "pedantic" p-value. It is true, however, that one cannot rule out that this fairly high hit rate might just reflect some random, statistical fluctuation, with no (para)psychological meaning. If (and only if) this kind of result can be repeated several times, then a statistically significant result (p-value smaller or equal to 5%) might be obtained, probably rather easily.

 

[Hokulele]

Well, Hokulele, I have never claimed that correct answers always have a higher credibility ratings that incorrect ones.

True, but let's use your methods and reasoning on the three answers you considered to be valid.

Two of those were given the highest credibility rating assigned in this "test", and one was given the lowest. Of the ones given the highest rating, only one was correct, and the lowest was also correct. This means that 2/3 of the answers, or 66%, had an inverse relation between correctness and credibility. Therefor, the vast majority of the time, your credibility analysis was wrong, and your conclusion that the two are related in a positive fashion is false. The statistics clearly show a negative relation.

I depend of course a lot upon "integrities", "probities", "honesties" of responders (it seems that, in the field of telepathy, these words should generally be written between quotation marks ). Also, I need perhaps to gain more experience, and to better learn to detect, to "smell" correct answers in a high security test, what I am trying to do here (and on other forums) is still very new. Now, if you have decided inside yourself to answer in a very perverse way, there is no way I can overcome or try to "break" this "wall". Experience has taught me that, fairly often (not always) people tend to answer with a degree of honesty (most people are neither completely honest, nor completely dishonest, there is a level of humanity (humaneness) in most of you). Like in real life, people often are aggressive when they lie, friendly when they say the truth. It is possible that, as the test becomes more and more rigorous, people will try to not show any sentiment or emotion in their answer, in a very inhumane attempt to try to hide a (supposedly) real telepathic phenomenon. But people are human beings, not stones, and I don't think failure is a certainty, that success is impossible. I really don't know what the future will bring. And I don't know what I could add to this either , except perhaps to say that your answer was in a sense careful because the answer you sent to Agatha was the answer you posted (with the replacement xx → 1).

If you ask anyone who knows me, I am far more aggressive when being honest than when lying.

 

[Michel H]

True, but let's use your methods and reasoning on the three answers you considered to be valid.

Two of those were given the highest credibility rating assigned in this "test", and one was given the lowest. Of the ones given the highest rating, only one was correct, and the lowest was also correct. This means that 2/3 of the answers, or 66%, had an inverse relation between correctness and credibility. Therefor, the vast majority of the time, your credibility analysis was wrong, and your conclusion that the two are related in a positive fashion is false. The statistics clearly show a negative relation.




If you ask anyone who knows me, I am far more aggressive when being honest than when lying.

Hokulele, I think one writes "therefore" (= consequently), not "therefor" (detail). I am having some difficulty following your reasoning. Anyway, keep in mind I am trying to prove telepathy here (already hard enough, perhaps impossible), not necessarily a correlation between correctness and credibility, especially for a very small sample. I did actually perceive some agressivity in your (incorrect) answer. Actually, I suspect the answers in the unblinded tests were perhaps generally more "sincere", of better quality. But it is good also to be able to do something more rigorous.

 

[Hokulele]

Hokulele, I think one writes "therefore" (= consequently), not "therefor" (detail). I am having some difficulty following your reasoning. Anyway, keep in mind I am trying to prove telepathy here (already hard enough, perhaps impossible), not necessarily a correlation between correctness and credibility, especially for a very small sample.

My reasoning is that if you only take your "valid" answers, 66% show a negative relation between your credibility ratings and their accuracy. In other words, when blinded, a lower credibility rating is more likely to correspond to a correct guess, and a higher credibility rating is more likely to correspond to an incorrect guess.

If you now claim you are *not* trying to show a correlation, why did you write this, earlier?

This seems to confirm the finding I reported at the end of my previous test, namely that that (numerically) incorrect answers tend to be less credible.

To your other points:

I did actually perceive some agressivity in your (incorrect) answer.

Odd, I was sincerely posting my response, and why I responded that way. Your analysis of my response was interesting, in that you found it "aggressive", however, since you suspected (wrongly) that I had posted the correct number, you did everything you could to avoid giving me a negative credibility rating. This just goes to show how your biases are affecting your ratings.

Actually, I suspect the answers in the unblinded tests were perhaps generally more "sincere", of better quality. But it is good also to be able to do something more rigorous.

If you noted a lack of sincerity in the responses to your more recent "tests", I would suggest that is due more to exasperation on the part of the respondents, than the blinding or lack thereof.

 

[Michel H]

...
If you now claim you are *not* trying to show a correlation, why did you write this, earlier?

This seems to confirm the finding I reported at the end of my previous test, namely that that (numerically) incorrect answers tend to be less credible.

I wrote this about a larger sample, of 6 answers. I think I have generally observed a correlation between credibility and correctness (examples given in previous threads, observed on other forums too). This correlation is interesting, I think, but my main goal is to try to prove telepathy, not correlation.

Your analysis of my response was interesting, in that you found it "aggressive", however, since you suspected (wrongly) that I had posted the correct number, you did everything you could to avoid giving me a negative credibility rating. This just goes to show how your biases are affecting your ratings.

No, I don't rate for credibility in this way (or, at least, I try not to)

If you noted a lack of sincerity in the responses to your more recent "tests", I would suggest that is due more to exasperation on the part of the respondents, than the blinding or lack thereof.

Ah ok, try to calm down the agressivity then. Perhaps a good first step would be to write politely 'to your more recent tests', with no quotation marks around "tests". I make great efforts to try to post clearly, and I have often disappointed by the lot of nonsense criticism I am getting on this forum, by people who don't even seem to have read me carefully. You are not the worst. Besides, I have an impression that blinding is detrimental to sincerity, but rigor is important too.

 

[TheSapient]

TheSapient, the sentence:

was part of the opening post of this thread, and was therefore posted before I saw any of the results of this test. When I wrote the initial post (and therefore the protocol) of this test, I frankly didn't even suspect (perhaps because of a lack of imagination) that some people might send to the "helper" a text different from the blinded text (with "xx") they post in the thread. This came as a complete surprise to me, it was unexpected. And I believe this is a violation of the recommended protocol I posted before I knew any result. My goal here is not to please or entertain skeptics. I am not going to alter the results of the test, to make sure they magnificently meet your most skeptical expectations. When I think I see some interesting effects (and this tends to occur rather often, I think), I try to report them fairly and honestly, not to ignore them. Generally speaking, I suspect many of the people here who claim to "represent Science" or to be "guardians of Science" actually have probably very little (if any) real experience of scientific research, and this is a problem, to be constantly taught lessons be people who clearly don't know much about science, but naively believe (perhaps) they know everything because they post on a "skeptical" forum (there have been some good remarks too). One important rule of actual scientific research is that it is necessary to be very careful (not "sloppy" or negligent). In the example of this test, the fact some people posted one message with "xx", and sent another message to Agatha is something that I can certainly not neglect, even if this exasperates or enrages some of you because it raises the hit rate of the test.

The fact that you put that sentence in your original post shows that a) you thought about what people were going to be sending to Agatha, b( you knew what they sent might not be a word-for-word match to what they posted openly in the thread, and c) you did not consider this important enough to make any rules regarding it.

As to our credentials, I am published in a variety of ecology and infomatics related journals. But what difference does that make? You change your protocols after your tests to get the results you want. My CV is irrelevant the lack of integrity of your procedures.

 

[FrederickEason]

Good, FrederickEason. But, in this "high security" test, answers where the guessed number is posted explicitly are in principle not accepted. People were supposed to replace their guessed numbers by "xx". Always read carefully (at least) the opening post before criticizing a thread.

Then it's 2/6. Still not psychic.

 

[Michel H]

The fact that you put that sentence in your original post shows that a) you thought about what people were going to be sending to Agatha, b( you knew what they sent might not be a word-for-word match to what they posted openly in the thread, and c) you did not consider this important enough to make any rules regarding it.

As to our credentials, I am published in a variety of ecology and infomatics related journals. But what difference does that make? You change your protocols after your tests to get the results you want. My CV is irrelevant the lack of integrity of your procedures.

TheSapient, as I have already told you, I did not think about this possibility of non-matching (perhaps I should have, that's another issue, but I didn't). I was just thinking about answers "stored" by Agatha and Femke, for not being lost. I based my analysis on the recommended protocol, I see no lack of integrity there. However, if I do another test, I could perhaps try to be more clear about the importance of sending to the referee exactly the text you posted. All suggestions for improvement, and to make these tests more rigorous (without excessive complication) are very welcome in my threads. And it is not necessary to accuse me groundlessly of lacking integrity to do that.

 

[Michel H]

Then it's 2/6. Still not psychic.

FrederickEason, my analysis of the results of this test is in post #149.

 

[TheSapient]

TheSapient, as I have already told you, I did not think about this possibility of non-matching (perhaps I should have, that's another issue, but I didn't). I was just thinking about answers "stored" by Agatha and Femke, for not being lost. I based my analysis on the recommended protocol, I see no lack of integrity there. However, if I do another test, I could perhaps try to be more clear about the importance of sending to the referee exactly the text you posted. All suggestions for improvement, and to make these tests more rigorous (without excessive complication) are very welcome in my threads. And it is not necessary to accuse me groundlessly of lacking integrity to do that.

You have been given many suggestions on how to create a better, more simple test. How about this.

You pick a number from 1 to 1,000,000,000,000. You will write it down, circle it, and write it down again. You will post a hash for it in this forum. Ten people in this forum will post what they think that number is. You will reveal your number, with the hash key. If anyone's answer matches, we will be amazed and look into this further.

This prevents the problem that many of us have with your protocols. For many of us, it seems like you choose a small number of possible numbers to make it highly likely that someone will get it right. Then, after seeing the results, you apply unsubscribed protocols to change the results.

 

[Hokulele]

I wrote this about a larger sample, of 6 answers. I think I have generally observed a correlation between credibility and correctness (examples given in previous threads, observed on other forums too). This correlation is interesting, I think, but my main goal is to try to prove telepathy, not correlation.

So 6 answers are valid when they agree with your conclusions, but 3 of those are invalid when they do not. How non-scientific of you.

No, I don't rate for credibility in this way (or, at least, I try not to)

But you did. Go read your analysis of my response again.

Ah ok, try to calm down the agressivity then. Perhaps a good first step would be to write politely 'to your more recent tests', with no quotation marks around "tests".

You want me to post unnaturally? What happened to sincerity? Until you set a proper protocol and methodology, there is no reason to drop the quotation marks, as these are anything but rigorous tests.

I make great efforts to try to post clearly, and I have often disappointed by the lot of nonsense criticism I am getting on this forum, by people who don't even seem to have read me carefully. You are not the worst. Besides, I have an impression that blinding is detrimental to sincerity, but rigor is important too.

No, telling people not to post in their natural style is detrimental to sincerity. Blinding isn't, and can often promote sincerity, as people will no longer worry about how their answer corresponds to someone else's. Go look up how psychological testing is normally run for many examples.

 

[TheSapient]

Michel,

Can you describe the mechanism behind your latest objection? You are saying you can send a number into the mind of a remote person.....unless they later send someone a private message in an internet forum that is any different than the wording they used to report their results in that same forum?

How does their PM block your ability? How long must they refrain from sending PMs to other users? If they wrote something else in some other medium, say a shopping list, what would happen to your telepathy?

Does their PM go back in time and stop you from sending your number? Or does your telepathy look into the future and find out that participants have written something?

 

[fromdownunder]

You have been given many suggestions on how to create a better, more simple test. How about this.

You pick a number from 1 to 1,000,000,000,000. You will write it down, circle it, and write it down again. You will post a hash for it in this forum. Ten people in this forum will post what they think that number is. You will reveal your number, with the hash key. If anyone's answer matches, we will be amazed and look into this further.

I would genuinely post on such a thread, and I suspect that there would be up to 100 genuine responses. Although I would be quite happy if the upper limit was 1,000,000.

Michel, if you genuinely believe you are sending a number, why do you always limit it to 4 numbers. If members here are getting your number, why does it always have to be between 1 and 4, as has been in the case of your three failed attempts?

Another option, if you want to limit the number to 4 is to write down 4 three figure numbers, say:

167
251
812
303

Then do the same "test" that you just did. But of course, you would be completely unwilling to try such a thing, because you don't even believe the things you are trying to convince everyone here of, do you?

If you can send a number from 1 to 4 telepathically, why are you utterly incapable of "sending" a larger number?

Norm

 

[Emily's Cat]

I have two questions.

1) What is the sampling error for a sample size of 6?

2) If you had had only 2 valid answers (by your reasoning), and one of them had happened to be correct, would you have declared that the results were 50% correct and therefore evidence of telepathy?

 

[fromdownunder]

If you had had only 2 valid answers (by your reasoning), and one of them had happened to be correct, would you have declared that the results were 50% correct and therefore evidence of telepathy?

Michel, by whatever convoluted reasoning he/she uses would more than likely discount the incorrect answer and claim 100%.

Norm

 

[gabeygoat]

TheSapient, the sentence:It may also be useful (I recommend it) that you send your (full) answer, in the form of a private message, to either Agatha, ...

was part of the opening post of this thread, and was therefore posted before I saw any of the results of this test.

that was a vague suggestion of a possible thing to do. Not a requirement.

 

[xtifr]

FrederickEason, my analysis of the results of this test is in post #149.

Your blind (and therefore potentially valid) analysis is in post #127. The actual answers were unblinded in post #129, and showed two out of six correct, from among the "credible" answers. That's not statistically significant (pure chance would give 1.5).

The analysis in post #149 was after the results were revealed, and is therefore utterly meaningless. You violated the protocol.

 

[Iamme]

Why not the OP deeply keep concentrating on something. Then ask us what he`s thinking. If any correctly guess, do it again and see if the same people who guessed right the first time guess right the second time, etc. That would be telepathy.

 

[Tamlin]

Why not the OP deeply keep concentrating on something. Then ask us what he`s thinking. If any correctly guess, do it again and see if the same people who guessed right the first time guess right the second time, etc. That would be telepathy.

I doubt anybody would seriously attempt to participate in an experiment such as this. Honestly, if Michel is serious about this, they need to go elsewhere. If they aren't willing to listen to anybody here, and aren't expecting to convince anyone, I'm not sure why they're even posting in the first place.

 

[Iamme]

I beg of you. Please respond to this. All of you. I have a bike combo padlock. Each of its 4 dials has numbers 1 thru 6 on it. What`s the combination?