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Reapplication possible (FTL, panpsychism, reincarnation)?

wogoga

Critical Thinker
W
Joined
Apr 16, 2007
Messages
334
Hello,

After having ceased my job a year ago, I have time again to deal with The One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge.

See:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89909
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48248

My claim is not exactly humble and may even be considered arrogant: A paradigm shift for the whole of science from physics to psychology, as far-reaching as the paradigm shift introduced by Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) for astronomy.

Kepler had shown that the astronomy from the old Greeks to his time including Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was in principle completely wrong, insofar as it was based on the philosophic premise of the immaculate circle.

The most far-reaching insight of the new paradigm shift is reincarnation as a trivial scientific fact. E.g. James Randi (1928) is very probably the reincarnation of Harry Houdini /URL](1874 - 1926), and probably also of [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Eug%C3%A8ne_Robert-Houdin"]Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin (1805 - 1871) and of Alessandro Cagliostro (1743-1795) (and maybe even of female priests in ancient times). So in order to really understand James Randi, one should deal with Houdini, Houdin and Cagliostro.

The evidence for reincarnation today is only as simple/complex, convincing/unconvincing as the evidence for a spherical Earth two and a half millennia ago. So I cannot expect the JFRF staff to be ready and to be unprejudiced enough to invest a lot of time and mental energy into judging the evidence.

Nevertheless the question whether faster-than-light transmission (FTL) of information is possible or not by Coulomb's law is much simpler. And it is common sense that if Coulomb fields propagate FTL, then not only the relativity theories but all physical theories based on Maxwell will collapse like a house of cards, leaving a lot of valuable stuff for the construction of alternative, less inconsistent theories.

prewitt81 said:
I would worry more about how you plan on demonstrating your latest claim. I am also interested in knowing why you weren't able to get affidavits for the FTL transmission experiment.
Click to expand...

A colleague, a firm believer in the impossibility of FLT, helped me in doing the experiment. He did not consider our results convincing enough to confirm FTL by his signature. And I had to admit to myself: If I were as convinced of the impossibility of FTL as I'm convinced of instantaneous actions-at-a-distance, then I probably also would have declared our results as not conclusive.

In the meanwhile the experiment has become more convincing. We can use two separate oscilloscopes synchronized by a signal generator, and we understand the influence of image charges better. So my colleague finally accepted to sign as one affidavit for FTL (but still not for instantaneous-actions-at-a-distance).

Before starting to look for a second affidavit, I'd like to know whether FTL still qualifies for the challenge.

If you think that FTL (or even instantaneous-actions-at-distance) is not something paranormal in itself, then I propose the following compromise: The first half of the prize is offered for FTL transmission of information (with inevitable refutation of Maxwell's theory, relativity, QM, QED and so on), and the second half is offered for either panpsychism or reincarnation being accepted by mainstream science.

Cheers,
Wolfgang
www.pandualism.com
 
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How on earth do you design an experiment that tests for reincarnation?
 
I'm not a betting person, but I have a spare $1000.00 nobody took me up on on something similar a week or so back. To lose (I win if our OP loses.).
 
Only two ways to win (cheat like in the Bridey Murphy thing) (actually be reincarnated and have had things happen in the past life there is no possible way for you to have found out yet can be located to prove you right). In other words I see it as loss is a no-brainer.
 
I love the euphemisn "ceased my job"...

As for the rest, LOLWHUT??? What is the testable claim there?
 
smartcooky said:
Plagiarise the script for "Flatliners"?
Click to expand...

That would only prove a few minutes of afterlife, not reincarnation. Also, the mere involvement of Keifer Sutherland puts the entire scientific nature of the experiment in serious question.
 
wogoga: You're trying to make this harder than it really is.

Apparently you claim to have some paranormal ability or knowledge. Whatever it is, either (a) it can be used to demonstrate some testable effect in the world, or (b) it can't demonstrate any testable effect and therefore just doesn't matter.

Focus on making a testable claim. Describe precisely what effect you claim to demonstrate, and how to test that you've demonstrated that and not something else.

Never mind how it works nor why it works; those don't matter until it actually does work. Never mind who doesn't believe it will work nor why they believe it won't work; those folk and reasons will be proven wrong as soon as it actually does work.

Once you've clarified what you claim you can do and a way to test it, you have something to work with.

An obvious (if often overlooked) option is to demonstrate and test the claim on your own. If it works, great; that's what you thought would happen, right? If you can't seem to make it work for yourself, though, you might want to reconsider your claim or the test.

When you clearly describe your claim to somebody else (say, JREF eventually, but you might consider a more local audience first), they might admit that the claim is interesting (say, "paranormal") or shrug it off as ordinary. If they say it's ordinary, fine; you've put the ball into their court. If they can't point out some of those "ordinary" demonstrations, you can expose their avoidance of your interesting claim for the world to judge their cowardice.

If they admit your claim is interesting, you can try to reach agreement on a demonstration and test. If you can't ever come to agreement, you can tell everybody what you proposed and what they demanded. The whole world can judge how reasonable you were and the depth of their unreasonable cowardice.

If they admit your claim is interesting and you can agree on a test protocol, then all you have to do is what you already said you can do (and hopefully have already demonstrated for yourself). Make sure to document the agreement in detail, then do what you agreed you would do and test it the way you agreed.

Sure, they might try something against the agreement to spoil your demonstration, cheat on the test, change the rules, or just refuse to admit that you did what you agreed to do. In that case, you can show the whole world what you agreed and what you did and what they did. That will expose the frauds for what they are.
 
DavidS said:
wogoga: You're trying to make this harder than it really is.

Apparently you claim to have some paranormal ability or knowledge. Whatever it is, either (a) it can be used to demonstrate some testable effect in the world, or (b) it can't demonstrate any testable effect and therefore just doesn't matter.

Focus on making a testable claim. Describe precisely what effect you claim to demonstrate, and how to test that you've demonstrated that and not something else.

Never mind how it works nor why it works; those don't matter until it actually does work. Never mind who doesn't believe it will work nor why they believe it won't work; those folk and reasons will be proven wrong as soon as it actually does work.

Once you've clarified what you claim you can do and a way to test it, you have something to work with.

An obvious (if often overlooked) option is to demonstrate and test the claim on your own. If it works, great; that's what you thought would happen, right? If you can't seem to make it work for yourself, though, you might want to reconsider your claim or the test.

When you clearly describe your claim to somebody else (say, JREF eventually, but you might consider a more local audience first), they might admit that the claim is interesting (say, "paranormal") or shrug it off as ordinary. If they say it's ordinary, fine; you've put the ball into their court. If they can't point out some of those "ordinary" demonstrations, you can expose their avoidance of your interesting claim for the world to judge their cowardice.

If they admit your claim is interesting, you can try to reach agreement on a demonstration and test. If you can't ever come to agreement, you can tell everybody what you proposed and what they demanded. The whole world can judge how reasonable you were and the depth of their unreasonable cowardice.

If they admit your claim is interesting and you can agree on a test protocol, then all you have to do is what you already said you can do (and hopefully have already demonstrated for yourself). Make sure to document the agreement in detail, then do what you agreed you would do and test it the way you agreed.

Sure, they might try something against the agreement to spoil your demonstration, cheat on the test, change the rules, or just refuse to admit that you did what you agreed to do. In that case, you can show the whole world what you agreed and what you did and what they did. That will expose the frauds for what they are.
Click to expand...
Exactly! This^^^
Just simply indicate what you propose to do that is paranormal. Make certain that it does not require subjective interpretation or judgement (a good example of a proposed claim: "I can transmit a signal between two physically separate oscilloscopes faster than the speed of light would take to do so."). State what you would score as a positive test (e.g. "A peak will appear on the second oscilloscope in less than xx msecs after the initial physically distant signal is initiated"). Then be prepared to clarify your claim and to avoid experimental errors (e.g. noise) and the possibility of cheating (a lot of people might cheat for $1 bucks). Also be certain that you are looking for a statistically significant event (you should have almost no problem, but stating that you can cut a deck of cards to show an ace is only statistically paranormal if you can do it a lot more that 4/52 times). Not hard, but just be specific. And as stated, test it yourself a few times to see if it really works as you claim.
 
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A couple posts at most every three to five years. I'm not optimistic of this going any further.
 
Wogoga,
You do know that this forum is not the correct place to ask a specific question about eligibility, right?
 
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