Assistance required for telepathy proof

golfy said:
Your last statement can be viewed as they know I am telepathic and therefore need to manipulate the GSR or poly results to make me fail, so that it keeps the cover up going as the method of proof has been deliberately sabotaged to be in your favour. How would they know in which direction to manipulate the GSR if you do not know which word I have, unless I am telepathic of course.

golfy
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my personal opinion is that they would even let you use the machine. Your claim is that people can hear you, not that people are liars.
 
golfy said:
Then enlighten us to how it works Sledge. You only know how something does by having a knowledge of how it does work. If you do not have that intricate knowledge, then your opinion is not valid.
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The GSR is an indirect measure of one aspect of autonomic arousal. This is influenced by all kinds of stuff (see link). The reason polygraphs measure more than one response type, and require extended work by experienced operators to establish baseline responses, is because it is extremely hard to isolate any particular cause of autonomic arousal, let alone its relationship to the subject's state of mind at any particular time. Pretty much the best they can do is to assume that temporary broad AN arousal is due to (possibly sub or pre-conscious) anxiety, based on a previously established response pattern in that individual. Over an extended period, they then hope to correlate the assumed anxiety responses with the questions asked, based on the results obtained when establishing the baseline responses to previous true/false answers. If it works at all, it's more an art than a science.

Excitement, tiredness, temperature change, a yawn, a sigh, a random thought, physical movement, muscle relaxation, muscle tension, various sounds, a cigarette, lack of a cigarette, coffee or tea, a full bladder, even digestive disturbance can affect AN arousal. GSR response alone is even more labile. I know this from experience, having done a thesis on the peripheral vasoconstrictive response to noise.
 
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What would be the point of proving you were telepathic if you think the entire human race are conspiring to pretend you're not? Show everyone your proof and they'll just deny it, won't they?

Seems to me you'd be a lot better off trying to prove you're not schizophrenic than trying to prove you are psychic. A definitive answer to the former will do you a lot more good than a disputed answer to the latter.
 
I have heard a lot of these arguments before against the accuracy of GSR/poly tests and the frailty of the cat ship test.

I have done a number of GSR cat ship tests and the tests where there is no reasonable reason to suppose that other factors are affecting the results such as when the subject gets bored after 5 cat ship tests, then the results were that the correct prediction was produced. The failures can be attributed to actual reasons, not random cat ship results due to the nature of the GSR.

I know that you will now point out the tests that failed as why the cat ship test should be dropped, but I can rationalise reasons for those failures. If those reasons can be eliminated from the test procedure by strict control, then reliability of the cat ship test should increase. You will say it is my refusal to accept that I am mentally ill. but any good researcher would follow a lead untill that lead is proven, not understood to be, incorrect. I may find after a few weeks of experimentation that the cat ship test produces very good results or that is does not look like it is capable of providing the required level of accuracy required to win the $1M. Not trying will never get me anywhere, listening to unsubstantiated opinion is a waste of time

All else is opinion. Falsification is mentioned a few times but yet you expect me to take your word for it that I am wrong. Surely falsification would be the best arbiter, not a few amateur scientists and professional clowns making unwarranted statements which are simple generalisations, not actual proven facts. Experimentation is the key, not opinion.

I will continue with my GSR testing and gain some more results and experience as it which direction I should go in.

golfy
 
Pixel42 said:
What is needed is a string of volunteers to take a cat ship test under carefully controlled conditions and gain any meaningful results.

What progress have you made towards making that happen? Have you been in touch with the Cambridge skeptics in the pub group yet, to see if they'll help? Do you want me to ask the Cheltenham skeptics in the pub group if they'll help when I attend my first meeting on Tuesday?
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Hi Pixel42,

I am very busy at the moment with my work but will try and do some more testing as soon as I can.

I would be happy if you can ask your group of their opinion and see what help they can offer. I think that I can do more tests locally first to get more data and information on how the GSR tests fails or performs so that I can work out ways of perfecting it as much as possible before I do anything else.

The basis of the test is fine, I just need more real world data to see what problems surface and to gauge the overall accuracy with more than a few volunteers.

golfy
 
golfy said:
The basis of the test is fine, I just need more real world data to see what problems surface and to gauge the overall accuracy with more than a few volunteers.
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What will you conclude if in careful testing with more volunteers your results are no better than chance? Or is that what you mean by a problem surfacing?

In other words are you going to take negative results as proof that you are not telepathic? Or just as evidence that there's something wrong with your test protocol?

I can tell you now that no sceptic group, let alone JREF, are going to waste their time with you unless you are prepared to accept upfront that a negative outcome of a rigorous test protocol disproves your claim to be telepathic as surely as a positive outcome proves it.
 
golfy said:
I have better insight to my experiences that you as I was the eye witness to the test. Like psychiatrists, you only conclude from what I tell you. I do not hold information back, but I cannot relay decades of experiences to you on a forum.
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That's a revealing statement, considering we can apparently read your mind.
 
golfy said:
I know that you will now point out the tests that failed as why the cat ship test should be dropped, but I can rationalise reasons for those failures.
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I'm sure everybody believes you can. It's whether those rationalisations are actually rational that I think is being questioned. It's been suggested to you that you will be able to rationalise away any failure to get the result you want.

If it's true that you believe everybody in the world knows you're telepathic and is deliberately lying to avoid admitting it (for what reason?), then you most certainly can rationalise away any results you don't like.
 
Pixel42 said:
What will you conclude if in careful testing with more volunteers your results are no better than chance? Or is that what you mean by a problem surfacing?

In other words are you going to take negative results as proof that you are not telepathic? Or just as evidence that there's something wrong with your test protocol?
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That's the problem. Golfy knows he's got telepathic abilities--he's demonstrated it to himself countless times. Now he's working on demonstrating it to others.

Because he's fully convinced he's telepathic, no test results, despite how fair the protocol may appear to everyone else, will change his mind. He'll rationalize all manners of reasons why the test failed. And he'll likely continue to try to devise a different test.

All this is not helped by the fact that golfy thinks there is a conspiracy going on against him, in which everyone is involved and everyone is lying to him about not being able to hear his thoughts. With a paranoid mindset like that, no results are going to change your mind.

Again, this is why helping him develop a test is a waste of time and energy. And it's the reason why the JREF is never going to test him for the $1MM.
 
I can flip a coin and predict the outcome. Now the problem is, by the raw data, I'm wrong half the time. But, if I can rationalize rejecting all of the incorrect predictions, my accuracy goes up to nearly 100%. I really think I'm on to something.
 
Having spent an inordinate length of time reading through every post in this thread, I feel a summary is required (just for my own sanity, you understand):

- Golfy knows he has telepathic ability
- Golfy knows everyone lies when they tell him they cannot pick up his thought transmission
- Golfy has resorted to convoluted methods to prove (not test) his ability
- Apparently extraordinary claims require extraordinarily complicated systems to prove the claim
- None of these extraordinarily complicated testing protocols have yielded good positive evidence for said claim

So, in essence, Golfy has a unique paranormal ability that everyone has conspired to deny and that no testing system to date can seemingly detect.

If I am correct in my summary then this puts Golfy in the same category as deities, fairies, homoeopathy, invisible magic sofa monsters, psychics and Nessie (to name a few). Some impressively unimpressive bed-fellows.
 
Again the same old rubbish. If I have a few tests, say 4, two failures and 2 passes, you are saying I am not telepathic. If you will not accept a small sample as telepathic then you can’t accept a small sample as not telepathic.

You also criticise the test as being next to useless, then if it fails to prove anything you then say it is proof of me not being telepathic, proven by a next to useless test.

Have you heard yourselves?

I have looked up the word hypocrite in the dictionary, it says “See the JREF posters.”

I’ll try to obtain more results and reason if the test is accurate or not. More data is needed before any conclusion is made about the test or about the nature of my ability.

Catch 22 – how do you test for telepathy with a test that can only be verified by a telepathic person if no telepathic people exist? How do you know that the test is proving me to not be telepathic if you do not know that the test has been verified as a viable test to prove telepathy?

If you can suggest a better test than the cat ship test to prove my premise is correct or otherwise then I am all ears (or eyes as this is web forum).

golfy
 
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golfy said:
If you can suggest a better test than the cat ship test to prove my premise is correct or otherwise then I am all ears (or eyes as this is web forum).
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Yes. Send us each a telepathic message. Send us a phone number and, if I receive it, I promise I will ring it.

This simple test will prove to absolutely everyone else here whether you are telepathic or not.

The only drawback is that, while we will all know the genuine answer, you will not know for sure what it is that we know unless you truly are psychic and we ring you to confirm. The test cannot prove to you that you are schizophrenic and not telepathic, as your illness would make you rationalise away the lack of phone calls as a sign of our conspiring against you.

Otherwise, it's a great test.
 
golfy said:
I’ll try to obtain more results and reason if the test is accurate or not.
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How will you reason whether the test is accurate or not?

I suspect that you will "reason" that it is accurate if it produces positive results but is not accurate if it produces negative results.
 
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