Assistance required for telepathy proof

[golfy]

The whole point of using a GSR is that it removes another variable in the test but may add some complications of its own but which could be statistically removed.

The variable it removes from the test is the receivers freedom of choice once they have heard the transmitted phrase and then for them to say something completely different if the telepathy is at a conscious level. i.e. they hear “Brain” and say “Donkey”

The telepathy may be at a subconscious level (unless you have conclusive prior knowledge of what telepathy actually is and at what level it exists) therefore a GSR or similar will be required anyway.

All I am trying to do is create a water tight protocol which removes all possible variables with the receivers response on the GSR being not consciously controlled but a true reflection of his/her emotional state at the time of telepathic transmission and during the rest of the test.

golfy

 

[wahrheit]

The variable it removes from the test is the receivers freedom of choice once they have heard the transmitted phrase and then for them to say something completely different if the telepathy is at a conscious level. i.e. they hear “Brain” and say “Donkey”

Why, why in the world would one of the test persons say "Donkey" when the word they received in their head was "Brain"?

Why?

Why?

Why?

 

[Speed of Light]

Hi Everyone
I don't like being 'personal' and I never have done before, but it's becoming painfully obvious to me that some of the 'regular' forum members seem to be repeating the same questions ad nausium, often very impatiently, no matter what anyone says in reply. I'm getting a distinctive feeling that the most sane people here are those who don't post at all, and just read (with a few exceptions). Sorry about that, but it had to be said by someone!

SOL

 

[Rasmus]

Loss Leader,

Have you considered that he may not be conscious of my telepathic “transmissions” but that it may still be detectable on a GSR?

First of all, is that what you are claiming?

"may" and "could" won't get you very far.

Secondly, is that what you think your ability is, and is that what you think you have experienced over the past few year? Is what you experienced best explained with people unconsciously receiving your thoughts?

I can easily imagine many situations where a good explanation would indeed be that people can read my thoughts. Random women slapping me in the streets, me getting fired from suddenly very angry bosses and the like.

(As a matter of fact, I have been slapped once for something I thought. By a friend, who knew me well and knew from my looks what I was thinking wrt to the current conversation. There was no need for telepathy, though.)

If you can suggest a better device for detecting received telepathic transmissions that may cause stress in the receiver then I would be happy to hear it.

If that is indeed your claim, you need to reconsider what it is you are trying. Again, the test must *clearly* show that you are influencing the other person with your thoughts.

It has been pointed out several times where the flaws are in your suggested setup: You could either cheat or the results would not be self-evident and conclusive.

Do you understand that?

Even if you have the abilities you claim you have, the test needs to have two possible outcomes: One that clearly shows you have and made use of your telepathic ability, and another outcome that shows that you were not using any telepathic ability (which you then might or might not have.)

IOW: If you get a positive result, the only possible explanation must be that you are a telepath. The *only* *possible* explanation.

If cheating is another possible explanation then your test is useless.

If miss-judging of the results is another possible explanation then your test is useless.

These other explanations do not have to be likely or obvious at all. As long as they are possible, as long as they are not absolutely ruled out, your test is useless.

It might be that you have an ability that cannot be tested realistically. Because of that, is vital that you know what it is *precisely* what you can do, under which conditions you can do it and what your success rate is.

Only then will it be possible to create a proper, reliable test.

As long as you are at a stage where you don't even know if people can actually hear your precise thoughts, or just subconsciously pick up on them and react with varying stress-levels nobody can design a test.

It might be that your claimed ability is so small that a reasonable test is not possible.

Imagine I had an ability to predict every millionth toss of a coin with a success rate of 53%. My ability might be entirely real; it would still be near impossible to test, since I would require several millions of coin tosses to have it confirmed.

Such a situation of course begs the question of how I ever became aware of my ability. Few people ever toss coins for several million times in a row, after all ... and the same holds true for your ability: If you can do no more than slightly influence people subconsciously, then how did you ever find out?

 

[Loss Leader]

Loss Leader,

Have you considered that he may not be conscious of my telepathic “transmissions” but that it may still be detectable on a GSR?

If you can suggest a better device for detecting received telepathic transmissions that may cause stress in the receiver then I would be happy to hear it.

Actually, golfy, I have. And I remember pretty clearly that your main concern was that people generally lie about having heard your thoughts or they shut down and refuse to talk to you about it. Even in the experiments with lie detectors that you took part in, you made it seem like the receiver nearly admitted to hearing you but refused to do so explicitly. You wanted to ask people questions like "Do you like banana?" that would appear to require conscious thought for the listener to process.

It wasn't until Linda explained that some experimenters had explored the concept of a listener being only subconsciously affected by stimuli that you shifted to that reasoning.

So, here is the question that I have for you: Do YOU believe that receivers only subconsciously hear your thoughts or do YOU believe they hear you consciously?

If you believe that your thoughts are being consciously received, there is no reason for the GSR. Do you believe that?

 

[malbui]

Hi Everyone
I don't like being 'personal' and I never have done before, but it's becoming painfully obvious to me that some of the 'regular' forum members seem to be repeating the same questions ad nausium, often very impatiently, no matter what anyone says in reply. I'm getting a distinctive feeling that the most sane people here are those who don't post at all, and just read (with a few exceptions). Sorry about that, but it had to be said by someone!

SOL

Maybe if the questions got answered without obfuscation, irrelevancies and criticisms of the mental faculties of other posters, there wouldn't be any need to keep repeating those questions.

 

[GzuzKryzt]

Hi Everyone
I don't like being 'personal' and I never have done before, but it's becoming painfully obvious to me that some of the 'regular' forum members seem to be repeating the same questions ad nausium, often very impatiently, no matter what anyone says in reply. I'm getting a distinctive feeling that the most sane people here are those who don't post at all, and just read (with a few exceptions). Sorry about that, but it had to be said by someone!

SOL

Speed of Light, this is an open forum. My inquiries directed at golfy are to illustrate his present misconception about what he tries to achieve.

And to demonstrate that he is unwilling to participate in a fruitful discussion since he is unable to accept the mere possibility he might be wrong.



Golfy, could you tell us your definition of falsifiability and how it is reflected in your protocol proposal?

Are you surprised the JREF won't allow a polygraph?

 

[Speed of Light]

Here's the thing: "total proof" of anything can not be reliably derived from "a life time of memories and experiences." Ever. At all. Really. If you think you have proof of something based on memories and experiences, then you are, quite simply, wrong. (Sorry to be so blunt about it, but it's not my rules, it's just reality.) The reason for this, is because human memory and experience are notoriously, demonstrably unreliable. What you may derive from them is deep personal conviction, but that is not anywhere near the same thing as proof.

Right - So you have a deep personal conviction that the 'Scientific method' is the best method for discovering the truth -
You have a deep personal conviction that it is best to be Skeptical rather than to just Believe -
But do you have proof of that??

No - You cannot prove that the scientific method leads to truth by investigating that assumption scientifically, because you still won't have tested your initial assumption that scientific proof is best, and we are left with a tautology.

As horrible as it seems, I'm afraid I have to tell you that you are similar to the believers in that you base your underlying assumptions, and therefore your convictions and beliefs, on Emotion

 

[golfy]

They either exist or they don't. All this GSR/MRI/polygraph business is nothing but useless ballast and obfuscation.

And you have proof to back up your statement?

golfy

 

[Loss Leader]

No - You cannot prove that the scientific method leads to truth by investigating that assumption scientifically, because you still won't have tested your initial assumption that scientific proof is best, and we are left with a tautology.

Yes, yes, the inability of reductionism to reveal a first cause proves relativism and means that all beliefs are equally valid.

Brilliant.

I knew that Intro To Philosophy would solve golfy's problem with experimental design.

Trust me on this, SOL: You are wading into waters that are far deeper than those for which you are prepared.

 

[wahrheit]

And you have proof to back up your statement?

golfy

It seems you forgot to address the rest of my post, but I am not alone in this.

First, you said people can hear you, all of them, but you said all of them are liars and they wouldn't admit they heard your thoughts.

Then, two pages later, all this electronic gadgets talk came up, and now we need some fancy high-tech gear that you hope will "detect" these lies in a statistically significant manner. Yet, this of course – even if it worked – would not be evidence of telepathy. There's simply no need for any machines, it only serves to make it look more "scientific" to the naive, while in fact is has nothing to do with science. It only serves to add more and more variables for "discussion", which seems very important to you, because you obviously want a number of excuses at hand when the test fails. You have said so, word for word. Look at one of my previous quotes of yours, or at Gryrhtkytz signature, it's right there.


If you are telepathic and can transmit words, then the test subjects will say those words they received. It's as simple as that. If they can not say what you transmitted, if nothing pops up in their mind while you transmit, then we don't have telepathy.

There are, dunno, something like 5 billion people on this planet old enough to be a test subject for you. Don't tell me they are all liars, they all receive your words but in their mean heads decide to lie about it.

 

[GzuzKryzt]

And you have proof to back up your statement?

golfy

Not to rain on wahrheit's parade but: Yup.

(Dang, you already responded.)

 

[GzuzKryzt]

Golfy, what is the purpose of your continued posting since you

a) can't use your current "protocol" in a JREF test
b) have no media presence
c) have no academic support
d) won't participate in a sensible discussion?

Do you intend to apply for the JREF Prize?

 

[Quinn]

As horrible as it seems, I'm afraid I have to tell you that you are similar to the believers in that you base your underlying assumptions, and therefore your convictions and beliefs, on Emotion

*GASP* Oh my, I'd certainly never heard that before! Why, now I'll have to go and rethink everything. Your logic ties me up and rapes me (de doo doo doo, de da da da).

 

[Rasmus]

As horrible as it seems, I'm afraid I have to tell you that you are similar to the believers in that you base your underlying assumptions, and therefore your convictions and beliefs, on Emotion

One of the courses I read in my first semester at university was called "Philosophy - What is it all about", in the US the same thing might well be labelled "Philosophy 101".

Whatever the name, you might be interested to hear that these courses are a good first stop - not the only ones by far, mind you and possibly not even the best ones, either - to learn about why you are most likely wrong, and why even if you should be right your best bet would be to pretend you'd be wrong.

 

[alfaniner]

Have you considered that he may not be conscious of my telepathic “transmissions” but that it may still be detectable on a GSR?

golfy

A telepathic transmission that no one can hear on a conscious level is useful how?

This thread is on the brink of "legendary" status...

 

[golfy]

Hi all,

I can’t keep on discussing the believe that I have forever.

My belief is that I am telepathic, other people can hear it and that it is at a conscious level. If I ask them can they hear my brain when I think, they will say “No”.

If I think a word and ask them what it is like I did before on this forum when I stated I would offer a percentage of the prize money to the person who could tell me my surname, some people came up with first names and you ask me why would they say “Donkey” when I have just thought “Brian”.

If I was to do a telepathy test by simply asking a person what I had just thought and they then said something completely different, this doesn’t mean that I am not telepathic. In my belief, they are lying, hence the need for a polygraph or GSR to get around it.

My prior post suggested that it may be subconscious to explain the need for a GSR to a sceptic who simply defines the required telepathy test to be a verbal one – no correlation, no telepathy.

That test does not include telepathy which may be subconscious which I actually mentioned before in post 12 – loss leader.

If you do a test where you simply ask the receiver “Did you hear my thoughts” and he says “No”, that proves nothing. Only when you have proved that his reply was totally devoid of dishonesty does it then become a valid answer.

If I were to participate in a test that was fallible such as the I think, the receiver answers test, it is still not accurate as it is still possible that the receiver is not telling the truth.

As sceptics cannot define telepathy as either subconscious or conscious then you can’t rule out a GSR being required in a telepathy test. As you can’t rule out that the receiver may lie on a telepathy test either (which is what I believe is happening) then for it to be as scientifically accurate as possible (why would you want it less accurate and open to deceit if that can quite easily be prevented with the addition of a GSR or polygraph) then a GSR or polygraph should be included in the experiment. We are testing for an as yet unproven phenomenon. I would use the most accurate, tightly controlled, non manipulatable test which has nothing to do with human emotion, greed, deceit etc that I can possibly construct. Nothing left to chance would be the way to get a true indication of the fact that I am telepathic.

golfy

 

[wahrheit]

Not to rain on wahrheit's parade but: Yup.

(Dang, you already responded.)

Nguyen: "I know it was my fault for bringing the wrong recipient".

It's always the recipient's fault, isn't it?

And sorry for the Gryrhtkytz, I was just typing along. Actually, I'm surprised it's pretty close to the original.

 

[Blackwell]

...It is also said (amongst psychics) that animals are more psychic than humans - especially cats - How about hooking up a cat to the equipment, and e.g. imagine a ferocious dog, and testing for a reaction...

Great idea. I propose you and golfy combine your individual claims; hook Shroedinger's cat up to a polygraph (making sure it's in a meditative state, of course), throw some menacing thoughts at him (something along the lines of "I'm gonna open this box, and you might be dead!" should work), measure the speed of light at that moment, and presto! MDC here you come!

 

[wahrheit]

My belief is that I am telepathic, other people can hear it and that it is at a conscious level. If I ask them can they hear my brain when I think, they will say “No”.

That's because they can't, obviously.

If I think a word and ask them what it is like I did before on this forum when I stated I would offer a percentage of the prize money to the person who could tell me my surname, some people came up with first names and you ask me why would they say “Donkey” when I have just thought “Brian”.

That's because they didn't receive your surname, and not because everybody on this planet is a meanie that denies having heard your thoughts.

If I was to do a telepathy test by simply asking a person what I had just thought and they then said something completely different, this doesn’t mean that I am not telepathic.

Well, not necessarily. But it seems to be an acceptable possibility.

If people do not say the same word that you had transmitted to them, chances are that nothing was successfully transmitted at all.

In my belief, they are lying, hence the need for a polygraph or GSR to get around it.

Golfy, this world surely is full of bad people and liars, no doubt. But not everybody is like this, and most certainly not at a rather trivial thing like a little test of telepathy.

The fact that you believe that all your test subjects are lying is, well, pretty scary. And I do not think this has anything to do with telepathy at all, this mistrust in each and everybody is quite another problem.