Assistance required for telepathy proof

[Jack by the hedge]

It seems to me you're making two separate claims, one concerning telepathy, and one concerning the accuracy of a GSR as a lie detector. I suggest you definitively establish the second one before using it to establish the first.

This is golfy's dilemma. He doesn't necessarily want to prove that lie detectors work. He simply needs them to work unless someone can think of another way to establish his main claim - that he can telepathically project his thoughts - when he does not trust anyone not to lie about whether he is sending to them or not.

 

[golfy]

To Tatyana,

You can't punish people in experiments. It breeches all ethics protocols.

If you gave the RX £20 at the start of the test and removed £2 per wrong answer, that would be punishment for every lie told. I am not intending recruiting the Mafia into a cat ship test!

If any one of the sets of questions stands out, there are statistical formula to determine outliers and eliminate them.

I would be interested if you could expand on what you have written.

golfy

 

[Akhenaten]

To Tatyana,

You can't punish people in experiments. It breeches all ethics protocols.

If you gave the RX £20 at the start of the test and removed £2 per wrong answer, that would be punishment for every lie told. I am not intending recruiting the Mafia into a cat ship test!


golfy

my bolding

 

[Pixel42]

This is golfy's dilemma. He doesn't necessarily want to prove that lie detectors work. He simply needs them to work unless someone can think of another way to establish his main claim - that he can telepathically project his thoughts - when he does not trust anyone not to lie about whether he is sending to them or not.

The only workable protocols I can think of require golfy to accept that the volunteer receiver is co-operating. As he now appears to be acknowledging that financial incentives, rather than inflicting pain, might be sufficient to overcome whatever mysterious motive he believes causes people to lie to him, let's spell out such a protocol.

Volunteers would be recruited by golfy himself, he will probably prefer people who genuinely need cash (e.g. homeless, students, clients of the local job centre). They would not previously know him from Adam, so would have no conceivable motive for not co-operating. He would encourage them to take part, and to co-operate fully, by promising them, say, £10 of his own money for every correct guess.

The setup: A table next to a wall, at each end of which sit golfy and the volunteer. There is a screen fixed half way along so they cannot see each other, and the volunteer wears headphones playing their choice of music so they cannot hear any audible clues golfy accidentally lets slip. Fixed to the wall next to golfy and the volunteer are small whiteboards (or perhaps flipcharts), and each has marker pens. Above the partition, visible to both participants, is a large clock with a second hand. A video camera is set up opposite and runs continually, recording both participants, both whiteboards and the clock.

1. At a pre-agreed time golfy writes whichever word (cat or ship) he has decided to transmit first on his whiteboard. For the next 30 seconds he concentrates on sending the word whilst the volunteer concentrates on receiving it. The volunteer then writes the word he thinks he has recieved on his own whiteboard.

2. Repeat, say, 5, times for each volunteer at pre-agreed times.

3. Both golfy and the volunteer then stand up and move towards the camera so they can see both lists. Golfy pays the volunteer £10 for each word that is the same on both lists.

4. Repeat for, say, 10 volunteers. Golfy has the option of inviting back for further attempts any volunteer who appears to be exceptionally successful/co-operative.

 

[wardenclyffe]

I think Pixel42's protocol is pretty good, but I'd add a couple of things. First, I think the test subjects should never see golfy before nor during any part of the test. My impression is that he believes people lie about being able to hear his thoughts specifically, not just about telepathy generally. So, I would set up a decoy. The test subjects will have to know that they are supposed to be receiving telepathic communications, but they should be introduced to someone very attractive and charismatic. They should be told that this person is the one who will be sending them telepathic signals and that this person is hoping to pay them money every time they are correct. People like money and they like to please pleasant, attractive, charismatic people. This way, we take away any incentive to lie to, or about, golfy. As far as the test subjects know, he's not in the picture. They don't even know he exists.

I still believe that when golfy sees the videotape, he will have to see the subjects write down the word large enough so that he knows that there's no pre-written list that's designed to trick him. That's easily accomplished.

This might be set up using two adjacent offices (or any other type of rooms) that have their doors right next to each other. The camera could be set up to shoot into both rooms simultaneously. golfy stays in one room and the test subjects can come and go in the other.

I like that the test subjects are wearing headphones, but I think golfy should be wearing them, as well. We don't want him getting any signals from how the test subects answer. Alternatively, some sort of non-verbal signal could be set up. golfy's machine might require some sort of verbal response, though. I'm sure we'll come up with something that would work.

Ultimately, though, since golfy trusts no one, he'll always think of ways that the testing organisation might have tricked him.

That's still the part of this I don't understand. He won't trust his closest friends nor family, but he seems willing to trust a group of dedicated skeptics who don't believe he has any power at all.

Ward

 

[golfy]

Hi wardenclyffe,

Not sure why you think I trust you – I don’t. If I trusted anyone on this forum I would have changed my protocol and accepted their advice – I have not.

I use the forum for you to shoot down my theories so that I can ascertain that they are water tight for my purposes as I think ahead before presenting them. I don’t think you (the forum) will find fault in them and will not be sceptics either. I think that you will do your best to talk me out of a protocol that works and into one that does not either from lack of understanding like Sledge trying to get me to drop the poly or Pixel42 trying to talk me into using a protocol that is easy to lie within.

Trust no one – stick to your own ideas if you believe them to be correct in a situation like this. A lot of losers would like to talk a potential talented person out of winning the $1M prize. I am not talking about my case alone, but in general.

Non of you have said “Nice result with your Doctor golfy, keep it up and you may soon win the $1M!”

That does not change my understanding the fact that I am telepathic and that people lie to me. If I could get around my problem by offering people £1000 for writing or saying on video ten words that I have thought, I would be out of this a long time ago. I have offered people a lot more than that in the past.

At a “friends” house (he was my closest friend if the telepathy situation is not taken into account) a few years ago I was having dinner with him and his wife. During the dinner I said I am sure he could hear my thoughts. I read the ingredients on an HP sauce bottle and asked him if he heard what I had read. He said “No.” I said “So you did not hear this then?” and read the ingredients out aloud this time. He said “No.” again and then looked over at his wife and said “Wow, that was impressive, wasn’t it?” She did not reply.

From this I understand that he can hear my thoughts – I had known him for years and had done a lot of “think to him” and gauge his reaction experiments and I know he can hear me. In his statement to his wife “Wow, that was impressive, wasn’t it?” it indicated that he knew that she would have heard it as well, like if that had just seen something impressive at a show. You would not have said that to a blind person as you know that the blind person would not have been impressed, but you would have assumed that a person that you knew to be sighted would have seen the same thing. In this example (the HP sauce thing) he had knowledge that she can also hear me.

I have been going through this since around this time of year in 1995. All functional “This test will prove me to be correct as it gets around you ability to lie” telepathy tests have worked.

I am not trying to prove I am telepathic by asking for you assistance – I did at first but have had nothing but criticism and people trying to talk me out of working protocols. I am simply updating you as to my progress.

I do, though, know enough about human nature to know that the chances of every single person you ever met being able to hear your thoughts and lie to you about it are zero.

and post #798.


Hi Pixel42,

As you stated the above, I assume that you are also claiming that you cannot hear my thoughts etc as there is no cover up in your opinion and that not everyone would lie to me.

Because I am aware of exactly how telepathic I am, this would lead me to the conclusion that you can also hear my brain (my own assumption about everyone), as I do not know anyone who cannot.

If you categorically state that you cannot hear me, I would like to test my confidence and show others on this forum that what people say is not always the truth.

Therefore I offered you the £1000 challenge. If my tests cat ship or otherwise, do not show that you can hear me telepathically – (I believe I can telepathically transmit to you and you can hear it from me to you now if you are awake (5.03pm) and obviously across a room) – then I would be happy to lose my “bet” with you and give you £1000 with which you can do as you please. If you did not want the money personally, you could always give it to you favourite charity and I would happy with that as well.

I believe that you can in fact hear me as I am telepathic and that you as well are lying about my ability.

Would you be willing to take me up on this challenge in the future once I have a working protocol that is reliable?

It would be a good indication to others of what I am up against – everyone lies.

Your reason for lying. As I am telepathic and you have come on this forum with comments like “Clearly golfy has no telepathic ability” then you are indicating that you cannot hear me telepathically. Once you have made statements like that you would never back down, even for 10% of the prize money ($100000) if I offered that to you for correctly repeating 10 words to me in your test as you would loose face on this forum and I would be proven to be correct. Would you really let me do that on this forum for $100000 in front of everyone – I don’t think so.

The only way that I could prove myself to be correct would be for me to do a cat ship test with you. That would then prove me to be correct in claiming that I am telepathic and that you can hear me from here, Cambridgeshire, to Wiltshire about 110 miles away.

golfy

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

....

At a “friends” house (he was my closest friend if the telepathy situation is not taken into account) a few years ago I was having dinner with him and his wife. During the dinner I said I am sure he could hear my thoughts. I read the ingredients on an HP sauce bottle and asked him if he heard what I had read. He said “No.” I said “So you did not hear this then?” and read the ingredients out aloud this time. He said “No.” again and then looked over at his wife and said “Wow, that was impressive, wasn’t it?” She did not reply.

From this I understand that he can hear my thoughts – I had known him for years and had done a lot of “think to him” and gauge his reaction experiments and I know he can hear me. In his statement to his wife “Wow, that was impressive, wasn’t it?” it indicated that he knew that she would have heard it as well, like if that had just seen something impressive at a show. You would not have said that to a blind person as you know that the blind person would not have been impressed, but you would have assumed that a person that you knew to be sighted would have seen the same thing. In this example (the HP sauce thing) he had knowledge that she can also hear me.

......
golfy

bolding mine....

Er Golfy, have you ever heard of a little thing called 'sarcasm'. It's quite popular in some countries.....

 

[RoboTimbo]

At a “friends” house (he was my closest friend if the telepathy situation is not taken into account) a few years ago I was having dinner with him and his wife. During the dinner I said I am sure he could hear my thoughts. I read the ingredients on an HP sauce bottle and asked him if he heard what I had read. He said “No.” I said “So you did not hear this then?” and read the ingredients out aloud this time. He said “No.” again and then looked over at his wife and said “Wow, that was impressive, wasn’t it?” She did not reply.

Why did you not think he was lying here?

 

[Sean84]

<snip>
Your reason for lying. As I am telepathic and you have come on this forum with comments like “Clearly golfy has no telepathic ability” then you are indicating that you cannot hear me telepathically. Once you have made statements like that you would never back down, even for 10% of the prize money ($100000) if I offered that to you for correctly repeating 10 words to me in your test as you would loose face on this forum and I would be proven to be correct. Would you really let me do that on this forum for $100000 in front of everyone – I don’t think so.
<snip>
golfy

That is just mind-bogglingly paranoid.

golfy, I asked you this before.

Do you have a link with information on the specific type of equipment that you are using?

Quoted for information. Information. In formation.

 

[golfy]

I have an Axciton polygraph. I am awaiting the arrival of the training video, presumably it will arrive this week as it has been posted by express post from Texas, USA last week. Similar to the link below.

http://www.axciton.com/images/sensorbox-package-s.JPG

Sarcasm and assessment are both subjective so can be agued equally on both camps. I fully understand this. You guys are not coming up with anything new, just the same old arguments that everyone else has done.

Like I stated before That is why I am in the process of constructing a objective telepathy test which produces results that cannot be argued with and not interested in subjective assessment which people can disagree with.

That is just mind-bogglingly paranoid.

Then paranoia equals no telepathy – then take a cat ship test with me and prove me wrong and beat me.

I have offered 10% of the money before to anyone who can repeat what I am thinking but no one comes forward to claim the cash. Which is proof that I am not telepathic of course (he wrote sarcastically).

golfy

 

[wardenclyffe]

Hi wardenclyffe,

Not sure why you think I trust you – I don’t. (snip)

golfy

I'm sorry. I wasn't clear. I didn't mean to suggest that you trusted us. I meant that you seem to trust the actual JREF. We, of course, are just members of the general public, like yourself, who post in JREF's forum. We have the collective experience of seeing JREF work over the years, so we have a pretty good idea of how they operate and what they will find acceptable and what they will not, but we do not speak for them in any way.

You have no reason to trust us nor to distrust us. We have no power over you for good nor evil. It's not our money on the line. Many of us (I'm not speaking for everyone) would love to see telepathy or any paranormal ability proven to be true. It would be fantastic and it would open up a whole new exciting world of science. But the fact that we think that would be awesome does not mean we think it will actually happen. Many of the suggestions offered here are our attempts to help set up a testing protocol that will be fair to you and to JREF. It should prove that you are telepathic if you truly are.

I suspect most people here believe your nine doctors and think that you most likely have a mental illness that would explain your experiences. However, it's possible to be ill and to be telepathic also, so I don't think that should necessarily preclude you from being tested.

My whole point about your trust issues is that I fear (and I think I'm not alone) that if you set up a test with JREF* and you fail, you will simply accuse JREF of lying to you. Many of my protocol suggestions, like keeping everything in one camera-frame and making sure the test subjects write large enough for you to see when you look at the tape, are designed to reduce the number of ways that you can accuse JREF of cheating or lying.

So, I know you don't trust us, but you seem willing to trust the JREF, even though JREF stands to lose a million dollars to you.

Thanks for understanding and for being willing to modify your original protocol (which you have done) to a more scientific one. I don't know that you are where you need to be yet, but if you keep working at it, you might.

Thanks,
Ward

*I still strongly suggest that you contact the testing organisations in the UK that I mentioned earlier. That's got to be a lot easier and cheaper than flying to Florida for the JREF test. Win one (or both) of those UK challenges and you'll have plenty of money to get to Florida to win the big prize.

Once again, those UK challenges can be found here:

In the UK, the ASKE organization offers £14,000
http://www.aske-skeptics.org.uk/challenge_rules.html

Tony Youens in the UK offers £5,000
http://www.tonyyouens.com/challenge.htm

 

[Pixel42]

Hi Pixel42,

<snip>

If you categorically state that you cannot hear me

I categorically state that I cannot hear you

I would like to test my confidence and show others on this forum that what people say is not always the truth.

Therefore I offered you the £1000 challenge. If my tests cat ship or otherwise, do not show that you can hear me telepathically – (I believe I can telepathically transmit to you and you can hear it from me to you now if you are awake (5.03pm) and obviously across a room) – then I would be happy to lose my “bet” with you and give you £1000 with which you can do as you please. If you did not want the money personally, you could always give it to you favourite charity and I would happy with that as well.

I believe that you can in fact hear me as I am telepathic and that you as well are lying about my ability.

Would you be willing to take me up on this challenge in the future once I have a working protocol that is reliable?

I have already told you that I would be happy to assist you with a dry run of any protocol you agree with JREF, and that I would not require any financial incentive to do so. I have also told you that I see no realistic prospect of you agreeing any such protocol.

It would be a good indication to others of what I am up against – everyone lies.

Your reason for lying. As I am telepathic and you have come on this forum with comments like “Clearly golfy has no telepathic ability” then you are indicating that you cannot hear me telepathically. Once you have made statements like that you would never back down, even for 10% of the prize money ($100000) if I offered that to you for correctly repeating 10 words to me in your test as you would loose face on this forum and I would be proven to be correct. Would you really let me do that on this forum for $100000 in front of everyone – I don’t think so.

This is obviously ridiculous. I would have no problem at all admitting I was wrong and "losing face on this forum" in return for that amount of money. If I had heard what you were sending at 5.03 pm (when I was very much awake and watching last night's edition of Wonders of the Universe) I would already be thinking about how I was going to spend the money. But I didn't.

The only way that I could prove myself to be correct would be for me to do a cat ship test with you. That would then prove me to be correct in claiming that I am telepathic and that you can hear me from here, Cambridgeshire, to Wiltshire about 110 miles away.

Again, I would be happy to assist you with such a test, if you had a workable protocol. But you don't.

As long as you continue to reject any workable test protocol we are at an impasse. The claim that people can hear your thoughts but always lie and pretend they can't (regardless of having no good reason to do so, and even if offered financial incentives not to do so) cannot be either proved or disproved. Not, at least, until someone invents a truly reliable way of telling when people are lying (some kind of brain scan perhaps?), and such an invention seems a long way off.

On the plus side, from your point of view, the current impossibility of scientifically testing your claim means you can continue to believe it is true whilst endlessly planning how you would test it if only a reliable lie detector existed. The downside is that every person you tell about it (all of whom, like me, will know perfectly well that they can't hear your thoughts) will continue to think you have a screw loose.

 

[Sledge]

golfy, what do you think is my motivation for wanting you to drop the polygraph?

 

[golfy]

I have a statistical objective example that proves people can hear my thoughts and lie about it.

When I had to see a psychiatrist on a six monthly basis, I also had to have a psychiatric health worker meeting every week to start with, then every two weeks, then every 3 and then one a month. The first year was easy as it was every Wednesday at 2pm at the NHS Surgery when my Doctor is.

A room would be booked in advance so that the health worker (HW in future) can have a chat with me for 15 minutes or ½ and hour and ask questions about my life, if I had any problems etc. This was for assessment of my so called schizophrenia.

After the first year the appointments were around every two weeks instead of every week. They did vary a little depending on how many other people the HW had on his books. The HWs office is about 12 miles from where I live so it takes him about 15 to 20 minutes to get from his office to here.

As I run my own business I sometimes get distracted with my work and the neighbours play a lot of mind games as I am telepathic.

I missed a few appointments and the HW told me that I should not do that as they were trying to assess my illness and if I missed some then the psychiatrist may put me in hospital against my will if he felt my “illness” was getting worse.

I knew that this was BS (the assessment) but had no choice but to comply. I asked the HW if he could remind me about appointments but he said he could not as that would not indicate my state of mental health to them.

I wrote down the date and time of my next mental heath appointment with the HW and stuck it to the back of my front door so as to remind my self. On the day of the appointment, I was getting ready (they were always at 2pm) and just before I was about to leave, the phone rang. The HW said “Have you remembered your appointment?” I replied “Yes, I am just about to leave.” I arrived at the surgery and waited in the patients waiting room and then the HW arrived at just after 5 past 2. We went to the booked room and did the normal chat.

This went on like this every appointment for weeks, as I was about to leave the phone would ring between 10 and 5 to 2 and the HW would ask me if I had remembered.

I forgot one day and at around 2.45 pm the phone rang and the HW asked me if I had forgotten my appointment today. I said I had and so it was rebooked for the next week.

This situation repeated itself for about 4 years – every time I remembered the HW would phone me a few minutes before I was about to leave, every time I forgot the HW would phone me at 2.45 and ask me if I had forgotten and rebook a new one.

After about 4 years (about 100 to 110 appointments) when he phoned me up when I had forgotten again (for about 15th times out of 100), I mentioned it to him that he does this every time and never has he not ring when I am about to leave and always rings at 2.45 when I have forgotten. He said “Yes, you would have to be telepathic for me to be able to do that, wouldn’t you.”

This is from a HW who is assessing me for schizophrenia.

If you take a statistical look at this, his “guess” is like a coin flip, have I forgotten, have I not. For him to get it correct ever time for say 12 out 15 (he got 100 out of 100), that would be as follows

p(=8): 0.196381; p(>8): 0.303619
p(=9): 0.15274; p(>9): 0.150879
p(=10): 0.091644; p(>10): 0.059235
p(=11): 0.041656; p(>11): 0.017578
p(=12): 0.013885; p(>12): 0.003693

p(=12): 0.013885 = 98.6% certainty (beyond reasonable doubt) that the HW is doing this deliberately, not by chance. This means to me that he can hear my thoughts at a beyond reasonable doubt level.

If he gets 25 out of 30 correct then it is 99.987% certain that he can hear my thoughts.

He got it correct every time without any mistakes for four years, around 100+ visits.

He can hear me and I know it. If I did a cat ship test with him it would be proven that he can hear my thoughts from at least 12 miles and also from across room obviously.

You will now criticise me yet again presumably. Anyone like to actually put their money where their mouth is and actually take a cat ship test to prove me wrong?

golfy

 

[Pixel42]

So you forget important appointments about 15% of the time, yet you have perfect recall of if and when you received nearly 100 phone calls from a health worker?

Anyone like to actually put their money where their mouth is and actually take a cat ship test to prove me worng?

Certainly. I'm happy with the test protocol suggested by Jack by the hedge in post #777, are you?

 

[Tatyana]

To Tatyana,




If you gave the RX £20 at the start of the test and removed £2 per wrong answer, that would be punishment for every lie told. I am not intending recruiting the Mafia into a cat ship test!




I would be interested if you could expand on what you have written.

golfy

You are also introducing another variable into an experiment.

If you have enough subjects and repeat parameter, any anomalies or outliers will be flagged.

You don't need a lie detector.

 

[Sledge]

You are also introducing another variable into an experiment.

If you have enough subjects and repeat parameter, any anomalies or outliers will be flagged.

You don't need a lie detector.

He does. He needs an objective method of determining the truth that no one can argue with (we all lie, remember?). There's a few problems with this.

• If we're all in a conspiracy to mess with him, we could all just deny what the machine is saying
• He needs information from someone else to tell him how the machine works. That person is lying
• The machine can be rigged in advance to give incorrect results
• And of course, polygraphs don't work as lie detectors

 

[golfy]

If you have enough subjects and repeat parameter, any anomalies or outliers will be flagged.

You don't need a lie detector.

Can you suggest a workable protocol which does not use a poly, Tatyana. I would be happy to have a read of any workable proposal.

golfy

 

[golfy]

Certainly. I'm happy with the test protocol suggested by Jack by the hedge in post #777, are you?

Yes, that is my cat ship test but I do not speak. Fine by me.

golfy

 

[wardenclyffe]

Tatyana,

The polygraph is just for golfy to read so he can report his answers. The testing organisation doesn't care what the polygraph says. All they will need is for golfy to be able to tell them what the test subject wrote as golfy telepathically sent his word to them. If golfy wants to look at his polygraph or tarot cards or tea leaves, he can. The only results that mean anything are whether he can accurately say which word the test subject wrote.

Ward