Assistance required for telepathy proof

[Sledge]

This really is a great power for a schizophrenic to claim. If golfy claimed he could read people's minds, he'd eventually have to explain how come he didn't know someone was about to push him over or something. But by claiming he's transmitting his thoughts to people, there's no need for him to ever consider the possibility that he isn't psychic. Anyone who denies receiving his thoughts is lying. Brilliant!

Wait, why are they lying? golfy, your thoughts on this, if you please.

 

[dlorde]

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.

Yeah, but if he is telepathic and others hear his thoughts, he doesn't need to demonstrate it to them. According to him, they already know.

And if they lie about it now, they'll lie about it when he 'demonstrates' it.

 

[FG10]

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.

Except when nobody rings (because Golfy is not telepathic) he will claim that some of us did receive the message but simply chose to deny it.

When nobody receives a message and when tests do not verify the presence of telepathic ability, it is never the fault of the person with the extraordinary claim (apparently).

I must say, though, that if he is telepathic then it must be terribly frustrating having an absolutely useless power that nobody can detect! I suspect the power of delusion is strong with this one though.

 

[dlorde]

If you will not accept a small sample as telepathic then you can’t accept a small sample as not telepathic.

As you well know, it doesn't work like that. The burden of proof is on you - else why this whole charade?

The default position, as always, is sceptical. The claim is unsupported - there is no evidence for the claim, and all circumstantial evidence is against it - no one has ever demonstrated it even under test, there's no hypothesis, no physical mechanism to explain it, it contradicts known physics and biology, and consequently it is implausible in the extreme. Therefore you need exceptionally robust evidence to support it.

However, if you believe that everyone already knows and is lying about it, I don't see what you hope to achieve.

 

[Hitch]

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.

golfy

Two hits and two misses out of four tries at choosing one of two possibilities is not impressive or statistically significant. That's exactly what random chance would indicate.

If your "small sample" of four tests yielded four successful results, then it would be interesting to try to figure out how you're doing it. (Including the extremely remote possibility of psychic powers.) But it would still be statistically insignificant and we we would want more tests.

But as it stands, you've got nothing.

 

[wardenclyffe]

Wait, why are they lying? golfy, your thoughts on this, if you please.

This is ultimately the crux of the matter. I've been trying to get an answer to this since my first post in this thread (on page 13---I'm proud of my self-control; I can't believe I waited that long to jump in).

Since everybody's lying (for reasons unknown) then everyone will lie about any test that golfy does. The JREF will lie. Pixel42 will lie at a pub meeting. His sister lies; his doctor lies; the cops lie; his friends lie; we all lie.

During the whole visionfromfeeling saga, many people thought that Anita Ikonen was pulling some sort of scam and the whole thing was an elaborate exercise in trolling. I never did. She put way too much work into it.

I'm wondering about golfy, though. He's created the perfect claim to make it appear as though he's mentally ill and untestable, but it compels us to chase our tails. He had to gin up an audiotape of his doctor. I haven't heard it, but others seem to think it sounds real. At this point, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

If he doesn't show up in person at a British sceptical group soon, though, I'm going to start thinking we've been had.

Ward

 

[John Jones]

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.

golfy

The null hypothesis is that you are not telepathic. Lots of people have claimed telepathy. None of them have passed any objective tests with strict controls.


In my experience, they have all had psychiatric issues. You have admitted that 9 psychiatrists diagnosed you with schizophrenia.

You would have us believe that these psychiatrists are all wrong, and that everyone in the world can read your thoughts, but is lying about it.

If our positions were reversed, would you believe me?

 

[Pixel42]

OK, time to spell something out for you again golfy.

If you were serious about coming up with a workable test protocol to prove or disprove your claim that people can hear your thoughts you wouldn't yet have tried your cat/ship test with your polygraph because you would have been too busy doing tests to establish how reliable it was in such a test.

You would have started using questions you already know the answer to - say whether it's daytime or nightime, or whether your volunteer is male or female - and watched the output of your polygraph to see whether it gave different readings when your volunteer told the truth or lied about what they'd written down. If, after many such tests, you were convinced it did, you would then have gone on to questions to which you did not know the answer and seen if you could use those different readings to determine that answer. For example you could have got your volunteers to take a card at random from a deck, write down on a piece of paper whether it was a red card or a black card, put both paper and card in an envelope and give it to you. You would then have asked them whether they had written down 'red' or 'black, having told them to say 'No' both times, used the readings to determine which it actually was, and then opened the envelope to see if you were correct. After a few dozen such tests you would have known whether your polygraph is reliable enough for it to be worth running your cat/ship test with it. If you decided it was then you would have to accept before you ran the first cat/ship test that a negative result would prove your claim wrong just as surely as a positive result would prove it right.

But you haven't done any of that, have you golfy? You dived straight in to your cat/ship tests and are trying to use them to determine whether or not your polygraph is reliable. In other words you are assuming as fact the very claim your test is supposed to be demonstrating in order to determine whether the tool you're hoping to use is reliable enough to make your protocol workable. If you cannot grasp why this is wrong then you have no hope of ever producing an acceptable protocol.

 

[Pixel42]

Yeah, but if he is telepathic and others hear his thoughts, he doesn't need to demonstrate it to them. According to him, they already know.

This, of course, is the fundamental flaw in golfy's logic.

No-one else needs a complicated test to determine whether or not they can hear his thoughts, they know the answer to that as soon as they meet him (or, in my case, as soon as he beamed his thoughts to me specifically and I did, or did not, hear them).

If they can hear his thoughts and want, for reasons unknown, to hide that fact from him they would either refuse to help with his testing (if they believed his polygraph was sufficiently reliable to produce a positive result) or clamour to take it (if they believed his polygraph was unreliable and so the result would be negative even though they could hear his thoughts). They certainly wouldn't be the ones pointing out that polygraphs are unreliable so his test could only produce negative results and was therefore useless, but agreeing to take it anyway.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Maybe what golfy needs to find is another self-proclaimed psychic.

Then they can try sending messages to each other. Since they both believe in psychic powers, they'd have no interest in lying about having received a message.

 

[golfy]

OK, time to spell something out for you again golfy.

If you were serious about coming up with a workable test protocol to prove or disprove your claim that people can hear your thoughts you wouldn't yet have tried your cat/ship test with your polygraph because you would have been too busy doing tests to establish how reliable it was in such a test.

You would have started using questions you already know the answer to - say whether it's daytime or nightime, or whether your volunteer is male or female - and watched the output of your polygraph to see whether it gave different readings when your volunteer told the truth or lied about what they'd written down. If, after many such tests, you were convinced it did, you would then have gone on to questions to which you did not know the answer and seen if you could use those different readings to determine that answer. For example you could have got your volunteers to take a card at random from a deck, write down on a piece of paper whether it was a red card or a black card, put both paper and card in an envelope and give it to you. You would then have asked them whether they had written down 'red' or 'black, having told them to say 'No' both times, used the readings to determine which it actually was, and then opened the envelope to see if you were correct. After a few dozen such tests you would have known whether your polygraph is reliable enough for it to be worth running your cat/ship test with it. If you decided it was then you would have to accept before you ran the first cat/ship test that a negative result would prove your claim wrong just as surely as a positive result would prove it right.

But you haven't done any of that, have you golfy? You dived straight in to your cat/ship tests and are trying to use them to determine whether or not your polygraph is reliable. In other words you are assuming as fact the very claim your test is supposed to be demonstrating in order to determine whether the tool you're hoping to use is reliable enough to make your protocol workable. If you cannot grasp why this is wrong then you have no hope of ever producing an acceptable protocol.

As you well know Pixel42, if you had read my posts, I did exactly that with the GSR and got 4 out of 5 correct, concluding that maybe the GSR is good enough on its own and would be reliable enough for cat ship test if restricted to two tests per person and then ask 30 volunteers to take the test.

I will when I get a chance try some more tests untill I have found a reliable cat ship test and then do a run of volunteers to get a gauge of whether the test can be used to prove telepathy or not.

Teaching me to suck eggs isn’t really helpful Pixel42.

People say that the cat ship test is complex, but who is criticising Pixle42 for describing essentially the same test to see if the poly works. I described this in previous posts (cat ship) and then said then do the test again but without talking, if the results are the same then it has proven telepathy. It could not be simpler. Anyone who can describe a simpler test with a poly, carry on.

golfy

 

[Pixel42]

I did exactly that with the GSR and got 4 out of 5 correct, concluding that maybe the GSR is good enough on its own and would be reliable enough for cat ship test if restricted to two tests per person and then ask 30 volunteers to take the test.

If you think you've done enough testing to establish that your polygraph is sufficiently reliable to produce a positive result in a full scale properly run cat/ship test (and my impression was that you'd done nowhere near the amount of testing necessary to conclude that) then you will have no problem accepting that a negative result in such a test will disprove your claim that other people can hear your thoughts. So are you ready to state that?

I will when I get a chance try some more tests untill I have found a reliable cat ship test

You already have a reliable cat/ship test, provided your polygraph is reliable. That's all you need to establish before running a full scale cat/ship test and hence discovering whether people really are hearing your thoughts or not. Once again, I suspect that you are defining "a reliable cat ship test" as one which produces positive results, rather than one capable of producing either positive or negative results depending on whether or not people can hear your thoughts.

People say that the cat ship test is complex, but who is criticising Pixle42 for describing essentially the same test to see if the poly works.

Your cat ship test is unnecessarily complex because it includes a polygraph which is only required because of your unjustified paranoia. Even without that, however, it would still be quite a lengthy and complex test. As lengthy and complex as one designed to discover whether or not a polygraph works, in fact.

Incidentally I won't be able to get to the Cheltenham Sceptics in the Pub meeting this evening after all (I have to stay home to nurse an injured cat) but I'll try to get to next month's and will raise the issue of them helping you run a test then. Something tells me your own testing still won't be at the point where you're ready to run a proper test by then anyway.

 

[golfy]

Hi Pixe42,

I have not worked out to sufficient accuracy to gauge whether the cat ship test is even viable verbally over a wide range of volunteers. The few tests that I have done have produced positive results and the negative results can be explained and therefore measures must be taken to make sure they do not crop up in actual cat ship telepathy tests.

Unless the GSR is 100% accurate then the test results do not actually determine whether the person can hear my thoughts or not depending on why the GSR did not give a good indication. In the verbal 4 out of 5 test the first 4 test were all correct predictions but the 5th test produced no readings. Does this mean that the RX can no longer hear my voice – no it does not. So why did the RX no longer respond? The readings got lower and lower each time as the test numbers increased. It was a heads tails test and we both had coins. Stress levels were very low due to no punishment was involved in the testing so as the tests went on it started to become mundane and boring, nothing was at stake in any way apart from interest to see what results would occur. Next time I will add £10 to the tests and see if the RX starts to produce better results as he/she begins to beat the test and the anxiety/excitement/need to beat the GSR increases. Hopefully this will produce a better results than no more readings after 4 heads or tails. If I had continued above 5 tests the GSR may have started reading again as explained above just because the RX was beating the test as the test numbers rose towards 10.

In the fifth test you are requesting that I should consider that as he could not hear me as the cat ship test indicates that. Has he suddenly become deaf? Of course not, he can obviously hear me verbally but the GSR gave no reading. That is the problem to solve. Untill I have found a way around that problem I think it is pointless doing cat ship tests with a GSR if I know the GSR cat ship test is not reliable enough to produce the results even if they can hear me.

I will not conclude that they cannot hear me just because the cat ship test does not give the correct results any more than I will conclude the same in a verbal cat ship test. If the cat ship test is honed to more than acceptable levels of accuracy and then the telepathic cat ship test produces no positive results worthy of notice then I will be forced to reassess my understanding that I am telepathic or try and work out if there is a reason for it not working when telepathy is present. If I can’t then my claim will have been falsified.

Knee jerk superficial thinking oversimplified conclusions are not by bag, in depth analysis and understanding are.

Burden of proof is on me, I will rise to that challenge.

golfy

PS Guys in a pub with a few beers down them would not be the best place to do cat ship testing so it would have to be arranged to be conducted at a time when they are all stone cold sober and not on any kind of drugs.

 

[Sledge]

Why do they need to be sober? What difference does that make, golfy?

Oh, and why is everyone in the world lying to you?

 

[wardenclyffe]

golfy,

Why does everyone lie? What does the rest of the population of this planet get in exchange for lying to you? And if everyone's lying, why won't the JREF (or any sceptical group) lie about the results of any test they conduct with you? Do you understand how the idea of helping you is unattractive to people because you've already called them liars? Why would any hard-working honest (they do exist) person agree to help you when they know that you already think they are lying to you?

These are the questions that you have yet to answer.

Ward

 

[golfy]

I cannot answer a question about others motives. Conjecture is not what this is about and I will not be side tracked. Objective results is what I am after.

golfy

 

[Almo]

If you want objective results, then you have to allow a judge-free objective double-blind test. It's how you get results that can be trusted by others.

 

[wardenclyffe]

That must be a very confusing and depressing life to know that everybody on the planet is lying to you all the time and having no idea why it's happening. I do not envy you.

You must recognise the futility of your quest. No matter what your machines say, everyone will still lie about the results. You will have proved nothing. You already know you are telepathic. You don't need confirmation of that. You can try to show proof of your telepathy using your machines, but you know everyone will just lie and say that they do not see the proof.

That must be frustrating. If I could think of a way out for you, I would.

Ward

 

[Sledge]

I cannot answer a question about others motives. Conjecture is not what this is about and I will not be side tracked. Objective results is what I am after.

golfy

Ok, how do you know they're lying? You've already put forward the conjecture of a conspiracy against you to explain your failures. If you don't know anything about this conspiracy, how do you know it exists and why is it a more likely answer than people can't hear your thoughts?

 

[FG10]

I cannot answer a question about others motives. Conjecture is not what this is about and I will not be side tracked. Objective results is what I am after.

golfy

But that's not true, is it? You want results that are positive in your favour. You are closed-minded to the possibility that you do not have any telepathic ability so you cannot seriously want objective results unless you were willing to be objective about the outcome yourself.