Is ESP More Probable Than Advanced Alien Life?

[annnnoid]

Read again.

I beleive that I love my partner. I beleive my partner loves me. I trust my partner with "my life, my fortune, and my sacred honour" (not to mention my tools, my musical instruments, and my cookbooks).

I do not, in any of that, pretend that my trust, and my belief, constitute "objectively falsifiable evidence" that we love each other.

I do not care if you believe that we love each other; nor would I try to "prove" it to you.

I do not pretend that my subjective, anecdotal experience represent "evidence" to anyone but me.

This is so blatantly absurd as to be almost incomprehensible!

You do realize that during your past few posts you professed, extensively, the degree to which your wife has meaning in your life.

…are you actually going to insist that your subjective anecdotal evidence is only relevant to you…after having gone to such great lengths to demonstrate what your wife means to you. Are you actually going to insist that how your wife (or your children, or your friends, or anyone anywhere anyhow) responds to how you feel is irrelevant to you?

Quite obviously if you were to ask your wife…right now…if your ‘subjective anecdotal experience’ is evidence to her that you love her…what do you think her answer would be?

I mean…just how else would she know that you love her if you do not express what is ‘within’ you in some external manner?

…or does your wife practice ESP!

"fraudulent????" is you own, unique contribution to what Dinwar actually posted.

Dinwar has repeatedly insisted that any conclusion of ESP is a misrepresentation of the facts. A fraud, IOW.

I have to know...is a "very unique" area of study more unique than a "unique" area of study?

So how, precisely, should we characterize an area of study that has the potential to rewrite the known laws of physics (since, as so many skeptics keep insisting, ESP flatly conflicts with the known laws of physics). I’ll leave it to you to provide an appropriate adverb.

Yes, his stated 'authority' elevated by you. Don't worry about it, I understand why you did so.

How does all that work, since:

It's whatever you need eh?

…well, woe is me. I am exposed.

But hang on…it has been frequently claimed that ESP conflicts with the known laws of physics…

….could it possibly be just slightly relevant that the author is an individual with a substantial background in theoretical physics???

…or would the authors credibility be equally irrelevant if his name were, say, the amazing Kreskin? If you’re going to insist that that is the case, then I’d agree that the fact that he has a masters in theoretical physics is irrelevant.

Has he, according to you, shown in that article, the data of the experiments he referred to, to be valid?

Yes.

All the anecdote telling in the world does not demonstrate ESP to exist.

Did I say that it does? But I can point to a massive range of phenomena that only exist anecdotally. The question is far more complex than most skeptics would like it to be.

ESP simply has not been demonstrated to actually occur or exist.

But there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence…and there is absolutely nothing remotely resembling a definitive scientific explanation for it. There is also an increasing body of evidence that supports the ESP conclusion. Without an explanatory framework the conclusions can be no more than tentative but they are, just the same, scientifically substantive. Thus…the probability of ESP in relation to the OP may be greater than that of alien life…to the degree that the probability of the latter can be quantified.

 

[tsig]

Grues

I don't see how you can argue with the stats part. The thing with the grue boils down to "As long as I avoid actually learning anything about the system, I can pretend all outcomes are equally likely". It's been admitted numerous times--every time someone says "I don't know what a grue is", they are admitting to refusing to learn (we're online; Google exists). The instant you learn what a Grue is, you realize that all outcomes are not equal. Thus, the 50/50 nonsense is an expression of willful ignorance, and does not represent anything about the system itself.

I have yet to see any explanation for why it's better to present this equation than to simply admit you don't know what's being discussed and end it there, by the way. I have yet to see any justification for claiming to have knowledge about a system (and claiming that all outcomes are equally likely is claiming knowledge of the system).

As for the rest, it's standard stuff in science. The only way to argue against it is to argue that ESP should be treated special because............reasons. Or something.

Probably true. However, unlike you I wouldn't immediately go with "ESP is real". Humans remember hits and forget misses; it's so widely documented that to NOT know that fact is a sign of deplorable and inexcusable ignorance in an adult. So what I'd do is keep a record of the hits vs. the misses--and I would have some sort of criteria for what counts as a hit. For example, if I dream that my wife got run over by a semi, and then later that day my son runs her over with his toy semi, that wouldn't count as a hit--the two situations are so different as to be incomparable. If I dreamed I'd have french toast for breakfast and I did, I may count it if my wife made it, but not if I did--after all, my dream may have made me hungry for french toast, so the dream caused the event. See the problems you very rapidly run into? These sorts of cognitive biases are inherent in the human condition--we ALL have them. That's the reason for strict experimental protocols in science--they have been specifically tailored, over centuries, to counter or avoid entirely these biases. That's why anecdotes don't count as a test of a hypothesis--because there are simply too many cognitive biases that will creep in, particularly if you get the data second- or third-hand.

A grue is a predator that dwells in the dark. The word was first used in modern times as a fictional predator in Jack Vance's Dying Earth[1] universe (described as being part "ocular bat", part "unusual hoon", and part man).[2]

Dave Lebling introduced a similar monster, whose name was borrowed from Vance's grues, into the interactive fiction computer game Zork, published by Infocom. Zork '​s grues fear light and devour adventurers, making it impossible to explore the game's dark areas without a light source.[3] The grue subsequently appeared in other Infocom games.

Due to Zork '​s prominent position in hacker history and lore, grues have served as models for monsters in many subsequent games, such as roguelike games and MUDs.

A Grue also slithers according to the game if walking through the dark.


Zork lore

The first mention of grues in the Zork games is the line

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

Further investigation reveals more about them:

> what is a grue?

The grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth. Its favorite diet is adventurers, but its insatiable appetite is tempered by its fear of light. No grue has ever been seen by the light of day, and few have survived its fearsome jaws to tell the tale.

 

[Slowvehicle]

This is so blatantly absurd as to be almost incomprehensible!

You do realize that during your past few posts you professed, extensively, the degree to which your wife has meaning in your life.

What you have posted is so blatantly dishonest as to be almost incomprehensible. Have you even read what I have posted?

…are you actually going to insist that your subjective anecdotal evidence is only relevant to you…

What is the sound of one goalpost moving?

Do read what I actually posted, and to what I was posting in response.

The highlighted bit is another of your unique contributions; it does you no credit, and boons you no rhetorical advantage, to attempt to put in my mouth the words you wish I had said; the words you are prepared to address; then pretend that you are, in fact, addressing, or responding to, anything I have said.

...after having gone to such great lengths to demonstrate what your wife means to you.

Thought you those were great lengths? Pretty much JaDATO, 'round here...At least you got a small bit right--I was, and am, describing my subjective experience of what my partner means...(do pay attention this time) to me. (Which does not constitute, in any honest way, "objectively falsifiable evidence", as you put it, nor do I claim that it does.)

Are you actually going to insist that how your wife (or your children, or your friends, or anyone anywhere anyhow) responds to how you feel is irrelevant to you?

"Insist"? No. Why bother? I will, however, point out that what you, personally, believe about how I, subjectively, feel about my partner is of no import to me, or to my partner. Your errors are, in fact, irrelevant to me--unless and until you claim that your beliefs represent objective evidence of reality.

You have my permission to believe your glut of ghost stories. you should not expect me to share your belief without actual, empirical, objective, non-anecdotal, reproducible evidence.

Quite obviously if you were to ask your wife…right now…if your ‘subjective anecdotal experience’ is evidence to her that you love her…what do you think her answer would be?

Quite obviously, you do not know my partner. Depending upon my partner's mood at the moment you posed the question, my partner might point out that my partner's feelings for me, and my feelings for my partner, are subjective experiences; and that neither of us would be so silly as to expect anyone else to accept pour feelings as "objectively falsifiable evidence", as you put it. In a different mood (particularly if you interrupted a painting), my partner would be likely to carefully, graphically,and in great creative detail, explain to you that you were being rude and intrusive, as well as indulging in careless thinking and wallowing in error.

Did you think I would work so hard to marry someone with whom I was not in substantial agreement about important things?

I mean…just how else would she know that you love her if you do not express what is ‘within’ you in some external manner?

…or does your wife practice ESP!

Were you reading my posts, you would not be able to pretend that his was an honest question. Go back, and read the bit about our subjective feelings, one for the other.

Dinwar has repeatedly insisted that any conclusion of ESP is a misrepresentation of the facts. A fraud, IOW.

I see. You believe that you can pretend to know what Dinwar means, in spite of what he has, in fact, posted. Those "OW"? Your words, not Dinwar's.

You appear to be misusing the simple English noun, "fraud".

You might want to consider honestly reading what Dinwar did, in fact post, instead of making "fraudulent????" claims about it.

So how, precisely, should we characterize an area of study that has the potential to rewrite the known laws of physics (since, as so many skeptics keep insisting, ESP flatly conflicts with the known laws of physics). I’ll leave it to you to provide an appropriate adverb.

Interesting avoidance of the actual question. Not at all surprising, but interesting.

<snip>

 

[Nonpareil]

I mean…just how else would she know that you love her if you do not express what is ‘within’ you in some external manner?

And there's your answer.

How people behave is generally accepted as objectively verifiable evidence for how they feel. Yes, this includes liars; no lie is so perfect as to be undetectable, but even in the theoretical case that it is, we can still determine it via examining the brain. It's just not usually considered prudent or necessary to do so.

We could spend every second of every day scanning one another's brains to receive absolute verification, but there's really no point when simply observing behaviors suffices perfectly well in all but the most formal of settings.

Did I say that it does? But I can point to a massive range of phenomena that only exist anecdotally. The question is far more complex than most skeptics would like it to be.

It really isn't. In fact, it's exactly the opposite; it's far less complex than many believers would like it to be.

But there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence…and there is absolutely nothing remotely resembling a definitive scientific explanation for it.

There is a very simple scientific explanation for it.

People make mistakes, lie, or are confused on a regular basis.

This is also why "anecdotal evidence" is a misnomer. Anecdotes are not, in and of themselves, evidence.

There is also an increasing body of evidence that supports the ESP conclusion.

No, there isn't.

 

[Pixel42]

But there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence…and there is absolutely nothing remotely resembling a definitive scientific explanation for it.

Fallible perceptions, fallible memories and cognitive biases are perfectly adequate explanations. Whenever people who are utterly convinced they have such abilities are tested in circumstances which carefully eliminate these explanations they invariably fail, which is pretty compelling evidence that they are the correct explanations.

 

[Daylightstar]

...
But hang on…it has been frequently claimed that ESP conflicts with the known laws of physics…
...

ESP? Which ESP? None has ever been demonstrated to exist.

...
Yes.
...

Could you provide a quote of the relevant parts? If you can, I request you do so, please. Thanks.

...
Did I say that it does? ...

To some extent, yes, you did:

...
Thus…anecdotal evidence is, by default, a legitimate form of evidence.
...

...
But I can point to a massive range of phenomena that only exist anecdotally.
...
But there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence…and there is absolutely nothing remotely resembling a definitive scientific explanation for it. ...

Sure, anecdotes aplenty. But no demonstration that ESP exists.
No definitive scientific explanation for it? Let's first have that 'it' demonstrated to exist before we look for explanations, shall we?

... Let's first get an actual demonstration of an actual anomalous event, before we look for explanations, shall we?
Not anecdotes.
...

Else, we really have nothing to explain.

...
There is also an increasing body of evidence that supports the ESP conclusion. Without an explanatory framework the conclusions can be no more than tentative but they are, just the same, scientifically substantive. Thus…the probability of ESP in relation to the OP may be greater than that of alien life…to the degree that the probability of the latter can be quantified.

Increasing body of evidence? You mean, increasing number of anecdotes.
As far as the ESP from the OP is concerned, there is no data to work with.

... As far as the ESP from the OP is concerned, it's problem is still utter lack of actual occurrence.

 

[Nonpareil]

Increasing body of evidence? You mean, increasing number of anecdotes.

annnnoid has previously claimed that anecdotes are acceptable as evidence - just not within scientific epistemology.

When asked to define any sort of valid epistemology that does allow anecdotes as evidence, he runs in circles waving his hands and screaming "well, you can't prove there isn't one!".

I foresee this happening again in the near future.

 

[Daylightstar]

annnnoid has previously claimed that anecdotes are acceptable as evidence - just not within scientific epistemology.

When asked to define any sort of valid epistemology that does allow anecdotes as evidence, he runs in circles waving his hands and screaming "well, you can't prove there isn't one!".

I foresee this happening again in the near future.

I know what you mean. I wonder how frustrating it must be for him and his ilk to simply be incapable of demonstrating that his cherrished ESP even exists.

Word games substitute data by necessity, for the true believer.

 

[jt512]

I don't see how you can argue with the stats part. The thing with the grue boils down to "As long as I avoid actually learning anything about the system, I can pretend all outcomes are equally likely". It's been admitted numerous times--every time someone says "I don't know what a grue is", they are admitting to refusing to learn (we're online; Google exists). The instant you learn what a Grue is, you realize that all outcomes are not equal. Thus, the 50/50 nonsense is an expression of willful ignorance, and does not represent anything about the system itself.

That's where you're making your mistake: jt512 isn't talking about the outcome as being 50/50, but the prior probability -- the beginning of the equation -- as being 50/50.

I have yet to see any explanation for why it's better to present this equation than to simply admit you don't know what's being discussed and end it there, by the way. I have yet to see any justification for claiming to have knowledge about a system (and claiming that all outcomes are equally likely is claiming knowledge of the system).

As I said, other posters may be talking about outcomes but so far I haven't yet read that jt512 has talked about outcomes.

Thank you for these insights. It is often difficult for Bayesians to understand what non-Bayesians are thinking when they object to Bayesian inference. Jaynes wrote that it sometimes seems like the world is divided into two kinds of people: "those who see the point of Bayesian inference at once, and need no explanation; and those who never see it, however much explanation is given." The problem, at least partly, is that the people who never seem to get Bayesian statistics have deeply rooted misunderstandings of it. I think your post sheds some light on this.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Thank you for these insights. It is often difficult for Bayesians to understand what non-Bayesians are thinking when they object to Bayesian inference. Jaynes ones wrote that it sometimes seems like the world is divided into two kinds of people: "those who see the point of Bayesian inference at once, and need no explanation; and those who never see it, however much explanation is given." The problem, at least partly, is that the people who never seem to get Bayesian statistics have deeply rooted misunderstandings of it. I think your post sheds some light on this.

You are correct. However, you have missed the most important part when you use Bayesian calculus in science. It must be rational or there must be evidence. I can't express this often enough.

You can't calculate the probability of Nebraska suddenly leaping up into the air and doing a tango with a giant purple cheese filled moon. The probability is 0%. Things like that are ridiculous and are not part of science in any way shape or form. ESP is like that as well. UNTIL you come up with a rational hypothesis and/or evidence.

The set that includes ESP is 0.
The set that includes Advanced life is 1.
1 is always larger than 0.
1/x > 0 where x is any form of probability calculation.

The probability of advanced alien civilization is greater than the probability of ESP at our current level of knowledge and understanding of both.

QED

You want to change that function? I'll need either evidence, or a rational scientific hypothesis. Oh and BTW, simply claiming there is evidence is not the same as actual evidence.

Earlier you claimed that a 0 prior wasn't in Bayesian probabilities because if the prior was zero then the result would always be 0. That actually is a good point. It is a very good built in safety factor for Bayesian probability calculations. Best described as a way to avoid garbage in > garbage out. With Bayesian calculus, garbage in > zero out. Everything is zero until it is rational and/or has evidence. Stops a whole lot of woo.

 

[Daylightstar]

...
So how, precisely, should we characterize an area of study that has the potential to rewrite the known laws of physics (since, as so many skeptics keep insisting, ESP flatly conflicts with the known laws of physics). I’ll leave it to you to provide an appropriate adverb.
...

^{Hilite by Daylightstar}
Like any or all of the below?

• Impotent.

• Inept.

• Incapable.

• Unproductive.

• Inadequate.

• Incompetent.

• Powerless.

..... all seem to fit the bill quite nicely.

 

[Daylightstar]

... purple cheese filled moon. ...

I like the "cheese filled Moon" part, mmmm, I'm not so sure about the purple though.

 

[jt512]

???

"Grue" is an undefined term. If "grue" was another word for "wood", would you "bet all your life savings" there's no "grue" in your house?

In this, you make a critical error. Grue IS a defined term--you just don't know the definition.

"Defined" in this context means "defined by him (ie, Fudbucker)," which was obvious (at least to me) by how he phrased the problem. Thus, as Fudbucker has already explained, it is you, not he, who made the "critical error," by assuming that the "grue" he was talking about was the "chill" the word means in Scots English. BTW, even if you were to assume that he meant a "grue" as actually used in some language, why the one in Scots English? Why not the one, meaning a monster, that is actually used in America? Or, for that matter, why not one of the meanings in French: a crane (the bird), a crane (a hoist), or a slang word for prostitute? Sure, the probability is 0 that there is a shudder in my house (because the sentence doesn't even make sense), but, as it happens, I live by a body of water that is visited by cranes, and I own cats that like to bring dead birds into my house; so the probability is actually non-zero that at any point in time there could be a dead crane in my house, albeit probably not one in particularly good health. Be careful what you assign probabilities of 0 (or 1) to. I won't comment on the prostitute.

And that's my point about this Bayesian statistics stuff: you are confusing your knowledge with the limits of the system. Your math says NOTHING about the reality of the system itself; it merely describes YOUR PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE of the system--in a way that's obtuse, and which displays literally infinitely more precision than your knowledge of the system warrants.

Do you actually think that there is no relationship between one's knowledge about a thing and the thing itself? Because there obviously is. When your Bayesian spam filter assigns a probability of spam of .99999 to an email, then that email is almost certainly spam; and when it assigns a probability of .00001 to an email, then that email is almost certainly not spam. There is a clear relationship to the spam filter's knowledge of the email, and the correct classification of the email. It's hard to understand what it is about this that you don't understand.

Consider two types of statistical inference: estimation and testing. Take estimation first: I want to estimate the average birth weight of a grue. In Bayesian estimation, we start with a prior probability distribution over the parameter whose value we wish to estimate. This distribution expresses our prior knowledge of the value probabilistically. If we know very little about the birth weight of grues (say, that plausible values could range over an order of magnitude), then our probability distribution will be wide, with substantial probability spread over a wide range of possible birth weights. In contrast, if there have already been studies done on grue birth weight that, say, have variously estimated the average as 16, 20, and 18 grunits (the customary measure), then my prior distribution will be quite narrow. Most of the probability mass will be placed in the range of, say 14 to 22. Thus, again, the there is a clear relationship between our knowledge about the thing (described probabilistically) and the actual thing. Of course, when we do our experiment and measure the birth weights of our sample of newborn grulings, we will combine this new knowledge with our prior distribution to obtain a posterior distribution. It will be narrower than our prior, again reflecting the fact that the width of the distribution is a measure of our confidence of our knowledge. The relationship between our knowledge of the "system" (reflected by the probability distribution) and the reality of the "system" seems self-evident.

I was going to give an example from hypothesis testing too, but the post is already too long. Suffice it to say, the above mechanics apply, except that rather than start with a prior distribution for a parameter, we start with a prior probability for a hypothesis. Then after performing our experiment, we use the data to update our prior probability; the posterior probability can be higher, lower, or unchanged, depending on what the data have to say. If our ending probability is either very high or very low, we might conclude that the hypothesis has been essentially proved or disproved, whereas intermediate probabilities would indicate that we're not yet confident one way or other, and that the hypothesis needs further study. It is impossible for me to understand how anybody, much less a working scientist, could fail to see how useful this sort of approach to science is.

Enough for one post.

 

[The Norseman]

Thank you for these insights. It is often difficult for Bayesians to understand what non-Bayesians are thinking when they object to Bayesian inference. Jaynes wrote that it sometimes seems like the world is divided into two kinds of people: "those who see the point of Bayesian inference at once, and need no explanation; and those who never see it, however much explanation is given." The problem, at least partly, is that the people who never seem to get Bayesian statistics have deeply rooted misunderstandings of it. I think your post sheds some light on this.

Thank you! I'm hesitant to post regarding BT because I'm still learning about it, but it seems that several posters who claim knowledge about BT really don't seem to understand it.

 

[Daylightstar]

That's where you're making your mistake: jt512 isn't talking about the outcome as being 50/50, but the prior probability -- the beginning of the equation -- as being 50/50. ...

^{Hilite by Daylightstar}
Are you talking about this post?:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10410825&postcount=887

If so, could it have helped if "prior" were inserted in front of "probabilit(ies)"?

 

[jt512]

You are correct. However, you have missed the most important part when you use Bayesian calculus in science. It must be rational or there must be evidence. I can't express this often enough.

I've noticed.

The set that includes ESP is 0.
The set that includes Advanced life is 1.

That is gibberish.

 

[Daylightstar]

...
The experiments that jt512 referred to and the experiments that Maaneli referred to are all documented and substantiated. Those are verifiable conclusions…to the degree that such things can be.
...

You mean, can be believed. They are not demonstrated to exist.

...
…why…don’t…you…actually…read…the…whole…thing.
...

Why don't you simply show where he has shown the data for the experiments he referred to is valid?
I really don't care about the guy's credibility specifically.

...
…but then again…you would actually have to have some genuine interest in getting to the bottom of the issue. Most skeptics I’ve encountered simply are not interested. Maybe cause they’re scared of what they’ll find there. If that doesn’t describe you, then read the thing and I’ll send you his email address.
...

The bottom of 'the issue'. Actual demonstration of claimed phenomenon.
Simply show where the guy shows the data for those experiments to be valid.

...
Funny isn’t it. Anecdotes have changed the entire world and people’s entire lives…and continue to do so in every way, shape, and form…but all of a sudden, when it comes to anecdotes that represent something scary …anecdotes become irrelevant.

There has been substantive science done in support of the ESP position, as both jt512 and I have established. It is not definitive, but the vast majority of science is not definitive, it is varying degrees of probability.

So…what we currently have…is a modest body of documented research that supports the ESP position. There is also a massive amount of anecdotal evidence that supports the ESP position. Anecdotal evidence is not scientifically definitive and I obviously never suggested it is but …as things currently stand…science has absolutely no way of even beginning to definitively explain these phenomena. Playing this stupid guessing game of ‘oh it must be cognitive bias or misrepresentation or confusion or flawed this that and the other’ is nothing but desperate speculation.

Simply repeating “These things do not happen” ten million times will not make the research go away and it will not make the anecdotes go away.
...

It's more like: "No demonstration of actual existence of ESP stuff has been shown".
And it hasn't.

The anecdotes will be coming, no doubt. But will the actual demonstration of actual existence of ESP phenomena?

 

[The Norseman]

^{Hilite by Daylightstar}
Are you talking about this post?:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10410825&postcount=887

If so, could it have helped if "prior" were inserted in front of "probabilit(ies)"?

That post, sure, and others.

Yes, the word "prior" put into it would have improved the precision of what's being discussed.

Edited to Add:

The difference is easily understood once you understand BT: all prior probabilities must sum to 1 -- which is what his 0.5/0.5 does. The consequent probability, however, can never be either 1 or 0 -- something which some posters are having difficulty understanding.

 

[Daylightstar]

That post, sure, and others.

Yes, the word "prior" put into it would have improved the precision of what's being discussed.

Thank you, I would agree. However, I must also admit that I myself picked up the intended meaning from the context

 

[Daylightstar]

As I said…most skeptics I know simply aren’t interested in discovering the facts. They’re just interested in mud-slinging. ...

Actually, most would be interested in an actual demonstration of actual occurrence of any actual paranormal phenomenon. Very interested indeed.

They are always disappointed .....