New PSI forum

[UndercoverElephant]

Two wrong assumptions here:

Skeptics don't find PSI impossible - there is just no evidence of it.

I think I have spent most of this thread responding to that claim. Any evidence will be rationalised away, because 99% of people calling themselves "skeptics" are quite certain PSI doesn't exist. You too would have to have a major belief-system reversal in order to be able to accept any evidence as valid. Surely you don't disagree with that?

Skeptics don't find it hard to believe that we are alone in the Universe. While there is no evidence, it is very possible that there is life elsewhere.

You wouldn't describe PSI as "very possible" though, would you? You would more likely describe it as "possible, but highly unlikely", yes? The truth is that you could accept evidence of extra-terrestrial life without that major belief-system reversal. I find it hard to accept that these belief-system factors are not playing a part in peoples opinions. I know they played a big part in mine, anyway.

Guess perception is not to be trusted, eh?

Ah, how to tell truth from lies......

 

[UndercoverElephant]

But the claims that people make for PSI are testable. And consistently fail to produce the goods.

....except when they do produce the goods, and the skeptics refuse to believe the results! (see my previous posts).

Also, some of the phenomena that come under the category of PSI are not testable. By their nature, they seem to disappear under laboratory conditions. Skeptics will then claim that this is "just a cop-out", but IMO the situation is not so simple. The "experimenter effect" being discussed earlier in this thread is a perfect example. For the skeptic, the very idea that phenomena behave differently as a direct result of who is conducting the experiment and what they believe is itself unbelievable. But this is simply because skeptics tend to view physical reality as observer-independent (note BillHoyts response that the claim reality was observer-dependent was "laughable"), and I think there is a clear case to be made (from QM) that reality is NOT observer-independent, so the skeptics opinion relies on a highly questionable assumption. In trying to unravel and re-assess all these assumptions, it is possible to end up asking all sorts of questions you never thought you would have to ask. That is why I ended up deciding to go back to University and study cognitive science and philosophy. PSI ended up being a side-issue for me.

 

[BillHoyt]

But that is pretty much the only point I am making - this debate is not as it is usually presented ("show me the evidence") because it isn't just about "evidence", it is about peoples whole belief systems.

I'm not sure why you think I (for one) would allow you to reframe things in this contorted way. By asserting this is about "belief systems" you equivocate on "belief systems." As with the "faith" equivocations, you squash unfounded belief systems together with founded belief systems. But we know they are not equivalent. We know, in fact, it is possible for people to be presented with clear cut evidence of something and for them to stubbornly stick with their belief it is not so. If the evidence is sufficently clear, we can only call such a belief delusional.

As an example, Randi, in lecture, is fond of recounting his Tonight show appearance in which he demonstrated the sleight-of-hand behind psychic surgery. The cameras moved in closely as he showed how he had hid the chicken blood and parts in a bag and how he pulled them from his cupped hand to make it appear he was pulling them from the person lying on the table. After the show, the Tonight show people fielded several calls from viewers who asked how they could contact a psychic surgeon so that they could have their tumors removed.

Sorry, Juggler, all belief systems are hardly equivalent and this equivocation simply won't fly.

I find it curious that the skeptics who find it impossible to believe in PSI often find it equally hard to believe that human beings are alone in this Universe.

One wonders if this simply reveals a misunderstanding or a bias or both. Skeptics find it hard to believe in PSI because there is no evidence for it. They also find it hard to believe we are alone because there is every evidence that life is a natural consequence of matter's properties.

Fantastic testimony is useless. You have to be there yourself. Nothing else would suffice to convince me.

It's been a pleasant thread.

It depends on the "testimony." Here you seem to again lump things together. I have seen people afire. I don't need to light myself up to know it won't feel good. I don't have to be there myself. I have read about the hows and whys of the bends and diver's narcosis. I don't need to get the bends myself to prove to me it happens.

More generally, this is an extraordinarily self-limiting position to adopt. You need to personally experience everything before you can believe it? You don't have another way? Contrariwise, you seriously want us to believe that everything you think you experience is exactly as you describe it? We've pointed out to you before the contradictions this assertion instantly raises when two eye-witnesses give differing reports. Ooops, there goes the lame epistemology.

 

[Ed]

It sounds like you somehow "know" that the experimenter effect must be false, and thus that anyone demonstrating it should a priori be accused of incompetence. I'd be curious to know how you arrived at such a dogmatic position.

There does exist an experimenter effect. They found such a thing, good enough. That indicates bad experiment. Now, abscent a clear, repeatable, dependent variable they proceed to manipulate an independent variable to affect it. Somehow this becomes proof of the original dependent variable. They might have systematically altered the proximity of the experimenter to the experiment. I am suggesting that the initial finding shows a lack of competance.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Bill

I'm not sure why you think I (for one) would allow you to reframe things in this contorted way.

This is a forum for debate. I can reframe things however I like, and you are welcome to challenge me.

By asserting this is about "belief systems" you equivocate on "belief systems." As with the "faith" equivocations, you squash unfounded belief systems together with founded belief systems. But we know they are not equivalent.

As a technical point, I am an anti-foundationalist. By that I mean that I do not believe there is one single valid way of founding your understanding of the world. Most of the people here are foundationalists of one sort or another - materialists are foundationalists, idealists are foundationalists, Christians are foundationalists. I am instead what is called a "coherentist" - which means I have multiple non-contradictory epistemologies - multiple ways of looking at the world and no single foundation.

Different belief systems are not neccesarily equivalient, no. They have different strengths and weaknesses, different uses. So I am not squashing them together - rather I would argue that no single foundation is on its own sufficent to come to a full picture of the way things are.

We know, in fact, it is possible for people to be presented with clear cut evidence of something and for them to stubbornly stick with their belief it is not so.

We do, yes.

If the evidence is sufficently clear, we can only call such a belief delusional.

If it is sufficiently clear, yes, but I suspect there would be disagreements about whether specific cases were "suffficient".

As an example, Randi, in lecture, is fond of recounting his Tonight show appearance in which he demonstrated the sleight-of-hand behind psychic surgery. The cameras moved in closely as he showed how he had hid the chicken blood and parts in a bag and how he pulled them from his cupped hand to make it appear he was pulling them from the person lying on the table. After the show, the Tonight show people fielded several calls from viewers who asked how they could contact a psychic surgeon so that they could have their tumors removed.

In this case, it is sufficiently clear. Some belief systems are totally absurd. The Scientologists and their theories about "Xemu" are my favourite. However, just because scientologists believe in the absurd, it does not follow that all non-scientific beliefs systems are equally absurd. Lifegazers idealism is absurd. Schopenhauers wasn't.

One wonders if this simply reveals a misunderstanding or a bias or both. Skeptics find it hard to believe in PSI because there is no evidence for it.

We are discussing the validity of that claim.

They also find it hard to believe we are alone because there is every evidence that life is a natural consequence of matter's properties.

This sort of view is also open to discussion. There is nothing "clear" about it. You seem to be implying that your way of looking at the world is the only valid one, and I would challenge that.

More generally, this is an extraordinarily self-limiting position to adopt.

Limited by having multiple epistemologies?

You need to personally experience everything before you can believe it? You don't have another way?

Not everything no. Just things I didn't previously believe in!

Contrariwise, you seriously want us to believe that everything you think you experience is exactly as you describe it?

I don't want you to believe anything. I can only describe experiences in words, and words are rarely good enough to do the job anyway.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

There does exist an experimenter effect. They found such a thing, good enough. That indicates bad experiment.

Can I ask you how you concluded that this is what it means?

Flyboy pointed out that your reasoning here only seems to make sense if you have decided beforehand that PSI doesn't exist and that therefore any evidence of it indicates fraud or incompetence. If this is not your reasoning, then please explain what your reasoning is. If this is your reasoning, then you are just confirming what we are saying - you have already decided there can be no valid evidence, because PSI doesn't exist!

Now, abscent a clear, repeatable, dependent variable they proceed to manipulate an independent variable to affect it. Somehow this becomes proof of the original dependent variable. They might have systematically altered the proximity of the experimenter to the experiment. I am suggesting that the initial finding shows a lack of competance.

Why should the proximity make any difference? The remote staring was done by video camera. One of the subjects might as well have been on the moon - why should it make a difference?

 

[TheBoyPaj]

From what I can tell based on this article (http://www.hf.caltech.edu/ctt/show212/article2.shtml) there are some places where the experimenter may have altered the results. Not that I'm saying that this is what happened, but is fraud an example of "experimenter effect"?

I also understand that Wiseman and Schlitz were attempting a larger, more collaborative version of this experiment this year. I do not know when it is published.

 

[Ed]

Originally posted by JustGeoff


Can I ask you how you concluded that this is what it means?

Ummmm...that's what they said?

Flyboy pointed out that your reasoning here only seems to make sense if you have decided beforehand that PSI doesn't exist and that therefore any evidence of it indicates fraud or incompetence. If this is not your reasoning, then please explain what your reasoning is. If this is your reasoning, then you are just confirming what we are saying - you have already decided there can be no valid evidence, because PSI doesn't exist!

It is unproven therefore using that as variable is building surmise on conjecture. Now, if you are suggesting that the effect truely only occurs when there is a badly designed experiment (i.e. experimenter effect not controlled for) that is a form of special pleading. If you are saying that the Psi effects can only be made manifest in situations that are contrary to normal scientific methods then your findings are trivial. It's sort of like saying "I can guess the coin in your hand but I have to peek". OK, peek away but the result is hardly compelling. It also is building a rather baroque edifice. In essence Psi, then, occurs via mechanisms outside of what we know from science AND it is further influenced by other parties who are observing, who by their very presence are in fact participating. Sounds squirrely to me.


Why should the proximity make any difference? The remote staring was done by video camera. One of the subjects might as well have been on the moon - why should it make a difference?

Don't know, I wasn't there. [/QUOTE]

 

[CFLarsen]

I think I have spent most of this thread responding to that claim. Any evidence will be rationalised away, because 99% of people calling themselves "skeptics" are quite certain PSI doesn't exist. You too would have to have a major belief-system reversal in order to be able to accept any evidence as valid. Surely you don't disagree with that?

Sure, I would. But that doesn't mean I rationalize evidence away.

If people are quite certain that psi doesn't exist, they are not skeptics. They are skeptics, if they say that there is no evidence, but that it is possible.

You wouldn't describe PSI as "very possible" though, would you? You would more likely describe it as "possible, but highly unlikely", yes?

Judging from the evidence, sure.

The truth is that you could accept evidence of extra-terrestrial life without that major belief-system reversal.

E.T. would not be in conflict with scientific knowledge. That's the difference.

I find it hard to accept that these belief-system factors are not playing a part in peoples opinions. I know they played a big part in mine, anyway.

That may be, but it doesn't mean you can extrapolate the way you do.

Ah, how to tell truth from lies......

That's why we strive for evidence instead.

 

[Ed]

From what I can tell based on this article (http://www.hf.caltech.edu/ctt/show212/article2.shtml) there are some places where the experimenter may have altered the results. Not that I'm saying that this is what happened, but is fraud an example of "experimenter effect"?

It certainly is. If you imagine a continuum with cheating on the left and some heretofore unknown paranormal effect on the right you have it.

 

[Lucianarchy]

From what I can tell based on this article (http://www.hf.caltech.edu/ctt/show212/article2.shtml) there are some places where the experimenter may have altered the results. Not that I'm saying that this is what happened, but is fraud an example of "experimenter effect"?

Only you have any evidence of it.

If you read the article properly, you will see that this is extraordinarily unlikely. It is one of the straws I have mentioned before which pseudo-skeptics tend to cling to in order to hang on to their belief system. If you multiply those straw grasps over the entire body of scientific evidence, then there would be a level of deception so poweful and sucessful, and running through so many labs across the world, that that alone would be a phenomenal story in itself!. Of course, there has not been any evidence of cheating or fraud, just supposition. Which is not what skepticism is about, Paj.

 

[TheBoyPaj]

So should scientific research all hinge on the honesty of the individual experimenter? Shouldn't there be controls to remove this necessity?

(Mmmmm... prediction coming.....)

 

[Ed]

Originally posted by JustGeoff


I think I have spent most of this thread responding to that claim. Any evidence will be rationalised away, because 99% of people calling themselves "skeptics" are quite certain PSI doesn't exist. You too would have to have a major belief-system reversal in order to be able to accept any evidence as valid. Surely you don't disagree with that?



[/QUOTE]

I think that the term "rationalize away" is a bit glib.

I can only speak for myself but let me address you point.

I consider myself a religious agnostic. In all honesty I do not Know (capitol K) whether or not there is a God. However, based on my assessment of the information to hand I am an atheist. Someone said on these pages long ago that that is called "Atheistic agnosticism". Cool, it even has a name.

When it comes to the paranormal I really in my heart of hearts do not know whether such things exist. However, in practice, I don't subscribe to it. Why? Because it appears to me that obfuscation, carelessness bordering on deception, incompetance, making complicated where simplicity is called for are all characteristics, to a greater or lesser degree, of paranormal research.

As I have mentioned before, paranormal research is the only field of inquiry where, when I begin reading a paper, I ask myself "is this SOB lieing?". The fault lies with the practitioners and proponents. It lies with various credulous people like Luci. The problem is that paranormal research (may I abbreviate this "PR"?) does not behave like other "sciences". From what I have been able to gather, peer review is a joke. Bad research has no consequences, none. Where is Dr. Pons at the moment? Do you know? I sure don't. Where is Dr. Schwartz at the moment? Doing "research" in Arizona. Have proponents disavowed the slimey, manipulative Targ/AIDS experiment? No? Why not?

My experience is that believers/proponents are not after truth, they are after positive results, much like the Creationists, in fact I see little difference between the two.

The negative environment around this stuff is due to the people who are doing the research. A thinking person must be on guard against fraud to an extent that most people do not experience in other areas of their life.

So, "rationalize away"? Hardly.

 

[Ed]

Let me go further: look at the very first post in this thread. (Pause while all savor the gems of wisdom.) Done? OK.

This is the face of the credulous. This is the mindless cleaving to anything that is "odd". This is the uncritical belief that allows for crap to pass as evidence. If serious proponents of paranormal anythings want to be taken seriously you have to clean up your act. If the problems are not self evident (and I mean the magnitude as well as the ubiquity) then the problem may very well be insurmountable.

Now we are going to have the PSI forum, we should prepare / compile a list of all the evidence / replictions including references and sources.

Given the evidence is now quite positive, and there now beign no mundane, rationale known scientific explanation for the effect.The starting point of the forum should be: The Psi effect exists. Now is the time to move onto applying scepticism to any forthcoming explanations. Not as denial, but as tests of exploration.

 

[CFLarsen]

Of course, there has not been any evidence of cheating or fraud, just supposition.

Wrong, as usual: Soal cheated.

"In 'Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research', Betty Markwick, a statistician, revealed early in 1979 the damning facts about Soal that had not been suspected. Aside from changing a few digits when the opportunity arose, it seems he also cleverly managed another simple ruse. Markwick found - after much labor - the places in the logarithm tables where Soals had chosen his digits. Not only had he gotten unforgivably lazy and repeated some series on the lists without properly arriving at them; he also had left spaces in his target list every few digits, into which he inserted 'winning' target digits as the tests were conducted. No one had thought to observe him, and in fact they could not, since according to the rules his list was supposed to be secret until presented for checking. But the evidence was there, for the 'E.D.s' (extra digits) that had been discovered were 'hits' that agreed with Shackleton's guesses. Suddenly, there was no longer any mystery about where these results had come from."
Source: James Randi, Flim Flam, pp.233-234.

"...until statistician Betty Markwick, in her famous paper, "The Soal-Goldney Experiments with Basil Shackleton: New Evidence of Data Manipulation" (Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. 56, May 1978, pages 250-277), gave incontrovertible evidence that Soal had indeed cheated."
Source: Martin Gardner, Science Good Bad and Bogus, p.230

"For example, in the 1950s the London University mathematician Samuel Soal claimed convincing evidence of telepathy with his special subject Basil Shackleton, with odds estimated at 1035 against the effect being due to chance (Soal and Bateman 1954). These results convinced a whole generation of researchers and it took more than thirty years to show that Soal had, in fact, cheated (Markwick 1978). Promising animal precognition experiments were blighted by the discovery of fraud (Rhine 1974)"
Source: Susan Blackmore, "What Can the Paranormal Teach Us About Consciousness?"

One more myth of yours shot down.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

From what I can tell based on this article (http://www.hf.caltech.edu/ctt/show212/article2.shtml) there are some places where the experimenter may have altered the results. Not that I'm saying that this is what happened, but is fraud an example of "experimenter effect"?

No. Fraud is fraud, incompetence is incompetence, and neither are examples of "experimenter effect".

I also understand that Wiseman and Schlitz were attempting a larger, more collaborative version of this experiment this year. I do not know when it is published.

Me neither, but it is precisely the sort of thing this site should be raising awareness of.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

.
In essence Psi, then, occurs via mechanisms outside of what we know from science AND it is further influenced by other parties who are observing, who by their very presence are in fact participating. Sounds squirrely to me.

Squirrelly?

Yes, it sounds like just the sort of cop-out a fiendishly clever paranormalist would manufacture to avoid facing the truth!

It also may be a real effect, and the first real evidence of PSI. You can't dismiss something on the grounds it "sounds squirrelly".

 

[Ed]

Squirrelly?

Yes, it sounds like just the sort of cop-out a fiendishly clever paranormalist would manufacture to avoid facing the truth!

It also may be a real effect, and the first real evidence of PSI. You can't dismiss something on the grounds it "sounds squirrelly".

It happens. Read, if you dare, the convoluted PEAR documents.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Judging from the evidence, sure

E.T. would not be in conflict with scientific knowledge. That's the difference.

According to you, there is no evidence of PSI, and no evidence of aliens. You justify your different beliefs about the likelihood of their existence not on the evidence, but because you say that PSI "is in conflict with scientific knowledge" and that ET isn't. I don't actually see how many forms of PSI (like knowing you are being stared at through a video camera) is in conflict with current scientific knowledge. It is not. It is merely not predicted by current scientific theories, and there is no currently known physical mechanism. I think the real difference is that according to your current understanding of what reality is, and how it works, you cannot imagine how or why such a mechanism should exist. That is different to "being in conflict". Maybe some things, like perpetual motion machines, are in conflict with current science - but not the PSI effects we have been discussing.

 

[Stitch]

Originally posted by Ed
Sounds squirrely to me.

<snigger> That's pure class, I can see a sig revison coming on!

Maybe we have found a new term to replace "woo-woo"