New PSI forum

[drkitten]

Perhaps this might be a good time to point out that physics (QM) has quite clearly suggested that reality is NOT observer-independent,

It has not. That's a misrepresentation of the theories.

 

[Stitch]

"To be precise, when we say that "X exists," we mean that the presently available, cumulative statistical database for experiments studying X, provides strong, scientifically credible evidence for repeatable, anomalous, X-like effects.

Interesting, quote. write something that looks similar to what I was talking about but isn't then waffle off on your own track

With this in mind, ESP exists, precognition exists, telepathy exists, and PK exists. ESP is statistically robust, meaning it can be reliably demonstrated through repeated trials, but it tends to be weak when simple geometric symbols are used as targets. Photographic or video targets often produce effects many times larger, and there is some evidence that ESP on natural locations (as opposed to photos of them), and in natural contexts, may be stronger yet. [...]" - http://www.parapsych.org/faq_file3.html

Please show me a PSI / PK / ESP experiment that contains documented:

Claim
Hypothesis
Test Protocol
Peer Test Protocol Review
Revised Test Protocol

I'll leave it at that for the moment, we can cover the other requirements such a re-testing and so on once we have found an experiment with the above in it.

 

[drkitten]

Never heard of it! Can you provide a link?

Probably simplest to type the phrase into Google. Basically, it's a prehistoric, naturally occurring, nuclear pile, and the way it works shows pretty clearly that the laws and physical constants of physics have not changed over the past zillion years.

Neat stuff.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

To be honest, I think the believers are far more in need of a solution than the skeptics.

If I can't find a rational explanation for something, then I am happy to consider that the experience is quite possibly beyond my current understanding, and possibly that of science. It does not however mean that it will ALWAYS be beyond science to explain it, and I am happy to accept there may be no solution at present.

It would seem however that the believers, when presented with something that does not have a current scientific explanation, resort to inventing something that explains the situation, so that they DO have a solution. The fact that it is made up and has no evidence to support is doesn't matter, it is an answer, a solution, even if it is wrong, it is something warm and fluffy to cling on to an allows you to say "I understand that"

May be true in some cases. Personally, many of things I ended up believing are far from warm and fluffy, and these days I am confronted with far more "unknowns" than I was confronted with when I was a scientific skeptic. I have not followed an "easy path". I was too much of an atheist and a skeptic for far too long for that to happen. But that is just me personally.

This the point at which the believers start to panic. Somebody has spotted the "trick" and has proposed a revised "test" to plug the hole. The belief system is about to come crashing down. Hence the "I refuse to be tested" type statements or, as seems to be one of your favourites "It can't be tested"

No matter what peoples belief system is, when it is seriously challenged the result is panic. This is just as true for the skeptic as for the believer. I have been there (as a skeptic). I panicked. Big time. I was posting prolifically at this site at the time it happened - and I think it was quite obvious to those people reading my posts that there was nothing warm and fluffy going on in my world, and that the posts were being made by a person experiencing a serious existential crisis. Belief systems do not usually change overnight, and when they do, it is always traumatic.

 

[Stitch]

Stitch, just curious. Have you posted to this forum previously, under a different name?

No

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Probably simplest to type the phrase into Google. Basically, it's a prehistoric, naturally occurring, nuclear pile, and the way it works shows pretty clearly that the laws and physical constants of physics have not changed over the past zillion years.

Neat stuff.

I was not arguing that the laws and physical constants change with time, although this is very much debatable (see last weeks New Scientist). I was arguing that reality might not not always behave the same for all individuals. Just to further clarify, I am not even arguing that the laws of physics need to change in order to accomodate PSI phenomena. The laws of physics, as they stand, are quite capable of accomodating PSI phenomena. The laws of physics allow for all sorts of incredible things to happen, it just suggests that they are incredibly unlikely to happen.

 

[Lucianarchy]

Biological Utilisation of Quantum NonLocality

"The perception of reality by biosystems is based on different, and in certain respects more effective principles than those utilised by the more formal procedures of science. As a result, what appears as random pattern to the scientific method can be meaningful pattern to a living organism. The existence of this complementary perception of reality makes possible in principle effective use by organisms of the direct interconnections between spatially separated objects shown to exist in the work of J.S. Bell."

http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/papers/bell.html

 

[Lucianarchy]

'Beyond quantum theory: a realist psycho-biological interpretation of reality' revisited

"It is hypothesised, following Conrad et al. (1988) (this http URL) that quantum physics is not the ultimate theory of nature, but merely a theoretical account of the phenomena manifested in nature under particular conditions. These phenomena parallel cognitive phenomena in biosystems in a number of ways and are assumed to arise from related mechanisms. Quantum and biological accounts are complementary in the sense of Bohr and quantum accounts may be incomplete. In particular, following ideas of Stapp, 'the observer' is a system that, while lying outside the descriptive capacities of quantum mechanics, creates observable phenomena such as wave function collapse through its probing activities. Better understanding of such processes may pave the way to new science. "
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0105027

 

[Lucianarchy]

Parapsychology: the choice between cultural bias and an open mind

"David Fisher (July 2000, p. 22) rejects parapsychology on the basis of difficulty in replicating positive results in the field. This is insufficient reason to reject its claims: consider the case of astronomy, which also deals with phenomena that cannot be generated on demand or predicted in advance. Criteria for judging claims must be adapted to the characteristics of the phenomena under consideration.

In the case of parapsychology, there is the complication of the prevailing 'cultural bias' against the subject. Bias seeks primarily to rationalise a belief, rather to arrive at the truth: arguments are selected in accord with whether they point in the desired direction or not. Rationalisation is not a self-critical process and is not what science is about. It is prone to surface when certain ideas are considered intrinsically bad; and so we find editors, referees and self-appointed proselytisers all supposedly, in their various ways, 'protecting' science from 'false beliefs in the paranormal', but in so doing in reality presenting a biased picture to the scientific community, perpetuating the cultural bias as a result. The Cambridge Conference that Fisher refers to achieved significant successes in the direction of opening minds.[...]"
http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/psi/bias1.html

 

[UndercoverElephant]

The "schlitz-wiseman" effect :

http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=8&pageid=77&pgtype=1

What made these results even more notable was what happened next. To ensure the validity of her data, Schlitz enrolled the assistance of a skeptical researcher from England, named Richard Wiseman. Following all of the same protocols that Schlitz had, Wiseman did not get any significant results. To see if he had done anything different, Schlitz went to England and did the experiment together with Wiseman. What they found is that the subjects who did the experiment with Schlitz produced significant results, while Wiseman’s did not. These findings were repeated in a second study conducted in Schlitz’ lab in California. Altogether, this has lead Schlitz to postulate that there is a significant "experimenter effect" that is occurring. She believes that it is likely that her own openness and positivity, in contrast to Wiseman’s skepticism, had, in fact, influenced their results. Even the skeptical Wiseman now believes there is something significant going on in the studies, although he is not certain what it is yet. After hearing about the results of their series of experiments, George Leonard coined the term "the Schlitz-Wiseman Effect" to describe how the intentions of the experimenter have a definite influence upon the results.

If you really want me to go to my loft and dig out the copy of New Scientist with other references in it, I can do so. But right now I have some wallpaper to strip.

 

[Lucianarchy]

Could telepathy one day be explained by modern physics?

This is a transcript of a discussion on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, October 2nd. 2001, with Sue MacGregor (presenter), Brian Josephson and Nicholas Humphrey, and a voice recording of James Randi. If you have RealPlayer software, you can listen to the discussion in the BBC sound archives.

See also comments on some of the issues, also on the theoretical aspect.

http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/stamps/today.html

 

[Ed]

The "schlitz-wiseman" effect :

http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=8&pageid=77&pgtype=1



If you really want me to go to my loft and dig out the copy of New Scientist with other references in it, I can do so. But right now I have some wallpaper to strip.

With all due respect this is complete bullsh!t. The purpose of experimental design is to obviate these kinds of things. The fact that they found that there was a confounding factor and did not eliminate it is a massive inditement of both of them. And they gave their name to error that a college freshman would recognize?

 

[flyboy217]

With all due respect this is complete bullsh!t. The purpose of experimental design is to obviate these kinds of things. The fact that they found that there was a confounding factor and did not eliminate it is a massive inditement of both of them. And they gave their name to error that a college freshman would recognize?

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.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

With all due respect this is complete bullsh!t. The purpose of experimental design is to obviate these kinds of things. The fact that they found that there was a confounding factor and did not eliminate it is a massive inditement of both of them. And they gave their name to error that a college freshman would recognize?

Ed,

It is easier to point the finger than to provide a tangible helping hand! How can you design a better experiment to detect "experimenter effect"? What was their "mistake"? You have here two scientists, one a skeptic, one a paranormalist, carrying out identical experiments in the same laboratory and getting different results! There is your evidence! What better evidence could possibly be supplied? Yet, if I understand you correctly, your response is "there must be some non-paranormal explanation for the result, and the fact that neither of them have found out what it is means they are both incompetent!". This is precisely the sort "moving the goalposts" that I am talking about. You have demonstrated the point perfectly. It makes no difference what evidence is provided, because the skeptic still won't believe it! The reason he won't believe it is because he has already decided that the are no PSI phenomena (including the "experimenter effect" itself), so if the results suggests that there is then something must have gone wrong, and if someone more competent did the experiment he would discover what it is!.

The set of experiments being discussed were designed with the specific goal of eliminating "confounding factors", and they were designed to provide evidence (or lack of) of the "experimenter effect". The evidence was produced, and the skeptics simply refused to believe the result, leaving us right back where we started before those experiments were conducted, with the paranormalists claiming "experimenter effects" and the skeptics claiming fraud and incompetence. I don't see how you can blame the paranormalists for this one.

If anyone can suggest a way out of the impasse, I'd be extremely interested to hear it. If we are to progress, the skeptics have to agree not to move the goalposts, yet since the only sort of "progress' the skeptics are interested in is the sort of progress which demonstrates PSI doesn't exist, there is no hope of progress.

Geoff.

 

[AOK Tiger]

Just Geoff,

That is fair enough. But can I ask you whether you would find it easy to integrate proof such as this into your existing conception of reality? Wouldn't you agree that accepting such evidence would force a complete re-evaluation of your current beliefs about Reality? Isn't it true that deep down you are very confident that such proof will never be presented?

Well we all like to think we are broadminded but perhaps you have a point. Years of fraud, baseless speculation, lies, frivolous claims, inanity and outright ridiculousness has hardened me somewhat to any “evidence” produced by paranormalists.

The “evidence” invariably boils down to anecdote, hallucination or is generally wrong in the way it is interpreted.

I am QUITE capable of paradigm shifts in my overall belief system though given quality evidence or argument contrary to my existing beliefs… Eg going from Christian to atheist, going from belief in some paranormal phenomena to complete scepticism.

And would you still LOVE it if it happened to you, but you couldn't prove it?. Say, aliens come and visit you, have a very interesting conversation and then disappear leaving no trace of their visit. You would KNOW it was true, but you could prove nothing. It would have to remain your own private revelation.
quote:

Interesting point that I have often pondered. I am a HUGE sci fi fan and am quite sure aliens exist somewhere (just by the odds).. If they came and talked to me I would later question the following..

1. My own sanity
2. Wether I was dreaming or hallucinating ?
3. Had I had any drugs ?

If I was STILL convinced it happened I would have to question Alien motives.. why approach insignificant humans, the ridiculous behaviour they exhibit for sentient beings, the impossibility of these visitations not providing any evidence.. etc etc.

Yes, this is the way the skeptic thinks. But you have to examine what is meant by "proof", and whether or not the standard of proof itself may exclude certain types of phenomena. As already mentioned, it excludes any type of phenomena which are personal oir belief-dependent. The position you have outlined involves an assumption that the behaviour of "reality" is observer-independent and belief-independent. These assumptions are required in order for science to operate, but they are not required in order for reality to operate. For the skeptic, science is the final arbiter. For the paranormalist, science is not the final arbiter. Any "woo-woo" who thinks he can provide scientific evidence for his beliefs is probably just an idiot. As you say, if such evidence was likely to arrive, it would already have arrived.

I cannot help but put far more weight on scientific evidence than human evidence.

Knowing that humans can lie, hallucinate, dream, have false memories etc etc.. when the ONLY evidence for something FANTASTIC is a human testimony it is NOT enough.

 

[Zep]

All this quoting of experiments where some paranormal effect or other was noted to some extent, or the measuring of the "skeptic effect", etc. From my own reading of them, there does seem to be one common factor in them all that casts a great shadow over them: sloppiness in data gathering and measurement.

Not that this is not a problem in "standard" science either (eg. the cold fusion fiasco), but the data generating and scoring process just seems to be so ... vague. And when this vagueness is statistically filtered out, the results almost inevitably come down to chance.

First example: Beneviste's work on basophils and homeopathic substances, which I won't repeat here in detail (go look it up if you are so darn keen!). The major point in Beneviste's case was that he thought he had a working experiment that proved homeopathic operation. In fact, it took a layman (in the shape of Mr Randi) to point out that he had not completed a basic requirement - proper blinding of the test and scoring process. That is, Beneviste was sloppy in that regard. Result? Once proper controls were put in place, Beneviste's results went to chance levels. Randi didn't change Beneviste's testing process, didn't try to influence the results, didn't accuse Beneviste of cheating, nothing like that. He just removed the sloppiness.

Next example: PEAR's 25 years of data on remote viewing, referenced earlier in this thread. For 25 years, PEAR was certain there was something in the results, because the (sloppy) scoring process allowed that there might be. The majority of criticisms of this body of data was of the sloppy original scoring process, as well as the vague analysis techniques. But when PEAR applied more rigorous (ie. less sloppy) scoring and analysis process, the results reduced to chance again. Which left PEAR with a problem - either admit they had sloppy data and scoring to start with (plainly obvious to all but the most dense or intractible), or try to invent some airy-fairy excuses to explain it away.

To be honest, as a skeptic, whenever I am presented with some report or other that supposedly details yet another psi breakthrough, I have a read through it and almost inevitably there is some place, if not many places, where some simple sloppiness has been overlooked or allowed that could easily invalidate the rest of the process.

And claiming that psi is "on the borderlands of science" is no excuse for avoiding good science practices. San Diego is right on the borderlands of the USA, but US law still applies there just as much as in Salt Lake City UT or New York.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Hello Aussie Thinker

Well we all like to think we are broadminded but perhaps you have a point. Years of fraud, baseless speculation, lies, frivolous claims, inanity and outright ridiculousness has hardened me somewhat to any “evidence” produced by paranormalists.

The “evidence” invariably boils down to anecdote, hallucination or is generally wrong in the way it is interpreted.

I am QUITE capable of paradigm shifts in my overall belief system though given quality evidence or argument contrary to my existing beliefs… Eg going from Christian to atheist, going from belief in some paranormal phenomena to complete scepticism.

True enough, but it's possible that there is a baby being thrown out with all that murky old bathwater. I am not criticising anyone though - I used to be just like you (and most of the other skeptics), and I had very good reasons for being that way. In changing my viewpoint, I had to turn my whole concept of reality upside-down and inside-out, and this included a point where I had even to doubt my confidence in science itself. As a person who had been a science fanatic since about the age of 7 this was no small thing. It is not easy to go right back and disturb the very foundations of your belief system like that, although I later found a way to keep my scientific beliefs intact, but sitting on a different base, if that makes any sense. For somebody like you, who has already had to go through a similar process in ditching Christianity, it would probably be even more difficult. 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.

Interesting point that I have often pondered. I am a HUGE sci fi fan and am quite sure aliens exist somewhere

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. My own view used to be the same as yours, but these days I tend to see existence in terms of consciousness rather than matter, and from that POV you end up thinking more anthropocentrically. I would now be very surprised indeed to discover alien intelligence in the Universe.

Knowing that humans can lie, hallucinate, dream, have false memories etc etc.. when the ONLY evidence for something FANTASTIC is a human testimony it is NOT enough.

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

It's been a pleasant thread.

 

[Stitch]

Originally posted by JustGeoff
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. My own view used to be the same as yours, but these days I tend to see existence in terms of consciousness rather than matter, and from that POV you end up thinking more anthropocentrically. I would now be very surprised indeed to discover alien intelligence in the Universe.

To be honest I think we are more likely to discover some long dead single celled organism than we are living intelligent life.

That doesn't mean I discount the possibility of there being intelligent life out there, there may well be, I just don't know.

 

[CFLarsen]

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.

Two wrong assumptions here:

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

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.

While I don't speak for skeptics, the latter is what I hear most often.

Guess perception is not to be trusted, eh?

 

[TheBoyPaj]

I tend to think that there is intelligent life elsewhere, even though there is no evidence. But is this equivalent to the believers of PSI? I don't think so.

After all, we have no means to obtain evidence of life on other planets. It is not possible for us to test the idea yet.

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

Also, the idea of extraterrestrial life is not yet burdened with the huge amount of negative evidence that PSI is. We just cannot examine enough planets to draw a conclusion.