Merged New telepathy test: which number did I write ?

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John Jones said:
I can't wait to see how this interlocution ends. :D
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It won't end in this thread. The only way to end it will be to move the math discussion to the science and math sub-forum. I suspect that TheSapient is aware of his error but can't back down now without loosing face in front of his chosen peers. This may change in front of a larger audience.
 
Dan O. said:
It won't end in this thread. The only way to end it will be to move the math discussion to the science and math sub-forum. I suspect that TheSapient is aware of his error but can't back down now without loosing face in front of his chosen peers. This may change in front of a larger audience.
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If you really feel there is a problem the way I corrected your mistakes you should attempt to document it. Refusing to respond to points and questions does not help your case.
 
Dan O. said:
It won't end in this thread. The only way to end it will be to move the math discussion to the science and math sub-forum. I suspect that TheSapient is aware of his error but can't back down now without loosing face in front of his chosen peers. This may change in front of a larger audience.
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Much like how you can admit no error ever.
 
Dan O. said:
It won't end in this thread. The only way to end it will be to move the math discussion to the science and math sub-forum. I suspect that TheSapient is aware of his error but can't back down now without loosing face in front of his chosen peers. This may change in front of a larger audience.
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Take it to whatever thread you think is appropriate. I can hardly wait. :D
 
TheSapient said:
If you really feel there is a problem the way I corrected your mistakes you should attempt to document it. Refusing to respond to points and questions does not help your case.
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Since you have mostly been attacking the Credibility Rating as "unscientific", I'll return to that. To help simplify the discussion, I'm going to use a modified protocol to remove some of the objections I brought up much earlier.

For this modified protocol, we will use a separate isolated sender subject. For each trial, the sender will use a suitable uniformly distributed random source to choose one of two patterns to record and attempt to transmit.

For each trial, a receiver subject will record which of the two patterns was most probably received. The receiver subject will also record a brief statement of their state of mind at the time of the trial. Other parameters from the receiver subject may also be recorded including but not limited to respiration, heart rate, skin resistance, EEG, ECG, as well as observation through CCTV, etc.

For each trial, a claimant will by any means desired using the information recorded or observed of the receiver subject rate the attempted telepathic transmission as positive meaning that there was a transmission and it was correctly received, negative meaning that there was a transmission but it was incorrectly received or unknown meaning that there is insufficient confidence to judge that trial either way. How the claimant performs this task shall be considered a trade secret and shall not be enquired upon or divulged. However, this determination must be made without input of the pattern that the sender subject was to transmit.

At the end of a fixed number of trials, the results will be analyzed using only the sequence of patterns recorded by the sender, the sequence of patterns recorded by the receiver and the sequence of ratings recorded by the claimant. Any trial rated as unknown will be discarded. A trial will be marked as a hit if the two patterns match and the rating was positive or if the two patterns don't match and the rating was negative. The remaining trials will be marked as miss.​


I contend that if the number of hits significantly exceeds the number of misses this would be an indication that some paranormal event was occurring. Furthermore, this result would be valid regardless of what the claimant was using to produce the rating. (Significance being calculated by the binomial probability that the result was not due to chance alone.)
 
Emily Cat said:
Statistical probability doesn't imply telepathy.

Let's play a variation on your game. I'll flip a coin, and you tell me what you think the land is: heads or tails. If you're right more than 50% of the time, I'll say you're telepathic.

Here's the rub though: the 50% probability on coin tosses is based on a normal distribution, with a normal error bound. The number of heads in a series of tosses will be higher than 50% heads about half the time. The number of times you're right in a random guess will be about 50%... but as that is also a normal distribution, it will be higher than that about half the time as well.

Now, if I do a series of 5 throws, and you get every single one right, then that's pretty neat. But reality is that you've got around a 3% chance of being exactly right on every single toss in a series of 5 tosses. That 3% doesn't imply that you have any special abilities. It just means that statistical variance exists.
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You mean a binomial distribution and not a normal distribution.
 
New telepathy test: which number did I write?

Hi, I invite you to participate in a new telepathy test. This test is the fourth test I propose on this forum.

At about 2:25 p.m. on this Friday April 11 (Brussels, Belgium time), I wrote carefully one of the four numbers: "1", "2", "3", "4" on my sheet of paper, and I surrounded it with a circle. Then, I wrote it again twice.

I shall repeat this number from time to time during this test.

I ask you to write it here (if you think you know it, even with a doubt). You may also answer "I don't know".


In this test, however, I ask you to not write immediately the number explicitly, in order to make the test more rigorous (more on this below).


I also ask you to write a comment, together with your numerical answer, or at least a small sentence.
In your comment, you may explain, for example, how confident you are that your number is the "correct" one, the one that I wrote. The comment you will write is important for me, in my method, because it should help me figure out if your answer is a quality one, a sincere answer, or just an answer of "inferior quality", which may nevertheless be interesting. I am planning to use your text to rate your answer, on a credibility scale between -10 and 10, like I did in my previous tests on this forum.

Please make sure it is not possible to infer your numerical answer from your comment (e.g. don't write: "I believe the correct answer is greater than one and smaller than three"). Otherwise, your answer will unfortunately have to be considered invalid.

A MD5 hash code for a complicated sentence containing my target number (like, for example: "The number I wrote is 5. f4315d 3b1àéùd81") is:
2ae41c33a0469b37b6c7848249026b0a

It was obtained on this website:
http://www.md5hashgenerator.com/ .

I shall reveal the actual sentence I used to produce this MD5 hash at the end of the test, after I have revealed the target. This way, you'll be able to verify my number.

In this thread, like in my previous test on this forum, I want to evaluate credibilities without any knowledge of the number you picked ("in a blind way"), to make sure that I don't get influenced or biased by the number you chose. This should make this test more rigorous, although at the cost of additional complexity. I hope this (rather minor) additional complexity will not deter you to participate in this test.

To achieve this greater rigor, I ask you to give your answer in two stages. In your first post, you should write your normal, complete answer, with the "guessed" number (1, 2, 3 or 4) replaced by "xx" . So, if your normal, complete answer is, for exemple:

dlorde said:
I'm going for '2'.

C'mon, tell us what the number was, so we know who's telepathic and who isn't.
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(this answer was given by dlorde in a previous test, the number 2 he gave was correct),

post instead:

I'm going for 'xx'.

C'mon, tell us what the number was, so we know who's telepathic and who isn't.

I also ask you to post the MD5 hash of your numerical answer, together with a random string, using this website: http://www.md5hashgenerator.com, already mentioned above. For example taking again dlorde's previous answer as an example, post e.g. the MD5 hash of:

2. ouh&~#d jkjb→khf µ&~#-!?}§

which is:

14a47e1928cffdfdb4f7cc71eeca0fdc


People who answer "I don't know" (possibly with a text) don't have to introduce xx's in their answers (and there is no need for MD5 hashes either).

After a reasonable number of forum members have validly answered (if this "reasonable number" is ever achieved ), I should post my "credibility ratings" for all valid answers to this test (and also the number I wrote and circled). When this is done, you should post your numerical answer, together with the string you used to produce your MD5 hash. When all answerers have done that, I should then post the results of the test.

I explain briefly again, using the same example. You should make at least two posts. In your first post, you say:

"I'm going for 'xx'.

C'mon, tell us what the number was, so we know who's telepathic and who isn't.


My MD5 hash is: 14a47e1928cffdfdb4f7cc71eeca0fdc"


and, in your second "essential" post (not just a comment), you write:

"My number was a '2', and the string I used to produce the MD5 hash was:
2. ouh&~#d jkjb→khf µ&~#-!?}§"

Thank you for participating.
 
Reno said:
4

I am 25% sure I am correct.
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According to Michels rules your answer is invalid and may not be counted in his results.

However, I will also guess 4. My answer is also thus invalid.

ETA: I suggest everyone guess 4 in the hope that Michel comes to some understanding of how useless his test is for anything.
 
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I read his rules and it reminded me of some posts by flaccon.

I may have understood 25% of his rules.

I'm still saying 4.
 
Michel H, this test contains the same, grave flaws as your previous ones, and people should not (and have not!) participate until you address those. Specifically, you need to fix your protocol because of two main problems, although there are still a host of smaller ones.

1) By requiring people to do a simple substitution and post the accompanying MD5 hash, it is very easy for you to cheat and simply test all four combinations in the hash generator to determine which people guessed correctly.

2) Choosing one of 4 numbers, without a great deal of repetition, is completely meaningless statistically speaking. The best solution would be to have people choose a number from a much larger range, such as 1-10000.

Also, if you are hearing voices again, especially voices telling you to harm yourself, you really should see a health care professional to make sure it isn't a symptom of something other than telepathy.
 
^^^^^^^^

Michael, please, please follow everything in this post.

Even if you don't think these issues are important, the vast majority of people here think they are.
 
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Nobody's going to follow your protocol because of a) all the flaws in it and b) you've demonstrated before that you will ignore your own protocol and simple come up with a new credibility analysis after you know who chose which number.

Your number is a suffusion of yellow btw.
 
There is no such thing as telepathy and I have no idea what number you wrote for this poorly designed experiment. Therefore I am not going to simply guess a number and give you a 25% chance of being right.
 
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