Merged New telepathy test: which number did I write ?

[Nay_Sayer]

I picked 3; My code phrase was 3isthemagicnumber

I'll go back a few pages to find my guess.

 

[bruto]

You read too much in to "I don't know." True, you said how you chose the number and I said I did not know how you chose the number. The reason is much simpler than what you would like. The reason is that because I do not believe in psychic power I do not care how you say you chose the number and did not bother to make note of it.

 

[Pixel42]

What is the point of doing experiments if, no matter what the results, you are always going to willfully misinterpret them to fit the conclusion you've already arrived at.

Michel: please specify exactly what the results of this experiment would have needed to be in order for you to conclude that none of the participants can hear your thoughts.

 

[nathan]

If only Michel was the joking sort I could applaud his analysis as hilarious self-parody, but unfortunately he appears to have been entirely serious. It's hard to conceive of anyone writing anything so utterly delusional without intending it as a joke.

As soon as I read that the number was '10', I thought 'I bet '1' will be counted as a hit', and a few paragraphs later, it was indeed. Where's my million?

 

[Ladewig]

Michael, please talk to a health care provider.

You assert you have an understanding of science but what you are doing now is the exact opposite of science.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

As soon as I read that the number was '10', I thought 'I bet '1' will be counted as a hit', and a few paragraphs later, it was indeed. Where's my million?

It was when I read "Seven people answered "I don't know" [...] I don't find any of these "I don't know" answers credible" that I thought for a moment Michel was having a little joke with us. But he was serious. Michel does not make jokes, nor does he recognise when other people are joking.

So perhaps I should be absolutely explicit: Michel, your analysis looks like a parody version of itself. A person writing a joke version would invent reasons to reject wrong answers which were as absurdly tenuous as they could imagine in order to appear as ridicuous as possible. Your serious attempt looks like that. It really, truly does. You are not investigating your sensation of being telepathic in any useful way. You appear by contrast to be going to frankly desperate lengths to find some fragment of a reason to continue to imagine it is real.

 

[ComfySlippers]

I thought this silly thread had died a long time ago.
I somehow missed the latest nobjockery.

Must say though, I'm laughing my arse off at Michel's latest comedic performance.
He's a damned good bridge-dweller.

 

[Akhenaten]

Besides, everyone knows the real answer was "473 G Yorkshire Terrier Teal Mist Cirrostratus".

 

[Turgor]

Besides, everyone knows the real answer was "473 G Yorkshire Terrier Teal Mist Cirrostratus".

I don't know that!

Also I don't know why I even bothered to answer "I don't know" since something I did know was that Michel would perform his farcical routine yet again.

I'm also slightly disturbed that he thinks I can hear his thoughts but decided to lie to him.

 

[AdMan]

I'm also slightly disturbed that he thinks I can hear his thoughts but decided to lie to him.

He's not the first and won't be the last to have such delusional thoughts.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112896

 

[Loss Leader]

However, there was (in my opinion) a significant amount of low-quality evidence

Another word for "low-quality evidence" is "no evidence whatsoever."

 

[TheSapient]

He's not the first and won't be the last to have such delusional thoughts.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112896

I'm only part way though that thread, but it is remarkable how similar the manifestation of Michel's and golfy's mental illnesses are.

If you do a test where you simply ask the receiver “Did you hear my thoughts” and he says “No”, that proves nothing. Only when you have proved that his reply was totally devoid of dishonesty does it then become a valid answer.

I think this is kind of fascinating.

 

[Giordano]

A friend of my family believed that others could hear her thoughts, particularly the embarrassing ones, and that people would lie to her by denying it. Admittedly, everyone would deny it, so that part only convinced her that she was correct.

 

[Michel H]

A simple credibility question

Let's assume some individual, say A, conducts from time to time telepathy tests with other persons. In these tests, he (assuming this person is a male) is always the "sender"; during his experiments, he focuses on integral numbers (ranging, say, from 1 to 5 inclusive), views them several times and repeats them silently (with his "inner voice"), attempting to communicate them to his current partner. All precautionary measures are assumed to have been taken to make sure there is no sensory leak, e. g. there is a suitable screen between A and his partners, his partners are too far to be able to see and identify the number through visual perception, and so on.

A has received in particular two answers.

Answer 1:
I have really no idea what your number is. Nonetheless, I answer "3", but I warn you this is a completely random choice.

Answer 2:
In this answer, the other person seems to take A's test more seriously. She/he says:
I believe it's a 2, I think I saw it briefly like on my "mental screen". I also feel I "heard it", but with an impoverished sound, not a sound with all the harmonic richness and frequencies that you usually perceive when you listen to a sound propagating in the air, with your ears (provided you have a good sense of hearing, of course).

Now my question is: which (numerical) answer seems more credible to you? The first one (3), or the second one (2)? Note that I am not asking here which answer (in the sense of "set of words") is more credible, but, rather, which numerical answer is more credible, taking the words into account.

I ask this question because I've found that assessing credibilities was an important aspect in the online telepathy tests I've been doing.

 

[MikeG]

Huh?

Any answer of the 5 possibles is equally credible. And if you think that providing such a narrow range of choice in a test of purported paranormal skills gives the test any credibility, you need to think again.

 

[phunk]

Neither one. Selecting the answers you think are "higher quality" is introducing bias into the experiment.

Subjects in an experiment like this should only answer with a number 1 through 5, preferably in a manner that completely removes any interaction between the researcher and subject. For example, they press a button and the researcher only sees a number on a screen, as opposed to verbally reporting their answer to a researcher who might decide to ignore it out for some reason.

 

[Crossbow]

Well, ...

since neither person is trying to be deceptive,
and since both persons are providing the most honest answer they can provide,

then both of the persons are equally credible.

Even if both of the people being tested have different justifications for their answer (as in the above case), then that does not mean that one person is any more credible than the other person.

I hope this helps.

 

[Michel H]

Neither one. Selecting the answers you think are "higher quality" is introducing bias into the experiment.

Subjects in an experiment like this should only answer with a number 1 through 5, preferably in a manner that completely removes any interaction between the researcher and subject. For example, they press a button and the researcher only sees a number on a screen, as opposed to verbally reporting their answer to a researcher who might decide to ignore it out for some reason.

I think it's necessary to take into account the fact that some subjects might lie, or might really not know the number, and the words that are said might give precious (and even perhaps indispensable) clues about that. Remember, this is a psychology experiment, and, in a psychology experiment, you better take psychological factors into consideration. If you all agree that one (numerical) answer definitely seems more credible than the other (without knowing the correct number that the researcher viewed, of course), this could therefore be of great interest, I think. If you (members of this forum) don't know the correct number, you can't be biased.

 

[Nonpareil]

Now my question is: which (numerical) answer seems more credible to you? The first one (3), or the second one (2)? Note that I am not asking here which answer (in the sense of "set of words") is more credible, but, rather, which numerical answer is more credible, taking the words into account.

Your question doesn't make any real sense. Both numbers fall within your parameters, and are thus both valid responses. "Credible" is an odd term to apply.

Now, if you want to know which of the two explanations is more credible...

 

[phunk]

I think it's necessary to take into account the fact that some subjects might lie, or might really not know the number, and the words that are said might give precious (and even perhaps indispensable) clues about that. Remember, this is a psychology experiment, and, in a psychology experiment, you better take psychological factors into consideration. If you all agree that one (numerical) answer definitely seems more credible than the other (without knowing the correct number that the researcher viewed, of course), this could therefore be of great interest, I think. If you (members of this forum) don't know the correct number, you can't be biased.

An experiment on whether or not people participating will try to sabotage your experiement by lying about their answers is a separate experiment from the one about psychic abilities. Trying to do both at once is going to give you crap results for both.