Merged New telepathy test: which number did I write ?

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Agatha said:
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I have used the simple code of Y for following each step of the protocol and N for not following that step.

Participant|PM to Agatha|Post blinded guess in the thread|Post MD5 hash|CR rating|Answer|Discarded by Michel after unblinding
Hokulele|Y|Y|N|0|1|N
Ladewig|Y|Y|N|-5|2|N
stanfr|Y|Y|Y|-5|1|Y
Kid Eager|Y|Y|N|-5|4|Y
fagin|N|Y|N|-4|?|Y
femke|Y|Y|N|0|2|N
gabeygoat|Y|Y|Y|0|4|Y
NaySayer|Y|N|N|?|?|Y

The only two people to follow all three steps of the protocol were stanfr and gabeygoat, but Michel discarded their answers because they had sent me different and/or additional words than the words they had posted in the thread, something which was not explicitly spelled out in the protocol as a breach.
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The only post by gabeygoat in this thread (before I revealed the target number) was:
gabeygoat said:
I'm gonna guess xx
not sure what im doing
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gabeygoat posted no MD5 hash, so your table is incorrect.
stanfr, on the other hand, did provide a MD5 hash:
stanfr said:
4a4a8a7580d4b195da065aefb5d40671

I don't know what the point of the XX is if im sending an encrypted response...
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but he never revealed the string he used to produce this hash, even though I had said:
Michel H said:
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So, to all posters and participants, I say this:

Please, together with your "masked" answer (with "xx"), post a MD5 hash of your properly "complexified" answer (which you will have to reveal at the end of the test), ...
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I made a few attempts to try to recreate his MD5 hash, but without success. So, although he did provide a MD5 hash, it was not useful, in order to provide improved security in this test.
I would not say that sending to the assistant a text which is different from the text which was posted in the thread is a real violation of the protocol, because all I said was:
Michel H said:
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It may also be useful (I recommend it) that you send your (full) answer, in the form of a private message, to either Agatha, or Femke...
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Sending the full answer to the assistant was not "mandatory", it was just recommended (for details, see my posts 149 and 297).
 
Dan O. said:
If he can correctly identify at a rate above that of chance who is telling the truth about something that could only be communicated telepathically then he would be providing evidence of the existence of the telepathy.

There are a few outstanding issues with the protocol as it exists. The first issue is the number of tests that needs to be performed to be convincing for all sides. For me, I'll set a modest goal of p<.05 repeated three times. That's a cumulative 1 in 8000. If anyone can do that they are ready for the MDC. Before starting the test we would need to run the numbers on some hypothetical examples to determine how many trials and how many correct answers are required to reach that level. Similarly, we would need a commitment from Michel for what level of performance he would need to achieve to continue to believe that telepathy is occurring.

Then there is the issue of cold reading. Can Michel be picking up subliminal clues to the number someone is seeing from the text in their message. This in itself is an amazing ability but not paranormal. Is there some workaround that would block the subliminal clues but still allow the telepathy test? One thought is to take Michel out of the direct telepathy connection but still have him judge the connection between two other participants.

Michel, will that work? If "Bob" selects a random number, writes it down and posts a blinded message with the number replaced with xx and "Alice" reads Bob's message and thinks about the number that Bob wrote down and writes down the number that she thinks of and posts a blinded message about her number with the actuall number replaced by xx, will you be able to read the posts from Bob and Alice and determine if the numbers they wrote down do or do not match?

Will it make any difference if there are multiple communications going on at the same time? What if "Charlie", "Dick" and "Erica" join in and each take turns being the sender and the rest receiving.

There were some issues expressed about the commitment messages. These need to be generated to insure that there is no after the fact changes in the numbers people pick or see. Since there can be no changes to the CRs after tha actual numbers are revealed, the form of the commitment is not relevant as long as there is no ambiguity as to what number is being committed. Michel, if you have any problem with that, it needs to be addressed before the protocol is finalized.

The choice of the random number that the sender writes down needs to be insured random. If the starting number is truly random, the problems with uneven distribution of the numbers people see will be averaged out.
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5,1,8000,xx,xx

XX = 20

8000/20 =400

400/20 = 20

51+20 = 71

7-1 is what? why my projected number of 6!!!


Feel free to keep doubting my abilities Dan, I am at 100% so far.
 
Maybe this already came up (but 20 pages... come on :) ), but the whole MD5 thing put me off.

I have made it a point to show people that MD5 hashes for small length sentences can be brute forced easily (in fact 'decrypting' all of the passwords on this forum should take less than 20 seconds).

And especially since the number of variations is just 4.

Consider:
I think the number is xx.

I think the number is 2.

I have only a maximum of 4 hashes to do (and MD5 was designed to be very fast) and hey presto I have the answer.

So while this probably quite off-topic... PLEASE STOP REFERRING TO USING HASHES AS 'ENCRYPTION'.

Thank you for your time :)
 
Nay_Sayer said:
15,17

15+17=32

2x3 is yep my previously projected number of 6


Someone should post my hit/miss record its far better than Michels.
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Plus, your explanations are very credible. I think you may score above 100%
 
Are you a fetching shade of red, a blush on the cheek? ;)
 
Nay_Sayer said:
I should have mentioned I was projecting a counter number to undermine Michels efforts, I'm a devilish rouge sometimes.
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But at least you're not a Rouge admin! Which is probably why the default colors on this forum include a sort of brick red, rather than pink. :)

So, anyway, aside from the fact that a poorly designed test, without a control group, which failed to establish what sort of results might be expected by chance (not the same as a die roll, since humans aren't random), with a statistically insignificant number of participants, questionable results, and protocol violations all over the place by both sides, and where one side decided to ignore the attempts at providing blinding--the only part of the test that even vaguely made sense--won't convince anyone of anything, and hasn't changed a single person's opinion, what have we learned? :rolleyes:
 
Not to be a killjoy but as I'm not attempting to prove that I have any telepathic ability I'm not going through all that. But as a response I will post that the number I think is XY because you were so careful in your example to not use that singular number for one, you are using two outside blinds to test your telepathic theory which can overall be no more than a guess on any one individual part anyway. I say that because in order to prove telepathy as accurate you can't just say Imma randomly generate a number 1-2-3 0r 4 being the 31st that was over ten days ago now that I'm on the thread that you generated and began the test. So for someone to say they have the number randomly generated over ten days ago that you circled on a paper all three Yourself and your two blinds would need to be constantly thinking of just the number for ten days at this point given the random times people have come to the thread and posted their response or sent an answer to your blinds for subjective research.

For this to be more accurate I would have to say that one numbers 1 through 4 makes it easier to guess a response rather than show any telepathic ability. two to test telepathic ability on the part of the people who answer for accuracy rather than guessing you would have to do the test in stages. Stage one announce you are doing the test at such and such a date/time stage two at that date and time give your criteria as you listed for this but for accuracy have it fall in-between a specific time frame. Otherwise it's all just a guess and then there are people who will read through the responses and base their answer on those already made-which is likely why you added the two blinds to send the guess to....

I'm just saying guessing one through four is like guessing if the card is red or black.
 
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barefootgoddess said:
I'm just saying guessing one through four is like guessing if the card is red or black.
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But, you would have to admit that if someone were consistently good at guessing above the level that chance would dictate they would be exhibiting a paranormal ability that we currently don't understand. How do you test to distinguish between telepathy and temporal cognition pulling the answers from the future after the reveal.

There is a simple thought experiment: Suppose we live in a universe where everybody has the paranormal ability to not only see the future but to change it. This thought experiment leads to a number of conclusions for such a universe one being that through changing their future, each individual isolates themselves in a universe of their own. My take on this is what's the point of simulating a whole universe with the wonders and anticipation of interacting with other individuals if you can just pull the strings and make everything your puppets. Why not just go with it and enjoy the experience. If you are in such a universe, you'll get all the answers when you return to the doldrum of the reality you escaped from. Otherwise, if this is the real universe you are just waisting your time if you are obsessing about impossible things when you could be having fun.
 
Or maybe it's someone's over active imagination.

Telepathy, the master creator, witchcraft, Bigfoot.....
Come on. Children can make up more convincing rubbish.
 
[B]Michel H[/B] said:
[B]Dan O[/B] said:
But, you would have to admit that if someone were consistently good at guessing above the level that chance would dictate they would be exhibiting a paranormal ability that we currently don't understand.
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Good posts, Dan.
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It is pretty good. But the point is that in your three jokes of protocols you did not provide evidence that you could do anything more than simply make up stuff so that you could reject incorrect answers.

You have stated outright that everybody knew the right answer, and that they deliberately lied about it. That is downright delusional.

Norm
 
fromdownunder said:
It is pretty good. But the point is that in your three jokes of protocols you did not provide evidence that you could do anything more than simply make up stuff so that you could reject incorrect answers.

You have stated outright that everybody knew the right answer, and that they deliberately lied about it. That is downright delusional.

Norm
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It is worse than that, even. He has stated there is no one in his life who will honestly admit they can here his projected thoughts or report them accurately. The question is, then, why he believes he is telepathic when he can't, under any circumstances, do better than expected by pure chance.
 
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