Pigasus Awards & Sheldrake

[bfinn]

Sorry I'm out. I like to see myself as a trusting individual but doing the experiment as you describe, as Zep and I are discussing, opens the door for collusion. Imagine if you got great results. Would you accept them? Would a wider readership accept them? Or would collusion be brought in as an explanation? If the latter then I would see the experiment as a waste of time I think the latter is inevitable.

The main problem I have with Sheldrake's latest set of internet experiments is that he does precisely this. He is basically inviting participants to conduct an experiment whereby two people each look at a separate computer screen that could display two possible pictures, the same pair of pictures for each person. One person has to guess which picture the other is looking at. So Sheldrake is looking to see if the hit rate is higher when the pictures are the same, a kind of reinforcement model of telepathy. A good experimental idea, except its done over the internet! Which means both lookers could be in the same room for all we know!

I doubt Sheldrake is planning to draw grand conclusions from an uncontrolled experiment like this.

However I expect the purpose is his aim - which I think is laudable - that the general public should be able to test things for themselves (cf the staring experiments). Which is a way of popularizing science, and also I think a way of side-stepping what Sheldrake sees as entrenched opposition from the scientistic establishment. I.e. he's saying to the public, 'if you think there might be something to telepathy/staring/whatever, why not test it for yourself'.

People who are genuinely wanting to test for their own interest will not collude (though I don't deny unconscious leaks would also need to be minimized, and perhaps some could not be eliminated in an informal experiment; though even from what I recall of the staring experiments you can easily remove pretty much all leaks).

 

[CFLarsen]

I doubt Sheldrake is planning to draw grand conclusions from an uncontrolled experiment like this.

Two words: "Morphic resonance".

Sheldrake has been promoting this idea for years now.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Re remote viewing the mechanism, this isn't an issue if the image is selected by a random process that only occurs a fraction of a second before the image appears (i.e. after the skin resistance is measured).

But we still couldn't tell whether the subject was precognizing the presentation of the image or precognizing the remote viewing of the random process.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I'm all in favour of experiments, but note that the Sheldrake papers suggest that telephone telepathy works best (or only works?) with people who know each other well - close relatives or close friends. I don't know whether one could expect it to work with people who've never met and so may not know each other in whatever the relevant way required for recognition via telepathy is.

Gee, the experiment didn't work.

That's cuz we didn't know each other well enough.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

People who are genuinely wanting to test for their own interest will not collude (though I don't deny unconscious leaks would also need to be minimized, and perhaps some could not be eliminated in an informal experiment; though even from what I recall of the staring experiments you can easily remove pretty much all leaks).

Unfortunately, it may be the case that when you do so, you get no results. In the third round of the Wiseman & Schlitz staring experiments, neither experimenter got results. So much for the experimenter effect.

~~ Paul

 

[Zep]

I can't. Could you describe the two claims in more detail?

Edited to add: Ah, are we talking about those people who think they can tell who is calling them in everyday life, not in an experimental setting?

~~ Paul

Your ETA is the question at hand...nearly! Have a look again at the two different claims, and see what the sample population is in the first one. That's the difference.

 

[calebprime]

I gave a lecture a few weeks ago about the role of causation in musical structure.)

start a thread ! pm me.

I'm dying to have semi-serious conversations about music.

Put it in the appropriate sub-forum, and put some forbidding title like "music-lovers ONLY"

We can stipulate that "Evidence?" and "Define Woof-Woof" are forbidden.
(No-one will observe these stipulations)


But I don't want to disappoint--I'm more a (semi)-working composer than I am a philosopher of music. The question I always am most interested in is: How do I do that?

 

[Zep]

I'm all in favour of experiments, but note that the Sheldrake papers suggest that telephone telepathy works best (or only works?) with people who know each other well - close relatives or close friends. I don't know whether one could expect it to work with people who've never met and so may not know each other in whatever the relevant way required for recognition via telepathy is.

Let's try a basic experimental design, and build on it.

Let's say that the sample population of people calling was 1 person, who was known to the caller - friends or relatives. What's the probability that the recipient can guess who it is?

Now let's make a sample population of 2, who were known to the caller. Probability then?

How about for 4 friends or relatives?

Pretty easy to figure out the possible results, no? All things being equal, the probability of a correct selection would likely be directly proportional to the population size. In short, it would be precisely the same as guessing at random, as described above.

Now let's consider a slightly different scenario: The sample population was NOT known to the caller - they were absolutely random people picked out of the phone book by chance. What do you think the likelihood of the recipients correctly naming any caller will be then? And more importantly, what relationship does the result have to the population sample size?

Then there's another variation: The sample population IS known to the caller AND there is some feasible but not obvious (to the previous testers) "indicator" mechanism that distinguishes the callers in some way. I.e. unwitting collusion. If they do pick up on the clues, even unwittingly, what do you think happens to the probabilities of the recipient correctly naming the caller then? And how valid do you think the test results will be then?

 

[tkingdoll]

Gee, the experiment didn't work.

That's cuz we didn't know each other well enough.

~~ Paul

Exactly. Until someone can define exactly what 'well' means, or exactly what consitutes a 'close' friend, then this approach is a joke.

And if there is an objective measure for 'close friend' then I would love to hear it.

 

[davidsmith73]

These claimants DO claim that they know who is calling. What they FAIL TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT is that they are likely to be performing no better than chance because they fail to understand their "testing environment". In effect, they are counting the hits and not the misses, in a biased testing process.

Like I said, I almost agree. Except I reserve the possibility that ESP is occuring at a low level, masked by selective memory and implicit knowledge of calling habits. The reason I reserve that possibility is because I believe ESP exists. You do not. And like I said before, the only way for me to find out if ESP is involved in some way, is to look at experiments.

Furthermore, if anyone uses a testing methodology that is basically just a guessing-game, it is quite conceivable that you CAN score significantly better than chance in a few tests in a series. Even tossing heads-and-tails randomly is bound to produce long runs of heads or tails at some point.

Correct.

So use a large number of trials. (I mentioned using a large sample size before. Sorry, I mean't to say large number of trials).

You're objections are not invalid. Its just that they have been known for decades now. These objections are not barriers to performing an experiment using only known callers. You just have to put the correct controls in place.

Now put these two points together, please.

We have a bunch of innocent folks who would not know an unbiased test if they tripped over it.

We have a testing environment that is implicitly biased heavily in favour of them making correct selections.

We have them counting their hits and not the misses.

We have them being astounded that they then think they have ESP or psi or whatever.

We have them making public claims on that basis.

We have the usual psi crowd going all gooey that this is the real deal, but not doing any actual research of evaluation.

Ok, so we know that "in the field" there are all these problems you mention. I am fully aware of that. I don't understand why you continue to object to experimental procedures by refering to a non-experimental scenario. You seem to be simply objecting to the research being carried out in the first place because you think the effect doesn't exist. If that's your objection then I'll leave you to it. But you still haven't explained to me why its invalid to carry out an experiment using only known callers.

We then have Sheldrake weighing in on the subject and implying there may be something in it by conducting equally skewed testing.

Finally we have these basic flaws in his work pointed out that not even the greenest researcher would have overlooked. In fact, so glaringly wrong that it seems all the more incredible that Sheldrake really did make such a boob. Instead, one starts to get the impression that it was deliberate, in a blatant attempt to publish as a means of retaining tenure, rather than publish to expand the sum of human knowledge.

This is not the first time such glaring mistakes, and possible paper-milling, have been made by psi researchers, incidentally.

I am forever reminded of the story of The Emperor's New Clothes when I read these sorts of reports, incidentally...

I'm aware of the flaws in Sheldrakes experiments. I'm not going to argue with that. I'm also not going to enter into an argument about his motives. Like bfinn, I think they are genuine.

However, performing an experiment using only 4 known callers is not a flaw.

 

[davidsmith73]

I'm not saying the person is remote viewing an image in the future. I'm suggesting that the person is remote viewing the mechanism that selects the target, as it selects the target, just before the target is displayed.

As bfinn points out, the autonomic "pre"sponse is well before the RNG mechanism. Even if the subject we precognising a remote viewing (not sure if you were making a parody there, its hard to tell over the internet! Even so, its an interesting interpretation I hadn't thought of), we would still have room for a retrocausal interpretation because we have a physiological response to the future remote viewing process.

The "response" would be a reflection of the picture that the subject was forcing to be selected, rather than a response to the future presentation of an unknown picture.

I see. Clever. But it depends upon when you think PK actually happens doesn't it? Personally, I don't think it makes sense to talk about "when" PK happens other than by refering to an observed result of a process. In other words, it doesn't matter when the RNG is doing its thing, it only matters when the observation of its output is made. The observation is part of the PK process. If it isn't, then what is? I think we should be moving past notions about "force" and "contact" when talking about these phenomena. Just an idea.

 

[davidsmith73]

With QM you need physicists and philosophers to collaborate (which happens a bit but not much) - the physicists to understand the physics and the philosophers to understand the metaphysics. (The Bell experiment was said to be the first ever empirical test of metaphysics!)

Causation I should mention is a very difficult (and unsolved) problem - there are several rather different theories of what causation is. But it is central to many things (including in philosophy - causation is key to things as diverse as knowledge, scientific laws, reference & perception. I gave a lecture a few weeks ago about the role of causation in musical structure.)

I agree that philosophy should be involved, especially considering we have the philosophically problematic phenomena of consciousness tied into all this.

According to a questionaire, I seem to remember that physicists were most likely to believe in the possibility of psi, or at least were most willing not to rule it out, compared with other academic disciplines. Don't have the reference so could be wrong.

 

[tkingdoll]

The more I think about the notion that telephone telepathy 'only works' with people you know well, the more laughable it becomes.

I mean, what, exactly is being suggested by that? That telepathy is dependent on a minimum knowledge of another human beings' history? Having spent a minimum amount of time in their physical presence? Having at some point swapped body fluids? What, exactly, does it mean?

Some of my closest friends are the other side of the world. How is the telepathic link developed over distance? And maintained? What if I develop the link locally but the person moves away? What if someone thinks they know me really well but I've actually fed them a pack of lies for years? What if someone knows me really well but my personality is radically altered due to a brain injury?

What about my friend P who I've known for 10 years and to whom I've told every intimate detail of my life via email, and yet have only met in person five times? Is he a close friend for the purposes of a telepathy experiment? He knows me better than anyone else in the world but we almost never call each other.

What about the close friends to whom I chat on a daily basis but have never met?

What about the people I see often (for example aunt, cousin) who I don't like, and who don't know me at all (as I never tell them anything about what I think or feel)? They are close blood relatives. But they don't know me and I don't know or like them.

What about spouses? The telepathic link must surely be strong with the person you live with. But what if I get divorced? is the link broken? My husband wouldn't know me any less well after divorce than before.

And if it only works with 'close friends and family' then there must, would have to be, a deciding line, before which a person is not (for whatever reason) close enough for the link, but after which is in the zone.

What is that line? How do you reach it? Can you deliberately get closer to it, e.g. fake closeness to develop telepathy with a person? How do you know when it's crossed? Once you are over that line and in the 'close' zone, what sort of activity is needed to maintain it? How can I prevent ceasing to be a 'close' friend for the purposes of telepathy? What sort of levels of interaction are required?

And so on. It's more than laughable, it's patently absurd. If telephone telepathy is real and works, by whatever mechanism, then it can't be dependent on the 'closeness' of the caller.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

As bfinn points out, the autonomic "pre"sponse is well before the RNG mechanism. Even if the subject we precognising a remote viewing (not sure if you were making a parody there, its hard to tell over the internet! Even so, its an interesting interpretation I hadn't thought of), we would still have room for a retrocausal interpretation because we have a physiological response to the future remote viewing process.

Did the autonomic response in fact occur before the target was chosen?

Heck, how about a precognition of a remote viewing of a retropsychokinetic event?

I see. Clever. But it depends upon when you think PK actually happens doesn't it? Personally, I don't think it makes sense to talk about "when" PK happens other than by refering to an observed result of a process. In other words, it doesn't matter when the RNG is doing its thing, it only matters when the observation of its output is made. The observation is part of the PK process. If it isn't, then what is? I think we should be moving past notions about "force" and "contact" when talking about these phenomena. Just an idea.

Possibly. This stuff is so fundamentally bizarre that it's hard to judge what is reasonably bizarre and what is unreasonable.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

And so on. It's more than laughable, it's patently absurd. If telephone telepathy is real and works, by whatever mechanism, then it can't be dependent on the 'closeness' of the caller.

It depends upon whether you've established good morphic resonance with the person. And/or whether you're quantumly intertwangled.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I still don't understand the objection to a telephone telepathy experiment where the callers are known. If there are four callers and the experiment is well-controlled, we'd expect a 25% hit rate. If the hit rate is significantly higher than that, someone's got some 'splaining to do.

Is there a telephone telepathy experiment somewhere that appears to be sound?

~~ Paul

 

[juryjone]

I still don't understand the objection to a telephone telepathy experiment where the callers are known. If there are four callers and the experiment is well-controlled, we'd expect a 25% hit rate. If the hit rate is significantly higher than that, someone's got some 'splaining to do.

The only problem I see that it isn't testing what was claimed:

"Many people claim to have thought about a particular person who then calls them on the telephone."
http://www.sheldrake.org/Articles&Papers/papers/telepathy/pdf/telephone_telcalls.pdf

They think of someone, then receive a call from that person. NOT hear the phone ring, then intuit who it could be from a list of four.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Yes, I agree that a survey about whether I've ever guessed who was calling me before I answered the phone is pretty darn meaningless. Is that what we're talking about?

~~ Paul

 

[davidsmith73]

Did the autonomic response in fact occur before the target was chosen?

In Radin's experiments, yes. According to Radin's methods, the RNG chose the target at time 0. The "presponse", averaged over trials, peaked about -2 seconds. There's a bit about his target selection in Appendix A:

http://www.boundaryinstitute.org/articles/presentiment99.pdf

Heck, how about a precognition of a remote viewing of a retropsychokinetic event?

mmm. Occams razor?

 

[CFLarsen]

In Radin's experiments, yes. According to Radin's methods, the RNG chose the target at time 0.

How is that random?

If the output from an RNG is influenced by a Global Consciousness, then the output for this experiment cannot be random.

Radin wants it both ways.