Remote Viewing and Other Phenomena

[Zep]

T'ai, you need to understand the meaning of the word "sinecure".

If PEAR ever admitted out loud in public that they had spent 25 years pissing away their grant funds either on bad science or good science for no results then they would be cut off financially by their private backers very quick smart. They like their jobs so it IS about the money.

 

[richardm]

I believe that similar studies have shown the same thing over at the Stanford Research Institute.

There are quite a few studies which appear to show that things like PK and RV are real.

Unfortunately, when they are examined carefully, the studies invariably show flaws in setup, execution or interpretation. When the studies are done again with those flaws removed, the effect suddenly vanishes.

There has been much serious, careful research done into this stuff for more than 70 years. At the end of all that, there hasn't been a single one which has unequivocally shown that the effects are real. That should tell you something.

 

[davidhorman]

After reading Your other thread on QM, I think I know what Your asking. There are some who believe that the Brain has an impact on varying experimental data . That in a word is true, but not in the witchcraft kind of sense. It has to do with QM and what is called a deterministic effect on certain experiments.

Isn't that bit in bold a bit of a woo-woo leap? I'm not quite sure how to put it into words, but as an example I'm firmly of the opinion that Schroedinger's cat collapses out of it's alive/dead superposition because the box has been opened, connecting it to the rest of the universe, not because a conscious observer (brain) is perceiving it.

I think (personally; it might be hard to prove) that you get the same result whether anyone is conciously observing or not. It's a bit like the laws of physics require an answer to get on with running the universe. Until they need the answer, the photons can get up to all kinds of crazy shenanigans.

Simply put , in the double slit experiment the agent or observer becomes an active part of the process by determining what they are measuring. Have two slits and you will see an interference pattern that is produced by a wave phenomenon , use one slit and you will have a single line that represents light to be particle like in nature.

Don't you still get a wave-like result when you use a single slit, i.e. diffraction? The wobbly bit is when you send the photons at two slits, one at a time, and you still get the interference pattern.

David

 

[CurtC]

olaf wrote:
Otherwise 'skepticism' becomes... a game to discredit everything that seems strange.
...
That is not science. That is not the way science operates.

Au contraire. That's exactly how science operates. Someone publishes results, and other scientists try to think of anything they can which would invalidate those results. Whatever is left standing after this process must be pretty good work. The PEAR data doesn't survive.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

the explicit inclusion of consciousness as an active agent in the establishment of physical reality.

Hey, isn't this what Geller and a few other folks accomplish, supposedly?

I'm still trying to figure out what exactly they are doing for research. Can anyone put it in a short, concise, layman explanation of what they do to research this?

 

[qII]

curt c

the problem is that many people including quite a few here have made a religion out of skepticism.

it is no longer skepticism but instead it is a movement that is designed to crush anything that does not conform to current scientific understanding and current measurement capabilities.

at some point there is a shift in a person's thinking and before long they have entered the realm of negative instead of objective thinking. negative thinking creates a bias that is hard to overcome.

flat earth is a good example. the flat earthers had the majority of the evidence in their favor. they used this evidence to their advantage to drown out the voices of the other side. they were so certain they were correct that they failed to even consider the other side.

it seems like the same thing could be happening with something like remote viewing. the negative skeptics have a very good story (some of it is exagerated to the point of dishonesty, but...) and they refuse to budge from it.

i see errors in the way the skeptics want to rework the experiments. they want to change the entire nature of it to ways that may not fit the way remote viewing might work.

at this point i believe that the possibility exists that this is valid.

someone needs to show me the exact wording where the PEAR scientists concede that the data/stats over the 20 years are not valid.

the "shapes in the clouds" article is hardly convincing.

 

[CurtC]

olaf wrote:
flat earth is a good example. the flat earthers had the majority of the evidence in their favor. they used this evidence to their advantage to drown out the voices of the other side. they were so certain they were correct that they failed to even consider the other side.

Can you tell me who the flat earthers were and when they lived? Since you say that they had the majority of the evidence in their favor, and used it to drown out voices of the other side, you must know a little more about them. Could you share that?

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

DavidH
ACK! Quantum consciousness is not a road I want to travel willingly ( I believe that is totally Woo-woo) , but the fact is that the process of observation will alter the state of the cat. Superpositions never survive an act of measurement. I brought the issue to light not because I embrace it ( in the greater sense ) rather because some people as, I stated, do ( you needed to include the statement ," but not in the witchcraft kind of sense.").This area of query has more to do with metaphysics, epistemology and religious arguments then I feel comfortable with. What I meant is that there exists an "editeritorialization" in the outcomes by simple means of how we choose what to measure and seemingly that can affect the results of our investigations. I think that maybe your tussling with realism and not probability which is the stuff of QM.

The error of this mode of thinking I believe is the adherents claim that the phenomenon at atomic levels can and does translate to macroscopic scale. There are those who believe in a twisted kind of solipsism, that the universe did not exist until "we" were there to observe it. Your observation that the state of the cat and box does not need human observation to be real I believe to be correct, but the state cannot be determined without observation or measurement. Paul Davies' ( with a religious axe to grind ) view states that reality has an observational reliance I.E. that the matter and galaxies in recent observations by the Hubble telescope did not exist until we saw it. That is so at odds with any empirical model of science that I find it on a par with astrology. There are however maths (according to Davies) that prove if not the correctness of the idea then at least it's probability. That QM is a study of probability, it must allow even this extreme case. Hawking theorizes that given enough time that black holes will evaporate, the problem is not that he's wrong but rather it would only occur after the proposed lifetime of the universe.

The double slit experiment when subject to the constraints of one photon at a time thru one slit will exhibit what some call "self-interference". What is true is that let the experiment run and the detectors will get a shotgun kind of pattern that mimics the diffraction pattern with both slits open.So no you don't get refraction you get a particle like behavior but the distribution correlates to the interference pattern.

Sorry for not getting back .....was at a Pub all day : )..caveat 7 beer post

 

[RichardR]

someone needs to show me the exact wording where the PEAR scientists concede that the data/stats over the 20 years are not valid.

Okey dokey. Click Here.

 

[RichardR]

Isn't that bit in bold a bit of a woo-woo leap? I'm not quite sure how to put it into words, but as an example I'm firmly of the opinion that Schroedinger's cat collapses out of it's alive/dead superposition because the box has been opened, connecting it to the rest of the universe, not because a conscious observer (brain) is perceiving it.

Actually I believe Schroedinger proposed his cat in a box thought experiment to demonstrate that the Copenhagen interpretation could not be true. His rationale was that since a cat clearly can't be both alive and dead, the interpretation must be wrong. Ironically, most people use it as an example of how weird QM is.

I think (personally; it might be hard to prove) that you get the same result whether anyone is conciously observing or not.

I think it is impossible to falsify, which is why it isn't part of any scientific theory.

I did wonder though, if a video camera could be placed inside the box. If the cat's "wave function" really doesn't collapse until someone looks at it, then the cat would be in a supposition of states until someone opened the box. But then you would be able to look at the film and see what really happened. Someone is sure to tell me why this wouldn't work, though.

 

[davidhorman]

Someone is sure to tell me why this wouldn't work, though.

If the video camera is completely, perfectly, ultimately sealed inside the box, like the cat, then I suppose the data on the tape could be in a superposition of states. It's just as unfalsifiable as the superimposed cat though, since as soon as you view the tape (or rather, as soon as the macroscopic universe interacts with the tape and it's magnetic domains), you "force" it into a definitive answer. In a sense, perhaps the video footage and the cat are entangled...

David

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

I don't have time to go into the details because it would just end up going round and round. However, it followed the same script of bashing that is done on other things that I know works.

Could you elaborate what these other things are and who has been bashing them?

 

[RichardR]

If the video camera is completely, perfectly, ultimately sealed inside the box, like the cat, then I suppose the data on the tape could be in a superposition of states. It's just as unfalsifiable as the superimposed cat though, since as soon as you view the tape (or rather, as soon as the macroscopic universe interacts with the tape and it's magnetic domains), you "force" it into a definitive answer. In a sense, perhaps the video footage and the cat are entangled...

David

Yes, I think you're right.

 

[qII]

Okey dokey. Click Here.

Richard thanks for the paper. It clears up a few things.

what i have gathered so far is that when the researchers narrow the parameters of the study more and more they get less results but this is easily explained by the researchers.

When the rules change this forces the remote viewers to make definite distinctions and this loss of freedom is what seems to be giving poorer results.

it is a simple case of forcing something to be something that it is not.

When these harsh constraints are removed we then once again return to excellent results.

However, this will be ignored by people who already have their minds made up

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

Richard thanks for the paper. It clears up a few things.

what i have gathered so far is that when the researchers narrow the parameters of the study more and more they get less results but this is easily explained by the researchers.

When the rules change this forces the remote viewers to make definite distinctions and this loss of freedom is what seems to be giving poorer results.

it is a simple case of forcing something to be something that it is not.

When these harsh constraints are removed we then once again return to excellent results.

However, this will be ignored by people who already have their minds made up

Or you could equally conclude that when the possibility of getting hits by methods other than RV is reduced, the results get worse. Only when it is again possible to get "hits" by methods other than RV do results improve again.

Of course this will be ignored by people who already have their minds made up that it works.

 

[qII]

Okey dokey. Click Here.

It seems that page 40 and 41 does a nice job maintaining the case for RV.

Obviously if a person does not want to believe in RV then they will take any negative information and make a mountain out of it.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

It seems that page 40 and 41 does a nice job maintaining the case for RV.

Obviously if a person does not want to believe in RV then they will take any negative information and make a mountain out of it.

I would agree, if you choose to ignore the other 72 pages..
I believe that's known as ' taking something out of context '...

Obviously if a person does want to believe in RV then they will take any positive information and make a mountain out of it.

 

[Rolfe]

If the video camera is completely, perfectly, ultimately sealed inside the box, like the cat, then I suppose the data on the tape could be in a superposition of states....

Time somebody asked this. Does the cat's consciousness (or cessation of consciousness) not count? Isn't he allowed to realise he's alive, if that's how it goes?

Rolfe.

 

[qII]

Maybe you want to take a look at this: Shapes in the Clouds

PEAR found no evidence of RV. None.

CF LARSON,

I read the paper from PEAR. Your statement is either a bold face lie, or you have managed to delude yourself from the facts.

The fact is that they very much support their data and even discuss some of the weaknesses in it and why they believe the weaknesses come about.

The weaknesses come from forcing RV to be something that it is not.

Plain and simple.

However, at this point i will still say that RV is something that may or may not work, but I am suspecting that it does work.

-
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The lies must stop. The "agenda" must stop because the agenda will lie when necessary.

 

[Silicon]

Olaf,

Please tell us what this agenda is, and where I can obtain a copy of the agenda.

Let me know, where are these lies coming from?

I really want remote viewing to work, too. Please tell me who is lying to stop it, so that I can get them to stop!

I did some remote viewing experiments myself, never did get any good information, though. I believed whole-heartedly in it at the time. I bought a lot of books about the subject, for years. I think I had a frequent buyer card at Bohdi Tree.

But I never got it to work, and nobody I know got it to work beyond really mundane coincidences.

Is there a conspiracy that was keeping my remote viewing from working?