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Telephone telepathy

Yes but even the researchers in this case, stated that there is the possibility that tightening the controls could have inhibited this extra-sensory experiment. Let us wait for more tests on this subject, once that even the rersearchers think that it deserves further attention. I´ll try to read more about this though.

see ya later
 
omegablue said:
Yes but even the researchers in this case, stated that there is the possibility that tightening the controls could have inhibited this extra-sensory experiment.
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I wonder what is the exact difference between inhibiting the psi and eliminating the leak?

I have a hypothesis on why Sheldrake got results. I explained it to Sheldrake and he agreed he had not controlled for it, although he didn't think it would matter. I've just sent an email to the authors of this study to see what they think about it.

My hypothesis is that Sheldrake did not control for the differential between the clocks of the callers and the callee's clock. This allows the callee to use the differential to match the call times to the callers.

~~ Paul
 
I wonder what is the exact difference between inhibiting the psi and eliminating the leak?
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"Inhibiting the psi" is the hypothetical action of stressing, pressing and distracting the person who is supposedly being tested for hi/her psychical abilities. Once psi is alleged to be possible only with concentration or at least spontaneously, the person that is being "charged" with the test might well be experience a descrease in his/her abilities due to the exact expectation of not failing.

That is what i have to say now, i cant say more because i didnt investigate this specific case with care. I´ll have a more precise oppinion later, and i would like to read what you might say about.

Nice topic.
 
At any rate i cant figure out the importance of this issue on the clocks you mentioned...could you explain it further?
 
omegablue said:
Yes but even the researchers in this case, stated that there is the possibility that tightening the controls could have inhibited this extra-sensory experiment. Let us wait for more tests on this subject, once that even the rersearchers think that it deserves further attention. I´ll try to read more about this though.
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Does "even the researchers" mean the same to you as it does to me?

Of course the researchers think that it deserves further study. Almost no one interested in a field enough to run an experiment in it would suddenly decide that the field is no longer interesting and should be abandoned immediately. Similarly, of course the researchers believe that there is a possibility that the tightened controls inibited the psi-like effects. It's obvious from the way the paper is written that they are at least sympathetic to Sheldrake and his theories, and so they would much prefer to prove him correct than otherwise.

And given the venue in which this paper appeared, it's highly unlikely that it would have been accepted if it had been written as to entirely trash Sheldrake. More evident bias.

I find it telling that the authors find it necessary to construct these elaborate charades to justify a failure to replicated. The first few paragraph sof the Discussion section sum it up well.

This result is in accordance with the hypothesis that all accounts for strange experiences as described in the introduction are due to coincidences, selective memory or unconscious expectancy, and the like. But this result is definitive (sic) not in accordance with the findings reported by Sheldrake and Smart (2003a, 2003b).....

The first interpretation that the Sheldrake findings are based on erroneus methods is of course one possibility. But one has to acknowledge that the experimental procedures described by Sheldrake and Smarkt (2003a,2003b) show a steady increase in controls and thoroughness from the first pilot trials to the final design with videotaped sessions....

Thus, the second interpretation stating that the differences in the design between our study and the ones by Sheldrake are responsible for our failure to replicate Sheldrake's result is becoming more likely.
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No, I don't have to acknowledge that, thank you. I'm fully comfortable with the first interpretation.
 
omegablue said:
At any rate i cant figure out the importance of this issue on the clocks you mentioned...could you explain it further?
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If I understand him properly, it's a question of availability for timing.

For example, if my phone rings in what (to me) is the late evening verging on the middle of the night, I know immediately it's one of my relatives who lives several time zones to the west of me, and usually my sister. Most of my local friends know better than to call me at midnight or thereabouts, but my sister has never truly understood time zones and because it's early evening to her it must be to me as well.

Conversely, if the phone rings at 6am, I know it's not my sister, because she wouldn't be up that early.
 
Omega said:
"Inhibiting the psi" is the hypothetical action of stressing, pressing and distracting the person who is supposedly being tested for hi/her psychical abilities. Once psi is alleged to be possible only with concentration or at least spontaneously, the person that is being "charged" with the test might well be experience a descrease in his/her abilities due to the exact expectation of not failing.
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Yes, but how would we tell the difference between this and having tightened up the controls?

At any rate i cant figure out the importance of this issue on the clocks you mentioned...could you explain it further?
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Let's say I'm the callee and I expect a phone call at 15:00. You call at 14:59. The next day, my other friend Sally calls at 15:01. This happens again a few times. Now I know that if the phone rings at 14:59 it's you, whereas if it rings at 15:01 it's Sally.

When the experiments are run in a lab, I bet no one has clocks.

~~ Paul
 
Yes, but how would we tell the difference between this and having tightened up the controls?
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Tightening the controls is not necessarily always making an experiment more accurate. There are things that you might do that ruin the experiment. It is very difficult to distinguish, specially in this specific case. Only by replicating more and more with different set of controls would bring us a more precise idea on this.



Let's say I'm the callee and I expect a phone call at 15:00. You call at 14:59. The next day, my other friend Sally calls at 15:01. This happens again a few times. Now I know that if the phone rings at 14:59 it's you, whereas if it rings at 15:01 it's Sally.
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Hmm.... i can´t figure out how it can affect the results...at any rate you could compare the results of the group which was just making guesses to the other group, and see which one benefits more of this clock "cheating". More and more trials and experiments tend to statistically diminish this effect though. And if one group relies too much on knowing which time of the day a specific person is more likely to call him, will show up in the final calculations. Anyway if i would do tests on paranormal and psi, i would chose other kind of experiment, this one about phone looks to me very very difficult to study. Too much variables could cloud the result and make it fuzzy and unconclusive.
 
omegablue said:
More and more trials and experiments tend to statistically diminish this effect though. And if one group relies too much on knowing which time of the day a specific person is more likely to call him, will show up in the final calculations.
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Why?
 
Omega said:
Hmm.... i can´t figure out how it can affect the results.
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It allows the callee to be more accurate in guessing the caller, which is the point of the experiment. Any information leak like this has to be blocked. Another possibility: In some places, your phone rings differently when the caller is on a cell.

Of course, in Sheldrake's case, we can't rule out that the friendly callers gave the callee a signal before they called, such as ringing the callee's cell phone five minutes before. Imagine I had my cell phone on vibrate, in my pocket. Any way the video camera could detect that?

~~ Paul
 
omegablue said:
Tightening the controls is not necessarily always making an experiment more accurate.
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Ah, spoken like a true parapsychologist.

Anything that removes the effect = bad.
 
Anything that removes the effect = bad.
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Ah, spoke like a true misinformed, close-minded and dumb media-skeptic, anything that removes the effect = good for business and good for saving our faith´s ass and as well as maitaining our egos and pride of being always right alive.
 
Dammit Paul, you are right, i didnt notice you were speaking about possible leaks in Sheldrake´s attempt. How fool I am. Although your speculations about possible flaws may not have occurred, there is a good reason to take care of those things.

;)
 
omegablue said:
Ah, spoke like a true misinformed, close-minded and dumb media-skeptic, anything that removes the effect = good for business and good for saving our faith´s ass and as well as maitaining our egos and pride of being always right alive.
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What 'business' would that be?
What 'faith' would that be?

Dumb media-skeptic? My word it sounds like you could barely type fast enough to keep up the random insults you are throwing out.

Temper temper. You guys really don't like anyone questioning your precious beliefs do you.

Replication really is such a bother to you guys isn't it?
 
Ashles said:
Originally posted by omegablue
Tightening the controls is not necessarily always making an experiment more accurate.
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Ah, spoken like a true parapsychologist.

Anything that removes the effect = bad.
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Surely it is not possible for you to be this stupid??

Look at the reason I advanced for why the result was negative. The subjects themselves didn't pick up the telephone and put it to their ear. But it is very clear that doing so makes the experiment less tight. Therefore tightening the experiment makes the effect go away, not because the effect doesn't exist, but because the particular experimental protocol is of such a nature that it will not elicit any telepathy effect.
 
Interesting Ian said:
Surely it is not possible for you to be this stupid??

Look at the reason I advanced for why the result was negative. The subjects themselves didn't pick up the telephone and put it to their ear. But it is very clear that doing so makes the experiment less tight. Therefore tightening the experiment makes the effect go away, not because the effect doesn't exist, but because the particular experimental protocol is of such a nature that it will not elicit any telepathy effect.
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Or there is another explanation...

But it's the boring and mundane one you don't like. Obviously that couldn't be that answer.

An experiment is done. It shows no evidence of psi.

Sceptic - well that isn't replicated. No evidence for psi here.
Believer - Well obviously psi exists. We just need to find out what they did to counteract it in this experiment.

Hmmm...
 
Ian said:
The subjects didn't lift the receiver. I think that alone explains the chance result. I suspect the telepathy would only manifest itself when you lift the phone up and put it to your ear.
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Nope, sorry, that can't be the explanation. Once Sheldrake started giving a damn about the leaky protocol he was using, he stopped allowing the subjects to listen to the phone before stating their guess. They had to guess before they picked up the phone, so any telepathy occured before lifting the receiver.

I do agree that tightening a protocol often makes the effect go away.

~~ Paul
 
What 'business' would that be?
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Business my friend, media-skeptic business. Holding up at any cost, a stupid and limited view of the world. I dunno how some people who already know of the existance of many phenomenons that dogmatic-skeptics have as false, still bothers themselves trying to open skeptic´s hopeless mind to that. Wake up, you gotta notice that this skepticism you are subscribed to is nothing more than a phiolosophy of life, a choice, not an absolute truth.

Dogmatic Skeptics simply chose to refute and ignore paranormal evidences everywhere, like Randi does, he just hit the easy targets (i.e charlatans, sloppy scientists with unconclusive results, and simply normal and uneducated people claiming things).

Ask him (Randi) about CSICOP´s shame on Mars Effect, Rosemary Altea, Rico Kolodzey, The experiments on distant healing at Maryland, the HBO experiment on afterlife, Richard Dawkins´ "perinormal", and many many others.

Surprisingly he has many claims, assumptions, and speculations filled up with ad hoc in order to convince you that they are only liars, charlatans, and fools. But no scientific efforts are made to investigate more about these and many other results in apparently flawless experiments. Skeptics tend to act like Randi said on the famous CSICOP´s fiasco called sTARBABY: "Let´s ignore it and hope it goes away.", his exact words. He was speaking about the mars effect, that no skeptic could debunk because the results were far too compeling about the truth of the effect. they chose to hide it at any cost, just to "avoid transcient kucko chirpin." (his exact words)

That kind of dogmatism seems to be some kind of FAITH and belief, it reminds me also on dishonesty, charlatanism and it does not have anything to do with science.

Just open your eyes, do not abandon skepticism, but be skeptical on the skeptics also. There is a whole new world of understanding being hold from the eyes of the naive public, with the false promise of being a hero of debunking, bringing light to the eyes of those who lives in the darkness. Check it out, it may be the other way around. I´m still skeptical, and i say this specially cuz i´m skeptical even on the self-proclaimed skeptics experts on debunking. They are leading naive people to the wrong side of knowledge of the world. Sorry if you happen to be one of th, firiend.

As it relates to this specific topic, there are many ways an illusionist or even the average dogmatic skeptic could ruin some experiment just by nulifying the effcet implementing many cheating controls, and simulating a false understanding about what he is going to investigate. So, if apparently the researchers do think that they could further investigate this instead of burying it, dumb skeptics fire the "they are biased toward sheldrake´s results" bullet. I can´t tell whether they are not sympathetic to sheldrake´s findings but i clearly know that they are not dumb and narrow-minded misinformed skeptics also.

Check this for instance:

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/exam/Dace_amazing3.htm
http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/exam/Dace_amazing3.htm
http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/exam/Prescott_Randi.htm


Ah man, i could go on for a year listing how dogmatic skepticism could be dangerous to severely limiting one´s view.
 
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