VFF Preliminary Kidney Detection Test

[Ashles]

The difference is that with a full-body screen I lose my sense of orientation in the body.

Well more to the point you can't even detect the existence of a body at all with any reliability.
According to your own statements.

The 'orientation' is fairly irlevant.

 

[volatile]

Correct.

That is logically impossible, even if we do accept you have the ability to see kidneys in people's bodies.

You understand that, right?

 

[Ashles]

Ashles, the test will not be 1 in 10. The test will either involve more volunteers than that, or I will not be told how many one-kidney persons and how many two-kidney persons there are, so that I have to guess/perceive with each person. For instance, with a 1 in 2 chance with 10 people, the total odds of getting them all correct is 1 in 1024!

Oh right that's been agreed has it? I missed that post.

Well that's a large improvement.

10 people should still be fine then but you won't know how many have one/two kidneys.
I think we should keep it to 10 people. Any more people than that and I have concerns your tiredness might be likely to appear and influence your readings, or at least your post-test interpretation of yur readings.

 

[Akhenaten]

The difference is that with a full-body screen I lose my sense of orientation in the body.

Please explain.


ETA: In what fundamental way does your Vision from Feeling differ from this picture that would cause you to become disoriented?

Springfield Museums

 

[Akhenaten]

Ashles, the test will not be 1 in 10. The test will either involve more volunteers than that, or I will not be told how many one-kidney persons and how many two-kidney persons there are, so that I have to guess/perceive with each person. For instance, with a 1 in 2 chance with 10 people, the total odds of getting them all correct is 1 in 1024!

A kernel of truth slips through. That's all you're interested in. A stage show.

 

[catbasket]

VFF,

You appear to have missed the fact that your 'VFF Preliminary Kidney Detection Test thread is dead. If you'd like me to continue watching The VFF Show, you need to take your performance to the Crushed pill experiment for Vision From Feeling thread.

I find it interesting that Anita has not responded to this perfectly reasonable protocol.

No, Ashles. Not interesting - revealing. But as you say, it's a stage show. Written, produced and directed by ... and of course starring ... Anita Ikonen.

 

[Ashles]

VFF,

You appear to have missed the fact that your 'VFF Preliminary Kidney Detection Test thread is dead. If you'd like me to continue watching The VFF Show, you need to take

In fairness she has stepped back from the thread-killing request to be able to pass on certain subjects. And with possibly more than one subject with a single kidney the odds would be a lot more interesting.

But it would be nice if she took a look at the alternative protocol on the other thread.

Just in case the kidney claim doesn't happen.

 

[Akhenaten]

In fairness she has stepped back from the thread-killing request to be able to pass on certain subjects. And with possibly more than one subject with a single kidney the odds would be a lot more interesting.

But it would be nice if she took a look at the alternative protocol on the other thread.

Just in case the kidney claim doesn't happen.

I have to wonder if Vision from Feeling's plans for the IIG test are any further along than are the plans here for our protocol. Last I heard, the only hold-ups were on their side of the deal, so it seems reasonable that they must have ironed out the problems we're having with screens and the like.

The VfF website doesn't appear to have been updated to reflect any difficulties being encountered, although perhaps the site owner has been too busy with other matters.

We shall see eventually, I suppose.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

To a certain extent, although it is good experimental protocol, we must remember that any time Anita has done anything approaching a test she has failed completely, even when there were opportunities for cheating.

We haven't ever had any reason think Anita picks up on subtle clues or cheats or cold reads or anything like that. So far she has simply failed to get anything interesting correct.

I think we needn't worry too much about Anita picking up micro gestures etc.

Good point EXCEPT for the fact that she also hasn't been tested when there was a million dollars on the line.

I'm not saying she is a hustler (I'm inclined to think she's self-deluded and/or merely an attention junkie), but if she were, losing low stakes games and passing up opportunities to cheat would be a smart way of hustling someone. Pretending to be weaker than you really are is a good gambling strategy--you get people to underestimate your abilities (or cards or whatever).

When it comes to the actual MDC, I'm sure JREF will want to eliminate ANY chance at her getting a statistical edge through ordinary means.

 

[Ashles]

Good point EXCEPT for the fact that she also hasn't been tested when there was a million dollars on the line.

As far as I'm aware this test as no weight whatsoever towards the MDC.

No way any test to do with the MDC would be as woolly as this.

But I find it almost impossible to believe Anita will ever be able to come up with a claim and protocol acceptable to even the preliminary for the MDC.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

No. There will always be a person and I say whether they have one or two kidneys.
<snip>
How about we don't over complicate the preliminary test and if I pass the preliminary test then go ahead and make a very complicated official test, with people in an underground bunker and what else.

To test the claim that you can see someone's insides by merely testing whether or not a person is present behind a screen is in fact far less complicated than the kidney approach.

You can also easily set up this test yourself. Set up a screen in a room. Have a friend (somewhere you can't see or hear him) toss a coin at a predetermined time (let's say with an alarm clock or by synchronized watches). If the coin is heads, he enters the screen room and sits quietly behind the screen. If it's tails, he doesn't. A minute after that predetermined coin-flip time, you enter the room on the other side of the screen. You do your thing and then exit the room and record the result of your thing (yes or no--he was present or not). I suggest having some kind of noise in the room (a white noise generator or maybe just a radio playing) to hide any tiny sounds the subject might make. Repeat this process 10 times. If you can do what you say, you'll be right 10 out of 10 times. Anything else is a failure. If you want to leave yourself some wiggle room, allow 2 failures--though I can't imagine why--so at least 8 correct in order to rule out chance as the explanation.

Now--why it is that you could see subcutaneous fat, the liver, heart and spleen but not know that someone is there? You think someone snuck into the room and hung up some fat and random organs on the other side of the screen? Seriously, if that happened, I'd gladly count your false positive as a positive!

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

But I find it almost impossible to believe Anita will ever be able to come up with a claim and protocol acceptable to even the preliminary for the MDC.

Just for the record, for the JREF MDC, the protocol used for the preliminary is exactly the same protocol used for the final big money challenge. They don't use more relaxed standards for the preliminary.

 

[BenBurch]

I don't think its a paranormal ability.

If you cannot do this in a few minutes, you are just hoping that something gives it away for you.

He is looking for a "tell" he hopes we won't figure out. (Assuming he can do it, which is doubtful.)

 

[Ashles]

Just for the record, for the JREF MDC, the protocol used for the preliminary is exactly the same protocol used for the final big money challenge. They don't use more relaxed standards for the preliminary.

They use less stringent statistical requirements for the preliminary.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

They use less stringent statistical requirements for the preliminary.

The statistical requirements are part of the formal protocol and depend on the claim.


Rules 5 and 6:

5. After an agreement is reached on the protocol, no part of the testing procedure may be changed in any way without the further agreement – in writing – of all parties concerned. JR may or may not be present at some preliminary or some formal tests, but he will not interact with the materials used, nor with the protocol, unless specifically requested to do so by the applicant.

6. In all cases, applicant will be required to perform a preliminary test either before an appointed representative, if distance and time dictate that need, or in a location where a member or representative of the JREF staff can attend. This preliminary test is to determine if the applicant is likely to perform as promised during a formal test, using the agreed-upon protocol. To date, no applicant has passed the preliminary test, and this has eliminated the need for formal testing in those cases. There is no limit on the number of times an applicant may re-apply, but re-application can take place only after 12 months have elapsed since the completion of the preliminary test.

I think maybe what you're thinking about is that if the probability of passing a test due to chance is only 1:10,000 for the preliminary, you could say that the odds of passing 2 trials of the exact same test are much higher, but the standard for success (8 hits or whatever) for the final should be the same as for the preliminary.

 

[Ashles]

I think maybe what you're thinking about is that if the probability of passing a test due to chance is only 1:10,000 for the preliminary, you could say that the odds of passing 2 trials of the exact same test are much higher, but the standard for success (8 hits or whatever) for the final should be the same as for the preliminary.

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/component/content/article/37-static/254-jref-challenge-faq.html

5.2 What happens between the preliminary test and the official test?

The protocol itself will not be changed, and neither will any of the documents you and the JREF have agreed upon. The final test may be longer, or require more conclusive results through more sets of the test to ensure that the preliminary test was not a fluke.
​

​

That's what I meant by statistically higher requirements.

 

[Akhenaten]

I don't think its a paranormal ability.

If you cannot do this in a few minutes, you are just hoping that something gives it away for you.

He is looking for a "tell" he hopes we won't figure out. (Assuming he can do it, which is doubtful.)

This is a reasonable suspicion, except that he has already been shown to be totally inept at cold reading.

Also, his name is Anita.

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

Well more to the point you can't even detect the existence of a body at all with any reliability.
According to your own statements.

The 'orientation' is fairly irlevant.

When the person was behind an opaque full-body screen I did perceive tissues and organs, but I had a hard time finding the kidneys.

10 people should still be fine then but you won't know how many have one/two kidneys.
I think we should keep it to 10 people. Any more people than that and I have concerns your tiredness might be likely to appear and influence your readings, or at least your post-test interpretation of yur readings.

My main reason to prefer involving only 10 volunteers is because I expect it to be difficult for Skeptics to find volunteers.

The difference is that with a full-body screen I lose my sense of orientation in the body.

Please explain.

As I have already said, with the full-body opaque screen the first perception of tissue I landed at was the layer of yellow fat tissue on the back beneath the skin, and after that what I saw was the heart. I was having difficulty with orientation in the body. I tend to see one thing at a time, rather than everything at once. Meanwhile if I can see the clothed back of a person, I can construct perception of the kidneys right away.

In what fundamental way does your Vision from Feeling differ from this picture that would cause you to become disoriented?

I do not see everything at once like in that picture, but rather one region of the body at a time. I can choose the depth from which I create images provided I have a sense of location and distance to the body.

so that I have to guess/perceive

A kernel of truth slips through. That's all you're interested in. A stage show.

I humbly wrote that knowing that you guys all call what I do guessing. I call it perceiving, hence, guess/perceive to make both of us happy. I don't guess. I form my answers based on images and feeling I perceive.

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

To test the claim that you can see someone's insides by merely testing whether or not a person is present behind a screen is in fact far less complicated than the kidney approach. (...)

Interesting, but I don't want to do that. I want a test where I describe how many kidneys I see.

 

[Kariboo]

Revised Claim: I claim that when I have a medical perception of a person's kidneys, that based on that perception I can distinguish whether the person has one or two kidneys.

The claim is not that I will be able to always know how many kidneys a person has.

I have not experienced not being able to see the kidneys in a person, but I do require the option to pass just in case the perception does not form. The accuracy will be tested based on the perceptions. I will not be forced to guess.

Allright, why would you say this? If even you don't believe you can do this reliably then why bother? If so far in everyone you have seen you have been able to detect their kidneys there is no reason to make this 'out', it just makes people suspicious of your intent. If you know that you can't see kidneys in everyone you are not able to take a test.

You will have to make up your mind: either you can do this, and then you accept that 1. if you can't see kidneys or 2. are wrong = you fail
Or you can't and you have no business making a claim. Being able to maybe be able to do something sometimes but you don't know when or under which conditions is not a testable claim.

So even if I fail the test because I passed on too many, at least I can see how many of the ones where I did perceive the kidneys were correct. And I will arrange another test if I only failed because I passed on too many.

No. If you pass you can not do what you claim. Why bother with extra tests? This sounds like making excuses beforehand.