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What most influenced your opinion on PSI

Open Mind

Critical Thinker
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Joined
Oct 4, 2004
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Did I miss any important category? If so please name another category and preferably give example of PSI spokesperson or cause that doesn’t fit any of my above categories.
 
My opinion of psi has been formed after years of learning about it, believing in it, and investigating it myself. If it existed, I think I would have run across it by now. Coupling that personal experience with the known psychological processes that cause people to believe in psi and the supernatural (forer effect, pareidolia, remembering hits/forgetting misses, etc) makes me very doubtful in its existence.

If there is psi/supernatural, it's hiding really really well underneath all those natural explanations.
 
How about "Basic Sillyness of the Entire Concept"?

In my experience there are lots of conjectured phenomena that come down to "if you really want it hard you'll get/know it". Prayer, magic, and psi all fit under this nifty umbrella.

But pretty much anything that fits under that catagory is bunk.
 
I try to read all the articles I can that are published by the actual psi researchers.

I also try to read all the articles that I can by the 'debunkers'.

This way I hope to be well informed on both sides, so as to understand the issues the best I can.
 
None of the above. The thing that has most influenced my opinion about psi are the actual examples of lying, cheating, fraud and just plain ignorance by many of its advocates that I have come across.
 
Open Mind said:
Did I miss any important category? If so please name another category and preferably give example of PSI spokesperson or cause that doesn’t fit any of my above categories.
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Nah, none of them. Personal experiences, and experiences of acquaintances, and philosophical considerations.
 
Re: Re: What most influenced your opinion on PSI

Interesting Ian said:
Nah, none of them. Personal experiences, and experiences of acquaintances, and philosophical considerations.
Click to expand...

Yeah I've overlooked some obvious ones ... :) ....... I was more focussing on trying to find out how so many skeptics got to be certain of what is nowhere near certain ;)

Anyway good to see you back here.
 
Ian!
[Runs and hugs hello, then looks semi-embarassed in a manly kind of way]

Where have you been?
:)

Anyway,

My opinion of Psi, like Ian, has been gained by experience.

Analysing what I thought when I was younger and how I interpreted certain experiences and how I told the stories of those experiences compared with what I think now has caused me to reject it as likely.

Also a year in a holistic healing centre being surrounded by healers, readers and psychics.
 
Re: Re: Re: What most influenced your opinion on PSI

Open Mind said:
.... I was more focusing on trying to find out how so many skeptics got to be certain of what is nowhere near certain ;)
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Well, if we are going to play that game; which of these is the most important thing to ignore when fostering a belief in psi? ;)
 
Excellent poll! And I'm also glad to see Ian, thanks for posting again, bro.

I will vote for the "csicop" category, although it is a selectiion that needs to be given one more category: "Personal experience, intelligence, and common sense drove me to conclude that there was no time to spend on such matters."

But it was while browsing the shelves at a university library 20 years ago I found a copy of Skeptical Inquirer, and was so engaged that I read the whole lot, subscribed for a while, and got it in my head that there were others that looked at things in a way similar to mine. So I guess the confirmation comes from the 1980s CSICOP efforts.
 
I voted for "Failed replication of PSI effects in long term controlled trials"... I'm a beginner in the parapsychology debate but I think I was convince by failed replications (especially Wiseman).

But I know that can be dismissed by proponent with the experimenter effect... :(

So for me "Esteemed skeptic scientists (with no published PSI trials) arguing PSI contradicts known science" is also true, because I was convince by Alcock and Hyman that there is epistemological problem with the field of parapsychology.

Well, it's even better when it's "Esteemed skeptic scientists (with published PSI trials) arguing PSI contradicts known science", like Blackmore. There not enough Blackmore (on top of that she don't do parapsy experiment anymore...) and Wiseman in the academic world :(

Both.

Well, I'm maybe wrong about all that stuff... I'm not sure anyway... I would like to be better in statistics for a better understanding of the statistical methodology used in that field.
 
Re: Re: What most influenced your opinion on PSI

Interesting Ian said:
Nah, none of them. Personal experiences, and experiences of acquaintances, and philosophical considerations.
Click to expand...

Which are worthless. They don't convince anyone here.
 
Re: Re: Re: What most influenced your opinion on PSI

Open Mind said:
Yeah I've overlooked some obvious ones ... :) ....... I was more focussing on trying to find out how so many skeptics got to be certain of what is nowhere near certain ;)
Click to expand...

We could also turn the question around: Why are believers convinced, even though there is no evidence of any paranormal phenomenon?

Why do they accept non-existent evidence?
 
Basically, I did some research, and found no convincing evidence. While it's impossible to prove there are no psychic abilities, the burden of proof is clearly on the psychics. It's their job to proove they can, not our job to prove they can't.
 
I'm in much the same boat as jzs. After years of looking and research re the ganzfeld and cold reading, the evidence is so flimsy it's often hard to know where to begin debunking it.
 
Eleatic Stranger said:
How about "Basic Sillyness of the Entire Concept"?

In my experience there are lots of conjectured phenomena that come down to "if you really want it hard you'll get/know it". Prayer, magic, and psi all fit under this nifty umbrella.

But pretty much anything that fits under that catagory is bunk.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing then you're saying that psi is inconsistent with what we know about reality, and that therefore any reported instances must be mistaken?

This attitude seems a bit strange to me given that we have not a clue what consciousness is; whether it is a special sort of physical thing/process or something else entirely. If consciousness is wholly mysterious and doesn't seem in principle reducible to other physical processes, then with what justification can we give to the a priori rejection of an alleged ability/attribute like psi? I presume not merely because of its relative rarity and capricious nature?
 
Re: Re: Re: What most influenced your opinion on PSI

CFLarsen said:
Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Nah, none of them. Personal experiences, and experiences of acquaintances, and philosophical considerations.


CFLarsen
Which are worthless. They don't convince anyone here.
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They may not convince anyone here. However, that does not entail they're worthless.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: What most influenced your opinion on PSI

Interesting Ian said:
They may not convince anyone here. However, that does not entail they're worthless.
Click to expand...

Feel free to convince me that they are not worthless.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What most influenced your opinion on PSI

CFLarsen said:
Feel free to convince me that they are not worthless.
Click to expand...

Not to worry, I do feel free. By the way, do you too feel delighted that I am back?
 
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