Atheism

Which can be applied for any non mainstream research, regardless of paranormal.

By the way, you're not supposed to predict your findings before the research, you're suppose to state what you're looking for, not predict what you will find.
That will not pass any ethical jury approval.

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
Which can be applied for any non mainstream research, regardless of paranormal.

By the way, you're not supposed to predict your findings before the research, you're suppose to state what you're looking for, not predict what you will find.
That will not pass any ethical jury approval.

technically you are supposed to predict what you would find if your theory is false, as in, test for an effect against 0 effect.

the null hypothesis and all that.

I often run into trouble here, sort of figuring out what is going to fly over people's heads and whatnot, just because most people don't have the same background as I (not that I think I know a whole lot or anything). You are right though, hypothesis testing is not about predicting specific findings.

However, the fact that some results, especially in a test with hundreds of subjects doing multiple reps, appear significant can just as easily be attributed to chance if they were not predicted before hand. So, in the research we were talking about, that some participants seemed to be better or worse at different types of viewings is interesting and becons further investigation, but it is not a conclusive result, because the test didn't appear to be set up to measure for that sort of schematic sensitivity to begin with. It might have been, but at least from the way the results are discussed in the article deadline posted, it seems it was more of something they found after analysis, rather than something they tested for specifically.

I would think that if psi had been unequivocally proven, it would've made the cover of Time--even cold fusion got that far.

The results certainly suggest but hardly resolve, especially given that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

Now, one can have extraordinary personal experiences wherein psi appears to explain the events better than conventional mechanisms. But again, this is not scientific evidence.

Originally posted by Mindship
I would think that if psi had been unequivocally proven, it would've made the cover of Time--even cold fusion got that far.

I adressed this point.

Originally posted by Deadline

I'm not entirely sure that James Randi and other people have disproven its existance. You will notice that there is always flaw in the experiement, the person is lying, or mad. So all people that believe in the paranormal are all lying, mad or just dumb. Sorry something wrong with that scenerio.

Originally posted by Mindship

The results certainly suggest but hardly resolve, especially given that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

and there you have it one rule for psi and a different one for everything else.

Originally posted by Mindship

Now, one can have extraordinary personal experiences wherein psi appears to explain the events better than conventional mechanisms. But again, this is not scientific evidence.

Absolutely but when people provide a conventional explanation this is scientific. Got it. 👆

Originally posted by Deadline
I adressed this point.

Originally posted by Deadline
and there you have it one rule for psi and a different one for everything else.

Absolutely but when people provide a conventional explanation this is scientific. Got it. 👆

Look, I'm all for psi, expecially since I've had some experiences where psi fits the bill better than conventional explanations. But because I am a psi fan, I'm that much more on guard against wish-fulfillment substituting for fact.

And while we're on the topic, I would like to share my "theory" that psi (if it does exist) probably has to do with quantum phenomena, perhaps entanglement or (my favorite) a "many-worlds" mechanism.

Originally posted by Mindship
Jeez, now I gotta go find it?

Very funny.

Originally posted by Mindship

But the thing is, psi is different. It doesn't jive with Newtonian laws of physics (eg, it violates the inverse-square law),

Thats irrelevant it just means its something new.

Originally posted by Mindship
and it doesn't replicate well experimentally, not like, say, magnetism. Psi is the odd kid on the block, not well liked or accepted, so yeah, it has to go the extra mile to prove itself.

It does and has?

Originally posted by Deadline
Thats irrelevant it just means its something new.

It does and has?

Originally posted by Mindship
That's a fine dismissive comment.

No my point is that sometimes in science people will come across something new just because it doesn't neccesarily fit conventional science means that it's illogical or deserves special treatment.

Originally posted by Mindship

Apparently not, or there'd be no debate (we don't debate, eg, sound waves).

Well I've posted one link. Ganzfield experiment.

Originally posted by Mindship

What is apparent is that you're also into psi, which is cool. But don't you think that biases your interpretation of the research?

It might do but just because I think psi might exist doesn't automatically mean I can't be objective. Hell I'm not even really saying that scientists who believe psi has been proven are correct. My beef is with people who say it hasn't been proven by science using double standards and passing subjective arguments as silver bullets. I actually think NDEs are more convincing and I partialy agree with the extraordinary argument.

Originally posted by Deadline
No my point is that sometimes in science people will come across something new just because it doesn't neccesarily fit conventional science means that it's illogical or deserves special treatment.

Well I've posted one link. Ganzfield experiment.

It might do but just because I think psi might exist doesn't automatically mean I can't be objective. Hell I'm not even really saying that scientists who believe psi has been proven are correct. My beef is with people who say it hasn't been proven by science using double standards and passing subjective arguments as silver bullets. I actually think NDEs are more convincing and I partialy agree with the extraordinary argument.

No doubt there's a lot of empiricist prejudice. And proving psi beyond a doubt is an uphill battle. I also think there should be more experimentation done with altered states (eg, lucid dreaming). But I also feel a healthy dose of skepticism is a good idea when one feels strongly about some apparent phenomenon (49% skeptic / 51% believer generally works for me).

deadline: so you don't think any of my criticisms of the research are valid?

Originally posted by Mindship
This reminds me a little bit about the FTL argument: FTL will never be found by someone who says it's impossible.

almost all nuclear scientists who were responsible for the atom bomb at one point thought it to be impossible. Bohr, for instance, thought it impossible while working on it.

EDIT: to the extent that Bohr worked on the bomb, that is. Similar things can be said of Oppenheimer and Heisenberg however. It wasn't until Salizrd actually empirically created a uranium chain reaction that they thought it was possible.

The idea that there is just some bias against psi is ridiculous. It is essentially wishful thinking from people who are convinced by bad evidence.

Originally posted by inimalist
almost all nuclear scientists who were responsible for the atom bomb at one point thought it to be impossible. Bohr, for instance, thought it impossible while working on it.

The idea that there is just some bias against psi is ridiculous. It is essentially wishful thinking from people who are convinced by bad evidence.

I think your criticisms are quite valid, and personally, as much as I think there's more going on than meets the eye (involving a quantum explanation for *psi, not a supernatural one), I wouldn't accept proof as unequivocal from anything less than a competent experimental procedure. Repeatable results would be nice, too.

* I find it an interesting coincidence(?) that "psi" is the term used to denote wavefunctions as well.

Originally posted by Mindship
They thought it impossible theoretically or technically?

depends on who we are talking about. Bohr thought it impossible, but abandoned any real research into weapons at the onset of ww2, as he fled to Copenhagen and tried to get other scientists out of germany. Oppenheimer was unconvinced until Salizard's chain reaction, whereas Heisenberg, originally believing it to be impossible, did think it would be technically insurmountable (though, he was part of the German weapons program, which had much less support than even the British one, which eventually turned into the Manhattan Project, in a roundabout way...).

Originally posted by Mindship
As I said from the start, the research suggests but hardly resolves.

indeed. I'd never say "stop looking, we know", though I might question how suggestive it really is.

Like, we are comming to over 40+ years of research, and there are still no inarguable results, nothing that can be pointed to as, "there, here is the result, here is the theory". For a sort of comparison, Anne Triesman proposed Feature Integration Theory, dealing with how features of objects in the environment are put together in our mind and how we attend to them. This theory has been replicated, updated twice by Jeremy Wolfe (Guided Search, Guided Search 2.0), and arguments over the implications of this theory (Watson & Humphreys v Donk; re: onset capture and visual marking) have been ongoing for years. Triesman's work, though not authoritative itself, has laid the basis for modern work that attempts to locate areas in the primary visual cortex responsible for certain feature detection and object integration. One theory, about some minutia of visual processing, and in under 30 years, it is a well tested and expanded upon concept of neuroscience. Literally hundreds of studies have been done based off of her ideas and findings. This is in the absense of any real way to measure brain activity. So, using creative and indirect measures, we have built very robust and replicable understandings of how the visual system works, in under 30 years. Hell, atomic science moved from "splitting the atom is impossible" to a nuclear weapon in less time.

Psi research has yet to provide a replicable result, and has over 40 years of not only academic, but military research behind it. Even the Utts article that deadline posted concludes with the fact that almost all of the results are random. Sometimes concentration matters, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes what the person is trying to view matters, sometimes not. Sometimes they need assistance, sometimes not. etc. I couldn't choose a pattern of results more demonstrative of there being no phenomenon, though yes, we should not say "don't research this", because, who knows?

Originally posted by Mindship
I think your criticisms are quite valid, and personally, as much as I think there's more going on than meets the eye (involving a quantum explanation for *psi, not a supernatural one), I wouldn't accept proof as unequivocal from anything less than a competent experimental procedure. Repeatable results would be nice, too.

unfortunatly, most theories that put quantum into the brain have a lot of problems too. Not just from a neuro side either. Our brains are not ideal environments for quantum level phenonenon.

Originally posted by Mindship
* I find it an interesting coincidence(?) that "psi" is the term used to denote wavefunctions as well.

ya, there is probably some weird etymology of how psy became psi

Originally posted by inimalist
unfortunatly, most theories that put quantum into the brain have a lot of problems too. Not just from a neuro side either. Our brains are not ideal environments for quantum level phenonenon.

Originally posted by Mindship
Is this with a Copenhagen interpretation? As I understand it, that "collapsing wavefunction" stuff is not well understood, either. In fact, not every scientist takes the wavefunction literally.

its not a wavefunction collapse thing though, it is a simple issue of environment.

entanglement and the like require specific environments to occur in, those environments do not exist in the brain. "Quantum consciousness" theories try to put them in cellular microtubules, which are almost certainly not a suitable environment, or on calcium/potassium ion pathways into the cell, which is a little more likely, though imho not.

Either way, if either of these were true, it still has no real mechanism for the transmission of information, for 2 main reasons. 1) microtubules and ion channels, while important (the latter even in signal transmition from one neuron to the next), are not significant in the storage of representation of information in the brain. This is done by systems of millions of interconnected neurons. Having quantum effects that only alter the individual functioning of single cells would produce strange "hiccups" in processing, maybe (our brain has ways of correcting such "hiccups"😉, but not wholly new information and 2) because no two brains are wired the same, there could be no system based entanglement, because there are not analogus neurons from person to person. Certainly neurological structures, but they are structured differently by each brain. For there to be any meaningful entanglement, it would require that abstract concepts of neurological systems could entangle, which is obviously ridiculous.

Finally, and most importantly, anything that Quantum theories of neuro function try to explain are much easier to account for from a cognitive psych or neuroscience perspective. In fact, presenting quantum phenomena as an explanation to any neurological function I can think of would require a huge explanation of why everything we know about brain function is wrong.

Originally posted by inimalist
LOL

🙄

My point is this, who is right and who is wrong? Have you conclusively disproved this experiment, nope. Maybe your right and maybe she’s wrong but on the face it why should I believe you over a professional scientist? Do you know more about experimentation than she does? So what we can conclude is that in your opinion psi hasn’t been disproved.

Ok I’ve deleted parts of your post, not because I’m ignoring them but because if I respond to them separately I will just be repeating myself.

I found most of what you said complete unsatisfactory and I do think Lil B responded to these points, I would have said more or less the same thing but it would have been more long winded. I think your main argument is the fact that we don’t fully understand what psi means it casts serious doubts on the results of this experiment. I think this is hypocritical because you could say that about other science experiments. I was under the impression that people have a theory they test it out to see if its true and then if it turns out to be true you update science, you don’t just decide that because you don’t fully understand that this means your findings are dubious.

I have already given you a mechanism and a theory its just not detailed enough for you. What I also suspect that if I were to give you a more detailed explanation like with the NDE that you will simply say that since we have an explanation for it this means its not paranormal.

Originally posted by inimalist

ok... so, to you there is nothing paranormal about an NDE? it is just a natural process of the brain shutting down?

Am I right? I’m not trying to be a dick but this is what I think is going on. However I want to do a quick summary of the double standards.

A: I think an intelligent infinite being created the universe.
B: Modern science tells us it’s the big bang.
A: Well we don’t know everything about the universe we can’t rule out that possibility
B: Maybe but you’re just speculating, until we get further proof lets assume it was the big bang.

A: I think there is life after death because people have died and have seen, heard and felt things clearly after death.
B: Maybe they weren’t dead.
A: Modern science indicates that these people had no heart beat and no activity in the brain.
B: Ok but maybe they weren’t dead.
A: Maybe but until you can prove that they were lets assume they were dead because that’s what modern science tells us.

Please bare in mind I’m not saying that your points aren’t without merit I’m just saying its hypocritical and your taking something which is subjective and blowing it way out of proportion. However please elaborate on double blind and how this relates to this experiment.

Originally posted by inimalist

well, not entirely. My thoughts are that at home you are more likely to be sloppy, and there is absolutly no oversight. Also, I'd assume more people doing experiments at home are amature scientists not attempting to publish in peer review sources, which would insinuate to me that there are almost certainly huge statistical and methodological problems.

Even people who have been in their field for 20 years still get torn apart on peer-review, often having to re-run parts of their study to even get it published. It cannot be overstated how important this is to research as a whole. You need someone tearing apart your stuff with a fine toothed comb.

Well this could be a bit straw man but this doesn’t mean that personal research has to be rubbish. A scientist can publish a book and other scientists can look at the reasearch.

Originally posted by inimalist

yes, but nobody thinks he is a scientist. I have respect for lots of people who aren't scientists.

My point is if you respect somebody you tend to emulate them. On the face of it Randi’s behaviour in my link was insanely biased and if people behave like him you need to question wether scientists are objectively reviewing experiments. Also I can think of at least one scientist who has accused the scientific community of having great bias.

Originally posted by inimalist
deadline: so you don't think any of my criticisms of the research are valid?

They're valid but they're hypocritical and subjective. However tell me more about the double blind.

Originally posted by Deadline
My point is this, who is right and who is wrong? Have you conclusively disproved this experiment, nope.

what a stupid standard of evidence though. I can't disprove you wont get shot walking out of your door, are you going to stay inside forever?

Originally posted by Deadline
Maybe your right and maybe she’s wrong but on the face it why should I believe you over a professional scientist?

well, not that I think it matters or anything, but I am also a professional scientist. Not a phd yet, but I can link you to some of my published work or to the cognitive neuroscience lab I managed if you really need proof.

Originally posted by Deadline
Do you know more about experimentation than she does?

I can't say for sure, but compared to fellow scientists and students I have met, I am much more interested in philosophy of scientific method than most are, so I wouldn't say no.

Originally posted by Deadline
So what we can conclude is that in your opinion psi hasn’t been disproved.

yes, but nothing in history has been disproved. Nobody "disproved" phrenology or eugenics, they just did better research and found better explanations.

Something not being disproved is not a very good measure of its truth

Originally posted by Deadline
Ok I’ve deleted parts of your post, not because I’m ignoring them but because if I respond to them separately I will just be repeating myself.

I found most of what you said complete unsatisfactory and I do think Lil B responded to these points, I would have said more or less the same thing but it would have been more long winded.

what points did lil make? do you honestly think I'm being dismissive? I read the freaking articles you posted. I specifically cited the parts that were controversial. You cannot accuse me of being close minded here.

Originally posted by Deadline
I think your main argument is the fact that we don’t fully understand what psi means it casts serious doubts on the results of this experiment.

nope, my argument is that there are no conclusive results about psy, other than a pattern that is almost exactly what we would predict to see if there were no phenomenon.

Originally posted by Deadline
I think this is hypocritical because you could say that about other science experiments.

which theory do you think was given a less rigorous vetting process than psy?

Originally posted by Deadline
I was under the impression that people have a theory they test it out to see if its true and then if it turns out to be true you update science, you don’t just decide that because you don’t fully understand that this means your findings are dubious.

that would be fine, but that isn't the part I'm saying is really wrong. I'm saying there are taking results that could easily just be chance and claiming they prove psy. The problem is that these werent the predicted results, so largely, it is like cherry-picking.

I'm not the one making this up, this is a very minimum requirement of experimental design.

Originally posted by Deadline
I have already given you a mechanism and a theory its just not detailed enough for you.

no, you haven't. In no way have you described an actual mechanism by which data could get from a remotely viewed object into a person's mind. You have also not provided an operational definition of any of the things you have claimed to be a mechanism.

Originally posted by Deadline
What I also suspect that if I were to give you a more detailed explanation like with the NDE that you will simply say that since we have an explanation for it this means its not paranormal.

Well, if the answer is, "as the brain dies, weird things happen", then sure, if the answer is "the soul goes to heaven", then I'll grant you its paranormal. LOL, I don't see why you think me calling something natural would be an argument against it.

Especially for the psy thing, I want you to show me it is natural. ffs.

Originally posted by Deadline
Am I right? I’m not trying to be a dick but this is what I think is going on. However I want to do a quick summary of the double standards.

A: I think an intelligent infinite being created the universe.
B: Modern science tells us it’s the big bang.
A: Well we don’t know everything about the universe we can’t rule out that possibility
B: Maybe but you’re just speculating, until we get further proof lets assume it was the big bang.

A: I think there is life after death because people have died and have seen, heard and felt things clearly after death.
B: Maybe they weren’t dead.
A: Modern science indicates that these people had no heart beat and no activity in the brain.

We went over this in PM and you completely dismissed anything I had to say on the matter. The fact is, if doctors were performing the tests necessary to determine brain function on a person who was dying, they would be guilty of gross malpractice.

Originally posted by Deadline
B: Ok but maybe they weren’t dead.
A: Maybe but until you can prove that they were lets assume they were dead because that’s what modern science tells us.

ok, so we assume they were dead, and then they came back to life. Then what. Because they saw something we are to suppose that God exists and there is a soul in us?

dude, like, do I really have to spell out how huge of a jump in logic that is?

Originally posted by Deadline
Please bare in mind I’m not saying that your points aren’t without merit I’m just saying its hypocritical and your taking something which is subjective and blowing it way out of proportion. However please elaborate on double blind and how this relates to this experiment.

If the experimenters knew which subjects were producing which drawings it would bias the way they evaluated them.

Originally posted by Deadline
Well this could be a bit straw man but this doesn’t mean that personal research has to be rubbish. A scientist can publish a book and other scientists can look at the reasearch.

straw man what? Historically you will find that science done outside of academia and without proper peer review is of a dramatically worse quality. Think Tripple A vs the majors.

Originally posted by Deadline
They're valid but they're hypocritical and subjective. However tell me more about the double blind.

LOL, explain the hypocrisy

tell me what i believe in that I don't require proof for

get a life man

Originally posted by inimalist
its not a wavefunction collapse thing though, it is a simple issue of environment.

entanglement and the like require specific environments to occur in, those environments do not exist in the brain. "Quantum consciousness" theories try to put them in cellular microtubules, which are almost certainly not a suitable environment, or on calcium/potassium ion pathways into the cell, which is a little more likely, though imho not.

Either way, if either of these were true, it still has no real mechanism for the transmission of information, for 2 main reasons. 1) microtubules and ion channels, while important (the latter even in signal transmition from one neuron to the next), are not significant in the storage of representation of information in the brain. This is done by systems of millions of interconnected neurons. Having quantum effects that only alter the individual functioning of single cells would produce strange "hiccups" in processing, maybe (our brain has ways of correcting such "hiccups"😉, but not wholly new information and 2) because no two brains are wired the same, there could be no system based entanglement, because there are not analogus neurons from person to person. Certainly neurological structures, but they are structured differently by each brain. For there to be any meaningful entanglement, it would require that abstract concepts of neurological systems could entangle, which is obviously ridiculous.

Finally, and most importantly, anything that Quantum theories of neuro function try to explain are much easier to account for from a cognitive psych or neuroscience perspective. In fact, presenting quantum phenomena as an explanation to any neurological function I can think of would require a huge explanation of why everything we know about brain function is wrong.

I was thinking more in terms of a "holistic" effect, not so much what happens at the microscopic level, but what may occur as you climb the structural hierarchy with new functional properties appearing. One of the reasons I prefer the "many-worlds" interpretation (other than it being ultimately simpler, IMO, than the Coperhagen one) is because it makes me question what else the brain is filtering to bring a coherent world view into existence.

Suffice to say, what I really see this psi question coming down to -- and even when talking about God (to bring us somewhat back on topic) -- is, What is the foundation of reality? Matter or consciousness? And you and I have certainly covered that ground before.

Originally posted by Mindship
Why do I always get the impression you love spoutin' all that stuff? 😛

all my other shyness, insecurity and neurosis aside, the one thing I do well is talk science. and I love to hear myself talk about it.

Originally posted by Mindship
I was thinking more in terms of a "holistic" effect, not so much what happens at the microscopic level, but what may occur as you climb the structural hierarchy with new functional properties appearing.

yeaaaaa.... but I'm skeptical of how entangled large objects get in nature.

It is certainly interesting, and I can't pretend to understand the physics behind it.

Originally posted by Mindship
One of the reasons I prefer the "many-worlds" interpretation (other than it being ultimately simpler, IMO, than the Coperhagen one) is because it makes me question what else the brain is filtering to bring a coherent world view into existence.

lol, that actually sounds like quite a trip. physics is great for that, neuroscience continually crushes your spirit.

Originally posted by Mindship
Suffice to say, what I really see this psi question coming down to -- and even when talking about God (to bring us somewhat back on topic) -- is, What is the foundation of reality? Matter or consciousness? And you and I have certainly covered that ground before.

indeed. Its always an interesting question to ponder, but one that there really is no ultimate way to know. Even from a neuroscience perspective, we as individuals can't experience anything except through our consciousness.

Originally posted by inimalist
...neuroscience continually crushes your spirit.

Originally posted by Mindship
I prefer the "many-worlds" interpretation (other than it being ultimately simpler, IMO, than the Coperhagen one) is because it makes me question what else the brain is filtering to bring a coherent world view into existence.

Interesting, and same here. I have no doubt our brain filters a whole load of things to bring in a coherent world view - majority of them, probably because we didn't need to 'see' or interpret in our course of evolution.