Psipog

[heliocentric]

But think about what you said - "you do know the US government and police departments have used psychics with a sucess rate well above random chance..." How is random chance calculated for these successes? Are we talking about finding lost children who are near water, a bridge or a church? How do we know that these great results are not due to selective thinking and subjective validation? It doesn't sound like the most reliable source for a statistical examination.

Oh it definitely isnt reliable as a be-all-end-all proof or for than matter non-proof for psi, my point originally if you remember was to show that psi has been utilised with success - since that was crunchy's original assertion - that psi has never been utilised by anyone for anything.

You don't need to chase down the source. There certainly may be some police who use psychics but then again there are probably many police who swear that astrology works. Can we know for sure that these cases are actually being solved due to psychics and not police work or luck?

Nope! all we can do is see that they had a perceived success rate high enough to for police depts to keep using them.
Although again, the original point in this isntance isnt to prove psi outright, simply to show its utility.

Yes the US government wasted 20 million of taxpayer money on project stargate (remote viewing) but eventually closed it down because it was not working.

From what ive read a new dept took control of the program and quality of the people they brought in sharply dropped from there.
Prior to that - again you have statistically significant results, certainly enough to keep the program going for well over a decade.

So which articles have been taken off scepdic.com after they became generally accepted by the scientific community? Were you making some assumptions here heliocentric?

I seem to remember Homo floresiensis being lumped in with a vauge debunking on archeological anomalies at one point - of course the idea of a sub-species of dwarf like humans is now completely accepted by the scientific community.

It is fairly simple - Scepdic.com provides a skeptical point of view. It is there to counter all the nonsense that is out there on the internet. So when you complain that it is biased (sceptical) or that it doesn't offer a balanced view it just appears that you don't like it because it is critical of something you wish to believe in.

Its not so much that im concerned about what they are critical about, its what they arnt critical about that bothers me.
Anyone can debunk things like creationism or spoon-bending, the problem is they set themselves either easy targets or things that simply dont have masses of supportive evidence (for one reason or another) which makes it very easy to rustle up an article with abit of selective wording and make it appear as no evidence ever existed in the first place.
Even if someone does call them out on being biased and not being genuinely critical they can always simply say that youre an odd-ball who feels threatened that his or her pet theory is being bashed (much as youre trying to do now).
Its a very selective type of skepticsm that these sorts of sites champion, this is the problem i have with them.

Id really love to see the odd article about dark matter, m-theory, or black-holes, but ive looked there arnt any - they only deal with things that have that backroom snicker factor.
I suspect because theres either some sort of reverence or irrational fear of tackling things that lie within accepted science.
But the thing is that's what critical thinking is - its being critical of everything you dont pack up and go home because it looks and smells like proper science so its probably ok (even when there's no more evidence for it than there is for spoon-bending).

My logic is sound regardless of what you call yourself.

Generally i think it is, i just dont really understand why you get all reactionary whenever i voice concerns about people like Randi or Skepdic.

My comments were also an observation on believers in general. Although you appear to believe that psi exists. If so then you are a believer in regards to this subject.

Im a paid-up nihilist im afraid, so believing in anythings going to be abit difficult for me, but if it makes you feel more secure in calling me a believer then by all means do.

Is Randi testing for homeopathy himself now? First I have heard of this. Source? Assumptions?

Im sure i went over this with you in the Randi thread already, unless im thinking of someone else, source - Lynn McTaggart - the field (she interviews some people whove worked with Randi in the past in a section of the book).

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Youre being too overly-litteral i think, its the underlying principles of QM that are important here (action at a distance, seperated yet linked causal relationships, closed-communication channel communication etc) noone is saying that the particles in one persons body are spinning in sympathy to another person's body.

Im pretty sure ive made myself clear on what the correlation between psi and QM is, id just be repeating myself at this point - i really dont think i could make it any clearer (same as with the subjectivity problem that i keep going over again and again).
Either youre just not getting this stuff or youre misrepresenting what im saying (for whatever reason).

I am actually just disagreeing. I don't see QM making the existence of psi a possibility.

No it isnt, this is just really basic speculation - scientists regularly engage in thought experiments and speculative analysis simply to see what patterns can be found.
Very often i might add in the absense of any hard data atall (i.e. multi-verse, m-theory).
In regards to psi we actually have a mountain of data to go on in comparison to the majority of speculative deductions.
In any case even if there was no evidence for psi, you still dont lose anything by engaging in abit of speculation - how might action-at-a-distance manifest itself in larger systems? what insights does QM gives us in regards to information distribution?
Does QM suggest a unified universe in which seperated systems are all in fact fundamentally connected?

These are all really important questions to ask, i think one of the biggest communication problems between yourself and i, is that you seem to believe empiricsm is self-refering and tells us everything we need to know in itself.

Most of the time it doesnt, empiricsm mearly gives you a basis on which to conduct further speculation and analysis.
Something which you do seem particularly opposed to for some reason.

Don't get me wrong. I am all for speculation. IMO, psi is past the speculation point and into the outright delusion point.

Well then show its all just latent desire, or at least expand upon it.

Do you find the idea of psi-powers and / or having psi-powers attractive / fascinating? Have you seen sciforums poll results of 'do you want psychic powers?'. Is the show 'heros' getting good ratings? How many movies, shows, books, magazines are about magic / superpowers / psychic powers?

Well, ive experienced things beyond what i know are achievable via cold-reading and nlp i'll say that much, thats all i can say with any degree of certainly. Anything beyond that is of course speculation.

Do you have any doubt that your experiences are anything less that 100% genuine?

Well i dont know that Sally Morgan has refused to perform in a controlled enviornment, so im not sure how youve arrived at that conclusion.

In any case the production company itself has imployed quite a few contols to trip her up - subject in a seperate location, information on subjects with-held at times prior to the meeting, blind-folding + total ban on verbal communication to factor out the possiblity of nlp and colding reading.

There's actually quite a few contols going on there, you might find this interesting actually - ive watched tv shows where Randi has blind-folded psychics also and banned verbal communication also. So theyre imploying the exact techniques that debunkers use to expose this sort of thing.
Again i think it comes back to this thing of assuming that because positive results have been achieved there must by definition be a flaw in controls - this of course is based on the assumption that psi is impossible - something to this date youve never once been able to articulate as to why this might be the case.

Sally, is just a Sally. Debunking her (which someone might waste time on eventually) just debunks another Sally and then comes the next one. Is she seeking to prove her claim? Has she accepted the Randi challenge? Are physacists and neuroscientists all over the world working hard to unlock the mircales of her brain? She is a fake by the very definition of her actions and inactions.

Again i dont think the claimers have failed miserably - psychics have worked as remote viewers for defense departments with impressive degrees of sucess. We've seen that psychics can still perform under quite stringent controls, and acheive above chance statistics in controlled experiments.
Look if you really dont think the evidence is strong enough to satisfy your own criteria thats fine. I just dont get what is achieved by going around saying people are liars and frauds and there's 'no evidence for any of it' and 'its all delusion'.

Remote viewers in the defense department are the same phenomena as psychic detectives. What's achieved by pointing out that these people are delusional is truth.

I want my tax dollars to fund research into real things. I would be horrified for example if my personal safety was reliant on remote viewers rather than people using their education, senses, and technology. If you needed to fix damage to your heart, would you go to a heart surgeon or someone with telekensis?

Its like you can only ever deal in these absolutes - something is either absolutely true or absolutely false, there's never any shades of grey inbetween for you.

In matters of existence there is only black and white. Something either exists or it does not.

Again im not sure what youre talking about, Sally hasnt been debunked - infact we've seen the very same techniques Randi uses to debunk psychics fail to make her abilities disapear.

How many people with psi abilities have been debunked? How many have to be debunked before someone realizes their claims are b.s.?

It could - but it would be rating from its own position of experience (subjectivity) it like me judging the quality of affection i believe another humanbeing is beaming out to me and assigning it a number.
I still wouldnt know how their experience of affection feels for them.

Like i said it probably worth leaving because im not sure you fully grasp the problem.

To experience the subjectivity would probably require consciousness. Once people figure out how to reproduce consciousness with technology, then we might be able to expose such technology to different subjective experiences.

Well i dont know that remote viewers arnt doing just that.

You would think they would have seen the world trade center disaster if employed... seeing as it was pretty significant.

I really dont have much of any idea which (if any) members of the coalition are still running remote viewing programs.
As for telekenetics - ive not heard of any government agencies employing those sort of attributes (if they exist atall).

If they worked really well they would probably be used and their successes advertised. It would probably be part of military traning programs for the army, navy, and air force.

Huh? ive not seen anyone in this thread invoke magic to explain anything, not sure atall what youre refering to.

The idea of psi of course.

Ive no problem with that - if thats how you interpret the data, but its a leap and half to go from that to labeling everyone as liars and frauds without even looking into individual case studies - that is really all im getting across. And i dont believe im being particularly unreasonable in making that assertion (although obviously you may disagree).

It's not so much a leap if you take all the knowns into account. There is enough evidence to know that all claimers of psi are frauds. After a point, the individual cases should no longer matter; however, the door should always remain open for proof should a claimer decide to step forward for a controlled performance.

You can definitely provide evidence for evolutions existance - what you cant ever do is prove it exists absolutely and without a single grain of doubt. They want a 100% accuracy rating - much as you want in psi experimentation.

I disagree. That evolution exists is self evident once visibility is provided. That's pretty much a 100% proof. What cannot be provided with a 100% accuracy rating is all the details concerning how it works. In other words, the 'what' can be demonstrated. The 'how' is incomplete.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind.html
Its actually a quarter of a million hes offering though - not a million, although i believe Randis challenge started out as a couple of hundered grand as well.
So they'll probably increase the pot overtime.

A good quote from that article actually that i think sums up these sorts of challenges perfectly.

Hes basically saying it stands as little more than a public smear - entirely devicive and probably little too do with honest acquisition of truth either way.

Ah but the problem is - the acquisition of proof and what constitutes proof atall is defined by the person with the money themselves.
Thats why these sorts of tests are flawed from the out-set, theyve sort of got every base covered. People who offer up these amounts of cash arnt stupid theyve got loop-holes and clauses hidden in places that you wouldnt even imagine to look.

Thanks for the link. I was able to use the names referenced to find the real challenge:

http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=67?pg=250k

The challenge is not to prove evolution. The challenge is to prove a scientific theory of everything. He even explicitly states that he is redefining the word 'evolution' to really mean 'theory of everything'.

Also, for payment he basically says something along the lines of he has a rich friend that will pay the money...

So you are correct in that this challenge cannot be met... mainly because it's redefining the word 'evolution' to something very different. Of course if someone did have a provable theory of everything, you have to trust some rich friend to actually provide the cash.

The challenge seems bent on smearing the validity of anti-delusion challenges, but fails to do so because its integrity is greatly compromised by redefining 'evolution' and saying 'trust my rich friend for payment... our word is good'.

This really has no parallel to the Randi challenge which is more about 'you make the fantastic claim', 'we both develop and agree upon the self-evident demonstration', and 'if you perform as agreed upon you contractually get 1 million dollars held explicitly in *this* escrow account'.

 

[heliocentric]

I am actually just disagreeing. I don't see QM making the existence of psi a possibility.

But the problem is you can never explain the reasoning behind your assumptions and sensiblities, so i wont bother asking why you believe this to be the case - because it will just go round in never-ending tautological loops outside of any real scientific or speculative criticism.

All ive really gained from this conversation is that - you believe psi is magic because you just do, you feel alot of psychics are frauds but cant specifically point how or why this might be the case, you dont believe QM offers up any sort of possiblities for closed-channel communication in aggregate systems of particles - but youre not at liberty to explain how or why this should be the case.
Really there's nothing for me to argue against here, there are no avenues of discourse open because alot of what you believe isnt based in any critical process.

Don't get me wrong. I am all for speculation. IMO, psi is past the speculation point and into the outright delusion point.

But you can never explain how these delusions yeild such impressive positive results - specifically in cases like sally morgan.
I know i know, you just sort of have a hunch that something shifty is going on - unfortunately to have any sort of sensible dialog you need to allude to some sort of rational process, again there is none.

Sally, is just a Sally. Debunking her (which someone might waste time on eventually) just debunks another Sally and then comes the next one.

This of course assumes that a debunking would without a shadow of a doubt render her abilities null, zero.
Your entire world is built on these assumptions.
Again i cant really argue with someones assumptions if theyre not prepared to expose them to any sort of outward rationalism.
Nothing tangible for me to argue against here.

Is she seeking to prove her claim? Has she accepted the Randi challenge? Are physacists and neuroscientists all over the world working hard to unlock the mircales of her brain? She is a fake by the very definition of her actions and inactions.

Yeah because the fact that neuroscientists arnt studying her must mean shes a fraud by default, i guess in the absense of your double blind controls this approach of deduction works just as well.
Seriously this is just become embarrasingly sloppy logic.

In matters of existence there is only black and white. Something either exists or it does not.

no no no :bawl:
Evidence only offers degrees of certainty either way.

The idea of psi of course.

But you cant actually explain whats exactly magical about psi can you.

It's not so much a leap if you take all the knowns into account. There is enough evidence to know that all claimers of psi are frauds.

No there really isnt, i think you dont really understand even really basic deductive logic, this the entire problem here.

The challenge seems bent on smearing the validity of anti-delusion challenges,

Anti-delusion challenges? :bugeye:
I guess anti/pro debunking agendas is all wed have if we let certain people control the scientific paradigm.
Thank god that rational equiry still exists and people like Randi only exist on the fringes is all i can say.
Although i still find it incredibly worrying that you think Randi is some sort of litmus test of the scientific method - we're clearly entering a phase in history where scientism is over-taking real science in allegiance and popularity.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

But the problem is you can never explain the reasoning behind your assumptions and sensiblities, so i wont bother asking why you believe this to be the case - because it will just go round in never-ending tautological loops outside of any real scientific or speculative criticism.

The reason is simple. Entaglement is a real existing phenomena. Psi is an idea born of human desire. The existence of entanglement has no relationship of making an idea born of human desire a possibility.

All ive really gained from this conversation is that - you believe psi is magic because you just do, you feel alot of psychics are frauds but cant specifically point how or why this might be the case, you dont believe QM offers up any sort of possiblities for closed-channel communication in aggregate systems of particles - but youre not at liberty to explain how or why this should be the case.

Really there's nothing for me to argue against here, there are no avenues of discourse open because alot of what you believe isnt based in any critical process.

Well, in retrospect, maybe magic wasn't the best word. Delusion is much better. It's not a matter of 'feeling' that all psychics are frauds. It's knowing all psychics are frauds. If you see enough of them debunked, not one of them vindicated, then its not a leap of faith to follow the pattern. I think my position on QM is misunderstood. I think it offers many possibilities for communication, relationships, etc. I have no doubt that we'll be able to take advantage of the knowledge. Maybe we'll make 'psi' technology. What I don't think QM does is make all the existing claims of psi by humans a possibility of actually being true. It might help to understand my position on psi as well. Do I know that a generic 'psi' doesn't exist in reality? Nope I hold no such knowledge and neither does any other person. Do I know that human claims of 'psi' don't exist? You bet.

But you can never explain how these delusions yeild such impressive positive results - specifically in cases like sally morgan.
I know i know, you just sort of have a hunch that something shifty is going on - unfortunately to have any sort of sensible dialog you need to allude to some sort of rational process, again there is none.

The only impressive result of delusions such as psi is that people are so susceptable to them. The impressive results of people like Sally Morgan are no different than the impressive results of people like David Copperfield. The only difference between the two is that Sally claims what she is doing is 'real' while David claims that what he is doing is 'illusion'. How Sally achieves her results isn't really important because enough similar 'psi practicioners' have been debunked. Her behaviors are no different. Her claims are no different. Only her show is different. She's an entertainer just like Copperfield.

This of course assumes that a debunking would without a shadow of a doubt render her abilities null, zero.
Your entire world is built on these assumptions.
Again i cant really argue with someones assumptions if theyre not prepared to expose them to any sort of outward rationalism.
Nothing tangible for me to argue against here.

Why wouldn't it? It has with other frauds. The only rationale that needs to go into psi is to consider the knowns and how it results in claim over long periods of time without supportive evidence. That is evidence against psi... it is self-evident evidence. Any other 'impressive' entertainer whom comes along in this context is a fraud by default; of course, they would always be welcome to really prove their claim in a controlled environment... but that's not going to happen because they can't and nobody wants to be exposed as a fraud. Maybe you don't see it or understand it. I know your position is that psi is 'probably' true and I know that your personal experiences have the most influence. I am thinking that our positions differ from a very fundamental thinking differences. For example, I am very good at separating hallucaintion from real sensory stimulus. A life chalk full of lucid dreaming, hyponogogic hallucination, and hynopompic hallucination have helped me do this... yet I see adults whom experience (or remember experiencing) a hypnopompic hallucination for the very first time and suddently think there are real life forms sitting on their chests and conjuring strange magic. All of a sudden all sorts of magical thinking becomes their reality... from that one personal experience. Put in a second or third experience and the delusion is reinforced. The point is I am good at asking the question 'Is this real?', knowning when to ask it, and applying the knowledge to future events. Now here is some interesting wisdom that comes out of it, if you have any doubt about an experience... any whatsoever and you even think 'Is this real?' for a brief moment then chances are immensly high that its not. I suspect this is might partially be why you don't accept 'psi' as truth based on your personal experience (which has the greatest influence for you). That nagging little doubt that something doesn't quite add up, that the cigar was not just a cigar, that the self-evidency might be illusion.

Yeah because the fact that neuroscientists arnt studying her must mean shes a fraud by default, i guess in the absense of your double blind controls this approach of deduction works just as well.
Seriously this is just become embarrasingly sloppy logic.

It's not that neuroscientists aren't studying her that makes her a fraud by defualt. It's a combination of the knowns, what she is doing, and what she is not doing. It's neither embarassing or sloppy.

no no no :bawl:
Evidence only offers degrees of certainty either way.

Your computer either exists or it does not exist... completely outside of human interpretation. That is black and white. Putting human observation into the mix, it's presence is self-evident for you. It's effects are self-evident for me. No degree of certainty is required... it exists.

Take a Higgs Boson. It either exists or does not exist completely outside of human interpretation. That is black and white. Putting human observation into the mix, the particle shows up in math equations and as a theoretical step in observable physical processes. So the evidence in this case offers a degree of certainty that it exists but it is unknown for sure whether or not it really does exist (that exclusively has a binary outcome). This year, the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva will be searching for the self-evident effects of the Higgs boson. If found, it proves the particle exists. If not found, it proves the particle does not exist. No degree of certainty is required at that point.

So the point of this exercise is to show that something either exists or does not. There is no middle ground. If that something or its effects shows up indirectly as part of something that exists but its presence or effect cannot be directly observed yet then we have a degree of certainty that we work with. It doesn't alter whether that something exists or not... that is still binary... only two possible outcomes. What we can do is find a way to bring that mystery something or its effect into view. Do that and we find out definitively whether the something exists or not.

But you cant actually explain whats exactly magical about psi can you.

Sorry, it was a bad word to use on my part. I shoudl have used 'delusional'.

No there really isnt, i think you dont really understand even really basic deductive logic, this the entire problem here.

Oh, I think I understand logic pretty well and in rediculous complexity. After all, my career depends on it and my rediculously high performance bonus validates it. What I see is a possibly big delta in our fundmanetal observational skills. It's nothing to be embarassed or ashamed of. We're just different. The result of that difference is that you think human claims of 'psi' are probably true and I think they are false. In matters of existence, there are only two outcomes for a specific claim. It either exists or it does not.

Anti-delusion challenges? :bugeye:
I guess anti/pro debunking agendas is all wed have if we let certain people control the scientific paradigm.
Thank god that rational equiry still exists and people like Randi only exist on the fringes is all i can say.
Although i still find it incredibly worrying that you think Randi is some sort of litmus test of the scientific method - we're clearly entering a phase in history where scientism is over-taking real science in allegiance and popularity.

Yep, Randi wasted some 30+ years of life searching for the non-existent. When he didn't find it, he set up a challenge for the non-existent to prove its existence... which of course by its very nature cannot be done. He uses real scientists, an agreed upon process with the claimers, and real money for the challenge. Nothing about it is 'unfair', 'rigged', etc. The fact that nobody can prove their claim serves as a point of important evidence. Humans want fast money and will go great lenghths to delude each other for it... I mean alot of effort... yet, here is an immensly easy million waiting for someone whom can prove their fantastic claim. In other words, if its easier to delude others for money than prove a claim then the claim is false by the sheer nature of human psychology.

I do have one point of contention with Randi however. I get the impression that he still thinks that human fantasy might be real and that is his underlying motivation for his challenge. In other words, its like he wasted 30 years of search time and the only thing he learned was how to stop searching and bring the 'phenomena' to him... rather than the glaringly obvious that he can't find what he's looking for because its not there.

Regardless of his motivation however, the challenge has the same result. It removes credibility and power from the delusional and promotes truth as a desireable value.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Crunchy,
What is absolutely amazing to me is that you keep presenting this article as if it shows that the Ganzfelds were non-reproducible when the authors of the study present it as the opposite: "Although this project did not provide a straightforward replication of the PRL findings, several aspects of the data conform to findings from other studies and provide important indicators as to the many sources of variance that must be accounted for in the continuing quest to bring a higher level of reliability to ESP research."

What were the results of all the ganzfeld sessions? What were the results of all the sessions in that article? Are both results statistically signficant? Are both results the same? Stop relying on other people's conclusions, look at the data, and think.

Now you're going to try some kind of odd logical contortion that doesn't even make sense. If the positive Ganzfeld results don't provide proof of telepathy then why have you been fighting tooth and nail against them?

Um... because the data collection process is not trustworthy.

You have just shown that you will never accept any evidence? It would actually be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.

?. I seem to recall saying that there appears to be a 'what' for emotionally similar people. That's evidence for emotionally similar people being able to achieve statistically significant (but very poor otherwise) results. I disagree with you that the evidence supports real-time human brain-to-brain information exhange.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

I can't for the life of me wrap my head around why you keep posting articles that actually argue against your case. It's hilarious. The actual point of that paragraph is that the NAS report is biased and unreliable.

Heliocentric wanted to know where the quote came from so I showed him. It doesn't hurt my 'case' that the U.S. National Academy of Sciences really issued that quote. It doesn't hurt my case that it was criticized because it lacked 'parapsychologist' input. It doesn't hurt my case that the Office of Technology Assessment thought parapsychologists were real scientists and their input should be required for a fair assessment.

You are way to fixated on other peoples conclusions and keep missing the data points as a result. In this case in particular you completely missed that the link was made to show Heliocentric who issued the quote... which was the datapoint.

 

[grover]

What were the results of all the ganzfeld sessions? What were the results of all the sessions in that article? Are both results statistically signficant? Are both results the same? Stop relying on other people's conclusions, look at the data, and think.

Crunchy,
You the first article you posted had NO data. The second article you posted you were trying to use it as saying that it the Ganzfelds couldnt be replicated and they were saying it partially replicated it, which is true. So, you have yet to find any artilce that actually falsifies the Ganzfelds.

Um... because the data collection process is not trustworthy.

We know you think that. But, you have yet to demonstrate that it is untrustworthy.

?. I seem to recall saying that there appears to be a 'what' for emotionally similar people. That's evidence for emotionally similar people being able to achieve statistically significant (but very poor otherwise) results. I disagree with you that the evidence supports real-time human brain-to-brain information exhange.

Thats exactly what it shows.

 

[grover]

Heliocentric wanted to know where the quote came from so I showed him. It doesn't hurt my 'case' that the U.S. National Academy of Sciences really issued that quote. It doesn't hurt my case that it was criticized because it lacked 'parapsychologist' input.

It was citicized because it was biased and not objective.

It doesn't hurt my case that the Office of Technology Assessment thought parapsychologists were real scientists and their input should be required for a fair assessment.

Parapsychologists are real scientists.

You are way to fixated on other peoples conclusions and keep missing the data points as a result.

You have yet to post any data that disproves the Ganzfelds. The only articles you have posted both state that the Ganzfelds were tightly controlled scientific experiments.

In this case in particular you completely missed that the link was made to show Heliocentric who issued the quote... which was the datapoint.

Yes, but you comletely missed that the point of the article you posted was to show that the conclusions couldn't be trusted. Get it? You can't even post articles that agree with you. It's pathetic.

 

[heliocentric]

Well, in retrospect, maybe magic wasn't the best word. Delusion is much better. It's not a matter of 'feeling' that all psychics are frauds. It's knowing all psychics are frauds.

You dont know psychics are all frauds though this is the point; you know of - id say at a guess no more than 10 psychics that have been debunked and youre using that knowledge to deduct that all psychics therefore must be frauds also.
I really think youd gain alot by doing a short course in philosophy - i think youd get where im comming from here really easily if you did.
As it is i think youre only ever going to see me as some sort of champion of weird stuff trying to turn you onto superstition and irrationality, which is probably why this conversation's run its course.

All ive been deconstructing from the begining hasnt really been anything to do with psychics atall, what ive been picking apart and discussing with you is your Epistemology (ways of knowing).
Thats my main interest.

I think my position on QM is misunderstood. I think it offers many possibilities for communication, relationships, etc. I have no doubt that we'll be able to take advantage of the knowledge. Maybe we'll make 'psi' technology. What I don't think QM does is make all the existing claims of psi by humans a possibility of actually being true.

Id say if we have fundamental evidence that seperated physical systems can know/have information pertaining to the other without any apparent physical link between them, then it kind of does.
Since that has commonly been the basis of psi not being prone to being taken seriously 'woah what, you cant communicate information, without a physical medium!'
Of course we now know this is complete bunk - you can.
So we can definitely argue over the existance of psi, but you cant really argue of it being unfeasble, theres nothing mechanically that should make it impossible, or outside the realms of possiblity.

The only impressive result of delusions such as psi is that people are so susceptable to them. The impressive results of people like Sally Morgan are no different than the impressive results of people like David Copperfield.
The only difference between the two is that Sally claims what she is doing is 'real' while David claims that what he is doing is 'illusion'.

The whole problem is you cant show that Sally Morgan *is* an illusionist because you cant show how (or even if) she is creating illusions.
The comparison falls apart almost immediately because only one of these people (mr. copperfield) can be shown to meet the criteria of 'illusionist'.

I know youre hedging your bets based on past debunking that she probably is a fraud, but thats not the same as knowing - ask around in the philosophy forums if you want that confirmed. They'll tell you the exact same thing i have.

The point is I am good at asking the question 'Is this real?', knowning when to ask it, and applying the knowledge to future events. Now here is some interesting wisdom that comes out of it, if you have any doubt about an experience... any whatsoever and you even think 'Is this real?' for a brief moment then chances are immensly high that its not. I suspect this is might partially be why you don't accept 'psi' as truth based on your personal experience (which has the greatest influence for you). That nagging little doubt that something doesn't quite add up, that the cigar was not just a cigar, that the self-evidency might be illusion.

Sure, i have huge nagging doubts about psi, but then i have nagging doubts about everything. For me its about constantly upheaving my assumptions so i dont get complacent.
It is very very easy to sort of build a wall around yourself that neatly protects everything you believe, im certainly prone to doing it - i think everyone is.
So i guess what i try to do is follow every thread of logic for every bias i have so i can see how far down it actually goes.
Its quite suprising really, some of the time you follow a bias so far back to its original conception - and you often find it was never based on anything atall!

Your computer either exists or it does not exist... completely outside of human interpretation. That is black and white. Putting human observation into the mix, it's presence is self-evident for you. It's effects are self-evident for me. No degree of certainty is required... it exists.

Sure, but evidence doesnt work that way - well it does in so much as we can both agree that the concept of evidence exists and we can agree apon its value.
But evidence rarely if ever gives you black and white proofs - again ask in any of the science forums and im sure many many people will confirm this.

Evidence simply gives you degrees of probablity,
I know i know, it isnt nice living with a bunch of probablities in your head as opposed to hard truths and un-truths, but thats really what you have to train yourself to do if youre commited and passionate about science and empiricsm in general.
Thats litterally all im saying here, in this entire thread, nothing more nothing less.

So the point of this exercise is to show that something either exists or does not. There is no middle ground. If that something or its effects shows up indirectly as part of something that exists but its presence or effect cannot be directly observed yet then we have a degree of certainty that we work with. It doesn't alter whether that something exists or not... that is still binary... only two possible outcomes.

Well youre right i think in as much as certainty definitely comes into a different realm when we're dealing with the purely physical. Relationships between subjective and objective system/states however are much more difficult to define, and useally rely on pooled statistics to gauge their existance on a gradient (not binary).
In terms of the purely physical (no complex subjective/objective interaction) what you can certainly know is that something exists.
Although even that is on shaky ground when we try to talk about those things in terms of absolute knowledge.
For instance our idea of what an atom is may grow in such complexity in the future than the old concept of what an atom is might have to be thrown out altogether.
Using that hypothetical - yes we knew that something was 'there' and existed, but our understanding of it was deeply flawed - we did not have absolute knowledge of it, just absolute knowledge of what we thought existed.

Regardless of his motivation however, the challenge has the same result. It removes credibility and power from the delusional and promotes truth as a desireable value.

I think we're just gonna have to agree to disagree on that one then - i believe it debases the entire scientifc method.

In any case i think i worked out or fundamental difference - you think in binary and i think along a gradient, i reacon that's what we were arguing over all along.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

You dont know psychics are all frauds though this is the point; you know of - id say at a guess no more than 10 psychics that have been debunked and youre using that knowledge to deduct that all psychics therefore must be frauds also.
I really think youd gain alot by doing a short course in philosophy - i think youd get where im comming from here really easily if you did.
As it is i think youre only ever going to see me as some sort of champion of weird stuff trying to turn you onto superstition and irrationality, which is probably why this conversation's run its course

.

I dont value philosophy very much and I do understand your positions plus where you are coming from. I just disagree with you in many ways . Think about psychics this way. What is the ratio of successful debunking attempts vs. unsuccessful ones? What is the ratio of debunked psychics amongst the psychic claimer population? How do these ratios campare with claimers of phenomena with real supportive evidence? Finding 10 frauds in this type of envirnment is immensly signficant. Factor in the knowns and you really do have a solid proof against psi. I really do know that human claims of 'psi' are false because of this. Remember we're dealing with specific human claims of truth about human abilities.

All ive been deconstructing from the begining hasnt really been anything to do with psychics atall, what ive been picking apart and discussing with you is your Epistemology (ways of knowing).
Thats my main interest.

An therein lies the value of sub-forums like this. You can examine many aspects of human psychology and thought process.

Id say if we have fundamental evidence that seperated physical systems can know/have information pertaining to the other without any apparent physical link between them, then it kind of does.

IMO, its a leap of faith to say entanglement makes it a possibility that humans right now communicate via entagled thought processes. It might make technology that could do that a possibility for the future.

Since that has commonly been the basis of psi not being prone to being taken seriously 'woah what, you cant communicate information, without a physical medium!'

So really until you told me that earlier, I had never heard that argument before (I probably just dont travel in skeptic circles enough). I think what really matters is evidence. What reality says is true is true no matter how bizarre or weird it is. Real self-evident psi phenomena simply doesn't appear to exist.

Of course we now know this is complete bunk - you can.
So we can definitely argue over the existance of psi, but you cant really argue of it being unfeasble, theres nothing mechanically that should make it impossible, or outside the realms of possiblity.

If we're talking about generic psi (outside of specific human claims) then right you are. If we're talking about specific human claims then yes it becomes unfeasable as we know that humans can't do that.

The whole problem is you cant show that Sally Morgan *is* an illusionist because you cant show how (or even if) she is creating illusions.
The comparison falls apart almost immediately because only one of these people (mr. copperfield) can be shown to meet the criteria of 'illusionist'.

If I did, then the response would be 'ok Sally's a Fraud... but what about Suzy?'. What you can do is learn from previous 'debunkings'. Take Silvia Brown for example. She's been debunked through and through. How do her behaviors relate to Sally's? How do her inactions relate? How do her values relate? How does her 'show' relate with a Copperfield show? Repeat the process with any debunked psi claimer and you can see the pattern... and its very different from someone issuing a genuine claim.

I know youre hedging your bets based on past debunking that she probably is a fraud, but thats not the same as knowing - ask around in the philosophy forums if you want that confirmed. They'll tell you the exact same thing i have.

I know, and I think its a flaw because it effectively means that all psi claimers have to be debunked to prove psi claimers are all frauds... which is not possible because there will always be new psi claimers. It effectively protects the claim from being not true... which is the flaw.

Sure, i have huge nagging doubts about psi, but then i have nagging doubts about everything. For me its about constantly upheaving my assumptions so i dont get complacent.

Sounds a bit unhealthy IMO.

It is very very easy to sort of build a wall around yourself that neatly protects everything you believe, im certainly prone to doing it - i think everyone is.
So i guess what i try to do is follow every thread of logic for every bias i have so i can see how far down it actually goes.
Its quite suprising really, some of the time you follow a bias so far back to its original conception - and you often find it was never based on anything atall!

Sounds like a fun exercise. You are right that people build that wall of protection (I think philosophy itself might do that to some extent). Even in my positive claim of human claims of psi are all false, I still keep the door open for a real proof... just in the offchance that a real phenomena emerged later in my lifetime that doesn't exist now.

Sure, but evidence doesnt work that way - well it does in so much as we can both agree that the concept of evidence exists and we can agree apon its value.
But evidence rarely if ever gives you black and white proofs - again ask in any of the science forums and im sure many many people will confirm this.

I would agree as well and in most (if not all) of those situations, the gradient is in regards to the certainty of a 'how'. We're talking about existence which is very different. It is the 'what' and can only have a binary outcome. Gradients do come into play with 'whats' when their presence or effects cannot be seen but real surrounding presences and effects predict that they are there. The Higgs Boson example is a good exemplification of this. Psi, simply does not qualify for a gradient in the 'what' category and has no presence or effect for a binary outcome. It just is not there.

Evidence simply gives you degrees of probablity,
I know i know, it isnt nice living with a bunch of probablities in your head as opposed to hard truths and un-truths, but thats really what you have to train yourself to do if youre commited and passionate about science and empiricsm in general.
Thats litterally all im saying here, in this entire thread, nothing more nothing less. ; )

In general I agree. The chair you are sitting in right now... that's a 'what' whose existence has a binary outcome. There is no probability. It exists. That's how existence works. The gradient only plays a role when something in the surrounding environment says it exists but that something cannot be seen in terms of presence or effect.

Well youre right i think in as much as certainty definitely comes into a different realm when we're dealing with the purely physical. Relationships between subjective and objective system/states however are much more difficult to define, and useally rely on pooled statistics to gauge their existance on a gradient (not binary).

This is another area where we differ. I think the subjective is very physical... just damn complicated. Regardless, yes pooled statistics are often used in such situations. If the data collection process can be trusted then at best you are left with a correlation. That's a different kind of 'what'. It typically doesn't support a specific hypothesis. All it does is say something is statistically there, but its anybody's guess what that is or how that works. In other words correlation does not establish the presence of a specific causality / process.

In terms of the purely physical (no complex subjective/objective interaction) what you can certainly know is that something exists.
Although even that is on shaky ground when we try to talk about those things in terms of absolute knowledge.
For instance our idea of what an atom is may grow in such complexity in the future than the old concept of what an atom is might have to be thrown out altogether.
Using that hypothetical - yes we knew that something was 'there' and existed, but our understanding of it was deeply flawed - we did not have absolute knowledge of it, just absolute knowledge of what we thought existed.

There is a slight flaw in this example. An atom was at one time on a gradient becuase nobody had seen a direct instance or effect of it. Now with electron microsopes and other devices we can see atoms, quarks, protons, gluons, etc. So while our knowledge how how atoms work may change, we can see their presence and effects directly.

I think we're just gonna have to agree to disagree on that one then - i believe it debases the entire scientifc method.

In any case i think i worked out or fundamental difference - you think in binary and i think along a gradient, i reacon that's what we were arguing over all along.

I tend to use both : ). Try the binary sometime. Works great for existence.

 

[grover]

There is a slight flaw in this example. An atom was at one time on a gradient becuase nobody had seen a direct instance or effect of it. Now with electron microsopes and other devices we can see atoms, quarks, protons, gluons, etc. So while our knowledge how how atoms work may change, we can see their presence and effects directly.

As Heisenberg said "atoms are not things."

I tend to use both : ). Try the binary sometime. Works great for existence.

You're being simplitstic. When talking about quantum phenomenon it isn't corret to say either that it exists or doesn't but rather that things are potentials.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

As Heisenberg said "atoms are not things."

In the picture cluster of this link:

http://www.aip.org/pt/feb00/scantun.htm

You can find a tunneling microscope image of a single atom. Whether you want to classify it as a 'thing' or a 'tendency' is up to you. What this means is that regardless of how you conceptually classify it, you cannot protect it from visibility and of course validation of its existence.

You're being simplitstic. When talking about quantum phenomenon it isn't corret to say either that it exists or doesn't but rather that things are potentials.

Do you exist? Oh wait, you are a collection of quantum phenomena. It isn't correct to say that you exist or dont. Anything to protect psi right?

 

[grover]

In the picture cluster of this link:

http://www.aip.org/pt/feb00/scantun.htm

You can find a tunneling microscope image of a single atom. Whether you want to classify it as a 'thing' or a 'tendency' is up to you. What this means is that regardless of how you conceptually classify it, you cannot protect it from visibility and of course validation of its existence.

Well, I would say Heisenberg would diagree with you.

Do you exist? Oh wait, you are a collection of quantum phenomena. It isn't correct to say that you exist or dont. Anything to protect psi right?

The point is that you try and make it sound as if all phenomenon are just so black and white. It plain and simply isn't true. It's funny that you think I have some kind of deep existential need to believe in psi. I think you have a deep existential need for certainty. I think the possibility of psi scares you. I think it is precisely the indeterminacy/uncertainty of psi that scares you.

 

[heliocentric]

.
Think about psychics this way. What is the ratio of successful debunking attempts vs. unsuccessful ones? What is the ratio of debunked psychics amongst the psychic claimer population?

I dont know and id suspect neither do you.
This is what i mean about building castles in the sky built on pure assumption.

Finding 10 frauds in this type of envirnment is immensly signficant. Factor in the knowns and you really do have a solid proof against psi. I really do know that human claims of 'psi' are false because of this.

Given this is the logic by which you know psi claims are false - you seem to be saying it would only take 10 instances (experiments) of completely null data for any sort of phenomena to be proven false.
The problem is - plenty of things that we now accept as being 'true' i would garantee at some point in the past would have been experimentally nullified or simply non-verified far far in excess of 10 instances.

So the problem with saying things are absolutely false after a certain number of experiments (in this case 10) is that we know from experience that verification can actually come well after this number of experiments have come up short (or proved inconclusive).
Id aso, argue (in a round about way) that its because of this experimental learning-curve that scientists almost never talk about things in terms of absolutes. Theyre not being obtuse for the sake of it, its just an acknowledgement of the circular nature of empirical proofs.

IMO, its a leap of faith to say entanglement makes it a possibility that humans right now communicate via entagled thought processes. It might make technology that could do that a possibility for the future.

Its most definitely a leap of faith, but thats how science works - you string together these little leaps of faiths and then see(via empiricsm) what comes of them.

If we're talking about specific human claims then yes it becomes unfeasable as we know that humans can't do that.

Mechanically speaking - no we dont.

Sounds a bit unhealthy IMO.

In some ways it is, people who exist within very strict/concrete belief structures do tend to live alot longer, i'll admit.
It just depends on what youre after in life i suppose, and what youre prepared to sacrifice in its place.

I would agree as well and in most (if not all) of those situations, the gradient is in regards to the certainty of a 'how'. We're talking about existence which is very different. It is the 'what' and can only have a binary outcome.

There's alot of 'what's' that exist on a gradient too - the existance of gravity, evolution, FDA drug trails etc.
All these areas of science use data pooled to deduce how likely or unlikely something is to either be what we think it is, or work how we think it does.
The key thing with all those things ive listed above of course if that theyre not distinct objects located somewhere in immediate space, much the same as psi they dont have a 'reach out and grab' nature to them, so we have to pool data to see if we can infer their existance.
I think thats why youre frequently running into problems with psi - youre trying to reduce it down to things you can hold in your hand. But it really doesnt work like that.
In fact the majority of modern science seems to be increasingly interacting with concepts and ideas that arnt spacially located anywhere atall.


Heres a dawkins quote that highlights what im trying to say far more eloquently...

'...We see the world in terms of 'things' because our genes are telling us to grab resources. But if we take a step back and view the universe in terms of geological and cosmic timescales, it is apparent that there are no inherently existent things, only processes of continual change. All phenomena are dependently-related and empty of any defining essence....Individuals, buildings, artifacts, species, continents, planets and stars are transient phenomena caused by the temporary coming together of parts....'

 

[shaman_]

Oh it definitely isnt reliable as a be-all-end-all proof or for than matter non-proof for psi, my point originally if you remember was to show that psi has been utilised with success - since that was crunchy's original assertion - that psi has never been utilised by anyone for anything.

Nope! all we can do is see that they had a perceived success rate high enough to for police depts to keep using them.
Although again, the original point in this isntance isnt to prove psi outright, simply to show its utility.

Ok so we don’t know if this success actually had anything to do with psi. Does that mean that psi is being utilized?

From what ive read a new dept took control of the program and quality of the people they brought in sharply dropped from there.
Prior to that - again you have statistically significant results, certainly enough to keep the program going for well over a decade.

Yes apparently there were some significant results but even Jessica Utts agreed that the testing was flawed. Perhaps here we have a fine example of how poor test methodology can produce encouraging results. In the end it was closed down because it wasn't working.

I believe that most of the early Stargate work was done by Targ and Puthoff. I find it hard to take these two seriously after they tested Geller and declared him a powerful psychic.

I seem to remember Homo floresiensis being lumped in with a vauge debunking on archeological anomalies at one point - of course the idea of a sub-species of dwarf like humans is now completely accepted by the scientific community.

Well I don’t recall the article but I know you wouldn’t just make stuff up so I will take your word for it.

Its not so much that im concerned about what they are critical about, its what they arnt critical about that bothers me.
Anyone can debunk things like creationism or spoon-bending, the problem is they set themselves either easy targets or things that simply dont have masses of supportive evidence

But millions of people still believe in these ideas regardless of the lack of evidence. That is the problem. That is why they are trying to educate. So if they are ‘easy targets’ then that is irrelevant.

(for one reason or another) which makes it very easy to rustle up an article with abit of selective wording and make it appear as no evidence ever existed in the first place.
Even if someone does call them out on being biased and not being genuinely critical they can always simply say that youre an odd-ball who feels threatened that his or her pet theory is being bashed (much as youre trying to do now).

I don’t think you are an odd-ball but you are not putting forward any real problems with the site. If your main criticism is that they are only skeptical of the more popular paranormal ideas then that is a pretty weak complaint. The sub title is “A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions”. The articles there are not any less valid because they don’t discuss astronomy.

Generally i think it is, i just dont really understand why you get all reactionary whenever i voice concerns about people like Randi or Skepdic.

Well I am argumentative... Also it appears to me that you are a very rational person except when discussing these two subjects.

Im sure i went over this with you in the Randi thread already, unless im thinking of someone else, source - Lynn McTaggart - the field (she interviews some people whove worked with Randi in the past in a section of the book).

I couldn’t find any comments on Randi by her. I couldn’t find anything on Randi performing homeopathy experiments. I know he has observed some. I will look out for the book though.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Well, I would say Heisenberg would diagree with you.

It's too bad he's not here to take a look at the image.

The point is that you try and make it sound as if all phenomenon are just so black and white. It plain and simply isn't true. It's funny that you think I have some kind of deep existential need to believe in psi. I think you have a deep existential need for certainty. I think the possibility of psi scares you. I think it is precisely the indeterminacy/uncertainty of psi that scares you.

Well, whether a phenomena exists or not is black and white. Only two outcomes are possible. Yes or no. If there is no direct measurement of the phenomena or its effects then we're on a gradient should surrounding phenomena predict its existence.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

I dont know and id suspect neither do you.
This is what i mean about building castles in the sky built on pure assumption.

Why don't you know? Why aren't you asking those questions?

Given this is the logic by which you know psi claims are false - you seem to be saying it would only take 10 instances (experiments) of completely null data for any sort of phenomena to be proven false.
The problem is - plenty of things that we now accept as being 'true' i would garantee at some point in the past would have been experimentally nullified or simply non-verified far far in excess of 10 instances.

So the problem with saying things are absolutely false after a certain number of experiments (in this case 10) is that we know from experience that verification can actually come well after this number of experiments have come up short (or proved inconclusive).
Id aso, argue (in a round about way) that its because of this experimental learning-curve that scientists almost never talk about things in terms of absolutes. Theyre not being obtuse for the sake of it, its just an acknowledgement of the circular nature of empirical proofs.

The knowns are not being taken into account again nor the fact that these claims are made by people about their 'abilities'. Do you know of any human ability which fails most of the time and the praticioner of the ability does not know if he succeeded or not? You seem like a logical person and for whatever reason appear to not be able to hold all the variables together.

Its most definitely a leap of faith, but thats how science works - you string together these little leaps of faiths and then see(via empiricsm) what comes of them.

It's a silly leap. I do agree that following the 'thought' can result in a quicker discovery in some cases... but to leap into a zone where all evidence points to delusion is just silly.

Mechanically speaking - no we dont.

Evidentually speaking, we do.

In some ways it is, people who exist within very strict/concrete belief structures do tend to live alot longer, i'll admit.
It just depends on what youre after in life i suppose, and what youre prepared to sacrifice in its place.

It might be worth exploring alternatives that can yield both health and truth.

There's alot of 'what's' that exist on a gradient too - the existance of gravity, evolution, FDA drug trails etc.
All these areas of science use data pooled to deduce how likely or unlikely something is to either be what we think it is, or work how we think it does.
The key thing with all those things ive listed above of course if that theyre not distinct objects located somewhere in immediate space, much the same as psi they dont have a 'reach out and grab' nature to them, so we have to pool data to see if we can infer their existance.
I think thats why youre frequently running into problems with psi - youre trying to reduce it down to things you can hold in your hand. But it really doesnt work like that.
In fact the majority of modern science seems to be increasingly interacting with concepts and ideas that arnt spacially located anywhere atall.

I don't think that gravity and adaptation are on a gradient for their existence. How they work certainly is. FDA drug trials are also quite self evident in their existence and how they work is fairly well documented... i.e. I am not sure the how is on a gradient.

Well yes, I am absolutely trying to reduce psi to something self-evident. The claims of psi are not of strange probability wave decoherence. They are claims of human abilities. Reading minds, moving objects with the mind, seeing across distances of space and time using the mind... etc.

I don't know how you can say "it doesn't work like that" for psi. You would have to have intimate knowledge of the phenomena to make such an assertion... and you can't have intimate knowledge of a phenomena that is not there.

Heres a dawkins quote that highlights what im trying to say far more eloquently...

I love the quote and its nothing new. Remove 10 seconds of transient state from the universe. In that little nook of state we call 'Earth' with those little transient life forms we call 'humans' there are little changing claims of the fantastic. Those claims have no corresponding transient state. They are disconnected from the overall changes... they are un-true.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

It was citicized because it was biased and not objective.

Naturally the tangible change of including parapsychologist removes all bias.

Parapsychologists are real scientists.

Don't they by defintion search for the existence of the paranormal where science is the study of the natural world?

You have yet to post any data that disproves the Ganzfelds. The only articles you have posted both state that the Ganzfelds were tightly controlled scientific experiments.

25.x% vs. 34.x% means the results could not be replicated.

Yes, but you comletely missed that the point of the article you posted was to show that the conclusions couldn't be trusted. Get it? You can't even post articles that agree with you. It's pathetic.

um... no... the article posted there was to show that other delusions have undergone serious research. It was a response to your defensive feedback that psi is not in the same bucket as vampires, werewolves, ghosts, demons, etc.

 

[grover]

Naturally the tangible change of including parapsychologist removes all bias.

No, Crunchy. The point is is that if you are going to write an objective report you don't bring in one person that has in the past shown them to be decidelt against the phenomenon in question. It's funny how williing you are to throw out objectivity whenever it agrees with you.
[/QUOTE]
Don't they by defintion search for the existence of the paranormal where science is the study of the natural world?[/QUOTE]
No, they use the scientific method to investigate the hypothesis of psi. Journals that publish psi studies accept both pro and con studies.

25.x% vs. 34.x% means the results could not be replicated.

Yes, but your once again cutting out the part of the experminet that did duplicate the study (the percentage was 37% I think). Which is precisely why the authors of the study present as partially duplicate the Ganzfelds and not, as you would have it, as falsifying the Ganzfelds.

um... no... the article posted there was to show that other delusions have undergone serious research. It was a response to your defensive feedback that psi is not in the same bucket as vampires, werewolves, ghosts, demons, etc.

No, the point of the under disscussion here was "The report concluded that parapsychology needs 'a fairer hearing across a broader spectrum of the scientific community, so that emotionality does not impede objective assessment of experimental results" (Office of Technology Assessment, 1989)." Is your memory fucked-up? Or are you being intellectually dishonest again?

(And in regards to the other issue you have yet to show there has ever been scientifc evidence for vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and demons.)

 

[heliocentric]

Why don't you know? Why aren't you asking those questions?

Because it would take forever.

The knowns are not being taken into account again nor the fact that these claims are made by people about their 'abilities'. Do you know of any human ability which fails most of the time and the praticioner of the ability does not know if he succeeded or not? You seem like a logical person and for whatever reason appear to not be able to hold all the variables together.

Why does an ability or phenomena have to already exist within the same parameters for it to true?
Its like youre saying its impossible for processes or things to have completely
independant/distinct behaviours that arnt self-similar to anything that already exists.

It's a silly leap. I do agree that following the 'thought' can result in a quicker discovery in some cases... but to leap into a zone where all evidence points to delusion is just silly.

Yeah it would be, but it doesnt. Im still not sure you understand that statistically signifcant data isnt the same as non-significant data.

I don't think that gravity and adaptation are on a gradient for their existence. How they work certainly is.

Well again all it comes back to is we can only say with absolute certainty that something exists.
You cant ever say that gravity (as we believe it to be) exists, GR/SR has been proven experimentally to the degree of something like 99.2% i believe.

So we still cant say what we know or believe to be gravity, is what it is.

To use the same logic in this instance, we can both say with complete certainty that that some sort of information transfer is taking place with people like Sally Morgan
What we're arguing over (on a gradient of probablity) is that they work outside of classic/known communication methods.

I don't know how you can say "it doesn't work like that" for psi. You would have to have intimate knowledge of the phenomena to make such an assertion... and you can't have intimate knowledge of a phenomena that is not there.

I have to have intimate knowledge of psi to know that you cant 'hold it in your hand'?

I love the quote and its nothing new. Remove 10 seconds of transient state from the universe. In that little nook of state we call 'Earth' with those little transient life forms we call 'humans' there are little changing claims of the fantastic. Those claims have no corresponding transient state. They are disconnected from the overall changes... they are un-true.

Well Dawkins with would at least be pround of your evangelical absolutism, even if your logic is flawd.