I'm using the term "conventional" in the sense that the scientist typically believes he can always investigate a situation without impacting the outcome by his presence. In the truly hairy areas of fundamental physics research this becomes a mighty battle to make happen, where staggeringly expensive experiments are set up, to achieve some slight progress forward in understanding. My suggestion is the paranormal lives in a "reality" that is a slight step beyond that again ...
Frank
PS: and yet again silliness intrudes. If someone considers that there may be "something in it" then the "logical" extrapolation is that the person swallows holus bolus all the most barmy expressions of the phenomenon ...
Just to play devils advocate, it is interesting that the researchers concluded the results to be consistent with chance alone, when their sample size (ie two supposed psychics out of all possible psychics) and only 5 test subjects were all that were tested 
Somehow I don't think that they tested a statistically significant sample size
It's also not clear whether the one person that identified themself from the desciptions the phsycics did so for both or only one of the descriptions...
Tony.
Somehow I don't think that they tested a statistically significant sample size It's also not clear whether the one person that identified themself from the desciptions the phsycics did so for both or only one of the descriptions...
Tony.
your PS is not pointing out silliness. To accept, even in small part, that there is "something in it" beyond the well documented such as micro-effects and the practise of cold reading you have to accept the entire ball of wax.
You do not, in a consistent world, get to choose which bits you will apply rational thinking to and which bits you will accept as a cosmic gift of enlightenment.
You do not, in a consistent world, get to choose which bits you will apply rational thinking to and which bits you will accept as a cosmic gift of enlightenment.
No, they're still con artists. The ethics don't change because of self-deluded rationalizations. It's just easier to be a con artist after you've conned yourself.
From another view, if I were to accept that explanation, I can't then accept the "testing stress" explanation - they should be comfortable with themselves and their capabilities.
As an analogy, is medicine contaminated for having researched what witch doctors and shamans did when "magically" healing people, and realising that there were healing properties in some of the strange concoctions and plants used? Did medicine fudge it by not swallowing the "entire ball of wax"?
A study of history demonstrates over and over again that there are strange behaviours, patterns of human activity that seem to make no sense, until it's thoroughly researched and a deeply rational explanation for the origins of the bizarreness finally emerges ...
The key point is to ignore the twisted cloak of irrationality that overarches much of this activity, and consider whether there can be a kernel of "truth", whatever that be, somewhere within ...
Frank
PS: Would you have been the bold soul that proclaimed to your neighbours that they were fools, because they believed the world was flat, in those earlier times ...
Virtually all everyday psychics, not the performance variety, happily acknowledge that it's very hit and miss as to whether they'll be able to pick up something really significant. Just like a doctor will never guarantee that he can cure you every time ...
Frank
Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha!
I just read the BBC link at the start of this Thread. One of the psychic's, Patricia Putt said
( about the fact that no evidence of psychic powers were found )
that it "doesn't prove a thing"
She got that right!!
It's the 21st Century, I repeat 21st Century, there are no psychic powers, no ghosts, no telekenesis, no Gods, no afterlife. Accept it, and move on. Think of all the interesting and 'real' things that you will have the space to be able to engage in when you shed all of the mystical none sense!
I just read the BBC link at the start of this Thread. One of the psychic's, Patricia Putt said
( about the fact that no evidence of psychic powers were found )
that it "doesn't prove a thing"
She got that right!!
It's the 21st Century, I repeat 21st Century, there are no psychic powers, no ghosts, no telekenesis, no Gods, no afterlife. Accept it, and move on. Think of all the interesting and 'real' things that you will have the space to be able to engage in when you shed all of the mystical none sense!
Difference is that the researchers you identify do not start from a point of "My suggestion is the [witchdoctor heals] in a "reality" that is a slight step beyond that again ..."
Again, they are researched from the point of known rational science, not a hoodoo belief system that requires secrets and explains away inconsistent outcomes by blaming the act of measurement.
Actually the world was generally known (or understood) to be spherical for a long time before and concurrent with the minority belief in a flat earth. The flat-earthers were analogous with the fringe dwelling belief systems of today including those who believe in "paranormal" and psychic phenomena.
I would like to find whoever was your science teacher in school and beat him about the head and shoulders for filling your head with stuff like this.
I see no evidence in that report that the experimenters had such preconceived beliefs, and even if they did, in the long term, science is very good at eliminating any bias due to expectations.
No, what many of them will say it comes down the "importance" of what is being picked up, for the individual at an emotional level. Where much of the paranormal research gets it "wrong" is that the "testing" is mindnumbingly boring, excrutiatingly tedious for the participants, hundreds, thousands of instances of distinguishing or predicting some meaningless object or event from another meaningless one, so that it is statistically valid. You might as well attempt to ascertain whether listening to music is beneficial to humans, by subjecting them to hours and hours, days and days of the most mundane, repetitive note twaddling ...Is that another way of saying it's pure chance?
Frank
Meaning that?
a) A scientist is always smart enough to understand exactly what must be done so that setup of the experiment never interferes with the accuracy of the results,
or
b) A scientist always approaches every experiment completely impartially, never has preconceived ideas of what the results should be, so never uses procedures that may influence the possible outcomes to fall in a particular direction,
or
c) A scientist always has a deeper understanding of the fundamental processes that underlie some area of research, so that the experiment never confuses elements of the situation that are quite orthogonal, is always focused on, and only on, precisely the aspect that needs to be understood more exactly.
Any or all of the above are probably true, I must admit ...
One course that quite impressed me at the time was an explanation of the process of a "simple" measuring of black body radiation, I think that was the essence of it. The lectures wore on, elaborating the exquisitely complex methodology and techniques that had to be used to ensure that the result was meaningful, that the number, or numbers, derived at the end had any significance. If just one tiny detail of the experiment was flawed then the whole exercise was for nought ...
Now, I'm not quite sure why that thought came to mind ...
Frank
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That is a good point which is often overlooked. The fact that someone can come up with a plausible explanation does not prove it is the correct one, unless all other explanations have been a priori prohibited by (unstated) assumptions.fas42 said:
That could be interpreted as a religious statement and therefore against forum rules?aardvarkash10 said:
Now we get a bold assertion of atheism.jerryo said:
I firmly believe in the existence of phenomena which some might call paranormal or supernatural. All monotheists do, although they differ on the extent to which these things still happen today. I see no conflict between this and the pursuit of science; I am a physicist. Two groups can happily do science: people who don't believe in a God, and people who believe that their God won't normally fiddle with their experiments.
The apparent failure of the psychics in the experiment mentioned could arise from two things:
1. they don't have paranormal powers,
2. they do have paranormal powers but the source, whatever it is, did not want to play ball with the scientists.
I suspect explanation 1 is true in this case, but I do not discount 2 as being impossible.
The connection with audio is that explanation 2 is irrelevant there, so it must be 1. Then we find the same excuses being trotted out. I don't think even the wildest tweaker would claim that his crystals/cones/cables/whatever improve the sound by supernatural means.
I won't try the Mods patience any further!
Thanks DF96. No more religious discussion please.
ER.... if it exists then it must be natural...where does super (or beyond/more than) come in?
Regards
M. Gregg
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