walton%deimos@cit-hamlet.arpa (06/13/85)
We seem to have a real polemic war going on here. We have all heard of friends' paranormal experiences--sensing someone was about to die or had just died seems to be the most common such experience. I don't know enough of the facts about the Geller case to argue it one way or the other, but I have read some of the Skeptical Inquirer and the books which it publishes. I would like to inject some philosophy into the debate. One thing seems clear--if paranormal powers exist, they require new physics. Of the three currently known fundamental forces, namely gravitation, the electro-weak force, and the strong nuclear force, the brain produces only an amount of electromagnetic force which is too small to affect the outside world (except for EEG machines, which have very sensitive detectors). I submit that the only rational criterion for adding a new "psychic" force to these three is an experiment which indisputably shows the existence of paranormal powers which is regularly reproducible, no matter who does the experiment. No such experiment exists. Everyone who has tried to reproduce the results of the Targ and Puthoff remote viewing experiments, for example, has failed. In his introduction to a book criticizing these experiments, Martin Gardner tells the story of a physicist who went to his deathbed believing that he had measured an ether drift, and had thus disproven special relativity. As he was the only person in the world who could reproduce this result, it seems justifiable to reject them as the product of some unknown prejudice. I'm sure that no one meant to call your intelligence into question. I admit to being impressed by the number of magicians who saw Geller do what you claim to have seen him do. However, I think that physicists are justified in a rational skepticism: namely, that until an experiment which consistently and reproducibly shows that paranormal powers do exist can be produced, these powers most likely do not exist. We don't reject new phenomena out of hand: we all believe that ball lightning occurs, for example, because it is well verified observationally, even though it is both unexplained and not reproducible in the laboratory. Stephen R. Walton USmail: Solar Astronomy 264-33 Caltech Pasadena, CA 91106 ARPAnet:walton%deimos@cit-hamlet BITNET: swalton@caltech UUCP: ...!lbl-csam!walton%deimos@cit-hamlet.arpa
dsi@unccvax.UUCP (Dataspan Inc) (06/17/85)
Actually, most paranormal experiences (again, including the crapola
on the oft-cited PBS dreck 'Nova') can be explained legitimately by
radical behaviourism. Without getting into some really nit-picky technical
arguments, one can arrive at a behavioural "scenario" for virtually any
of these observed pheonomena (such as 'pre'cognition) which does not
require that one throw out 'repeatability' and all that other good old time
Physics stuff...
Does anyone know the structure of one of those devices used to 'prove'
paranormal/PK existence? It was a series of lamps connected in an approximately
circular shape, and an electronic circuit that would presumably step a ring
counter "up" or "down" (or a shift register, containing a single '1' or '0'),
driven by a 'random' source. When left alone, the next state (would the light
clockwise or counter clock wise to the present light be the next one illumin-
ated) had a 'random' probability, but under the influence of some observers,
it has been 'shown' that they can 'will' the shift register to shift right
or shift left for a large number of trials.
dya
.cjh@petsd.UUCP (Chris Henrich) (06/18/85)
[] In a discussion of Uri Geller, Stephen R. Walton writes: > In his >introduction to a book criticizing these experiments, Martin Gardner >tells the story of a physicist who went to his deathbed believing >that he had measured an ether drift, and had thus disproven special >relativity. As he was the only person in the world who could >reproduce this result, it seems justifiable to reject them as the >product of some unknown prejudice. I think the cause is known (with a moderately high probability). If this is the case I remember being told of, his laboratory was in Colorado, where the temperature change between day and night can be great. The building was expanding in the sunlight and contracting in the dark, and this change in the dimensions and position of his equipment was enough to account for the daily variation that he interpreted as "ether drift." Regards, Chris -- Full-Name: Christopher J. Henrich UUCP: ..!(cornell | ariel | ukc | houxz)!vax135!petsd!cjh US Mail: MS 313; Perkin-Elmer; 106 Apple St; Tinton Falls, NJ 07724 Phone: (201) 758-7288
davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) (06/20/85)
In article <216@unccvax.UUCP> dsi@unccvax.UUCP writes: > > Does anyone know the structure of one of those devices used to 'prove' >paranormal/PK existence? ... > There are two basic designs both which should produce pure random events. The first is based upon a noise diode triggering a free running counter. By taking samples at "large" intervals of a millisecond one can obtain a very large number of random yes/no responses. One guy here at Motorola built just such a device for a series of parapsychological experiments here in Austin. Letting the device run for several days proved that it was indeed producing random values from 0 to 9 (it was rigged up to a decade counter) over any interval approaching a second or longer. I was in the first dry-run experiment and managed to bias it in an unusal way - it would come up with a statistically significant higher count of even numbers than odd. Interesting in that I "like" even numbers somehow over odd ones. The second design is based on detecting quantum events such as radioactive decay. These are usually built by companies which specialize in producing random event devices for scientific uses. The events are recorded such that they represent a 0 or 1 indication. Experiments show that almost anyone can bias these devices (i.e. no super psychic needed) and that animals also cause biases. One physicist Helmut Schmidt in San Antonio has done experiments for years using the decay method for the most part. I believe it was he who had a "random machine" company fly their engineers in when he reported he could bias it quite easily. They supposedly left stumped. (I presume it would not be good business for them to broadcast the incident :-) .) I have not kept up with all of this for several years, but back when I was involved there seemed to be several good studies done with random events which indicated a high possibility of Psychokinetic effects (PK) being real. Lately experiments have entered the biological arena where supposedly every-day off the street people seem to be able to alter the mutation of E. coli bacteria. However I have not studied this carefully and don't know how reliable these studies are. They do seem to be quite reproducible though. Given the above I find it somewhat interesting that many people think there have not been reproducible experiments to indicate PSI functioning. -- Dave Trissel {ihnp4,seismo}!ut-sally!oakhill!davet
trt@rti-sel.UUCP (Tom Truscott) (06/21/85)
> ... Experiments show that almost anyone can bias these devices > (i.e. no super psychic needed) and that animals also cause biases. > ... > Given the above I find it somewhat interesting that many people think there > have not been reproducible experiments to indicate PSI functioning. The Amazing Randi has offered a $10,000 prize for anyone who can come up with any such experiment. Please take him up on it. On my desk is the "Top Secret" perpetual motion toy. Lots of fun for passers-by. If a 'PSI device' were neatly packaged it might make a bundle for the inventor. If it reproducibly demonstrated PSI it would be an incredible thing. I am sure every physics, engineering, and psychology department in the country would be willing to shell out > $100 to get one. For example, at Duke "J. B. Rhyne" University all the freshmen in psych classes have to be guinea pigs for various experiments. I am sure people would be delighted to participate in a PSI experiment that actually worked. I worked for two years at a psychophysiology lab in Duke Med Center. We had an EEG machine and a small PDP-11 with plenty of A/D and D/A. One of the principal investigators was an ESP buff who spent many an evening doing precognition and telepathy experiments. He especially liked doing FFTs on the 'evoked potentials'. Every now and then he would get very excited about a 'positive result' but later he would conclude it was not, alas, 'significant'. I concluded that people with competency in statistics tend to repress PSI ability in others, and that if only he were not such an expert the experiments would have worked and he would have gotten some nice papers out of them. Tom Truscott