throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (09/24/86)
> davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) > Helmut claimed to find out years ago that some people could actually mias so- > called random event generators. He also discovered (and this is VERY hard to > believe) that they could even bias the REG *even if the sampled REG had > performed it's run in the past*! Ok. So. We have here an experiment that shows that either 1) the experimenter is mistaken or decitful or 2) causality is violated and "effect" can preceed "cause" Gee. Real tough choice. I'll have to think about this real hard. Ok. I've thought about it. I'm sorry folks. I'll buy unknown senses. I'll buy undiscovered forms of radiation. I'll even buy Peter Pan and fairy dust. But this is putting a little strain on my credulity. I regard causality as pretty basic, and while I suppose some things could shake my "faith" in it, this ain't one of 'em. The level of my metaphysics that assumes forward causality is pretty deep, and not easily undermined. [first-person-style description of the "experimental procedures"] > Put them away in the safest place you know. Now I will go > to my subjects and have them concentrate on copies of these tapes at their > leisure. When they are done I will come back to you and you listen to your > tapes and count the ones/zeroes yourself on your tape recorder and tell me > what you find." I think I'll put mine in a hermetically sealed mayonaise jar on Funk and Wagnall's front porch. Pa-dum-pum. But seriously folks... isn't anybody just an EEEEEnsy bit skeptical? Doesn't this hoo-hah remind you just a LIIIIIItle bit of a mentalist stage act? I'll readily admit that I have no direct knowlege to substantiate my suppositions, but somehow I really don't feel guilty at all about failing to rush out and investigate this great "new" discovery, despite whatever Susan Blackmore has to say on the subject, which I very much doubt is worth ten dollars however witty even if it would go to CSICOP. > The experiment is currently being repeated but I have no futher details. I > will report the results when I come across them. In all seriousness, why didn't you just wait until there *were* more results before posting? Why do I get the feeling that this is a case of tooting the horn and banging the drum early when the information is scarce and of low quality, and that we will hear dead silence later when this is shown to be yet another glitch/fraud/mistake/whatever? Or better yet, why not just let all the enlightened and openminded folks in mail.psi know about it and leave us poor dull closeminded reactionary authoritarian skeptics alone in PEACE? Please? -- "You're overreacting again, Throop." "I am?" "You are." "Oh. <faces audience> 'Never Mind!'" -- Wayne Throop <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw