Ganzfield Experiment and The Success That Won’t Go Away

[papageorge1]

I am going to argue that the existence of the so-called psychic/paranormal is essentially proven by controlled experimental testing. 

Here's an article that very well summarizes exactly what I have been thinking for many years. It's only a five minute quick read.

If that's too long here is a sample.

Imagine that you’re a scientist and you have an experiment in your field that has been replicated all over the world by over 50 scientists in a 108 different publications, comprised collectively of thousands of trials. It is so dependable that it’s often tweaked in order to understand the phenomena better.

 

Now here's another part of the article that I feel is an important insight.

It meets any sane standard of scientific evidence, and there’s the gotcha. The standard isn’t sane and indeed, never has been.

 

I hope this discussion turns into more than personal attacks on me and the author. 

Here's an intelligent topic to discuss: Do you feel many have an irrational resistance to claims of the paranormal?

[papageorge1]

13 minutes ago, papageorge1 said:

 

Here's an intelligent topic to discuss: Do you feel many have an irrational resistance to claims of the paranormal?

I'll go first. 

I do. But why do I think that?

1) some rational dislike of some religious thought, dislike of charlatans or people that have wacky beliefs have caused an over-reaction against anything outside of materialist science. That 'good science is to do away with all this silliness and superstition and make these fools look like fools'. And then when serious people present serious evidence that there is something to some of this, irrational emotional dislike ensues.

2) Enough insistence by the mainstream that none of this has scientific evidence going for it has left many with a predisposition not to believe and are emboldened the more they hear the skeptic mantras repeated. I think many of these types are not necessarily being irrational but are more underinformed and believe the well-presented misinformation by many in the establishment. 

Edited August 1, 2021 by papageorge1

[+ouija ouija]

Yes, I feel many have an irrational resistance to claims of the paranormal. I also know that psychism exists because I have experienced it many times myself. I also know that it is not something that can be produced on demand and is therefore impossible to prove. This is what has the sceptics tearing their hair out and leads to their declarations that there is no such thing.

Good Luck with your topic, Papa! 

[papageorge1]

 

“After a century of increasingly sophisticated investigations and more than a thousand controlled studies with combined odds against chance of 10 to the 104th power to 1, there is now strong evidence that psi phenomena exist. While this is an impressive statistic, all it means is that the outcomes of these experiments are definitely not due to coincidence. We’ve considered other common explanations like selective reporting and variations in experimental quality, and while those factors do moderate the overall results, there can be no little doubt that overall something interesting is going on. It seems increasingly likely that as physics continues to redefine our understanding of the fabric of reality, a theoretical outlook for a rational explanation for psi will eventually be established 

Dr. Dean Radin

[Duke Wellington]

15 minutes ago, papageorge1 said:

I'll go first. 

I do. But why do I think that?

1) some rational dislike of some religious thought, dislike of charlatans or people that have wacky beliefs have caused an over-reaction against anything outside of materialist science. That 'good science is to do away with all this silliness and superstition and make these fools look like fools'. And then when serious people present serious evidence that there is something to some of this, irrational emotional dislike ensues.

2) Enough insistence by the mainstream that none of this has scientific evidence going for it has left many with a predisposition not to believe and are emboldened the more they hear the skeptic mantras repeated. I think many of these types are not necessarily being irrational but are more underinformed and believe the well-presented misinformation by many in the establishment. 

Wasn`t is Bush Junior who after about 6 months of taking office said that the US research program into psychic phenomenon had produces results, but that they weren`t useful for intelligence?

People are afraid of this stuff and fight against it.

[papageorge1]

1 minute ago, ouija ouija said:

Yes, I feel many have an irrational resistance to claims of the paranormal. I also know that psychism exists because I have experienced it many times myself. I also know that it is not something that can be produced on demand and is therefore impossible to prove. This is what has the sceptics tearing their hair out and leads to their declarations that there is no such thing.

Good Luck with your topic, Papa! 

But the point in the article is that it has been essentially proven by repeatable and controlled experiments. This can be mathematically accomplished by calculating odds against chance. If I am asked to guess which of four random possibilities the telepathic sender is thinking of then materialist science tells us that after many many trials we will see we are correct extremely close to 25% of the time. If we do thousands and thousands of experiments and the correctness turns out at let's say 35% then the mathematical chance of that occurring by chance can eventually approach zero.

I also believe in the non-reproducible things too but I am trying to present evidence that seems irrational to resist.

[papageorge1]

4 minutes ago, Cookie Monster said:

Wasn`t is Bush Junior who after about 6 months of taking office said that the US research program into psychic phenomenon had produces results, but that they weren`t useful for intelligence?

People are afraid of this stuff and fight against it.

I believe in psi phenomena but I am not so sure how comfortable I would be making military decisions using psi produced information either.

For me psi phenomena is philosophically important even if not of great practical use.

[Duke Wellington]

5 minutes ago, papageorge1 said:

I believe in psi phenomena but I am not so sure how comfortable I would be making military decisions using psi produced information either.

For me psi phenomena is philosophically important even if not of great practical use.

I think it points towards non-locality in the mind, non-local sensory perception.

Basically the thoughts that bubble up from our subconscious minds coming from someone elses throughs non-locally.

[papageorge1]

23 minutes ago, Cookie Monster said:

I think it points towards non-locality in the mind, non-local sensory perception.

Basically the thoughts that bubble up from our subconscious minds coming from someone elses throughs non-locally.

I think non-locality is true too but here I am just trying to establish that there is anomalous repeatable controlled testing that requires the creation of new theories.

[zep73]

27 minutes ago, Cookie Monster said:

I think it points towards non-locality in the mind, non-local sensory perception.

Basically the thoughts that bubble up from our subconscious minds coming from someone elses throughs non-locally.

Entanglement requires contact, so unless the test subjects are friends or family, that proposal can be ruled out.
Besides, N-L  is only proven on the quantum scale, so we can't be sure at all, if it would even work on people.

[spartan max2]

32-35% out of 4 options is certainly interesting. 

Better than 25% but not a huge amount so.

Something to ponder.

[papageorge1]

55 minutes ago, spartan max2 said:

32-35% out of 4 options is certainly interesting. 

Better than 25% but not a huge amount so.

Something to ponder.

It suggests telepathy is a fairly weak but real human ability in the average person. This is kind of what I always suspected.

[Helen of Annoy]

35 minutes ago, papageorge1 said:

It suggests telepathy is a fairly weak but real human ability in the average person. This is kind of what I always suspected.

And in my own experience it can be enhanced greatly by actual need for telepathic communication (or extrasensory acquiring of information, such as precognition). Real danger, utter sadness, great joy etc. - it all makes people psychic to some but sometimes life-changing extent. It comes when it's needed. 

I keep saying that I'm actually surprised and in a slight disbelief when people claim they had no "paranormal" events in their lives. Are they really "disconnected"? I don't think so. It must be denial. Not that I can know, I'm just very prone to believe "paranormal" is actually normal for everyone. 

And yes, I hate exaggeration and frauds too. 

[papageorge1]

10 minutes ago, Helen of Annoy said:

And in my own experience it can be enhanced greatly by actual need for telepathic communication (or extrasensory acquiring of information, such as precognition). Real danger, utter sadness, great joy etc. - it all makes people psychic to some but sometimes life-changing extent. It comes when it's needed. 

Yes I agree as I have read so many Shared Death Experiences stories at times of heightened needs/emotions.

These Ganzfeld Experiments are just regular people sitting in a college testing facility with no added emotional energy. So these experiments probably underestimate the real strength of some psi abilities. But the important factor is unlike real world events, all the variables can be controlled in a Ganzfeld test eliminating outside explanations for the results (like selective reporting). 

[Helen of Annoy]

28 minutes ago, papageorge1 said:

Yes I agree as I have read so many Shared Death Experiences stories at times of heightened needs/emotions.

These Ganzfeld Experiments are just regular people sitting in a college testing facility with no added emotional energy. So these experiments probably underestimate the real strength of some psi abilities. But the important factor is unlike real world events, all the variables can be controlled in a Ganzfeld test eliminating outside explanations for the results (like selective reporting). 

It's the wrong way to test extrasensory abilities, in my - apparently not humble - opinion  

No, seriously, it's not my intention to sound like I know better how it should be done, but it seems logical to me to make the situation as emotional as it's possible without actually setting the room on fire. If we know the abilities are more likely to pop up in crisis, why not create crisis and see the results. 

I'm not sure if it would work, a symbolic danger is not the same as the real danger, of course. 

 

Anyway, Ganzfeld results are interesting (even for us who think they know better). But religiously determined sceptics already called it elusive and whatnot. It's not enough for them. 

The room must be set on fire, in other words. Kidding.   

[papageorge1]

22 minutes ago, Helen of Annoy said:

It's the wrong way to test extrasensory abilities, in my - apparently not humble - opinion  

No, seriously, it's not my intention to sound like I know better how it should be done, but it seems logical to me to make the situation as emotional as it's possible without actually setting the room on fire. If we know the abilities are more likely to pop up in crisis, why not create crisis and see the results. 

I'm not sure if it would work, a symbolic danger is not the same as the real danger, of course. 

 

Anyway, Ganzfeld results are interesting (even for us who think they know better). But religiously determined sceptics already called it elusive and whatnot. It's not enough for them. 

The room must be set on fire, in other words. Kidding.   

I get your point of adding urgency to increase positive results. Maybe when you need to do thousands and thousands of trials to get conclusive odds against chance results this will be tough as odds against chance experiments require a huge number of trials to tell the story.

Perhaps volunteers that will agree to a mildly unpleasant electrical shock for being wrong could increase positive performance for example. 

[GlitterRose]

I think the claims made in the article are questionable, as are the studies.

That said, I also think there is a bias against the paranormal.

[Grey Area]

Regardless of any experimental results to any sort of claim of paranormal activity, this sort of thing just doesn’t stand up to reality.

Just apply some common sense to the scenario.  If we imagine for a moment that this phenomenon is real, it must be super rare.  I mean in an expanding world population of 7 billion, to not have millions upon millions of people walking around just think texting directly into someone else’s mind is statistically impossible, and then logically for something that rare to actually manage to get a telepathic person into an experiment would be, again statistically unlikely.

In short, the real world experience just doesn’t tie in with experimental results.  And before people start proposing that it’s all super hush hush and covered up, just… no.  If you had access to telepathic powers you would be using them, there would be mainstream psychic schools, ethics classes, law suits filed against unauthorised mind hacking.  So we have a situation where the results, however reliable and extraordinary do not tie into the real world.

This is akin to claims like levitation.  I mean if we were truly able to levitate, we’d all be doing it, I mean why spend 20 grand on a car when you could simply buy a nice warm coat and a desk fan and fly everywhere?  These things just don’t tally with real life experiences.

As for bias against serious paranormal investigation, I think that’s a logical bias to have.  Most things are like this are a serious distraction, or have little or no evidence to follow up on.  What would the world look like if Einstein had decided to look into ghost sightings, rather than gravity?  If JFK had assigned the Apollo budget to research Bigfoot sightings?  What if Hawkins had spent all his time thinking about what might happen if we call ET… Oh well maybe not that last one.

Parapsychology and the paranormal is like scientific populism.  But in the world of science where funding for projects is competitive, there’s no room for chasing ghosts… Sorry, just the way it is, and where a negative result is as important as a positive, the result will be overlooked by the masses in favour of confirmation bias.  Like the flat earthers who watched the video of Branson’s flight and claimed the curvature of the earth was generated by the curve in the window glass.

[Timothy]

5 hours ago, spartan max2 said:

32-35% out of 4 options is certainly interesting. 

Better than 25% but not a huge amount so.

Something to ponder.

But it needs to be reproducible to mean anything.

32-35% could be chance or a evidence of flaws with the experiment. It’s a fallacy to use it as proof of anything if it’s not reproducible…

[onlookerofmayhem]

6 hours ago, papageorge1 said:

Imagine that you’re a scientist and you have an experiment in your field that has been replicated all over the world by over 50 scientists in a 108 different publications, comprised collectively of thousands of trials. It is so dependable that it’s often tweaked in order to understand the phenomena better.

Imagine that this entire paragraph is a complete and total misrepresentation of the situation. 

The ganzfeld (not ganzfield) experiment does not prove anything.

If the OP and the author of the linked diatribe can't be bothered to spell the term correctly, what hope do we have?

The experiments conclusions have not been "replicated" hundreds of times. There have been a handful of different versions of the experiment with varying outcomes.

It is not "tweaked in order to understand the phenomena better." It's been tweaked because of flaws in the experiments.

The phenomena has never been shown to exist and isn't understood in the first place.

Bottom line is the meta analysis of many of the experiments shows sometimes there is a little better than chance outcome.

The methodology of many of these experiments have been scrutinized and found to be sub par.

There is not enough concrete data to show that something paranormal is happening.

The chances of rolling a yahtzee is 1 in 1,296. The chances of rolling two in a row 1 in 1,679,616.

I've personally seen the latter done. Does that mean something paranormal happened?

In the "picking the card" version of the experiment, there are only 4 cards. 1 correct card and 3 incorrect cards.

Why not more? What about 1 out of 50 cards?

There are completely valid reasons why these experiments are highly debated.

Some researchers conclude something paranormal is happening and some conclude that nothing strange is shown by the data.

So who is right?

Only more research will help answer that question.

 

[papageorge1]

 

2 hours ago, GlitterRose said:

I think the claims made in the article are questionable, as are the studies.

That said, I also think there is a bias against the paranormal.

What do you find questionable about the studies? They seem like easy to understand experiments to me.

[GlitterRose]

Just now, papageorge1 said:

 

What do you find questionable about the studies? They seem like easy to understand experiments to me.

One bit in particular is that they weren't done in sound-proof rooms and there were videos played that may have been heard.

[papageorge1]

1 hour ago, Grey Area said:

Regardless of any experimental results to any sort of claim of paranormal activity, this sort of thing just doesn’t stand up to reality.

Just apply some common sense to the scenario.  If we imagine for a moment that this phenomenon is real, it must be super rare.  I mean in an expanding world population of 7 billion, to not have millions upon millions of people walking around just think texting directly into someone else’s mind is statistically impossible, and then logically for something that rare to actually manage to get a telepathic person into an experiment would be, again statistically unlikely.

In short, the real world experience just doesn’t tie in with experimental results.  And before people start proposing that it’s all super hush hush and covered up, just… no.  If you had access to telepathic powers you would be using them, there would be mainstream psychic schools, ethics classes, law suits filed against unauthorised mind hacking.  So we have a situation where the results, however reliable and extraordinary do not tie into the real world.

This is akin to claims like levitation.  I mean if we were truly able to levitate, we’d all be doing it, I mean why spend 20 grand on a car when you could simply buy a nice warm coat and a desk fan and fly everywhere?  These things just don’t tally with real life experiences.

As for bias against serious paranormal investigation, I think that’s a logical bias to have.  Most things are like this are a serious distraction, or have little or no evidence to follow up on.  What would the world look like if Einstein had decided to look into ghost sightings, rather than gravity?  If JFK had assigned the Apollo budget to research Bigfoot sightings?  What if Hawkins had spent all his time thinking about what might happen if we call ET… Oh well maybe not that last one.

Parapsychology and the paranormal is like scientific populism.  But in the world of science where funding for projects is competitive, there’s no room for chasing ghosts… Sorry, just the way it is, and where a negative result is as important as a positive, the result will be overlooked by the masses in favour of confirmation bias.  Like the flat earthers who watched the video of Branson’s flight and claimed the curvature of the earth was generated by the curve in the window glass.

Why can telepathy not be a weak but real human ability with limited success and not accurate or strong enough for much practical application? These studies are not suggesting it should work perfectly all the time and revolutionize human society.

[papageorge1]

2 minutes ago, GlitterRose said:

One bit in particular is that they weren't done in sound-proof rooms and there were videos played that may have been heard.

Not sure where you are getting those claims from but these scientists are smart enough to control obvious variables that any outsider would catch. Experimental protocol is what parapsychologists like Dean Radin specializes in.

[GlitterRose]

3 minutes ago, papageorge1 said:

Not sure where you are getting those claims from but these scientists are smart enough to control obvious variables that any outsider would catch. Experimental protocol is what parapsychologists like Dean Radin specializes in.

You can read about the criticisms of the experiments here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganzfeld_experiment

I would say though, that they make the claim there is an assumption of PSI, but there may also be an assumption against it.