Ganzfield Experiment and The Success That Won’t Go Away

[papageorge1]

1 hour ago, onlookerofmayhem said:

I read some of it. Not all 41 pages.

You keep making the claim.

Pony up. If you know the calculations and formulas are in that pdf, then surely you can find them.

 

Perhaps you are more interested in hassling me than formulas you would not understand anyway. I’m kind of observant like that.

[onlookerofmayhem]

1 minute ago, papageorge1 said:

Perhaps you are more interested in hassling me than formulas you would not understand anyway.

Hassling you?

You started a thread on a discussion forum. I'm attempting to discuss the subject.

You made numerous claims in the thread.

I am asking for direct clarification of one of the claims. For the fourth time!

You are obfuscating and refusing to provide information.

You don't have any clue what the formula or calculations are. That's why you're doing your typical crybaby act.

Grow up, for once in your history in this forum and provide your evidence.

Your garbage claim that I quoted above doesn't even make sense. You have no clue about me or my capabilities.

What exactly would I not understand? And how do you know that before presenting it?

You're refusing to provide information!

Again. 

Please provide the calculations and formulas that were used to determine that the results of the experiments were astronomically beyond what pure chance would be.

 

[papageorge1]

1 minute ago, onlookerofmayhem said:

Hassling you?

You started a thread on a discussion forum. I'm attempting to discuss the subject.

You made numerous claims in the thread.

I am asking for direct clarification of one of the claims. For the fourth time!

You are obfuscating and refusing to provide information.

You don't have any clue what the formula or calculations are. That's why you're doing your typical crybaby act.

Grow up, for once in your history in this forum and provide your evidence.

Your garbage claim that I quoted above doesn't even make sense. You have no clue about me or my capabilities.

What exactly would I not understand? And how do you know that before presenting it?

You're refusing to provide information!

Again. 

Please provide the calculations and formulas that were used to determine that the results of the experiments were astronomically beyond what pure chance would be.

 

It’s not my job here to double-check the work of highly respected professors of applied statistics when it comes to statistical calculations. And no serious skeptics have even called the math into question. That part is straightforward for experts.

[onlookerofmayhem]

3 minutes ago, papageorge1 said:

It’s not my job here to double-check the work of highly respected professors of applied statistics when it comes to statistical calculations

Nobody asked you to do that.

It's a really simply thing that you cannot grasp.

What are the calculations and formulas used to determine that the results of the experiment cannot possibly be because of chance or other non paranormal variables?

It would be a lot easier if you just admitted that you have absolutely no idea instead of flailing your arms about and avoiding the question with accusations that I'm hassling you or that my tiny, shriveled up incompetent brain couldn't possibly comprehend the answer.

You made the claim.

You back it up.

[papageorge1]

3 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

I believe she's made comments also that based on her statistical analysis, if this was any other discipline other than parapsychology then this would be accepted as evidence for it.

Well then despite what you've assured me several times, no, you are not very familiar with the skeptical arguments given the above caricature.  No, this level of evidence, as in Utts' work, would not be accepted without much contention because not even you can really explain at all why her work shows what you think it shows.  You certainly cannot dispute from your own expertise the objections by other experts to the conclusions reached from her analysis, nor the problems with meta-analysis in general, nor the problems with the experiments she's performing meta-analysis on specifically (in IT and probably in a lot of engineering disciplines there's an old saying: 'garbage in, garbage out').  I know what you are referring to as far as extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but you have it exactly opposite; characterizing it as needing 'more' evidence isn't how I'd put it since you hardly have any, you need some quality evidence, and the best evidence you have of someone with paranormal ability is via statistical analysis you don't understand?  That's only two sentences of the above, I'm not going to bother to correct the rest. 

So if you think this kind of evidence would be accepted without much contention, then given the vast number of things that are already accepted you should be able to provide a similar non-paranormal example?  Name something that is accepted as true, let's say at the threshold of being taught in schools/universities, that has 'this kind of evidence'.  What is accepted based on statistical analysis of inconclusive studies with no evidence as to how it works and little evidence there is even a phenomenon at all?  That would be a big help in understanding the bias/irrational part, show how the skeptic is indulging in double-standards. 

You keep admitting when pressed that the effects are 'weak', yet then turn around and act like skeptics are being so unreasonable in the face of such compelling evidence.  You keep wanting to have it both ways - since it's a weak effect then you can wave away why we have to resort to meta-analysis in the first place, and why no one is exceptional/expert/Hendrix at these skills unlike every single other thing humans can do, and why no single study is compelling but then pretend like it's something strong when you can accuse others of bias.

The results are what they are because they decided for large studies to just use regular people. More dramatic results are seen with alleged psychically gifted subjects like Uri Geller at Stanford but what comes from the hard-core skeptics is character assassination of the psychics and testers. 
 

Skepticism is a good thing. But we each have to judge if the opposition to  psi is fair-minded or is so emotionally determined that it has crossed into irrational resistance.

Ramble: Uri bends metal in a way that professors of metallurgy say after electron microscope analysis did not bend in any known way. Are skeptics fascinated or try to bury the information with disinformation. Rational or irrational resistance?

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by papageorge1

[GlitterRose]

24 minutes ago, onlookerofmayhem said:

Nobody asked you to do that.

It's a really simply thing that you cannot grasp.

What are the calculations and formulas used to determine that the results of the experiment cannot possibly be because of chance or other non paranormal variables?

It would be a lot easier if you just admitted that you have absolutely no idea instead of flailing your arms about and avoiding the question with accusations that I'm hassling you or that my tiny, shriveled up incompetent brain couldn't possibly comprehend the answer.

You made the claim.

You back it up.

There was something said about the placement of cards...that people have a tendency to choose the first thing presented to them.

This could account for some of the increase in correct answers if they were not careful about how many times the correct answer was the first card.

[onlookerofmayhem]

1 minute ago, GlitterRose said:

There was something said about the placement of cards...that people have a tendency to choose the first thing presented to them.

This could account for some of the increase in correct answers if they were not careful about how many times the correct answer was the first card.

Yes. In some of them.

There were many different types of experiments that fell under the umbrella and included in the meta analysis of "ganzfeld" experiments.

There have been plenty of objections brought up about some of the ways some of the tests were preformed.

Some were addressed in future studies and some were not.

[GlitterRose]

I don't know if it's true, but I think papa might skew his meter like he does to compensate for the bias he feels appears on the other side. 

Science is self-correcting, eventually, but there have been times they were woefully wrong and took a long time to right the ship.

I get that, and there may be bias, but is it irrational? I'm not sure it is. 

There's a whooooooole lotta bunk out there.

Edited August 3, 2021 by GlitterRose

[psyche101]

12 hours ago, Helen of Annoy said:

No scientific study will be enough for a sceptic to consider any form of extrasensory perception because such phenomena are not occurring all the time. The results will never be spectacular enough. What was proven so far is that it's not possible to make people show their full extrasensory potential for the sake of study. 

What would be interesting (for the less rigid people) is a study that would compare how many people - for example - suddenly decided to not travel with a bus, ship or plane that later crashed. It wouldn't be enough for religiously sceptic either, because they can make themselves believe it's a coincidence. Anything out of ordinary is a coincidence.  

 

Which makes me wonder why people can't be telepathic or precognitive on demand?

Maybe it can be compared with having problems with eyes. You can see, but too much light hurts your eyes so you're not willing to open them unless you really have to.   

Wouldn't it be better to try and work out how telepathy could work with the toolset we have rather than starting with a conclusion that's it's real and we have yet to understand it? 

As far as I know, we simply don't have anything that could imitate such a grandiose concept. 

The ganzfeld experiments start with a conclusion as well, as such, it's really no more than an exercise in confirmation bias. 

[psyche101]

2 hours ago, onlookerofmayhem said:

Hassling you?

You started a thread on a discussion forum. I'm attempting to discuss the subject.

You made numerous claims in the thread.

I am asking for direct clarification of one of the claims. For the fourth time!

You are obfuscating and refusing to provide information.

You don't have any clue what the formula or calculations are. That's why you're doing your typical crybaby act.

Grow up, for once in your history in this forum and provide your evidence.

Your garbage claim that I quoted above doesn't even make sense. You have no clue about me or my capabilities.

What exactly would I not understand? And how do you know that before presenting it?

You're refusing to provide information!

Again. 

Please provide the calculations and formulas that were used to determine that the results of the experiments were astronomically beyond what pure chance would be.

 

You will be respectful in the house of the Lord. Look at Steve! He’s a good Christian child. Mouth shut, nose in the bible. He’s reading the glorious passage where...Dumbledore makes candles float in the cafeteria. Ah, Deuteronomy.

It's in there somewhere............

[onlookerofmayhem]

42 minutes ago, psyche101 said:

You will be respectful in the house of the Lord. Look at Steve! He’s a good Christian child. Mouth shut, nose in the bible. He’s reading the glorious passage where...Dumbledore makes candles float in the cafeteria. Ah, Deuteronomy.

It's in there somewhere............

[+Liquid Gardens]

10 hours ago, papageorge1 said:

Ramble: Uri bends metal in a way that professors of metallurgy say after electron microscope analysis did not bend in any known way. Are skeptics fascinated or try to bury the information with disinformation. Rational or irrational resistance?

In what scientific journal will I find the above finding?  Prove that skeptics should be fascinated by this, back something up.  "I saw someone say on the internet..." is not 'backing up your points', speaking of 'rational'.

Besides you are doing your gallop again, I show you the courtesy of replying to your points and ask you questions and you ignore them.  So addressing your previous statements, again:

"So if you think this kind of evidence would be accepted without much contention, then given the vast number of things that are already accepted you should be able to provide a similar non-paranormal example?  Name something that is accepted as true, let's say at the threshold of being taught in schools/universities, that has 'this kind of evidence'.  What is accepted based on statistical analysis of inconclusive studies with no evidence as to how it works and little evidence there is even a phenomenon at all?  That would be a big help in understanding the bias/irrational part, show how the skeptic is indulging in double-standards. "

[Helen of Annoy]

11 hours ago, psyche101 said:

Wouldn't it be better to try and work out how telepathy could work with the toolset we have rather than starting with a conclusion that's it's real and we have yet to understand it? 

As far as I know, we simply don't have anything that could imitate such a grandiose concept. 

The ganzfeld experiments start with a conclusion as well, as such, it's really no more than an exercise in confirmation bias. 

But it's not grandiose. 

It's rather common - for example - that you start mentioning a relative just before you receive the news of their death, or that you actually feel someone very close to you dying. It can be explained if you knew someone's very old or ill, but it can't be explained if the death was sudden. 

I often mix together (or don't try to separate) "telepathy" and "precognition", or whatever the names are, since they often come together.  (By the way, @diddyman68, my apologies, I wasn't clear before, as I said I don't separate between all extrasensory or whatever we'll call it phenomena. Avoiding a flight that will crash indeed is not telepathy, it's precognition.)

I do not believe there are "mediums" who can actually and routinely read people's minds. I'm not prone to believe experiments can have equal results as the real life situations, precisely because our "extra" senses kick in when it makes sense. Personally, I had very significant and intense experiences that make me certain extrasensory perception is real (for example, I had no way of knowing my biological father is literally dying a sudden death when I inexplicably felt mortal fear, cold sweat, total panic... he got better and it happened twice, decades apart), but I'm not sure I could be motivated enough to honestly try participating in an experiment. 

But to deny the connection between minds is just silly in my opinion. It's there. You can feel if someone you love is at the door, or that they won't arrive. You just know. It's not a question does it really happen, the question is how.   

Ganzfeld is interesting in my opinion because it somewhat modestly but does indicate there is a bit more than it's statistically expected. It's not the Proof. 

Like I said, it would be - in my opinion - a better idea to see statistics of real events that already happened, than to try recreating something that is unique. 

But that won't lead anywhere as far as rigid scepticism is concerned, because everyone's lying/crazy/stupid if they honestly say they had extrasensory events. 

I had extrasensory events. Throughout all my life. Absolute majority of people I know had them too. (No, no one can read closed books or get lotto numbers right, but we all just knew on many significant occasions.) I can't believe there are people who don't ever have them. 

[papageorge1]

4 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

In what scientific journal will I find the above finding?  Prove that skeptics should be fascinated by this, back something up.  "I saw someone say on the internet..." is not 'backing up your points', speaking of 'rational'.

 

PARANORMAL DEFORMATION OF NITINOL WIRE: A CONFIRMATORY EXPERIMENT

Journal of the Society for Psychical Research – Volume 51 1982 – pp. 368-73

PARANORMAL DEFORMATION OF NITINOL WIRE: A CONFIRMATORY EXPERIMENT
Randall, John L. & Davis, C.P.
Abstract

This experiment was an attempt to replicate previous research carried out by Dr. Eldon Byrd with the subject Uri Geller. A schoolboy metal bender gently stroked a piece of nitinol wire which had previously been treated to ensure that it had a memory of straightness. Inexplicable deformations were observed, and the memory of the wire was permanently altered. Subsequent attempts to straighten the wire by heat treatment were unsuccessful. The authors conclude that their results provide a very satisfactory confirmation of the effects observed by Dr. Byrd.

 

4 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

 

Besides you are doing your gallop again, I show you the courtesy of replying to your points and ask you questions and you ignore them.  So addressing your previous statements, again:

 

Sorry. last night I didn't have the quiet time I have now. Maybe I should wait then. Your style though is to raise quite a few different issues in one post making it challenging to cover everything. 

4 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

 

"So if you think this kind of evidence would be accepted without much contention, then given the vast number of things that are already accepted you should be able to provide a similar non-paranormal example?  Name something that is accepted as true, let's say at the threshold of being taught in schools/universities, that has 'this kind of evidence'.  What is accepted based on statistical analysis of inconclusive studies with no evidence as to how it works and little evidence there is even a phenomenon at all?  That would be a big help in understanding the bias/irrational part, show how the skeptic is indulging in double-standards. "

Actually, I think Jessica Utts did just that in her paper I linked regarding acceptance of some aspirin reducing heart attack study.

Acceptance of psi implies the rejection of a large body of accumulated evidence explaining the physical and biological world as we know it. Thus, even though the effect size for a relationship between aspirin and the prevention of heart attacks is three times smaller than the effect size observed in the ganzfeld data 388 J. UTTS base, it is the existence of a biological mechanism to explain the effectiveness of aspirin that accounts, in part, for acceptance of this

(commentary by Joel Greenhouse in the addendums to the Utts paper)

 

As I've said it is reasonable to hold more revolutionary things to a higher standard of proof. But as I heard Dean Radin ask in a lecture, when is acceptable evidence ever reached? A determined skeptic giving no goalpost to experimentally shoot for  can hold out forever. Is this rational or is it justification for irrational resistance?

Edited August 3, 2021 by papageorge1

[XenoFish]

6 minutes ago, papageorge1 said:

nitinol wire

https://www.industrialheating.com/blogs/14-industrial-heating-experts-speak-blog/post/88984-heat-treatment-of-nitinol-alloys-part-1#:~:text=temperature of superelastic Nitinol components,for up to an hour.

You're not going to straighten a bent wire through heat treating. You need to melt it. 

https://www.savacable.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-nitinol-wire

A bit more. 

[papageorge1]

7 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

https://www.industrialheating.com/blogs/14-industrial-heating-experts-speak-blog/post/88984-heat-treatment-of-nitinol-alloys-part-1#:~:text=temperature of superelastic Nitinol components,for up to an hour.

You're not going to straighten a bent wire through heat treating. You need to melt it. 

https://www.savacable.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-nitinol-wire

A bit more. 

I am sure you are not going to bend nitinol by gently stroking it either. So basically your telling us this scientists and a few others I won't bother to mention don't know what they are talking about when they are baffled.

[XenoFish]

4 minutes ago, papageorge1 said:

I am sure you are not going to bend nitinol by gently stroking it either. So basically your telling us this scientists and a few others I won't bother to mention don't know what they are talking about when they are baffled.

Judging by your low IQ response.

Quote

Nitinol is a shape memory metal alloy or SMA. Bend nitinol wire, at room temperature, any way you want, then heat it up and watch it go back to its original shape.

From my second link. 

[XenoFish]

Any metal regardless of type will have deformities once it is bent or heated. 

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by XenoFish

[papageorge1]

1 minute ago, XenoFish said:

Judging by your low IQ response.

From my second link. 

Nitinol is a shape memory metal alloy or SMA. Bend nitinol wire, at room temperature, any way you want, then heat it up and watch it go back to its original shape.

Apparently you didn't even read the abstract I provided: Inexplicable deformations were observed, and the memory of the wire was permanently altered.

[XenoFish]

5 minutes ago, papageorge1 said:

Apparently you didn't even read the abstract I provided: Inexplicable deformations were observed, and the memory of the wire was permanently altered.

What the hell did I just post? Can you not read, or even comprehend? No steel will return to perfect form once it is bent.  Heating it up add to micro deformities and heat treating can either harden or make a metal brittle. Even vaporize it if the temps are too high. 

This forum is a migraine.

Edited August 3, 2021 by XenoFish

[papageorge1]

3 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

What the hell did I just post? Can you not read, or even comprehend? No steel will return to perfect form one it is bent.  Heating it up add to micro deformities and heat treating can either harden or make a metal brittle. Even vaporize it if the temps are too high. 

And you are the one that just told us above:

Nitinol is a shape memory metal alloy or SMA. Bend nitinol wire, at room temperature, any way you want, then heat it up and watch it go back to its original shape.

And why was the scientist so astounded?

Edited August 3, 2021 by papageorge1

[XenoFish]

Just now, papageorge1 said:

And you are the one that just told us above:

Nitinol is a shape memory metal alloy or SMA. Bend nitinol wire, at room temperature, any way you want, then heat it up and watch it go back to its original shape.

And you don't get that my quote doesn't mean geller "psychically" bent it. It means anyone can bend it. The metal is basically playdoh. 

[papageorge1]

1 minute ago, XenoFish said:

And you don't get that my quote doesn't mean geller "psychically" bent it. It means anyone can bend it. The metal is basically playdoh. 

 Inexplicable deformations were observed, and the memory of the wire was permanently altered. Subsequent attempts to straighten the wire by heat treatment were unsuccessful.

[XenoFish]

I'm arguing with an idiot.

[papageorge1]

8 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

I'm arguing with an idiot.

Right, and what Geller did the scientists could have just had anyone replicate.

We're actually getting back to my OP point about 'irrational resistance'. (followed in turn by unnecessary name-calling)

Edited August 3, 2021 by papageorge1