Ganzfeld Experiments: Suggestions please.

[Kai]

No, because that would require you to be psychic, but you has changed the argument: since no instances of psi outside the experimental statistics to no instances of psi outside the experimental statistics and the subjective judgment of individuals. You want psi is so obvious that it explode in your face, but such is not how works the world: is still reasonable to consider that psi occurs during everyday generally unnoticed.

No I just want psi to be real phenomena that can actually be detected non-subjectively and non-rhetorically. Granted, I wouldn't be able to observe every possible phenomenon the earth has to offer by midnight tonight (the timescale was a tad unrealistic) but If I made the effort and went out of my way I could probably experience most...including volcanic eruption, death, fatal accident, etc.

 

[electricfunk]

Like I said, something like the AWARE study, which uses pre-specified, specific targets. The problem with the remote viewing tests are that the remote viewing results aren't specific. This problem gets lost in the usual experimental set-up where the comparison is made with the target or with only a few options. But it's rarely the case (unless the subject has remote-viewed a "landmark") that you can look at the drawings and scribblings and state "there is only one thing this could be". The advantage of the AWARE targets, and the statements made by NDEers which led to the idea that targets might be seen, is that they are specific. There is only one thing they could be. There is only one place to look and one thing to check to see if they are right or wrong. And the objects are too out of place to need some sort of probability calculation (they are highly unlikely by their nature).

Other options would be the informal experiments you sometimes hear about (and which I am trying for myself), where someone places a specific object in a specific location and directs someone to attempt to remote view it. If I hit on my randomly selected playing card, you're going to hear about it. I agree that we will start to run into problems if these informal experiments are undertaken in large number and the targets are bounded (like playing cards). But as a one-of, the result would be quite compelling.

Using pre-specified, specific (in a subjective sense) targets doesn't in itself allow you draw objective conclusions about how unlikely it is that any particular correspondence is due to chance. You are still forced to make a subjective judgement about probability in much the same way that is done with spontaneous experiences. You've already said that making subjective judgements about the probability of the data from Mental Radio is a highly unreliable method, so you should be saying the same about the AWARE study. I'm not sure why you aren't. The AWARE data could be made objective by using a blind judging procedure with targets and decoys and comparing with chance or a control group. Perhaps they plan on doing this if subjectively impressive results are found.

Another problem with the AWARE study is that we don't know how well patients will perform in the experiment. We have clues from reported experiences but that's not enough to rely on.

Wow, you are the only person I have run across who thinks this! Even ardent skeptics think the sighting of an AWARE target would be remarkable.

I did not say that I wouldn't find positive results from AWARE subjectively remarkable (depending on what was found). I already find certain spontaneous experiences subjectively remarkable so you should expect the same given similar levels of performance in such an experiment. However, I wouldn't trust my intuitive judgement and neither should you. That's one of the reasons we perform objective measurements. It wouldn't be difficult to take some subjectively impressive results from AWARE and run them through a blind judging procedure to get an objective measure of probability.

 

[fls]

Using pre-specified, specific (in a subjective sense) targets doesn't in itself allow you draw objective conclusions about how unlikely it is that any particular correspondence is due to chance. You are still forced to make a subjective judgement about probability in much the same way that is done with spontaneous experiences. You've already said that making subjective judgements about the probability of the data from Mental Radio is a highly unreliable method, so you should be saying the same about the AWARE study.

The targets for the AWARE study and targets selected by someone known to the person are vastly different. In order for this to work, the targets have to be "out-of-the-blue" - nothing that would be guessable or would show up in the normal course of events. They are carefully chosen to be a pool of highly improbable targets and then the specific selection is random. This is very different from something like Mental Radio, where targets are chosen non-randomly from a guessable pool. The conditions are what make it highly improbable, not our judgement about whether it is.

I'm not sure why you aren't. The AWARE data could be made objective by using a blind judging procedure with targets and decoys and comparing with chance or a control group. Perhaps they plan on doing this if subjectively impressive results are found.

I doubt it.

Another problem with the AWARE study is that we don't know how well patients will perform in the experiment. We have clues from reported experiences but that's not enough to rely on.

I guess we'll have to wait and see. I agree that if someone comes up with something sorta close/sorta not close, it won't be as clear what to make of it as an exact description.

I did not say that I wouldn't find positive results from AWARE subjectively remarkable (depending on what was found). I already find certain spontaneous experiences subjectively remarkable so you should expect the same given similar levels of performance in such an experiment. However, I wouldn't trust my intuitive judgement and neither should you. That's one of the reasons we perform objective measurements. It wouldn't be difficult to take some subjectively impressive results from AWARE and run them through a blind judging procedure to get an objective measure of probability.

Do it like an eye-witness line-up - five similar "bunny wearing eyeglasses" pictures - and have the subject pick out which it was he saw. And nobody knows which picture is the right one, or if the right one is even included in the line-up.

Linda

 

[Haruhi]

No I just want psi to be real phenomena that can actually be detected non-subjectively and non-rhetorically.

Then you ask for the impossible because psi seems to have a subjective element which is indispensable, because it belongs more to the social sciences to the natural sciences.

 

[Kai]

Then you ask for the impossible because psi seems to have a subjective element which is indispensable, because it belongs more to the social sciences to the natural sciences.

But psi is the notion that the mind can *directly* affect the world, and the world directly affect the mind. That is a non-rhetorical claim.

 

[Super Sexy]

But psi is the notion that the mind can *directly* affect the world, and the world directly affect the mind. That is a non-rhetorical claim.

So in regards to psi, you're looking for conclusive evidence of macro-PK essentially?

 

[Johann]

Linda is making very good points. I brought up similar points a long time ago. It is difficult to credit any such thing as "psi" in nature if there are not effects which can be separated from numerical experimentation anomalies. If that isn't the case, then the likelihood that "psi" is simply a label being attached to those anomalies in human number handling, increases.

No I just want psi to be real phenomena that can actually be detected non-subjectively and non-rhetorically. Granted, I wouldn't be able to observe every possible phenomenon the earth has to offer by midnight tonight (the timescale was a tad unrealistic) but If I made the effort and went out of my way I could probably experience most...including volcanic eruption, death, fatal accident, etc.

You know, we have science largely because we realized that accepting only the obvious and indisputable kept us backward and ignorant.

 

[Kai]

So in regards to psi, you're looking for conclusive evidence of macro-PK essentially?

The issue is not so much macro or micro for me. It is whether there is (as I was saying) *really* a direct influence from the world to my mind, or a direct influence from my mind to the world...or not. "Micro PK" is really the daughter of "macro PK"...these arguments used to be about stuff that was tossed around in an alleged poltergeist outbreak, damp patches on walls or apparitions in a haunting, people who bent spoons by stroking them. The fact that it has retreated into smaller and smaller alleged effects makes me suspicious (at least) as to whether these are actually real effects on the axis of WORLD-MIND.

 

[malf]

So in regards to psi, you're looking for conclusive evidence of macro-PK essentially?

There's got to be a whiff of magic about it, otherwise this would be psi.

 

[Kai]

You know, we have science largely because we realized that accepting only the obvious and indisputable kept us backward and ignorant.

Yes, but Johann, all sorts of things that were not obvious and indisputable nonetheless left a scree of traces across our physical experience. Consider all the diseases we didn't comprehend the origin of when we were not capable of detecting micro-organisms. Nevertheless, a gunshot scatter of symptoms from these diseases were debilitating and killing numerous people. My question about "psi" is...where is this similar scatter of symptoms as actually registered in world phenomena? Where can one go to see it happening or into what (physical) system can one bend one's observation to see it happening, where that happening does not itself become rhetorical to the observation process? If the only real evidence of microbes was that we saw things wiggling under microscopy, then this should give us pause for whether the hypothesis of "microbes" actually does anything.

 

[electricfunk]

The targets for the AWARE study and targets selected by someone known to the person are vastly different. In order for this to work, the targets have to be "out-of-the-blue" - nothing that would be guessable or would show up in the normal course of events. They are carefully chosen to be a pool of highly improbable targets and then the specific selection is random. This is very different from something like Mental Radio, where targets are chosen non-randomly from a guessable pool. The conditions are what make it highly improbable, not our judgement about whether it is.

You are talking about target selection. The issue is about how to reliably and validly measure the experimental outcome of each ostensible VA event. However the target pool is created and however individual targets are selected, subjective judgements have to form the basis of assessing the outcome of each AWARE trial. We are striving for objectivity in science. From the recent AWARE paper, it says "each shelf contained one image only visible from above the shelf (these were different and included a combination of nationalistic and religious symbols, people, animals, and major newspaper headlines)". They don't seem that improbable to me, and that's a further problem. You are adding another laying of subjective judgement about how guessable the images are (it is a subjective judgement about the experimental conditions that comprise our feelings on this, not an objective measure). Like I said, what the study needs in a simple target-decoy method to objectify the data using blind, independent judges. If the effect is as strong as is perceived, it should not take many trials to reach high significance.

I guess we'll have to wait and see. I agree that if someone comes up with something sorta close/sorta not close, it won't be as clear what to make of it as an exact description.

A result that is not so subjectively impressive as you seem to be expecting will certainly highlight the problems I'm talking about.

Do it like an eye-witness line-up - five similar "bunny wearing eyeglasses" pictures - and have the subject pick out which it was he saw. And nobody knows which picture is the right one, or if the right one is even included in the line-up.

None of that address the problems I'm talking about.

 

[electricfunk]

Linda is making very good points. I brought up similar points a long time ago. It is difficult to credit any such thing as "psi" in nature if there are not effects which can be separated from numerical experimentation anomalies. If that isn't the case, then the likelihood that "psi" is simply a label being attached to those anomalies in human number handling, increases.

To me, there is a similarity between what receivers report in ganzfeld studies and real-world reports of ostensible ESP. Ditto for dream ESP studies.

 

[Johann]

Can you give me an example of "psi" I can directly witness in everyday life without it being a subjective judgment? Say, something I could observe by midnight tonight?

Yes, but Johann, all sorts of things that were not obvious and indisputable nonetheless left a scree of traces across our physical experience. Consider all the diseases we didn't comprehend the origin of when we were not capable of detecting micro-organisms. Nevertheless, a gunshot scatter of symptoms from these diseases were debilitating and killing numerous people. My question about "psi" is...where is this similar scatter of symptoms as actually registered in world phenomena? Where can one go to see it happening or into what (physical) system can one bend one's observation to see it happening, where that happening does not itself become rhetorical to the observation process? If the only real evidence of microbes was that we saw things wiggling under microscopy, then this should give us pause for whether the hypothesis of "microbes" actually does anything.

Just as diseases, indisputably evident, were not per se supportive of the existence of bacteria; shamanic practices, religious claims of mystical experiences, the proliferation of magical and occult beliefs in human cultures, seemingly inexplicable coincidences and forecasts, and a whole host of other phenomena—all of them there for anyone to witness—are not scientifically supportive of psychic experience. What psi and bacteria share in common is that both must go "under the microscope" for us to have confidence that they exist. Microbial science uses optical magnification to bring into stark relief entities that we would normally never see; psychical science uses statistical magnification to draw out otherwise imperceptible signals hiding in the peaks and valleys of probability.

The bacteria you can perceive unaided by tools of amplification, such as the namibiensis, commonly more than .2 mm in length, can probably be counted on one hand; sightings of such species did not occur until long after bacteria, generally, had been accepted as real organisms (and even if such sightings had occurred, it is unlikely they would have been accompanied by identification). Similar things may be stated for psi phenomena; it is possible that traces of psi lie scattered across all human cultures, even in our daily lives, and—like electromagnetic fields before Faraday, or radio waves before Hertz—surround us without our recognition.

It is equally possible that psi does not explain all, or even most, of these ostensibly similar things; bacteria were certainly identified before viruses, but they did not cause measles, polio, cancer, or even the common cold. In concert with other factors (such as human psychology and neurobiology), psi may be only part of the explanation for "the paranormal".

In our struggle to comprehend the complexity and nuance of the natural world, we should discard no tools that may aid our understanding. It is tempting to apply the methods of medieval scholasticism, relying purely on argument and what can be deduced from the senses, but the age of such incremental advance is long past us. Laymen may be intimated by and untrusting of technical scientific methodology (without clear technologies developed from them), but this is just how it is; statistics, mathematics, physics, and chemistry are not things everyone can do, without long and intense study, and that is what make them valuable. In my opinion, the person who claims that psi should be obvious; that casinos shouldn't exist because of psychokinesis, or telephones because of telepathy, is operating at the intellectual level of the man who doubts the existence of climate change because it is not warm everywhere—these arguments deny the efficacy of science by privileging personal speculation. I have seen you advance very similar contentions (at least to the first); you may want to consider what the full acceptance of your philosophy entails.

In sum, I have stated my position: a priori arguments against psi are, at this point, highly unpersuasive.

 

[Haruhi]

But psi is the notion that the mind can *directly* affect the world, and the world directly affect the mind. That is a non-rhetorical claim.

I did not say that to be a rhetorical claim, but is closer to the soft sciences to the hard sciences.

 

[fls]

You are talking about target selection. The issue is about how to reliably and validly measure the experimental outcome of each ostensible VA event. However the target pool is created and however individual targets are selected, subjective judgements have to form the basis of assessing the outcome of each AWARE trial. We are striving for objectivity in science. From the recent AWARE paper, it says "each shelf contained one image only visible from above the shelf (these were different and included a combination of nationalistic and religious symbols, people, animals, and major newspaper headlines)". They don't seem that improbable to me, and that's a further problem.

I see. You are suggesting that the cases containing remarkable correspondences which are regarded as showing support for the survival of consciousness - Maria's shoe, Pam Reynolds, denture man, Parnia's case, etc. etc. etc. (the ones where proponents rain derision down on anyone who questions their import) - can be dismissed as lucky guesses which don't seem all that improbable to you.

I guess you are welcome to your opinion. But I would suggest that researchers pay no attention to such unreasoning skepticism when planning their experiments, as addressing them would be a considerable waste of resources at this point.

You are adding another laying of subjective judgement about how guessable the images are (it is a subjective judgement about the experimental conditions that comprise our feelings on this, not an objective measure). Like I said, what the study needs in a simple target-decoy method to objectify the data using blind, independent judges. If the effect is as strong as is perceived, it should not take many trials to reach high significance.

I don't understand how target-decoys and blind judges address your concerns in any way. If you think that it isn't possible to put together a pool of targets which aren't guessable, having judges involved still doesn't tell you how guessable each target is. Can you describe the experimental set-up you envision?

None of that address the problems I'm talking about.

Can you clarify the problem you are talking about, then?

Linda

 

[electricfunk]

I see. You are suggesting that the cases containing remarkable correspondences which are regarded as showing support for the survival of consciousness - Maria's shoe, Pam Reynolds, denture man, Parnia's case, etc. etc. etc. (the ones where proponents rain derision down on anyone who questions their import) - can be dismissed as lucky guesses which don't seem all that improbable to you.

No, I'm saying that we don't have an objective handle on what would constitute a successful outcome and the probability of observing that "successful" outcome in the AWARE study, as the experimental design stands.

I don't understand how target-decoys and blind judges address your concerns in any way. If you think that it isn't possible to put together a pool of targets which aren't guessable, having judges involved still doesn't tell you how guessable each target is. Can you describe the experimental set-up you envision?

It would be the same kind of protocol used in ganzfeld. Interview the patients and give the transcript/drawings to a blind, independent judge who selects an image from a target + decoy set, etc, etc, you know the details. Target is selected 25% of the time according to the null (and I guess we are back to that debate again).

Can you clarify the problem you are talking about, then?

The problem is one of relying on subjective judgements about what constitutes a successful outcome and the probability of observing that "successful" outcome. I think I've made myself quite clear. You can ask me a more specific question if you like.

 

[Kai]

Just as diseases, indisputably evident, were not per se supportive of the existence of bacteria; shamanic practices, religious claims of mystical experiences, the proliferation of magical and occult beliefs in human cultures, seemingly inexplicable coincidences and forecasts, and a whole host of other phenomena—all of them there for anyone to witness—are not scientifically supportive of psychic experience. What psi and bacteria share in common is that both must go "under the microscope" for us to have confidence that they exist. Microbial science uses optical magnification to bring into stark relief entities that we would normally never see; psychical science uses statistical magnification to draw out otherwise imperceptible signals hiding in the peaks and valleys of probability.

I do not think I can accept that a microscope, which is a physical instrument discerning by means of optical principles, and statistics, which is a human conceptual instrument, are a valid comparison in the way you are trying to use it here, at all. The very point I was making in bringing up the microscopy model, is that the phenomena discerned are demonstrably independent of the discernment apparatus by physically rooted phenomena. Sickness and death were not disputable. Shamanic practices, mystical experiences, occult beliefs (where said beliefs are held to be true)…are all disputable, and questionable in every case as to whether they exist independent of the discernment “apparatus” being used to “perceive” them. Again, I repeat, physical phenomena must be rooted in physicality, not only discernible in “data handling” which is a human conceptual construct entirely. A microscope can function perfectly well independent of human involvement. A water drop could even function as a microscope under certain circumstances. Not so with data handling, which involves a set of abstractions upon the world (number, laws of chance, etc) which may in the last analysis not even be true.

The bacteria you can perceive unaided by tools of amplification, such as the namibiensis, commonly more than .2 mm in length, can probably be counted on one hand; sightings of such species did not occur until long after bacteria, generally, had been accepted as real organisms (and even if such sightings had occurred, it is unlikely they would have been accompanied by identification). Similar things may be stated for psi phenomena; it is possible that traces of psi lie scattered across all human cultures, even in our daily lives, and—like electromagnetic fields before Faraday, or radio waves before Hertz—surround us without our recognition.

It’s seems like a kind of desperate appeal, or hope, Johann. I mean, I am not completely against the possibility of psi, but I am against the promotion of what I perceive to be a rather weak and unlikely case to something stronger. Again, organisms well below the threshold of observation were causing indisputable physical symptoms, and ending lives, long before microscopy disclosed them. One could discern these phenomena by the “midnight test” I mentioned earlier. Even if supposed psi phenomena are taken to be rarer than that, there is a buck-stopping point where they must have an impression on the world’s forces and systems. The problem with your argument is that EM fields also have physical symptoms everywhere…everything from lightning to tectonic stresses…things rooted in the world’s worldliness if I can put it that way. When I examine your list of what is supposed to be equivalent for psi, all I see is a bunch of interpretive stuff…shamanic beliefs, stats handling, etc. This just doesn’t persuade me that you are talking about something operating at the level of natural forces.

It is equally possible that psi does not explain all, or even most, of these ostensibly similar things; bacteria were certainly identified before viruses, but they did not cause measles, polio, cancer, or even the common cold. In concert with other factors (such as human psychology and neurobiology), psi may be only part of the explanation for "the paranormal".

But that is cart before horse, surely. As first, we would need to be sure that we actually had “phenomena” that defied explanation. The Black Death defied explanation for the physicians of the day, at least in the early phase…but the phenomena themselves were in their faces, and undeniable. When the corpses of your entire family were being wheeled out the door on a cart, rhetorical arguments about the existence of something killing your kin were irrelevant. But it does not seem to me that psi can ever boast such a situation. Again, any *reasonable* person must ask…is there really something there?

In our struggle to comprehend the complexity and nuance of the natural world, we should discard no tools that may aid our understanding. It is tempting to apply the methods of medieval scholasticism, relying purely on argument and what can be deduced from the senses, but the age of such incremental advance is long past us. Laymen may be intimated by and untrusting of technical scientific methodology (without clear technologies developed from them), but this is just how it is; statistics, mathematics, physics, and chemistry are not things everyone can do, without long and intense study, and that is what make them valuable. In my opinion, the person who claims that psi should be obvious; that casinos shouldn't exist because of psychokinesis, or telephones because of telepathy, is operating at the intellectual level of the man who doubts the existence of climate change because it is not warm everywhere—these arguments deny the efficacy of science by privileging personal speculation. I have seen you advance very similar contentions (at least to the first); you may want to consider what the full acceptance of your philosophy entails.

You are of course malforming most of what I have said for your own purposes. I only have an objection to mathematics and statistics if they are used to make claims about the nature of reality WITHOUT corresponding symptoms in the reality they purport to be abstractions of (which of course they are). I actually pose the opposite argument to yours above…namely, that a real and serious danger arises in taking our abstractions or models of reality, for reality itself. And thus, when we think we see something in our models, concluding that this must apply to the cosmically generated world. Mutliple universes theory is a perfect case in point, up to and until the time when non-rhetorical evidence of such existences becomes evident…if it ever does. Until it does, I would rate those same theories in approximately the same category as most discussions about psi. You also stepped over my observation that “micro psi” is a creature of macro psi. No one ever used to talk about such a thing. All macro-psi seems to have failed the “midnight test” taken scientifically, and now we go search at smaller and smaller scales, where our own subtle nuances of behavior and organization become players. This does not disturb you? Oh well. It does me.

In sum, I have stated my position: a priori arguments against psi are, at this point, highly unpersuasive.

And a priori arguments for them are equally unpersuasive. What is needed is for them to actually show forth as aspects of the world, not just as aspects of an “arguable” “interpretation” of the world. Such things never troubled families of the plague victims on the way to toss their family members into mass graves.

 

[fls]

No, I'm saying that we don't have an objective handle on what would constitute a successful outcome and the probability of observing that "successful" outcome in the AWARE study, as the experimental design stands.

It would be the same kind of protocol used in ganzfeld. Interview the patients and give the transcript/drawings to a blind, independent judge who selects an image from a target + decoy set, etc, etc, you know the details. Target is selected 25% of the time according to the null (and I guess we are back to that debate again).

So Parnia puts together a pool of nationalistic and religious symbols, people, animals, and major newspaper headlines that seem improbably guessable, and just to make sure sits down with a dozen people and asks them to guess "what's on this sheet of paper I'm hiding from your view" for all 200 pictures. Nobody guesses correctly on any of them, and only 2 guesses even mention an animal which happen to be in the pool. However, since electricfunk still thinks that we don't have a handle on whether observing a successful outcome is improbable, when Parnia has an NDE/OBEer who mentions noticing a picture of a bunny with eyeglasses, Parnia wonders if this is a lucky guess when it turns out that there was a "bunny with eyeglasses" hidden target in the subject's resuscitation room. He shows 5 similar "bunny with eyeglasses" pictures to the subject, who picks out the correct picture without any hesitation. Still could be a lucky guess according to electricfunk, so Parnia gets an independent judge and sets it up like a ganzfeld study, showing the judge a picture of a flower, a waterfall, a worm and a bunny with eyeglasses. The independent judge picks the picture of a flower, since the subject also happens to mention there were flowers in a vase at the reception desk. On this basis, Parnia disappointingly reports that no targets were seen. Next time this happens, the judge picks the "bunny with eyeglasses" picture and Parnia reports that a target was seen, but it's not particularly remarkable, since there was a 1 in 4 chance that it was just a lucky guess.

The problem is one of relying on subjective judgements about what constitutes a successful outcome and the probability of observing that "successful" outcome. I think I've made myself quite clear. You can ask me a more specific question if you like.

That's okay, I think I've got it.

Linda

 

[electricfunk]

So Parnia puts together a pool of nationalistic and religious symbols, people, animals, and major newspaper headlines that seem improbably guessable, and just to make sure sits down with a dozen people and asks them to guess "what's on this sheet of paper I'm hiding from your view" for all 200 pictures. Nobody guesses correctly on any of them, and only 2 guesses even mention an animal which happen to be in the pool.

That would involve making subjective judgements as to whether the responses given by your dozen participants were "correct" or not, which you have agreed is an unreliable approach.

However, since electricfunk still thinks that we don't have a handle on whether observing a successful outcome is improbable,

Correct. The AWARE protocol does not allow us to have an objective handle on whether a particular response is successful and the probability that a successful outcome will be observed.

when Parnia has an NDE/OBEer who mentions noticing a picture of a bunny with eyeglasses, Parnia wonders if this is a lucky guess when it turns out that there was a "bunny with eyeglasses" hidden target in the subject's resuscitation room. He shows 5 similar "bunny with eyeglasses" pictures to the subject, who picks out the correct picture without any hesitation.

That would be an objective measure in the form of a forced choice test where a successful outcome is clear cut and amenable to statistical analysis. That would be a reasonable thing to do if all the appropriate blinding and pre-specifications were made.

Still could be a lucky guess according to electricfunk,

Of course. You think it’s impossible for someone to imagine a bunny with eyeglasses? What we want to know is the probability of it being a lucky guess so we can have an objective means of rejecting the null hypothesis.

so Parnia gets an independent judge and sets it up like a ganzfeld study, showing the judge a picture of a flower, a waterfall, a worm and a bunny with eyeglasses. The independent judge picks the picture of a flower, since the subject also happens to mention there were flowers in a vase at the reception desk. On this basis, Parnia disappointingly reports that no targets were seen.

I agree it would not be impossible for that to happen. With most objective measures comes a degree of error. However, because the judge is an intelligent human being, they are not likely to disregard information about what the patient saw on the shelf. Much more likely would be for the judge to choose an image on the basis of what the patient claims to have seen on the shelf.

Next time this happens, the judge picks the "bunny with eyeglasses" picture and Parnia reports that a target was seen, but it's not particularly remarkable, since there was a 1 in 4 chance that it was just a lucky guess.

Yes, you would need more than one trial to achieve a statistically remarkable result. If the effect is as large as you seem to be assuming, you would not need many.

That's okay, I think I've got it.

Great, I'll wait for a reasoned critique rather than a response based on an argument from personal incredulity.

 

[electricfunk]

Kai, I wonder if you could suggest a valid and reliable experimental protocol to test for ESP that does not involve statistical inference?