Paranormal Abilities for Dummies

By this do you mean starting by doing a few adequately powered Ganzfeld studies?

I'm talking about repeatability. Do 10,000 trials... 100,000 trials. If it's still coming out at 31% where chance is 25% at what point does "Mainstream" finally have to accept it as valid? They should already be now.

Better still... aim your testing at "creative" people or psychics. I hear numbers thrown about such as 31% for the average person and up to 60% for someone who is highly creative or identified as "intuitive"... and then I hear in the same breath that parapscyhologists don't like exclusively testing Psychics because of the negative shit flung your way because of the taboo of the subject.

More of these studies need to be done by mainstream science... not just parapsychologists.
 
I'm confused... what does precognition have to do with anything? The Ganzfeld doesn't test precognition... it tests for telepathy.

Paul is referring to being told which picture was the correct target, after the subject has made their selection. That is, it is feedback as to whether they were correct. Precognitive knowledge about that feedback could be used to select the correct target picture.

Linda
 
I'm talking about repeatability. Do 10,000 trials... 100,000 trials. If it's still coming out at 31% where chance is 25% at what point does "Mainstream" finally have to accept it as valid? They should already be now.

A 10,000 trial study might be overkill! :) But really, I think mainstream scientists are going to want to see adequately powered studies.

Better still... aim your testing at "creative" people or psychics. I hear numbers thrown about such as 31% for the average person and up to 60% for someone who is highly creative or identified as "intuitive"... and then I hear in the same breath that parapscyhologists don't like exclusively testing Psychics because of the negative shit flung your way because of the taboo of the subject.

I written in the past as well that they should focus on the groups they think will perform best (though there are some papers showing that creative people actually haven't performed better overall - I've linked to it before. I can dig it up.) But sure.

More of these studies need to be done by mainstream science... not just parapsychologists.

It's a question of interest and funding. If mainstream scientists have the interest and can get the funding, that'd be great!
 
Paul is referring to being told which picture was the correct target, after the subject has made their selection. That is, it is feedback as to whether they were correct. Precognitive knowledge about that feedback could be used to select the correct target picture.
Linda
I understand where you are going with this... because your belief is that time is linear... so if someone gives you the answer 20 seconds from now then precognition is seeing the future.

I would think that in itself would be worth exploring when it comes to PSI?
 
I understand where you are going with this... because your belief is that time is linear... so if someone gives you the answer 20 seconds from now then precognition is seeing the future.

Is that not how precognition is defined?

I would think that in itself would be worth exploring when it comes to PSI?

I agree. I've made this suggestion (as well as ways to go about it) numerous times in the 'past'.

Linda
 
I'm confused... what does precognition have to do with anything? The Ganzfeld doesn't test precognition... it tests for telepathy.
Only if the subject is never told which photo or video was the target.

Also in what Ganzfeld are the subjects given feedback? Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't the subject speak out loud during the test about what they see and the symbols and feelings they get during the experiment... during which time it is recorded and then this is replayed back to the recipient when selecting which one of the 4 images closest matches the symbols and images they saw, heard and felt?
And then if the subject is told which was the target image, that's feedback.

That's not feedback it's remembering the information you received. When you are in that state of consciousness you can barely remember what you said 30 seconds earlier never mind during a Ganzfeld. I can't see anything wrong with this approach or how in any way it prompts the recipient or gives them feedback that they otherwise didn't have for themselves.
If the subject is told the target image, then the entire process could be one of precognition.

~~ Paul
 
A 10,000 trial study might be overkill! :) But really, I think mainstream scientists are going to want to see adequately powered studies. If mainstream scientists have the interest and can get the funding, that'd be great!

I think the point here is that Ganzfeld studies of large numbers of subjects are expensive and time-consuming. On the other hand, assuming the smaller studies are well done and follow the same design, I don't see why they should not be combined. It is indeed remarkable that the mean 'guess' rate has come up consistently at over 30%.

As you suggest, a big part of the problem is that ψ is pretty starved of funds, so that individual studies tend to be small. One way (deliberately or otherwise) that science avoids this issue, is by keeping funds away from these studies, and then demanding huge individual studies to deliver statistical power.

@Paul Do you find yourself more attracted to the concept of precognition than telepathy?

David
 
@Paul Do you find yourself more attracted to the concept of precognition than telepathy?
I'm not really attracted to either. I would like to see some Ganzfeld studies in which the subjects were never told the targets. Of course, that still wouldn't separate telepathy from remote viewing.

As you say, it's frustrating that Ganzfeld is so interesting and yet there aren't many studies these days. Now we are all waiting to see what happens with Bem replications.

~~ Paul
 
I think the point here is that Ganzfeld studies of large numbers of subjects are expensive and time-consuming. On the other hand, assuming the smaller studies are well done and follow the same design, I don't see why they should not be combined.

Well, smaller studies (for example under twenty trials) are to small for a meaningful binomial distribution to be calculated, so they shouldn't be included in meta-analyses. Plus, there's a greater risk of informal or pilot studies being written up for publication if they happen to be successful. I think that removing small studies reduces that risk.
 
I think the point here is that Ganzfeld studies of large numbers of subjects are expensive and time-consuming. On the other hand, assuming the smaller studies are well done and follow the same design, I don't see why they should not be combined. It is indeed remarkable that the mean 'guess' rate has come up consistently at over 30%.

As you suggest, a big part of the problem is that ψ is pretty starved of funds, so that individual studies tend to be small. One way (deliberately or otherwise) that science avoids this issue, is by keeping funds away from these studies, and then demanding huge individual studies to deliver statistical power.

@Paul Do you find yourself more attracted to the concept of precognition than telepathy?

David

You should read Chapter 8 of the Cochrane guide, I believe it talks about this.
 
I'm confused... what does precognition have to do with anything? The Ganzfeld doesn't test precognition... it tests for telepathy.

IIRC Radin mentioned in his blog that the results from Ganzfelds could be explained with precognition, and there were a few "no sender" tests which still had the same results.

It does get close to the "super psi" problem, which I think I've mentioned before on this forum. Unless some kind of boundaries start getting installed in how various psi functions are meant to work, one can't really rule out which one is supposedly functioning on a given topic.

Though I see a world of difference in the possibilities opened by precognition than telepathy. Telepathy does open the door to distance communication (or planar), but the existence of free will should render accurate precognition of distant events near-completely impossible. And accurate precognition implies free will does not exist, as well as not providing planar (e.g. afterlives) information.

I know which one I'm personally rooting for.

On the other hand, assuming the smaller studies are well done and follow the same design, I don't see why they should not be combined. It is indeed remarkable that the mean 'guess' rate has come up consistently at over 30%.

Small studies may not actually be identical, and pooling them together does not equal a larger study. Consider if a regular study was performed but you said "every twenty cycles, replace everyone." Such would be considered highly strange to do in a study, but that is effectively what pooling smaller studies represents.

As you suggest, a big part of the problem is that ψ is pretty starved of funds, so that individual studies tend to be small. One way (deliberately or otherwise) that science avoids this issue, is by keeping funds away from these studies, and then demanding huge individual studies to deliver statistical power.

A lack of funds is indeed a problem, however this problem is only exasterbated by continually moving around what studies are performed. Consider how many resources are split across different groups doing unconnected studies (fMRI, mediums, Radin's recent obsessions with random number generators, Schlitz and Wiseman's experimenter effect studies) and then consider if the same dedication was applied to just pushing through the boring Ganzfeld studies, they very likely would have already produced a single large study of significant power by now.

The second problem is that if you take the current data set at face value, it tells you nothing about how to "get interested" in the topic. Simply knowing that you could do 5% better by mentation on a forced-choice setup doesn't really help you discern which thousand books on psi are legitimate and which thousand books are nonsense to appeal to people's new age interests. To put things in a different perspective, a report showing the result of tossing mentos in a fizzy soda gives you something you can work with (and has resulted in a lot of fizzy soda art.) Saying "something which may or may not be telepathy, or maybe precognition, all we can say for sure is its a piece of anomalous cognition" doesn't really inspire side projects.
 
IIRC Radin mentioned in his blog that the results from Ganzfelds could be explained with precognition, and there were a few "no sender" tests which still had the same results.

It does get close to the "super psi" problem, which I think I've mentioned before on this forum. Unless some kind of boundaries start getting installed in how various psi functions are meant to work, one can't really rule out which one is supposedly functioning on a given topic.

Though I see a world of difference in the possibilities opened by precognition than telepathy. Telepathy does open the door to distance communication (or planar), but the existence of free will should render accurate precognition of distant events near-completely impossible. And accurate precognition implies free will does not exist, as well as not providing planar (e.g. afterlives) information.

I know which one I'm personally rooting for.

I'm not sure myself that it necessarily is that black and white.

If time was absolutely 100% linear... then yes it would make sense that you can't have the chicken before the egg (Or is it the egg before the chicken...).

But from all the things I have read and seen, according to those on "the other side" time is not linear... and it's something we can't even begin to comprehend. It could be possible that the Psychic already knows the choice that person is going to make and the outcome they have chosen from themselves... before they even do.
 
I'm not sure myself that it necessarily is that black and white.

If time was absolutely 100% linear... then yes it would make sense that you can't have the chicken before the egg (Or is it the egg before the chicken...).

But from all the things I have read and seen, according to those on "the other side" time is not linear... and it's something we can't even begin to comprehend. It could be possible that the Psychic already knows the choice that person is going to make and the outcome they have chosen from themselves... before they even do.

But that is an example of non-free will, because the choice has already been made for the agent (unless the agent has made the choice and is not cognitively presenting it, as both biology and strange social requirements seem to spend a lot of effort wasting thought cycles from consciousness on trivial things.)
 
But that is an example of non-free will, because the choice has already been made for the agent (unless the agent has made the choice and is not cognitively presenting it, as both biology and strange social requirements seem to spend a lot of effort wasting thought cycles from consciousness on trivial things.)

I still think free-will is present... it's just because there is no concept of linear time everything happens at the same time.

Hmmm I'm not sure how to explain it... I look at some of the ITC work that Marcello Bacci has done and the findings that have come from his communication with the spirit world and what it is like over there. If this is correct then it could explain how Psychics are able to tap into an all knowing timeless continuum where everything seems to happen simultaneously.

http://atransc.org/articles/presi-bacci.htm


From the many communications received to this date, the following are some of the recurrent themes found within the information conveyed by the voices:
  1. Astonishment about their new surroundings.
  2. Time blocked.
  3. Unbelievable speed.
  4. Perception of endless space.



    The description of the beyond is characterized by astonishment due to the perception of a timeless environment that is depicted as “time blocked.” In our physical continuum, the sensory perception is linear and the learning process is actuated through progressive steps that result in time flowing from the past to the future. After death the perception changes: progressive learning is no longer effective as in the temporal dimension, but seems rather to operate as a simultaneous perception that is felt as “unbelievable speed.”
It is difficult to imagine how the communications, coming from a timeless dimension, are able to arrive in our space-time continuum. When we utter a word we are generating a temporal sequence of vowel and consonant sounds, and this is a normal process in our space-time continuum. The communication channel from and to the beyond has to pass through two different continua, the first one is the timeless and spaceless continuum and the second one is our space-time continuum. To make possible the transmission of words the communicator and the receiver must be placed within the same continuum: from what I can imagine this would only be possible through a common means of communication that shares the same capabilities, such as the psyche of discarnate and incarnate beings.
In this discussion, our understanding of the “psyche” should not be limited to human beings living in this physical, earth plane. It must also possess the capabilities to move, under certain conditions, into a timeless and spaceless continuum. In this regard, the human psychic capabilities of precognition, clairvoyance, extra-sensory perception, etc. are well known.
 
Well, smaller studies (for example under twenty trials) are to small for a meaningful binomial distribution to be calculated, so they shouldn't be included in meta-analyses. Plus, there's a greater risk of informal or pilot studies being written up for publication if they happen to be successful. I think that removing small studies reduces that risk.

I don't think you really see my point. If a potentially revolutionary phenomenon shows up over and over again (ganzfeld telepathy) but it is hard to get funds for a single study with enough statistical power to settle the issue, do we simply sit back and say there is insufficient evidence that this phenomenon exists?

Is there any evidence that these smaller studies come out particularly favourably for Ganzfeld?

I agree, a few well run studies would be the ideal, but the reason this is not done, is down to institutional science.

David
 
I don't think you really see my point. If a potentially revolutionary phenomenon shows up over and over again (ganzfeld telepathy) but it is hard to get funds for a single study with enough statistical power to settle the issue, do we simply sit back and say there is insufficient evidence that this phenomenon exists?

Is there any evidence that these smaller studies come out particularly favourably for Ganzfeld?

Maybe I did misunderstand: I'm not talking about studies that are underpowered, but those that are so small that they can't be have an effect size properly calculated or run the risk of publication bias (which, although small in the ganzfeld database, is still present).

I'd have to double check, but I think that studies with less that twenty trials are more successful than larger experiments in terms of percentage of statistically significant experiments.
 
I'm trying to remember a paper about the proportion of significant results found in small studies. The effect size is exaggerated when using small studies, but that wouldn't increase the proportion of positive studies on its own. However, if small studies act more like subgroup analysis (where the proportion of positive studies is higher than the 5% value typically used for significance testing), then underpowered studies would show proportionately more successful studies. And certainly the factors are in place for this to happen with the ganzfeld (e.g. researcher degrees of freedom).

Linda
 
I went back and checked my statement about very small studies being more successful than larger ones in terms of percentage of statistically significant studies. I found the spreadsheet where I'd split the database into four similar-sized quarters (using Tressoldi et al's meta-analysis) and I found that the most successful group in this respect were the largest studies (n>50, highest n=138). Half of those reported significant results, at p<0.05, one-tailed. The next biggest group was the group of very small (n<21, lowest n=4) studies, with 31% of papers reporting significant results. Then came the smallish group (21<n<36) with 28% and then lastly game the biggish group (35<n<51) with only 9% of significant results.
 
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