akeena

Yes Sir! ok.

I have not read his papers or that of those belonging to his critics. But in this talk, Targ talks about remote viewing - locating a spot with x criteria. e.g. Finding plane crashed at y location. Not exactly reading a persons thoughts. ESP is pretty broad spectrum of stuff. Some claim to be able to get impressions from an object. So if you define esp as just that, well, I'm not sure how useful it could be. Example, ESP dude picks up a stone carving and gets knowledge about person carving it. Not all that useful in daily survival imo.

My statement of " But in the wrong hand, could it not also cause harm? " was given in the context of Phi's comment of " enormous advantage in modern humanity ". In such case, my reply was not necessarily. Agreed, possibly a slight advantage to the person. This will depend on the degree in which such ability could help the person. But I do question if everything we currently have should be considered an advantage? People with tiny holes in their ears for example. Scientists haven't found a use for this feature (theorizing it was a remnant of gills from the good old days) yet what 10%?? (differs from country to country) of the population still has it. If it is not a disadvantage that will kill an individual off, then such features could still persist, could it not?

Interesting comment Phi. Having not found any evidence doesn't imply with 100% certainty that it doesn't exist. Besides, can we assume that ESP resides in bone, fossil or anything else the survives or lasts longer in decomposition. I'm not a neuroscientist so I don't how that is seen, say, in a 100 year old mummy. "Enormous advantage" that's a boatload of assumption. We have mutations and genetic variations that in no way helps us at all, some of which kills us. Who's to say that ESP would be an enormous advantage. Knowledge isn't inherently good or bad. Yeah, if a person were to use ESP to find a safe location or route out, sure, that'll be an enormous advantage. But in the wrong hand, could it not also cause harm? It would be interesting to take your assumption and simulate that in computer model though. Of ESP being used to help us survive disasters or something and seeing if this could lead to overpopulation or other problems. But this would require assumption of initial parameters that may or may not be correct. John, I think this concept has a lot of merit as with each time we look at an issue, it contributes to our knowledge and understanding of it. But when a hypothesis turns out unsatisfactory, it should be modified or discarded (or a new one formulated). And then there's the bias issue. People may prefer or expect one outcome or another. Like in the case of an ESP believer desperately wanting to prove of its existence or his opponent strongly believing this is weirdo world and wants to discredit. They need to be careful to eliminate this bias in controlled experiments.

lol, is that a trick question. Do you even have drawer?! My guess is that the stack of 'organized-in-the-order-it-was-piled' papers would prevent you from finding that snickers bar. Yes koti, I've already read the wikipedia page as well. But I was hoping that someone else may have come across actual science articles on the matter first hand. Whether he is credible or not wasn't my initial reason for posting as I have read the same summary of disputes as you have. ESP is interesting (to me), and I came to this science community to see if anyone else has come across research work about it. I understand that this particular person has been criticized for his experiments being flawed but claims of this nature are hard to give a definite nay. At most, a scientist can say is that there is not enough data *at this time* to support that claim. Lack of evidence shouldn't preclude future endeavors to understand or even just discuss a subject matter not currently accepted by mainstream science.

I will give a summary to open discuss. Thanks! Can't seem to edit the original post so here... Russel Targ talks about his research work about 23 years I think at Standford Research Institute. He claims that during this program, there was evidence for remote viewing abilities in people. He said he collaborated with various government agencies including CIA and NASA and army officers to work on cases related to national security... china atomic bomb, kidnappings, weapons factory etc. He says he published the findings in credible science journals although I haven't seen any of these personally. With a simple quiet mind, they were supposedly able to pick up details of randomly selected person/target at various remote locations. He mentioned he had control person. And did experiments in a shielded room where they produced the details of the remote target location. So here's the question, have you come across any experiments of this nature published in science journals. Or if you are a person that is an absolute 'no way no how' type of person regarding this subject. On what basis did you come to this conclusion?

John, he has a degree in physics and was a senior research physicist at SRI. But if you don't want to watch, then that's ok. Koti, yes TedX banned the talk. I wanted to hear what about it was so controversial. I'm interested in your perspective though... he mentioned various intelligence agencies and the cases/studies in he did with them. So from your perspective, he doesn't have the qualifications of a 'scientist' so he must be making the collaboration up? or perhaps, there are just flaws in the experiments from the get go? Yes, yes I have read various disputes others have complained about his experiments. I'm just interested in your thoughts about where the credibility failed.

Laser physicist Russell Targ gives talk on his 23 year long research work on remoting viewing / ESP. Findings published in credible academic and scientific journals. Experiments included research related to national security cases involving CIA and other intelligence agencies. Interesting stuff. VIDEO: Physicist Russell Targ talk on ESP

As StringJunky mentioned, water is good at washing off salt and dirt particles on our skin but isn't good at removing oils on our skin. So any bacteria buildup on these oils won't get washed off with simple water. Take a look at this soap particle ... soap can bind with oils on one end and water on the other ... which helps wash off the oil when you wash your hands

lol. I eat sushi all the time. There are some beneficial parasites though. https://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2014/07/intestinal-parasites-are-actually-beneficial

I'm not quite following... Tryptophan Hydroxylase is an enzyme released when a person gets angry. This enzyme regulates serotonin and melatonin levels. What is the relationship between serotonin/melatonin levels and intelligence?