"Consciousness," the missing 'unified theory' factor?

[owl]

So say the practitioners of homeopathy and chiropractors. . . I still don't see the difference.[/Quote]

 

(Replying to my: "What 'wheat' has been found in the tons of 'chaff' (crap) you mention in “comparison?”)

 

I think a lot of "medicine" including a lot of homeopathy depends on the "placebo effect," which is another example of consciousness as a vital part of the healing process.

Are you saying that chiropractors are frauds? I've found them very helpful on occasion when an injury has made my spine pinch a nerve and an "adjustment" corrected it.

 

I couldn't find anything about Bohm's work outside the individuals brain other than a side mention of species wide memory and I don't remember reading it in the links offered. Is there a certain source linked or could you link one.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicate_and_explicate_order_according_to_David_Bohm

In the enfolded [or implicate] order, space and time are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of dependence or independence of different elements. Rather, an entirely different sort of basic connection of elements is possible, from which our ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the deeper order.

 

An “Amazon” intro to his book:

“In his classic work, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, David Bohm develops a theory of quantum physics which treats the totality of existence, including matter and consciousness, as an unbroken whole.

David Bohm presents a rational and scientific theory which explains cosmology and the nature of reality; written clearly, and without the use of technical jargon, it is essential reading for those interested in physics, philosophy, psychology and the connection between consciousness and matter.

 

Another on “Bohm’s Gnosis: The Implicate Order”

http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/plenum/plenum_3.html

You:

As I said, I don't see what Penrose's work does for psi since it involves only an individuals brain. Since its quantum computer models only seem to work for interconnected neurons within a sheath of membrane it couldn't function outside the individual.

 

If it turns out that the brain works like a quantum computer it would have "game changing" implications for consciousness studies. How that might integrate into the field of the transpersonal psychology of consciousness remains to be seen.

(me):

"What if"... later experiments with dozens or hundreds of people without telepathic ability show no hits or only hits expected by chance? That does not debunk the validity of the experiment I cited.

You:

It would indeed damage the validity of your data of the previous experiment. If there are huge outliers when comparing data sets, especially if there is only a single set with outliers, that data set was probably incorrectly gathered or the data was erroneous.

 

Let me get this straight. If lots of experiments are done with people with no 'psi gifts', and the null hypothesis is confirmed (no psi effects evident), that would "damage the validity of your data of the previous experiment" where there was excellent evidence* of his gift. (*My memory lapse was about mechanical details of image source media and my state of mind as sender, not the essence of the experimental evidence.) I don't think so.

 

I could come up with a ton of ways this method could be used for tricks. If you want me to I could give a few examples of how this could easily be done without psychic ability.

 

I'm not saying that such an experiment could not be faked; only that it wasn't in our case. We had no credentials other than my dad's local renown, and we did not submit the results for publication. It remains an anecdote.

 

I do want to clear up one more detail that my memory got wrong. After review of the original account some 12 years ago (quoted by md), I still said:

"They (ed: the mag pages) were both dog-eared (pre-selected) and then torn out for easy access as a stack of ten pages on my table."

Not a "stack of ten pages on my table," but given to me one at a time. I knocked on the door when focused and "sending."

Or it could have been something fun to do to entertain a 12 year old child?

 

Could have been but wasn't. We took both demonstrations of hypnosis and experiments on telepathy very seriously. Sorry you can not verify that.

 

I'm not even a physicist, what does the physics departments opinion of other sciences have to do with ANYTHING I've been saying?

 

It doesn't. It has to do with what I've been saying and the difference between anecdotes or even anthropological studies ('not evidence') and "hard core" extremely rigorously controlled lab experiments ('good evidence.')

Cap 'n R pointed out early that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, especially in light of the pitfalls of statistical analysis he pointed out.

 

I offered the above experiment as an example of extraordinary evidence. I pointed out the difference between statistical analysis of "standard procedure" image "sending" experiments, some using just a few geometric figures, and ours, in which the "odds" against guessing the images I sent would be "astronomical" in the first place... and that we had near perfect results.

 

Since your other memory wasn't exactly correct do you not think you could also be mistaken in your other memory?

 

My memory lapses revealed above were trivial to the essence of the experimental results... unless you believe that my being hypnotized was for the purpose of my parents' deceiving me. I don't think the argument, 'What if they were frauds'?... (or even just playfully screwing with my mind)... is a good one. (And hypnosis as in the earlier demonstrations of the power of consciousness to "re-create reality" for the subject is not usually considered "lying")

 

My previous account with my son had been documented in my journal soon after the incident, and the essentials were the same as told here.

Edited March 17, 2012 by owl

[Ringer]

(Replying to my: "What 'wheat' has been found in the tons of 'chaff' (crap) you mention in "comparison?")

 

I think a lot of "medicine" including a lot of homeopathy depends on the "placebo effect," which is another example of consciousness as a vital part of the healing process.

Are you saying that chiropractors are frauds? I've found them very helpful on occasion when an injury has made my spine pinch a nerve and an "adjustment" corrected it.

 

 

I'm saying chiropractic medicine doesn't have evidence to support its practice, yet they have had positive study results.

 

http://www.skepdic.com/chiro.html

The basic idea of classical chiropractic is that "

subluxations

" are the cause of most medical problems. According to classical chiropractic, a "subluxation" is a misalignment of the spine that allegedly interferes with nerve signals from the brain. However, there is no scientific evidence for spinal subluxations and none have ever been observed by medical practitioners such as orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, or radiologists.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia....g_to_David_Bohm

 

 

An "Amazon" intro to his book:

 

 

Another on "Bohm's Gnosis: The Implicate Order"

http://www.bizcharts...m/plenum_3.html

 

The wiki article doesn't have much on how the theory could be used with psi, but the bizcharts has some quotes to where I could see how it could be taken that way. The quotes he has are meaningless though. It states that the entire universe has his version of consciousness, yet gives no reasoning behind his statement that only humans can use this 'inner energy'. Even the fact that a physicist would use energy in the way they are is odd.

 

There are other parts that make me believe he took the road, like so many other greats before him, into a realm of quackery. This quote is a good example

human being takes part in the process of this totality, he is fundamentally changed in the very activity in which his aim is to change that reality

 

If the quote holds this same meaning in context, I don't see what he would mean to 'change reality' other than some sort of metaphysical mysticism. And I would have to say I'm with others when saying the whole theory on conscious 'wholeness', as in universe wide consciousness, is on most points unfalsifiable.

 

If it turns out that the brain works like a quantum computer it would have "game changing" implications for consciousness studies. How that might integrate into the field of the transpersonal psychology of consciousness remains to be seen.

 

It wouldn't because, as I said, it relies on the neurons being interconnected by membranes. So even if that is completely true, every person is not membrane bound to each other.

 

 

 

Let me get this straight. If lots of experiments are done with people with no 'psi gifts', and the null hypothesis is confirmed (no psi effects evident), that would "damage the validity of your data of the previous experiment" where there was excellent evidence* of his gift. (*My memory lapse was about mechanical details of image source media and my state of mind as sender, not the essence of the experimental evidence.) I don't think so.

 

When did we say all of these experiments were done with people with no 'gifts'? The point is to find out if there is such thing, so good studies would have groups with both those who say they do have the gifts and those who don't. Why would only people who don't have these 'gifts' be used? That would make no sense.

 

Your lapses were in the essence of the controls used as well. Such as not being able to see what page you were using (if the page was ripped out it would be easy to see the page you were using in another copy), how they pages were stored, etc. That makes it even more likely that there was trickery involved because it makes the trick much easier to pull off.

 

 

I'm not saying that such an experiment could not be faked; only that it wasn't in our case. We had no credentials other than my dad's local renown, and we did not submit the results for publication. It remains an anecdote.

 

You have repeatedly stated the experiment could not be faked. Let's review

 

I already explained how it was impossible for them to "trick" me . . .

I explained how they could not have tricked me . . .

There was, therefore, no way I could have been "tricked"

And all of those were about this exact experiment.

 

I do want to clear up one more detail that my memory got wrong. After review of the original account some 12 years ago (quoted by md), I still said:

"They (ed: the mag pages) were both dog-eared (pre-selected) and then torn out for easy access as a stack of ten pages on my table."

Not a "stack of ten pages on my table," but given to me one at a time. I knocked on the door when focused and "sending."

 

 

Could have been but wasn't. We took both demonstrations of hypnosis and experiments on telepathy very seriously. Sorry you can not verify that.

 

I can verify I know of a similar 'magic trick' that does the exact same thing with either pictures or words, depending on what they want to do, that doesn't need psi. Since that sort of thing has been demonstrated you need to introduce another factor that could not be easily explained like this.

 

It doesn't. It has to do with what I've been saying and the difference between anecdotes or even anthropological studies ('not evidence') and "hard core" extremely rigorously controlled lab experiments ('good evidence.')

Cap 'n R pointed out early that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, especially in light of the pitfalls of statistical analysis he pointed out.

 

Do you disagree that extraordinary evidence is needed?

 

I offered the above experiment as an example of extraordinary evidence. I pointed out the difference between statistical analysis of "standard procedure" image "sending" experiments, some using just a few geometric figures, and ours, in which the "odds" against guessing the images I sent would be "astronomical" in the first place... and that we had near perfect results.

 

That's not extraordinary evidence. It's not even ordinary evidence, it wouldn't hold as evidence for anything in a scientific field.

 

 

My memory lapses revealed above were trivial to the essence of the experimental results... unless you believe that my being hypnotized was for the purpose of my parents' deceiving me. I don't think the argument, 'What if they were frauds'?... (or even just playfully screwing with my mind)... is a good one. (And hypnosis as in the earlier demonstrations of the power of consciousness to "re-create reality" for the subject is not usually considered "lying")

 

Trivial to you perhaps, but some where lapses about controls used which is a pretty big deal. If you were to put that forth as evidence and it was demonstrated you had misreported the controls your data would be seen as fraudulent. Not that you were purposefully lying, but in a journal setting that's where it would stand.

 

Not to mention if those were the lapses that could be shown between that writing and now, what about all the lapses that occurred between the experiment and the previous writing?\

 

My previous account with my son had been documented in my journal soon after the incident, and the essentials were the same as told here.

 

And the same problems as the above still hold just as well.

[owl]

Ringer:

And the same problems as the above still hold just as well.

 

Just skimming before the traditional party. Wondered, off the top, what "problems" those were, in your mind. I'll get back to you soon. Not gone for the weekend after all.

 

I'm saying chiropractic medicine doesn't have evidence to support its practice, yet they have had positive study results.

[/Quote]

Didn't you just contradict yourself? Aren't "positive study results" evidence?

 

How about my case of cured pinched nerve pain after a very well executed spinal adjustment. Maybe you have become immune to "evidence" because of your prejudice against chiropractors.

 

I will not critique the rest of your post on how wrong Bohm was.

Maybe you could write and publish an equally credible scientific paper debunking him.

Or maybe you are not even close to understanding his work. But, of course, you haven't even studied it.

 

Yet you have your opinion here, for what it's worth. (No comment.)

 

I'll bw back sometime after the party... maybe next week.

[Ringer]

Just skimming before the traditional party. Wondered, off the top, what "problems" those were, in your mind. I'll get back to you soon. Not gone for the weekend after all.

 

The memory distortions and lapses as well as all the other things discussed previously.

 

Didn't you just contradict yourself? Aren't "positive study results" evidence?

 

No I didn't contradict myself, but perhaps I could have worded it better. Positive studies can be evidence that something may be happening though not necessarily what is being tested. Say if we had a group of people use a placebo and a homeopathy pill, really also a placebo, and the the homeopathic medicine had a statistically significant difference in its working ability. Now although that is a positive result it isn't necessarily good evidence because fluctuation will happen. So if many other studies show that the difference seen before was just an outlier we cannot really say that the previous study was evidence that homeopathy worked. Now when that happens usually we look at the evidence for the underlying idea behind the practice. The idea behind chiropractic medicine has no evidence to support it. Since there isn't evidence to support the underlying idea, and it doesn't tend to do better than a placebo, even though there are positive result studies there is no good evidence to support its practice.

 

How about my case of cured pinched nerve pain after a very well executed spinal adjustment. Maybe you have become immune to "evidence" because of your prejudice against chiropractors.

 

Regression to the mean

 

I will not critique the rest of your post on how wrong Bohm was.

Maybe you could write and publish an equally credible scientific paper debunking him.

Or maybe you are not even close to understanding his work. But, of course, you haven't even studied it.

 

You can't falsify an unfalsifiable position. It is like when creationists ask evolutionists to disprove god.

 

 

 

 

[owl]

You can't falsify an unfalsifiable position. It is like when creationists ask evolutionists to disprove god.

No, it's not like that at all. The inquiry into consciousness acting at a distance using Bohm's theory of "an implicate order" based on a possible quantum field beyond individual consciousness... is nothing like creationists asking evolutionists to disprove god.

 

So... theoretical speculation on how consciousness might reach across space, a non-local phenomenon based on a variation of the quantum model has no place in science?

 

You say:

The idea behind chiropractic medicine has no evidence to support it.

 

I went to a chiropractor with a pinched nerve causing severe pain and he “cracked my neck”, the “adjustment,” and that relieved the pressure on the nerve; and the pain went away.

 

In what universe is that not evidence to support it?

Your last rely to my description of the above was,

“Regression to the mean.”

Well, that sure explains it!

 

About the family telepathy experiment shared above;

(For the general reader who may have been confused by my memory lapses revealed in detail above...):

 

I am sorry that I remembered some details wrongly between my writing about it around '00 and my re-telling here.

 

Before we began ( first getting me hypnotized and then Dad into receptive trance) I would browse through a few magazines which Dad had never seen and dog-ear ten pages which had images which I thought would be unambiguous to send.

 

Mom would tear out the pages so I would not need to flip through 'zines while hypnotized to find my selected pages. Dad never saw the 'zines or the pages until after the ten trials were over.

 

I would sit in my bedroom beside the door and go into deep hypnosis under Dad's guidance. He would then go into the living room and also go into deep trance, helped by Mom as previously explained.

 

When ready, she would slip a page under the door and knock to make sure I was attending. I would knock back when I was well focused on the image.

 

She would then go to Dad, say, "ready," and record what he spelled out on an alphabet board, as already explained.

 

I have already explained the results of one such set of ten trials, in which we got 10 hits out of 10 trials (if you count a soapbox with the wrong brand name, both starting with "F.")

 

I have already addressed the "trickery" issue. There was no trickery involved, no "audience" to trick, and no reason for them to trick me. We were serious if "home grown" investigators of telepathy. I seriously don't care who believes it or not. As I said, I have utmost respect for the role of skepticism in science, and you are all welcome to it. That factor does not intimidate me, and I have told it truthfully as best I remember it, being open to correction, as above. (I had not read my original account for 12 years or so.)

 

As I have already mentioned, one of the "standard procedures" for this kind of image sending experiment under lab conditions involves several geometric figures. So depending on how many figures, the odds that the subject would be able to guess which by chance alone is 20% for each trial if five figures, etc.

 

I consider our experiment "extraordinary" beyond the above statistical standard because of the "astronomical" odds of guessing accurately on each trial from all possible images in a magazine.

The 100% run of hits speaks for itself.

 

I'll leave it there for now. Just felt the need to clear it up because of my previous memory lapses.

Edited March 20, 2012 by owl

[Ringer]

No, it's not like that at all. The inquiry into consciousness acting at a distance using Bohm's theory of "an implicate order" based on a possible quantum field beyond individual consciousness... is nothing like creationists asking evolutionists to disprove god.

 

Yes it is, because it relies on one thing that isn't falsifiable (universal consciousness) and one thing that is plain wrong (directional evolution). There might be more but I stopped reading the link after the directional evolution part.

 

So... theoretical speculation on how consciousness might reach across space, a non-local phenomenon based on a variation of the quantum model has no place in science?

 

No, but how space itself is conscious is because it assumes a definition of consciousness that is not scientific.

 

 

I went to a chiropractor with a pinched nerve causing severe pain and he “cracked my neck”, the “adjustment,” and that relieved the pressure on the nerve; and the pain went away.

 

In what universe is that not evidence to support it?

Your last rely to my description of the above was,

“Regression to the mean.”

Well, that sure explains it!

 

A pinched nerve in the spine could be caused by a few things, one could be a muscle strain or other injury. In this case it heals on its own, albeit slowly. Since they heal slowly people tend to go to chiropractors when things are taking too long. If this was your situation then I'm sure you did feel better, but it's because you were healing anyway and you just associated it with the chiropractor because you went there while you healed naturally. Hence my regression to the mean comment because it is the most common thing to happen.

 

Other ways pinched nerves happen are more serious and usually take surgery to heal completely, but other things can relieve strain on the nerve. Chiropractic ways, though, have not been shown to fix this at all. If this was the case a chiropractor won't be able to do anything to heal you.

 

Another situation that happens all the time is that you were diagnosed by the chiropractor as having a pinched nerve, their most common diagnosis. Then they "cranked your neck" and said they fixed it. You then felt better via a placebo effect. As to your "In what universe is that not evidence?" I would have to say that in this one it is an anecdote and, therefore, not evidence.

 

All that being said, chiropractic has seen some usefulness, but it seems to be almost exclusively in the lower back and not any different than what they do in physical therapy. Since physical therapy is not chiropractic that doesn't do anything as evidence for it.

 

 

 

 

About the family telepathy experiment shared above; . . .

 

Your family's experiment was 100% non-controlled. The two people being tested for telepathy had the exact pages that were supposed to read telepathically. I mean do you really expect to persuade anyone by telling them this and saying, as a random person on the internet, "believe me, my parents wouldn't try to trick me,"?

[owl]

Yes it is, because it relies on one thing that isn't falsifiable (universal consciousness) and one thing that is plain wrong (directional evolution). There might be more but I stopped reading the link after the directional evolution part. [/Quote]

 

I'm not surprised that you stopped reading stuff with which you disagree and assume proved wrong.

Bohm was a pioneer in both quantum physics and consciousness studies. I would not expect you to understand him, much less agree with him. That doesn't make him wrong and you right. Given his credentials (yes, "appeal to authority") it's more likely vice-versa.

You could also assert that an "implicate order" is "just plain wrong" because it might also be called "universal consciousness" and play a part in conscious evolution, which you do believe is wrong.

 

No, but how space itself is conscious is because it assumes a definition of consciousness that is not scientific.

No one is saying that "space itself is conscious." If consciousness is "non-local" as used in Bohm's sense, that would help explain telepathy. Of course it's all still speculative, but that doesn't make it all wrong.

 

About my pinched nerve. You are in serious denial of the facts. I'll fill in more detail. I had fallen off a scaffolding (a plank broke) and hit the ground hard, racking the hell out of my neck. The third cervical vertebra was pinching a nerve, very painful, and my balance went way off.

After a couple of days, I went to a chiropractor. He saw and felt that the above vertebra was physically out of alignment. He did what he was trained to do, gave it a jerk ("cracked my neck") and the pain went away; and my balance was restored.

 

Your prejudice against chiropractic does not make all of that wrong, nor does your prejudice in general against the topic of this thread make the whole field just a bunch of crackpot crap.

 

Your family's experiment was 100% non-controlled. The two people being tested for telepathy had the exact pages that were supposed to read telepathically. I mean do you really expect to persuade anyone by telling them this and saying, as a random person on the internet, "believe me, my parents wouldn't try to trick me,"?

 

As I've said repeatedly, I do not expect to persuade skeptics out of their skepticism. I am just telling the truth about what happened.

You still don't get the controls. My father never saw the pictures until after the experiment was over. My mother saw them, and I "sent" them. It is true that she could have been "sending" the images telepathically too. So there was no control to isolate which "sender" (or both) was his source for the images he "saw." Either way, telepathic transmission of the images was confirmed.

[Ringer]

I'm not surprised that you stopped reading stuff with which you disagree and assume proved wrong.

Bohm was a pioneer in both quantum physics and consciousness studies. I would not expect you to understand him, much less agree with him. That doesn't make him wrong and you right. Given his credentials (yes, "appeal to authority") it's more likely vice-versa.

You could also assert that an "implicate order" is "just plain wrong" because it might also be called "universal consciousness" and play a part in conscious evolution, which you do believe is wrong.

 

It seems trying to debate with you is an exercise in futility. I have directly spoken to points which seem disagreeable and it seems your main point is that you're not surprised that I don't agree. Can't you actually make points to try to persuade me instead of A.) repeating the same thing that has been talked about before B.) just saying you don't expect me to be persuaded or C.) misrepresenting me?

 

Evolution having a specific direction is wrong, why would I keep reading when some of the basic premises are incorrect? Also, as to it being falsifiable, Bohm himself stated, "there's a truth, an actuality, a being beyond what can be grasped in thought, and this is intelligence, the sacred, the holy," in regards, if the website is to believed, to consciousness. As to intelligence, "intelligence cannot be grounded in "structures such as cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles.""

I never once said implicate order was just plain wrong. As I have said before I am not a physicist and wouldn't be able to give you an answer either way, but I do know a bit about evolution and cognition so that's what I stick to.

In science you are wrong far more often than you are right, if they were always right future scientists would no longer have any hopes for a job. I am completely open to being proved wrong, but I have to see good evidence to accept that something is true. I am fine with being wrong, and have been many times, but you have to show something substantial.

 

No one is saying that "space itself is conscious." If consciousness is "non-local" as used in Bohm's sense, that would help explain telepathy. Of course it's all still speculative, but that doesn't make it all wrong.

 

I'm not saying it is all wrong, but at the same time the ideas presented for non-local consciousness don't do anything for telepathy at the moment. It relies on neuron clusters being membrane bound so they can always be in contact. So I still don't see how it would help explain psi.

 

 

 

About my pinched nerve. You are in serious denial of the facts. I'll fill in more detail. I had fallen off a scaffolding (a plank broke) and hit the ground hard, racking the hell out of my neck. The third cervical vertebra was pinching a nerve, very painful, and my balance went way off.

After a couple of days, I went to a chiropractor. He saw and felt that the above vertebra was physically out of alignment. He did what he was trained to do, gave it a jerk ("cracked my neck") and the pain went away; and my balance was restored.

 

Your prejudice against chiropractic does not make all of that wrong, nor does your prejudice in general against the topic of this thread make the whole field just a bunch of crackpot crap.

 

So it was #3 then? If you did enough damage with that fall to really damage your neck enough to compress a nerve you would probably need surgery for a herniated disk or something similar. Cranking your neck would probably cause more damage than it would help. Your balance comes from your inner ear, not your neck. The nerve is called the Vestibulocochlear nerve and is a cranial nerve that doesn't even enter the spinal column. Your balance was probably due to cervical vertigo due to whiplash or a similar neck injury.

 

 

As I've said repeatedly, I do not expect to persuade skeptics out of their skepticism. I am just telling the truth about what happened.

You still don't get the controls. My father never saw the pictures until after the experiment was over. My mother saw them, and I "sent" them. It is true that she could have been "sending" the images telepathically too. So there was no control to isolate which "sender" (or both) was his source for the images he "saw." Either way, telepathic transmission of the images was confirmed.

 

You used it as an example of proof for psi. You mother was with your father to put him in his trance and she had the pictures. You have no way of knowing if she showed him the pictures because you were shut in your room. Again, this was 100% not controlled.

[owl]

It seems trying to debate with you is an exercise in futility.[/Quote]

It's mutual.

I quit with you on Bohm. He was a highly respected quantum physicist with in interest in how that field interfaces with consciousness studies and spirituality, as in consciousness *transcending* "structures such as cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles." Hard core materialists do not believe in the latter transcendence, so there is no common ground for conversation about it with you. Of course it remains speculative.

This also applies to your objection (Ed:*...*):

 

I'm not saying it is all wrong, but at the same time the ideas presented for non-local consciousness don't do anything for telepathy at the moment. *It relies on neuron clusters being membrane bound so they can always be in contact. So I still don't see how it would help explain psi.*

 

"Non-local consciousness" in Bohm's model IS his "implicate order" in which consciousness itself *transcends" the limits of of individual consciousness. That would explain telepathy.

 

Continuing with your *quite off-topic* tirade against chiropractic, you pretend medical expertise as follows:

 

So it was #3 then? If you did enough damage with that fall to really damage your neck enough to compress a nerve you would probably need surgery for a herniated disk or something similar. Cranking your neck would probably cause more damage than it would help. Your balance comes from your inner ear, not your neck. The nerve is called the Vestibulocochlear nerve and is a cranial nerve that doesn't even enter the spinal column. Your balance was probably due to cervical vertigo due to whiplash or a similar neck injury.

Thank you, Doctor.

My neck vertebrae were whacked out of alignment when I fell.

One or both of my two vestibular (balance) nerves was pinched between two dislocated (out of alignment) vertebrae.

It was painful and I was staggering with impaired balance. The chiropractor fixed it. The result was immediate.

I am now done with this off topic distraction.

 

You used it as an example of proof for psi. You mother was with your father to put him in his trance and she had the pictures. You have no way of knowing if she showed him the pictures because you were shut in your room. Again, this was 100% not controlled.

 

She had the pictures but, yet again, my father did not see them until the experiment was over. Your options are to believe it or not, and, as I've said repeatedly, I really don't care that you choose "not."

The way I know that she didn't show him the pictures is that we were all honest people with full integrity in our intent to do this honest investigation, this experiment in telepathy. Therein was the "control" that they were not deceitful in this experiment. You believe they were. See above.

End of conversation.

[Ringer]

 

 

Continuing with your *quite off-topic* tirade against chiropractic, you pretend medical expertise as follows:

 

 

Thank you, Doctor.

My neck vertebrae were whacked out of alignment when I fell.

One or both of my two vestibular (balance) nerves was pinched between two dislocated (out of alignment) vertebrae.

It was painful and I was staggering with impaired balance. The chiropractor fixed it. The result was immediate.

I am now done with this off topic distraction.

 

 

Since you enjoy trying to be condescending please explain how a cranial nerve is pinched between two vertebrae because as I recall cranial nerves don't pass through the spine.

 

 

As to the rest I'm tired of you just avoiding addressing any point I've made so I'm done with this whole thing.

[owl]

This conversation about consciousness acting at a distance (telepathy, communication through no known means) came up in another thread about objectivity in science, but other than as an example of the debate about what constitutes objective scientific evidence, the subject belongs in this thread.

 

Ringer had said:

Someone in the field makes an observation of anything relevant to what he is studying. If the swarm of fruitflies interacts with the pissant it will be recorded. For the paranormal 'feeling' every time you get a stomach cramp, or any 'bad feeling', you would have to record it and measure the positive results with the negative results. Other wise it would be cherry-picking.

 

Swansont had said:

...

Your sensed data would be acceptable if you had kept a log of every thought that might qualify as telepathy, so everyone could see the correlations between them and see if the events happened more often than one would expect from random chance.

 

I had argued:

Science is open to evidence. The above was verified evidence of very specific communication at a distance via no known means.

 

I went on to give an example of specifically focused field study. (The scientist doesn't record everything he observes but just the subject he is studying.)

 

Recording every instance of stomach pain I had would not be focused on paranormal experience. Only a case were such experience turned out to correlate with another at a distance and at the same time as specified above in this thread would qualify as a possible instance of empathetic telepathy. I had in fact "kept a log of every thought that might qualify as telepathy," every experience, anyway, and they were very rare. I submit that this incident was clearly evidence of telepathy, confirmed by all who were present.

I'll leave it to readers interested enough to review the incident as detailed in this thread to decide whether it could have happened by "random chance."

[Ringer]

I went on to give an example of specifically focused field study. (The scientist doesn't record everything he observes but just the subject he is studying.)

 

Recording every instance of stomach pain I had would not be focused on paranormal experience. Only a case were such experience turned out to correlate with another at a distance and at the same time as specified above in this thread would qualify as a possible instance of empathetic telepathy. I had in fact "kept a log of every thought that might qualify as telepathy," every experience, anyway, and they were very rare. I submit that this incident was clearly evidence of telepathy, confirmed by all who were present.

I'll leave it to readers interested enough to review the incident as detailed in this thread to decide whether it could have happened by "random chance."

 

In what way would only recording positive results not be cherry-picking? What are the statistics of positive and negative results of your log?

 

You admitted no one was there when you experienced the pain or feeling, so you were the only one there to confirm it (you told your wife and son, but confirmation based on anecdotes is not scientifically confirmed).

[owl]

In what way would only recording positive results not be cherry-picking? What are the statistics of positive and negative results of your log?

 

You admitted no one was there when you experienced the pain or feeling, so you were the only one there to confirm it (you told your wife and son, but confirmation based on anecdotes is not scientifically confirmed).

As I already said, "Recording every instance of stomach pain I (ever) had would not be focused on paranormal experience" (the pissant in the previous illustration.)

What makes it paranormal and qualify for a log entry is that my pain correlated with his at a distance with no known means of communication.

 

Also already stated, "My stomach pain was subjective, quasi-psychosomatic and empathetic, while his was the result of a physical ulcer." Telling my wife about it brought it into the interpersonal realm.

 

You say, as if an ironclad axiom of science, "but confirmation based on anecdotes is not scientifically confirmed."

I say that good science considers all evidence, rejecting what may be lies or doubtful correlation based on all parameters and circumstances of each case.

 

I did immediately tell my wife what brought me home way earlier than planned. Either I made it all up (lied) or my pain was clearly empathetic with his, communicated at a distance.

Since I was/am not lying, it was a confirmed case of communication at a distance.

 

"Science" that claims there has never been a case of telepathy must ignore such evidence, based on your dictum above. That would create a false negative (falsely confirming the null hypothesis.) Science in the general sense is not limited to published studies or lab replicable results. There are a lot of anecdotal stories of telepathy and other paranormal phenomena, some confirmed by investigation (the forte' of anthropology and paranormal investigation in general)), many debunked. The job of science is to sort out the true from the false... without such bias as yours.

Edited May 5, 2012 by owl

[Ringer]

As I already said, "Recording every instance of stomach pain I (ever) had would not be focused on paranormal experience" (the pissant in the previous illustration.)

What makes it paranormal and qualify for a log entry is that my pain correlated with his at a distance with no known means of communication.

 

I know you said that, but it's still wrong. If you only write down positive results you are cherry-picking.

 

Also already stated, "My stomach pain was subjective, quasi-psychosomatic and empathetic, while his was the result of a physical ulcer." Telling my wife about it brought it into the interpersonal realm.

 

You say, as if an ironclad axiom of science, "but confirmation based on anecdotes is not scientifically confirmed."

I say that good science considers all evidence, rejecting what may be lies or doubtful correlation based on all parameters and circumstances of each case.

 

I did immediately tell my wife what brought me home way earlier than planned. Either I made it all up (lied) or my pain was clearly empathetic with his, communicated at a distance.

Since I was/am not lying, it was a confirmed case of communication at a distance.

 

Just because you say something should work a certain way doesn't mean it does or will. Not accepting anecdotal evidence as positive evidence of a phenomena is the accepted methodology. Just because you don't agree with that isn't going to change it.

 

"Science" that claims there has never been a case of telepathy must ignore such evidence, based on your dictum above. That would create a false negative (falsely confirming the null hypothesis.) Science in the general sense is not limited to published studies or lab replicable results. There are a lot of anecdotal stories of telepathy and other paranormal phenomena, some confirmed by investigation (the forte' of anthropology and paranormal investigation in general)), many debunked. The job of science is to sort out the true from the false... without such bias as yours. [emphasis added]

 

It seems you are saying that results don't need to be replicated to be acceptable.

 

Also, my bias of proper experimental controls and replication is a plague upon science. It's a shame we can't go back to the days when something is true because someone said their friend heard someone say it might work sometimes.

[ydoaPs]

Saying that you're wrong (and giving justification for that claim) is not ad hom.

 

"Civil discourse does not extend all the way to walking on eggshells to accommodate fragile egos."-swansont

 

Now kindly point out where I insulted you and then used that as the basis for you being wrong. What I did do was say your example was an obvious choice for false memory and give ample reason to think this.

 

Relevant:

 

[owl]

As I said and still say, “... good science considers all evidence, rejecting what may be lies or doubtful correlation based on all parameters and circumstances of each case.”

 

It wasn’t a complex situation with lots of ‘moving parts’ difficult to remember, and details were recorded soon after. That leaves the options that I was/am lying or that it happened as I said it happened, and that would be a case of empathetic/telepathic communication at a distance. Denying it does not make it false.

 

And, yet again, a journal of (notes on) paranormal experience does not include all experiences but just the ones that might qualify as paranormal ones.

That is called the focus of the study, like the study of pissant behavior, not everything observed on a particular field trip. Calling it "cherry picking" does not invalidate the principle of focused study.

[swansont]

And, yet again, a journal of (notes on) paranormal experience does not include all experiences but just the ones that might qualify as paranormal ones.

That is called the focus of the study, like the study of pissant behavior, not everything observed on a particular field trip. Calling it "cherry picking" does not invalidate the principle of focused study.

 

How can you tell if an experience qualifies as paranormal before checking for correlations? How do you know to exclude it, except after the fact and only because it didn't fit your hypothesis?

 

This is like predicting coin flips and discarding the ones you got wrong as "not qualifying" because they don't support your hypothesis that you can predict coin flips.

[owl]

How can you tell if an experience qualifies as paranormal before checking for correlations? How do you know to exclude it, except after the fact and only because it didn't fit your hypothesis?[/Quote]

 

You can't. Only after the empathy/telepathy is confirmed can it possibly qualify as paranormal.The "checking for correlation" comes after the unexplained pain and image. If it had not been correlated and relevant it would have been just another case of indigestion... with a 'side' of an image of my son in pain... with no correlation.

 

I exclude all "normal" experience from my notes (earlier records) of para-normal experience.

 

This is like predicting coin flips and discarding the ones you got wrong as "not qualifying" because they don't support your hypothesis that you can predict coin flips.

Not quite. I was not out in the wilderness flipping coins. I was in total solitude, not even thinking about my family until I experienced... (as above.) I had no "hypothesis" out there on my wilderness journey. I spontaneously had the experience as related.

You can't 'believe it' so you liken it to flipping coins, which would be totally irrelevant to the situation as described. If it doesn't fit with your materialistic philosophy you must find a way to discredit it. You failed.

[qsa]

@owl

 

this might be of interest to you

 

http://discovermagaz...ist-mission-esp

 

 

 

edit

http://dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf

Edited May 8, 2012 by qsa

[swansont]

You can't. Only after the empathy/telepathy is confirmed can it possibly qualify as paranormal.The "checking for correlation" comes after the unexplained pain and image. If it had not been correlated and relevant it would have been just another case of indigestion... with a 'side' of an image of my son in pain... with no correlation.

 

I exclude all "normal" experience from my notes (earlier records) of para-normal experience.

 

Excluding data for no other reason than that they don't agree with your hypothesis is not scientific. It's crap.

 

Not quite. I was not out in the wilderness flipping coins. I was in total solitude, not even thinking about my family until I experienced... (as above.) I had no "hypothesis" out there on my wilderness journey. I spontaneously had the experience as related.

You can't 'believe it' so you liken it to flipping coins, which would be totally irrelevant to the situation as described. If it doesn't fit with your materialistic philosophy you must find a way to discredit it. You failed.

 

Science has standards of rigor. This fails to be scientific — you have not distinguished this from a random event. It has nothing to do with philosophy, per se — the basic framework of science has no expectations of specific phenomena. If it passes rigorous tests, including ones designed to weed out accidental coincidences, it will be accepted. But this doesn't even come close.

[owl]

I said:

Only after the empathy/telepathy is confirmed can it possibly qualify as paranormal.The "checking for correlation" comes after the unexplained pain and image. If it had not been correlated and relevant it would have been just another case of indigestion... with a 'side' of an image of my son in pain... with no correlation.

 

I exclude all "normal" experience from my notes (earlier records) of para-normal experience.

 

Excluding data for no other reason than that they don't agree with your hypothesis is not scientific. It's crap. [/Quote]

 

You are still completely missing the point of what it means to record possible paranormal phenomena.

Such a journal must focus on that subject. Of course such focus requires excluding (as in not recording) all/every normal experience I have ever had! It's not about excluding stuff that disagrees with a hypothesis. Should I now be recording every nuance of what I am now experiencing just in case a piece of it turns out to be a possible paranormal experience? Can you see how ridiculous such a "record everything" requirement is? Probably not.

 

Science has standards of rigor. This fails to be scientific — you have not distinguished this from a random event. It has nothing to do with philosophy, per se — the basic framework of science has no expectations of specific phenomena. If it passes rigorous tests, including ones designed to weed out accidental coincidences, it will be accepted. But this doesn't even come close.

 

Almost all my experiences have been easily classifiable as normal. A running account of everything I have ever experienced is not required to avoid the "cherry picking" criticism. When an "abnormal" event occurs, it becomes worthy of recording, but no one knows it is abnormal until the kind of correlation as above becomes evident.

 

You are way off base on this one.

Edited May 8, 2012 by owl

[Ringer]

 

You are still completely missing the point of what it means to record possible paranormal phenomena.

But you are not recording possible paranormal phenomena, you are only recording positive results.

 

 

Such a journal must focus on that subject. Of course such focus requires excluding (as in not recording) all/every normal experience I have ever had! It's not about excluding stuff that disagrees with a hypothesis. Should I now be recording every nuance of what I am now experiencing just in case a piece of it turns out to be a possible paranormal experience? Can you see how ridiculous such a "record everything" requirement is? Probably not.

 

Then record every time something bad happens and you don't feel something, and every time you feel like something is wrong and nothing is. We were just being overly specific about the stomach pain, but anytime you wouldn't normally explain the feeling or pain with obvious cause it could qualify as a possible paranormal experience would it not?

 

 

Almost all my experiences have been easily classifiable as normal. A running account of everything I have ever experienced is not required to avoid the "cherry picking" criticism. When an "abnormal" event occurs, it becomes worthy of recording, but no one knows it is abnormal until the kind of correlation as above becomes evident.

 

If you only record positive results it is cherry-picking. End of story.

 

 

 

[swansont]

You are still completely missing the point of what it means to record possible paranormal phenomena.

Such a journal must focus on that subject. Of course such focus requires excluding (as in not recording) all/every normal experience I have ever had! It's not about excluding stuff that disagrees with a hypothesis. Should I now be recording every nuance of what I am now experiencing just in case a piece of it turns out to be a possible paranormal experience? Can you see how ridiculous such a "record everything" requirement is? Probably not.

 

What you call ridiculous I call rigorous science.

 

My previous example of being able to predict coin flips still applies here. I can't actually predict the outcome, but if I don't record negative results (i.e. normal experiences), it looks like I can. Failing to record those events, of course, would be shoddy science.

 

 

Almost all my experiences have been easily classifiable as normal. A running account of everything I have ever experienced is not required to avoid the "cherry picking" criticism. When an "abnormal" event occurs, it becomes worthy of recording, but no one knows it is abnormal until the kind of correlation as above becomes evident.

 

The null hypothesis is not that you have some paranormal ability, it's that you don't. You are trying to establish that you do. How do you show that an event wasn't a (accidental) coincidence?

 

You are way off base on this one.

 

 

One of us is a scientist and one of us is not.

[owl]

 

But you are not recording possible paranormal phenomena, you are only recording positive results. [/Quote]

 

Do you agree that focus on the subject of paranormal experience means that one need not record every experience one has ever had and is having? This would be not only ridiculous but impossible, as trying to record every detail of ones stream of consciousness would become all one is experiencing.

 

Then record every time something bad happens and you don't feel something, and every time you feel like something is wrong and nothing is. We were just being overly specific about the stomach pain, but anytime you wouldn't normally explain the feeling or pain with obvious cause it could qualify as a possible paranormal experience would it not?

 

Possible, yes. But without a possible remote connection, not confirmed. It would remain just another undiagnosed pain or "bad" feeling. I could have filled a few notebooks with those over the 63 years since I learned to write... a meaningless exercise just to avoid future criticism of "cherry picking."

 

As a parent, a lot of "bad things happened" (the usual accidents and illnesses) to my kids which I did not "pick up on" by remote, as in the case in point. What would be the point of recording, for instance, "one of my sons broke his arm while I was at work, and I didn't feel a thing?" Confirmed incidents were extremely rare. I have no idea why I "picked up on" the ulcer at a distance and not the broken arm or many other such incidents.

 

As I said, the point of a paranormal journal is to record experiences that appear to be paranormal (obviously), and one doesn't know an experience so qualifies until a correlation appears to "co-relate" one experience to another, at a distance in the case of empathic telepathy.

 

If you only record positive results it is cherry-picking. End of story.

 

Not, as above. Science would not be better served if every case where there was no empathy at a distance were recorded... a long, useless journal just to avoid being called a cherry picker.

 

Me: "Can you see how ridiculous such a "record everything" requirement is?"

 

What you call ridiculous I call rigorous science.

 

See reply to Ringer above about "recording everything."

 

...Blah, blah, blah...

Focus on possible cases of paranormal experience (correlated, as above) is like any other focus or field of study in science. The set of "all experiences I have ever had and am having" is not relevant to the subject. But I said that more than once already. Enough.

 

The null hypothesis is not that you have some paranormal ability, it's that you don't. You are trying to establish that you do. How do you show that an event wasn't a (accidental) coincidence?

 

The above null hypothesis (agreed) was negated by the unexplained simultaneity of my empathetic stomach pain, felt at a distance, and my mental image of him in pain, with his severely bleeding ulcer. The emphasized phrase is how this kind of paranormal experience qualifies as paranormal.

 

It happened exactly as I said. Your disbelief does not negate that. There are many similar examples. Calling them all mere "anecdotes" and throwing them all out is not the kind of science which I respect, which open to evidence yet finely tuned to separate the "wheat from the chaff."

 

One of us is a scientist and one of us is not.

 

More credential waving appeal to authority.

 

[A game of one-ups-man-ship? I'll play. One of us has a 178 WAIS score and one of us probably(?) does not.]

 

Not all scientists are professionals. I am, and have been for well over half a century, an amateur scientist. Don't break your arm patting your own back with self congratulation.

[md65536]

Do you agree that focus on the subject of paranormal experience means that one need not record every experience one has ever had and is having?

Yes, because it's not enough to just record everything you've ever thought or experienced, but you have to do it in a way so that it is a "double blind" recording of experiments. That means that you have to blindfold yourself while you're writing everything, so that you can't recognize your writing later which will bias your interpretation of it. You also have to write it all in disappearing ink so that other people can't read your writing and bias the experiment.

 

It's too bad that no one here seems able to explain this all in a way that someone intelligent can understand.

 

 

Wait... couldn't you just record the frequency at which unexpected results occurred, so that you'd only have to count the ordinary experiences instead of documenting them all meticulously?

 

Nah... I'm dum. I like your "must record every detail of ones stream of consciousness" idea better.