[extropy-chat] Re: Damien grants psi evidence

[Brett Paatsch]

Damien Broderick wrote:

> At 03:16 PM 12/18/2004 +1100, Brett wrote:
>
>>As I understand it the judges are only there to increase the
>>sensitivity of detection enough to pick up weak effects
>
> The judges are there precisely because of what Hyman noted: that the
> percipient sometimes follows his own associations down an idiosyncratic
> path, given partial and elusive contact with the target. So too can the
> judges, but by having several judges looking from a more distanced
> perspective, there's an enhanced chance for structural similarities to
> lead them to aspects of the target image subsequently masked in the
> percipient's near-hallucinatory ideation.

> Maybe in the long run this turns out not to be as effective as just
>showing the options to the RVer; if so, use that protocol henceforth.
> Or use both, adjusting the weights.

Because the 'just show the RVer the options' protocol would be easier
in practice to implement than a protocol involving judges, this suggests
that judges protocol is being used because the 'just show the RVer the
options' protocol has already been tried and found to be unsatisfactory
to the researchers.

There would have needed to have been a motivating reason to add
complexity (and therefore cost) to the simplest most obvious protocol
that could work.

> But the key point is that *it doesn't matter* from the standpoint of
> evaluating the probabilities of the matches that occur. If the RVer and
> the judges are all obsessed by football and their mothers, those options
> will be called and matched very often; however, since targets of that sort
> will only come out of the randomizer infrequently, they will yield amazing
> hits every now and then and far more frequent errors the rest of the time.
> I can't believe this isn't obvious.

Well, you should probably reckon on losing some. And I reckon that you
do so reckon.

I think that your line of reasoning is obvious, but what is not obvious is
that the same facts and experimental conditions you are describing either
(a) matches exactly any average case that Utts is reporting on; (I don't 
think
you are claiming it does) or  b) could not potentially be better explained
by a hypothesis other than that psi phenomena exists even in a weak form
(I don't think your claiming that either).

Brett Paatsch