[extropy-chat] Movie: WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW!?

[Damien Broderick]

At 02:19 PM 11/25/2004 -0800, Adrian wrote:

>all attempts to
>change things - at least, outside one's own body - by
>willpower alone, with no corresponding physical
>actions, have failed under laboratory conditions, even
>when conducted by the most sincere of believers

This is simply incorrect, as stated. You might wish to assert that it 
*must* be so, and that those who publish claims of lab PK or other psi 
(believers and uncommited alike) are mistaken or lying--but you can't say 
that the claims don't exist. Read the cumulative and on-going results from 
the Princeton PEAR lab. Read the results of my friend Professor Suitbert 
Ertel,
Home: Tobias-Mayer-Weg 3   D 37077 Göttingen
Office: Georg-Elias-Müller-Institut für Psychologie Gossler Strasse 14   D
37073 Göttingen
Email: sertel at uni-goettingen.de
Phone (home): 0551-3794494 (from abroad: 0049 551 3794494)
Fax (office): 0551-393662 (from abroad: 0049 551 393662)
Homepage: www.SuitbertErtel.net

Here's an example of a perceptual psi claim rather than PK, but it is of 
the same order of effectivity shown in the best PK human/machine protocols:

< [Subjects] draw pingpong balls from bags with written numbers 1 to 5
on them while they have to avoid one of the five numbers. My psi-gifted
participants were successful at that. They were not only successful when
they tried to hit certain numbers, they were also successful when they tried
to avoid certain numbers. Here are summarized results of seven participants
from tests with  avoidance intention: Total trials 4800, 681 hits = 14.2%,
expected 20%. Z = -10.05. P-value astronomical.

With hit intention these seven participants obtained the following hit
percentages (not summarized here): 24.2%, 25.5%, 32.7%, 32,7%,32.8%, 33.8%,
45.8%. Trial numbers were near 1,000 for each participant, expectancy again
20%.

Since hit intention was generally more psi-effective  than avoidance
intention, psi seems to be more activated for achieving something [desired] 
than
for escaping from something bad.

Suitbert >

Before anyone rushes to point out possible design flaws--maybe the Ss *saw* 
the balls, maybe the numbers *feel* different, etc--give a moment's 
consideration to the possibility that the experimenters have thought of 
these child-obvious problems and dealt with them in advance. Preferably, 
find and assess more complete accounts of the trials on Suitbert's site.

Damien Broderick