[extropy-chat] Elvis Sightings

[John K Clark]

"Ben Goertzel" <ben at goertzel.org>

> If you haven't even looked at the data, you certainly can't "know that
> [you] are right and they are wrong."

Actually I think I can. Mathematicians often receive "proofs" from crackpots
claiming to have found a way to square the circle, often these things are
very long, complex, and in their way almost ingenious. The error in the
proof is not immediately obvious, but they know it must be there somewhere
because it was proven to everybody's satisfaction more that a century ago
that squaring the circle is imposable. There is just no point spending weeks
or months digging out the error, they know immediately it's bullshit.
In the same way the possibility that Joe Blow the truck driver is an
experimental mega genius of such magnitude that he can detect something
hundreds of world class experimenters have been unable to do for 17 years is
so astronomically unlikely that yes, I can say with confidence it is
BULLSHIT without reading one word of it.

> Knee-jerk negative reactions not grounded in research

There is nothing wrong with knee jerk reactions, it must have a survival
advantage or Evolution would not have produced it. Some things require a
great deal of cognitive reflection, and some things do not. Knee jerk
reaction sorts it out.

> there have been many psi experiments with adequate controls.

Well then, if the phenomena is real and experiments with adequate controls
have already proven it, then it's poised to break into the mainstream. It
must be. Granted mainstream scientists aren't as brilliant as Joe Blow the
truck driver but they aren't complete imbeciles, at least not every single
one of them.

So I issue this challenge to members of this list who do not think ESP or
cold fusion is a stinking reeking mass of putrid shit; If a pro ESP or cold
fusion article appears in Nature or Science or Physical Review Letters
before February 12 2008 I will send you one dollar, if it doesn't you will
send me one dollar. If you want a longer timeframe then this is the bet, if
the article appears before February 12 2009 I will send you 10 dollars, if
it doesn't you will send me 10 dollars. If the article appears before
February 12 2010 I will send you 100 dollars, if it doesn't you will send me
100 dollars. If the article appears before February 12 2011 I will send you
1000 dollars, if it doesn't you will send me 1000 dollars. I'd go for
another year but if every single member of this list who had ever opposed me
took me up on it and I was proven wrong I might not be able to cover my
bets, of course there is not a snowball's chance in hell I am wrong, but it
just seems dishonest to me to make a bet you couldn't theoretically cover.
Just one other thing, before I accept a bet I must know your real name and
how to contact you, and yes, John K Clark is my (boring) real name.
I wish I had a name like Eliezer S. Yudkowsky.

So place your bets! Put your money where your mouth is!

  John K Clark