[extropy-chat] Precognition on TV

[Damien Broderick]

At 09:08 PM 3/15/2007 -0700, Eliezer wrote:

> >>Actually my head would probably explode on that one too, unless there's
> >>some reason why the physics don't misbehave in the particular way that
> >>would make my head explode.  Has to do with something called the Markov
> >>property.
>
> > You should rush this insight to Professors Cramer and Utts and save
> > them a lot of wasted  effort.
>
>Now *that* would not be proper science.

Well, to be other than sardonic for a moment: why not? The groundwork 
for a lot of academic work is begun in the corridor, the cafeteria, 
after the colloquium, or in emails. If you feel strongly that 
considerations of conditional independence (or whatever; you were 
cryptic) necessarily undermine *in advance* both Cramer's current 
physics experiment and Utts's statistical analyses, I can't see why 
you shouldn't mention to them the gaping hole in their apparatuses. 
If not via personal communication, then perhaps in the form of a 
brief letter to a scientific or mathematical journal?

Damien Broderick