[extropy-chat] About ESP, etc.

[Damien Broderick]

At 09:54 PM 4/30/2007 -0400, Mike Dougherty wrote:

>Can (should) precognition be explained as a subconscious assembly of
>potentially non-obvious clues?

In ordinary life, what seems to be prophetic probably is just what 
you identify, if it's not a chance coincidence. In the lab, with 
suitable blinding, no--by definition. Obviously coincidence can never 
be ruled out, but when the chance probability of a match or a 
sequence of matches surpasses a certain predefined improbable value, 
something genuinely anomalous is indicated.

>Did you ever watch Jeopardy and know the answer to questions only a
>moment before they answer the question?
>  I was often suprised that I got Jeopardy questions with as high a
>rate as I did - mostly without a conscious awareness of how or when i
>learned the material being presented.  Is that precog, or lightening
>fast random access to a lifetime of stored facts that had otherwise no
>memory trigger?

Could be either; probably the latter, given the observed infrequency 
of psi effects.

Damien Broderick