[ExI] vampires

[spike]

> ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick
> Subject: [ExI] vampires
> 
> On 1/22/2010 3:08 PM, Dave Sill wrote:
> 
> >> >  Vampires, if they existed outside fiction, would not be  
> >> > supernatural either, unless their powers are described 
> as deriving 
> >> > directly  from satanic supernatural beings.
> >
> > Vampires are not consistent with our current understanding 
> of the laws 
> > of nature, If they were real, that would indicate that our 
> > understanding was lacking.

What's supernatural about vampires?  If defined as people who drink human
blood, such a thing exists I can assure you.  Granted they are some
seriously whacked out people, and I get squicked just thinking about it, but
the practice does exist.

Interesting point however, for the example illustrates how we might theorize
some straw-man aspect of vampires that does not exist (such as turning into
a bat for instance) and then dismiss the notion based on that.  

Extrapolate that notion to psi.  Try to imagine a form of psi which we know
can exist under perfectly understandable circumstances, such as the
following experiment: take a deck of cards and shuffle thoroughly.  Flip the
cards one at a time and try to guess beforehand what it will be.  If you
have a good memory, you will score better than 1 correct guess each time
thru the deck, because the last few cards will have few possibilities from
which to choose.  If you have a perfect memory, your chances of getting the
second to last card is 50% and the last one 100%.

Of course this isn't *real* psi.  Like artificial intelligence, as soon as
we know how to program it, that is no longer actual artificial intelligence,
but rather just good programming technique.

So your job: come up with experiments that have a natural basis but are
psi-like.

spike