[ExI] Psi and gullibility

BillK pharos at gmail.com
Wed Jan 27 12:14:33 UTC 2010


On 1/27/10, Damien Broderick wrote:
>  I think the key merit of John Clark's question is that it highlights why
> most people who pride ourselves on rationality despise the idea of psi,
> rather than remaining openminded and exploratory about it: mad humans seem
> to make it a special feature of their delusions. They project their
> intentions upon the neutral activities of others, they are threatened or
> excited by "ideas of reference", they feel others putting scary thoughts
> into their heads, etc. I regard it as possible that psi actually is
> responsible for a quite small proportion of this, but mostly I assume it's a
> brain pathology that is often abolished by antipsychotic drugs (as Stathis
> tell us). But since real psi appears to operate at a low level for most of
> us, and gets mixed up with wishful thinking, paradeilia, imagination, etc,
> it's very easy to suppose that those who make strong claims for it are in
> the same camp as the crazies. (And some of them, admittedly, do seem to be.
> Then again, the same sort of accusation is made by all those reasonable
> people against transhumanists, singularitarians, cryonicists, CR dieters,
> etc etc.)
>
>

I think it is too simplistic to put psi claims down to only wishful
thinking or madness. People are very complicated creatures, with
multiple, always-changing motivations. Power, status, sex, con tricks,
anything to earn a living, the motives are endless.

The main problem with claiming the reality of psi is the inability to
produce any practical use for it. This was the main reason the CIA
management canceled Star Gate. They weren't really interested in the
two opposing reviews, one anti, saying it didn't exist. and one pro,
claiming statistically significant results. The CIA couldn't use it
because even the believers admitted it was hit and miss and they never
knew what was a 'hit' until they obtained on-site verification.

Similarly, attempts were made to predict casino games. Again, they
claimed statistical significance, but couldn't make money on it, even
though there were strong financial incentives.

This is not a new thought, of course. Psi researchers have been
struggling with this for many years. If only..........

I found an interesting paper that discusses this.
<http://74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:LoMuhwxjqq8J:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=2000>

SPIRITUALITY AND THE CAPRICIOUS, EVASIVE NATURE OF PSI
J.E. Kennedy
For the National Conference on Yoga and Parapsychology,
January, 2006, Visakhapatnam, India        Version of 5/14/2007

Abstract: Many writers have noted that psi appears to be capricious
and actively evasive. The evidence includes the unintended and
undesired (a) reversal of direction of psi effects between and within
studies, (b) loss of intended effects while unintended internal
effects occur, (c) declines in effects for subjects, experimenters,
and lines of research, and (d) failure to develop successful
applications of psi. These characteristics are not consistent with the
assumptions for statistical research and have not been explained.
---------------

The author comes to the conclusion that psi can only be used to
enhance spirituality because any attempt at practical use fails
miserably.

Well, that's one way of looking at it.
The alternative is that it doesn't exist.

BillK



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