[ExI] Sigh

[Gregory Jones]

--- On Sat, 7/3/10, John Clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net> wrote:
 
>...but neither psi nor cold fusion belongs to that class...

The cold fusion notion is a good running start for me, for I remember clearly the wild debate we had about it at work, in March 1989.  It surprised me that a bunch of guys were willing to buy into it, to the point of speculative investment paladium.  (There were plenty of non-blievers who were buying up paladium.  If they got out in time, they made big on that.)
 
In the debate at the time, I was the one who took the hardest line that cold fusion had to be impossible, if I understood anything about chemistry.  The nucleii do what they do in the center there all alone, and the electrons wave around out there somewhere.  The electrons and nucleii somehow transmit forces across that yawning empty abyss by some mysterious means, but they really don't *influence* each other to any extent.  So I argued that there is no way any kind of catalyst could cause or influence fusion.  Chemistry is all about electrons.  But I can think of a dozen ways a chemical reaction could have some unnoticed effect or induce a subtle experimental error that could fool even good researchers.
 
The cold fusion notion needed some kind of theoretical basis for me to take interest.  It was always missing that.  Even the standard explanation at the time lacked punch.
 
Regarding psi and lotteries, the same need for a theoretical basis applies.  We are left with something like the "we are all avatars in some meta-simulation" argument, which is actually the most compelling of those I have heard.  Damien's book has a chapter describing alternative theoretical approaches, but I confess I have not studied it.  Failing that, I am back to trying to find tiny effects in the mechanical device used to generate random numbers.  
 
A few days ago, we discussed roulette wheels, and the fact that they are not perfect: the frets are not perfectly equal in length nor perfectly spaced, ruts can eventually wear in the outer edge of the wheel, subtle slight imperfections are unavoidable.  Slot machines are even more susceptible to mechanical imperfections.  In a typical lottery, randomness is generated using numbered ping pong balls in a bowl, which is really good, but not perfect.  The balls can be accidentally or intentionally weighted or coated, the outer surfaces scuffed or smudged with something sticky or slippery, or something that can impact the air flow around it, a sneaky operator can add a duplicate number or remove one and possibly not get caught if there is a crooked overseer.  
 
No mechanical device for generating random numbers is perfect, not even the =rand() function in excel on a computer, which uses internal clock signals as a seed.
 
spike
 
 
 
 
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