[ExI] Meta was Psi in a major science journal

[Damien Broderick]

On 10/21/2010 9:29 PM, Keith Henson wrote:

> The meta question is why people feel strongly that psi exists when it
> is*so*  marginal if it exists at all.

A good point, and of course one's impulse is to suppose that it's a 
delusion continuous with the conviction that some deity saved the 
Chilean miners but didn't have anything to do with stranding them down 
in the bowels of the earth. I'm sure delusion/illusion/confirmation bias 
is often responsible for anecdotal reports, especially among people who 
seem to think their psychic gifts are "on" all the time:

"I can make the traffic lights go green any time just by wishing it."

"Really? Even though all the cross-traffic drivers are wishing equally 
hard for theirs to go green and yours to go red? Even though the lights 
are controlled by a reliable computer algorithm?"

"Oh shut up, I just *know* it's true, you unspiritual oaf."

But it's quite possible that striking psi events "in the wild" are *not* 
marginal, just selective. Guessing random numbers is far from any 
evolved competence in a natural environment, but getting a flash of a 
dying or injured relative (frequently reported) might be vectored 
strongly by the same function that is marginal in dull repetitive lab 
trials. A few such events in one's life could instil a heavy-duty sense 
of conviction. And we know from plenty of careful studies that people 
really *do* know who is calling them on the phone, even at random, far 
more often than mean chance expectation. That seems closer to the way an 
evolved competence could function in one's Weltbild.

Damien Broderick