[ExI] Sigh

[john clark]

 On Fri, 7/29/11, Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com> wrote:
"John, just curious--what all would you consider to be considered "psi"?"


Ask Damien don't ask me, I never use the term if I can avoid it. Originally it was called "spiritualism" but that name fell into disrepute so it was changed to "ESP", but then that also fell into disrepute so it was changed again this time into "psi". No doubt there will soon be another name change.  
"It seems there's not a catchall--I thought to have it mean "an action taken by the human brain that is currently unexplainable by known physics,""
And conjuring up new fundamental laws of Physics is a very heavy responsibility, you don't do it every time some fourth rate scientist working on a shoestring budget using a very simple experiment claims to have discover definitive proof of it. I said it before I'll say it again, if these simple easy experiments were valid, today this thing call "psi" would not be controversial because its existence would have been proven to everyone's satisfaction way back in the time of Newton if not earlier, and today high school kids would be repeating these classic experiments in their science fair projects.  
"What definition, exactly, do you reject?"
I never reject definitions, I just reject junk science. Some people around here claim it isn't junk science but about a decade ago I challenged them to put their money where their mouth was and make a real bet on the matter with real money, but I never received a taker. Not one. And that's a real pity because not 10 minutes ago I got a call telling me I need to spend $7000 to get my hurricane shutters up to official government specifications and if I don't the city will start fining me $500 a day.    
 "What do you think the human brain has, without question, zero capability for?"
Well it certainly isn't wishful thinking, I'd like to have ESP and join the X-Men too. And it certainly isn't self delusion, we seem to have an infinite capacity for that. I wish psi was real, I wish cold fusion was real too, but unfortunately wishing does not make it so. 

 John K Clark 
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