[ExI] Psi (no need to read this post you already knowwhatitsays )

Stefano Vaj stefano.vaj at gmail.com
Fri Jan 8 11:46:26 UTC 2010


2010/1/8 Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com>:
> If you're assuming a lack of probity in the experimenter, why not just say
> the whole thing was scripted or made up and have done with it? This is the
> bottom line with most skeptical retorts. What would it take to dispose of
> this canard? Sworn statements from everyone involved? No, people like that,
> they'd lie for profit, right? Or just because they're deluded loons. Or
> maybe I just invented it to sell my books.

Of course, the general idea behind science is that if you do not
believe something which is being reported, you do not rely on ad
personam arguments, you go and see for yourself.

Now, even though I have never given it a try, I am inclined to believe
that anybody trying to guess cards beyond a wall ends up finding, if
he is dedicated enough, a marginal discrepancy between the actual
results and the expected statistical distribution which becomes more
and more unlikely as the number of trials grows (an interesting
experiment that I am not aware has ever been tried, and might have
some weight with respect to our little discussion on AGI, is how a PC
would perform in similar circumstances: worse, better, just the
same?).

Some much more dramatic anedoctes reported in your book are really
non-repeatable anyway, so I think that you may believe or not that
something strange is happening as you please. In any event, strange
facts are bound to happen after all, irrespective of the fact that
organic brains are involved at all...

 --
Stefano Vaj



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