In various threads there have been various discussions about what materialism is, and isn’t, and various definitions have been proposed and cited. In this thread I want to ask a different question, addressed specifically to those who regard “materialism” as a bad thing. William, for instance, has said that “materialism” was “disproven” in the 18th century, yet laments
the spread of an 18th century myth in our public school system and in our culture at large.
So here is my question: if you are against something called “materialism” and see it as a bad thing (for whatever reason), what is your definition of the “materialism” you are against?
I’m not “convinced” by any scientific evidence, one way or another. My beliefs are based solely upon my personal experience and what I’m trying to accomplish in life. I experience what is best and most honestly described as, “psi” phenomena of various sorts.
I present papers in debates like this for my purposes (in this case, exposing bad materialism) in the debate, not to “support” my views or prove something to others.
Except when I offer to help you run such an experiment you don’t even acknowledge the offer. You have no genuine interest in the truth.
OMagain,
Do you know what “could in principle be” means, OMagain? ROFL! Your own quote expressly demonstrates exactly what I’ve been saying about “bad materialism”; a significant effect was found, and it was “explained away” not because they actually found it to be “publication bias”, but rather that it in principle could have been publication bias!!!
Anything, anything other than “psi is real”!!
No, you don’t.
I agree that you think you do, just as you think faith healers can cure cancer and that men can fly, but you don’t experience psi.
And yet when meta-studies show the effects are probably down to bias you ignore them. Likely because you don’t care about evidence, right?
I do. You are the one who has their own definition of words.
If you say so.
No, rather it could be explained by
A) Publication bias
B) Psi is real.
Given these two options I accept you would go for B) as that is what you already believe. But given that it can equally be explained by A) the pragmatic option is to stick with A) until the effect can be shown not to be caused by bias.
Much like your belief in faith healers. Anything, anything other then an uncaring universe is preferable.
EL:
No, they do not. They just show that it is possible.
to re-quote:
Definitely metaphysical bad-materialism bias.
Which makes it all the stranger that you won’t take me up on my offer to help you implement an experiment showing that intention can effect RNG.
But it doesn’t work because all it does is expose your lack of understanding of scientific methodology.
Simply show that the effect is supernatural or paranormal and publish a new paper then!
The world of science is open to all comers.
William @ UD:
Except of course when those claims are about PSI.
There is almost no evidence that psi forces are capable of such feats, and evidence abounds that RNGs are not affected by intention (i.e. casinos still make money).
What am I thinking now?
geez, William.
Obviously I can’t support a negative, William! Any more than I can support the case that “there are no black swans”! But it’s easily enough to falsify – just provide an example of a black swan/useful application of psi!
I don’t know what you thought I was claiming – I have never done psi research per se. But I have expertise in the methodologies used in those experiments, which are bread-and-butter experimental psychology paradigms, using random number generators to make stimuli unpredictable. Check my research output if you don’t believe me – you know my RL name.
Nothing paradigm-shifting about any of that. Again, SOP for cognitive psychology experiments.
You have yet to demonstrate, William, that anything about the way psi research is conducted, is, or should be, different in principle from the way we research any other subject in psychology. Exactly the same statistical constraints apply, including statistical power and its relationship with effect size.
I repeat: the reason people like me are skeptical about psi is not because we want anything to be true rather than psi, but because the evidence suggests that psi is unlikely to be a real effect.
OMagain said:
What I would go with is not the point; the point is that when challenged to provide some support for the idea that I’m “rejecting” some vast mountain of evidence that indicates that there is no such thing as a psi effect, the best you can come up with is a paper that itself shows an apparent psi effect which then attempts to dismiss the effect by saying it could have been, in principle due to publishing bias.
You and EL continue to demonstrate the point I’m making here. I am not the one “predisposed” to believe or reject any peer-reviewed, published research because the state of my belief system doesn’t depend on – indeed, doesn’t even consider – any scientific research at all. It wouldn’t matter to me if ALL scientific evidence was indisputably against the existence of psi; I would still act as if it was real as long as my acting in that manner (1) corresponded to my actual experience and (2) appears to aid me in achieving my goals.
I link to research that demonstrates a psi effect. You and EL scramble to find alternative explanations, possible protocol/bias issues, and make sweeping, apparently unsupportable claims – your claim of “overwhelming research” that disproves psi, and EL’s claim that there are no uses for psi. When people start making rhetorical, unsupportable claims against an effect apparently demonstrated in many, many papers, it is apparent that they are metaphysically committed and have an emotional investment against it.
I think a prudent, non-committed assessment of the state of research to date would be, at the minimum, “It appears that some sort of psi effect may exist and might affect the physical world in significant ways, even though it appears to be hard to pin down. Further research is warranted.”
Yes, they do, William. You are not bothering to try to understand my post. Sure psi remains a “possible” explanation. I didn’t say it wasn’t. That’s why I said:
,blockquote>Moreoever, there are papers and rigorous scientific articles that show that it is very likely that the demonstrated psi effect is an artefact.
And that evidence is apparent in the funnel plot I posted a while back, and in the Wagenmakers analysis.
We actually have techniques in quantitative methodology for estimating whether effects are likely to be real or not, whether it’s the effect of vaccination on autism, or the effects of psi on randomised displays. It’s what meta-analytical techniques are for, and why meta-analysis involves quite complex techniques for detecting bias.
But you dismiss this rigor as bias against your pet effect. It isn’t. It applies to any investigation into an apparent effect that may not be what it is thought to be and has bugger all to do with “materialism”.
EL said:
It’s not my job to support claims I didn’t make. It’s your job to support your claims or retract them as rhetoric.
However, many governments have used psi for various uses, to one degree of success or another. Our own government had a remote viewing program, called Star Gate, that FOI – obtained documents indicate was quite useful. Remote viewing has recently been employed to make money:
How’s that for useful?
And you reveal your own bias here, William, in your use of pejoratives like “scramble to find”. I did not have to “scramble to find” an alternative explanation, nor was I motivated to do so. I would be delighted to find such an effect. But when I look into the studies that have been done, I find they do not support the claims.
No “scrambling” is involved, simply rigorous application of statistical methodology.
Which either you do not understand (which is fine – as Wagenmakers says, it’s quite widespread, even among psychology researchers) or you refuse to address, resorting instead to mischaracterisations of my motivations.
The onus of demonstration is on the person making the positive claim. So no, it is not up to me to support my negative. It is up to the person making the positive claim to support the positive. And, if persuaded, I will most certainly retract.
I don’t know. Let’s see if it becomes widely adopted. If it works, it will be. But I can’t evaluate it on the basis of that abstract and nor can you.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/15/orlando-stock-picking-cat_n_2479491.html
That faith healer saw you coming, did he sell you a bridge too?
Fantastic claims require a higher level of evidence, don’t you agree?
I dismiss the “rigor” of that particular criticism in light of what would be the case if psi was an actual effect, and what that would mean in terms of potential psi-influenced outcomes of such analysis. Once again, if psi is real, a different kind of analytical methodology is required, one that is being developed and has been developed for decades. This is one of the problems with materialism-based science; it organizes its methodological heuristic as if materialism is true, not as if psi (or other such forces) are real and such interfering capacity must be accounted for in some way. That doesn’t mean “less rigor”, it means a differently-organized rigor.
Materialism-based methodology is fine if the world is actually materialist in nature; if it is not, if it is something else entirely, then all such a methodology may do is ensure that materialist-friendly research outcomes are produced in line with the various expectational influences.
If the world is fundamentally mental in nature, then science and research are not at all what we think they are, and are not telling us anything, really except something about the nature and state of our own minds and shared perspectives/beliefs/expectations.
No. That’s a fallacy.
It didn’t cost me anything. Pretty good deal, eh?
Here’s a link to the pdf
Well, I can see flaws in that one a mile wide. If you find it persuasive, William, find the author and see if you can make some money out of it together.
Oh?
Better go back to 2010 and tell yourself that then:
Your words, not mine.
They generally give the first one away for free, yes.
If you would care to share, we can write that program that will test *your* claims that psi is real and it can effect RNGs.
EL said:
I made no such positive claim. You’re the only one that made an unsupportable claim here. If your claim is unsupportable, it can only be rhetoric.
I see. You claim that psi has no use; I challenge you to support that claim and you refuse to do so. That makes your claim rhetoric. Even though I made no such counter-claim, I provided a link and a quote of an abstract that shows us the “black swan” you say will disprove your rhetoric – a case where psi was useful – and then you move the goal posts (let’s see if it becomes widely adopted) and dodge the evidence (can’t evaluate it on the basis of that abstract). Um… the entire paper is right there, EL.
Heh. Anything, anything except “psi is real”.
They did all their faith healing for free, and would not accept any contributions/donations.
That showed no such thing.
Name them. Let’s see what the internet has to say…
You believe in faith healing. Enough said.
Specifics, William, specifics. When I asked you what you would do differently, you simply referred to procedures that are SOP in many cognitive science protocols. So if “materialism” gets in their way, why are they used?
So what is this “different analytical protocol” that has to be used? In the example you just gave me, one “different analytical protocol” was leaving open the potential for moving the goal posts: t
he researchers lost money on a couple of occasions because they didn’t sell quickly enough. Unless that was written into the protocol from the beginning – that the psi effect would be “correct prediction” not “making money” than that is a very serious flaw. And why on earth did the researcher ACTUALLY invest money if all that was expected from the psi experiment was a good prediction?
It’s this kind of sloppy unverifiable protocol that is unfortunately typical of psi research. Here’s another:
Since when was “the spouse of the experimenter” an “independent party”?
geeze louise.
Again, this is pure bias on your part. Or simply sloppy thinking, I’m not sure.
Scientific methodology can only find predictable effects. But it doesn’t matter whether those are considered “material” or “immaterial”. All that matters is that they are predictable. So no “materialist bias” there.
But now you are saying that to detect non-material effects we need some special kind of “paradigm-shifted” protocol (which you don’t specify). Maybe we do – but only if non-material effects aren’t predictable.
If they are, the usual methodology will do just fine. And is what psi- researchers tend to use (as you have cited). It’s just that they often make a pig’s ear of them, as in this case.
If monkeys or children picking stocks gives a greater return on investment then psi, then what does that say about psi?
I didn’t say I found it persuasive, EL. Have you not been reading my comments here? I don’t find any scientific research persuasive.
However, of course, I didn’t for a second think you’d admit it was a black swan. It just goes to demonstrate what I’ve been saying. You and OMagain are the ones categorizing all research I’ve presented that contradicts your views in a way that makes it conform with your metaphysical outlook. I’m not even arguing that the research **is** valid or **is not** flawed – I’m pointing out how you are organizing and categorizing it; and pointing out your conceptual mistakes in interpretive heuristic – you are utilizing a conceptual base built around “materialism is true”, not “what if psi is true, and materialism is not necessarily true”, which would be the necessary base from which to organize protocols and expectations.
But, keep scrambling to preserve your metaphysics. It only serves to make my point.
OMagain said:
Where have I claimed that psi is real? I studiously avoid making claims about “reality”.
I said there were no useful applications of psi effects. If you think there are, point them out, and I will retract my claim. If you don’t think there are, fine. But the positive claim is that there are useful applications of psi effects.
Your court.
If real, it would have loads of uses. The fact that it is not in widespread military, intelligence, financial and health applications suggest that it is not real.
No. It makes your claim bullshit. If you were to claim that the moon was made of green cheese, and I said there was no evidence that it was, the onus would be on you, not me, to support the respective claim.
Same here. You say psi has useful applications. I say there are none. The onus is on you, not me, to support the respective claim.
I don’t say there could not be, if psi were real. It is precisely my point that it would be so useful, if it were real, that it would be in widespread use. The fact that it does not appear to be is strong evidence that it is not real.
Well, I found it through google scholar. Yes, it’s crap. If psi proponents want to convince people then they need to up their experimental game.
Good grief, OMagain. That quote was from 5 years ago. I have since learned the logical error of that maxim. You do realize that people learn things and change their views and arguments over time, right?
OK, if you don’t think psi effects are real, fine. I agree. I think it is very unlikely that effects attributed to psi are real psi effects. I think they are experimental and/or statistical artefacts.
I make that judgement based on my expertise in experimental methodology, not “materialist bias”. I still hope my brother-in-law’s dowsing study turns out to produce real effects. That would be exciting.
Of course, you cannot support this claim. More rhetoric.
No. I interpret it in a way that conforms with my understanding of good statistical methodology.
As I said, you are mistaking rigor for bias.
Please show that psi is widespread in military, intelligence, financial and health applications.
Until you do, I, like you, will remain unpersuaded.
“scrambling”
“rhetoric”.
I rest my case.
EL said:
Except I didn’t make a claim about whether or not psi was real or useful, EL. You’re the one that made a claim – a claim you cannot support.
Except I never made that claim. You claimed that the moon **was not made of anything useful**, without any counter-claim on the table. I asked you to support your claim. You attempted to shift the burden to me.
ok.
You forgot to mention there you disagreed with Rhine.
You forgot to mention there you did not think psi is real.
You forgot to add a disclaimer there that what those people were reporting you disagreed was real.
William J. Murray
You forgot to mention you were not convinced by that demonstration.
I could go on, but I think it’s clear.
Yes you did and you’ve done so multiple times in the past.
The thing about engaging with reality is that you don’t have to remember what you made up yesterday to make today consistent with it.
ok, just one more
My claim was that if it was real, it would be in widespread use. In the absence of any evidence that it is in widespread use, I conclude, provisionally, that it is probably not real.
If you want to make the counter-claim that it is in widespread use, for instance, by providing some evidence, feel free. If, alternatively, you want to make the counter argument that it could still be real, but not in widespread use, then, again, feel free.
But do not simply require me to provide evidence of absence. I see no evidence of widespread use of psi in any of those fields. If you think I have missed some, then feel free to point it out. But the onus is on you to do so.
Which is like shifting a burden on to fog, frankly, William. You produce flawed study after flawed study allegedly evidencing psi effects, then when we, or others, point out the flaws, you cite that as evidence of “metaphysical materialist bias”. Yet you will not stand up and argue the point, merely retreating into your “well, I don’t base my beliefs on evidence anyway” stance.
If you can’t see the flaws in those studies, well, you can’t. But rather than insinuate that those of us who can are biased against the conclusion, have at least the grace to acknowledge your lack of expertise in the matter, especially given your claimed position that evidence is irrelevant to belief anyway.
EL said:
Why? I never claimed it was.
Remote viewing was used in the military and intelligence agencies for at least a couple of decades, called “Star Gate”. Declassified documents show that it was largely funded and implemented (after quite a bit of internal debate/research into the use potential of many so-called “psi” effects) to counter massive, ongoing Soviet research into potential weaponized psi effects.
The usefulness of those revealed projects can be ascertained from those FOI- accessed declassified documents. Whether or not that project or other psi projects are still being utilized by the government under a different name may be revealed in future FOI requests.
There are other ways in which various psi abilities/effects have been shown to be useful – such as, many cases where psychics have been used by law enforcement to help solve difficult cases. But, I’m sure the goal posts would again be moved to accommodate your metaphysical commitments.
Apparently “genuine” and “real” mean different things in William-land. who knew.