Parapsychology, psi, ESP, auras, NDEs, anomalous cognition, psychic research. A load of woo! Nothing to see here!
Can we ignore the testimonies of those who claim to have had a near death experience, people who demonstrate blindfolded vision or who seem to have other psychic abilities?
Here and here, are videos about the work of Nicola Farmer, a woman who works with children and seemingly teaches them to see while blindfolded.
She’s either a heartless con merchant who uses children to fool the public or someone who sincerely believes she is enhancing their lives and what you see is genuine. What are your thoughts on this.
Could that be because every single person he tested fell into one of those categories?
How do you make that determination? Randi agreed on a protocol with the participants in advance. All agreed to the testing setup.
What specific thing does Randi say that makes you believe that he would have been incapable of finding a real example of PSI had it existed in one of the tests he performed?
Do let us all know when they’ve achieved that. How long have they been at it now?
That does not say what you think it says. It’s talking about you:
You have no humility whatsoever. Your branding of Randi as a fraud tells me all I need to know about your ability to evaluate evidence. If you were not so keen to dismiss Randi you’d see that your view of his testing procedures have been tainted.
Sure, perhaps the test discussed here was a poor one and perhaps they did eliminate the chance of a proper test by the sorts of blindfolds used.
Now, what is the excuse you’ll give for the literally 100’s of other trials?
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=43
There you go.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87960
But Charlie would ask that we give the benefit of the doubt and just send the pictures….
Here’s someone claiming they can make it snow on demand: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32247
It did not snow. Charlie?
Well done! All of us have the ability to predict the future in some ways. The more complete and encompassing the knowledge one has the better they are at predicting the future.
Humans are basically machines designed to predict the future. It’s what we are. So slow hand claps for you there.
I will predict that you will continue to dismiss Randi’s attempts to find true PSI powers and further you will not suggest an alternative to allow charlatans and the deluded to be tested scientifically.
They strike me as sincere too. Has anyone actually suggested otherwise, or is this a conflation? They do not claim to be able to tell colors at a distance, nor read. Just navigate better, like my friend Digby. He’s been using echolocation for decades.
Of course you would, and therein lies your problem.
Well, I am quite confident that something along those lines would be her claim, should anyone suggest testing the kids properly. Tricky to tell whether it’s an honestly held opinion or not, unfortunately. But it’s a momentary flash of astuteness on your part that you can recognize this.
😉
https://futurism.com/neoscope/people-blind-infrared-camera
You see Charlie, without the ability to differentiate between WOO and actual results you don’t get 98% percent accuracy upon testing. In fact, you just don’t get testing do you?
The point is how come these people can put something together in a lab that works and works reliably and yet decades of training in “Vibravision” have got us to the point where they won’t wear a proper blindfold for testing?
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2201.04453.pdf
I am speculating on the experiences people are reporting and from that I make suggestions about possible reasons for these events. One person may speak about fuzzy images while another may demonstrate reading script. Or it could be that a person begins to “see” fuzzy images which with time and practice become more clear.
Modern technology allows us to gain more knowledge of the ways we interact with the environment. Ways that are just coming to light. 🙂
Such as from National Geographic
If we are sending out these vibrations then it follows that they must be reflected back to us. Of course they will be too weak to register with us. But is that true in all cases? As it stands I can do no more than speculate. But I do know that many people regard the human brain as a very sophisticated instrument.
I’m sure that boosted their sales.
I would not generalizes as much to claim all psi phenomena as either valid or invalid. I can only fall back on my own personal experience and judgement. I neither expect nor look for others to believe what I believe.
All I ask for is some stimulating discussion. So thank you for providing just that.
Yes, that is one possibility.
And he had the habit of changing agreed upon procedures along the way.
Experimenter effect is one thing that should be taken into account. Nobody could call him an unbiased observer.
Achieved what? Both claim to have improved in their ability to navigate obstacles. Isn’t that an achievement?
I never said Randi was a fraud. He was an illusionist and a trickster who liked to get people off guard. He was an expert at distraction.
I hope his journey through the portal of death went well. 🙂
Citation please.
So you believe that he was incapable of arranging an unbiased test?
Only one of those can be tested. Only one of those will not disappoint people who are looking to regain some “sight”.
And therefore unable to scientifically test people who claim they have PSI powers?
So your entire dismissal of Randi’s work over dozens and dozens of tests of PSI where the setup was agreed upon by all parties is that there was nothing specific you can point to that invalidated his results other then a general sense that he was a biased experimenter?
The point about this is that you need an observer who is trained in slight of hand to detect when it is being used to evade the parameters of the experiment.
For fucks sake man, I guess when Houdini turned the lights on and exposed the mediums as frauds holding aloft “ghosts” you’d say that was not a fair test as well.
Unbelievable.
Charlie,
Do you think Uri Geller has PSI powers?
I presume that is because that person did not understand the limits of their abilities. Either that or he was just a joker trying to wind everyone up. If the former, he might very well have been able to make fairly accurate predictions regarding the weather but I am very sceptical that they had any control over it.
I could do with the sort of power of this Californian weatherman claimed to have. We were without power and internet most of the day yesterday and now storm Corrie is on its way. 🙁
I don’t agree that we are basically machines. Just because I mentioned that people can be would up, doesn’t mean I believe people are machines. 🙂
Perhaps you need a bit more winding to get your hands clapping faster. 😉 🙂
Randi’s problem was his negative attitude. Instead of being concerned about his own development he spent much of his life interfering in and trying to change the lives of others.
And when it came to predicting the future his abilities were very poor. With the help of Johnny Carson he did more than anyone else to promote Uri Geller to a position of prominence on the world stage. Uri Geller has a lot to thank Randi for and he came to realize this fact.
Exactly. Confirmation bias, like anthropocentric thinking, is very rarely perceived as a problem by the guilty party.
Well, given that she’s always been able to see colors through her regular two eyes, then that’s not dispositive. At all.
Also, watch out for those games with the bean bags…
It’s admirable that technology is being used to help blind people in this way. Why does this mean that people can’t be helped in other ways?
What makes you think that the Vibravision demonstrators won’t wear proper blindfolds?
There is this
The fact that Randi’s team had one of their representatives use alcohol to wash round the area of the demonstrator’s eyes was not something that was agreed upon prior to them turning up to do the test.
I don’t believe the way he dealt with the Vibravasion test was unbiased. I haven’t looked at any of his other tests. But if someone has already decided that if they can think of no explanation for something then it must be “woo woo”. Then they make it a personal mission to expose such “woo woo”, this is not conducive to being open minded.
Only one what? Only one of those people? Why?
I haven’t mentioned any other tests that had been arranged between Randi and claimants. The Vibravision test is the one I was concerned with.
If anyone offers a large reward in return for any information or whatever they are bound to get all sorts of takers and the majority will be con artists trying to get their hands on the reward.
I think there is a reasonable probability that he has. He has certainly played on the fact that most people see him as a man of mystery.
I have no problem thinking my friend’s uncle had developed his sense of touch to a degree where he could accurately guess my age. That is what I had no problem with. I already had anecdotal evidence that he could do this with people of various ages.
Where is the conformation bias here?
Are you getting confused between Nicole Coyle and Nicola Farmer? Nicola Coyle has become totally blind and has lost the use of her eyes.
Here she describes her experiences to another blind woman if you would like to watch it.
The confirmation bias arises from the fact (which you admitted) that you would LIKE to think that he had that ability, so you are predisposed to believe. That’s what confirmation bias is, Charlie.
No. You appear to be the one who is confused. If you would like to watch the preceding interview with the same woman. You’ll hear Nicole Coyle state “When I lost my vision, my optic nerve didn’t die. So every day I still see colors and things, I see a lot of things.”
Admittedly, in the interview you cited, she does say “my eyes are totally blind” but that’s in response to Becca’s question “Is that from the Vibravision?” referring to seeing people sparkle when sunbeams hit them. I will happily stipulate that she’s not seeing people’s auras by way of her optic nerve. If, on the other hand, she has a tiny amount of residual vision but zero visual acuity (what she appears to describe), then passing a hand (or a table tennis paddle…) over the colored bean bags would give her brain a useful signal…18 months in, she’s pretty motivated to see something.
So, faced with apparently contradictory statements, which are you going to believe? Your confirmation bias is delightful.
Uri Geller:
Of course, he later retracted that.
http://skepticsplay.blogspot.com/2008/01/uri-geller-retracts-psychic-claims.html
The fact is that anything Uri Geller has done other sleight of hand magicians can and demonstrably have done.
If you think Uri Geller has PSI powers then what are they? Can you be specific?
If you don’t know, then on what basis are you forming the belief that he probably has them?
The fact is that you think an entertainer has PSI powers on the basis that that entertainer himself said so! What a rich and interesting life you must lead, believing everything everyone says about everything!
That would only be the case if I did actually believe in something because I would like to think it was true.
To give an example. I grew up near Loch Ness and loved being out and about in that area. I would like to believe that there is an unidentified large animal lurking in the depth of the loch but in my opinion there are no animals living there except those extant animals that one would expect to find there.
I would like to think that people with such a deficiency as my friend’s uncle and your friend Digby were capable of enhancing other senses to compensate for their deficit. I would like to think it is true for their sake. Whether or not I think it is true is a separate matter. I believe my friend’s uncle would have used his knowledge of a person and his functioning senses combined in determining someone’s age. Neither would be left out of his consideration.
Thank you for pointing out her statement about seeing colours. Obviously that makes her claims of being able to see coloured bean bags through other means less convincing. However that would not explain her claim of being able to “see” from 5 different perspectives, nor her claim of somehow being able to “see” by way of her hand.
I try to follow the maxim, “know thyself”. And the more one can advance in this direction the more one can overcome conformation bias. As it stands I would say that I am steeped in Socratic ignorance and that is the pearl of wisdom that I cling to. Especially as the material world, which seems so real, melts in the (mind’s) eyes of physicists. Through the progress of scientific discoveries the real becomes more and more surreal. And thus more fascinating.
Good old Uri likes to keep the mystery going.
Could it be that when he makes a statement like, “I’ll no longer say that I have supernatural powers”, his later claims do not contradict this? And if he believes his psychic powers are perfectly natural then he can make both claims without contradiction.
There is a biography of Geller available online, “The Secret Life of Uri Geller, CIA Masterspy?”, by Jonathan Margolis which contains a lot of detailed information about Geller.
Margolis says that the hard-line, extreme, unbending materialist rationalists take Geller to be lacking in integrity and trustworthiness. He found him to be the exact opposite and claims this belief they hold is fundamentally irrational.
He also tells us that David Berglas, a former President of the Magic Circle said of Geller that if he is a magician then he is the best in history. David Blaine and David Ben, both magicians who would know what to look out for have both witnessed Geller bending metal objects and it seems they have no idea how he d.id it.
You can read the book if you have the stomach for it. 🙂 It contains information on people and events in Gellers life which can be investigated further.
Another line of research can be followed up by looking at Geller’s own site and investigating the people mentioned there.
I’ve just listened to an informative interview Jeffrey Mishlove did with Stanley Krippner
Krippner talks about three types of parapsychology critics: sceptics, debunkers and scoffers. He thinks everyone should be sceptics and debunkers perform an honourable and necessary role, but he has no time for scoffers.
He mentions Randi and his dealings with him a fair bit.