X-Message-Number: 5793
From: 
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 11:06:57 -0500
Subject: Psi

Mac Tonnies (#5790) says telekinesis is "firmly established as an empirical
truth."

Although this question has very little importance on Cryonet, I am responding
briefly because I once made a very careful investigation of the literature on
ESP or Psi phenomena--HOPING there was something to it. This was about 40
years ago, but similar statements were made then about the "proof" of the
existence of telekinesis (psychokinesis) and other psi phenomena.

In short, there was NOT anything to it, as I reluctantly concluded; and
although I have not followed the literature recently, I am 99.99% sure the
"proof" remains absent.

Briefly, the "evidence" is of three general kinds. 

(1) Anecdotal, which can be powerfully convincing to individuals and
difficult to answer. Mae is sure she once received a psychic message of a
danger to her daughter. But people are OFTEN convinced of things that did not
happen, or did not happen in the way they interpreted them. Perhaps the main
thing about anecdotes is that we tend to remember the "confirming" instances
and to forget the much more numerous non-confirming ones.

(2) Demonstrative--"gifted" people doing tricks for an audience. Suffice it
to say that these (to the best of my knowledge) NEVER hold up under the
scrutiny of experts.

(3) Statistical: The late Joseph Rhine at Duke was the best known purveyor of
alleged statistical evidence for "paranormal" phenomena. There were several
fatal weaknesses to his research:

a) Some of his results were shown clearly to stem from poor experimental
design, allowing conscious or unconscious cheating. 

b) Some of his results could owe to "optional stopping"--choosing to end the
trials when you are in positive territory in the random walk.

c) "Hypothesis failure." In one of the PK experiments, the subject tried to
influence the fall of SEVERAL DICE SIMULTANEOUSLY. According to Rhine's
analysis, the results were far beyond chance, hence the phenomenon was
"proven." But Rhine apparently failed to notice that, if we acknowledge the
first miracle--direct influence of mind over matter at at distance, or
application of the presumably needed forces--we must also acknowledge at
least one more miracle. That is the ability of that mind to ANALYZE THE
TRAJECTORIES AT A GLANCE AND COMPUTE THE NEEDED FORCES! (Or else to assure
the outcome without continuity of events.)

d) The MAIN failure of Rhine's and similar experiments is in the assumption
that, if results are strikingly "non-chance" then the "phenomenon" is proven
or nearly so. Not true! If the results are strikingly and consistently
"non-chance," then the only permissible conclusion (in the absence of other
evidence) is that they were probably due to something other than chance. That
something doesn't have to be the "phenomenon" under study; it could also be
conscious or unconscious cheating or similar things. To attribute the result
to Psi rather than a bad experiment, one would have to believe that the
probability of a bad experiment is MUCH smaller, a priori, than the
probability of the phenomenon. 

Sorry: As far as I can tell, every aspect of Psi remains only a dim and
distant possibility.

Robert Ettinger


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