Message 226 of 237 (533810) 11-03-2009 2:33 AM

Reply to: Message 225 by Straggler 11-02-2009 6:49 PM

As for your brilliant analysis of the "obvious" errors in Sheldrake's "Dogs that Know" experiments,

The simplicity of the experiments means that this is not a problem. You look at the amount of time the dog spent at the window during each time block. You look at when Pam began her journey home. There is data from more than 100 experiments, including controls where she came home after the 4-hour videotaped period, or not at all. There are clear correlations and it's hard to see how any degree of wishful thinking or chicanery would skew these results. Your claim above is another ad hoc attempt to explain it all away, and claims about ID are red herrings. Best wishes.

Message 227 of 237 (534033) 11-04-2009 2:00 PM

Reply to: Message 226 by Kitsune 11-03-2009 2:33 AM

Bias isn't a problem in experiments? Wow! And yet at the same time you claim it is skeptical bias that results in telepthy experiments giving negative results when conducted by skeptics?

So now you have experimental results for telepthy that only believers can replicate and an explanation for this phenomenon in the form of morphic fields that are empirically undetectable. And this is science?

OK LindaLou have it your way.

If you want to ignore the fact that Sheldrake is misusing terminology to intentionally make his spiritual ideas sound scientific to the public so be it. If you want to believe that Sheldrake is some sort of visionary who is pioneering a radical new paradigm against a conspiracy of denial on the part of the dogmatic doctrine of empirical-only science then so be it. If you want to believe in telepathy on the basis of some post hoc stats and a dog that sits near a window at certain times of day so be it. If you so desperately need to believe that there is "something more" out there that you are willing to fall for this guy's "science for the people" approach and accept his pseudoscientific morphic fields as even a potential explanation for anything, then............... So be it.

So you assert. But if you swap the immaterial and empirically unknowable intelligent designer with ethereal and empirically unknowable creative fields of information there really is very little to seperate the two. Expelled: No Telepathy Allowed (Message 216)

Message 228 of 237 (534138) 11-05-2009 8:01 AM

Reply to: Message 1 by Straggler 10-14-2009 5:58 PM

quote:

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The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq. But the device works “on the same principle as a Ouija board” — the power of suggestion — said a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, who described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod.

Still, the Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices, known as the ADE 651, at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of vehicles.

---

This divining rod ADE651 bomb detection unit, works by 'electrostatic magnetic ion attraction' and can detect this from over 3 miles away in a aircraft in flight!

They turned down Randi's $1,000,000 challenge - which is understandable: The Iraqi government has already given them nearly $100,000,000 in business! Why test the product when your customers already believe it works!

Message 229 of 237 (534144) 11-05-2009 9:43 AM

Reply to: Message 228 by Modulous 11-05-2009 8:01 AM

Well if it genuinely works we need to investigate how it works. But does it genuinely work?

Oh. So it seems we have another one of those phenomenon that only works if you believe it works, that cannot be tested by skeptics, that has no scientific theoretical foundation as to how it even could work and that is essentially irrefutable in the eyes of those who believe in it. Sounds familiar.

Well obviously. The obligatory pseudoscientific explanation. Millions of dollars spent and people's lives at stake. It is incredible that people can get away with this stuff. Not to mention thoroughly depressing.

Message 230 of 237 (534399) 11-07-2009 6:14 PM

Reply to: Message 226 by Kitsune 11-03-2009 2:33 AM

A few things FYI.

A year or so ago some Japanesse doctors did fractal analysis on EEG waveforms of people eating six different fruits. They were able to tell which fruit, after their analysis, a person was eating. What that means is that when you and I eat an orange we create similar brain wave patterns. For telepathy to work this would have to be true, that is we both have similar brain responses to similar stimulation. This test only was done on taste, but it doesn't seem unlikely to me that this would be true for the other senses as well. After all we all evolved together, and I don't see a reason our brains should work differently.(not WHAT we think but HOW we think)

Let's go to basic physics. A change in electrical current flow creates an electromagnetic wave (ask cavediver). When you turn a light on in your house the current goes from 0 to some value and at that moment you are sending out an electromagnetic wave (a radio wave) that you can actually hear as a "click" on a portable radio.

Electromagnetic waves = radio waves =visible light. This is all exactly the same stuff, only the frequency is different. Ask cavediver.

Can people detect electromagnetic radiation/waves.

Yes, of course, they can see.

Can they detect lower frequency, other than visible light, electromagnetic radiation?

Well at the U. of Arizona they did a test with dowsers, to see if they got a "dowsing response" when subjected to low frequency elecromagnetic radiation (very low frequency radio waves). They did unless their head or kidneys were shielded.

So LL when you think, the current flow in your brain changes. That means you are broadcasting "radio waves" or electromagnetic radiation.

I don't know the power of this current change in a person's brain but as an amateur radio operator for the last 47 years I have talked all over the world with as little as .1 watt.

This is a possible explanation for telepathy.

It isn't supernatural, but it also doesn't deny the evidence of people's personal expierence.

P.S. Check with cavediver on the physics, I'm sure there will be no problem. Also sorry ,I don't have the Japan and Arizona references on this computer at work. If you need them I can dig them up.

Edited by petrophysics1, : fix typos

Edited by petrophysics1, : No reason given.

Message 231 of 237 (534404) 11-07-2009 7:27 PM

Reply to: Message 186 by cavediver 10-23-2009 8:40 PM

If you would, please check out my physics on post 230.

It's about a change in current flow creates an electromagnetic wave.

So a change in brain current flow creates an electromagnetic wave as well.

Let me know if you have a problem with this. I'm an expert in petroleum geology not physics. Let me know if I'm wrong here.

Message 232 of 237 (534421) 11-08-2009 3:28 AM

Reply to: Message 230 by petrophysics1 11-07-2009 6:14 PM

Interesting post, but I'm wondering what your proposed method of telepathy actually is? I'm up on basic physics like the electromagnetic spectrum but are you saying that this is how telepathy would operate? Some sort of frequency produced by the brain? I'm not aware of anyone who has tested for this, but the problem here is that having read some literature on the subject, it seems that it is a phenomenon which occurs instantaneously regardless of distance, hence the proposals that it has something to do with quantum entanglement. Thanks for your input here; it's nice to encounter some open-mindedness

Message 233 of 237 (534574) 11-09-2009 1:39 PM

Reply to: Message 232 by Kitsune 11-08-2009 3:28 AM

This has already been mentioned here Sheldrake "Fields", "Energy", "Matter" and Quantum Quackery (Message 66)

Didn't some of us propose a naturalistic possibility for some form of telepthy based on brain activity in this thread a while ago? Telepthay (Message 112). How come we weren't embraced into the ranks of the "open minded"?

Confident control of nature? I think not. Where do you get this stuff? Maybe you are not as open minded as you think you are? "I Am Open Minded. You Are Closed Minded" (Message 205)

Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Message 234 of 237 (534951) 11-12-2009 12:43 AM

Reply to: Message 115 by onifre 10-23-2009 1:20 PM

Could you be much much more specific about what you mean by this?

I mean sure, in a trivial sense, string theory "predicts" gravity. So do relativity, LQG, gravitons, and the old jesus-holds-the-universe-together chestnut.

But don't we usually mean something more when we talk about prediction in theories? For example, when we say General Relativity predicts black holes, we mean that first there was an analysis of the Einstein math that indicated that extremely compact masses result in singularities with specific qualities. Then, some time afterward, we found evidence in the universe that there were in fact such objects and that they did have those qualities.

Fairly often in this argument we even hear shorthand like "Inflation predicts the CMB." Really, of course, what we mean is something like, Inflation predicts continued evidence of homogenity amongst areas of the universe so distant as to be causally unrelated; and that the CMB was discovered, afterward, to provide this continued evidence.

Whereas gravity alone, isn't a thing that is discovered or proven after any of the string theories. We already have gravity, what string theory and M-theory in particular might better be said to do, is to explain gravity without the various problems like non-renormalizability at very high energy levels, for example.

The reason I'm stressing this is because I recognize the language Izanagi is using and it reflects a real criticism of M-theory and its various predecessors / components. Here it is in a form that is either true, or else ought to be corrected:

This is a lot more generous than the actual statements of the detractors, in my experience. The general idea being propagated appears to be that, even if string theory were true, we would never know for sure.

Loop Quantum Gravity, by contrast, appears to predict variance of C under certain circumstances. This is something we can produce tests to check for, so it can either be supported or falsified, yes?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_quantum_gravity#Problems

What, if anything, could falsify string theory?

Edited by Iblis, : mild ststutter

Message 235 of 237 (534963) 11-12-2009 5:28 AM

Reply to: Message 234 by Iblis 11-12-2009 12:43 AM

I doubt it, as it is extremely complicated - but I can

it is far from trivial

And Izanagi doesn't have the first clue about what he is talking. He is quoting idiots such as Woit and Smolin who both have immense and unwarranted axes to grind, Woit in particular who is just a postgrad blogger who now has an idiot book.

If you want to know the pros and cons of string theory, or any other aspect of quantum gravity, start a thread and I can discuss it rationally and informatively. Anyone who has a strong "passion" for or against any theory, is the last person you listen to in order to find out more about that theory...

Message 236 of 237 (535137) 11-13-2009 4:06 AM

Reply to: Message 235 by cavediver 11-12-2009 5:28 AM

Thanks that would be super!
String! Theory! What is it good for ?!?

Just as a side note to anyone who might be reading, virtually everything else is in this thread is at best pseudo-science; that is, it's parapsychology, and psychology is theory of beliefs, not theory of realities. It's metaphysics, and meta = "not the same as". Capiche?

* Much of it is actually "junk science", see the linked thread for more detail on the distinction.

Edited by Iblis, : spelig

Message 237 of 237 (535333) 11-14-2009 8:54 PM

Reply to: Message 228 by Modulous 11-05-2009 8:01 AM

Dowsing for Bombs