Precognition Causality Quantum Theory and Mysticism

Hi Modulous,Not sure how much I can say here. Straggler seemed determined to debate with me, which is why I brought in the "Dogs that Know" experiments. If you'd rather not talk about them that's fine, but I won't debate morphic fields with you. I do agree that there is little evidence for them and it's entirely possible that Sheldrake is wrong. He does seem to have the right open-minded skeptical mindset at least, considering that this is his pet idea. I contacted him at one point, suggesting that the phenomenon of flying ants swarming across a large area or an entire city at about the same time, could be evidence of his morphic resonance idea. He said that this was interesting but he gave me a list of possible ordinary causes that would need to be considered and researched first.However, I don't think that has any bearing on his telepathy experiments; establishing the existence of a phenomenon is not the same thing as determining its cause. You will also recall the recent pseudoskepticism thread, which explains the reason why I am "agnostic" or neutral about morphic fields. With little evidence one way or the other, I think there's not much to be said at the moment. That's why Sheldrake designs experiments that don't cost a lot of money. It would be a fairly simple thing to replicate the "Dogs that Know" experiments. What would be more at a premium is time rather than money. Sheldrake has designed other inexpensive experiments that he hopes will be performed by suitable parties at some point; see Seven Experiments that could Change the World. There have been successful studies, though that would seem to be a subject for another thread. At the moment I'm content with sticking with the "Dogs that Know" experiments; it's been fascinating to see what people who don't want to accept their results are doing here to get around that.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

Yet you illustrate none apart from the talk about post-hoc.
The data from Sheldrake's and Wiseman's experiments clearly shows that Jaytee was at the window much less often before Pam left for home than when she made the decision to go; in the case of Wiseman, 4% vs. 78%. The results are still unambiguous when you take all "noise" at the window into account, as the graph shows, which would seem to indicate that your idea of isolating the experiments so that there are no outside distractions is not necessary, though minimising such distractions is no doubt helpful. Can you explain how this might be a false positive?Secondly, Sheldrake knew beforehand that he was looking for the dog to be at the window more often when Pam was on her way home than when she wasn't. If you look at the data, this pattern is clear. Wiseman was not happy that his own data matched Sheldrake's and he accused Sheldrake of doing a post-hoc analysis of it. Here is what Sheldrkae said: Source
It is also clear that Wiseman ignored other data from the experiments because public comments that he made were erroneous. I was wrong about this happening in 1999; it was 1996, which means that it was 11 years that Wiseman was claiming that he had "debunked" Sheldrake before he admitted that his results were congruent. Most scientists might be a little bit bothered about someone doing this with their work but since it's a well known skeptic declaring paranormal research to be fraudulent, that seems to be OK with a lot of people.The experiments could be performed the way you outline but I would ask if it's necessary. Again, Sheldrake predicted that Jaytee would be waiting at the window more often when Pam decided to come home and thereafter. The experiments were videotaped and the dog's behaviour was analysed not by Sheldrake or anyone else working with him, but by people working blind who were uninvolved with the rest of the experiments and didn't even know what they were about. They were simply asked to record when and how long Jaytee went to the window. Their analyses were checked by others and there was close agreement. When these results were matched with the actual times that Pam was away and coming home, the overall results as plotted on the graphs were highly significant statistically.It is typical of skeptics of paranormal research to demand that parameters need to change or that there were experimental flaws, even if they can't specify -- there had to have been, because a positive result is impossible, according to their world view. So, the statement that might be something you want to think honestly about. This sort of statement is almost always followed by, "but it isn't/it's impossible/there's no evidence so I cannot even consider such a thing." There is actually evidence, and we're looking at some here. It seems to be highly uncomfortable for a number of people. Maybe it's because my name came up, then it was mentioned that I'd said things about Sheldrake elsewhere, then when I made some initial comments you wrote post after post about what a kook he is because of his morphic fields idea. My position is that "I don't know." The reasons for this have been discussed elsewhere. It saddens me to see people openly ridiculing things that seem irrational to them, be it field theories or precognition, because, well, we know it's all nonsense don't we. With this sort of bias, it takes a long time (if ever) for legitimate phenomena outside of these boundaries to be recognised and accepted.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

I don't believe he is pretending he knows what the cause is. He is attempting to validate a hypothesis. I don't believe that the "Dogs that Know" experiments necessarily validate morphic fields, but they do give evidence of a phenomenon that requires explanation. One problem on this thread is that everyone wants to jump to ridiculing woo-woo beliefs without taking the first step of looking at the actual phenomena. I think it does make a difference if you want to laugh at the explanations if you don't even believe that the phenomena could be real -- it just becomes, "Let's have a laugh at these mystic hippie idiots."I also think it is specious to be doing this to the morphic fields idea when no one here really even understands it. Straggler apparently has looked at a few websites, which apparently qualifies him to have a giggle. I've got Sheldrake's book "The Presence of the Past" next to me but it is ponderous and I haven't got the time to read it and talk on this thread. But I think the least anyone can do, if they're going to intelligently criticise this, is find out what they're actually criticising.Apparently the concept of morphogenetic fields was first studied independently by 3 different biologists in the 1920s (Hans Spiemann, 1921; Alexander Gurwitsch, 1922; Paul Weiss, 1923). They proposed that in living organisms, morphogenesis is organised by fields; they called the fields developmental, embryonic or morphogenetic. The idea was that they both organised normal development and guided the process of regulation and regeneration after damage. The specific nature of the fields, according to Weiss, means that each species of organism has its own morphogenetic field, although fields of related species may be similar. And within the organism there is a nested hierarchy of fields within fields.Sheldrake's morphic fields encompass these morphogenetic fields, plus other kinds of organising fields: of animal and human behaviour, social and cultural systems, and mental activity for example. He believes that the fields are inherited and that they evolve. He says in his book that the fields may have nothing to do with quantum fields or quantum physics. His general writing style seems to express curiosity and exploration rather than proselytising.While this clarifies his position a little (and I'm doing a very poor job because I don't understand it well myself), I don't think this gets us any further in the discussion. However, there are IMO some interesting aspects that these ideas try to address:We don't understand why embryos develop the way they do.
DNA alone does not account for all of the complexity of an organism (a disappointment for those who thought that decoding genomes was the holy grail of genetics).
There are patterns in the body (i.e. the structure of some proteins) and in nature (i.e. the way fish move in a shoal) whose organising principles we don't understand.
We don't know where fields come from or in essence what they are. We do know that they have the property of organising matter and energy.
We don't understand the nature of consciousness.
If telepathy and other paranormal phenomena are real, we don't understand how they occur.That's a big list of stuff we don't understand. I am in support of people's attempts to explain some of it. Personally I see Sheldrake as someone who has different ideas and has the courage, enthusiasm and resources to pursue them. I'd like to see others doing the same. With more people taking those attitudes to science then maybe we'll start getting some answers to the above.Curiously, this thread is about deriding people who posit fields to explain certain phenomena. We don't really know what fields are or how they originate but we don't have trouble accepting that there are quantum and gravitational fields. Why can't there be other fields, why is this such a hilarious notion?I'm not advocating any of these ideas myself, because "I don't know." What I would question is those who think they do know because they've decided beforehand that it is all nonsense. Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

And Sheldrake made the point that all published experimental data is post-hoc. Does that negate the point of publishing data?If you think his graphs of the data are wrong, then please explain how. If you look at how these simple experiments were set up and how the results were analysed, I don't see that there's a problem. Crying "post hoc!" in this case sounds to me like another attempt to get around the fact that these experimental results were positive. Either the dog was at the window or he wasn't; either Pam was on her way home or she wasn't.Prediction is simple to look at here too. Sheldrake was testing the validity of dog owners' claims that the dogs show anticipatory behaviour when the owners are coming home. Pam's dog Jaytee would wait at the window for her. The hypothesis was simply that: that Jaytee would be at the window more often when she was on her way home than when she was not. This is what the data from the experiments showed. It's difficult to see how the data could be saying anything else, because Sheldrake controlled for other possibilities, i.e. that Jaytee was smelling her, reacting to subtle cues, or that he was acting out of routine.Bad science? IMO, just more refusal to accept that these experiments produced positive results. They suggest the reality of a paranormal phenomenon, so there must be something wrong with them somewhere, right? Whatever the procedures were, there was something wrong with them. Whichever way Sheldrake did it, he should have done it differently.I used to think that denial was the territory of people who were clearly deluded, such as creationists. But actually we're all prone to it when new data emerges that doesn't fit with what we think should be "so." Would you or Onifre or anyone else here take a moment to consider that this may be happening with you, and why the possibility that telepathy is real may be such a disturbing concept? Does it suggest to you that we know less about reality than we think we do?

Look at the data yourself. It isn't complicated. I told you what the prediction was and you can see Sheldrake's graphs. You are making assertions about these experiments in your previous post that have little to do with reality.Maybe the fear is that this kind of telepathy may require an explanation that re-assesses what we know about reality, as I said before. Maybe this suddenly makes the world seem like a frightening place over which we have little control -- certainly not the confident control we thought we did. This is different from machines reading "brain waves" -- but of course the cause of telepathy (if one accepts its existence) is one that is openly in question.

And yet you have still made no attempt to support this accusation. You will not tell me how you believe that the data was misinterpreted and the graphs are wrong. Your clear accusation is that Sheldrake analysed the data in a way that introduced bias. Please tell me how this could happen when he was looking at when the dog was and wasn't at the window, and when Pam was and wasn't coming home, keeping in mind that the people (not Sheldrake) who were watching the videos and noting the evidence were not involved in the actual experiments or informed of their purpose. Also please tell me what was wrong with the controls he put in place. You seem to be getting confused with drug trials. Many other kinds of science cannot be done with double blind trials. "Double blind" means that the researcher does not know who got the active drugs and who got the placebos, and nor do the patients, and who got what is random. It's a little comical to think how you could shoehorn the "Dogs that Know" experiments into this scenario.We'll let others reading this thread decide whose position they agree with, since you and I consistently have this fundamental disagreement wherever we post together. At least one person seems to be open to some of the evidence here.

Hi Perdition, It looks to me like the times coincide more with the period in which Pam could be bleeped to come home (indicated by the arrows). There are times when he goes to the window a lot before the 140 minute mark, and times when he goes after. Bear in mind, as well, that there are other sets of data in the paper for times when Pam's absences from home were significantly longer or shorter, and the data agreed for all of these. It's conceivable that they had an interest in lying, but Sheldrake did not include their data with his own from the experiments. It's also highly likely that anticipatory behaviour would be shown when there is a connection between the dog and its owner, so it's hard to see how you would get away from not asking people to offer themselves as subjects because they think this may be a real phenomenon between them and their pets. Nevertheless, I think it's a good idea to do control tests on dogs whose owners claim they don't show anticipatory behaviour as an added control, as you suggest. Please explain how you would do this with this type of experiment. As I said to Straggler, this is how drugs are tested. Sheldrake introduced many controls, the video tapes were analysed blind by non-participants in the experiments, and he had an outside researcher (Dean Radin) do some of the statistical analysis. There were 10 control experiments (as stated in the paper) where Pam came home late, after the 4-hour period of the videotape, or not at all. If you look at the graph of the results from this, you will see that the null hypothesis is clearly illustrated. I disagree, but more to the point you seem to be excluding the results from the other experiments; more than 100 were conducted, and the results are combined and broken down in various ways later in the paper. They are consistent and statistically significant. You seem to be saying that this has to be pure chance. I'd like to remind you at this point that the randomized permutation analysis by Radin showed that the probability of these results differing from the null hypothesis was p=0.000003.I am aware of positive studies done in different paranormal subjects, and the "no positive results in many years of study" claim often betrays an ignorance of the subject and the ways tests are conducted. Nevertheless, as I said earlier, failed experiments have no bearing on new and different experiments, which may produce positive results (as this one did). It seems illogical to condemn them from the start because, well, we know that these things are impossible and that any positive results are simply bad methodology or wishful thinking.I hesitate to get involved in these kinds of threads because I end up having so many posts to reply to, and doing so means I'm neglecting a lot of other things. Looks like there's 5 more posts here since I started typing this one. Will have to take a break for a while.

Hi Onifre, And my suggestion: hypothesise that telepathy exists, and design experiments to detect it. Introduce controls for all other possible natural explanations. I believe Sheldrake did this with his "Dogs that Know" experiments. Their simplicity makes then easy to analyse.Why is it necessary to understand how a force operates, in order to ascertain that the force exists? Don't you think that's putting the cart before the horse? Would you have dismissed electromagnetism as pseudoscientific nonsense a thousand years ago because no one knew what a photon was?Simple:
a) Conduct experiments to find out if telepathy exists. It is the transfer of information between organisms, which is not contingent on time or distance, and which cannot be explained by any other known means of communication.
b) Once its existence is accepted, conduct experiments to discover how it works.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

Hi again Onifre,Interesting example from the Skeptic's Dictionary. Let me have a guess what happened here, and correct me if I'm wrong:You previously knew little about past paranormal experiments.
You are trying to argue here that things like telepathy and precognition are pseudoscience.
You go to a source which you are pretty sure will back you up in this.
The source appears to give clear information from failed experiments.
You are content with this, use it as your argument, and research no further.Before I talk about this, let's have a look at what a creationist does when they are debating with evolutionists. We know that creationists delude themselves about science and its findings.They previously knew little about the scientific topic in question.
They are trying to argue that the topic is nonsense because it contradicts the Bible.
They go to a source which they are pretty sure will back them up in this (i.e. AIG).
The source appears to give clear information as to why the science is wrong.
They are content with this, use it as their argument, and research no further.What is wrong with this?
They are only interested in finding information that supports their beliefs and will exclude information that does not.
They trust their sources implicitly.It looks to me like your particular source, while possibly telling one version of the truth about these studies (I am not familiar with them but am aware that other sources make different claims about these experiments), is cherry-picking the data.For example, it took less than a minute to Google similar research. I've been looking at a series of ESP tests done at Duke University in the 1930s. Here is a summary of some of them: REVIEW OF THE PEARCE-PRATT DISTANCE SERIES OF ESP TESTSThese tests specifically set out to eliminate the possibility of subtle cues by separating the subject from the person who draws the cards, placing each in different buildings well away from each other. Perhaps you'd like to read the details of the experiment designs and tell me why you think the statistically significant success rate is flawed.Rhine, one of the experiment's designers, ran other ESP experiments at Duke and wrote a book about them. For one experiment, he tested 40 subjects and found one who was a "good scorer." It seems possible that ESP may be an ability which varies from person to person, as other abilities do. (One explanation for why some experiments may average out to chance, if they are not selective of the participants.) This person consistently scored above chance, unless asked not to, in which case he also seemed able to score below chance. In order to eliminate perceived problems with the 25 cards, there were some experiments where a card was drawn, called, checked at once, and immediately returned to the pack and reshuffled. These were successful, at one point resulting in a run of 25 correct calls. Sometimes packs of 50 or more cards were used, and these experiments also were successful.I wonder why the Skeptic's Dictionary omitted this?There are some other possibilities here as well. There may need to be an emotional link between the subjects in order for ESP or telepathy or similar to noticeably occur. This would make sense if this kind of communication confers an evolutionary advantage. It's also possible that cards are simply insignificant and dull. Perhaps the importance of the message being sent is also a factor. I think these things are common sense and should be part of future experiments.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

I don't see any reason why that couldn't be included. I also don't see any reason why its absence should be a problem. The data is clear, a trend which shows on the graphs. Jaytee's time at the window greatly increased when Pam set off home; crucially, it was often when she made the decision to go (or was told to do so). Wiseman's experiments showed the same trend. It's such a simple experiment that there are only a few variables to look at. It's interesting that when Pam didn't come home in the 4-hour period when the videotape was running, or not at all, Jaytee's behaviour reflected the null hypothesis that he would spend the same amount of time at the window, on average, in all time periods.You write a lot of short posts, ignore chunks of things I say, repeat the same things over and over, and in subsequent posts here your comments about Sheldrake and his work have become increasingly absurd and ad hominem, considering the fact that you clearly have little interest in learning about what you're criticising before you let rip. I suppose I should have learned by now after experiencing this in previous threads, but I see no reason to continue this conversation unless you have something new and constructive to add.

Hi again Modulous,I take your points about morphic fields, as I have all along really. I think the debates we're seeing here are reflecting the individual attitudes several of us expressed in the pseudoskepticism thread. I agree that there is little evidence for morphic fields, which puts me in the "I don't know" arena. Presumably you are more of the "little evidence means I am doubtful" persuasion.Let's say for the sake of argument that telepathy is real. (The reason why I brought the "Dogs that Know" experiments up was because, as I said earlier, establishing the existence of a phenomenon is a step previous to debating its possible etiology.) There have been discussions here about how it could occur. Most people have mentioned some action of the brain.Maybe some kind of field or fields is/are involved. If gravitational and quantum fields, why not a telepathic field? Or maybe telepathy does have something to do with quantum physics, e.g. entanglement. I'd have to leave it to people more qualified and intelligent than me to work out how to test these ideas.Sheldrake suggests that the brain, instead of being the instigator, may be like an antenna which tunes in to different frequencies. He thinks that individual and collective memories may be stored in morphic fields, which our brains access. Damage the brain and you damage the antenna. He isn't the first or only person to suggest the idea that the brain isn't the repository of consciousness and I find it intriguing. Materialistic reductionists who believe that the physical actions of the brain alone result in consciousness, don't like it for obvious reasons. I am keen to see more evidence for both beliefs because the question of the nature of consciousness IMO is still far from being answered.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

Modulous, I've been trying for half an hour to find the second source I used for that post -- the one about the 25-card run -- and to my frustration it eludes me. I'm going to have to say that we can exclude that, since I can't give you any proof, and let the link I did post stand. Separating the subject from the actual cards by a significant distance in another building would seem to eliminate a number of possible problems and opportunities to cheat. A "rousing success"? The results were successful 30% of the time, which is statistically significant, but they were still missing 70% of the time. What I had in mind when I said that were other well designed experiments with negative results. If you take a large random sample of people, it will likely include a mix of those who have a talent for the ability, those who have some ability, and those who are poor at it. Probably you would end up with a negligible result, and you would be averaging out the talented individuals you would want to study further.Many skeptics seem to want spectacular results before they would consider the possibility that a paranormal phenomenon is real. But the controls they often insist on could negatively influence the results. I think it's reasonable to consider the possibility that ESP or telepathy are best demonstrated when someone is relaxed, in a natural environment, and sending a message of importance to someone with whom they have an attachment. Sitting in a lab with people watching you, and pressure from them as well as possibly from oneself for results, could well be counterproductive. I understand the need for a controlled environment but there are surely ways to compromise.

Well if someone like Duane Gish makes claims about evidence for a worldwide flood, we can be justifiably indignant because he is deliberately ignoring evidence that shows that this is nonsense. The evidence to the contrary exists.If we accept that telepathy is real, we currently have no explanation for how it might occur. There are other things that we don't know, which the morphic fields idea attempts to explain. You can't say that Sheldrake is deliberately ignoring a priori evidence to the contrary. He is offering an explanation for phenomena that are not currently understood. I have read about a number of experiments he's proposed or done because he's aware of the need to test his hypothesis, but I can't recall many. They didn't stick in my mind because I feel that they weren't rigorously controlled or even very scientific, more anecdotal in nature. For example, to look at the idea that once something is learned by some members of a species, other members will learn it more quickly even if they're not in contact with each other, he took three short, similar Japanese rhymes -- one a meaningless jumble of disconnected Japanese words, the second a newly-composed verse and the third a traditional rhyme known by millions of Japanese. Neither Sheldrake nor the English schoolchildren he got to memorize these verses knew which was which, nor did they know any Japanese. The most easily-learned rhyme turned out to be the one well-known to Japanese.This doesn't even begin to prove the existence of morphic fields. IMO it's mildly interesting but nothing more really. While he hopes that his "Dogs that Know" experiments and the "Sense of Being Stared At" experiments demonstrate morphic fields too, I think what they really do is demonstrate the existence of paranormal phenomena (which he would call "normal" since it would presumably have an evolutionary origin). Telepathy appears to be something independent of matter and electromagnetism. Conceivably it could be governed by a field, though I believe fields cannot produce actions -- they need a medium. (Cave Diver can correct me if I've got this wrong.) What that is, I don't know. It's difficult to rule a field out because we don't know where they come from or even in essence what they are. It's interesting to imagine that the future of physics could lie in field theory -- maybe there are a lot more of them in existence, governing more in the physical world than we realise. This is "maybe" though. I see nothing wrong with considering all kinds of possibilities. Testing them is another matter. I think there are good reasons for suggesting that the seat of consciousness may not be in the brain. I don't think it's impossible that some of our consciousness arises from sources outside of ourselves. But specific morphic fields -- well while I don't understand a lot of what Sheldrake is saying, then personally I have not yet seen any solid proof of their existence. Sounds very sensible to me. This is the original reason I became interested in Sheldrake, before I'd even heard of morphic fields. Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

I'm letting you know that your source may not be entirely correct, and that it's often a good rule of thumb to look at several sources in order to get a balanced view of a topic. I believe the Skeptics Dictionary is biased, just like a site promoting UFOs and yogic flying and whatnot is biased to the opposite extreme.

I'll try to rephrase the point. I was asking you to be aware that there are other sources that disagree with the Skeptic's Dictionary's conclusions. It omitted the Duke University study I linked to. There are other sources on the web with info about it other than the one you cited. I didn't say I wouldn't personally look at biased sources; in fact I likely would look at any extremes, plus any possible middle-of-the-way interpretations, in order to try to form a balanced view. I think you'd have a hard time explaining why it's sensible to take the word of one source alone, for a topic of which you know little, because it says what you want it to say. The balanced view is that there have been successful paranormal experiments as well as unsuccessful ones, and often the results of experiments are debated. Do you deny that the Skeptic's Dictionary missed out information about the experiment I cited and instead focused on negative interpretations of a select few?Claims of ignorance because you didn't learn this stuff in school are weak, Oni. Nothing stops you from educating yourself. It's up to you whether or not you want to take an interest in the topics under discussion here; but if you join in the discussion with a clear opinion, don't you think it should be an educated one? Just because there is no explanation of how telepathy might work, for instance, does not mean the phenomenon does not exist. I'd be interested in an answer to my earlier question: by your reasoning, would electromagnetism have been "pseudoscience" a thousand years ago because no one taught it in school and no one knew what a photon was?