Precognition Causality Quantum Theory and Mysticism

Hi Perdition, decided to join us again I see Telepathy would be the transfer of information from organism to organism using means other than those which are currently known. You would control for this by taking account of all those other known means plus other natural explanations such as subtle cues, cheating, laws of probability, routine, and so on; I believe Sheldrake used good controls in his "Dogs that Know" experiments and I find it hard to see what else needed controlling in order to rule out all other natural explanations.What we would then be left with is a gap in our knowledge -- this information was passed along, but we don't know how. Maybe if enough creative telepathy experiments were conducted, and they were increasingly specific, you would be able to rule criteria out until you hit on what seemed to be an answer. Maybe you could find some means to prevent telepathy from happening; maybe there are substances or circumstances that stop it. Maybe there are other substances or circumstances which enhance it. We'd probably need such clues before physicists could investigate what's going on because they need someplace to start. We could guess and say it's morphic fields or whatever, but there's no real way of testing that.

Hi Linda Lou, Well one, as I understand it, the point is not to discuss the details of the experiment, but to discuss Sheldrake's conclusion.Is there an anomaly? - yes. Is it telepathy? - what's telepathy? No you don't. (unless you are in a wheelchair) - You can roll, pull yourself up on a bar, probably hold your body weight on a horizontal bar. Now, you may not have advanced gymnastic skills, but you could have had that too, if you would have trained at a young age.We are primates, we are gymnist by nature. Show me. One video, that's all I ask for. I'm sorry Linda, but this sounds like the same BS I hear when playing with a Ouija board, or when someone is trying to talk to the dead. They claim skeptics ruin it with their skepticism. To me that's a load of BS, and more importantly, that's NOT science. And I agree. But what on earth does that have to do with telepathy? Why are you making a connection to something that is unproven to exist? It's just a word that represents an anomaly, nothing more. We are pattern seekers Linda. It just seems like these things are strange. How many times does the phone ring and I have no clue who it is? How many times have I turned around and no one is there?The problem is we don't count those, we only remember the times we do find a coincidence. But if you ran the numbers, almost every time my phone rings I have no clue who it is, we just don't remember that because there's nothing strange about it to remember.Again, we are pattern seekers. Yes, the same one's that are lying about evolution, the age of the Earth, the heliocentric solar system and the 13.7 billion year old expanding universe. I agree with your husband. Looks like there could be a real phenomenon with the dog. But why telepathy? What is that? How does it work? - And that's the issue. All that was pointed out in the "Dog" experiment is that the dog goes to the door at anomalous times. Telepathy doesn't get proven at all!Sheldrake concluded that, almost as a "Well what else could it be?" conclusion. And I don't consider that conclusion good science.I thought this video was relevant to the debate, by the king skeptic himself, Michael Shermer. I recommend watching it, it's very interesting. Why do people believe strange things - Michael Shermer- Oni

It seems to me that the details are very important. Sheldrake took care to make sure that there were sufficient controls in place to rule out natural explanations. OK so you'll take the step of admitting that there's an "anomaly." It seems to me like you are unwilling to take any further steps to suggest what caused it. The data shows that the dog knew when its owner had decided to come home, and from that point showed anticipatory behaviour by waiting at the window. This fits the definition of telepathy I gave, which is the transfer of information from organism to organism which is not explained by known means. Would you like to make any suggestions about what else the "anomaly" could be? Why a video? I've already given you several examples of experiments that no one can find fault with. You seem to be very keen to avoid getting into any of their details even though I posted them a long while back.While you appear not to have been interested in reading the link I gave you, I watched your video. I'd listened to one or two appearances by Shermer on the Skeptico podcast and I had no idea he was such a showman; he reminds me of Kent Hovind with his absurd examples and adoring audience. I'm not saying that anything in the video is wrong; what disturbs me is the fact that he happily declares himself a "debunker" and seems to want to have a laugh at all paranormal claims in general by picking one particular fallacy, which is to see patterns where there are none. This is a known human tendency and good experiments avoid it. Would you like to explain how the Duke or the "Dogs that Know" experiments are seeing patterns where there are none? It's interesting that you make this claim about phone calls too, when experiments will control for it. Everybody knows that if your experiments have results equivalent to chance, they do not show the existence of a paranormal phenomenon, and that the more trials you do the more likely it is that you will end up with chance results when no phenomenon actually exists. Do you think the scientists who design paranormal experiments are not aware of this? I see. So every time the presence of a skeptic seems to affect an experiment, it must mean that there was cheating or some other skullduggery going on and that people had to stop doing it when they knew they'd get caught. This has been known to happen sometimes and I'm sure it still does.There is also the possibility that if a skeptic is involved with a paranormal experiment, the skepticism itself may help negate the effects. I take it that you deny that this could ever be so. I would ask you why, since it seems plausible enough. Since telepathy, ESP, precognition and so forth appear to be phenomena that involve the mind, do you not think that someone's state of mind might have some bearing on their expression?Maybe you agree with Shermer that "it's all nonsense"? Interestingly, like others here, he seems keen to preserve this belief by ignoring evidence to the contrary. In 2003 he was quoted as saying about Sheldrake's book "The Sense of Being Stared At and Other Aspects of the Extended Mind" (which I've read myself): "The events Sheldrake describes don't require a theory and are perfectly explicable by normal means". It turned out he could not substantiate this claim, and had not even seen the book. Sheldrake proposed an online debate. He accepted this challenge in March 2003, and said he would "get to it soon". In May he told Rupert, "I have not gotten to your book yet". After repeated enquiries, he has still not responded.It only takes a few minutes to make an evidence-free claim to a journalist. Dogmatism is easy.

5 million trials you have stated. And the evidence is undeniable. So you have said. So should we teach telepthay as a real and objectively evidenced phenomenon in schools? You raised the telepthic dog experiment. I responded with my criticisms in Message 105. Instead of responding to my criticisms or suggestions you completely ignored everything I said and started a pre-prepared rant about this Wiseman guy. But in doing so you succeeded in making exactly the point I was arguing.As far as I can see the main reason that Wiseman and Sheldrake ended up waving their dicks at each other in a "My interpretation is better than yours" shake-off over (apparently) the same data is because the design of the experiment makes this inevitable. Rather than applying the proposed causal relationship under investigation to take one set of the data (e.g. the behaviour of the dog) and predict the other (i.e. the time the owner set off home) a pile of data was simply collected and then criteria and statistics applied post-hoc to achieve whatever result the researcher in question wanted to claim.My point is that I have taught fourteen year olds who could pick holes in this experimental methodology. So to claim that it provides a sound evidential basis for claiming the validity of something as contentious and extraordinary as telepathic dogs is just ridiculous. So you are utterly convinced that telepathy is a an objectively evidenced phenomenon. Would you have us teach kids that telepathy is real and scientifically verified? Would you have us teach Sheldrake's morphic field hypothesis in schools? Teach the controversy?To what extent do you deem telepathy to be an established fact? And why do you think that the vast majority of scientists continue to disagree with you? Is there a great conspiracy to supress the evidence? No doubt just like IDists you consider such things to be on the verge of making the mainstream. The dam of denial will break and the scientific elite will flung aside as the truth floods forth. The truth of the immaterial and spiritual is nearly upon us! Hallelujah!Not only are you invoking a somethingsupernatural of the gaps answer here. You are inventing non-existant gaps to fill.Edited by Straggler, : Spelling.

And yet he concluded that it was telepathy, something for which no evidence exists to support.It's the same as Intelligent Design as the answer. Supporters of ID say that because it appears designed, and we don't yet have a concensus for a scientific theory, it must be design!Likewise, Sheldrake is saying that, because there are certain anomalies that science, as of yet, hasn't explained naturally, it must be telepathy!But, neither an Intelligent Design(er) nor telepathy have any supporting evidence - So how on earth can they be conclusions to ANY phenomenon?More so, all his work is still ahead of him to explain HOW telepathy works. It doesn't suffice to say it's telepathy. Yes, I am willing to go through the process of determining what caused it.Just as with the emergence of life - I'm willing to go through the process of determining how it emerged.BUT - in a scientific manner, which means, that if thoughts are being transfered between individual brains, the PROCESS (ie. telepathy) must be explained. It does NOTHING to simply say, "it's telepathy" ... OK, "what's telepathy?"Likewise, if the question was how life emerged, "an intelligent designer did it" ... OK, "what's an intelligent designer?"Do you see the logic in what I'm saying? One, because it's interesting. But two, it explains what I just said in detail. More so, it covers the points about anomalies.How many dogs have been tested to see if they do the same thing as the one in the experiement? Where is the data that shows the dogs that DON'T react the same? Shermer explains that science isn't about showing the times it does happen, science is about showing the times it DOESN'T happen - then, making a complete analysis of the entire thing.You asked, how many times I can predict when someone will call me, but my point, and Shermer explains this in the video, is, how many times DOESN'T it happen? Where's that data?Why should I concentrate on the times it does happen, and use that as proof for a phenomenon, when the crux of the matter is the times it DOESN'T happen? I need both sets of data to make a complete assessment. Linda I did read it, that's how I knew what website it came from. I actually enjoy this about him. Like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, he brings a fun attitude to science which I think is needed. I understand your opinion about him dismissing paranormal events and debunking them, but frankly, I share the same opinion as him. NO! What I'm saying is that anyone you claims their experiment was ruined by the presence of a skeptic is full of BS.How many skeptics do you think Einstein or Galileo, or Darwin, Copernicus, Kepler (need I go on?) faced in their day? Why didn't any of their experiments get thwarted by the arrogance of skeptics? Because the evidence speaks for itself, Linda.The evidence MUST stand up to skepticism and scrutny; In fact, that is what good science is all about. Do you not agree with that? The evidence should stand alone and speak for itself. Every single scientist has faced this negative opinion when presenting new theories. Wishful thinking again, Linda. Linda, I have no issue with Sheldrakes experiment. It's his conclusion that it's telepathy that I take issue with.Claiming that it's telepathy explains NOTHING - all his work is still ahead of him to explain what, if anything at all, telepathy is, how it functions, what it uses to "transfer thoughts."This is the problem with claiming that phenomena are paranormal, or supernatural - How do you test it? It's the same as saying God-did-it. Well, if god did it then HOW did he do it? It doesn't help to simply say god-did-it.Likewise, if it's telepathy, then HOW does it work. Telepathy explains NOTHING if you can't explain how it works.And that's good science.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

LindaLou tells us that 5 million trials have taken place and that the results for telepathy are undeniably and overwhelmingly positive. If this is true the fact of telepthay is one of the most objectively evidenced phenomenon known to science. If this is true the scientific community must be engaged in a monumental conspiracy to suppress and deny the truth of this paranormal phenomenon. I fully expect LindaLou to shortly be releasing a film called "Expelled: No Telepathy Allowed" and to be canvassing the Kansas state board of education to teach the controversy.Are these comparisons of Sheldrake's work and Intelligent Design justified? Well the parallels are not restriced to assuming a huge conspiracy on the part of the scientific elite. Nor are they restricted to assuming that the materialist dogma of science is on the verge of collapse as we are forced to recognise the evidenced reality of immaterial and spiritual truths. Nor do the parallels stop at the replacement of Goddidit as a dead end answer with the equally pointless somethingsupernaturaldidit as already discussed. Sheldrake's morphic fields are ethereal fields of information underlying the creative process of nature. I have already discussed Sheldrake's pseudoscientific abuse of terminology in Message 66. But the ambiguous use of the term "information" should be familiar to anyone who has taken on the ID argument.Sheldrake is ultimately little more than an IDist with new-age knobs on. Sheldrake on materialismScience doesn't claim to know all the answers to anything. Ultimate or otherwise. I thought the only people who claimed to know the answers to the "ultimate questions" were theologians? Anyway whilst some may consider fiction to be "freer - and more fun" I personally prefer the phrase "Truth is stranger than fiction".Sheldrake seeks to introduce spirituality and mysticism into the science laboratory in exactly the same way that Intelligent Design seeks to introduce the supernatural into the science classroom. Both are acts of misguided folly.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Perhaps the answer is that the genes that grant telepathic abilities also make the person less desirable to a mate (fugly). Therefore they would be less likely to reproduce and would be less represented in the population. Sorry just couldn't let that one slide by. I will slink back to the shadows now.

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'Qui non intelligit, aut taceat, aut discat'
The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open.-FZ
The industrial revolution, flipped a bitch on evolution.-NOFX

- And yet dogs find it to be a totally hot quality!- Oni Edited by onifre, : No reason given.

Or.....Maybe those humans most genetically prone to telepathy found that dogs were their natural soulmates. Thus those genes responsible for human telepathy were lost to us as a species for reasons that I will leave to your sordid imagination.

Hi Onifre,I'll do my best to reply to your post, though I'm going to have to curtail this kind of thing for a while; I started a new job last week and am on an evening course, and looking after my little girl besides -- not much time to spare now. Well you looked at the controls that Sheldrake put in place. We seem to be left with the dog knowing that its owner was coming home, though the means by which it obtained that knowledge is unknown. You seem to want to define this as an "anomaly" but by no means will you consider the possibility of telepathy. Would you like to suggest what else could be operating here? It sounds to me like you're saying, "This can be explained by natural means. We don't know what they are yet but at some point someone will work it out." That sounds to me a bit like other paranormal skeptics saying, "This can be explained by flaws in the design of the experiment. We don't know what they are yet but at some point someone will work it out." And throw in the claim from the Skeptic's Dictionary that any results that are statistically significant are simply an unlikely natural result of probability. There you go, 3 handy get-out clauses with which one can avoid ever having to consider a paranormal explanation for anything. Safe and rational-sounding, no matter what the real truth is. I think we're going round in circles with this, because in response I've said a number of times that experiments can be designed to show the existence of telepathy, and I offered a definition of it. Those experiments could become more and more specific, depending on past results, and may lead to understanding of the means by which telepathy occurs. I don't believe you explained to me why you find this approach unsatisfactory. I suggested that saying we should understand what it is first, is like saying that you need to know what a photon is before you can establish the existence of electromagnetism. We both know that's not how it happened. Sheldrake tested the null hypothesis that Jaytee would spend equal amounts of time at the window during each time period when Pam came home late (after the 4-hour videotaped period) or not at all. His graph clearly shows that this was the case. Don't you think it would be odd if someone said their dog showed no anticipatory behaviour when it was actually going to the window (or lying near the door thumping its tail, or whatever) more often when its owner was coming home? I'm not sure I would see a need to test for this being a null hypothesis because it seems rather nonsensical, but in further tests I wouldn't be against including controls of dogs whose owners feel sure don't show anticipation. It would then be interesting to explore reasons why this may not be so, if the data bears out Sheldrake's survey results that say half of dog owners experience it and half don't. What I suggested was that this may not be so clear-cut as you think. Now I know that during the heyday of spiritualism there were a lot of fake mediums who were caught this way. And there are always going to be people faking and hoaxing, and I agree that they ought to be exposed too. But if something like telepathy is real, I'd say it's odds-against a skeptic being able to participate in such an experiment with success because his/her mind is set against the possibility. They are actually hoping for a negative result to bear out their belief. Experimenter bias is a recognised phenomenon so why is it impossible for it to be a factor here? I think we ought to be open to such a possibility.I wonder if you have any fresh ideas to add to this? I'm still thinking that like Straggler, you want to keep repeating the same points in the hopes that they'll be drilled into me. What I actually see is both of you coming up with as many excuses as possible as to why telepathy, ESP or similar phenomena can't possible be real, and ignoring any evidence to the contrary. But there's no point in me continuing to repeat that either if you can't see it for yourselves.Edited by Kitsune, : No reason given.Edited by Kitsune, : No reason given.Edited by Kitsune, : Trying to get signature to look right.

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former username "LindaLou"

Seems like a good idea, but wouldn't it be useless in practice?That is, let's say we remove skepticism and rigid control upon a test for telepathy. Now let's assume we run some sort of telepathy test and the results show 100% accuracy.What does this mean? Are the results 100% accurate because telepathy is actually real? Or are the results 100% accurate because of some other process that we can no longer identify because we didn't control the experiment?If the point is to identify whether or not the phenomenon is real, isn't skepticism (that is: rigid control of the experiment) required in order to make sure any positive results aren't caused by some alternative process?If it comes down to "telepathy only seems to work if we remove any amount of skepticsm" isn't that the same as "telepathy only seems to work when we can't identify if some other process is actually causing the positive results?" Such a conclusion seems rather pointless to pursue.

Hi Stile,I'm being too loose with my terminology I think. As you probably know, I define true skepticism as being open-minded and critical. It also involves being neutral about an issue unless there is evidence to support a specific position. When I've referred to skeptics in my recent posts here, I'm thinking of people who join an experiment with the preconceived belief that the results should be negative. This is unhelpful in experiments where a person's state of mind may have an influence on the results.

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former username "LindaLou"

Heh... just saw that, sorry Alright then, I have no problem. As long as rigid controls are in place, I don't have any problem at all with screening against "negatively biased" people. Although I think such screening may very easily become some sort of political issue. That is, as long as someone is claiming to be "neutral," how could you tell if they aren't? (That's an off-topic, and kind of unimportant, kinda redundant question... no need to actually answer it).Edited by Stile, : Negative... not positive, whoops.

Hi Kitsune, No worries, take your time and good luck with the new job. And that's it, that's all it showed.It could be aliens tranfering the thoughts to the dogs mind, it could be fairies doing this as well. It could be an unknown field by which this one dog can read minds, it could simply be a fact about this particular dog and its mind that is yet to be understood.It could be a number of factors, or, it could be nothing at all - Now, as Shermer said in the video, before we consider it to be something out of this world lets make sure we have ruled out everything in this world.And yet in the case of dogs having telepathy, you can't even begin to define the condition as something unique to all dogs or all K9's, because all you are showing is one test done to one dog. Have at it, explore away - the approach is not unsatisfactory to me at all.I just don't find any reason to believe telepathy is anything more than a word used to define something that is not understood yet. It's no better than god-did-it.but again, this is just a case of one dog, so nothing has been established yet about ALL dogs to even know if you are witnessing a phenomenon. Actually, its completely the other way around. You need to understand the field that electromagnetism works in to be able to explain a photon.Likewise, the field that telepathy works in need to be described so that one can understand how it works. Then, you can find out empirically if dogs have the necessary features to do this OR maybe dogs do it another way.But you need many, many dog experiments to estabish it as something common throughout ALL dogs. No matter how bias any ONE experimenter might be, the evidence should speak for itself.How many skeptics and believers have tried to prove an eather exists by re-doing the Michelson/Morley experiment? Many, many people. And yet the results are null. Why does telepathy get a pass? Linda, I am not trying to drill anything into you.I'm simply stating my reasons for being skeptical about telepathy. If you agree then cool, if you don't, then cool too.- Oni

You repeatedly claim open-mindedness but you are the least open minded person here regarding Sheldrake. For whatever reason you seem to have some sort of personal investment in this guy that no argument, no exposure of bad experimental practises and no demonstration of him intentionally misleading using fake terminology (see Message 66) will ever overcome.I stand by this more than ever: Message 205***sigh***Which is exactly what I keep telling you is the problem with Sheldrake's methodology in the telepathic dogs experiments. Blinded experiments with specific predicted results rather than post-hoc criteria, interpretation and after-the-event statistical analysis. Increased objectivity helps achieve nothing but the truth. Until Sheldrake seeks objectivity rather than mass citation of repeatedly poor experimental methodology he will persuade no-one but the pre-converted and the scientifically illiterate. No doubt complaining about the injustice of it all in his lectures and books as he struggles all the way to the bank. I only repeat things when you refuse to answer them.If you think telepthy is so overwhelmingly evidenced should we "teach the controversy" to science students? Why will you not answer this simple question if you have genuine belief in the evidence you are citing?The parallels of your argument with ID are truly uncanny: Message 216Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.