Precognition Causality Quantum Theory and Mysticism

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And it is her claims regarding precognitive abilities in posts directed at me also in those threads that partially prompted this thread. I had just missed her specific references to Sheldrake and his morphic field theory.

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Hi Straggler,I'm mainly interested in Sheldrake's experimental evidence for the existence of so-called paranormal abilities. Some of his more well-known studies are on the telepathic abilities of animals, specifically a dog named Jaytee and a parrot named Nkisi (though the studies have been replicated many times by other people with other animals). I believe his studies do show that telepathy is real, and that it's a natural ability that evolved because it was of benefit for animals and humans before we had things like telephones. But I don't think this thread is the appropriate place to discuss these experiments because I think what they (and probably Izanagi's anecdote) demonstrate is the existence of telepathy and not precognition. Sheldrake then attempts to explain how this could work via his morphic fields hypothesis. I don't know a lot about this and it's difficult to conceive how it would be studied and verified, but a tenuous explanation doesn't erase good evidence; what's more, given that this seems to be a real phenomenon, Sheldrake recognises a need to try to explain how it might work. Maybe he's right, maybe not; maybe somewhere in between. I'm not sure how keen I am at the moment to debate all this elsewhere though. I'd rather have a straightforward conversation with someone with an open mind, than another long argument.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

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Well this thread is about the (mis)use of modern scientific principles to justify claims of the paranormal.

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Is it? Your OP stated that this thread was about precognition, fortune telling, and how some people attempt to use quantum physics to explain these. Rupert Sheldrake's work, IMO, doesn't fit any of these categories.

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Do you know if he came up with his theory before setting out to conduct experiments on it? Or if he conducted the experiments and then set out to explain the results? Which came first the parrot or the field?

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I have his book, The Presence of the Past, but was too ill to get very far into it when I bought it, and it is on my to-be-read stack. I'll let you know more about it when I get to it, which will probably be while since I have other priorities. However, it doesn't matter whether his morphic fields idea came before or after his experiments; the data stands for itself. Richard Wiseman tried to poke holes in the Jaytee experiments but got caught lying about his own data from the experiments he did with Jaytee himself -- which he ended up admitting. They are sound experiments though I still don't think this is the place to discuss them unless you want to divert the thread.

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Why do you think Sheldrake is accused of pseudoscience? Why do you think so many are so skeptical and "closed minded" about this?

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Because many in the mainstream still consider paranormal research to be pseudoscience. It doesn't matter how rigorously scientific the investigations are, there's still that prejudice against the subject. You can see how rigorous Sheldrake is by clicking Modulous' link to Sheldrake's comments on the experiments with the chicks.I'd rather not comment on your questions about morphic fields because I don't feel I know enough about them right now to debate about them properly.

Hi Straggler,You can make of this what you like. Notice that I didn't say in either of my posts here that I supported or believed in morphic fields. I specifically said that I don't have enough information and that he may be right or he may be wrong. IMO he is attempting to explain the data, which appears to be real enough; and few explanations of phenomena such as telepathy exist because most of science doesn't take the subject seriously in the first place. You might try looking at the experiments with Jaytee and Nkisi with a mind open to the possibility that they may not be hogwash; as I explained earlier, various interpretations of the data don't affect the validity of the data itself. I won't be drawn into a debate about morphic fields here and I've explained my reasons why.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

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The bottom line here is that, for whatever reason, none of Sheldrake's claims have been able to be definitively replicated in highly controlled conditions. Until they are any confidence in the experimental rigor or results in favour of Sheldrake's paranormal conclusions are unjustified.

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I believe it's equally possible that this phenomenon is telepathy rather than precognition. At the moment there's no way of ascertaining.Your statement above about none of Sheldrake's claims being replicated is false. You have chosen to ignore my invitation to look at the Jaytee and Nkisi experiments and found this instead, which you seem to believe proves definitively that Sheldrake is a quack. I still think that this subject is OT because your OP talks about precognition and quantum physics. Telepathy may exist, may have nothing to do with precognition, and may also have little or nothing to do with quantum physics.I also think Sheldrake makes a good point about increasingly strict controls possibly eliminating any effects. We're looking at a phenomenon that may well require spontaneity and relaxation on the part of both sender and receiver. Sheldrake gave the hypothetical (and weird to imagine) example of someone having to prove that an erection is possible, when they are sat in a lab surrounded by video cameras and people in white coats with clipboards. French's conclusions could be similar to the scientists in this situation saying that erections don't exist because they do not occur under strictly controlled conditions.I think that RAZD's intelligent summary in the pseudoskepticism thread is apt here. Taking one negative experiment in which the original parameters were changed, and using this to claim that it invalidates Sheldrake's work, is hardly an open-minded skeptical or even a logical position.

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The phenomenon under consideration is described by Sheldrake himself as "precognition"

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He has the final say does he? Seems to me that if you know who's on the phone before you pick it up, you could possibly be receiving their thoughts directed at you. He has said this elsewhere, and his phone experiments are sometimes called "telephone telepathy."

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But please don't tell me what is on and off topic in a thread that I setup to look at exacly this sort of thing.

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I was just looking at your OP. It looks to me like it would now be appropriate to talk in detail about some of his other experiments, which I will try to do this afternoon, though as I said before:
a) They could be about telepathy rather than precognition.
b) The mechanism that causes them may have nothing to do with morphic fields or quantum physics, and the experiments do not answer this question; they simply give evidence that the phenomena exist.

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It is his bogus abuse of scientific terminology to give credence to his spiritual "hypothesis" that I most deeply object to.

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Whatever. You seem to want me to get into this subject with you when I told you I didn't know much about it. Personally I find the idea of morphic fields intriguing, if not very well supported by evidence, and if you read in any real detail you would find that Sheldrake attempts to use them to explain certain phenomena that current science cannot satisfactorily explain, such as the movements of birds and fish in large groups or the behaviour of termites in their nests. I've never said I thought he was correct; I said I don't know -- which shouldn't be surprising really, since as you know I have similar views to RAZD about things which are neither proved nor unproved. Interestingly, you (true to form as well) are very keen to dismiss all of this as nonsense, and are keen as well to pick out any evidence from "failed" experiments to support this declaration. You may have read in one of your links that self-styled skeptics tend to dismiss positive data, saying there must be something wrong with it; while negative data is instantly seized upon as definitive proof? Can you honestly say you're not doing the same thing?

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Then the effects are conveniently irrefutable.

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What, because the phenomena may require conditions of relaxation and spontaneity? Presumably in the world you inhabit, all phenomena created by humans must be able to be produced regardless of a person's state of mind, or else it isn't real? Shedrake also mentioned that it might be helpful to do the experiments with people who claim to have unusual ability in that particular area and see what the results are. I don't see any problem with that; it could make any positive results more obvious.

"Dogs that Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home"Rupert Sheldrake set out to test the idea that some dogs seem to anticipate the arrival home of their owners. If you are interested in discussing these experiments then please read Sheldrake's paper here. I will provide as concise a summary as possible:Random household surveys in the UK and US showed that 45-52% of dog owners believe their pets demonstrate this ability.Sheldrake set up the experiments to rule out the following possibilities that the dog could:
-- Be hearing or smelling its owner approaching;
-- Be reacting to routine times of return;
-- Be responding to subtle cues from people at home who know when the absent person is returning;
-- Go to the place at which it waits for its owner when the person is not on their way home, and people only selectively remember its apparent anticipation when the owner returns home shortly afterwards.Basic details about the experimental conditions:
The owner's (Pam Smart) journeys home varied from 7-22 km, at various times of the day or evening, and followed no routine pattern. She used her own car, a taxi, and cars belonging to her sisters or friends. The dog's (Jaytee) behaviour did not vary with the mode of transport. Usually Pam did not know in advance when she'd be coming home; the people the dog was left with were never informed. 95 videotaped observations were made in 3 different environments. When Pam was out, Jaytee's visits to the window and absences from it were monitored continuously on videotape, which was mounted on a tripod and left running for up to 4 hours at a time.In a series of 12 experiments, return times were randomly selected by the following method: Pam was beeped on a pager by a person in London, 300 km away. The return times were determined by throws of dice.There were 10 control experiments in which Pam came home unusually late or not at all. Her parents, with whom Jaytee was left, were not informed of this. These results agreed with the null hypothesis that Jaytee should spend about the same average amount of time at the window during any time period.There were 50 videotaped observations of Jaytee on his own. Jaytee showed anticipatory behaviour in some but not all of these, and on average there was statistically significant anticipatory behaviour but less than in the main experiments.Sheldrake used two methods to tabulate the data: one for all visits to the window, even if the dog was obviously barking at cats etc; one when visits to the window that seemed to have nothing to do with anticipatory behaviour were excluded.Sheldrake's paper discusses this in more detail. Unfortunately I am unable to copy any of the tables as images to display here, but if you look at the paper you will see in the first two graphs that Jaytee spent significantly more time at the window when Pam left for home, and while she was travelling.In a Randomized Permutation Analysis, the probability that the observed pattern differed from the null hypothesis was p<0.000003.Richard Wiseman, a prominent skeptic, was critical of the idea of animal telepathy, and accepted an invitation to replicate the experiments with Pam and Jaytee in 1999. Wiseman and his team used some methods that were different to those of Sheldrake, and they did not plot their results on graphs. At first, Wiseman considered an experiment successful if the first time that Jaytee inexplicably went to the window occurred in the first 10-minute time block after Pam left for home. Then he tried looking at the first time Jaytee inexplicably went to the window for more than 2 minutes after Pam started for home. His results were negative.However, Sheldrake had found that Jaytee went to the window a few minutes before Pam started her journey. Wiseman also hadn't watched Jaytee's overall behaviour after Pam set out; he did wait at the window significantly more often. When Wiseman's data was analysed including these details, the results were similar to Sheldrake's. Jaytee was at the window 4% of the time during Pam's main period of absence, and 78% of the time when she was coming home.Wiseman claimed for 8 years that he had "debunked" Sheldrake's claims. In 2007 he admitted on the Skeptico podcast that his data does correspond with Sheldrake's.These experiments seem to show that dogs are able to anticipate when their owners are coming home, using an as-yet unexplained innate ability. What's more, they seem to be able to sense the intention to come home, since the anticipatory behaviour often begins when the decision to come home is made but the owner has not yet begun the journey. The dog goes to the window less often when it is at home by itself. Sheldrake hypothesizes that the anticipatory behaviour evolved as a signal to other members of the animal's family or group, and would like to see these experiments tried on wolves in the wild. Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

Gosh, thanks for paying zero attention to the information I posted. I believe that it does show that telepathy is a possible reality. That's what we need to do before we posit any explanations as to what could cause such a thing to occur: accepting that it even happens in the first place.It would be interesting to see you take this possibility seriously, rather than, say, have a laugh at some stuff that sounds kooky, and people's kooky explanations for it. I'm not yet convinced from your posts to me that this isn't your intention here.I'm not bothered about Sheldrake's explanations for his experimental results. I've said several times that I am "agnostic" about morphic fields, yet you talk to me as if I'm their most fervent supporter or as if the validity of the telepathy experiments hinges on their existence. What I do know is that there is currently no scientific explanation for the "Dogs that Know" results. I expect someone could find one, though it will probably involve some original thinking. I also believe the explanation will enhance what we already know about science, as discoveries tend to do, rather than threaten the fabric of reality as we know it.

Hi Onifre,Try reading Message 80.Cheers

I feel I'm missing something too . . . Sheldrake conducted more than 100 experiments, which were replicated by Richard Wiseman. Contrary to what Straggler claimed here, Sheldrake does not content himself with anecdotal data; he tests it experimentally, and some of his experiments have been successful. Do you have any problems with how his "Dogs that Know" experiments were designed, conducted or analysed?

I think what's confusing me is these two statements:

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No, not at all. They seem honestly conducted.

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My question is: Is there an actual phenomenon that science should be looking into?

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The unambiguous result of the experiments is that dogs really do seem to know when their owners are coming home -- often from the moment the person decides she's coming home but hasn't started the journey. You seem to be saying that you have no criticisms of this -- and then you immediately say that this phenomenon does not exist. I subsequently submit to you that it does exist, unless you can find fault with the experiments.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

Hmmm, so you seem to be saying that because scientists apparently do not recognise the existence of telepathy or precognition, that there's nothing to investigate?Maybe many of them aren't aware of the "Dogs that Know" experiments. Probably a number of them have dismissed them without really looking into them -- a phenomenon I expect we'll see more of on this thread as the discussion progresses.I'm not saying that science can't explain this, and there are some scientists who do similar paranormal research but not many. It seems to me that experiments such as Sheldrake's should be publicised and treated with the seriousness that they deserve. Let's see more scientists opening their minds to the possibility of telepathy and attempting to replicate Sheldrake's experiments, or take them further.What else do you think we should do -- conveniently ignore genuinely positive experimental results? I'm pretty amazed at your claim that this should be done simply because an unspecified group of scientists hasn't given the subject its seal of approval for study. This ambiguous group of people have a monopoly on what we should investigate, do they?Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

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What I'm saying is that there is currently no investigation into the assertion that dogs have telepathy, therefore it is unnecessary to say that there exists no scientific evidence to explain those results.

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Well it would be easy to rephrase if you wish and say something like, "This experimental result has emerged (because there is investigation into the assertion, by Sheldrake, with positive outcome) and science now needs to provide an explanation for it." Or does Sheldrake not count for some reason?

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Maybe many of them are aware of it. Probably a number of them dismissed it having looked into it.

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I would hazard a guess that many scientists are not aware of it, because most of them take no notice of studies of the paranormal, no matter how rigorously scientific. The current paradigm is to dismiss such things out of hand as nonsense, and to attempt to give them scientific validity is career suicide. Look at how many people on this forum alone really, really don't want to entertain the notion that something like telepathy might be real.As for scientists having "looked into it," no one has found any flaws in Sheldrake's "Dogs that Know" research. Wiseman tried hard because he didn't want his results to be held up as replications of the successful experiments, but that is what happened. If you can find any valid criticism of the experiments by anyone, anywhere, please share it here.

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Well, I would say that that's up to the person(s) doing the experiment to establish the seriousness of what they're doing via the scientific method. To include peer-review, etc.

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Sheldrake used the scientific method in his experiments.
The Journal of Scientific Exploration is peer reviewed.
I suppose the next attempted argument will be that the journal is not prestigious enough or mainstream enough, and the goalposts will continue to be moved . . . because the prejudice against paranormal research is so very pervasive, it's hard for many people to imagine taking it seriously. There will be 1,001 reasons why successful experimental results in this field are somehow unacceptable. The question I find myself asking is, why? What are people so afraid of, that they end up using creationist-style cognitive dissonance strategies in order to dismiss the possibility of anything paranormal being real?

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Let's see more scientists opening their minds to the possibility of telepathy and attempting to replicate Sheldrake's experiments, or take them further.
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Why? Because you (or a handful of people) feel they should?

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That's not how one establishes credibility for assertions, Linda.

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Beg pardon but these aren't assertions, they are positive experimental results; results which you said you found no fault with. You seem to be demanding extra proof, or Rrhain's chocolate sprinkles. Are they assertions in your mind, possibly, because you don't want to accept the possibility that dogs might actually be telepathic -- or that telepathy might exist at all?

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One person conducted an experiment based on the belief that dogs are telepathic...now what?

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We've got solid evidence that time after time, under tightly controlled and randomised conditions, this dog seemed to be able to sense when its owner was setting off to come home. That's not just a belief, it's experimental evidence which is difficult to explain unless the phenomenon of telepathy (or precognition) is real. "Now what" means that this is potentially a very important discovery, and the experiments should be publicised, replicated and expanded on. IMO this is not happening because we are programmed to believe that such phenomena have no part in our rational world and so they can't be true, no matter how many well designed, successful experiments show otherwise. If I may be honest, look at how hard you yourself are trying to make the "Dogs that Know" experiments seem inconsequential, even though (or because?) they suggest the existence of a phenomenon that is new to mainstream scientific study.

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Have you looked into Dolphins ability to cure humans via sonar?

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That's interesting. Something is obviously going on there, though precisely "what" is open for debate. But I'm not sure how that compares to Sheldrake's carefully designed and controlled "Dogs that Know" experiments that yielded definite results -- the dog waiting at the window 4% of the time when its owner was not coming home, and 78% of the time when she was, is a pretty unambiguous fact. It seems to me that if denial continued here, you'd have to pull the old creationist card of "It's all lies," because it's hard to see where else you could go.

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Investigate away. Just don't be upset if no one pays any attention to it.

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So that's OK in your book even if such studies continue, are replicated, and get positive results? Still not worthy of attention? Perhaps Sheldrake will need to tap dance on the wall singing "What a Wonderful World" first? Or give it all up and devote his life to studying fruit flies, because then he's not stirring up anyone's prejudices?Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

Hi Modulous. I was hoping you'd join the discussion, but I was also hoping for a better post than this one. I mean, really. Intimations that Sheldrake is unduly hogging publicity; that he's fudging his results; and that he's doing it all to get attention and to sell books. And no actual mention of any aspect of the "Dogs that Know" experiments. I didn't think someone as intelligent as you would feel a need to stoop to ad hominem.He obviously wants to explain his experimental results using his morphic fields hypothesis. If you read what I've said elsewhere here, I am "agnostic" or neutral on the subject, partly because I don't know much about it and partly because there's little evidence in support of it. The point I was making was that the experiments are valid regardless of the interpretation he or anyone else gives them, and this in itself is important. If Pavlov could break new ground by experimenting with dogs drooling over their food, then why not "dogs that know when their owners are coming home"?

Hi Perdition,I'm looking at Sheldrkae's analysis graphs and they show that Jaytee was at the window, on average, very little compared to when his owner decided to come home. He said that there was usually a settling-down period of 10 minutes or so after she left. It's interesting to see that when every visit to the window is included, even when it was obvious that Jaytee was distracted with something outside, the results on the graph are still clear.I am uncertain what you mean by "after about 100 ten minute time periods has passed"?Also, if you look at the paper, you will see that Sheldrake was not reliant on anyone's logs. The experiments were videotaped, as you know, and he explains how the tapes were analysed blind by people who were not involved with other parts of the experiments and didn't even know what was going on outside of their tasks. He placed controls on these analyses too.I'd be in support of further experiments and I don't see why they couldn't try your suggestions, though I think based on the data, the owner would need to be absent more than 5 minutes for any chance of a positive result to become obvious. I guess my question to you and some others here would be, just how many trials with how many permutations would you want before you were satisfied that this was a real phenomenon? Why is what Sheldrake has already done, not enough to merit any serious interest?

Hi Onifre,

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As long as you concede that "science has no explanation for this phenomenon" was an unnecessary comment to make, my original question to you has been answered.

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This seems to be very important to you. I take it that this is because you are still insisting that there is no phenomenon for science to explain? Same question to you as above then: if Sheldrake did more experiments, with more permutations, or if others did them, how much would it take to satisfy you? Looks to me like you are setting the bar very high.If Sheldrake did decide his time was better spent studying fruit flies, I feel certain that no one would be making such demands before they accepted the validity of his work.

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I also feel you approach this similar to how Christians approach miracles. You want it to be real and a single experiment that sort of gives YOU some convincing results helps settle the questions of "can it be real."

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I don't want anything other than the truth. I feel that people are having problems, for whatever personal reasons, with accepting that these experiments -- which, to remind you again, you said you see no fault with -- produced successful results. The graphs are unambiguous.You seem to be telling me that despite all that, I'm guilty of wishful thinking, and that "one little experiment" is insignificant and should be ignored.Does this make any kind of logical sense to you?To repeat another point I made recently, Pavlov's dog studies are taught in high schools across the world. He is heralded as the father of behavioural psychology. All he did was ring bells at certain times and put food out for the dogs, or not. Can you tell me how this is so very different from what Sheldrake did, and why Pavlov's name should be in so many science books while Shelrdake's experiments should be ignored?

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But if it had any merit, science would be looking into it, just like they look into everything else in our world.

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You seem to have a lot of faith that this unidentified body of scientists you mentioned earlier can claim a monopoly on what is worthy of study. Since when did science become something that only an educated elite performed, off limits to everybody else? One thing you probably noticed Sheldrake doing is trying to take science back to the public, getting them involved. While he conducts rigorous experiments of his own, he also wants to popularise the things he studies. The experiments are easy to replicate and these subjects catch people's interest. I think this is an innovative approach, though the established elite will be horrified at the idea of the ignorant public getting their hands dirty with such things. Notice I've used the word "elite" several times. While I think it is right and proper for experts to be foremost in their fields, I think there is no reason why public participation in science should not also occur. (By the way, Sheldrake is an expert in his field.)

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Telepathy has been researched, and sadly there's not much there.

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Can I see some evidence of these failed experiments?
Also, can you explain why previous failed experiments by other scientists or by Sheldrake himself should somehow nullify the "Dogs that Know" experiments? Do those past experiments have some kind of effect on the results?

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Or, maybe you need to see it for what it really is and allow for the possibility that there is really no phenomenon, just humans looking for patterns.

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Well, there are a few occasions when the patterns in graphs are significant, don't you think?Listen to what you are saying Oni:
-- Sheldrake's results aren't really positive; somehow they just appear to be that way.
-- It's just one insignificant set of experiments and they don't really mean anything.
-- "Real" scientists, the ones who run the show, aren't paying attention to this, so there's no reason why anyone else should.
-- Unspecified past failed experiments nullify the results of these and render further study of this so-called phenomenon moot.I repeat: do you think these are all logical claims to make?