Precognition Causality Quantum Theory and Mysticism

The interesting thing is wondering whether we're accurately understanding QM. For instance, we can tell how much of a radioactive element will decay in a given time, but we can't predict with any accuracy the actual atoms that will decay. This is a standard part of QM, stating that it's probabilistic, but not deterministic. Leaving aside the fact that maybe there is some underlying reason for atom X decaying while atom Y doesn't...but could we, given enough information, make probabilistic predictions about the futre, given enough knowledge?We may not be able to know exactly what people are going to do what, but we could predict, with some accuracy, the probability of certain events happening. As someone mentioned above, in the Foundation series, Asimov had Harry Seldon basically use people like radioactive atoms. He could determine what a crowd would do, but he couldn't tell you who in the crowd would do what.

Not necessarily. If we're allowing the possibility of a Q-like being, and it's ability to exist outside our timeline and yet see into it, we have to allow the possibility that he sees into our timeline and sees his actions and their effects, meaning that the minute he steps into our timeline, he can effectively see his own timeline, albeit for only the amount of time he is inside it.This would imply not only do we have no free will, but neither does he. It could lead to a timeline within a timeline thing where our timeline moves along, but is part of a larger timeline, which may or may not have even more superior beings "outside" of it, watching what's going on.

The only way actual precognition works is if something comes back in time and somehow affects the "seer's" mind/brain. If there's no contra-time movement, then I don't see how it could even work.I agree, it flies in the face of all we think we know, and considering what we've accomplished with what we think we know, I think we know quite a bit.

I've had deterministic tendencies for as long as I can remember, and QM was the only thing that seemed to dispute the idea, while still not really allowing free will. If what you say is true, I can be deterministic again! Without blowing so far over my head as to threaten the jets flying above me, can you further explain how this is so?

So, if we were to somehow completely divorce our minds from classical thinking and somehow think quantumly, we could figure out which radioactive particle would decay? If not, then it still seems probabilistic, and while the probabilities are deterministic, the actual specific events are not.

Hey Linda,I took a look at the study findings. It's an interesting experiment, and I think it warrants more investigation, but the data as presented is not very convincing.If you read the study, the data concerning much of Sheldrake's reason for believing Jaytee was telepathically sensing his owner's return is from logs kept by Jaytee's owner and her parents. This is a bit suspect, in my mind, if they wanted to show that Jaytee was telepathic, they may, consciously or unconsciously fudge the numbers a bit.The second part, where Sheldrake records Jaytee's responses, I see a time correlation for Jaytee's going to the window, and with only 4 hours in the tape recorder, it severely limits good statistical data. Most of the graphs show Jaytee starting to look at the window after about 100 ten minute time periods has passed...specifically:16
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12 and 20That's a pretty tight cluster...including the false positive on the last trial. I think, for this to have really good statistical data, they need to get some better equipment and set up recording times that can last at least over night, and have his owner come home after 5 minutes (maybe walking) and at random times between there and 12 hours later, or more. If Jaytee seems to sense his owner returning during more randomized returns (these don't seem all that random, the "late beeps" window watching isn't much different from the "early beeps"), then Sheldrake will have more reason to claim the ability. At this point, it's not clear, and needs better statistical data, IMHO.

In the graphs, on the X axis, he has 10 minite periods number 1 through 23. There would be 24 of them in 4 hours. If you notice, Jaytee goes to the window in every instance (except the one where he never went) in a cluster around the 14th then minute period. Sometimes as early as the 10th and sometimes as late as the 16th. He waits until the 16th on some early beeps and waits until the 16th on some late beeps. He goes as early as 12 on some early beeps and at 12 on some late beeps.The only test, as far as I can tell, where the time frame wasn't very close was the very last...and there was a "false positive" where Jaytee went to the window during the 12th ten minute period, then back again at the 20th.Considering a dog is going to be less than perfect in tim keeping, shows a very tight cluster of window watching centered around 140 minutes or so. Before he brought out his equipment, he was made aware of PS's belief that Jaytee was predicting her arrival. He then had her and her parents keep logs. Those logs are what brought him out. The logs, I think, are very poor ways to determine if he shold investigate since PS and her parents had a vested interest in "proving" their claim, and could have, whether consciously and intentionally, or unconsciously and accidentally, fudging the numbers.The data Sheldrake presents is from the videos, granted, but he didn't vary the times enough to get any statistical difference, and Jaytee's window watching wasn't significantly changed based on late beeps or early beeps, so he doesn't show a pattern of following along with PS at all. He goes to the window around 140 minutes after she left. Part of this is from the limitations of the tape, it could only record for 4 hours. If he used newer cameras and hardrive storage, he could get much wider ranges and get some separation between return times and we could start to see if there's an actual phenomenon here, or whether it's an artifact of the limitations of the experiment itself. At least 10s if not 100s would be preferred, and as double-blind as possible. He doesn't really have any controls here. No tapes where Jaytee's owner didn't come home at all. No dogs who have shown no "telepathic inclination".And the current numbers don't show any statistical difference between them, it's a rather random distribution around 140 minutes, with no corelation between late beeps and early beeps. It's very possible to get a false positive when you take just a couple trials and try to extrapolate from them. You could roll 5 sixes on a die and think you're "on a roll" but it's just the statistics of high numbers. If you keep going, it's going to flatten out to 1/6 for any given number. The more trials you have, the more statistical your numbers become, and by only running a few, you run the risk of unintentionally stacking the deck, so to speak.Ultimately, there have been hundreds or thousands of tests on telepathy, precognition, and telekinesis. Most famously by the CIA and by Harvard. Both of those were cancelled when they showed no deviation from random chance over a long period of time. Humans are very good at finding patterns that aren't there and extrapolating a huge cause to a statistical blip. In order to weed out our own ingrown biases, we need a lot of data, and I just don't see how this small sampling can compete against the mountains of data we have on the other side.If Sheldrake really wants to prove this, he has better technology now that can be used to get a better sampling. He could also use other dogs whose owners claim have this ability, as well as "control" dogs who haven't given anyone the impression they have the ability.

Understood. As others have pointed out, the methods of the study are off topic, the conclusion of vaguely defined, pseudoscientific "morphic fields" is more in line with the topic, so I'll bow out here as well.

As I understand it, the topic was started with the intention of discussing pseudoscientific explanations for things, such as "morphic fields" or "quantum chanelling" that use scientific language to say exactly nothing of substance while sounding like they explain everything.I probably shouldn't have gotten into discussion with Linda about the methodology of the Jaytee experiment in the first place, and with her saying she needed time off, it seemed like the perfec ttime for me to bow out as well and let the discussion of the actual topic continue.

This is the crux. What does paranormal mean? If it's paranormal, can we actually falsify it? If we can conduct experiments and confirm or deny conclusions, doesn't that mean it's not paranoraml and is, in fact, merely normal?The problem is, as the OP says, the people who profess these things offer nothing concrete to test. They give vague explanations using scientific words that end up saying nothing. What the hell is a "morphic field" and how would you go about testing it? What is telepathy, and how does it work? We use these words, but they're placeholders for things we don't understand, and until we fully define them and have something concrete to test and predictions to refute or confirm, we have nothing to do.If the proposed mechanism is, as Sheldrake claims, undetectable, then what, exactly, are we supposed to do to test it? All we can do is look at effects, and as has been said, effects can come from many causes or even causes you haven't considered, so claiming the undetectable cause is jumping the gun at best, and fraud at worst.

And then tried to explain telepathy by inventing the term "morphic field."There is little evidence to suggest telepathy...there is none to suggest morphic fields, mostly because morphic fields are not defined in any way that can be investigated or falsified.

Science has looked at telepathy and has come to the conclusion that there is no phenomenon in need of explanation. In other words, there is no there there.They could be wrong, but it would take some dedicated guy with some serious scientific experiments, rigorously carried out with as much bias eliminated as possible. Sheldrake has not done so, and thus he is not convincing. I agree, and that's pretty much the point of the thread. This type of mystical mumbo-jumbo, prettied up wqith sciency words does a disservice to science, and if there is anything to any of these claims, only obscures that fact and makes people even less likely to take it seriously.The charlatans who do this are hurting science, hurting any chance of sacience taking a long hard look at their claims...but they're making money hand over fist selling books and merch. It looks to me like the motive is clear, and science it ain't.

I understand, it gets quite annoying when someone accuses you of being off topic, but since I did it to myself, I'm ok with it.

Here's a start: CIA's InvestigationsThe CIA has been quite interested in this, since it would give our spies quite a boost to be able to spy from a distance, or to be able to kill from a distance without leaving evidence...but they have abandoned their research, and even if they haven't, they've been very circumspect about their targets, at best. Killing Osama or Saddam should be pretty easy for telepathic or telekinetic people.There are some people who claim the CIA and/or the Navy are still investigating this, but I doubt it. I do know SRI has lost government funding, if they're still in operation at all...

Before you can test for something, you have to define what it is, how it would be different from any case where it doesn't exist, and try to figure out anything that could give you a false positive. If you don't define it, you can't test for it.