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Random Number Generator That Sees Into the Future
hackajar writes "Red Nova news has an interesting article about a random number generating black box that may be able to see into the future. From the article: "according to a growing band of top scientists, this box has quite extraordinary powers. It is, they claim, the 'eye' of a machine that appears capable of peering into the future and predicting major world events"."
If it can sense future events, that would make it less random, right? To me, that almost sounds like pre-determined events (how far into the future this pre-determination is good for, you decide), so it really isn't "random".
"If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use? Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?" --Seymour Cray
I like the new Slashdot that picks up stories off of Fark.
/. needs a "trivially debunked hogwash" category. This belongs with the "battery stickers" story from a few weeks ago.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This just seems ridiculous. A normal random number generator predicting the future? Maybe Jesus was reborn into the form of a microprocessor. (Holy crap, that would be friggin' awesome!!!)
Seriously though, every single day somewhere something "amazing" happens and I don't see the black box picking up that. What about the day George Bush was re-elected? Or the day Saddam Hussein was found? Or the day I finally figured out how to make good macaroni and cheese? I think these scientists are just over-excited about an odd coincidence. So the numbers shot up a few hours before the events happen. What if they shot up a few days before? A few months before? Would they still make these claims? No, I see nothing interesting in this article no matter how hard I look. Maybe someone can convince me otherwise.
Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
don't give your editor password to crazy Uncle Larry who spent all last Christmas and Thanksgiving trying to sell family members stock in an Atlantis expeditionary company and lost all of his retirement funds to the parents of a nine year old girl whom they claimed could pick winning stocks with the powers of ESP
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I predict you'll soon get modded down as overrated... :)
I also thought slashdot was fooled again, or at least this was a humor article.
It's not.
Red Nova appears to be a valid news site, and the Princeton University link at the bottom is the real thing, describing just what the article talked about.
You know, we all like to laugh at so called "psychic phenomena" or pseudoscience. I know, I do it too. But this is rather stunning...it's a Princeton University project, run by a group of scientists who respect the scientific method, who are trying to do their best at sounding humble while making extraordinary claims. The only question is if they actually have the data to back it up (some graphs would be nice).
Progress in science means shattering accepted theories. If this is what it seems to be, then the possibility of a scientific revolution, at the very least a whole new field of science, seems to be at hand.
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
So they have these big curves on days with major events... do they have the curves on days without major events? Are there many days without major events? Come on people, I've heard more stringent scientific methods applied on the Art Bell show than this article. Doesn't even say how the stupid random number generators work, for all we know flipping the light on in the room where the subjects are screws them up. Maybe they measure traffic at cnn.com (or ham radios back in the 70's and 80's).
And this right after the article where it's okay if you try to allocate memory at address -8134957, because a little uncertainty can be good.
Is Zonk taking his name too literally? Is this now "News for like... you know, dudes... and wow, look at the pretty colors... I can see relativity man..."
Join me in sending an e-mail to CSICOP and requesting that it investigate this supposed black box predicting the future.
Believing in superstitious quackery like this black box has serious ramifications. If enough people believed in this nonsense, then we would end up in setting national policy based on this block box. How would you like the USA to be guided by witches and warlocks?
A Princeton professor doesn't need a million dollars?
Really smart people have been fooled before by turning the scientific method on its head and looking for causes that fit selected outcomes... Unless you can make a prediction before something happens you really don't have much to talk about.
Pat
"And machines like the Edinburgh black box have thrown up a tantalising possibility: that scientists may have unwittingly discovered a way of predicting the future.
Although many would consider the project's aims to be little more than fools' gold, it has still attracted a roster of 75 respected scientists from 41 different nations. Researchers from Princeton - where Einstein spent much of his career - work alongside scientists from universities in Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. The project is also the most rigorous and longest-running investigation ever into the potential powers of the paranormal.
'Very often paranormal phenomena evaporate if you study them for long enough,' says physicist Dick Bierman of the University of Amsterdam. 'But this is not happening with the Global Consciousness Project. The effect is real. The only dispute is about what it means.' The project has its roots in the extraordinary work of Professor Robert Jahn of Princeton University during the late 1970s. He was one of the first modern scientists to take paranormal phenomena seriously. Intrigued by such things as telepathy, telekinesis - the supposed psychic power to move objects without the use of physical force - and extrasensory perception, he was determined to study the phenomena using the most up-to-date technology available. "
Just because something sounds crazy, doesn't mean it is. People from 100 years ago, if told about MRIs, CAT scans, GeoSyncSats, GPS, Sat Phones, Computers, the Internet, and Microwave ovens would say you are crazy and such things would never be possible.
Perhaps the article should be read before people spend a whole 5 minutes trying to prove it to be a fraud.
The USA guided by witches and warlocks at least wouldn't be much worse.
Baldur
I doubt they'll be collecting it.
Randi has a million dollar reason to debunk anyone who claims to have prescient abilities. Tell me again what makes him an honest source?
No, the laws of chance do not say any such thing. In fact, the laws of chance say exactly the opposite. If you have two choices chosen at random over a series (a 1 and a 0; or heads and tails on a coin), there is a high probability that one of the choices will be chosen a significantly higher number of times than the other. Over time, the percentage disparity will decrease to near zero, but the total numerical disparity is likely to increase.
That aside, you didn't read far enough, shame on you for commenting without reading the whole article. Apparently the REGs (also called EGGs) do produce straight lines normally, or nearly straight lines. They've seen it deviate only in controlled experiments (repeatedly), and before major world events (again repeatedly). We're also not talking just one REG here, the project curently has dozens of them located worldwide, and they are seeing these spikes occur before major events in tandem -- on every device.
Besides all the scientists they spoke to in the article all said basically the same thing -- they couldn't believe it when they saw these things occur, and kept repeating the experiments and getting the same results, over and over and over. It's more than just the REG boxes, it talks about studies that have examined the brain's responses of people shown a sequence of provacative cartoons, and they'll start seeing the brain react the same before the cartoon's ever shown to them. Again, they repeated the experiments multiple times, with different people, same results.
The article also points out a true oddity, nothing in the laws of physics say it's impossible to predict the future. In fact time may not be a constant, studies have shown it can flow backwards as well as forwards. So all this could be a weird sort of subconscious tapping into that, we're remembering things that haven't happened yet. Since we understand almost nothing about the brain (in terms of how it does what it does, we're not even sure _where_ or _how_ it really stores memories) I don't see this as anything that's impossible. Frankly it may be happening, we don't know enough yet to know either way what's really going on.
But if we don't read the full article and write things off by a few paragraphs, I can guarantee you we'll never know. You know this has happened multiple times in history, how many people thought it was impossible to make an airplane to fly in they sky? How many people thought the earth was the center of the universe? If we're unwilling to read, listen and be open minded about things one day we will end up proved wrong and made to look stupid in the process. Frankly I'm willing to give this the benefit of the doubt, since I read the whole article I can tell they're being very careful to say that they don't know what's causing this, only that something is happening. They also said it's not terribly useful for predictions as it is, they can tell you something will happen when they see these spikes, but they don't know what, when or where.
Consider for a moment that there exists a god. He (she or it, whatever) is basically our caretaker, maybe even our creator. Here's the deal though, nobody really knows anything about him, and I'd wager to say anyone who thinks they know anything is pretty fscking arrogant. What if (yes, this is just a theory), god doesn't really have great influential power in the universe (i.e. can't make the moon fall out of the sky in one night, or hurl the earth at the sun, etc), but can only subtly manipulate it through chaotic interactions. If this were true, wouldn't that mean patterns in chaos could very well be the face of god? It might even make fortune telling by random chance (tarot, rune casting, coin flipping, etc) legitimate. Assuming it were true and provable to be true, really it's just an interesting idea. Something like this story though, assuming it's true, makes it a bit more plausible.
One thing that would be interesting to see is if location affects these Eggs. The article mentioned the Eggs notice global events. I wonder if you put an Egg in a small town whether or not it would detect something like a murder or a natural disaster local to the town. Might be something for these guys to try.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The article mentions things that they claim have been reproduced... Specifically, having people "think about" and influence the outcome of the random number generators. That's something you could test... Do a double blind experiment.
Pat
Ok, they DO have a legitimate page at princeton, but it doesn't say what the article claims it does.
Red Nova usually has good articles, but every once in awhile, one shows up that belies evidence of lack of scientific rigour. This is the case here.
An example (from the article:)
It was a preposterous idea at the time. The results, however, were stunning and have never been satisfactorily explained.
This sentence is prejudicial because it biases the results as being "stunning", without describing who finds the results stunning.
"Never satisfactorily explained" also presumes that someone finds it worthy of needing explanation.
Again and again, entirely ordinary people proved that their minds could influence the machine and produce significant fluctuations on the graph, 'forcing it' to produce unequal numbers of 'heads' or 'tails'.
"Proved"? Pretty strong words with no supporting detail. Once I read sentences like this, I discount an article as being scientifically unfounded.
In response to the parent post:
No, the laws of chance do not say any such thing. In fact, the laws of chance say exactly the opposite.
I believe you're misinterpreting the laws of chance.
If you have two choices chosen at random over a series (a 1 and a 0; or heads and tails on a coin), there is a high probability that one of the choices will be chosen a significantly higher number of times than the other.
Significant as a percentage? Unlikely.
Over time, the percentage disparity will decrease to near zero, but the total numerical disparity is likely to increase.
This is a trivial statement. If n flips has m total disparities, n+x flips will have between m and m+x disparities. It is therefore impossible for the total number of disparities to decrease, and almost guaranteed that it will increase.
The only significant measure of disparity is that of percentile disparity. And if you measure percentile disparity on a scale equivalent to the number of events being measured, it will in fact appear to be a nearly flat line on the graph.
The thing that bothers me about this "experiment" is that it presumes to assert that people can control a machine that generates random events, without describing the algorithm by which those random events are produced. Trying to simulate true randomness (indeed, what is random?) is a huge topic within math, statistics, and computer science; yet, it's not mentioned once within the article.
Classic case of weak correlation.
Worse, the correlation suggests the causation post-facto. Nobody even guesses there will be a correlation until there's an effect. And if there's no effect, nobody discounts the box's output.
Sad. Innumerate. Stupid.
The only question is if they actually have the data to back it up (some graphs would be nice).
I would like detailed instructions on how to construct a stream of random numbers with behaviors that correlate to outside events as they describe, so that I can repeat their experiments myself and see if I can reproduce the same effect. Tabletop reproduction isn't always possible in science (e.g. historical sciences like archaeology, paleontology, cosmology- remember that, you creationists) but in this case reproduction of results should be easy. (If this were real.)
At the very least I want to know how to generate a stream of random numbers that reproduces this effect, how to recognize a prediction when it arrives in the stream, and how to assign a P-value for associations between random stream events and real world events. Unless we move past the sort of ex post facto "predictions" of past events, there is nothing new here. It looks like a repetition of work already done by Nostradamus.
Because this story is about on par with what I'd expect to see on the cover of that rag when I'm waiting in line at the supermarket.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Whenever something mentions Diana as something that could be predicted as an event of the same importance as 9/11 I sort of tune out.
It is I think a paranormal defense mechanism employed to prevent bloodshed.
I'd do something interesting, but my server can't handle a slashdotting.
They don't have a theory as to this can happen, but let's ignore that.
It's really sad how people can ignore the roots of science. To use a simple example, man KNEW about gravity before he had a theory about how it works. That's how science operates. You draw conclusions based on experimental results.
I'm not sure what causes people to be so immediately defensive. Maybe it's fright that everything people think they know could be turned upside down. I'm reminded of a wonderful quote from Donald Knuth that kind of encapsulates this whole discussion: "The fact is that everything we learn reveals more things that we do not understand."
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Princeton is a country club. Apologies to their graduate math program... but come ON.
I may not like Princeton, but I respect them.
If a random number generator is not behaving perfectly randomly, it isn't a random number generator, now is it?
And what is causing this decided non-randomness? Hmm? That's the question here. They're looking for an answer. It's called science. Just because it sounds strange doesn't mean it's wrong. Don't think I'm saying the inverse of that either, that just because it sounds strange, it's right. I'm not. I'm merely saying give respected and credible researchers credit for trying to explain this behavior in a scientific manner.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
what does this prove, other than that they just didn't build a very good random number generator?
once you go slack, you never go back
Except they shouldn't be straight lines at all. They should take random directions all the time. Sometimes even very big ones. A flat line is one of the least random things produced in the world. If GC existed according to how REGs worked, atomic clocks would randomly lose percision around major events.
I mean a scientist is quoted as saying "Our data shows clearly that the chances of getting these results by fluke are one million to one against." I would actually place the chance much much lower, I mean a million to one is nothing really. The odds of 30 coin flips in any order is a million to one. The real problem is prediction. The question is whether the model can predict into the future what events will cause blips and the magnitude of the event.
I'd do something interesting, but my server can't handle a slashdotting.
At the very least I want to know how to generate a stream of random numbers that reproduces this effect
Any stream of random numbers will work. If a *special* stream is required, then it's not random...
*shrug* she helped a lot of people all over the world and september 11 2001 affected many people, to me both events are just news neither affected my life at all. it's all just a matter of perspective.
I'll wait for the inevitable analysis, and most likely, debunking of this to pass final judgement, but this has the smell of a deliberate hoax, possibly perpetrated as part of a psychological study or by some sort of sketpical group to study the persistence of popular myths.
Two things that give it a bad smell: the mention of Diana (psychics love bringing up predictions about Diana; if James Randi were to stage this, he'd throw that in as a joke,) and the post hoc ergo prompter hoc nature of the 'predictions.' Note that the prediction concerning Diana was about her funeral, not her death, though the immediate reaction to her death would have been much stronger than the reaction to the funeral. All researchers into the paranormal claim to be able to control for this sort of second guessing. If this projects interpretations stand up to scrutiny, it will be the first time for a project of this nature.
The other oddity is that probability does not say that the ones and zeroes will even out over a period of time, but that they will tend to even out over time. There will, however, be periods where this averaging will not occur, with no other explanation necessary beyond pure random chance. Given enough time, even the most improbable thing will happen. Low probability is not zero probability. I suspect that if this is not a deliberate hoax, it is a mathematical error motivated by wishful thinking.
I'd like to see how many "special" sequences they had which were NOT followed by an event they deemed special.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
I think the name of the "Global Consiousness Project" says it all.
These guys are full obviously full of shit. It's not called the "Random Number Generator Observation Project". They've already assumed that a "global conciousness" is responsible for the unusual behaviour.
A real scientist wouldn't jump to that kind of conclusion, but consider other possibilities, like disruptions in the fabric of time, or aliens.
No, the laws of chance do not say any such thing. In fact, the laws of chance say exactly the opposite. If you have two choices chosen at random over a series (a 1 and a 0; or heads and tails on a coin), there is a high probability that one of the choices will be chosen a significantly higher number of times than the other. Over time, the percentage disparity will decrease to near zero, but the total numerical disparity is likely to increase.
The article may very well be about pseudo-science. However trying to counter it with pseudo-reasoning and confusing distinct, well-defined statistical properties doesn't advance the cause of science. In fact it looks not only bad but desperate.
My professor in statisitics would probably have pitched an eraser at you for suggesting what amounts to an oxymoronic "high probability of the improbable." If the probability is 1:1,000,000, then in one million experiments there is a finite probability (1:1,000,000) that you may see the event once, and a lesser finite probability you would see it more than once. If something improbable turns up "significantly" as you phrase it then you check to see if the dice are honest.
In fact, the mean value of a normally distributed series of random numbers should trend toward a constant value. In the case of runs of 0s and 1s, it should trend toward 0.5 and approximate it more closely as the experiment runs.
The variance should tend to increase as less probable values fill the wings of the bell curve. The longer the series of random values the more nearly normal that trend should be and the greater the potential variance may be, since with a longer experiment you can actually acquire less probable runs that simply could not occur earlier. For instance you need to toss a coin a minimum of 20 times to have even the possibility of achieving 1:1,000,000 odds (1:1048576, actually 2^20). You would need to toss a good many more times than that before you could legitmately begin to worry of a 1:1,000,000 occurence did not show up.
That's how Los Vegas makes a living. The rubes always hope that the improbable will kiss them on the neck. In fact nothing you say actually contradicts the quote you are trying to criticize. They are discussing the mean results while you are talking about the variance.
The simplest explanation for their "correlation" is simply coincidence of highly improbable runs temporarily skewed the data. Remember that the experiment has been running for years so some really improbable runs are possible. They need a lot more disasters before they can actually test an argument based on a statistical improbability.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
Does anyone else find it surreal that Pat Niemeyer (Slashdot ID #444913) posted the original note in this thread, then disagreed with his own post in another post, and got modded up for it both times??
~.^
All we need to see if this experiment is valid is the experimental data and that can be checked against various statistical methods (like chi-squared maybe) and correlated against the mangitude of the event. Perhaps even geographical factors come into play. If it's science, it can be proven with science - and there's no real reason to believe it isn't science just because our present understanding is so limited.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
But they are top Western tourist destinations.
As opposed to say, the earthquakes in Iran which killed tens of thousands... I guess that didn't really matter because nobody from the West goes there anyway.
(Seriously - look at the difference in coverage between most disasters worldwide, and compare how important they are to the West in terms of trade, tourism or location... not really surprising, but disappointing all the same).
From http://www.princeton.edu/~rdnelson/:
The PEAR program has used three generations of random event generators, with different primary sources of white noise, but important common features of design. The original "benchmark" experiment used a commercial random source developed by Elgenco, Inc., the core of which is proprietary. Elgenco's engineering staff describe the proprietary module as "solid state junctions with precision pre-amplifiers," implying processes that rely on quantum tunneling to produce an unpredictable, broad-spectrum white noise in the form of low-amplitude voltage fluctuations. The PEAR Portable REG uses Johnson noise in resistors, which is so-called "thermal noise" and is also a quantum level phenomenon that produces a well-behaved broad-spectrum fluctuation. The PEAR Micro-REG uses a field effect transistor (FET) for the primary noise source, again relying on quantum tunneling, and providing completely uncorrelated fundamental events that compound to an unpredictable voltage fluctuation.
At least it doesn't sound like a pseudo-random generator.
Don't whistle while you're pissing.
> I must be getting old or something...
Actually, you must be getting American, 'cause for my part, I read your date as meaning ``4 January 2005''...
> "Of course RF activity changes during 'significant > world events'."
You suggest that RF waves change after the event has happened. The story claims that RF waves change even before the event has happened. Which is a different story.
"Random Number Generator". That is a very dubious statement. You see, computers can never be truly random. Whenever a computer generates anything random, it isn't truly random but pseudorandom. When a computer generates a sequence of random numbers, it is based on a random seed, which goes through several math processes. Eventually, this sequence will repeat itself. Even the most advanced so-called random number generators repeat themselves after millions of digits. Computer randomness is never true randomness, and that's why chaotic systems and quantum randomness is so applealing to computer security: Because these things are much more "truly" random. Example: LavaRnd (http://www.lavarnd.org/what/index.html) Considering that the article says that the machine 's chip is "no more complex than the ones found in modern pocket calculators", I find it hard to beleive that this machine is actually random, so even if you don't consider all the other evidence for why this is a hoax, you see that there is a fundemental flaw with this whole theory in the first place.
Yeah, and why do you think western media was saying so much about it? Because many westerners were spending their Christmas in Thailand. Otherwise, it would have been a small item on page 10 ...
Suppose t still shows some tendencies to predict H_n, are you going to construct new ones until it doesn't?
FRA: STFU GTFO
In other words, are these eggs any better at predicting the future than a big painted sign on the wall that says "something big is gonna happen !" ?
>|<*:=
I read somewhere, several news picked it up, that before the dec '26 Tsunami all the animals legged it inland. They knew somehow and scarped to a position of safety.
Lots of people report feeling 'uneasy' before major disasters - maybe there is more to this then at first glance.
At the very least I want to know how to generate a stream of random numbers that reproduces this effect
That's really the problem, isn't it? To generate a true random stream of numbers is incredibly difficult, if not impossible. How are all these "eggs" creating random numbers? If they're using the same method of creating random numbers, of course they will find similar conclusions.
Once all these "eggs" discover a flucuation pattern, one need only read the newspapers and 'select the data' that these flucuations are responding to. They're simply selecting their data.
This isn't just bad science, this is stupid science.
Whenever something mentions Diana as something that could be predicted as an event of the same importance as 9/11 I sort of tune out.
In terms of how people reacted to the event, they are quite similar. In both cases here was an outpourng of grief - internationally, even by people who weren't affected in any way at all.
In a greater view, the tsunami had far more effect, as it killed 100,000 more people than her accident. It'll change the economy of a few countries and more, but still, people are very moved by both events.
What he meant is that these "predictors" seem to have a preference for events that have a mediatic impact on the West.
Did they "foresee" the earthquakes in Turkey, or in Bam (Iran), which killed many more people than the 09/11 attacks ? Also it seems that they were unable to predict the death of Diana, but for some reason "reacted" when her funerals were shown on TV. Hm. When the definition for "important event" is loose enough, any random number generator can be said predict "significant events" of some kind.
We're right into "Bible code" land.
Besides, the Red Nova article is simply ridiculous. The fact that some people have a spike in neural activity or stress a few seconds before being presented with items by the experimenter is presented as evidence of "seeing into the future" !
On the other hand, maybe these "eggs" are so efficient that they actually brought us an April's fool in February ?...
Thomas-
5 parts in 10000 is nothing. The probability theory guarantees that there are many experiements where such results are randomly produced. It's the same as with stock market. Many people use various insane trading schemes. Some of these randomly get rich. Those that consistently get rich claim that their schemes work, which is, of course, bogus.
Technical analysis is the same. 250 people go to a seminar, half of them decide to get an account, buy books and software and start trading on FOREX or commodity markets. After a year 64 of them are still in the black. After two years 30 of them have profits for two years. After six years there probably will still be 2 guys, with BMWs, Rolexes and stuff. Wait one more year - one of them will lose anything, but the lucky one will decide to give seminars on technical analysis or write 100$ books on trading.
Those guys in Princeton are idiots. They are wasting their time and university's money. Their claims are ridiculous and they deserve to be fired and sent to work in the trash sorting plant. That way we can put their skills in finding valuable stuff in random shit to good use.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
So what? Anybody can do bad science.
Argument from authority is a fallacy. An oft used case is "Einstein said/thought X" therefore by extension X must be true.
The reason Einstein's work was respected was for the thorough scientific work he did. It's valid to say "Einstein showed X to be true by providing proof Y gained from experiment Z", but when it comes down to baseless opinions Einstein carries as much weight as my granny.
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
So they look for a major event.
Then they look on their graph for a spike at that time.
If there is a spike but not at the time the event took place then it is evidence that the machine is predicting the future.
If there is a spike and it is at the right time then the machine has detected a global conciousness
If there is no spike anywhere near the event then the machine must just not have registered that event.
I don't see how you can lose with a process like that.
the number of states the generator can be in is finite and we do have an infinity of world events ... so we have established that there cannot be a one to one correspondance between the states of the generator and future .... which implies that even if we can "predict" an event of world importance is to occour, we will never be able to pin point what event ... which bring us to square one and tells us "future is random" which is in agreement with chaos theory ....
and things become old VERY fast around here (american news).
the recovery, the continual crisis and tragedy, body counts still rising. it's all but a reflection of what people domestically care about, and for how long.
sorry to say, but most people just don't give a shit about the disaster (or other things) as much as they care to know which bachelor has been voted off some stupid show this week.
we haven't evolved in this country to care about other peoples tragedies that much, if they don't particularly affect us.
- I'd prefer not to.
how we can compare the World Trade Center destruction to the tsunami disaster. After all, around 2,000 people died at the World Trade Center. Indonesia alone is reporting 241,687 dead and missing. Sri Lanka is reporting "more than 30,000" dead. India is reporting "over 14,000" dead, although this is from an old article and is most certainly out of date. A rough estimate, I would guess, is that approximately a third of million people died in the tsunami, making the death (and other devastation) from it have the same proportion to the WTC as the WTC has to Princess Diana's death. This does not in any way lessen the significance of the WTC, nor of the Princess Di's death.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
What?!?
The guy is complaining that Randi dismissed some guys who claimed they could live only on water and "absorbing energy from the air and space".
Randi doesn't need to check that. It'd just get people killed and he'd be the one responsible.
Seriously! Surviving only on water? It's biologically impossible. Try it: you'll die and the world will be just a little bit better.
They *are* getting statistically signficant result. And these results are hard to refute scientifically (easy to ridicule though). I'm not thinking of the current "predict the future" effect, which I believe is hard to formulate scientifically, but the other similar experiment at PEAR.
However, all of these results live the same place, namely in what I call the borderland of statistics. Very small effects that get significant by huge numbers. Rather than making me believe in a huge future-pedicting global consciuesness, it makes me doubt these areas of statistics. We see a lot of such results from especially medicine. Like eating walnuts is bad for you. Based on a very small effect and a huge population. I tend to ignore these, and only go listen to those things that has a big effect. Like smoking is very unhealthy, you can see that effect with rather small samples.
I'd like to see them make a fortune on the stock market (stock prices should be subject to these effects) or some other practical application before I believe it.
This is a trivial statement. If n flips has m total disparities, n+x flips will have between m and m+x disparities. It is therefore impossible for the total number of disparities to decrease, and almost guaranteed that it will increase.
Few things are as embarrassing as people deeming something "trivial" but justifies their belief in it with a completely retarded argument.
Think about what you just wrote for a second and you'll see why it's obviously wrong. Hint: another poster already told you.
One of their pages says:
"...and the complete database at the end of 2001 occupies approximately 3 gigabytes of storage in a highly compressed form."
I'd love to get my hands on the compression algorithm they use to highly compress those random numbers.
5 parts in 10000 is nothing. The probability theory guarantees that there are many experiements where such results are randomly produced.
It is not the scale of the deviation but its repeatability that counts here.
In other words if conscious concentration affects a random number generator then by how much the results differ could be viewed as the force of the effect. However, if the deviations repeatedly occur while a test subject concentrates on the generator but don't occur when no one does then that is a valid observation despite the effect observed being weak.
Cellular Automata can be used to generate almost perfectly random numbers (much more random than even some of the most tried-and-true methods), but that technique was not being used in the 70's, when this supposedly started.
.
My guess is that since they describe RNG's as "black boxes", they are using hardware RNG's, which use the fluctuations derived from an apparently random 'natural' process, like electric (resistor noise, by far the most common) and radioactive decay.
But I find it interesting and ironic that each of the events they have talked about predicting in many cases have associated electrical phenomenon!
They even mentioned it in the article. A billion people watching Princess Di's funeral, or 9/11 -- ok, so a billion tv sets around the world turn on, and if your RNG is plugged into the wall . . . is it going to affect it? I dunno, but if it's a resistor-based RNG . . . the OJ Simpson trial, ditto. People are gonna start tuning in before the verdict; this produces, at the very least, an ELECTRICAL EVENT that is likely detectable anywhere on the power grid.
With showing the person slides of pictures, and the random number fluctuations happening prior to the person seeing the picture . . . um . . . is there any electrical machinery plugged into the wall that takes an action to ready/display the next slide? Wouldn't that be funny, now . .
And, of course, a tsunami produces measurable electrical phenomena as well. I don't know if it produces electrical phenomena in advance, of course, and it would seem that if that was the case we would be able to use it to predict seismic events
I don't know anything about whether fluctuations in resistor/semiconductor-based RNG's can happen as a result of electrical phenomenon, but I think that the fact that the article makes no mention of attempts to screen for electrical interference, to detect correlating electrical/field events, or to isolate the RNG's in some way is a good indicator that these guys aren't trying very hard to play devil's advocate.