How to Get Conjurer James Randi to Give You $1 Million (Video)

This is the second of our two-part interview (part one ran yesterday) with Conjurer and Investigator (his words) James Randi, whose organization, the James Randi Education Foundation, has a long-standing offer: prove you have paranormal abilities and they'll give you $1 Million. They say they've recently made this award easier than ever to win. Note that, lower bar or no, Randi claims the last time a conjurer's illusion fooled him was many years ago, when he was very young. It was one done by the famous Chan Canasta -- and Randi claims that in the end he figured it out, anyway. So forget the $1 Million, relax, and enjoy James Randi. He's a great raconteur, so we can all be jealous of interviewer Rob Rozeboom (samzenpus) for having made this great video even as we enjoy watching it.

Comments

Jealous of samzenpus?

[Anonymous Coward]

"...so we can all be jealous of interviewer Rob Rozeboom (samzenpus) for having made this great video even as we enjoy watching it."

If Slashdot were anthropomorphized to have arms, I would imagine that they'd all be broken by now from patting itself on the back so violently.

Re:Jealous of samzenpus?

[SJHillman]

Damnit, stop anthropomorphizing Slashdot. It hates that.

One of us?

[XanC]

So samzenpus has never seen The Sting, nor heard of Richard Feynman?

Re:One of us?

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Rozeboom doesn't make a good showing at all I have to say, Randi is talking about how he wants to go while working and oprah drops the "well an interview is kind of work, so there you go, dream come true" clanger. I mean what?

Re:One of us?

[click2005]

Not an impossible situation (even on slashdot), just very improbable.

Re:One of us?

[nospam007]

"So samzenpus has never seen The Sting, nor heard of Richard Feynman?"

Apparently no video camera nor microphone worth their name either.

Re:One of us?

[kermidge]

Yeah, I caught that too. Given finite life hours and the huge number of entertainments I can overlook not seeing the movie but to moderate a geek/nerd site and not know of Feynman, one of the finer physicists of last century, known for working on the atom bomb, cracking safes, playing drums, painting, serving with distinction on the Challenger commission, his highly-regarding filmed lectures series, his Nobel prize, his pithy sayings which have spread, his series of very successful books, comments on education and science, seems.... whacked. There is a lot of world from which to choose to what to take in, or have the chance to be exposed to, highly variable for each person, but still, I was surprised.

Perhaps it's simply that, to me anyway, young'uns don't seem to question much, don't read a whole bunch - and then not very widely, depth unknown, and don't seem to socialize with all that many people outside their own 'peer' group - especially educated people in a disparate variety of fields. They may be smart, there's just a seeming lack sometimes of breadth or depth. But it Rob's case I'm simply wild-ass guessing, and mean entirely no disrespect, nor assumption of facts not in evidence - I gots enough problems without visiting any onto others.

He did come up with a good thing: "Good Chance!" That's a good finish and worth keeping.

Re:One of us?

[Paradise Pete]

The film I can understand, but Feynman? Seriously? I guess that's either really bad or really good. Really bad in that it's nearly inexcusable, but really good in that now he has the chance to learn about him for the first time.

Re:One of us?

[tehcyder]

No, he said he had seen The Sting, but I agree that not even having heard of Feynman seems remarkable for anyone who has even just read slashdot, never mind been an editor.

An Element of the Divine

[Anonymous Coward]

In the early 80's, I recall seeing "An Element of the Divine" on Arthur C. Clarke's Strange World I think it was called. Randi and Clarke were testing dowsers. Randi predictably declared all the dowsers bogus after a small experiment. Clarke disagreed, saying that there were two experiments, one to find water and the other to find metals. The water dowsers apparently had a much higher rate of success than the metal dowsers. Randi didn't even raise his eyebrows. Not saying he is a fraud or doesn't believe in what he is doing, but his objectivity seems highly suspect to me. His convictions seem to get in the way of his thinking, and I am pretty sure that the money will never be awarded no matter how well the subject matter may be demonstrated.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[MetalliQaZ]

I am also pretty sure the money will never be awarded. But that's because MAGIC ISN'T REAL.
I haven't seen that program you mention, but it is very hard to do Good Science on a television show. It's too boring. That is probably why Randi didn't play along.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[h4rr4r]

More water is likely available.

It will never be awarded because magic is fake. No one has even come close, because magic is fake. If dowsing was real a trained dowser would do better than an untrained one.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[DrXym]

His convictions seem to get in the way of his thinking, and I am pretty sure that the money will never be awarded no matter how well the subject matter may be demonstrated.

You're flat out wrong. The challenge is very straightforward to understand - someone claims they can do something paranormal, they fill out a form to apply, they agree to a protocol that demonstrates this power in a self evident fashion and they do it (or not). If they succeed and they get a cheque for 10,000 dollars on the spot and the remainder within a period of time. The protocol would obviously be designed to prevent cheating or arriving at the result by chance alone but aside from that the important part is it's self evident. No judges, no argumentation, no subjectivity. The person either does or does not pass in an obvious way.

Besides, In the event that someone passed and the money was not forthcoming, their notoriety would go through the roof and they quickly amass a small fortune in book contracts and other deals that would enable them to sue the living daylights out of JREF and utterly ruin it.

Not that it's ever likely to happen of course.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[wonkey_monkey]

The water dowsers apparently had a much higher rate of success than the metal dowsers.

Did the water dowsers pass their test? If not, what difference does it make if they did "better" than the metal dowsers?

Re:An Element of the Divine

[richlv]

well.. if there was a solid proof, there is no way the award could not be successfully claimed. if you say "I am pretty sure that the money will never be awarded", you are on the track of thinking that all claimants are either insane, or frauds :)

if something is real and provable, you can convince all skeptics - you might have to work on it and spent some time in repeatable experiments, but those people love facts, and they can change their views - if there are, in fact, facts.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[h4rr4r]

I would assume practice makes you perfect at conning people.

How do you know what should have occurred? You would have to also check to ensure they did not use other methods to increase their odds. Were they blinded while dowsing?

Science is not a religion, not matter how many times you say that.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[realmolo]

Dowsing is crap.

You know why the "water dowsers" had higher success? Because in most places on Earth, if you dig a few feet, you will find water.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[ravenscar]

Thank you. The more abundant something is, the more likely someone is to "discover it." Let's say that I got a large cage. On the bottom of the cage I put a piece of paper that was 60% white, 30% blue, and 10% black. I then found two blind lab rats and said that one could find black and the other could find blue. I noted that the rats would stop moving when they were on the color they were "able" to find. Ruling out external factors such as the black squares being warmer (and, as such, attracting the rats), I think we would all expect the rat that can find the color blue to have the highest success rate.

Judging from a quick google image search of groundwater maps of the US and iron ore maps of the US I think it's likely that a water dowser would be much more successful than a metal dowser.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Anonymous Coward]

I am also pretty sure the money will never be awarded. But that's because MAGIC ISN'T REAL.

Wrong. The money won't be awarded because it's a rigged challenge, anything which can be proven as real is by definition no longer magic and thus excluded from the award.
But as for the guy in question, he isn't a Scientist. A Scientist does not pre-judge the outcome, either in favor or opposed to the claim being valid.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[DrXym]

Scientific credentials doesn't stop someone from being fooled. Read up on Project Alpha where two mentalists were able (with the assistance of Randi) to con a paranormal research group into thinking they had genuine psychic powers. The con was simply to kick up a fuss until the protocols went their way and bend things when people weren't looking. The scientists were even ready to announce their results to the world when Randi stepped in and revealed the hoax to them. Scientists are not necessarily equipped to spot frauds from occurring whereas magicians and confidence tricksters might well be. They have much to learn from each other especially when paranormal claims are being examined.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Joce640k]

In the early 80's, I recall seeing "An Element of the Divine" on Arthur C. Clarke's Strange World I think it was called. Randi and Clarke were testing dowsers.

This?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqoYrSd94kA

t his objectivity seems highly suspect to me. His convictions seem to get in the way of his thinking, and I am pretty sure that the money will never be awarded no matter how well the subject matter may be demonstrated.

Rubbish.

The experiments he does are always designed so that the result is obvious to anybody watching. Results are black/white, yes/no. No interpretation or judgment is needed from him.

The participants are asked at every stage if they're happy (mainly so they can't claim afterwards that they weren't...). They get trial runs, things are altered as needed so they're sure they can perform.

Randi couldn't possibly be more fair in what he does, yet the million goes unclaimed...

Re:An Element of the Divine

[wierd_w]

Personally, I think the issue (weather or not the money will be awarded) depends on how one defines "paranormal".

If you mean "paranormal" as in "cannot possibly happen/pure suspension of the real/magic." Then no, it will never be awarded, because nothing unreal exists.

If you mean "paranormal" as in "falls outside the scope of what is considered humanly possible" then it is theoretically awardable.

Example experiment:

Humans can't normally see UV light or UV dyes. So, I paint a sheet of purple paper with UV reflective dyes that respond to UV emissions *WAY* outside human perception. The dyes are aranged on the paper in the form of a very recognizable image. I will pay you to tell me what the images I have printed on my papers are, reliably, consistently, and without any external assistance.

The experiment tests for paranormal vision, where "paranormal" is used in the second sense of the word. Humans with mutant photoreceptor protiens may well be able to meet the qualifications of the test, and would indeed have such paranormal vision.

Same with ESP. Humans lack specialized sensory organs to detect electromagnetism, for instance. Demonstrating an ability to reliably detect such phenomena would be genuine ESP.

Again, if you kneejerk stamp "MAGIC!" On those terms, then science is not and cannot ever deal with them.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Joce640k]

How come nobody can demonstrate dowsing under controlled conditions?

All you need is two underground pipes and a valve. Pick the pipe with water in it with better than random results, claim your million bucks.

Why has nobody done it?

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Joce640k]

You're right about that, but the show in question was hosted by Arthur Clarke, someone who, unlike Randi, actually had genuine scientific credentials.

Randi's credentials are in fooling other people. To me that seems more relevant than "science" for detecting fraudsters.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[DrXym]

If you could demonstrate genuine telekinesis, the very last thing a government would do is chop you up because a) it wouldn't show up anything worth knowing b) you are an immensely valuable asset to keep alive and throwing millions of dollars at if that's what it takes to keep you happy. And blowjobs.

Besides we may as well apply that lame excuse to explain the non existence of other things. e.g. maybe sentient teapots don't announce their presence for fear of getting dissected in government laboratories.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[khallow]

had genuine scientific credentials

Why the emphasis on credentials? How does that make someone better at detecting fraud? And why discount Randi's life experience at detecting the sort of fraud that they were looking for? You need to keep in mind that as the AC described it, Randi could observe the dowsers in action. That seems plenty of evidence right there on which to base a determination. The behavior of people is quite revealing.

Then there's matter that the statistics backed up Randi's judgment. So it might look like to the naive and gullible outside viewer that Randi didn't give them a fair shake, but he ended up right.

It doesn't have to be scientific method to be a good approach. If you're blatantly force-choking someone across the room, Darth Vader-style, Randi will pay out. If your special powers are indistinguishable from faking it, then that's too bad.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Anonymous Coward]

someone claims they can do something paranormal, they fill out a form to apply, they agree to a protocol that demonstrates this power in a self evident fashion and they do it (or not).

Wrong. They fill out the form, the foundation decides if they consider the activity to be paranormal enough, as in nothing that they know already can be done or explained. Then they decide whether or not to accept the demonstration, and proceed to set a lot of very un-scientific restrictions on testing. For example, someone who claims to be able to use divination under the full moon to locate naturally occuring wellsprings will be placed inside a man-made facility at noon and told to locate a bottle of water. If you read up on the past examples you can tell that the rules they set forward for a demonstration are geared towards producing a failed experiment, as opposed to creating a neutral and sterile scientific test environment.

Please note that I'm not a believer in any of that hocus-pocus crap, but I've looked at how these guys run their "challenge" and it's not scientific at all.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Arker]

Randi is a Fundamentalist Materialist. Just about as annoying as the other Fundamentalists, in his own way, though he certainly has a charming side as well. But you are right, objectivity? He has none, he has faith in materialism just as unquestioning as the faith others hold in supernaturalism.

He's been putting out this 'reward' offer for something demonstrably 'paranormal' many years. A counter-offer was also made, many years ago, for something demonstrably 'normal.' Neither reward has been claimed and likely neither ever will be.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[AK Marc]

A Scientist does not pre-judge the outcome, either in favor or opposed to the claim being valid.

So every time you open a door, you believe there is a 50% chance the door conceals a pagacorn (the rare horned-winged horse). After all, to expect that there isn't is pre-judging the outcome.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[cheater512]

Except you just explained it and there is no mystery. Mutant photoreceptors.
That doesn't meet the 'paranormal' criteria since that is perfectly normal (well not common or in the least bit likely, but it has a normal explanation).

Re:An Element of the Divine

[cheater512]

I was about to post something similar. Dowsing is always done on random land and chances are you can find water on random land.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[DrXym]

Utter horseshit. The protocol is agreed upon by both parties. i.e. you propose a test, I make a counter proposal and we negotiate on points until it is agreed upon what you claim, how it should be demonstrated and in what conditions to our mutual satisfaction. It's actually in JREF's interests to accommodate any reasonable demand so that the applicant is entirely satisfied with the test protocol and can't trot out some bullshit excuse afterwards to explain their failure.

I'm pretty sure JREF is well used to applicants pretending that skeptical mindbeams or the position of furniture or the sun through the window somehow interfered their amazing powerz which worked in other, less controlled circumstances.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[dcollins117]

The water dowsers apparently had a much higher rate of success than the metal dowsers. Randi didn't even raise his eyebrows.

I'm not surprised. If you did a hole anywhere, you'll find water. It's called groundwater.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't supposed to assume that the chance is 50%. However, I believe the chance is greater than 0. Surely some time in future someone will use genetic technology to produce a horse like that. And, as you already used the black swan argument, you are not allowed to play the "no true Scotsman" card anymore.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Culture20]

Again, if you kneejerk stamp "MAGIC!" On those terms, then science is not and cannot ever deal with them.

Except you just explained it and there is no mystery. Mutant photoreceptors. That doesn't meet the 'paranormal' criteria since that is perfectly normal (well not common or in the least bit likely, but it has a normal explanation).

Yet again, if you kneejerk stamp "MAGIC!" On those terms, then science is not and cannot ever deal with them. If Randi takes time to study someone exhibiting telekinesis and determines that their brain is producing some quantum effect, plucking at the stuff of spacetime itself and creating gravitons, then he just explained it and there is no mystery. No $1M.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[angelic upstart]

If you could demonstrate true psychic powers within the testing protocols you will be awarded the money. It doesn't require it to be explainable.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[narcc]

Then there's matter that the statistics backed up Randi's judgment.

Clarke's point was that the statistics did not back-up Randi's judgment.

Don't take Clake's word, or my own, for it -- do the analysis yourself.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[AK Marc]

So you think there's a non-zero chance that the people who genetically create the pegacorn will hide it in your closet as the first place the world will see it. I'll play the "you are stupid" card. The chance is close enough to zero that it rounds down, and to act otherwise is silly. But then, I do risk analysis on a daily basis, so I don't expect most regular people to get it. You seem to think the chance to be low, but non zero. And I didn't use the "black swan" argument. Black swans are real, pegacorns are not. I just made them up.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[wierd_w]

Moving the goalpost mark?

"Looking behind a door", and 'looking behind a closet door are not the same thing!

Eg, the GP's analysis would hold if said door was to the "don't go in here! Top secret and unethical genetic experiments room! NO admittance!" Room, and the mad scientist inside had indeed injected somatic cells from a goose embryo and a norwhal embryo into a miniature pony embryo, causing it to develop goose wings and a spiral horn on its head, and gestating the animal to term.

It *IS* possible to do that, so the "pegacorn" can potentially exist. He did an end run around your claiming te transgenic horror isn't a "true" pegacorn, hence the no true scottsman rhetoric.

Your response was to move the goal post, (so, now its somehow specifically a CLOSET door? And not just any old door, like it was before? Interesting...) and verbally abuse him, rather than behave yourself with propr candor.

Good show sir, your wit has been absolutely entertaining.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[cheater512]

Not quite.

The example above involves no new concepts. UV sensitive photoreceptors sensing photons.
No physics paper could be written about it. Its mild biological curiosity at best.

Now naturally occurring quantum entanglement in brain cells allowing thoughts to be conveyed from one person to another?
You could certainly write a physics paper on that. And you'd also collect your million bucks.

The difference being that telepathy cannot occur using any laws of physics that we know about.
Seeing UV light? That is physics 101, just in a strange form.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[wierd_w]

Incorrect, determining the mechanism behind the "paranormal" telepathy makes it cease being "paranormal" under the definition you are employing, because it then DOES fall inside the realm of scientific knowledge. In order for it to satisfy that definition, the following would have to be true:

1) there is a multiverse
2) the phenomenon makes use of the physics inside another different universe
3) because of 1 and 2, the full scope of possible interaction and mechanism can never be fully known by the science and physics of THIS universe, only the intial states, and the outputs.

Eg, something akin to:

"Oh look! I can send a superluminal message via (mechanism X) of a W boson! Who knew that you could correlate natural weak force decay of two baryons consistently using the (X mechanism), regardless of the distances between them!?"

"That's fascinting Mr Specious P. Aytchdee! How does it work!?"

"We don't know, and can never know! It somehow just does!"

*THAT* is the goalpost set by the challenge, using the definition of paranormal you are invoking.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[cheater512]

Yes it does cease being paranormal once you explain it, however you are missing two points:

1. You don't need to explain any of these things. You only need to show them in controlled conditions.
You don't need to know how it works - most of these people give nonsensical answers anyway.

2. You'd still get the million if you opened up a new field of physics out of what has been called paranormal (psychics, telekinesis, etc...).

Randi doesn't keep moving the goal posts. Its just that no one goes to him and does anything he can't explain using current physics.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[ChromeAeonium]

He believes what he sees, and since there isn't so much as a shred of convincing evidence that any supernatural phenomenon exist, I really can't say I blame him. that doesn't make him a fundamentalist anything; it makes him a realist.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Darinbob]

Scientists are very easily fooled. This is an old problem where figures of authority are often implicitly trusted by others, enough so that figures of authority often convince themselves that they are more reliable than they really are. The classic one I like is Arthur Conan Doyle, who was often praised for his logical stories of Sherlock Holmes (which when read carefully are amazingly full of plot holes and faulty logic); Doyle later believed the two girls who said that they had taken pictures of fairies in their yard, declaring the photographs to be authentic.

Scientists were also trivially fooled by Uri Geller with what was basically stage magic. Scientists are just not trained to deal well with test subjects who are intent on fooling them. Lab rats and monkeys and aren't devious like fake psychics are. Psychics love scientists because they are dubious, but psychics hate magicians because magicians know the tricks of the trade.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Darinbob]

Statistically relevant? Able to be repeated? A statistical difference is nothing, it happens all the time, and it can happen due to chance. Crunch the numbers and what you get is a likelihood that the differences are significant enough to warrent further investigation.

Dowsing is easy and easy for the dowser to get fooled by it. Especially when finding a place to dig a well, as my grandfather did: but you also know when dowsing where water is most likely to be based on the terrrain, and no one ever goes and digs wells every three feet in a grid to prove that the spot where dowsing said there was water was the best location for getting water. Instead you dowse, you use your intelligence, you dig a well, you find water, and then you decide whether or not it was the dowsing that did the trick versus all the other evidence.

I have seen somewhat intelligent people do stupid things here, like putting down three buckets of water and while knowing exactly which bucket has the water in it they will start dowsing and ta-da dowsing picks out the right bucket. Now if dowsing were real, would you get exactly the same force from a tiny bucket of water versus enough water worth digging a well for? I would think not and yet it's exactly the same force.

But it's a fun trick. Show it to kids, amaze the kids, but afterwords be sure to tell them that it is just a trick and not real.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[j-beda]

Utter horseshit. The protocol is agreed upon by both parties. i.e. you propose a test, I make a counter proposal and we negotiate on points until it is agreed upon what you claim, how it should be demonstrated and in what conditions to our mutual satisfaction. It's actually in JREF's interests to accommodate any reasonable demand so that the applicant is entirely satisfied with the test protocol and can't trot out some bullshit excuse afterwards to explain their failure.

I'm pretty sure JREF is well used to applicants pretending that skeptical mindbeams or the position of furniture or the sun through the window somehow interfered their amazing powerz which worked in other, less controlled circumstances.

Most of the test that I have been aware of start out with performing the demonstration unblinded so the claimant can be assured that none of test conditions are interfering with their "powerz". So the dowser can walk through the course and with their magic rods and watch them work 100% for each bucket of water or bucket of non-water (or whatever) they claim to be able to detect. Then the test starts by mixing up the buckets and covering them each with a cloth (or whatever double-blinding system that the claimant agreed to), and their ability invariably falls to that dictated by statistics.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Darinbob]

Actually I read somewhere that quite a lot of women can see outside what is considered "normal" vision range. It's nothing special though since they just have more types of cones in their eyes. Not even mutant since it's common enough.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[BancBoy]

He's been putting out this 'reward' offer for something demonstrably 'paranormal' many years. A counter-offer was also made, many years ago, for something demonstrably 'normal.' Neither reward has been claimed and likely neither ever will be.

Wait a minute. I can demonstrate something normal and I'll get a million dollars? I could've retired before lunch today! Dare I ask what the other website is?

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Anonymous Coward]

Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Collecting an endless amount of hopeful, poorly evaluated bad data can provide "statistically valid results" that will overwhelm the most rigorous data and testing by its sheer volume. This happens in medicine all the time: poorly gathered results for exciting new drugs, and for herbal remedies, and for newly patentable treatments, are often gathered with great attention to the patient and close monitoring. But the *attention itself* improves the patient's condition, even with useless treatment, because they see their doctor's more regularly, they take their medication more regularly, they report and deal with issues that might interfere with the main problem, etc.

I've actually seen this happen with experimental drugs, where the exciting new treatment was shown not to give any benefit whatsoever if you paid as much attention to the patients who didn't get it. Double blind work wasn't feasible because the medication had real, detectable effects, but we found a lab that had been giving as much attention as the patents got with the new treatment, and they saw no benefit whatsoever. It killed a pretty lucrative research grant, too.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[j-beda]

Randi is a Fundamentalist Materialist. Just about as annoying as the other Fundamentalists, in his own way, though he certainly has a charming side as well. But you are right, objectivity? He has none, he has faith in materialism just as unquestioning as the faith others hold in supernaturalism.

He's been putting out this 'reward' offer for something demonstrably 'paranormal' many years. A counter-offer was also made, many years ago, for something demonstrably 'normal.' Neither reward has been claimed and likely neither ever will be.

Do you have a link to this "normal" award terms? I have a whole bunch of things that I am confident I can demonstrate under all sorts of controlled conditions. For a $10,000 or larger prize I would even be willing to travel to try to collect it.

I can't conceive of a way of creating a test of "normal" that would be thought of as such by the "general public", that would not be trivially easy to have happen. Almost by definition, "normal" is the expected behaviour, and while there are a lot of things in the universe that might be "unexpected", there are even more that actually do come out the way they are expected to come out, most of the time.

I suppose perhaps that you could demand that the claimant demonstrate some "normal" effect (like the pattern of night following day) for all time, or the acceleration of gravity being about 10m/s^2 for all objects and not being satisfied unless EVERY object is tested or EVERY day unto eternity is experienced. If that is the case it isn't really a "counter-offer" as the JREF challenge is to demonstrate an effect in just one finite series of tests.

In my opinion, one of the great things that the JREF challenge does is to force the claimant to clearly state what it is that they think they can do, and how that can be distinguished from not being able to do that. It forces some clarity into the claim.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[LesFerg]

Dowsing is crap.

Too true. The only real statistical proof would come from getting a dowser to flag an equal number of places that DO have water and DO NOT have water below them. If the statistical anomaly is larger than random for both sets of identified locations, then maybe we would have to start believing in something.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[quenda]

Humans with mutant photoreceptor protiens may well be able to meet the qualifications of the test,

No, UV is blocked before reaching the retina. What you need is someone who has had cataract surgery, and no replacement UV filter.

http://www.komar.org/faq/colorado-cataract-surgery-crystalens/ultra-violet-color-glow/

Not quite ESP - maybe super-sensory perception?

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Darinbob]

That's now how his challenge works. It doesn't fail just because he can explain it, it fails because it can't be done under the test conditions that both sides agree too. If they do have extra photoreceptors then it's not cheating, and if the test passes according to the conditions then they'll get the money. I don't know how it's done now, but in the past a check was held by a lawyer ready to hand it to either party based on the results.

Currently though, to weed out lots of nuisance challenges and the mentally ill, applicants do need to present press clippings, have a publicly video demonstration, or have a letter from an academic institution. Trivial hurdles for someone with true paranormal abilities though.

Of course the people Randi is targeting are those claiming somewhat traditional paranormal abilities. Psychics detectives, dowsers, mind readers, that sort of thing. Big name psychics who swear up and down that they're the real deal don't take his tests, despite being an easy one million dollars to keep or give to charity.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Darinbob]

Plus the people Randi is interested in here are those who are already out and about in the public claiming to be the real deal. These are not people hiding in the shadows afraid of government spooks ready to dissect them.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Darinbob]

And what is your special power, for the record?

Re:An Element of the Divine

[overlordofmu]

I once felt as you do: magic isn't real. I changed my beliefs only because I eventually had my own direct experience with non-ordinary reality. ("Non-ordinary reality" being a more clinical term for "magic".)

I cannot prove this to you. Only your own direct experience with non-ordinary reality will make you believe in it.

Saying you don't believe in magic makes sense when you have never seen it. When you have seen it it makes sense to believe in it. I really do hope you get to experience magic some day.

It was wonderful (as in truly full of wonder) to realize I was wrong about "reality". To quote Richard Bach: "What a pleasure to be wrong."

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Paradise Pete]

I eventually had my own direct experience with non-ordinary reality.

Why are you so sure you weren't fooled or simply mistaken? That's far far more likely than magic actually existing. But if it were genuine magic, the consequences are so enormous that relegating it to a mere anecdote is almost criminal.
If it's something you merely can't explain, making the leap to "magic" is no better than invoking a god to explain it.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Paradise Pete]

It's been well tested. Surprisingly I can't find the video on youtube, but a large group of professional dowsers were gathered. A network of ten pipes were laid down, only one of which would have water in it at any given time. All of the dowsers, before the test, were certain that they would have no trouble consistently finding the water. They all failed. They were not frauds, they truly believed in their power. Humans are easily fooled, even by themselves.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Paradise Pete]

If Randi takes time to study someone exhibiting telekinesis and determines that their brain is producing some quantum effect, plucking at the stuff of spacetime itself and creating gravitons, then he just explained it and there is no mystery. No $1M.

Explanations are not involved. You make a specific claim. They devise a test of that claim. If you pass the test you get the money. You don't have to offer any explanation of how you did it, you don't have to categorize it or give it a name, you just have to do it.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[narcc]

Big name psychics who swear up and down that they're the real deal don't take his tests, despite being an easy one million dollars to keep or give to charity.

I hate to defend them, but have you considered that Randi just isn't important enough for them to be bothered? He's really only a celebrity in a few niche circles. He isn't exactly a household name.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[narcc]

Do you have a link to this "normal" award terms?

Digging around a bit, all I could find what that the challenge was offered by a fellow named Robert Anton Wilson.

I couldn't find any info about the normal challenge on his website http://www.rawilson.com/

The challenge may be long gone. You could try the wayback machine, my eyes can't handle the blue text on a blue background any longer.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Arker]

This is what I was thinking of: http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/tag/pataphysics/

âoeThe normal consists of a null set which nobody and nothing really fits.â The committee claims that there is no such thing as âoenormalâ, and there are no existing âoenormalâ people (i.e., people existing in the average). For example, no one has 2.3 children.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Patch86]

A dowser would probably reply that it has something to do with water naturally forming along ley lines or collecting in places with unique magnetic fields, or some other hokus pokus nonsense.

People relying on "supernatural" powers can always make "supernatural" excuses. Can't "medium" in controlled conditions? It's because the ghosts don't like working in lab conditions. Healing crystals don't work on lab animals? It's because animals lack a chackra.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Joce640k]

Wrong. They fill out the form, the foundation decides if they consider the activity to be paranormal enough, as in nothing that they know already can be done or explained. Then they decide whether or not to accept the demonstration, and proceed to set a lot of very un-scientific restrictions on testing....
[snip]

Absolute crap. Simply not the way it works.

(but typical of Randi-haters...)

Re:An Element of the Divine

[AK Marc]

Moving the goalpost mark?

"Looking behind a door", and 'looking behind a closet door are not the same thing!

Oh, so your closet doesn't have a door? I mentioned "a door" and then later picked one for an example. Does your closet have a door or not?

Re:An Element of the Divine

[AK Marc]

Your chance of winning the lottery if you don't buy a ticket is zero. Your chances are infinitely better if you buy a ticket, but still practically zero.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[AK Marc]

"Black swan events" are both non-linear and hard to quantify in real terms,

Black swan events are unrelated to the question of whether a "scientist" pre-judges the result. Sounds like someone doesn't know what a hypothesis is. It's a pre-judgement (or at least a "guess" or "educated guess"). By definition, a person has already pre-judged against the black swan event (otherwise, it wouldn't be a black swan event).

So I understand everything you are saying, better than you think I do (maybe even better than you do) but I don't see where you are going with it or how you are bringing it back to support your initial assertion that "scientists won't pre-judge", when they do. Everyone does. You do when you set a low probability to running across a pegacorn. Arguing about percentage points doesn't change the answer.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[DrXym]

Exactly. It's in JREF's interests to acquiesce and accommodate any reasonable request providing it doesn't compromise the test itself. JREF offers applicants the time to "calibrate" their powers, do trial runs, express their satisfaction with the test setup etc because it means that when they start whining later (as they invariably do) it all sounds very hollow. They agreed to everything as presented and later engage in some post hoc rationalization for their failure rather than accept the most likely explanation that their powers never existed in the first place.

I think it's funny when they occasionally complain that Randi somehow managed to suppress their powers. If Randi had the power to dampen psychics powers that would mean he exhibits far greater paranormal powers than any applicant and he deserves to keep the money.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Darinbob]

Bigger name than most of these psychics though. Big enough that if they win the challenge their fame will be pretty large.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Maritz]

His objectivity is irrelevant, the test is fair. That's how these things work. You make the test in such as way as bias can't influence it.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Maritz]

While most paranormal stuff is probably false, digging one's heels in and refusing to look at evidence is hardly what I would call a scientific attitude.

This is one big ad-hom. Randi isn't a scientist, Randi's got a bad attitude, bla bla bla. His attitude doesn't matter, all that matters is "is the test fair". Criticise the test, the methodology, if you can. Criticising the man isn't (or shouldn't be) persuasive. You'd have to show us this 'discrepancy' and show how it shouldn't happen randomly with that sample size.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[tehcyder]

That is the same argument that believers in God use.

It overlooks the fact that the universe is a very strange place, not least inside our own heads. Nobody can experience all of reality in its entirety. You can't directly apprehend quantum events. And Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says you can never measure the base of reality precisely.

I don't think even the most hardened realist would deny that there are events that are fundamentally incomprehensible to a poor human brain. That doesn't mean there is magic, or god, outside the "real" universe.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Maritz]

Wrong. The money won't be awarded because it's a rigged challenge, anything which can be proven as real is by definition no longer magic and thus excluded from the award.

People who take the challenge agree to the protocol in advance. They sign off that they agree it's a fair test of their abilities. Most of them don't realise that under controlled conditions, their 'ability' will vanish because it isn't real. You're a bit annoyed about that, I understand. But it patently is not a rigged challenge.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Maritz]

I once felt as you do: That my brain had some kind of privileged direct access to reality. Now I realise that my mind is full of cognitive biases and that different brain regions can produce very strange and surreal effects. I also realise that my senses are an on-the-fly hodgepodge of what the brain cobbles together at any given second, subject to illusions.

But yeah, I'm glad you believe in magic. My personal view is that if it were real it would be absolutely trivial to demonstrate its reality to just about everyone. Like magnetism.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Maritz]

Wow, sounds like this show proved dowsing is real and in doing so proved the other thousands of negative experiments wrong. That's stunning, now all they have to do is replicate the results many times. Easy, right?

Re:An Element of the Divine

[tehcyder]

You're missing the point. It should be easy enough to test whether or not "dowsers" do in fact detect water more than expected by blind guessing. If they do you then form an hypothesis to explain what might cause this (e.g. sensitivity to or experience with the landscape and an unconscious resulting minor muscle movement) and test this.

That's the scientific way to do it, not just say "dowsing is magic and therefore false and therefore not even worth investigating".

As with all science, you may find out some interesting things if you investigate properly, rather than just dismiss it out of hand. At the very least you get some good psychological material.

Someone yesterday in the first part of this interview's comments made the point that if an old farmer says that he thinks it is going to start chucking down with golfball sized hail, you'd be wise to move to shelter. You don't have to fall back on the farmer being a weathermancer or anything, it's just an extreme sensitivity to the fields, grass, sky, clouns and light filtered through his experience of having to keep on top of nature if possible.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Maritz]

Sylvia Browne agreed to take the test (think it was on Larry King Live). Later she said she couldn't get in touch with him. Yeah.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[tehcyder]

Yes, but the point is that you wouldn't have to prove that you had mutant photoreceptors (or whatever), you'd just have to pass the test. You don't need to explain how you passed it, it is framed that is up to Randi to prove that you cheated.

Personally, I don't think that being able to identify UV light images would strike most people as "paranormal" to start with, at least in the sense that ghosts or fortune telling are.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[tehcyder]

If Randi takes time to study someone exhibiting telekinesis and determines that their brain is producing some quantum effect, plucking at the stuff of spacetime itself and creating gravitons, then he just explained it and there is no mystery. No $1M.

No, you're wrong. If someone can perform telekinesis, they pass the test. Randi is not suddenly going to invent a new way of measuring spacetime and observing gravitons just because someone has done something apparently impossible. As long as the person hasn't cheated by using wires (or anything else that Randi can prove) he'll win the prize.

As expected, most people on slashdot are taking the over-literal viewpoint, namely that, because there is nothing that can't finally be explained by science, that therefore anything can be explained by science right now. It's as though everyone has forgotten the concept of discovery, and are falling back into the dangerously smug idea that we have discovered literally everything about how the universe works.

In fact, the really interesting thing would be to see someone do something apparently impossible (without cheating) and for this to start up a whole new branch of science.

It almost certainly won't happen, but it's a nice idea.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[tehcyder]

Big name psychics who swear up and down that they're the real deal don't take his tests, despite being an easy one million dollars to keep or give to charity.

I hate to defend them, but have you considered that Randi just isn't important enough for them to be bothered? He's really only a celebrity in a few niche circles. He isn't exactly a household name.

If I had a skill that I could demonstrate to someone and get a $1m cheque for, I'd be there like a rat up a fucking drainpipe.

I seriously doubt most psychics are multi-billionaires who use million dollar notes (figuratively) to wipe their arses with.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[tehcyder]

A dowser would probably reply that it has something to do with water naturally forming along ley lines or collecting in places with unique magnetic fields, or some other hokus pokus nonsense.

Dowsing is one of the few "paranormal" activities that I actually have some time for. The simple fact is that if you spend a lot of time outdoors, you WILL get to have a better idea of where water is most likely to be found compared with someone born and bred in a city. It's not magic, it's just an increase in sensitivity to things like dips in fields, curves in hedges, paths made by animals through grass, where mist forms on cold mornings or whatever.

All the bollocks with moving twigs is just showmanship, presumably from a time when being the guy who could more than likely find water was a pretty big deal so you wanted to make it look as impressive as possible for bonus beer and wenches.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[tehcyder]

Now if dowsing were real, would you get exactly the same force from a tiny bucket of water versus enough water worth digging a well for?

What, a large amount of water deep underground versus a smaller amount right under your nose? Why couldn't they be about the same? The sun and a flashlight shining in your eyes are equally as bright.

Without getting too defensive about dowsing, that is not a compelling argument against it.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Maritz]

No way in hell is anyone with paranormal ability going to let others know about it.

The level of stupid in that statement is profound. Go learn something about humans.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[tehcyder]

He's been putting out this 'reward' offer for something demonstrably 'paranormal' many years. A counter-offer was also made, many years ago, for something demonstrably 'normal.' Neither reward has been claimed and likely neither ever will be.

Wait a minute. I can demonstrate something normal and I'll get a million dollars? I could've retired before lunch today! Dare I ask what the other website is?

Anything you think is "normal" can be alternatively explained. For instance, I woke up, had a shower, drove to work today and had a cheese sandwich for lunch. A religious person could say that God has simply placed these ideas in my head. A mystic could say I dreamed the whole lot while my soul was on a higher astral plane. A Matrix fan could point out that the whole thing might be a virtual reality environment. And so on.

You can't disprove any of them, even though they're simply untrue.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[tehcyder]

Robert Anton Wilson was a fine writer, humourist and prankster. I doubt that the challenge was a serious one.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[tehcyder]

The water dowsers apparently had a much higher rate of success than the metal dowsers. Randi didn't even raise his eyebrows.

I'm not surprised. If you did a hole anywhere, you'll find water. It's called groundwater.

Yes, it makes you wonder why people bother with wells, doesn't it? All that fuss when you can just walk into your back garden and dig up as much water as you need.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[tehcyder]

This is what I was thinking of: http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/tag/pataphysics/

âoeThe normal consists of a null set which nobody and nothing really fits.â The committee claims that there is no such thing as âoenormalâ, and there are no existing âoenormalâ people (i.e., people existing in the average). For example, no one has 2.3 children.

If you go around taking surrealism literally you are going to end up sounding very odd indeed.

It's an art movement, not a practical philosophy.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[j-beda]

This is what I was thinking of: http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/tag/pataphysics/

âoeThe normal consists of a null set which nobody and nothing really fits.â The committee claims that there is no such thing as âoenormalâ, and there are no existing âoenormalâ people (i.e., people existing in the average). For example, no one has 2.3 children.

That's pretty funny: "The Board of the College of Patapsychology, Wilson writes, offered one million Irish pounds to anyone who can produce “a normal sunset, an average Beethoven sonata, an ordinary Playmate of the Month, or any thing or event in space-time that qualifies as normal, average or ordinary.”"

Any challenge that uses Playmates of the Month as examples has a lot going for it.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Visserau]

Long post warning. I decided to write what will form (the core of) the first of my series of articles. I've been having a hard time figuring out where to start so thanks for throwing out a question that can be the start :)

I too asked the same question, many times, of many people and happily disregarded all of their responses with "BUT GIVE ME PROOF!". Now I'm on the other side of the fence. Having a perspective of both sides, the topic of how to explain such matters is a personal interest of mine.

The reason why it "can't" be explained is because the experience takes place in terms that do not exist in human language. The closest way to describe it, is the experience teaches you a different system of logic, a different way of thinking. Vague descriptions of the content are possible, but there is no amount of words that will be be useful and in many cases they would lead you further from understanding, due to gross imperfection of the description. The number one cause of ridicule towards assorted spiritual claims is the poor explanation given for them, or more specifically, the listener's perception that they have understood the provided explanation. (Note: the description just given, whilst hopefully helpful, can also be considered grossly inaccurate if you try to take it too literally. It could be more accurate to say that the required explanation necessitates the use of logical constructions which do not exist in everyday experience and cannot be learned in any ordinary way. Therefore it is a rather serious catch 22 that one cannot understand the experience until one has had it... i.e. "it can't be explained".)

The only thing to be done is to make the most rational case possible to convince people to do the hard work so they can experience it for themselves. I'm not going to attempt to do so here (I plan to write a series of articles and eventually a book on it) but one possible path to this is Buddhist meditation. I'm currently answering the question as to how the GP/I know he/I aren't mistaken.

Now the obvious first reaction to someone claiming "I had this crazy experience and now I understand everything!" is "congrats, you just went insane!". This is a perfectly natural skeptical response, especially given the scope of (and lack of evidence for) what people claim. There are a few responses to this:

1) That there are repeatable processes that can be undergone by a sufficiently dedicated individual to achieve the necessary experiences. The example given above was meditation. The path is consistent between individuals (i.e. a fairly concrete series of stages) although individual stages may manifest differently in each individual. Different amounts of time are required for each individual, and different aspects of personality will be the key roadblocks in each case. Nevertheless, it is the same process. Citation: this whole book: http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/MCTB?p_r_p_185834411_title=MCTB

2) That the new 'knowledge' gained is rational and coherent, which would not be expected to be the case for most coinsurance of random neural damage (etc). It greatly improves understanding of many aspects of life and the world. Many connections previously not seen are revealed. (It must be admitted that a great many people fail to produce a rational/coherent EXPLANATION - due to the extremely complexity demanded - but that does not mean they don't understand it to some degree.)

3) That everyone undergoing such experiences comes out on the other side with a remarkably similar understanding, even without any prior knowledge of what the 'expected' result is. Exact interpretations can vary (or even on the surface appear to be in violent disagreement) and individuals will tend to focus on different aspects. But it is clear that the same 'knowledge' is gained when you know what to look for.

4) (Rewinding back to the accusati

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Maritz]

Wrong. The claimant agrees to the protocol beforehand. You've just demonstrated that you don't know what you're talking about.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Visserau]

It's the same argument because it is addressing exactly the same topic. See my post in response to Paradise Pete, just above yours.

The link I provide goes into how it IS in fact possible to directly percieve the base of reality, uncertainty principle be damned. The instrument of "measurement" is consciousness/awareness, not a machine. (Although I agree with you that it holds in a scientific sense, i.e. for any instrument we build rather than doing our own investigation.)

The argument for "god" and "magic" has nothing to do with lack of understanding, although I don't mean those terms in the way you probably understand them.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Maritz]

You can certainly learn to fool gullible people into thinking you can do remote viewing. You can't, however, do remote viewing - I'd wager.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Maritz]

A counter-offer was also made, many years ago, for something demonstrably 'normal.' Neither reward has been claimed and likely neither ever will be.

Can I get a million for showing up and moving some iron filings around with a magnet? If magic were real it ought to be just as trivially easy to demonstrate. Are you suggesting that it is impossible to demonstrate normal phenomena? Um...

Randi's "faith" in materialism is backed by lots and lots of evidence. Replicated, replicable, high-quality evidence. The supernatural stuff just doesn't have this. You, however, prefer to attack Randi than the evidence he's going on. I can only suppose that's the best tactic available to you.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Visserau]

It's only a quite small percent and they can only see a tiny bit out of the normal range. Still quite interesting though. IIRC the ability faded and was lost with age.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[sFurbo]

I think you are talking of tetrachromes, in which case it wouldn't be outside the normal range, but a fourth receptor in the normal range, thus giving them better ability to separate colors.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Visserau]

According to this: http://www.lettertorobin.org/RBN_pdf/RBN_10_4_English.pdf

You calibrate your dowsing with conditions you're looking for. So you apparently can choose to be sensitive to or ignore variables like depth, volume, suitability for drinking, etc. Disclaimer: I've never tried it and have no knowledge beyond reading that link.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Visserau]

You can't disprove any of them, even though they're amost certainly untrue.

Fixed it for you. :) I find it amusing that you understood so well and then went right ahead and contradicted yourself.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Arker]

You would have to demonstrate that each and every filing was affected by the magnet precisely as expected. No strays, no filings moving a little faster or slower than they should be. Never happens.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Quirkz]

Robert Anton Wilson is co-author of the Illuminatus! trilogy. That's about as zany and non-serious as anything I've ever read.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Maritz]

Doesn't happen because it's an unreasonable standard. A reasonable person would accept that the magnet is moving the iron filings, without making unreasonable demands about how much which moves where.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[benhattman]

Randi is a Fundamentalist Materialist.

Yeah...that's not a thing. Certainly not a thing worth capitalizing. He just wants to put seemingly supernatural or paranormal claims up to scrutiny, and he seems to wish people would admit they were pulling tricks once they've been proved out.

It would be fundamentalism if you laid out an exact list of what things qualify as materialism, and then out of hand rejected all other things. Randi very clearly doubts things that don't follow materialism, but he then sets up tests that both he and the true believer accept would be valid and fair tests, and then he asks them to take the test. He basically just gives these people enough rope to hang themselves. Don't blame Randi for that. Blame the people who are selling goods they can't deliver.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Arker]

So the details dont matter? Yet over and over in science we find that they do. Newtonian physics is usually right, or close enough to right for practical purposes at least, so Einstein and Bohr and the rest are just being unreasonable in your opinion?

Re:An Element of the Divine

[narcc]

Indeed she did. Apparently, she didn't think ignoring Randi was going to impact her career in any negative way. Sadly, she was right. What does that tell you about Randi's influence?

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Arker]

I disagree, I think that's exactly what he does. The dowsing example is a good one. There are many examples where water-dowsing appears to work, and there seems to be every chance that we will eventually find one or more good explanations for why that is. Nonetheless, Randi dismisses the possibility out of hand even when his own experiment points to it. (Clarke, not a fundamentalist of any stripe, attempts to point this out and is dismissed. Randi already knows this stuff is all bunk, he doesnt need to look at any results.)

Re:An Element of the Divine

[overlordofmu]

Believers in god have never directly experienced god. They take it on faith. On the other hand, if you were to see poltergeist activity first hand you will probably now believe in ghosts. It is not faith if you see it with your own eyes.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Arker]

Surrealism might be argued to pair with post-newtonian physics as realism does to classical mechanics. Surrealism is not just a school of art but of philosophy as well.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[next_ghost]

Sorry but repeatability, coherency and consistency of the experience among many people still doesn't add any validity whatsoever to a claim of some supernatural experience. For example lots of drugs create experiences which are repeatable, coherent (at least from the users' perspective) and consistent, but those experiences still aren't real. There are also many ways to trigger drug-like mental states without actually using drugs. Here's a first-hand account: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqc0roZTZSA (the interesting part is between 30:00 and 40:00 but the entire video is worth watching).

Phillip K. Dick summed it very nicely: "Reality is that, which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." If you want to prove that your supernatural experience is real, the answer is not making the skeptic try it too. You need independent verification from someone who didn't try it and doesn't believe it. You have to show some practical effects of your experience, for example that you can use your supposed new knowledge to correctly solve problems that others can't. And then you also need to check that those who couldn't solve those problems gain the ability after undergoing the same experience. Put simply: If you can't show, you don't really know.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[david_thornley]

None of your four claims require anything supernatural. It's entirely within reason to think that any sufficiently dedicated individual, going through a particular course of spiritual development, will come out with certain understandings and beliefs. It is quite possible that their new understanding is very useful. We really don't know that much about how to get peak brain function, after all, and the Buddhists may have gotten something very, very right. It is possible that these understandings include some sort of god, eternal and universal life of a sort, and spiritual freedom; in that case, they may be entirely correct, or they may be hitting some sort of brain artifact that's an accident of evolution. (The only sort of test I've been able to think up requires intelligent aliens, who would likely have different brain artifacts if that were the explanation, or similar beliefs if it's actual cosmic truth.)

However, either this gives people supernormal abilities or it doesn't. If it doesn't, it isn't really relevant here. If so, it should be possible for at least some people, very good at meditation, to demonstrate such abilities objectively. For example, there are stories of certain Buddhists capable of running superhumanly fast over long distances. If this were reliable, it could be demonstrated to skeptics, and I haven't heard of any independent confirmations.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[narcc]

Sounds like someone doesn't know what a hypothesis is. It's a pre-judgement (or at least a "guess" or "educated guess").

An hypothesis is a testable prediction. It's not a damn guess.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[narcc]

You know why the "water dowsers" had higher success? Because in most places on Earth, if you dig a few feet, you will find water.

I see that you have absolutely no idea what everyone else is talking about!

They're talking about the higher success rate of water dowsers vs metal dowsers in the test conducted by Randi disputed by which Arthur C. Clarke.

But don't let a little thing like "not knowing the topic of discussion" stop you from posting. It's entertaining.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[AK Marc]

An unsupported "prediction" (testable or otherwise) is both a guess and a pre-judgement. That's what hypotheses start as.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[narcc]

Unsupported? Then on what grounds would you have to test anything?

Don't be foolish. Spreading nonsense about basic science isn't going to help any one.

Let people with actual scientific training explain things like this.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Visserau]

A lot depends on definitions. I define supernatural as "that which is possible within natural laws but which is outside of mainstream scientific understanding". So you are quite correct in saying that my claims don't require anything outside of natural laws. However, they DO require a greatly expanded definition of natural laws. (I fully acknowledge current science as a limited but accurate subset of these.)

You are also accurate to say (paraphrased) that "the plural of anecdote is not data". But at what point does the cut-off lie? At some point it has to be possible to accrue a sufficient number of data points of sufficient quality to become statistically significant. Otherwise even a fully controlled, double blind test could be dismissed as "just a bunch of anecdotes". I acknowledge that my "data points" (the experiences of individuals throughout the world and time) are neither controlled nor blind and suffer from the catch 22 issue I mentioned previously - that they cannot be understood to be reflecting the same argument from an outsider's perspective. As previously mentioned, I'm not claiming that my points represent proof. But when combined with my own experiences they are sufficient to tip the balance and swap my working hypothesis over to a spiritual one, even though for ~25 years I considered it impossible. So I completely understand where you're coming from, because I spent many years making the same arguments myself. Likewise I tended to disregard the responses I received as they were very poorly presented and had no depth. I'd like to imagine I'm making a better attempt at it, but I fully understand why any skeptic would have a hard time accepting what I say without the benefit of experience (catch 22, again).

I've thought the same thing about the evolutionary artifact (thanks for reminding me). It is impossible to disprove, but has no supporting evidence either. As such, the most rational option available to me is to continue with my working hypothesis whilst keeping an eye on the other options.

A key point I maybe didn't lay out clearly enough: the spiritual path grants far more than understanding. It allows the possibility of examining the 'fabric' of reality (among other things) on a first-hand basis. This is something an individual can only do for themselves. There will never (in the current paradigm at least) be a scientific instrument constructed that can perform such examinations, as they lack the appropriate spiritual basis. These observations are conducted with what would best be described as extra-sensory perception, in that the individual senses things (in a manner of speaking), but does not use the five ordinary senses to do so.

The point here is this is not some philosophical understanding - it is empirical observation at the deepest level. The answer to many questions such as how a sense of self, and how subject/object duality arises, are answered from direct measurement and observation. Unfortunately these answers are commonly understood as "we can't quite figure out the answer so we picked the one we think makes sense" rather than "we measured this and found it to be true, even though we can't 'show our working' to the wider world". (Here I allude to such issues as consciousness existing before matter - it can be clearly observed to be true, but from an skeptical perspective is commonly interpreted as "they decided it's true because it's required to make their worldview hold together", given that the observation cannot be shared and many would doubt that it can be made.)

With regards to supernatural abilities: Speaking strictly about abilities observable by any person (like running fast or levitating), I certainly believe there are people out there with such abilities. I haven't seen them but I've spoken with those that have. There are a bunch of mitigating factors I've previously mentioned.
*It takes a LOT of time and effort to develop them. The effort to develop them is a spiritual sidetrack (some would say even a dead end) that in many cases can be detrim

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Visserau]

I'm fully aware of these things. (I'll watch the video later, I just spent far too long replying above.) See my reply to David just above for more detail on my response to your initial claim.

What I describe does not go away when you stop believng in it. In fact your quote unwittingly works in my favor. The mechanics of reality (which are revealed by spiritual investigation) are in fact used by disbeleving skeptics every single second of their existance, despite their desbelief. I'm just referring to laws which are in fact 100% natural and have a deterministic, scientific basis. They are just not yet known to science and therefore fall into the supernatural/unknown category. These higher/other laws can be observed in an emperical way with spiritual tools.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Visserau]

Replying to myself, but I missed this before. (For some crazy reason I'm doing this all before my coffee...)

You need independent verification from someone who didn't try it and doesn't believe it. You have to show some practical effects of your experience, for example that you can use your supposed new knowledge to correctly solve problems that others can't. And then you also need to check that those who couldn't solve those problems gain the ability after undergoing the same experience. Put simply: If you can't show, you don't really know.

Yes exactly. What you're reading RIGHT NOW is my attempt to get you to try and do that independant verification. As I've explained elsewhere, that verification DOES require you to try it, for reasons I've hopefully explained. (Although I get the feeling, not well enough.) Unfortunately the process is long and requires personal dedication, hence why I want to write about it. (And why I'm bothering to make these long posts, which as mentioned will form the start of an article series. So please keep throwing everything at me.)

The new problems that can be solved are largly philisphical in nature. I can answer many questions with a great deal of certainty - but not prove that I am correct. Even if I could prove I was right, it wouldn't do me any good. Your "put simply" phrase is somewhat applicable, but highlights a major downfall of the skeptical viewpoint: it can only ackowledge certain classes of truth.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[overlordofmu]

I would first like to note that I feel the word "magic" is an unwieldy and childish word which is commonly used for certain phenomena. The truth behind the phenomena in question is actually manifold.

I believe some of the phenomena in question (telepathy for instance) have a firm grounding in the laws of physics and that they will eventually be explained by science. People once thought magnets were magic and we no longer think so. It is my belief that science will one day explain telepathy just as it does magnets.

There are other phenomena which I believe will never be explained by science but which are "real" all the same. In place of the word "magic", I would prefer the phrase "non-ordinary reality".

Please understand that my conception of reality is, most likely, very different from yours. I think all of reality is an illusion and the ultimate goal of conscious beings is to learn to escape this illusion and join the one true mind which is a singularity without any attributes which a human mind can conceptualize. Some have called this singularity "Brahman". (See this for a rough explanation of the concept of Brahman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman)

I do not believe that "reality" is real. You seem to believe there is one, true, absolute, objective reality. Maybe you do not, but you seem to. I, on the other hand, believe the exact opposite. Reality is manifold and all "realities" are falsehood. This fundamental difference is probably going to be the source of a great deal of confusion and difficulty when you and I attempt to explain our beliefs to each other which is why I have taken such great care to point it out.

So, some "magic" is just things science cannot yet explain but which are grounded firmly in this "reality". Other "magic" is the "bending" of "reality". Reality is elastic, in my experience. The rules can be changed if force of consciousness is applied, but these changes go away and "reality" reverts to its previous form when the force or forces are removed again.

I hope this makes my previous statements appear differently to you. I will now address some of what you said.

I once felt as you do: That my brain had some kind of privileged direct access to reality.

You're a snarky one, aren't you? I never said that, nothing even close to that. You seem to be both snarky and fond of the straw man argument. I will not defend a point you have imagined I have made when I have not actually made it. Nothing I wrote stated or implied privileged or superior access to reality. I hope it is clear to you now that I don't even believe that "reality" is "real".

My personal view is that if it were real it would be absolutely trivial to demonstrate its reality to just about everyone. Like magnetism.

Now, there is a comment worth expanding upon.

Imagine the following scenario: We are living in the stone age. I tell you I have seen stones that can pull pieces of iron to them with an invisible force of attraction. I claim to have seen these stones with my own eyes and I tell you they are real.

Now, as someone that had never seen a magnet with your own eyes, you would be a fool to believe such an outrageous claim. On the other hand, if I had seen a magnet with my own eyes, touched one and been able to experiment with one, I would know with absolute certainty that they are real things.

Both of us would believe the other person to be mistaken. Both of us would be totally correct to hold the beliefs that we did if using logic and experience as a basis for our beliefs is what we mean when we say "correct".

It is my belief that the impasse you and I are having is perfectly analogous to the scenario of two stone age people talking about magnets. You know the impossible thing I suggest is absurd and you attack the claim with passion. I know my claim is true because I have had direct experience with the truth in question.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[AK Marc]

So you are saying an untested hypothesis is supported by testing? What insane world are you living in?

Re:An Element of the Divine

[next_ghost]

Your "put simply" phrase is somewhat applicable, but highlights a major downfall of the skeptical viewpoint: it can only ackowledge certain classes of truth.

I'll answer with a philosophical question: What's the point of a truth that has no practical application with verifiable results?

Re:An Element of the Divine

[narcc]

No, you just don't understand basic science!

An hypothesis doesn't come from nowhere. It's a testable prediction. A prediction is made on some basis. For example, theories make predictions which can then be tested.

Here's a rather famous example, which you are now capable of understanding: http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2009/05/dayintech_0529/

In your bizarre world, where an hypothesis was just a guess, you'd go around saying things like "when a ball of twine reaches terminal velocity, it'll turn in to a unicorn". No one need ask why you would expect such an outcome -- it's just a guess, after all.

Do you see the difference?

Good. Now, stop spreading nonsense.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[AK Marc]

No, you just don't understand basic science!

I understand basic science. You don't understand basic English.

An hypothesis doesn't come from nowhere. It's a testable prediction. A prediction is made on some basis. For example, theories make predictions which can then be tested.

It doesn't come from "nowhere" but you assert it's a prediction bade on some basis. It's a re-statement of an observation in a testable manner. I call that a "guess". "If I drop an apply it will fall" is a guess (until tested). "If I drop an apple and a feather in a vacuum they will fall at the same rate" is a guess (until tested). Hypotheses are guesses.

In your bizarre world, where an hypothesis was just a guess, you'd go around saying things like "when a ball of twine reaches terminal velocity, it'll turn in to a unicorn". No one need ask why you would expect such an outcome -- it's just a guess, after all.

You don't understand the definition of "guess" and are wrongly asserting that I don't know science because you don't understand English.

Do you see the difference?

Yes, you are still wrong, but getting more and more sure it's me that's wrong. There's nothing I could possibly say to prove you wrong. Even if I start quoting definitions and popular usage of "guess" you'll still assert it's my lack of science knowledge that's the issue. You aren't a scientist. You are an emotional child who is scolding your better without knowledge of what you speak. I see the difference. You don't.

Kirk: Mr. Spock, have you accounted for the variable mass of whales and water in your time re-entry program?
Spock: Mr. Scott cannot give me exact figures, Admiral, so... I will make a guess.
Kirk: A guess? You, Spock? That's extraordinary.
Spock: [to Dr. McCoy] I don't think he understands.
McCoy: No, Spock. He means that he feels safer about your guesses than most other people's facts.
Spock: Then you're saying,
[pause]
Spock: It is a compliment?
McCoy: It is.
Spock: Ah. Then, I will try to make the best guess I can.

Yes, I realize it's fiction, but it's the usage of "guess" in common usage that's in question, not the weight of whales, or likelihood that a slingshot could cause time travel. "guess" means "best estimate" or "informed deduction without certainty". Both agree with my usage of guess, and disagree with your usage of guess. Perhaps you should bother to figure out what the other person is saying before you disagree so vehemently.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[narcc]

It doesn't come from "nowhere" but you assert it's a prediction bade on some basis. It's a re-statement of an observation in a testable manner. I call that a "guess". "If I drop an apply it will fall" is a guess (until tested). "If I drop an apple and a feather in a vacuum they will fall at the same rate" is a guess (until tested). Hypotheses are guesses.

Sigh... It's not a mere guess if you have a reason to expect a particular outcome, it's a prediction. Predictions are made on some basis. That is obviously not a requirement for a guess.

You're probably operating under the incorrect assumption that hypotheses "graduate" in to theories -- that particular bit of nonsense seems to have spread like wildfire in skeptical communities. Here's the short, but correct, version: A Theory is a predictive model. An hypothesis is a testable prediction. Keep that in mind and you'll do just fine.

Your "Oh, gee maybe this will happen" concept has no place in science. That would reduce the whole enterprise to nothing more than directionless trial and error.

"informed deduction without certainty"

...

I see that you're not familiar with the concept of deduction either.

Yes, I realize it's fiction, but it's the usage of "guess" in common usage that's in question, not the weight of whales

In this case, "guess" is not the right word at all, it's "estimate". An estimate is not an hypothesis and it is not a mere guess.

Words have meaning. Playing fast and loose with the vocabulary is not helpful -- neither to science nor to those you hope to inform.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[AK Marc]

Sigh... It's not a mere guess if you have a reason to expect a particular outcome, it's a prediction.

My quote using the word from popular usage indicates that usage disagrees with your assertion.

I give up. You don't know English, and are lecturing me on a number of definitions. You are wrong. Hopefully nobody reading your incorrect rants will take your incorrect usages as correct. You are the one with a vocabulary you assert to be different from popular usage, but everyone else is wrong. I can't argue with religion, and you are arguing like a fanatic, not a rational person.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[narcc]

My quote using the word from popular usage indicates that usage disagrees with your assertion.

By popular usage, "theory" also means "guess". By popular usage, "mass" means "size".

Why doesn't science just give in and adopt these, and other, popular definitions? The answer is pretty simple!

Now, will you stop spreading nonsense?

Re:An Element of the Divine

[quantaman]

Randi is a Fundamentalist Materialist. Just about as annoying as the other Fundamentalists, in his own way, though he certainly has a charming side as well. But you are right, objectivity? He has none, he has faith in materialism just as unquestioning as the faith others hold in supernaturalism.

Supernaturalists have faith in something that can never be reliably reproduced and can always be explained through materialist mechanisms.

Materialists have faith in something that occurs every damn time.

If Randi, after decades of seeking out the world's best psychics/faith healers/dowsers/etc and seeing a complete lack of supernatural powers every time is a complete materialist that doesn't make him a fundamentalist, that makes him sane.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Arker]

"can always be explained through materialist mechanisms"

You just revealed yourself to be a Materialist Fundamentalist yourself with that statement. You just took aim at a very broad, essentially unbounded category of purported phenomena, including things that have never been (and will never be) subject to a proper investigation, including things that havent even happened yet (and therefore by logical necessity have not been investigated) and you pronounce a priori that they can ALWAY be explained through materialist mechanisms. There is no possible way that statement could be based on knowledge, since it pertains to things there is no possible way for you to have knowledge of. It is a statement of faith, no less so than the catechism or the haShema or the shahada are statements of faith.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[quantaman]

I wasn't talking about things that haven't happened yet, though if the universe has operated on materialist principals up till now why would it stop? (this is the foundation of why science works)

What I was talking about is that for every supernatural occurrence that has happened up till now one of two things has occurred. Either we were able to properly investigate and it turned out to be materialist, or we weren't able to properly investigate.

For things like miracles from the bible, or even many modern miracles (like the ones the Catholic church uses to create saints), if they happen outside a lab we really can't investigate them properly. But for all the people with supernatural powers, every single one when subjected to real scrutiny has had their powers fail spectacularly.

If I flip a coin a million times and it always comes up heads there's two explanations, either it's a fair coin and I had a .5^1e6 chance of getting that result, or it's not a biased coin and has a strong predisposition towards heads. Am I a biased coin fundamentalist or just rational?

A question to you, do you believe in the supernatural? What kind of supernatural? Religion? Psychics? Dowsers? If so why do you believe in it?

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Arker]

You said "Supernaturalists have faith in something that can never be reliably reproduced and can always be explained through materialist mechanisms."

Yet you claim you were not talking about things that havent occurred yet. But logically, given your statement above, would it not be fair to say that any purportedly supernatural occurence in which Spiritualists would place faith that occurred, let us say, tomorrow, would still be covered as something that can NEVER be reproduced and ALWAYS explained materially?

If so, then you are indeed making claims about things that have yet to happen, long before any evidence could be brought to bear. If not I must say your statement becomes unintelligible.

"Either we were able to properly investigate and it turned out to be materialist, or we weren't able to properly investigate."

But the VAST VAST majority of such cases, you were simply unable to investigate. And always will be. This is certainly no reason to simply believe outlandish stories, I dont disagree with you there, but certainty of falsehood is an entirely different animal from uncommited nonbelief.

"A question to you, do you believe in the supernatural?"

I will quote INXS. "You cant go against nature, because if you do, going against nature is part of nature too." No, I think "supernatural" is a silly word really. It appears to refer to something in objective reality but it only makes sense if you apply it subjectively instead. Each seemingly arbitrary or random phenomena of nature, in the human mind, was once "supernatural" and then at some point we formed a workable mental model that allowed us to predict it and/or manipulate it with some success. And suddenly it became natural. So, no, I dont believe in any "supernatural" powers. I do believe there are plenty of facts about the universe we do not yet fully understand however. It wouldnt be surprising at all if there are things left for us to discover that would seem 'supernatural' until we understand them. Oh, and water dousing? Do a little meta research on it sometime. The results of prior research is a bit murky. It isnt an easily repeatable always works thing, no, that's true - but there is also clearly individual variation and certain practitioners, for whatever reason, seem to consistently score much better than random chance could explain. Why? I very much doubt it has anything to do with demons or angels (though it is possible the internal representations of such beings might be involved when an individual practitioner is at work) but the first step to finding out why, for someone like Randi, is just acknowledging the possibility he might be wrong.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[quantaman]

You said "Supernaturalists have faith in something that can never be reliably reproduced and can always be explained through materialist mechanisms."

Yet you claim you were not talking about things that havent occurred yet. But logically, given your statement above, would it not be fair to say that any purportedly supernatural occurence in which Spiritualists would place faith that occurred, let us say, tomorrow, would still be covered as something that can NEVER be reproduced and ALWAYS explained materially?

If so, then you are indeed making claims about things that have yet to happen, long before any evidence could be brought to bear. If not I must say your statement becomes unintelligible.

My statement meant that for everything we've ever observed everything that could be studied was explainable through naturalistic mechanisms, the tense would have been cleaner if I said "could always be explained". As for "any purportedly supernatural occurence in which Spiritualists would place faith that occurred" it can be explained materially since people are easily deluded.

"Either we were able to properly investigate and it turned out to be materialist, or we weren't able to properly investigate."

But the VAST VAST majority of such cases, you were simply unable to investigate. And always will be. This is certainly no reason to simply believe outlandish stories, I dont disagree with you there, but certainty of falsehood is an entirely different animal from uncommited nonbelief.

The problem is we have mechanisms to explain all of those mechanisms, pareidolia, sleep paralysis, brain phenomena in near death experiences, and once in a while hallucinations and even lies. Yeah it sounds like a convenient way to explain away anecdotes but we've shown it's VERY easy to reproduce those spiritual experiences in the lab. As for physical miracles, any that persist long enough to investigate always have a naturalistic explanation.

"A question to you, do you believe in the supernatural?"

I will quote INXS. "You cant go against nature, because if you do, going against nature is part of nature too." No, I think "supernatural" is a silly word really. It appears to refer to something in objective reality but it only makes sense if you apply it subjectively instead. Each seemingly arbitrary or random phenomena of nature, in the human mind, was once "supernatural" and then at some point we formed a workable mental model that allowed us to predict it and/or manipulate it with some success. And suddenly it became natural. So, no, I dont believe in any "supernatural" powers. I do believe there are plenty of facts about the universe we do not yet fully understand however. It wouldnt be surprising at all if there are things left for us to discover that would seem 'supernatural' until we understand them. Oh, and water dousing? Do a little meta research on it sometime. The results of prior research is a bit murky. It isnt an easily repeatable always works thing, no, that's true - but there is also clearly individual variation and certain practitioners, for whatever reason, seem to consistently score much better than random chance could explain. Why? I very much doubt it has anything to do with demons or angels (though it is possible the internal representations of such beings might be involved when an individual practitioner is at work) but the first step to finding out why, for someone like Randi, is just acknowledging the possibility he might be wrong.

Can you name a single aspect of science in the last few hundred years that was once considered supernatural?

As for water dousing, did you watch the Randi documentary someone posted? I know dowsing is BS, yet at 3:50 you see a guy pick out a chunk of metal buried in some grass. When I first saw that my mind said 'WHOA?!? How did he do that?!?", if I didn't rewatch and see the upturned dirt (it was

Re:An Element of the Divine

[AK Marc]

"Guess" is not a technical term. "Theory" is. "Theory" has a definintion in science that's orthoginal to common usage. Same as "broadband". 128k DSL is "broadband" in technical definition, and 1 Gbps is not. No amount of correction can correct that now, but that doesn't change the engineering definition of "broadband".

At best, you are arguing against "guess" because ou are offended at then number of people that associate "guess" with "theory". That makes you wrong, because I'm not making that mistake. At worst, you are making up shit so you can argue with strangers on the Internet, and have an irrational fear of "being wrong" (which you are, but won't admit) that requires you lie to yourself, which makes you look stupid.

"Guess" is orthoginal to "educated guess". "Educated guess" is hypothesis. If you don't agree, don't argue with me, argue with the 1 billion English speakers who disagree with you. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=hypothesis+educated+guess&l=1

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Arker]

You can change the tense all you want, you are still making a broad, blanket judgement with an unbounded scope covering innumerable events and phenomena you have absolutely no direct knowledge of and telling me you KNOW, a priori, that they are ALL bull. You can dress that up and dance around with it all you want, it's still a statement of faith and cannot be anything else.

And the more of your post I try to reply to the more I see it is all just the same. Your questions make no sense, your premises are held by faith and will not be examined, so I fear the conversation dead ends. "Like all supernatural things the results are only murky when you do a crappy experiment, when you have a well designed experiment they always fail." Here we go, your faith in a nutshell. There is no need for you to actually do any research or even just survey research that other people have done to date, you know what you will find without reading a single boring page. Experiments with the right results are well done, those with results that might cast doubt on your faith were obviously poorly designed or executed, and all this is known before the experiments are even done!

Ironically if you eleminted the words 'all' and 'always' from your statement I would probably be unable to disagree with it. But without those words you dont have a faith anymore.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[narcc]

"Guess" is not a technical term.

Good job. I knew you'd figure it out! The technical term in question is hypothesis. There's a very good reason that in science we don't use the word "guess" in its place!

"Guess" is orthoginal to "educated guess". "Educated guess" is hypothesis.

Damn, so close. Well, I guess there's no helping some people.

Most laypersons, particularly those that fancy themselves scientifically literate would accept that they're mistaken and learn from it, knowing that they're very likely out of their depth. You seem to refuse to accept the obvious and have made some impressive mental contortions to avoid admitting that you made a simple mistake born out of ignorance.

You're acting exactly like one of those autodidacts who think that they have no need for a formal education and fancy themselves experts in any subject they've taken an afternoon to read a popular book about!

If you don't agree, don't argue with me

I had no intention of arguing with you, just in correcting your ridiculous mistake least other scientifically illiterate defenders of science repeat it! If you think this is an argument, I've wasted my time. I cannot help you overcome your ignorance if it is willful.

As you're unwilling the learn, would you at the very least stop spreading nonsense? That's all I ask.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[quantaman]

You can change the tense all you want, you are still making a broad, blanket judgement with an unbounded scope covering innumerable events and phenomena you have absolutely no direct knowledge of and telling me you KNOW, a priori, that they are ALL bull. You can dress that up and dance around with it all you want, it's still a statement of faith and cannot be anything else.

And the more of your post I try to reply to the more I see it is all just the same. Your questions make no sense, your premises are held by faith and will not be examined, so I fear the conversation dead ends. "Like all supernatural things the results are only murky when you do a crappy experiment, when you have a well designed experiment they always fail." Here we go, your faith in a nutshell.

No I'm describing my experience, my views are educated by evidence, the opposite of faith.

There is no need for you to actually do any research or even just survey research that other people have done to date, you know what you will find without reading a single boring page. Experiments with the right results are well done, those with results that might cast doubt on your faith were obviously poorly designed or executed, and all this is known before the experiments are even done!

Ironically if you eleminted the words 'all' and 'always' from your statement I would probably be unable to disagree with it. But without those words you dont have a faith anymore.

I'm sorry but when the study is done well they do always fail (although good studies sometimes get marginally statistically significant results as would be expected). You seem to think I've declared the supernatural doesn't exist and therefore anything that supports it is flawed. In reality in the past I very much wanted the supernatural to exist, but every supernatural incident... well you have to trust this person saw what they did, because there wasn't any other evidence, and every positive study, when you look at it the design is just broken or doesn't show what proponents say it does.

I'm sure you've heard of psychics helping police solve crimes? Did you know that in even their best examples they can't claim the psychic actually helped solve the crime, because they never have. And the predictions are never as specific or accurate as gets reported (or if they were it's someone remembering the prediction, it's never written down or recorded). There is a very definite pattern with any supernatural phenomena, those viewed at a distance are spectacular and amazing, those viewed more closely are murky, and those investigated vanish entirely. You can see that in the Randi dowsing episode I linked. The dowsers at first look amazing, able to detect anything with ease, but when subjected to a controlled experiment their powers vanish entirely. I don't argue that I can't be wrong, if I relied on 100% certainty when I used the words 'all' or 'always' I'd never speak them, but the level of doubt I have is educated by the experience and research I've done, and that makes me very comfortable asserting the supernatural doesn't exist.

You assert that I'm operating on faith, in that case you should be able to supply at least one non-crappy experiment that show a supernatural phenomena and isn't just a marginal statistical result.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[AK Marc]

Good job. I knew you'd figure it out!

I knew it before we started. That you are too stupid to listen doesn't change the facts.

Damn, so close. Well, I guess there's no helping some people.

I included a cite for that. Go argue with Wikipedia and edit the page. Go edit the other millions of repsonses that state that as well. You are shooting the messenger because you don't like the message. I get it. You don't.

As you're unwilling the learn, would you at the very least stop spreading nonsense? That's all I ask.

Take your own advice. That's all I ask.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[narcc]

One last try, then I think I'm done.

Can you think of an hypothesis that is not a guess, educated or otherwise?

If you're having trouble, read the fun article I linked to earlier.

Now, you see? The two are in no way synonymous!

If you can't help shouting scientifically illiterate nonsense, could you at least stop defending it?

Re:An Element of the Divine

[AK Marc]

THe statement in the first post you objected to was " a hypothesis is [...] a pre-judgement" Your assertion that it is "more than a guess" agrees with the statement you initially disagreed with. In fact, reading back to see the "fun" article from before, i realized your stance swapped.

If you can't help shouting scientifically illiterate nonsense, could you at least stop defending it?

I'm using English correctly. You are not.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[narcc]

In fact, reading back to see the "fun" article from before, i realized your stance swapped.

Nope, it's still identical. Why try todivert the topic? You made a mistake. Get over it.

Like I said before, leave science to those of us with credentials. You scientifically illiterate cheerleaders are worse than creationists.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[AK Marc]

Like I said before, leave science to those of us with credentials. You scientifically illiterate cheerleaders are worse than creationists.

What are your credentials? You've taken a high school biology class once, and now are correcting everyone about the word "guess" incorrectly all over the Internet. Let me know your credentials in linguistics as well, because your only complaint was with my use of the word "guess", when you seem to agree with my initial stance of " a hypothesis is a pre-judgement", though you deny it now.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[narcc]

correcting everyone about the word "guess" incorrectly

No, the term "hypothesis". Try to pay attention.

I've no more time you. Let me when you finish grad school. You autodidacts are insufferable.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Visserau]

I realised I mis-stated but didn't get around to reposting.

Philisphical answers by themselves gain me little with just me sitting in a corner knowing them. However if the entire world KNOWS the answers to all philisophical questions and the most fundamental mechanisms of reality, acheving things like world peace become not only possible, but automatic. I don't mean forcing beliefs on anyone. I mean having everyone recognise how all the individual beliefs that exist are all reflections of one core truth. That core truth can be known beyond all doubt to be true when a) a large portion of the world population can experience it for themselves on a regular basis and b) those who don't experience, accept it because every second (or whatever ratio) person they know can explain in length and detail, in their own way, how and why it is true, from their own experience. This is clearly a very tangible and practical benefit, even though it proceeds from entirely intangible concepts.

On a different note, just because the answers aren't EXTERNALLY verifiable doesn't mean they aren't verfiable to me, or that they are false. Stated simply, I get to manipulate elements of my own reality in the manner I see fit. I don't necessarily get to control others or my interactions with them - that is much higher (harder) and ethically questionable level - but I can nudge things in favour of myself and everyone around me. Each individual is always using these mechanics at all times, but lack of awareness causes us to shoot ourselves in the foot constantly. Being aware of them simply means you can consciouslessly choose to act in more beneficial ways and not trip ourselves up quite as often. Nobody is perfect and mistakes will still be made, but progress is made. It is a life long learning process. Again, very tangible benefits from entirely intangible processes (thoughts) that can never be externally proven to be linked. (Any skeptic would understandably deride the mechanisms I'm describing as confirmational bias and a wide range of other pshchological mechanisms. If only they knew how close they were to the truth...)

I think I've worked out how to say a key point I've been wanting to make the whole time. It is still imperfect and needs work but is worth saying, so here:

The reason why none of this can ever be proved, is because what skeptics take conclusive proof of falsehood, is actually the truth they are denying at work. They are completely justified in reaching the conclusions they do: because they have reached to correct conclusions according to the viewpoint to which they subscribe. Unfortunately that viewpoint (whilst being far from worthless) does not account for everything. While someone continues treat external proof as the only standard to be considered, they will forever lock themselves away from the truth, even though it is in the name of truth they do the locking!

At some point a leap of faith must be taken - not even a very big one. Nothing is lost by doing so, but much is gained (understatement of the century). You'll still be just as skeptical and rational on the other side. The process of investigation and experimentation still completely applies. The context is just changed slightly. You won't suddenly start blindly beleving everything someone says near you. You'll just have a MUCH richer world of possibilities in which to be conducting your invesitgations. (There is also a high probability that you'll spent large amounts of time trying not to laugh as you debate with people who don't get it.)

Re:An Element of the Divine

[AK Marc]

I have finished grad school and do have a masters degree. Yes, I note you ignore my request for your credentials and (indirectly) request my own.

And you've never corrected my definition of "hypothesis" other than objecting to my use of the word "guess". You have failed to explain how "a hypothesis is a pre-judgement" is incorrect, and in fact, have supported that idea. Someone else said "A Scientist does not pre-judge the outcome" and I indicated that a hypothesis contains an element of pre-judgement. That's what I said that you disagreed with initially. Or are you just ignoring it now, supporting my hypothesis that you changed your argument because you are so focused on proving everyone else wrong that you aren't intellectually consistent.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[next_ghost]

The reason why none of this can ever be proved, is because what skeptics take conclusive proof of falsehood, is actually the truth they are denying at work. They are completely justified in reaching the conclusions they do: because they have reached to correct conclusions according to the viewpoint to which they subscribe. Unfortunately that viewpoint (whilst being far from worthless) does not account for everything. While someone continues treat external proof as the only standard to be considered, they will forever lock themselves away from the truth, even though it is in the name of truth they do the locking!

At some point a leap of faith must be taken - not even a very big one. Nothing is lost by doing so, but much is gained (understatement of the century). You'll still be just as skeptical and rational on the other side. The process of investigation and experimentation still completely applies. The context is just changed slightly. You won't suddenly start blindly beleving everything someone says near you. You'll just have a MUCH richer world of possibilities in which to be conducting your invesitgations. (There is also a high probability that you'll spent large amounts of time trying not to laugh as you debate with people who don't get it.)

You're missing one huge problem here: Other people can get different supernatural experiences using slightly different methods than you and arrive at conclusions which contradict yours. How do I as an impartial observer decide which one of you is correct and who should I choose as my teacher?

Making ANY leap of faith leaves way too much space for complete bullshit (even though it's nice and coherent bullshit). Requiring independently verifiable proof leaves none. That's the point.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Visserau]

I addressed this earlier. The conclusions often seem different, but really aren't (though it must be admitted that not realising this is an incredibly common problem that leads to a lot of division within even individual spiritual/regligous communities, much less the wider whole.) For example, a major division is as to whether "there is no self" (could be stated as "the self is an illusion") or "we are all one true higher self" (which could be named "god", which would spark a whole other debate). On the surface these seem to be completely opposed. They are actually simply dualistic polar opposites of the same core absolute truth. They are imperfect representations filtered down through the concepts, language, and world view of different individuals. They are all equally valid.

Taking this a little further, it's not hard to see how two different experiences of the same root "thing" can be percieved very differently by different individuals, or even the same individual in different circumstances.

As to who you (or anyone else) should listen to? I'd argue you should listen to the person whose views take ALL views into consideration and reveals their correctness, despite apparent contradiction. You should listen to the person who doesn't tell you exactly what to believe, or who you should learn it from, but who is merely trying to get you to look deeper. Someone who is not trying to get you to blindly believe them, but perform your own investigation. I'm not trying to preach another religion here - I'm trying to explain a meta-truth behind ALL religions, spiritual systems, science, philosphy, etc.

People ask me what teacher did I learn all this from? I don't have one. (I do need to get one through, so I can actually meditate consistantly which would greatly accelerate what I'm trying to do.) But you can pick any teacher of any system you like. In general I'd advise finding a buddhist meditation teacher who is well regarded by their students, who gels with you. This involves some searching. You must keep in mind that the system of buddhism is only a vehicle, a framework, to learn the necessary skills to begin to observe higher truths for yourself.

So far here I've only advocated buddhism, mostly because I don't know the other methods in enough detail to explain the path and how it works. I also think it is particually suitable for the purposes of performing genuine investigation. But you can take ANY system and you'll reach the end goal, so long as you are open minded and avoid the dogma. Some systems are much more suited than others to doing this. Note that trying to analyse a system before fully understanding it can lead to misunderstandings, so at times it can be necessary to go with the flow for a while and sort it out later. This is not blind faith, it is merely a willingness to co-operate for a while to see what comes out of it. It is performing an experiment with yourself, rather than sitting back and demanding proof.

I realised after I posted that I shouldn't have said leap of faith, as you took it exactly how I thought you would :) By leap of faith I meant willingness to consider other possibilities, and to spend some time investigating. Repeating what I just wrote, "This is not blind faith, it is merely a willingness to co-operate for a while to see what comes out of it. It is performing an experiment with yourself, rather than sitting back and demanding proof.". Anyone doing this in a rational manner will acknowledge that non-physical truths have complications, a primary one being the way one thing can manifest differently in individuals as mentioned above. This merely raises the bar for the depth of analysis involved. Since everyone involved in such investigations knows (or should know) this, it is not a fatal road-block, just a factor that is accounted for in due course.

Something I should have added to my previous post (adding before I forget it): another benefit this knowledge can bring about is when it reaches the hands of scientists. Armed with much mor

Re:An Element of the Divine

[next_ghost]

I guess I didn't write my point clearly enough the last time so I'll try again:

There are 30 people in the room. All of them claim divine enlightenment. 10 of them are truly enlightened. 10 of them had bogus hallucinations which seem like enlightenment to them. The rest are frauds. How do I separate the truly enlightened people from the other two groups with higher success rate than rolling dice to decide?

As a skeptic, I don't deny the possibility of something that cannot be conclusively disproven. But on the other hand I refuse to waste time investigating something like that until someone puts something tangible on the table to back up their incredible claims. For example answering the above question and explaining why the answer works. More specificaly, why the frauds who know the answer can't use it to appear more enlightened than they really are.

Re:An Element of the Divine

[Visserau]

One key question would be to ask them to describe the experiences they had which they believe mean they're enlightened. Anyone who tries to describe the content of their experiencein any way whatsoever, is not the real thing. Any experience with an actual description, quite likly could be valid steps along the path, but are certainly not the end. (The reason for this question is complex, but it boils down to the fact that the actual event of enlightenment is not experienced in any way, shape or form. Any description of it can only be made in terms of the approach to it, and the exit from it. These do have distinct patterns that can be recognised by someone familiar with them and are the closest things available to diagnostic criteria.)

This question will only help sort out the real deal from the honestly deluded. It will only help screen out malicious frauds to the extect of whether or not they know the correct answer. Most won't, but there are now books available that go into explicit detail, so the possibility can't be ruled out. I should note that I don't claim to be enlightened, I merely claim to have passed one of the early, but key milestones, which is generally recognised as the threshold for which you can talk about this stuff without screwing it up too much.

The only real answer to your question I can think of would be have a fully abled psychic read everyone. I've discussed before why that's theoretically possibly but not especially likely. (Side note: how would you measure the results of such a test? Given you currently don't really have a definition of what enlightenment is and what it means/represents, how you would find your test subjects and how would you group them? How would you verify my results? I can only see this test working if the person in charge of the test is also fully enlightenend and a psychic... in which case they wouldn't need to be running it, and would be unable to prove anything to the skeptics without such abilities.)

Two possible experiements I can think of would lend some credability, but really don't represent definitive proof of a whole lot.

1) Emotions affecting growth, e.g. the experiement where cooked rice is left to go off with emotions stuck on a label on the side of the container. The quantity, colour (and maybe toxicity?) of mould that grows on the rice is determined by the emotion (e.g. love or hate) on the label. It would be simple to execute this in highly controlled conditions where everything is identical except the label, which is outside the sealed container and according to standard beliefs, cannot affect the contents. The hypothesis is that emotions have an energetic resonance which affects the mould/bacteria. One difficulty would be rating the resulting growths. I suppose you could show the cultures to a large amount of test subjects and collect data to show that a statistically significant portion of subjects rated the hate mould subjectively much worse than the love mould. This has been done before on a limited scale, yet we're still here having this discussion. It doesn't prove enough (despite having no explanation to account for it) therefore it is ignored.

2) Similar to the above, freezing water labeled with emotions. This experiment is more well know, not sure if anyone has attempted to replicate. Same problems apply: subjective evaluation of the results. Again there is a definite statistical correlation, but not no attention is paid.

3a) Self selected volunteers who identify as sensitive to crystal energies bring a set of their own crystals. The volunteer is blindfolded and asked to identify the crystals via energeric feel only. (This represents a very simple form of psychic interaction. Touch is not allowed as I can identify a scary number of crystals purely by surface texture.) A robot arm (or something) is used to hold the crystals very near, but not touching. Each is held at a series of points, including over the palms of both hands and chakra points. The subject identifies which crystal is being held near them. The

Discrimination!

[TechyImmigrant]

I am discriminated against. I do not have paranormal abilities.

Re:Discrimination!

[Spectre]

I think you are discriminated against in this case (and in politics as well) because you are honest.

Richard Feynman

[damacus]

Interviewer didn't know who Richard Feynman was? Missing out on that one.... please renew your geek card.

Re:Richard Feynman

[Quirkz]

Shame. I highly recommend his book, "Surely You're Joking, Mister Feynman." It's interesting and funny, great tales of crazy ideas and safecracking adventures, and good science, too. It convinced me to major in physics, I liked it so much.

Re:Richard Feynman

[eclectro]

please renew your geek card.

Actually more like burn it. Any consistent reader of reader of Slashdot would know about Feynman at this point. Really, nerd cred goes to zero on that one.

Re:Richard Feynman

[tehcyder]

please renew your geek card.

Actually more like burn it. Any consistent reader of reader of Slashdot would know about Feynman at this point. Really, nerd cred goes to zero on that one.

Agreed, it's pretty much like a music journalist not having heard of The Beatles.

Startgate Project

[Sabathius]

They should talk to Joe McMoneagle, the remote viewer who worked for the US government's psychic spying program. I believe it was he who revealed the Soviet's new Typhoon-class submarine (hello Red October!) before anyone else knew it existed. I think Joe would take his money.

Re:Startgate Project

[niado]

From Wikipedia: "According to McMoneagle, humans came from creatures somewhat like sea otters rather than primates and were created in a laboratory by creators who "seeded" the earth and then departed."

Sounds like a ringer to me.

Re:Startgate Project

[TWiTfan]

I think Joe has spent way too much time staring at goats.

Re:Startgate Project

[mark-t]

"created in a lab and seeded onto earth" has a lot more merit than either evolution or creationism.

More merit than evolution????

Uhmmm, you realize that's basically just Intelligent Design, don't you?

Re:Startgate Project

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah...he's super reliable. After all, he said he made accurate predictions so it must be true that he did. Why would we need independant confirmation when he said he did it. Good enough for me.

Here are some of his recent predictions from the Wiki article about him...

"McMoneagle's future predictions include the passing of a teenager's "Right to Work" Bill,[16] a new religion without the emphasis of Christianity, a science of the soul,[17] a vaccine for AIDS,[18] a movement to eliminate television,[17] and a 'temporary tattoo' craze that would replace the wearing of clothing.,[19] all of which were supposedly to take place between 2002 and 2006."

100% accuracy!!! Oh wait...i that "1" at the beginning of the number was a typo.

Psychics don't exist, water witching is garbage, magic isn't real. Accept the world as it exists, in reality, have and get on with life.

Re:Startgate Project

[tempest69]

And how did we make spider goats without psychics? I mean the cover story of genetic work is a good one, but clearly impossible.

Re:Startgate Project

[operagost]

I don't have a dog in this fight, but tell me: how do his wacky biological beliefs have anything to do with his alleged psychic abilities?

Re:Startgate Project

[niado]

Evolution? An entropic universe just magically tends towards order by random chance? Flowering plants evolved from non-flowering plants? Why would a plant that can reproduce just fine evolve advanced sex organs? That provided no benefit rather than consume energy for all those years they evolved? There's not just one "missing link," there are hundreds.

Entropy isn't the magic bullet that you think it is. The universe has many instances of things becoming other things, whether through natural phenomena or the intervention of various actors. Entropy only holds while there is no stronger force at work. We don't fully understand how life originated or progressed, but it certainly did somehow. Evolution isn't "random", it occurs through various selection pressures. There are actually more like millions of "missing links", though the concept of a "missing link" in regards to evolutionary theory is somewhat flawed.

The fact you would dismiss an alternative to evolutionary theory, the fact you would accept evolutionary theory as universal fact, is why many people consider scientists to be generally as dogmatic in their beliefs as any religion. Science isn't a religion, but it's a stretch to think most modern day scientists are actually practicing science.

By "many people" I assume you mean "many people who don't understand science". While many scientists are certainly dogmatic, this does not make them wrong.

And there is absolutely no evidence that humans were developed in a lab from otters (or any other creatures) and there is no evidence of the intervention of a "seeder" society on our origination on earth, while there is a great deal of evidence to the contrary. I enjoy the Known Space books as much as the next guy, but really, Mr. McMoneagle could hardly have come up with a more ridiculous claim.

Re:Startgate Project

[SleazyRidr]

"created in a lab and seeded onto earth" has absolutely no evidence to back it up. Ignoring the fact that you don't understand the second law of thermodynamics, flowering plants have the advantage of promoting genetic diversity, which has allowed them to evolve faster and be more adaptable to the conditions in which they're trying to live.

Re:Startgate Project

[niado]

He claims that he saw these things actually happen via remote viewing.

Re:Startgate Project

[JBMcB]

"created in a lab and seeded onto earth" has a lot more merit than either evolution or creationism

Then who made the beings that made the life on earth? Then who made the beings that made the beings... ad nausem...

Re:Startgate Project

[tehcyder]

He claims that he saw these things actually happen via remote viewing.

The more I hear about this guy, the more I like the sound of him. If you're going to believe in crazy stuff, you might as well go large.

Although I was a little bit disappointed to find that the "Stargate" project he was involved in didn't actually involve creating a wormhole (or something) and travelling through spacetime, as in the TV documentary series of the same name.

Re:Startgate Project

[Maritz]

Wow, you've really seen behind the curtain there. Evolution destroyed in a single paragraph. Amazing. Are you Joe McMonagle? I bet you know who I am...!

Re:Startgate Project

[niado]

He claims that he saw these things actually happen via remote viewing.

The more I hear about this guy, the more I like the sound of him. If you're going to believe in crazy stuff, you might as well go large.

Although I was a little bit disappointed to find that the "Stargate" project he was involved in didn't actually involve creating a wormhole (or something) and travelling through spacetime, as in the TV documentary series of the same name.

+1

Re:How did Chan Canasta fool James Randi?

[niado]

He was 14 at the time. It was probably a relatively simple trick.

Long running bet

[belthize]

I met James Randi when he came to my high school in '83 as guest lecturer in our physics course, then met him again as an undergrad in '87 in a paranormal physics course (basically describing the physics, quantum or otherwise, required for certain paranormal activities to be possible).

Both were fascinating visits, in the first he performed a psychic surgery demonstration. Even standing beside him, knowing it was fake, it sure looked real.

The bet was 20+ years old then. The only thing that's changed in 50 years is the value of the bet. Still no takers.

He's a man that will be sorely missed in the much too soon future.

Re:Long running bet

[Visserau]

I would be interested in knowing what his demonstration of phychic surgery was? Showing a fake xray and then the real one or something?

Re:Long running bet

[belthize]

Here's a video of him debunking it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxMGxz6-oTs

I stood about 5 feet from him while he performed it. It's just a slight of hand trick but it's a very good one. I can see how the easily fooled completely believe it's real.

Re:Long running bet

[Visserau]

Thanks, I was having a hard time picturing what was involved. Interesting.

Re:true psychics laugh at $1M

[Beardo the Bearded]

I'd just win the lotto once and invest in real estate.

They found what? Again? Well I'll be damned. So many monies. What will I do with them all?

Re:Why reveal yourself to have paranormal abilitie

[LateArthurDent]

If you have paranormal abilities, you can probably get the $1 million without revealing it to the world. If you reveal it to the world though, "they" will be coming after you.

The point of the prize is to ensure that the people who claim they are revealing themselves to the public as having paranormal abilities can prove their claim. If the supernatural exists, and you have abilities which you keep secret, Randi doesn't care about you. He cares about the frauds taking money from the gullible by pretending to be capable of healing them, or talking to their dead loved ones, or whatever else.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, that's what this is all about.

Pro tip

[Al Al Cool J]

When a professional magician offers you a chance to win $1 million, you have absolutely no chance to win $1 million.

Re:Pro tip

[Al Al Cool J]

I don't. The point is that a professional magician is specifically trained in deception and trickery. When a magician offers you a chance to win some of their money, it is safe to assume that the game is hopelessly rigged in their favour. That is what magicians do.

Re:Pro tip

[j-beda]

I don't. The point is that a professional magician is specifically trained in deception and trickery. When a magician offers you a chance to win some of their money, it is safe to assume that the game is hopelessly rigged in their favour. That is what magicians do.

I don't disagree, but in this case the question is whether it is Randi rigging things in his favour or the universe (or dare I say "God" :-) rigging things? Does Randi run around messing up all the tests of the true dowsers who try to win the challenge (even those tests conducted by other people on the other side of the world?) or is it the universe that messes things up by the simple physical mechanism of dowsing not actually working to find things?

Personally I figure the reason nobody has manage to claim the money is that nobody being tested actually has the ability that they claim to have had rather than Randi managing to rig the tests so that actual effects are being hidden.

Re:Pro tip

[Maritz]

If you have a genuine ability that cannot be explained through current understanding of science, it's easy to win. Just demonstrate it. Trivial to do - provided the ability is real. That is the tricky part though, isn't it?

Re:Pro tip

[Al Al Cool J]

Let's say I have the genuine ability to tell if the number of grains in an unoponed sugar packet is even or odd, 60% of the time. How is it trivial for me to demonstrate this ability? I wager that wouldn't even get past Randi's application process as it would be deemed unfeasable to test. I've read their case files, that is how the process works - if they don't think their amateur investigators with limited resources and budget can test your ability, then you get rejected right off the bat.

Discovering new science is hard. Most of the stuff that is trivial to demonstrate was discovered long ago. That's why we build thing like multi-billion dollar supercolliders, because Higgs Bosons just don't fall into our laps. It takes effort to detect them. It's why we have scientists.

If 99.99% of people with claims of the paranormal are frauds or deluded, then you need very careful and propper procedure to identify the 0.01%. Any moron can claim to debunk psychics, and they'd be right almost all the time, even if their methods are hopelessly flawed. A brick with the words "debunked" painted on it could do the job and be right 99.99% of the time. But it would never find the 0.01%.

Kudos to Randi. He's parlayed his little dog and pony show into a nice little livelihood, making money off the arrogance of skeptics through appearance fees and books. You'd think skeptics might be more skeptical of a man who spent decades perfecting the art of deception and manipulation, but apparently not.

thanks for the raconteur link

[cathector]

thanks to the article author for conveniently providing a link to a definition of 'raconteur'.
that was super helpful.
ditto the link to the wikipedia page for Canasta.
both links are totally cogent and i never would have found that info myself.

Re:true psychics laugh at $1M

[JBMcB]

Psychic ability diminishes when used for greedy purposes. Everyone knows this.

Of course, you could just give the award money to charity, but then you'd just be greedy for being so charitable.

Or something.

Anyways it doesn't work when you're being tested.

Re:But in principle...

[Joce640k]

The fact that they have not awarded anything yet only suggests that either they have avery small number of challengers or a very strict statistical significance level or both. However, at the fixed level if they continue testing indefinitely the probability of "success" will approach one.

If the success of the test is down to statistics/probability, it's done twice.

You could get lucky both times, sure, but...

Re:Believers and disbelievers are all in the same

[DrXym]

Believers and disbelievers are all in the same boat.

False equivalence I'm afraid. Randi was advising scientists to devise tests which preclude the possibility of cheating so the results reflected what the test was intended to measure.

Put another way, I suggest you read the Cargo Cult Science essay by Richard Feynman. In it he refers to an experimenter attempting to test learning in rats and ending up with useless results because the rats could achieve the results with smell, light, vibration etc. Only when he eliminated ways that rats could "cheat" his test was he sure the results reflected what he was attempting to measure in the first place.

Replace rats with paranormal subjects and the same principle applies.

Useless definition

[Internetuser1248]

Why are you so sure you weren't fooled or simply mistaken? That's far far more likely than magic actually existing. But if it were genuine magic, the consequences are so enormous that relegating it to a mere anecdote is almost criminal. If it's something you merely can't explain, making the leap to "magic" is no better than invoking a god to explain it.

This argument shows the exact complaint I have about skepticism and Randi in particular. What is magic if not simply something that we can't currently explain? You and most other skeptics define magic in such a way that it logically cannot exist. Clearly anyone using the word to refer to something they experienced isn't using that definition. If we are not using a uniform definition for magic we are not even having a scientific debate, merely a word fight. Let me go into more detail about the nuances of the two definitions. In each of these examples the skeptics are using the definition that is included in most dictionaries, which is understandable. But I am disagreeing with the dictionaries on the basis of logical inconsistency. The skeptics definition of magic is generally one that simply substitutes the word magic for the word supernatural. Supernatural is in turn defined as that which is outside nature or cannot be explained by natural laws. Nature and natural laws are defined as the matter and energy of the universe, and the way in which they interact in reality, ie. all that exists and is possible. So magic is therefore defined as that which does not exist and is not possible. This is fine if you want a word for that but I don't encounter things that don't exist and aren't possible in my daily life so I don't see a pressing need for a word so defined. If someone is talking about something they experienced in the real world and refer to it as magic, clearly they aren't using this definition, as it would be a logical contradiction and they would be saying something happened which didn't and can't happen. The real definition, ie. what people mean when they say magic, is that which is outside our current understanding of the natural laws. This is something that all scientists believe in, otherwise they wouldn't bother doing science. This is a definition of the word that actually has a use and isn't a complete waste of breath, and also that which is meant by the majority of people that use it. If it is something you merely can't explain, then it is magic. Even if it were found that something resembling Tolkein fantasy magic exists, and wizards were throwing fireballs at trolls, scientists would still be able and willing to test it, and develop theories as to how it works. Eventually a fuller understanding of the phenomena would be reached. It would therefore not be outside the laws of nature, and not supernatural. I would still prefer to call it magic however.

The basic problem is the false equivalence of 'all that we understand' and 'all that is'. The former is an infinitesimal subset of the latter, and many skeptics forget or ignore that.

Re:Useless definition

[Visserau]

Very valid points, something I didn't really address properly in my post.

I tend to define magic as "manipulating objects or events with the mind", obviously with the objects/events in question being ones that normally could not be changed, or would require physical intervention. I find our definitions to be quite compatible: i.e. the manipulation I describe is part of the laws of nature not yet addressed by mainstream science.

I look forward to a time when such things CAN be studied as science.

Re:Useless definition

[Paradise Pete]

What is magic if not simply something that we can't currently explain?

You're playing word games with yourself. Magic *is* your explanation, not the thing being explained. There is a distinct difference. You are fooling yourself.

Re:But in principle...

[Visserau]

They do two rounds of tests. In the preliminary test round, conditions are relaxed (including statistical thresholds) before the main challange. Nobody has reached the main challange (IIRC).

Re:An insult to skeptics.

[Maritz]

I see no criticism in your post of the testing process. The test is fair, and the claimants agree to the protocol beforehand. Your opinions on Randi being cynical are irrelevant.

People are given the chance to demonstrate their claim under controlled conditions. So far none of them have. You don't need to prove the opposite, it's the null hypothesis.