Until a phenomenon is explained, it is de-facto "paranormal", is it not?
No, it is defacto "unexplained." It took awhile to figure out how bees can fly. This didn't make the flying of bees paranormal, the phenomenon is quite ordinary, we just couldn't explain it.
The claim that physics "says" that bees can't fly before we figured out how was something said by either jokers or ignoramuses, no matter how many letters the ignoramuses had after their names.
If it happens, it happens. Theory is tested against observable phenomena, not the other way around. Theories do not "say" anything. They are merely models. They represent real, measurable phenomena to the best of our knowledge.
Newton himself published examples of how his knowledge of gravitational motion was incomplete. This did not make the motion of Mercury paranormal. Its motion was and is quite normal. Newton was simply ignorant of electromagnetic radiation. Which did not make light paranormal.
Well, my main point was that it wasn't a source at all, since I can't refer to it.
If what you are driving at is simply the question "but what about negative results?" then yes, statistical methods don't care about whether an effect is positive or negative. Either one can be equally significant.
In fact negative results can be very important. In epidemiology they indicate a protective effect. People who do more of this get less of that.
KFG
Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?
on
Re-Inventing Hotwheels
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Just as long as they remember that you don't always need technology to excite the imagination. ..
Like a corn husk doll and a chunk of wood. There's a kid in my neighborhood who always has some sort of stick in his hand when he walks by my house. The interesting thing is that it's always a different stick, but it's always a stick that in some way impresses me as being, well, cool.
I mean this kid doesn't just pick up any old stick and start waving it around. He's got himself a serious eye for just the right kind of stick. I actually find myself watching for him to see today's stick.
What was that thing where someone was being tested for telepathy. ..
I don't know. What was "that thing"?
Who was the "kook" (and why on earth would competent testers dismiss him as such?) Who did the testing? What was the methodology? Did Randi or some other experienced illusionist have a look at it?
And . . . was he ever retested?
Let's try this again:
If you give me a coin and I flip it four times today and it comes up four heads; and I flip it four times tomorrow and it comes up four tails; and flip it four times the day after tomorrow and it comes up two heads and two tails; this does not support the idea that on day one I telekinetically influenced the coin one way, on day two I telekinetically influenced the coin the other way, but on day three I was too "tired" to have a telekinetic influence.
No, I'm afraid it supports the conclusion that the coin is fair, since I flipped it a total of 12 times and got 6 heads and 6 tails.
Bring this guy to me and let me redo "that thing" and we'll see how "things" add up.
You wouldn't catch me saying any such thing as "telepathy can't exist."
However, you first need to demonstrate that it does exist if you expect me to do work on that basis. If and when that happens I will not posit any "paranormal" event, but rather that there is a quite normal mechanism at work. Then it will be my job to find it, because, at the moment, there is no valid theory of such a mechanism ("Well, maybe it could be. .." is not a theory. A theory is model that is concordence with data.
Which brings us back to the need to show me it exists, particularly since everything I have ever seen so far indicates that the world works just spiffily in accordance with the rules of chance.
I think it's more likely to disprove the existence of telepathy
Since the process is statistical in nature it cannot disprove anything. All it can do is fail to demonstrate an effect of statistical significance.
And herein lies a certain amount of danger, because most people haven't an inkling about statistical significance.
Assuming there is, in fact, no such thing as telepathy, if you ran a series of tests what you would expect to see is a small number of inconslusive runs, a number of positive runs and a roughly equal number of negative runs. What's more, the more runs you make the more likely you are to see stronger "effects" in an individual run, but the average of the aggregate number of runs will get closer and closer to 1.0, i.e., pure chance results.
What the pro TP people like to do is cherry pick one of the strong positive runs and hold it up as "proof" of TP. This is not valid, because this strong positive run is expected by chance and is balanced by a strong negative run.
You can demonstrate this for yourself by making a series of coin flip tests, say a dozen flips per run, to determine whether the coin is "fair." If you cherry pick just one run you can "prove" any damned result you want, up to and including that the coin will always land heads, even though it's fair.
In fact it's now known that Rhine discarded negative runs in order to put forward his "proof" of TP. This is the sort of thing this current test is designed to avoid.
But wait, don't order now, it gets worse!
The pro TP people have wised up to the fact that they can't get away with only pointing out the positive results at one end of the curve anymore, so what they have started doing is pointing at the extreme negative results and calling them a sort of "positive negative." i.e., since the result couldn't have been achieved by chance it must have TP working to inhibit TP.
But of course these negative extremes are just as expected as the positive extremes and in the average cancel each other out.
So why make the test in a series of runs? Why not just do a straight series of a million tests?
Because we're testing people. People need to take breaks, to eat, piss, sleep or just relax for a bit. So long as the test tracks the individual runs and not just the aggregate it will be prey to cherry picking desired results from amoung the runs by people who wish to lie with numbers to promote a personal agenda.
Think about all of this the next time you read about a new epidemiological study in the papers, especially if the variance (in this case called the relative risk) is 1.Somthing or Other, or very close to no effect. You'll want to see this test repeated many times more before you can even begin to believe the results, and you will need to see all of the tests, not just the published ones (publication bias; the tendency to only publish extraordinary results, thus eliminating from view all those results that statistically would aggregate to no effect).
There is an additional lying with numbers effect in this case as well, because a relative risk of 1.5 (very close to no effect) will be reported as a "50% increase in risk."
Which is, technically, true, but leaves out the explanation that a "50%" increase in risk means "very close to no effect" statistically speaking.
Take a revolver with 1000 chambers in it. Now load 10 chambers and play one round of Russian Roulette. Now (assuming you're still alive, which would be the way to bet) load five more chambers for one more round.
That is what is meant by a "50%" increase in risk. 15 out 1000, rather than 10 out of 1000.
A very small increase of actually shooting yourself, because the initial risk was already quite small. The relative risk is a percentage of the risk.
Just as I may increase your net worth a thousand fold, and yet leave you unable to buy dinner out, because all you had was a penny to your name.
If you were told that the only way you could have an ability such as telapthy would be to eliminate your attachments and improve your moral quality . ..
I would know the person making the statement had a morality that allowed lying through his fucking teeth.
Seriously, why so much interest in building a walknig robot though? Sure it's an interesting research project. ..
Well, that's a good one, isn't it? In point of fact to solve the issue of walking you have to solve several other problems that are useful even in nonwalking robots.
Then there's the issue of simple anthropomorphism. Use your imagination about what that might be useful for.
. . . it seems to me that there are a lot more efficient ways for a robot to move - wheels, treads, etc
And yet there are places that people and mules can go that vehicles as yet cannot. We have been remiss in our duty to level and pave the Earth. In the short run it might be easier to adapt the vehicle.
You're right that for most common uses the stair climbing wheelchair model is probably the ideal robot platform, which . ..requires walking robot technology to work.
Common practice in the 30s through 50s. You could even buy commercial units. You can bake potatoes by simply wrapping them in foil and jamming them between the tubes of the exhaust manifold, although there is a certain risk of them falling out and I won't comment on the taste.
Thoreau is popularly, but erroneously, regarded as a hermit.
In fact he not only traveled and socialized widely, even during his years at Walden pond, but even wrote in Walden, his journal of his experiment in minimalist living, that social interaction is one of the minimum requirements of human life.
And he didn't mean some form correspondence by that. The Internet only provides social interaction by correspondence.
Melville has been put forward as an example of the true writing solitary, but he had to live in a city with other people to support his solitude. In fact, ironically, he had to have a wife to pull it off.
Thoreau could live alone in the woods as a "half and half" solitary because he was willing to go to the city and interact with people face to face in order to meet his needs. And never married.
As others have pointed out your basic Internet hermit only exists within the framework of a vast civilized superstructure to supply his solitude. He is alone among many. A shut in, yes, but a very peculiar kind of "hermit," a word which has always implied true isolation and dependence on self.
A while ago I was showing someone plans for a boat I had designed to sail the Atlantic alone. Their first question was not about the danger of the undertaking, but "Won't you get lonely?"
I replied, "Why? I'm pretty good company, aren't I?"
I can go weeks without any human contact whatsoever and not mind at all. I rather enjoy it now and again. I'm better company than most. But there comes a time. . .
As a lifelong "solitary," frankly, I think some of you need to get out more.
Ahhhhhhhhhh, an Internet Utopian. That explains why you overestimate the power of technology and underestimate the power of both the state and the free market.
A round a black marketeering across the Iron Curtain would likely have done you a world of good.
By the way, I haven't thanked you for my gift subscription, but it does put me in the rather Thoreauian position of someone else having paid my tax for me.:)
The reason I support State censorship of all media is the same reason why I support the State in all of its madness: the more they do to harm us, the more the free market will provide means for entrepreneurs to find new ways around the madness.
Bearing in mind that we call such free marketeers "pirates" and "terrorists" and toruture and shoot them.
Thank you for your patronage and enjoy your Soviet style "free market." We couldn't do it without you.
do they (microsoft) teach their executives that the business is personal?
Yes. Ooooooooh, not overtly, but it is the defining aspect of Microsoft's corporate culture, directly tracable to the personality of Bill himself; a man who will get mad at you when you beat him at ping pong, because "you embaressed me in front of my friends."
While I agree about Microsoft's arrogance in general, in this case it's just locker room talk:
"We be bad. Yeah!"
Pumpin' up the team. You'll hear its like at every stupid sales meeting at every stupid company in the world. Some of 'em even sing stupid fight songs. It's non news about a non event.
You only build strength when your muscles are stressed.
I guess I meant that the overall number of hardcore gamers isn't growing
I would suggest that what is happening is that you are not seeing the hardcore gamers because, as per your own statement, it is the gamers who are jaded, not just the journalists. They are not buying your games, so you think they do not exist.
Build the game and they will come. The problem is that you have built an industry. Industry depends on production. Mass output. "Sofa sized" paintings. Games depend on creativity. Rarity. "Starry Night."
And so the industry is broken by design. It can be nothing else from the gamer's perspective.
. ..the percentage of people who buy new games just becuase their new isn't growing; instead most people are looking at the quality of the game itself before they plop down their sheckels.
You said something about negatives. Care to tell us what they are?
Slashdot Mirror
Until a phenomenon is explained, it is de-facto "paranormal", is it not?
No, it is defacto "unexplained." It took awhile to figure out how bees can fly. This didn't make the flying of bees paranormal, the phenomenon is quite ordinary, we just couldn't explain it.
The claim that physics "says" that bees can't fly before we figured out how was something said by either jokers or ignoramuses, no matter how many letters the ignoramuses had after their names.
If it happens, it happens. Theory is tested against observable phenomena, not the other way around. Theories do not "say" anything. They are merely models. They represent real, measurable phenomena to the best of our knowledge.
Newton himself published examples of how his knowledge of gravitational motion was incomplete. This did not make the motion of Mercury paranormal. Its motion was and is quite normal. Newton was simply ignorant of electromagnetic radiation. Which did not make light paranormal.
KFG
KFG
Well, my main point was that it wasn't a source at all, since I can't refer to it.
If what you are driving at is simply the question "but what about negative results?" then yes, statistical methods don't care about whether an effect is positive or negative. Either one can be equally significant.
In fact negative results can be very important. In epidemiology they indicate a protective effect. People who do more of this get less of that.
KFG
Just as long as they remember that you don't always need technology to excite the imagination. . .
Like a corn husk doll and a chunk of wood. There's a kid in my neighborhood who always has some sort of stick in his hand when he walks by my house. The interesting thing is that it's always a different stick, but it's always a stick that in some way impresses me as being, well, cool.
I mean this kid doesn't just pick up any old stick and start waving it around. He's got himself a serious eye for just the right kind of stick. I actually find myself watching for him to see today's stick.
Batteries not included. Powered by the mind.
KFG
What was that thing where someone was being tested for telepathy. . .
I don't know. What was "that thing"?
Who was the "kook" (and why on earth would competent testers dismiss him as such?) Who did the testing? What was the methodology? Did Randi or some other experienced illusionist have a look at it?
And . . . was he ever retested?
Let's try this again:
If you give me a coin and I flip it four times today and it comes up four heads; and I flip it four times tomorrow and it comes up four tails; and flip it four times the day after tomorrow and it comes up two heads and two tails; this does not support the idea that on day one I telekinetically influenced the coin one way, on day two I telekinetically influenced the coin the other way, but on day three I was too "tired" to have a telekinetic influence.
No, I'm afraid it supports the conclusion that the coin is fair, since I flipped it a total of 12 times and got 6 heads and 6 tails.
Bring this guy to me and let me redo "that thing" and we'll see how "things" add up.
KFG
Why exactly couldn't telepathy exist?
." is not a theory. A theory is model that is concordence with data.
I am, at least nominally, a physicist.
You wouldn't catch me saying any such thing as "telepathy can't exist."
However, you first need to demonstrate that it does exist if you expect me to do work on that basis. If and when that happens I will not posit any "paranormal" event, but rather that there is a quite normal mechanism at work. Then it will be my job to find it, because, at the moment, there is no valid theory of such a mechanism ("Well, maybe it could be. .
Which brings us back to the need to show me it exists, particularly since everything I have ever seen so far indicates that the world works just spiffily in accordance with the rules of chance.
KFG
If it goes anywhere near Barbie Joe's likely to get jealous; and he's armed.
KFG
I think it's more likely to disprove the existence of telepathy
Since the process is statistical in nature it cannot disprove anything. All it can do is fail to demonstrate an effect of statistical significance.
And herein lies a certain amount of danger, because most people haven't an inkling about statistical significance.
Assuming there is, in fact, no such thing as telepathy, if you ran a series of tests what you would expect to see is a small number of inconslusive runs, a number of positive runs and a roughly equal number of negative runs. What's more, the more runs you make the more likely you are to see stronger "effects" in an individual run, but the average of the aggregate number of runs will get closer and closer to 1.0, i.e., pure chance results.
What the pro TP people like to do is cherry pick one of the strong positive runs and hold it up as "proof" of TP. This is not valid, because this strong positive run is expected by chance and is balanced by a strong negative run.
You can demonstrate this for yourself by making a series of coin flip tests, say a dozen flips per run, to determine whether the coin is "fair." If you cherry pick just one run you can "prove" any damned result you want, up to and including that the coin will always land heads, even though it's fair.
In fact it's now known that Rhine discarded negative runs in order to put forward his "proof" of TP. This is the sort of thing this current test is designed to avoid.
But wait, don't order now, it gets worse!
The pro TP people have wised up to the fact that they can't get away with only pointing out the positive results at one end of the curve anymore, so what they have started doing is pointing at the extreme negative results and calling them a sort of "positive negative." i.e., since the result couldn't have been achieved by chance it must have TP working to inhibit TP.
But of course these negative extremes are just as expected as the positive extremes and in the average cancel each other out.
So why make the test in a series of runs? Why not just do a straight series of a million tests?
Because we're testing people. People need to take breaks, to eat, piss, sleep or just relax for a bit. So long as the test tracks the individual runs and not just the aggregate it will be prey to cherry picking desired results from amoung the runs by people who wish to lie with numbers to promote a personal agenda.
Think about all of this the next time you read about a new epidemiological study in the papers, especially if the variance (in this case called the relative risk) is 1.Somthing or Other, or very close to no effect. You'll want to see this test repeated many times more before you can even begin to believe the results, and you will need to see all of the tests, not just the published ones (publication bias; the tendency to only publish extraordinary results, thus eliminating from view all those results that statistically would aggregate to no effect).
There is an additional lying with numbers effect in this case as well, because a relative risk of 1.5 (very close to no effect) will be reported as a "50% increase in risk."
Which is, technically, true, but leaves out the explanation that a "50%" increase in risk means "very close to no effect" statistically speaking.
Take a revolver with 1000 chambers in it. Now load 10 chambers and play one round of Russian Roulette. Now (assuming you're still alive, which would be the way to bet) load five more chambers for one more round.
That is what is meant by a "50%" increase in risk. 15 out 1000, rather than 10 out of 1000.
A very small increase of actually shooting yourself, because the initial risk was already quite small. The relative risk is a percentage of the risk.
Just as I may increase your net worth a thousand fold, and yet leave you unable to buy dinner out, because all you had was a penny to your name.
KFG
If you were told that the only way you could have an ability such as telapthy would be to eliminate your attachments and improve your moral quality . . .
I would know the person making the statement had a morality that allowed lying through his fucking teeth.
I could live with that.
KFG
Ok, its cute...umm what does it do?
It's cute.
KFG
Seriously, why so much interest in building a walknig robot though? Sure it's an interesting research project. . .
.requires walking robot technology to work.
Well, that's a good one, isn't it? In point of fact to solve the issue of walking you have to solve several other problems that are useful even in nonwalking robots.
Then there's the issue of simple anthropomorphism. Use your imagination about what that might be useful for.
. . . it seems to me that there are a lot more efficient ways for a robot to move - wheels, treads, etc
And yet there are places that people and mules can go that vehicles as yet cannot. We have been remiss in our duty to level and pave the Earth. In the short run it might be easier to adapt the vehicle.
You're right that for most common uses the stair climbing wheelchair model is probably the ideal robot platform, which . .
KFG
Common practice in the 30s through 50s. You could even buy commercial units. You can bake potatoes by simply wrapping them in foil and jamming them between the tubes of the exhaust manifold, although there is a certain risk of them falling out and I won't comment on the taste.
KFG
that is bound to cause relational problems, redundant data, and warped design challenges.
Do me a favor, don't tell them.
KFG
When enough "stuff" accumulates, spontaneous "stuff" happens.
WWI in a nutshell.
KFG
Thoreau is popularly, but erroneously, regarded as a hermit.
In fact he not only traveled and socialized widely, even during his years at Walden pond, but even wrote in Walden, his journal of his experiment in minimalist living, that social interaction is one of the minimum requirements of human life.
And he didn't mean some form correspondence by that. The Internet only provides social interaction by correspondence.
Melville has been put forward as an example of the true writing solitary, but he had to live in a city with other people to support his solitude. In fact, ironically, he had to have a wife to pull it off.
Thoreau could live alone in the woods as a "half and half" solitary because he was willing to go to the city and interact with people face to face in order to meet his needs. And never married.
As others have pointed out your basic Internet hermit only exists within the framework of a vast civilized superstructure to supply his solitude. He is alone among many. A shut in, yes, but a very peculiar kind of "hermit," a word which has always implied true isolation and dependence on self.
A while ago I was showing someone plans for a boat I had designed to sail the Atlantic alone. Their first question was not about the danger of the undertaking, but "Won't you get lonely?"
I replied, "Why? I'm pretty good company, aren't I?"
I can go weeks without any human contact whatsoever and not mind at all. I rather enjoy it now and again. I'm better company than most. But there comes a time. . .
As a lifelong "solitary," frankly, I think some of you need to get out more.
KFG
Take all these "anarcho-capitalists" and put them on a desert island for a week ...
I might suggest that simply setting up a business in Somalia might provide an educational experience.
KFG
Ahhhhhhhhhh, an Internet Utopian. That explains why you overestimate the power of technology and underestimate the power of both the state and the free market.
:)
A round a black marketeering across the Iron Curtain would likely have done you a world of good.
By the way, I haven't thanked you for my gift subscription, but it does put me in the rather Thoreauian position of someone else having paid my tax for me.
KFG
My, that's awfully broad.
Contemptuous speach of hate defaming women, and thus pornography. Out of the pool.
KFG
The reason I support State censorship of all media is the same reason why I support the State in all of its madness: the more they do to harm us, the more the free market will provide means for entrepreneurs to find new ways around the madness.
Bearing in mind that we call such free marketeers "pirates" and "terrorists" and toruture and shoot them.
Thank you for your patronage and enjoy your Soviet style "free market." We couldn't do it without you.
The State
KFG
It isn't so much the cost that's the issue, it's the vendor lockin.
KFG
I shall taunt you?
Do not taunt Happy Fun Soft! Still criminal in all 52 states and the EU!
KFG
do they (microsoft) teach their executives that the business is personal?
Yes. Ooooooooh, not overtly, but it is the defining aspect of Microsoft's corporate culture, directly tracable to the personality of Bill himself; a man who will get mad at you when you beat him at ping pong, because "you embaressed me in front of my friends."
KFG
While I agree about Microsoft's arrogance in general, in this case it's just locker room talk:
"We be bad. Yeah!"
Pumpin' up the team. You'll hear its like at every stupid sales meeting at every stupid company in the world. Some of 'em even sing stupid fight songs. It's non news about a non event.
KFG
I declined to testify against her. She obviously couldn't help herself.
KFG
I come at it from an industry perspective.
:)
.it would make my job a lot easier!
Yeah, I figured.
. .
You only build strength when your muscles are stressed.
I guess I meant that the overall number of hardcore gamers isn't growing
I would suggest that what is happening is that you are not seeing the hardcore gamers because, as per your own statement, it is the gamers who are jaded, not just the journalists. They are not buying your games, so you think they do not exist.
Build the game and they will come. The problem is that you have built an industry. Industry depends on production. Mass output. "Sofa sized" paintings. Games depend on creativity. Rarity. "Starry Night."
And so the industry is broken by design. It can be nothing else from the gamer's perspective.
We're looking for the artists.
KFG
. . .the percentage of people who buy new games just becuase their new isn't growing; instead most people are looking at the quality of the game itself before they plop down their sheckels.
You said something about negatives. Care to tell us what they are?
KFG