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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I wouldn't shed a tear if malware authors and spammers started having fatal accidents. In fact, I'd love it if some tech billionaire had a private hit squad for just that purpose.
Indeed, I think they should being back public hanging (and disembowelling) for anyone caught stealing anything worth more than a loaf of bread. Those were the days! A nice family day out at Tyburn Tree, and if you were lucky they got the rope length wrong and someone's head was ripped clean off.
It's probably of deep significance for cultural anthropologists where this zombie meme came from, but I'm actually sick&tired of the whole thing. Zombies == instant unfunny guarantee.
What's worrying is not so much that there's a stupid meme, but that people can even begin to try to rationalise it and behave as though it could actually happen.
Personally, I just think it's feeding the insane "survivalist" mentality that is spreading like a virus through the US. Oh, wait...
Just because people bite other people doesn't make them zombies. If they're not undead, they're not zombies.
You can't write a story about a world where some weird virus makes people want to bite each other's necks and drink their blood and say it's about vampires. It's about a weird virus that makes people want to bite each other's necks and drink their blood.
I've worked all over EMEA and APJ and RFP is common terminology in IT bids
And what, pray, are EMEA and APJ when they're at home?
Yes, Google tells me they're "Europe Middle East Africa" and "Asia Pacific Japan" respectively, but I've never seen them used before, and find the first one in particular almost spectacularly meaningless.
Paying people by check is in the employer's interest, not the employee, since the former get to keep the money in their bank for a couple of extra days. Why anyone would choose to be paid by check is baffling to those of us outside the US.
I can understand cash if you are a rugged individualist who absolutely refuses to deal with banks because they're part of the ZOG conspiracy (or something), but that is not even an option with most companies nowadays where I live.
I can't help but think that the pot business now is something like the Internet was circa about 1991. There was a sense it was going to be a big deal and there was going to be a lot of money made, but nobody quite knew how to do it right away.
And like the Internet, I'll be looking back 20 years from now amazed at how much money has been made off it and how it's universally accepted, just like the Internet.
The way to make lots of money off drugs is for them to stay illegal and to be a drug producer/distributor.
Once pot is legal, it's just another crop, and by all accounts it's quite easy to grow so I don't see anyone growing rich from it.
"Do not seek fame. Do not make plans. Do not be absorbed by activities. Do not think that you know. Be aware of all that is and dwell in the infinite. Wander where there is no path. Be all that heaven gave you, but act as though you have received nothing. Be empty, that is all."
That sounds more like a rationale for spending your whole life as Caine in Kung Fu or something. Which is fine, but not really what I'd call careers advice.
I guess if all you do with the device is use it for entertainment, why not?
It's not so much whether it's entertainment as whether it's content creation.
p>
People use their computing devices for things like online banking and shopping, which are hardly entertainment, but are perfectly fine on a phone or laptop because you're not having to enter much text or other information.
What's right with it is that is at least comprehsnsible. What's wrong with it is that it is ungrammatical. The point is that if you don't know what IS grammatical, it's just pot luck whether it makes sense or not.
Unless you are a masochist or have recently suffered a severe head injury, you download large files directly onto your mobile phone through Wifi. It really isn't rocket science.
He made a perfectly valid point that we already have hardware of the level you mentioned. Whether it's in a box or on a phone is irrelevant, if that level of hardware was sufficiient to create AI, we already would have done. If it's a matter of software, the hardware is secondary anyway.
Here's a tip for you: if AI was just a question of writing a clever bit of software, then it would probably have been done by now. I know it's sacriligeous to say it on slashdot, but not every problem is solveable by programming.
I thought even the real Singularity nutjobs like Kurzweil generally limit themselves to "within ten/twenty years", not "as soon as we get an incremental increase in hardware capabilities".
If I was living through an extended "haunted house" series of events, I'd make damned sure I recorded them as far as possible, got in neutral witnesses, and so on.
Read: I don't believe you saw what you saw, and even though I wasn't there and have no reasonable, alternate explanation, I'm going to call you stupid for believing you saw something that I don't believe you saw, based entirely on my own blind faith.
How... unscientific of you.
Although Occam's Razor is not a hard-wired feature of the universe, it is always worth considering in cases like these. To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, you ignore the impossible explanation and go for the merely improbable one instead.
It IS more likely that someone played a trick on an impressionable 15 year old, rather than accepting the "haunted house" explanation.
Based on the rules of science, we can't reproduce things that are real but are beyond our means to control. That doesn't mean that they are not real. It's that science can't be the means to identify them.
But if you fall back on faith, then your faith in poltergeists and someone's faith in god, and someone else's in time travel, and someone else's in reincarnation are all equally valid.
Really. This stuff did happen to me, my father, two friends and a repairman.
Yes, but the point is that scientific proof requires that something can be reproduced and therefore falsified.
No offence, but anyone can tell a one-off anecdote. For instance, when I was about fourteen, I went water-divining, and it "worked" in the sense that when I walked over somewhere where there was a buried water pipe, the sticks moved. There are scientific explanations for this, basically revolving around unconscious muscle movements, and there is also a certain amount of fieldcraft involved for those who do it more seriously. (E.g. if you show an experienced farmer a few fields, he will have a pretty good idea where the water is, where the predominant winds come from, etc.)
I know that in a true double blind test, I would not be able to find water with a couple of twigs.
Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I wouldn't shed a tear if malware authors and spammers started having fatal accidents. In fact, I'd love it if some tech billionaire had a private hit squad for just that purpose.
Indeed, I think they should being back public hanging (and disembowelling) for anyone caught stealing anything worth more than a loaf of bread. Those were the days! A nice family day out at Tyburn Tree, and if you were lucky they got the rope length wrong and someone's head was ripped clean off.
Proportionality is everything.
It's probably of deep significance for cultural anthropologists where this zombie meme came from, but I'm actually sick&tired of the whole thing. Zombies == instant unfunny guarantee.
What's worrying is not so much that there's a stupid meme, but that people can even begin to try to rationalise it and behave as though it could actually happen.
Personally, I just think it's feeding the insane "survivalist" mentality that is spreading like a virus through the US. Oh, wait...
You can't write a story about a world where some weird virus makes people want to bite each other's necks and drink their blood and say it's about vampires. It's about a weird virus that makes people want to bite each other's necks and drink their blood.
I've worked all over EMEA and APJ and RFP is common terminology in IT bids
And what, pray, are EMEA and APJ when they're at home?
Yes, Google tells me they're "Europe Middle East Africa" and "Asia Pacific Japan" respectively, but I've never seen them used before, and find the first one in particular almost spectacularly meaningless.
The second rule when discussing drugs on slashdot: YOU DO NOT CRITICISE DRUGS OR DRUG USERS.
There is no third rule.
I can understand cash if you are a rugged individualist who absolutely refuses to deal with banks because they're part of the ZOG conspiracy (or something), but that is not even an option with most companies nowadays where I live.
I can't help but think that the pot business now is something like the Internet was circa about 1991. There was a sense it was going to be a big deal and there was going to be a lot of money made, but nobody quite knew how to do it right away.
And like the Internet, I'll be looking back 20 years from now amazed at how much money has been made off it and how it's universally accepted, just like the Internet.
The way to make lots of money off drugs is for them to stay illegal and to be a drug producer/distributor.
Once pot is legal, it's just another crop, and by all accounts it's quite easy to grow so I don't see anyone growing rich from it.
Please mod parent up.
Listen to Chuang Tzu for the best career advice:
"Do not seek fame. Do not make plans. Do not be absorbed by activities. Do not think that you know. Be aware of all that is and dwell in the infinite. Wander where there is no path. Be all that heaven gave you, but act as though you have received nothing. Be empty, that is all."
That sounds more like a rationale for spending your whole life as Caine in Kung Fu or something. Which is fine, but not really what I'd call careers advice.
I guess if all you do with the device is use it for entertainment, why not?
It's not so much whether it's entertainment as whether it's content creation. p> People use their computing devices for things like online banking and shopping, which are hardly entertainment, but are perfectly fine on a phone or laptop because you're not having to enter much text or other information.
There is nothing wrong with "no more move".
What's right with it is that is at least comprehsnsible. What's wrong with it is that it is ungrammatical. The point is that if you don't know what IS grammatical, it's just pot luck whether it makes sense or not.
Even my 8 year old kid knows this by now.
Here's a tip for you: if AI was just a question of writing a clever bit of software, then it would probably have been done by now. I know it's sacriligeous to say it on slashdot, but not every problem is solveable by programming.
The little AI in your pad will laugh with you.
I thought even the real Singularity nutjobs like Kurzweil generally limit themselves to "within ten/twenty years", not "as soon as we get an incremental increase in hardware capabilities".
If I was living through an extended "haunted house" series of events, I'd make damned sure I recorded them as far as possible, got in neutral witnesses, and so on.
All the god-botherers are having to come out in support of ghosties and stuff in this thread.
You were had.
Read: I don't believe you saw what you saw, and even though I wasn't there and have no reasonable, alternate explanation, I'm going to call you stupid for believing you saw something that I don't believe you saw, based entirely on my own blind faith.
How... unscientific of you.
Although Occam's Razor is not a hard-wired feature of the universe, it is always worth considering in cases like these. To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, you ignore the impossible explanation and go for the merely improbable one instead.
It IS more likely that someone played a trick on an impressionable 15 year old, rather than accepting the "haunted house" explanation.
Some people need to watch more Scooby-Doo.
Based on the rules of science, we can't reproduce things that are real but are beyond our means to control. That doesn't mean that they are not real. It's that science can't be the means to identify them.
But if you fall back on faith, then your faith in poltergeists and someone's faith in god, and someone else's in time travel, and someone else's in reincarnation are all equally valid.
Really. This stuff did happen to me, my father, two friends and a repairman.
Yes, but the point is that scientific proof requires that something can be reproduced and therefore falsified.
No offence, but anyone can tell a one-off anecdote. For instance, when I was about fourteen, I went water-divining, and it "worked" in the sense that when I walked over somewhere where there was a buried water pipe, the sticks moved. There are scientific explanations for this, basically revolving around unconscious muscle movements, and there is also a certain amount of fieldcraft involved for those who do it more seriously. (E.g. if you show an experienced farmer a few fields, he will have a pretty good idea where the water is, where the predominant winds come from, etc.)
I know that in a true double blind test, I would not be able to find water with a couple of twigs.