Fraud-proof PK experiment done (Also interesting to QM/Free Will debate)
Dave Trissel
An interesting parapsychological experiment which appears to be fraud proof
has shown dramatic results in it's first run. This may have implications for
the discussion on 'quantum physics and free will' so I have included
net.philosophy.
Parapsychologist Helmut Schmidt has been working for several years on studying
PK (mind over matter) effects on random event generators (REGs.) He has
simple yet effective experiment which, if followups are as succesfull as the
orignal (which we shall soon know), practically rules out fraud and any other
explanation at flaws in experimental design. Hard to believe? Read on.
Helmut claimed to find out years ago that some people could actually mias so-
called random event generators. He also discovered (and this is VERY hard to
believe) that they could even bias the REG *even if the sampled REG had
performed it's run in the past*!
The experimental protocol that was then used is as follows:
1) Tape record a specific number of random events from an REG
2) Make an exact copy of the tape
3) Put one tape in a safe
4) Use a random table to decide which way a subject should try to bias
the tape (either more ones or zeroes to appear)
5) Gave the tape to a subject and let them listen to it while trying to
bias it in the proper direction.
6) Get the tape back and test it for the bias desired
7) Compare the tape to the one in the safe to determine that they are
identical.
The results were that Helmut claimed a statistically significant amount of the
time (P<.05) that the tapes were found to be biased in the proper direction.
The reason for the tape in the safe is obvious. By comparing the duplicate
from the safe with the tape the subject brought back one could determine if
the subject had physically altered the tape. (Which would mean they cheated
or that PK had somehow flipped and altered the bits on the subject's tape.)
By the way, this type of experiment is called a time-displacement PK
experiment since the subject is trying to effect something which has already
happended.
Given the above scenario there is still room for critics. For example, how
does Helmut choose which way the subject will bias the tape? (He uses a
standard random number table for this.) But most important is the spector
of experimental fraud. After all, all the information is under the control
of the experimenter.
Here is where Helmut adds a delicious twist to the experiment which completely
removes him from any effect and allows any skeptic to fully participate at the
same time!
Helmut says to the skeptic, "Here are ten cassette tapes numbered one through
ten each with N bits of one/zero data on them. Now that they are in your
hands you tell me for each one whether you want ones or zeroes to appear more
often on the tape. Put them away in the safest place you know. Now I will go
to my subjects and have them concentrate on copies of these tapes at their
leisure. When they are done I will come back to you and you listen to your
tapes and count the ones/zeroes yourself on your tape recorder and tell me
what you find."
Now the skeptic has only him/herself to blame for the fraud since he/she not
only chose the direction of bias for each tape but also had exclusive control
of the tapes all along and determined the results at the end of the
experiment!
The first run of this experiment was done with duplicate copies of the ten
tapes given to two people, one a "well respected" parapsychologist and the
other to a scientist who was well disposed to the field. Each of these people
had a second person involved to guarantee that the first person did not tamper
with the tapes in any way. The results were that 9 of the 10 tapes matched
the direction of bias specified. (I think the odds are 1 in 256 of this
happening.)
The experiment is currently being repeated but I have no futher details. I
will report the results when I come across them.
For more information you can order a tape which describes this from CSICOP
(The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the paranormal.)
The tape is from the 1986 CSICOP conference and is all the more remarkable
as it also contains an excellent session by ex-parapsychologist Susan
Blackmore (who makes a one-line aside against Schmidt's critics.)
Anyone who thinks they have an open mind (don't we all?) would do well to
listen to Blackmore's lecture.
Order the tape from:
CSICOP
Box 229
Buffalo, NY 14215-0229 (716) 834-3222
1986 CSICOP Conference Session I $9.95 + $1.50 postage and handling.
-- David Trissel Motorola, Austin
{seismo,ihnp4}!ut-sally!im4u!oakhill!davet
Wayne Throop
> Helmut claimed to find out years ago that some people could actually mias so-
> called random event generators. He also discovered (and this is VERY hard to
> believe) that they could even bias the REG *even if the sampled REG had
> performed it's run in the past*!
Ok. So. We have here an experiment that shows that either
1) the experimenter is mistaken or decitful
or 2) causality is violated and "effect" can preceed "cause"
Gee. Real tough choice. I'll have to think about this real hard.
Ok. I've thought about it. I'm sorry folks. I'll buy unknown senses.
I'll buy undiscovered forms of radiation. I'll even buy Peter Pan and
fairy dust. But this is putting a little strain on my credulity. I
regard causality as pretty basic, and while I suppose some things could
shake my "faith" in it, this ain't one of 'em. The level of my
metaphysics that assumes forward causality is pretty deep, and not
easily undermined.
[first-person-style description of the "experimental procedures"]
> Put them away in the safest place you know. Now I will go
> to my subjects and have them concentrate on copies of these tapes at their
> leisure. When they are done I will come back to you and you listen to your
> tapes and count the ones/zeroes yourself on your tape recorder and tell me
> what you find."
I think I'll put mine in a hermetically sealed mayonaise jar on Funk and
Wagnall's front porch. Pa-dum-pum. But seriously folks... isn't
anybody just an EEEEEnsy bit skeptical? Doesn't this hoo-hah remind you
just a LIIIIIItle bit of a mentalist stage act? I'll readily admit that
I have no direct knowlege to substantiate my suppositions, but somehow I
really don't feel guilty at all about failing to rush out and
investigate this great "new" discovery, despite whatever Susan Blackmore
has to say on the subject, which I very much doubt is worth ten dollars
however witty even if it would go to CSICOP.
> The experiment is currently being repeated but I have no futher details. I
> will report the results when I come across them.
In all seriousness, why didn't you just wait until there *were* more
results before posting? Why do I get the feeling that this is a case of
tooting the horn and banging the drum early when the information is
scarce and of low quality, and that we will hear dead silence later when
this is shown to be yet another glitch/fraud/mistake/whatever?
Or better yet, why not just let all the enlightened and openminded folks
in mail.psi know about it and leave us poor dull closeminded reactionary
authoritarian skeptics alone in PEACE? Please?
--
"You're overreacting again, Throop."
"I am?"
"You are."
"Oh. <faces audience> 'Never Mind!'"
--
Wayne Throop <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw
Tim Maroney
First, I have a deep and abiding distrust for probabilistic psi experiments.
If there is such a thing as psychokinesis, it seems to me the way to test it
is by having reputed psychics apply their invisible force to a force
measurement device, for instance a regular scale. It seems this would be a
much more straightforward task than, say, affecting the roll of a pair of
dice, which are tumbling and bouncing in a very confusing way, or biasing a
random number generator, which is presumably a microscopic silicon device
whose functioning requires special training for understanding. The only
advantage to probabilistic tests seems to be the opportunity to play with
the statistics until they come out the way you desire.
Second, we should remember Einstein's comment on the usual claim that
psychical abilities, unlike every other force, are not affected by distances
in time and space. He pointed out that a simple explanation for this is
that the apparent results actually depend on statistical misinterpretation,
which of course would not be in any way affected by space-time separation of
the experimental subjects. This comment applies equally well to these
experiments, in which an effect is claimed despite the fact that the
alteration requires a signal to travel backwards in time.
Third, the experimental design ignores the possibility of fraud by the
overseers, whom you have incorrectly referred to as skeptics. In fact, both
the overseers were already believers in psychic powers: hardly what I would
call a skeptic! This is a ridiculous, glaring oversight. All that is
needed is for the overseer to play the tape and count the numbers of zeroes
and ones, then say which way he would like the tape "biased".
Finally, a single test run is hardly a reasonable cause for the jubilation
you have displayed. This jumping of the gun shows a significant
predisposition in you towards accepting positive results in psi experiments.
This causes me to have to doubt the complete veracity and freedom from
exagerration or overstatement of your account of the experiment.
--
Tim Maroney, Electronic Village Idiot
{ihnp4,sun,well,ptsfa,lll-crg,frog}!hoptoad!tim (uucp)
hoptoad!tim@lll-crg (arpa)
Does anyone really read these things?
Matt Crawford
>[... a long description of a PK experiment by Helmut Schmidt...]
I'm no "Great Randi", but I could duplicate all the results
described by using simple trickery. If *I* can fake it, a
professional "parapsychologist" could certainly fake it.
_____________________________________________________
Matt University craw...@anl-mcs.arpa
Crawford of Chicago ihnp4!oddjob!matt
Phil Stephens
>If there is such a thing as psychokinesis, it seems to me the way to test it
>is by having reputed psychics apply their invisible force to a force
>measurement device, for instance a regular scale.
Yes. REG's are not measuring PK, they are measuring *something else* if
they give valid results. Whether they *do* give valid results, I don't
really know, I have only extremely subjective evidense of my own, and I
have not seen anyone else's that I can extoll as adequate "proof".
>much more straightforward task than, say, affecting the roll of a pair of
>dice, which are tumbling and bouncing in a very confusing way, or biasing a
>random number generator, which is presumably a microscopic silicon device
>whose functioning requires special training for understanding. The only
>advantage to probabilistic tests seems to be the opportunity to play with
>the statistics until they come out the way you desire.
For some researchers, this may be true. But there is another reason for
such research: if de-randomizing (my lable for something known under a
variety of folklore names) exists, it cannot be measured with a balence
beam. It's study does indeed require "probabilistic" measurement. (I'm
not trying to establish that the phenomena exist, only that thier study
makes some kind of sense). Of course, you may prefer to assume that this
concept has so little validity that you reject anyone else considering it.
>Tim Maroney, Electronic Village Idiot
>{ihnp4,sun,well,ptsfa,lll-crg,frog}!hoptoad!tim (uucp)
>hoptoad!tim@lll-crg (arpa)
>Does anyone really read these things?
I do. And I care about keeping an open and inquiring mind about
observations and experience that seem true but don't fit the approved
scientific (or religious, or new age, or political) theoretical "laws".
Could be the "laws" need minor amendments, or it could be that the
observation is biased. Or both.
Such as dowsing, which appears a bit more well demonstrated than PK or
derandomization, but which is surrounded in much misunderstanding by
practicioners and critics alike. It *works*, (my father has done it
himself in one of his old jobs, and hired a professional to choose the
site for a well on our farm; good results) but its mechanism has
little to do with the "rays" and such described by theorists. Like
pendulums, it is only a way for the practicioner to bring information
into consciousness that is available -- by ESP or otherwise -- in
his/her subconscious. Whether some of that info gets there by psi
is an interesting question; I am sure this can be tested.
Please don't bother to say this doesn't belong here in net.physics;
I am addressing appropriateness in experimental design, which includes
asking appropriate questions about the phenomenom being tested.
It is only to be expected, I suppose, that people apply theatrical magic
concepts to psi, and then disprove them. Such study is a waste of
time, but for a different reason than the "skeptics" assume. But
then, much other study is a waste of time, but in the diversity of
attempts, some great discoveries happen. I suppose it could happen yet
in psi... stay tuned!
- Phil
Reply-To: p...@oliven.UUCP (Phil Stephens)
Organization not responsible for these opinions: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca