by Sirona 131 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Gill
I ordered that book! Should arrive Tuesday.
Interesting comments about the "other" in our heads. I know in my psych courses that hypnosis reveals a "hidden observer" who can report on things and who appears to be separate from the individual consciousness.
Sirona
Interesting that these threads always die when I produce scientific evidence.
Well, we await it with baited breath.
90% of studies have shown that statistics and studies can be contrived to prove anything you want.
This looks like a better book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0879751983/ref=ase_wwwprutchicom-20/
Language question (which may explain my previous post to an extent): is the meaning of the English word mystic(al/ism) completely lost to parapsychology?
To me, stuff like "how you can know the next lottery winning numbers (thanks to quantum physics)" is about as related to "mysticism" as it is to gymnastics... but if I'm alone in thinking so, I'm afraid I must forget about the word "mystic" as I have long done with the word "spiritual"...
Narkissos
I, too, have begun to think this thread has gone from "mystical" to "paranormal". Maybe it would be beneficial
to define the words: mystical, metaphysical, paranormal. In my "language" they are not the same. But, the
way this thread has turned, I thought perhaps I was misunderstanding somebody else's definition. I'm so confused.
Narkissos and Journey-On
I'll fess up to taking part in shifting this thread from the "mystical" to the tangential "paranormal". I guess one can in sense categorize the former as a specific subset of the latter. At least, the naysayers could since its all lumped into the same category of unsubtantiated make believe. And I'll continue on the tangent (sorry my friends ) because, as a courtesy, I want to follow up on Sirona's response.
Sirona,
I believe I found one of the papers you cited. Its actually available online at this link:
http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/abstracts/v18n2a3.php
I encourage the more analytical among you to take a look at the data. I found it an interesting experiment and interesting results because this sort of thing will always have a warm fuzzy spot in my heart.
However : While the graphed data does show a difference of pre-stimulus levels, they were actually only slightly elevated. I'll have to say that the controls, to me at least, were sound. I also can't refute that repeated trials did show it was a consistent phenomenon. Thats curious and may be an inkling of some level or form of consciousness which we know little about. However, the p values were quite low, so as I understand it, the values the experimenter chose as the significance level were very low as well. Which doesn't instill alot of confidence in the reality of other more spectacular kinds precognition, ESP, what have you. Still, an interesting read. Thank you so much for your reference.
Simon - Book looks interesting BUT Arthur C Clarke is an even bigger sceptic and he produces very sound reasonings explaining many 'unexplained phenomenon'. However, even he has come across the occassional unexplainable.
However, Arthur C when he was writing much of his acclaimed studies on the paranormal was pre present day Quantum physics and it appears this bloke in the book you recommend may not be disimilar to the 'mystics' he knocks in that he is out to make money, which appears to be the sticking point when people discuss whether the paranormal is 'real' or not. This bloke is just making money by knocking it, hence just the other end of the spectrum.
I love sceptics as I was and still am a sceptic. BUT I am one who knows that somethings go beyond what is understood at present and that one day there may well be solid scientific explanations for even my own experiences.
Look at it this way, a person wants nothing to do with 'the mystical' having been brought up a dubbie and been terrified of demons their whole life.
But this person then has many peculiar and correct experiences. No longer believing in demons etc, the person begins to look for the real reason......and science begins to unfold the answers, slowly I'll admit, but it does.
While the graphed data does show a difference of pre-stimulus levels, they were actually only slightly elevated. I'll have to say that the controls, to me at least, were sound. I also can't refute that repeated trials did show it was a consistent phenomenon.
MS thanks for the extra info on this study.
I see what you mean, but overall if the results are consistently beyond chance then there is *something* interesting in this which needs to be looked at further.
Gill,
No matter how much you state that you are waiting for science to catch up (as I often do) some people will still consider that anyone who believes anything not proven in a lab is an idiot, or deluded. Its just something I've come to accept.
Sirona
Hi Sirona,
I have to agree that there's an effect there that isn't imagined. I should correct myself and be more clear with what I was saying with the p values so that others don't wrongly knock the experiment you've provided. On going back i realize that what I wrote actually gives a completely backward understanding.
So to be clear why I agree that this is evidence I can't refute: Normally with stats you're trying to give support to one hypothesis (e.g. there's an effect) by seeing if you can refute another one thats usually neutral or the "null hypothesis" (eg. there's no difference). So with those experiments having those very low p values, again as I understand it, its very low significance levels and a very low probability that those differences which were seen are just by chance that way. Lower p values makes it stronger evidence to reject the null hypothesis. So the evidence is very good statistically that the difference is real. Almost too good.
Whenever I see such strong evidence put to what looks to me as being slight absolute differences (when you look at the graph) I really don't have much confidence that the phenomenon itself manifests itself strongly. Its real but weak so I can't say this gives me much confidence in the raelity of the more demanding forms of ESP...by this experiment alone anyways. Again that slight difference is curious and it would be interesting to learn whats behind it. You have a great day.
MS
Thanks for that clarification.
Its great that you have an open enough mind to take each experiment on its own merits.
Simon and other ridiculers - why can't you even accept scientific evidence when its provided? Its almost as though you're resistant to actual evidence, when actual evidence is what you claim to be looking for.
Sirona
