Study suggests precognition may be possible

[Celebration]

http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-precognition.html

Cornell University scientist has demonstrated that psi anomalies, more commonly known as precognition, premonitions or extra-sensory perception (ESP), really do exist at a statistically significant level. Psi anomalies are defined as "anomalous processes of information or energy transfer that are currently unexplained in terms of known physical or biological mechanisms."

In a paper soon to appear in the leading (peer-reviewed) social psychology publication, The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, psychologist Daryl Bem described nine experiments, in most of which he reversed the order of well-known psychological experiments such as recall and affective priming, so that what was usually seen as the cause became the effect. The experiments were carried out over a period of eight years and were well-designed and controlled and rigorous enough to be replicated in the future by other researchers.

In one experiment subjects, all of whom were students, were briefly shown a word list and then asked to recall as many as they could. Later, they were asked to copy a list of words randomly selected from the same list by a computer. The surprising result of this experiment was that in the recall section of the experiment the subjects recalled at a significantly higher rate words they were later asked to type, even though they had no way of knowing which words would be on the list.

In another experiment subjects were shown images of two curtains alongside each other on a computer screen and told one was concealing a picture (sometimes of an erotic nature), while the other concealed a blank screen. They were then asked to click on the one they “felt” was hiding the picture. When the curtain was selected it was opened to reveal what was behind it. This was repeated 36 times for each subject, and the picture positions were computer-selected and random.

[pinboy3niner]

1. I knew they were going to say that

[demwing]

3. I knew YOU were going to write that

but I still can't find my car keys, damn it.

[WillParkinson]

4. I knew you were both thinking that...

And those other thoughts going through your head? Shame.

[pinboy3niner]

5. Have you seen my car keys?

Aw, heck, they'll probably turn up in the freezer again...

[Kennah]

29. That would be pre-ignition, and that don't exist

[lapfog_1]

2. Accidents never happen in a perfect world... n/t

[Lochloosa]

6. My Mom had precognition or ESP or something...

She knew every fucking thing I did.

[ret5hd]

7. That wasn't esp...that was ratfink neighbor ladies!

[TZ]

8. Let 5 different independent labs replicate this experiment

with the same results and I'll take it seriously. Its not uncommon to have ONE study that contradicts many others...but if that study can't be replicated its worthless. And since so many other studies have shown no evidence of precognition I'll wait before I accept this as possible. Of course, anyone who believes this stuff tends not to be overly scientifically minded so I'm sure we will hear how this is stone cold proof years from now. Even after it can't be replicated.
This reminds me of the "proof" of table top fusion that came out years ago. Yeah. Wait and see.

[whathehell]

9. Sounds like you're quite invested

in it NOT being replicated.


That's fine...Those of us who've experienced it need no further "proof".

That being said, it's nice to see that science may finally be catching up.;-)

[DavidDvorkin]

10. Well said.

[qazplm]

12. not really (oops thought you were replying to the invested post)

(ignore this and pretend I am responding to the guy accusing the poster of having an investment)

well said would be, you are right, replication of a single study before believing the results, particularly results that argue for an extraordinary theory/result, is exactly what rational science calls for.

Anyone mocking that approach as the poster you praise more or less did, seems to me to be the one with the investment.

I'd also add that I'm not sure the experiment "proves" precognition at all. It may prove how the mind works, it may prove something about patterns, bias or the like, but precognition, I doubt it.

And since precognition involves seeing something before it happens, and because we spend most of our lives visualizing what is going to happen next, odds are, someone who's "experienced it themselves" would include most people because odds are over a lifetime, some of those visualizations will end up pretty accurate just by chance (and logic as applied to a visualization).

The next time someone predicts accurately and close in time a major assassination or Tsunami or other huge event, and does it repeatedly and verifiably, let me know.

[HERVEPA]

11. Triumph of superstition over science

[whathehell]

17. Triumpth of closed minds over inquiry

[HuckleB]

38. Hogwash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI

[laconicsax]

14. Didn't you read the article?

People given a binary choice picked the correct curtain 53.1% of the time (when it was erotic pictures...49.8% when it was non-erotic). This PROVES precognition.

Also, there's no possible explanation of things people seeing affecting their recollection except for precognition.

:P

[Jim__]

19. Do you understand the significance of the results that you're citing?

Specifically, do you understand the significance of the difference between 49.8% and 53.1%? The expected result is 50%. So, for non-erotic pictures the result was 0.2% away from the expected result. For erotic pictures, the result was 3.1% away from the expected result - more than 15 times the distance from the expected value than the non-erotic pictures.

If you don't understand the significance, the article provided it.

For the erotic pictures: t(99) = 2.51, p = .01.

For the non-erotic pictures: t(99) = -0.15, p = .56.

What is the cause of this significant result (and the other 7 experiments that also had significant results)? At this point, no one knows. Bem will provide data to simplify replicating his results. If his results can be replicated, then it becomes interesting to try to find the cause.

[laconicsax]

25. I do, and it's underwhelming.

The results of these experiments are interesting, but are far more likely to not be evidence of precognition/remote viewing/psychokinesis.

[originalpckelly]

16. Wait and see is ALWAYS the best advice with this kind of shit.

BUT I will say that there have been a growing number of articles about a thing called backwards causality, not involving humans, but things called weak measurements. It APPEARS that something in the future can cause something in the past, at least in some circumstances. This whole notion may very well open up the door to precognition, but the experiments using weak measurements are rather weak. I'd personally like to see more exploration in this area. I will await duplication, to see if this is real or bullshit.

[whathehell]

18. Unless, of course, you are lucky enough to experience it..even before science "proves it"..

Then it's not "shit".;-)

[Orsino]

20. No. Even then, 'wait and see" is best.

Any theory developed as a result is not only going to have to explain what the hell happened, and that only after the results are shown to be reproducible, but will also have to explain why it hasn't happened before in any reproducible way. We could begin to call it premonition, maybe, once we determine what we're actually measuring.

I think this effect is going to vanish under scrutiny, in which case we'll suspect self-delusion, sloppy methodology or fraud. If it's reproducible, we'll need to look into the magical new experimental devices and methods which suddenly made the heretofore-hidden effect apparent.

[whathehell]

21. Those of us who have experienced it really need no "proof"

although it would be nice if science "caught up".:)

To paraphrase slightly, "experiencing is believing" especially when the experience did, in fact, "reproduce" itself a number of times.


For what it's worth, I'm speaking of mental telepathy, not precognition.

[Orsino]

22. See, telepathy isn't hinted at here any more than is premonition.

Again, experimentation could verify the reproducibility of the effect. Further experimentation could introduce controls to help determine what is actually going on.

Wouldn't it be nice to know which, or whether the experiment is actually detecting a significant effect? Stating one's belief at this point is very premature.

[whathehell]

23. Not "hinted at here"?...Did you bother to read the SUBJECT LINE of the OP?

and BTW, I didn't state a "belief"....I stated an experience...Sorry.

[Orsino]

34. The subject line of this thread is not the title of the study.

I see no reason for you to apologize for your belief--that alone just isn't going to convince all of the rest of us.

If you see something different about this new study, something that enabled it to detect what all the others couldn't, I would be very interested.

[whathehell]

36. "I see no reason to apologize for your belief"......Aww, gee...Really?

BWHAHHAHAHAHAH:rofl:

Nice try bro, but I have experience...I'll leave the "belief" to you.

[Orsino]

37. Okay.

Any thoughts on why you believe this study to be special? Or do you? Perhaps you've been saying that this study is irrelevant to your belief?

[laconicsax]

27. You can demonstrate telepathy? You should sign up for the James Randi $1 million challenge.

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

If you can prove that you have telepathic abilities, you win $1 million.

[whathehell]

28. Can you demonstrate your thoughts?

Read the posts...There's no claim to "demonstrate" anything.

[laconicsax]

32. That's funny, I could have sworn you said:

Those of us who have experienced it really need no "proof" although it would be nice if science "caught up". To paraphrase slightly, "experiencing is believing" especially when the experience did, in fact, "reproduce" itself a number of times. For what it's worth, I'm speaking of mental telepathy, not precognition.

Are you now saying that you didn't experience telepathy on multiple occasions?

[whathehell]

35. Really?.....Then this may strike you as as funny too..:

"Experience" and "demonstrate" are two different words with two different meanings.:think:

[laconicsax]

47. An "experience" that is "reproduced" can be used to "demonstrate" the "experience."

You couldn't use your telepathy to figure out what I meant?

[Orsino]

49. He's right, though.

Let's go ahead and acknowledge that if telepathy exists at all, it is diabolically resistant to scientific testing. Spotting (and reproducing) a one-in-a-million occurrence would be difficult (at best) for scientific researchers, and would probably be beyond what JREF could test.

In contrast, the effect claimed in the study in question seems easily JREF-ible.

[laconicsax]

50. Sorry, no. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

Claiming repeated experiences of "mental telepathy" (as opposed to mechanical telepathy? Renal telepathy?) clearly indicates where the burden of proof lies.

Parts of the study in the OP have already failed replication attempts and others have been shown to likely be artificial correlation, so we're left with these claims of telepathic experiences that were already reproduced.

Surely if they are so sure that what they experienced was telepathy and that it is a repeated experience, it shouldn't be too hard to put it to the test.

[Orsino]

51. Of course it is.

That doesn't make testing any easier. It all depends on what--if anything--is really going on, and how statistically likely its occurrence is.

[laconicsax]

52. Presumably, someone claiming repeated instances of telepathy could provide details of the experience

If there's any commonality between experiences, it can provide the framework for a test. The the only common factor is the individual, a broad range of tests may be necessary. Difficult =/= impossible and $1 million is a nice incentive to try.

[Orsino]

53. Yeah.

As you note, testing for what happened to one person, even several times, might be impractical--and therefore far beyond the patience of the claimant to document properly, much less that of JREF, who might have to throw up their hands long before discovering just what unreported bedtime snack combo triggers a dream of, say, alien abduction. Who-knows-how-many variables might be involved, and whatever effect is at work might not actually be what the claimant honestly believes.

Contact with the spirit world, dependent upon the unknown motivations of a particular departed soul? How does one make that happen in anything resembling laboratory conditions?

[Grown2Hate]

56. Exactly. You can have an experience which can be chalked up to coincidence, hallucination,

or an ACTUAL premonition. However, if you are unable to reproduce it, or demonstrate it in any manor, it likely falls under one of the two former categories. However, you'd still be "welcome" to BELIEVE that your experience was something more than coincidence. That is, in fact, the reason most people think they believe in god. Experience is a POWERFUL drug.

[HuckleB]

41. Nah. It's still shit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPqerbz8KDc&feature=related

[HuckleB]

39. Wait all you want.

The issue of plausibility indicates that there isn't much reason to wait for anything.

[HuckleB]

42. Attempts to replicate this have already failed.

From links found at this page: http://psychsciencenotes.blogspot.com/2010/11/brief-note-daryl-bem-and-precognition.html

A replication of the procedures from Bem (2010, Study 8) and a failure to replicate the same results.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=13quorf_DWEXBBvlDPngbUNFKm5-BjgXgehJJ7ndnxc_wx2BsXn84iPhLeVfX&hl=en

Another link at the former page is in French, and another link goes straight to a PDF file, but it does show another failure.

[laconicsax]

13. I said it the last time this was posted, so I'll say it again: This is dumb.

All this demonstrates is that the "priming" phenomenon can affect our recollection, which is really nothing new since our memory is anything but reliable. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=befugtgikMg">Here's a great video illustration of how plastic our memory is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjueOXCy3OM">Here's a video of Derren Brown predicting the future by priming his marks.

Also:

In the 100 sessions subjects consistently selected the correct curtain 53.1 percent of the time for the erotic pictures, significantly over the 50 percent expected by pure chance. For the non-erotic pictures, the success rate was only 49.8 percent

:rofl:

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[laconicsax]

26. So sorry to denigrate your sincere beliefs in psychokinesis and clairvoyance.

Read the study itself. The possibilities for what these results mean suggested by Bem are:

1. Participants are "accessing information yet to be determined in the future, implying that the direction of the causal arrow has
been reversed." (Precognition)
2. Participants are "accessing already-determined information in real time, information that is stored in the computer." (Clairvoyance/Remote Viewing)
3. Participants are influencing the random number generator. (Psychokinesis)
4. Artificial correlation.

This is dumb.

[laconicsax]

15. Here's a link to the paper itself:

http://www.dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf

[Kennah]

30. Dr. Michio Kaku in "Physics of the Impossible" ...

... said precognition was a Class III impossibility--which means it would violate the known laws of physics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_of_the_Impossible#Class_III_impossibilities

[Celebration]

31. good

I have a bit of a streak of an anarchist in me. I love for people to try to break laws like this. :)

[laconicsax]

33. Meh. Who cares about the laws of physics? It's much easier to attribute a result to magic. n/t

[HuckleB]

40. Thus, there is the matter of plausibility. -eom-

[HuckleB]

43. Bem’s ESP research……

https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/bems-esp-research/

[HuckleB]

44. Why Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data: The Case of Psi

http://www.ruudwetzels.com/articles/Wagenmakersetal_subm.pdf

[struggle4progress]

45. A Replication of the Procedures from Bem (2010, Study 8) and a Failure to Replicate the Same Results

Jeff Galak
Carnegie Mellon University

Leif D. Nelson
University of California, Berkeley - Haas School of Business

October 29, 2010

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1699970


hattip: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19712-is-this-evidence-that-we-can-see-the-future.html

[laconicsax]

48. Well, the answer is obvious--it's a scientific conspiracy to hide the truth.

:banghead:

[Fire Walk With Me]

46. ...

deleted, not worth it

[BrendaBrick]

54. Gut feelings and hunches exist for a reason.....

...or else they just wouldn't really exist in the first place! Am I Right? Can I get a witness here?

So, what's up with that already?

I mean, let's get real here folks. Why even HAVE gut feelings and/or hunches in the first place is my point of contention.

Otherwise, it would just be a *non-issue* A *non-factor.* Something that just ceases to exist in the first place!

But who among us here has NOT EVER had a gut feeling about something or someone tugging at us?

Something that stirs us deep and mysteriously within our *solar* plexes..that either *somethin', somethin' just ain't right here....or else - (for example) even though as I leave my house this morning on a very sunny and clear blue sky morning....*something* is telling me (against all logic) to take an umbrella ANYWAY - and by gosh, sure 'nuff....good thing that I did because I really needed it later in the day, contrary to the local weather forecast.

Precognition? ESP? Who really knows.....but SOMETHING is up with all of that to my mind and heart!

..and to be honest with you, (shrug) I rather personally enjoy the mystery of it all! :-)

[FiveGoodMen]

55. Our pre-rational ancestors had to make decisions somehow

The impulses that drove them to a choose A and not B are probably what we'd call gut feelings and hunches.

As rules of thumb, they must have done a decent job keeping the almost-humans alive.

I doubt that these feelings are in any way tapped into some larger knowledge. I'm guessing they were just the set of proclivities that worked most often.