By the way, here is the possible way to beat the price using "weak" ESP:
Most ESP tests show only a slight (but consistent) deviation from the expected results (e.g. in a test where the nominal chance of a hit is 50%, someone consistently scores 52%). In the long run, such an effect is statistically significant, but it is by no means "impressive" by human measures. BUT, consider these:
1. Shannon's theorem states that "however contaminated with noise interference a communication channel may be, it is possible to communicate digital data (information) nearly error-free up to a given maximum rate through the channel."
2. The fact that a deviation does appear during tests, but it always remains at a low level suggests that (analog?) communication is taking place, but is heavily garbled by noise.
3. This would mean that ESP is a "noisy channel", and therefore has a nonzero Shannon limit.
So, instead of trying to apply ESP on "raw" tests (e.g. testing telepathy with Zener cards), and just comparing the results with the expected hits, why not make the objects (e.g. the Zener cards) code some digital data (the "message"), protected with a heavily redundant error-correction code (e.g. one that increases data size to 1500%, but only needs 10% of the transmitted, protected data to recover the original). As the "receiving" subject senses the cards, assuming that we are witnessing actual psychic ability, the received results will likely contain enough signal (that is, receptions produced by ESP, not by random chance, i.e. noise) to recover the original message.
This would make the test take longer, but it would produce tangible results. (A failure to find a coding scheme that is under the Shannon limit, i.e. a Shannon limit of 0 indicates fairly well that no psychic ability was detected, and the results were only a game of chance.)  |