41. Psychic Dog Video, Skeptical Bias (Podcast)

[Open Mind]

Aha I've read the link above ...

[i] '.......“…since our release of a video showing that Tommy seems to have a telepathic link with his owner, we’ve received a lot of interest in our experiment… and I’m certainly pleased that Mr. Randi has shown interest… of course, we’d love to receive the million dollar prize, but most importantly, we have to do good science.....”

Good science first I agree Finding a real effect still isn't necessarily good enough to win Randi's prize. It is about passing James Randi's arbitrary level of pass or failure. Then even if the dog wins, Hyman will still claim (as he has already done) that if someone wins Randi's prize it is still not meaningful to science .... proving psi to the die-hard skeptics is a long haul.

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Well I think the usual implication of a "search for anomalies" is that any unexplained correlation is used as evidence of ?. Really, ? is not more an anomaly than radium was in the days before a theory of radioactivity.

You have said that "psi" is non-physical and now you compare it with radiation? Alpha, beta and gamma rays can all be detected. They can be blocked by different materials.

String theory is far more untestable than ?, which can be tested with a dog, a video camera, and a random number generator

Comparing "psi" with string theory isn't going to bolster your case. String theory does not currently make any testable predictions but it is not predictionless by definition. If "psi" is defined something that cannot be explained by physcial processes then it's one and only prediction is that it can't be explained by physical processes. It is just an empty vacuous label for our ignorance.

In the case of "dogs that know" only natural explanations can be tested explicitly. You can't do some trials with psi and some without.

I think if he reported that he had some preliminary candidate events, but was still studying them before publishing, absolutely nobody would bat an eyelid. Cern has made tentative announcements like that in the past without any problem at all. in stating how far their evidence goes.

BTW, Fleischman and Pons went rather overboard in their announcement, but not as overboard as the reaction against them. Even now - nearly 20 years on - there seem to be some evidence that some nuclear reactions are happening inside the Pd electrodes.

Science is a communal project which involves mutual trust between scientists. A scientist will use criteria such as the ranking of the journal and the reputation of a group to decide how much credence to give a paper. Ultimately other scientists have to place some amount of trust in other scientists. You can't read every paper and you can't always judge the results from only what is written in the paper. When other scientists abuse that trust by falsifying data or by distorting data then they will be attacked. If scientists make grandiose claims in press releases that are completely out of proportion to the available evidence then they will be attacked.

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Chris Noble

You have said that "psi" is non-physical and now you compare it with radiation? Alpha, beta and gamma rays can all be detected. They can be blocked by different materials.




Comparing "psi" with string theory isn't going to bolster your case. String theory does not currently make any testable predictions but it is not predictionless by definition. If "psi" is defined something that cannot be explained by physcial processes then it's one and only prediction is that it can't be explained by physical processes. It is just an empty vacuous label for our ignorance.

I think it is interesting to compare past scientific revolutions with a conceivable future Ψ revolution. There are some interesting points to remember:

1) Each revolution - say the transition from Newtonian gravity - general relativity - keeps the actual results of the former theory (at least within their accuracy), but the underlying formalism changes radically. Newtonian theory was (and still is FAPP) so accurate that it must have been hard to conceive that a complete change of theory was necessary.

2) In a way, many theories don't explain as much as their predecessor purported to do, they just say this is the way things are, and here is the equation to calculate it. Think again of Newtonian gravity - it did not actually explain how two bodies at a distance attract each other, it just asserted that there is this thing called a gravitational field whose only manifestation is to attract masses to each other! Likewise, in a formal sense, QM even gives up the ability to predict the outcome of an individual experiment - all you can compute is statistics.

A physical theory that included Ψ (which perhaps simply means including consciousness) will probably look superficially very different to what exists at the moment, but it will predict essentially the same outcome for traditional experiments, but suggest new possibilities, just as every previous change of scientific paradigm has. I also suspect that the Ψ-theory will also shed a little more predictive power - perhaps to conscious entities that cannot in principle be totally predicted.

Regarding your last point, every new advance in science is based on results which do not fit existing theory - the precession of the orbit of Mercury, or the black body radiation curve come to mind. Usually these anomalous results seem totally swamped by all the data that seems to fit the old theory. If Ψ turns out to be as revolutionary I think scientific history will simply be repeating itself.

I don't think I would be misrepresenting your viewpoint by saying that you see Ψ experiments as a wacky pseudo-science that just distracts from real science. I certainly used to think exactly like that, and maybe you are right, but I think there is another possibility, which is that consciousness (which is not well explained by current theory) is a far more fundamental part of reality, and Ψ phenomena are hinting at this fact.

David

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

...but I think there is another possibility, which is that consciousness (which is not well explained by current theory) is a far more fundamental part of reality, and Ψ phenomena are hinting at this fact.

David

Well said!

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

I think it is interesting to compare past scientific revolutions with a conceivable future ? revolution. There are some interesting points to remember

This is just a version of the Galileo gambit. Radin and Sheldrake are not Einstein or Newton.

A physical theory that included ? (which perhaps simply means including consciousness) will probably look superficially very different to what exists at the moment, but it will predict essentially the same outcome for traditional experiments, but suggest new possibilities, just as every previous change of scientific paradigm has.

In a previous post you said that "psi" is communication through non-physical means. How can that be included in a physical theory? You just want to have your supernatural woo and eat it too.

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Chris Noble

This is just a version of the Galileo gambit. Radin and Sheldrake are not Einstein or Newton.



In a previous post you said that "psi" is communication through non-physical means. How can that be included in a physical theory? You just want to have your supernatural woo and eat it too.

Come on, Chris, you can do better than that! Neither Radin nor Sheldrake are claiming to be Einsteins, but neither were the people that actually measured the deviation in the orbit of Mercury.

As to your second point, please don't reduce the discussion to silly point scoring - I was trying to explain to you how I think Ψ might fit into a future scientific world view. Obviously I used the term "non-physical" to refer to connections that might use a currently unrecognised consciousness component to reality.

Like you, I had a science education, including some research, and I fully realise that it is untenable to suggest that the normal laws of physics operate most of the time - except when a psychic dog is around or people are watching assorted pictures flashed on a computer screen Ψ absolutely can't be explained by a small tweak in the laws of physics, but it might be explained by a total paradigm shift that includes consciousness.

Incidentally, I don't want to claim these ideas for myself - Sheldrake and others have mused in the same area. BTW, if you listen to Sheldrake in discussion (perhaps ignoring any ideas you can't accept) you will discover that he understands relativity and QM (possibly not at the level of equations, I don't know) as well as biology. He does not come to his views from ignorance.

David

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Come on, Chris, you can do better than that! Neither Radin nor Sheldrake are claiming to be Einsteins, but neither were the people that actually measured the deviation in the orbit of Mercury.

Radin and Sheldrake both claim to have "paradigm" changing theories. In fact they are more grandiose than Einstein or Newton. Sheldrake's would-be-theory claims to explain developmental biology, molecular structures, crystal structures, sociology, astrophysics etc. You can't make these sorts of claims without implicitly comparing yourself to Einstein.

As to your second point, please don't reduce the discussion to silly point scoring - I was trying to explain to you how I think ? might fit into a future scientific world view. Obviously I used the term "non-physical" to refer to connections that might use a currently unrecognised consciousness component to reality.

The reality is that you can't make up your mind what "psi" is. Is it non-physical or physical?

Like you, I had a science education, including some research, and I fully realise that it is untenable to suggest that the normal laws of physics operate most of the time - except when a psychic dog is around or people are watching assorted pictures flashed on a computer screen ? absolutely can't be explained by a small tweak in the laws of physics, but it might be explained by a total paradigm shift that includes consciousness.

Incidentally, I don't want to claim these ideas for myself - Sheldrake and others have mused in the same area. BTW, if you listen to Sheldrake in discussion (perhaps ignoring any ideas you can't accept) you will discover that he understands relativity and QM (possibly not at the level of equations, I don't know) as well as biology. He does not come to his views from ignorance.

I've listened to these
http://www.sheldrake.org/Trialogues/lightandvision.html

He appears to come to his views from ignorance and the effects of psilocybin. It's just pseudoscientific babble.

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Chris Noble

I've listened to these
Books & Recordings - Trialogues - Light and Vision

He appears to come to his views from ignorance and the effects of psilocybin. It's just pseudoscientific babble.

I only reviewed the first tape, but I honestly don't agree - what you are hearing is a man who knows the standard theory, but is groping for an extension involving mind. He takes the outcome of his staring experiments seriously, and is struggling to imagine an extension to physics that would account for the fact that a staring effect (or the traditional evil eye) involves the eyes influencing what they look at, as well as the reverse process. He reckons the effect is real, and is trying to imagine how it could fit into an enlarged view of reality, you don't think the effect is real, so you scoff at any attempt to rationalise it.

I don't want to compare Sheldrake with Einstein, but I suspect that if Einstein had recorded his ideas while he was still groping his way towards general relativity, they might have sounded somewhat similar (without the benefit of hindsight) ... "Maybe the acceleration we feel in a dropping lift isn't real - just something to do with curved space ..... and what if space could get so curved that nothing could get out!!

BTW, I would recommend anyone reading this discussion should follow Chris' link and listen to what Sheldrake has to say!

Unlike some new-age types, Rupert does not just fluff over the problem of integrating Ψ into conventional theory.

David

[David Bailey]

OK - I listened to both tapes, and I must admit, the discussion got a little waffly later on - maybe not Sheldrake at his best.

Even so, the overall message to take back is that Sheldrake knows a lot of orthodox science and wants to fit Ψ into some extension of that picture. For example, he clearly realises at one point that in the reference frame of the photon, no time elapses between it starting its journey and arriving at its destination (disregarding the slight slowdown that it would experience travelling through air).

David

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

OK - I listened to both tapes, and I must admit, the discussion got a little waffly later on - maybe not Sheldrake at his best.

Even so, the overall message to take back is that Sheldrake knows a lot of orthodox science and wants to fit ? into some extension of that picture. For example, he clearly realises at one point that in the reference frame of the photon, no time elapses between it starting its journey and arriving at its destination (disregarding the slight slowdown that it would experience travelling through air).

David

It sounds more like Sheldrake learnt everything he knows from watching Star Trek. Really, beams of antimatter streaming out of our eyes?

The whole point about pseudoscience is to throw around scientific terms in a way that sounds vaguely scientific in order to add credibility to your woo ideas. This is exactly what Sheldrak does.