6 ms·

Well, it's not just a friend, it's something he supports. There's something to be said for Bayesian updating, and in this case I'm willing to say that people w

Well, it's not just a friend, it's something he supports. There's something to be said for Bayesian updating, and in this case I'm willing to say that people who have the right of it scientifically are less likely to support telepathy.

marcus_holmes 11y ago
I haven't read any previous studies of telepathy, so I have no informed opinion on it. Which seems to be a minority position: the majority position seems to be to assume that not only is telepathy "not real" but also anyone studying it is clearly a "not real" scientist. Is there any data to support your theory that people who are willing to study telepathy are less mathematically able than those who are not? Because it seems to me that people who are willing to rule out an entire area of study for social reasons are less able scientists than those who are willing to go where the data leads regardless of reputational consequences. This EM drive is a case in point. Studies seem to suggest there is a real thing happening here, but scientists are not willing to study it because of the reputational risk. Which is clearly bad science.
- jcoffland 11y ago
  You keep saying "go where the data leads" but the data is leading in circles so far. What data would lead you to study telepathy? There's data then there's wishful thinking.
  - lisivka 11y ago
    I am sorry, but nerve system is electric. It emits electromagnetic signals. Nerve system is also perfect receiver for these signals. If you will train your body to emit/recognize these signals, you will be able to communicate telepathically. Your "hardware" (bioware?) allows you to do that. Some sharks are using that skill to locate fish.
    - spacehome 11y ago
      Not sure if troll or serious. Go ahead and try that and get back to us.
    - rdancer 11y ago
      And it's been done[1], successfully — but the signals need to be amplified before the receiving brain can detect them. Parapsychology research was answering a pressing need in the 1950s, and so it was pursued and funded. Now that we have ubiquitous resilient encrypted wireless broadband communication on the worldwide scale, and we're pretty sure the enemy forces cannot submit our soldiers using the power of concentration, the need is much less pressing. Recent advances in brain activity imaging with fMRI and the impetus to create computer-brain interfaces will lead to any advances in telepathy that can be had, and maybe discover new questions to study. Out of all the futures that seemed possible at the beginning of the Cold War, ours is no less strange and awesome than one where telepathy were a mundane experience. Being skeptical about telepathy in the style of the great Sci Fi works of the latter half of the 20th century reflects the understanding that some ideas become reality, and some just peter out. [1] http://www.kurzweilai.net/first-brain-to-brain-telepathy-communication-via-the-internet http://www.kurzweilai.net/first-brain-to-brain-telepathy-com...
      - lisivka 11y ago
        Body can be trained to improve strength of signal and make it directional. I tried to train myself to improve strength of my look few years ago by training, and girls describe their feeling at that period as "burning skin". When I looking at them with concentration, they able to feel that at distance of up to hundred of meters. I also saw video with similar experiment recently, but I cannot find it right now. So, IMHO, telepathy is possible physically at some short distance, but requires years of training of participants. Someone need to train himself to be strong signal emitter, which can be confirmed by measurement of body EM radiation at frequency interval of 1.3-30Hz. Then somebody else need to learn how to hear that weak EM signal, like blinds do.
        spacehome 11y ago
  - marcus_holmes 11y ago
    I wasn't suggesting that the data leads to telepathy. It may, it may not. I don't know. I haven't studied it. But dismissing anyone that studies it as a crank, and by implication anyone that supports them in that study as also a crank, is bad for all of us. I'm less concerned about telepathy per se than with "science as politics". The social sciences are seeing some serious problems because there are things that scientists cannot say or talk about because of their political implications. Climate science is hampered by the problem of having to be constantly aware of the political ramifications of their research: are they "helping the deniers" if they publish a result? If we start bringing this bullshit into hard science then we'll break that too. This is maths and physics. There's the hypothesis, there's the experiment. Do the experiment and validate the hypothesis. If the experiment isn't working, devise a better one. If the new theory leads to predictions then test those predictions. It's all objective, it can be tested, and those tests can be reproduced. It's like free speech. I may not like the things you say, but I will absolutely support your right to say them. If you find telepathy interesting enough to study, then that's awesome. If you think you've got a result, and I'm interested enough, then I'll look at your methods and your data and work out if I agree with you or not. But dismissing you as a crank just because you're studying it is anti-scientific. And just like free speech is being threatened by politics and there are now things that people must not say, science is becoming threatened and there are things that must not be published. This is bad imho.
- spacehome 11y ago
  If you're interested, then go ahead and read about the history of telepathy research so you can have a (more) informed opinion about it. Numerous well-performed and controlled experiments have not find any evidence for it, and in this case, absence of evidence is reasonably strong evidence of absence. Since there are so many other interesting (real) things in the universe to study, I conclude that people who continue to study it are doing so for reasons unrelated to the merits. It doesn't make someone "not a real scientist", but I sure would look askance at their critical thinking skills. > This EM drive is a case in point. Studies seem to suggest there is a real thing happening here ... That's not what I see. Every time the experiment is done with more precision and less noise, the effect diminishes again to near the limits of experimental error. That's exactly what you would see if the force was due to thermal (or other electromagnetic) effects rather than novel engineering principles. Nothing wrong with studying it, though. But I'd be willing to bet real money it all comes to nothing. Edit: > Is there any data to support your theory that people who are willing to study telepathy are less mathematically able than those who are not? No, of course there is no such data. And mathematical ability is only tangentially related to critical thinking in the real world.

marcus_holmes 11y ago

I haven't read any previous studies of telepathy, so I have no informed opinion on it. Which seems to be a minority position: the majority position seems to be to assume that not only is telepathy "not real" but also anyone studying it is clearly a "not real" scientist. Is there any data to support your theory that people who are willing to study telepathy are less mathematically able than those who are not? Because it seems to me that people who are willing to rule out an entire area of study for social reasons are less able scientists than those who are willing to go where the data leads regardless of reputational consequences. This EM drive is a case in point. Studies seem to suggest there is a real thing happening here, but scientists are not willing to study it because of the reputational risk. Which is clearly bad science.

jcoffland 11y ago
You keep saying "go where the data leads" but the data is leading in circles so far. What data would lead you to study telepathy? There's data then there's wishful thinking.
- lisivka 11y ago
  I am sorry, but nerve system is electric. It emits electromagnetic signals. Nerve system is also perfect receiver for these signals. If you will train your body to emit/recognize these signals, you will be able to communicate telepathically. Your "hardware" (bioware?) allows you to do that. Some sharks are using that skill to locate fish.
  - spacehome 11y ago
    Not sure if troll or serious. Go ahead and try that and get back to us.
  - rdancer 11y ago
    And it's been done[1], successfully — but the signals need to be amplified before the receiving brain can detect them. Parapsychology research was answering a pressing need in the 1950s, and so it was pursued and funded. Now that we have ubiquitous resilient encrypted wireless broadband communication on the worldwide scale, and we're pretty sure the enemy forces cannot submit our soldiers using the power of concentration, the need is much less pressing. Recent advances in brain activity imaging with fMRI and the impetus to create computer-brain interfaces will lead to any advances in telepathy that can be had, and maybe discover new questions to study. Out of all the futures that seemed possible at the beginning of the Cold War, ours is no less strange and awesome than one where telepathy were a mundane experience. Being skeptical about telepathy in the style of the great Sci Fi works of the latter half of the 20th century reflects the understanding that some ideas become reality, and some just peter out. [1] http://www.kurzweilai.net/first-brain-to-brain-telepathy-communication-via-the-internet http://www.kurzweilai.net/first-brain-to-brain-telepathy-com...
    - lisivka 11y ago
      Body can be trained to improve strength of signal and make it directional. I tried to train myself to improve strength of my look few years ago by training, and girls describe their feeling at that period as "burning skin". When I looking at them with concentration, they able to feel that at distance of up to hundred of meters. I also saw video with similar experiment recently, but I cannot find it right now. So, IMHO, telepathy is possible physically at some short distance, but requires years of training of participants. Someone need to train himself to be strong signal emitter, which can be confirmed by measurement of body EM radiation at frequency interval of 1.3-30Hz. Then somebody else need to learn how to hear that weak EM signal, like blinds do.
      - spacehome 11y ago
- marcus_holmes 11y ago
  I wasn't suggesting that the data leads to telepathy. It may, it may not. I don't know. I haven't studied it. But dismissing anyone that studies it as a crank, and by implication anyone that supports them in that study as also a crank, is bad for all of us. I'm less concerned about telepathy per se than with "science as politics". The social sciences are seeing some serious problems because there are things that scientists cannot say or talk about because of their political implications. Climate science is hampered by the problem of having to be constantly aware of the political ramifications of their research: are they "helping the deniers" if they publish a result? If we start bringing this bullshit into hard science then we'll break that too. This is maths and physics. There's the hypothesis, there's the experiment. Do the experiment and validate the hypothesis. If the experiment isn't working, devise a better one. If the new theory leads to predictions then test those predictions. It's all objective, it can be tested, and those tests can be reproduced. It's like free speech. I may not like the things you say, but I will absolutely support your right to say them. If you find telepathy interesting enough to study, then that's awesome. If you think you've got a result, and I'm interested enough, then I'll look at your methods and your data and work out if I agree with you or not. But dismissing you as a crank just because you're studying it is anti-scientific. And just like free speech is being threatened by politics and there are now things that people must not say, science is becoming threatened and there are things that must not be published. This is bad imho.
spacehome 11y ago
If you're interested, then go ahead and read about the history of telepathy research so you can have a (more) informed opinion about it. Numerous well-performed and controlled experiments have not find any evidence for it, and in this case, absence of evidence is reasonably strong evidence of absence. Since there are so many other interesting (real) things in the universe to study, I conclude that people who continue to study it are doing so for reasons unrelated to the merits. It doesn't make someone "not a real scientist", but I sure would look askance at their critical thinking skills. > This EM drive is a case in point. Studies seem to suggest there is a real thing happening here ... That's not what I see. Every time the experiment is done with more precision and less noise, the effect diminishes again to near the limits of experimental error. That's exactly what you would see if the force was due to thermal (or other electromagnetic) effects rather than novel engineering principles. Nothing wrong with studying it, though. But I'd be willing to bet real money it all comes to nothing. Edit: > Is there any data to support your theory that people who are willing to study telepathy are less mathematically able than those who are not? No, of course there is no such data. And mathematical ability is only tangentially related to critical thinking in the real world.