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...At The James Randi Educational Foundation

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Alexius said:
Anybody fancy a try?

I suggest myself and Emp's set about establishing the thread & the protocol - when we have got things ship-shape, we can start up again. Lucian I know is up for it - anybodyelse who would like to act as viewers or senders or judges, do please step forth onto this thread and make yourself known :)
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Sure, I'd like to give it a try. I've never had any success with this kind of thing before, so you could think of me as a control group.
 
Emperor said:
I must admit I didn't really take the attribution of sex into account as it wasn't too clear ;)

Emps
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I agree, great jugs! ;)

Seriously, though.

I said that the face "appeared to be a young male". Take a look at the face and maybe you can see why it could be percieved as a "young male" during the creation of the image in the mind of Alexius - it even has sideys! the link to the 'face' image is here:
http://www.angelfire.com/me/lucianarchy/psi_imageface.jpg

Don't get me wrong, I'm not disputing the scoring, it should, as they say, be 'self evident' to all concerned anyway.

Now for the nutty stuff - turn off here if you are easily cynicised. (that sounds painful. if it exists) ;)

For future reference:

The crossroads thing. - My experience is that using this viualisation point enables the knowledge of all space/time to be accessible given the right conditions. The sender / carrier brings their image which can then be enhanced through global consciousness. I know it sounds woo-woo, but my experience is that this type of creative visualisation/scenario tends to get results which work for me.

This is why I'd like to see something about the background to the picture and the accompanying text. Even if Alexia had no knowledge of the background, it would still have its existence charged / invested with the collective meme of the shared consciousness associated with it.

The first thing I thought of when I saw it was "Ex-Peri!" / 'beyond magic!' - The image of the girl appears to be very similar to the nature of the 'Peri', a Persian nature 'spirit', certainly a faeri/innocent linked to the act of 'spititual intoxication'.

Is there even a title for the picture, can anyone read the text.?

I only want to know for my own muse, sure sometimes a dancing girl is just a dancing girl, but sometimes an experiment turns up something 'beyond magic'.

Finally, are we waiting for any other control feedback?
 
Well the picture could be of a "Lady Boy". How many us have been fooled by these oriental creatures?;) (tip here is to always look at the hands)
 
Dr Poo said:
Well the picture could be of a "Lady Boy". How many us have been fooled by these oriental creatures?
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Not me for one ... care to enlighten us?
 
I'll have a try at reading the text later this evening - I believe it may be pure Arabic, but I'll confirm it.

Path-working tecniques do work - the interesting thing is how they work :)

By the way, I assumed 'the face of innocence' was me :)
 
Alexius, sorry I spoilt things. I look forward to the next reading!
 
Ah Pooey! You didn't spoil a thing!

Actually, myself and Emps ought to have made it clear that questions should be held til the end - our fault, not yours.

That's why we are working on a new thread, were strict procedural rules will apply for each session.

You are very welcome to join in :)
 
Sorry I'm late!!

I'm pretty much in agreement with Emps as well - I ranked him perhaps closer to two, as the correspondences were quite striking IMHO, particularly the bowl and the non-European appearance. OK, the gender was incorrect, but that it was a human figure was to me a partial hit.

I also agree that due to the premature end perhaps more couild have been gleaned over a longer time period (IIRC some RV experiments have lasted weeks), so perhaps an agreement re timescale is sensible - we should really discuss this between controls and Lucianarchy, to find a mutually acceptable schedule.
 
Skeptic Tank

stu neville said:
Sceptics are the normal, logical folk who tend not to believe stuff that's out of the ordinary, but will accept proof if furnished. Skeptics, on the other hand, are people who actively disbelieve in weird stuff, and have the mindset that even if proof is furnished they will still not believe it, and will instead turn to challenging the authenticity of the proof. Basically, sceptics are still open-minded, skeptics aren't.
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Thank you, Stu. I'm afraid I'm gonna have to disagree with that arrangement, though. Y'see, I asked in the first place 'cause if you look at my profile you'll see I put "Skeptic" under occupation. I'm gonna stick with that even though I think I fit under your first category there. For two reasons:
  1. According to my dictionary, both spellings correspond to the same definitions. I realize that's understood and this is a specialized case, but,
  2. I prefer to spell it with a K :)
    [/list=1]Having said all that I'd have liked to provide the definition in my dictionary, but it's at home and I'm at work. One of the main points, though, is not believing anything without proof, or something like that. Basically I don't believe anything that I don't personally experience, which some may call close-minded but they're wrong. :D

    Anyway, just wanted to clarify my "occupation". I suppose I could change the spelling to "Skeptik"....
 
Ah, the warm, dark, leech-infested waters of epistemology & ontology...

I think it comes down to how and when you make ontological commitments (or for those who were sensible enough not to waste their youth reading Russell, what you choose to assert exists).

Ultimately, that comes down to a matter of taste. Take unicorns. Ask a logical positivist, and they will tell you 'No way, matey'. Ask me, and I'll say 'Well, artefacts of the imagination possess a phenomenal existence. If I can speak meaningfully about Berty Russel (who is now brown bread and whom I never actually met - making him an imaginary construct as far as I'm concerned) then unicorns are in too''

Ask Umberto Eco.

Going along with that, scepticism becomes a little fuzzy - a lot fuzzy, actually. Dogmatic scepticism becomes absurd in the strict sense of entailing contradiction - asserting a the validity of one act of faith over others, when qualitatively they are alike.

Me, I'm a Wittgensteinian when it comes to these things - avoid falling into language traps and try to resolve the tangles towards attaining as much clarity as poss - for perfect clarity may be beyond the bounds of the intellect; then what cannot be spoken must be shown.

Apropos of nothing really.

I'll get me coat :)
 
You mean my teacher didn't make those words up?

Alexius said:
Ah, the warm, dark, leech-infested waters of epistemology & ontology...
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Oh my god.... WHAT?!?

I myself am a little bit fuzzy....
 
If you fancy diving deep into the muddy, parasitic depths, have a look at the opening essay in Eco's 'Kant & the Platypus' entitled 'On Being'. Seems that 'is' is a most mysterious word...

I first read it during a nasty fever a few years ago - gave me fantastic nightmares! :)
 
Alexius said:
If you fancy diving deep into the muddy, parasitic depths,
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Are you coming on to me?

Okay, I'm kidding around. But seriously, I'm very confused.
 
Sceptics tend to take a rather hard view of things - it is true if you can demonstrate it. Demonstration usually entails instrumental measurment.

However, consider telepathy.

We can say it is real in so far as it can be measured; in so far as it may be experienced (irrespective of it's existence as a measureable thing; in so far as it may be spoken of and discussed.

In all senses it may be said to be true. The question is, where do you choose to draw the line? Drawing the line at measurement is problamatic as it throws up all kinds of problems (my sense of identity, or my enjoyment of baklava are arguably real, but not really measurable).

I guess, in short, one should balance a reading of Popper with a reading of Peirce. And although many radical skeptics speak often of logic, they seldom show much evidence of having studied it.

But sceptics like you are warm and lovable, and welcome to marry my sister anytime :)
 
Orangutans are skeptical of changes in their cages

Alexius said:
But sceptics like you are warm and lovable, and welcome to marry my sister anytime :)
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WOW! Okay, I'm game.

Another great example is gravity. I mean, we all take for granted that it's real, 'cause they teach us so in school. But what is it? I've never heard it explained to me in any way that really made any sense. I'm going with magic.
 
OK, gravity.

Pick up apple - release - it falls. Never been seen to go up or sideways.

Inference kicks in, Newton does the business mathematically, the mathematics matches the apples falling and predicts how they fall. The rest is history.

On one level, denying gravity as an effect is not easy. Senseless, in fact. But that is the instrumental level. When we turn to other planes of the question (like what exactly is the mechanism) it becomes a freer field.

I think some interpretations have force because they attract a concensus about them - but they are not necessarily true on all planes. Newton's equations do the trick, but his explanation was overturned by Einstein, whose interpretation is being challenged by Quantum Mechanicists...

Consistency and explanative force are fine qualities in a theory, but they do not quarentee all that much. Perhaps it is best to wear one's ontological commitments lightly and be wary of the tendency to exclude the un assimulable.

Ooh, I've come over all Fortean..best have a lie down :)
 
There's them words again...

Okay, I'm only a simple community college student. And that still spells magic to me.

The thing about it is, I just don't care that much. I know that I'm not gonna float away so it doesn't matter. I'm sure I could study it and understand it better if I wanted to, but I'd much rather play some Mega Man games. Which work by magic.

BTW, this Monday I have to give a presentation about how analog sound gets converted to digital signals. I'm renting a top hat and wand for the occasion.
 
Alexius, anyone?

Any news about the text ?

Thanks in advance, I realise you have other things to do!
 
Lucian - will take a look tonight.

Have you seen the latest stuff on the procedural board ;)
 
Alexius, thanks. And yes, I have. It's all good stuff. Loads of positive input, suggestions, etc,. I am looking forward to it. Thanks for everything you have done here, Alexius. You seem to be a natural co-ordinator.
 
First of all my apologies at coming back to this rather late in the day as i was originally supposed to be one of the controls. As I explained to Alexius Ive had a bugger of a time at work over the last week or so, so I havent been online much.

Anyway, this will have to be breif but I think I would rate Luci's reading at the 2 mark on the scale Alexius suggested. Yes there were several elements that were wide of the mark, but there were enough hits (Im not going to go through them as they've already been mentioned earlier) to make the reading significant.

An interesting experiment. Of course we can't prove anything from it as it wasnt done in lab conditions etc but thought provoking none the less.
 
Not being picky, or wishing to comment on the experimental results, but what's being examined here is not remote viewing. One of the traditional elements of RV is that the target is not known to the viewer (obviously) OR the person conducting the tests. Experiementally, this is to eliminate other possible methods of knowing the target, and practically... well, why RV something that the guy across the table already knows about?

Another element is that RV targets must be attributed a unique co-ordinate or identifier. Without this - so the believers say - it will not work.

What's being examined here is more an exercise is telepathy, and this is very different from RV, regardless of whether either of these things exist.
 
Good point, well made; we did rather pick up a loose definition of RV and run with it.

Certainly feel free to come across to the experimental thread and post your thoughts - this run of tests is as much about playing with methodology as anything else, and commentary is most welcome.
 
Desperado said:
What's being examined here is more an exercise is telepathy, and this is very different from RV, regardless of whether either of these things exist.
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Yep that was my feeling too (I'm not sure I mentioned it publically I have said similar things in PMs) but as we don't know the mechanisms of either telepathy or RV (if indeed they work) it could be they are the same thing ;)

Emps
 
"However, consider telepathy.
We can say it is real in so far as it can be measured; in so far as it may be experienced (irrespective of it's existence as a measureable thing; in so far as it may be spoken of and discussed. In all senses it may be said to be true. "

Well, that's a mighty big claim you're making there...what convinced you of its 'measureability'? Traditionally it's proven damned hard (impossible?) to pin down.
 
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