Thread: "What The Bleep Do We Know?"

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Well, in there reports, all of the actual hard data is laid out for you to decide on your own. Do you think that a probability return of 7x10^-4 as compared to a probability of 0.249 on the baseline is a biased false positive or not?

Doesn't really matter what I think.

My point isn't that there IS a bias in the way the information is assessed (since they give you the hard data), my point is simply that the design is inherently prone to bias, casting doubt on any results.

How is it prone to bias? You haven't really explained yourself on the issue. Is it because the experimenter knows the controller intends to effect the output of the machine? If this is your point, then virtually every scientific experiment is biased, and I won't necessarily disagree. Why is it that you seem to reject all scientifically acquired evidence that opposes your world view, while still claiming to hold an almost worshipful regard for the scientific process? Unless you can offer a valid reason why you don't accept their data or their conclusions, I'll have to assume you simply are incapable of accepting that which lies outside your comfortable doctrine regardless of the validity of its source.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Is it because the experimenter knows the controller intends to effect the output of the machine? If this is your point, then virtually every scientific experiment is biased, and I won't necessarily disagree.

Yes, that's why. The experiment is not blinded, and all non-blinded scientific experiments are liable to bias. I'm not saying I don't accept their data, because I don't know the specifics of their experimental design and implementation, I'm just saying that this leaves room for bias if they're not extremely careful.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Unless you can offer a valid reason why you don't accept their data or their conclusions

I accept the data, but I have doubts about drawing conclusions from it. It would also be nice to see similar results from different institutions using the same setups (but blinded this time).

Originally Posted by thegnome54

No, there really isn't

How would you go about doing this?

I haven't been following the context of this thread completely. You would look at a graph which displays scores against frequency, and examine the shape, or skewness of the dataset relative to the position of the mean.

Originally Posted by really

I haven't been following the context of this thread completely. You would look at a graph which displays scores against frequency, and examine the shape, or skewness of the dataset relative to the position of the mean.

OH!

I wasn't using the term 'skewed' as a statistical description of the shape of the data, I was referring the effects of a possible bias inherent in the experimental design (it's not blinded). My bad.

I meant to say "You can't tell if a data set is biased just by looking at it".

Originally Posted by thegnome54

OH!

I wasn't using the term 'skewed' as a statistical description of the shape of the data, I was referring the effects of a possible bias inherent in the experimental design (it's not blinded). My bad.

I meant to say "You can't tell if a data set is biased just by looking at it".

Okay.

You can tell the way data can be biased by the way it is collected though.

Originally Posted by really

Okay.

You can tell the way data can be biased by the way it is collected though.

Precisely! I was trying to say that it's possible for little nuances in the way such data is collected to massively influence the results - these influences wouldn't be apparent just by looking at the data.

You just have to have a very watertight experimental design for these sorts of things.

Yeah with that water thing the guy who did it actually said that he simply selected those pictures which seemed to reflect the thought being directed at them and discarded all the others. So way to go Jeff, the water thing just shows that such things are easily very biased and that this documentary was a pile of bull.

"Classical computers do not have the ability to generate true random numbers. The random number generators on today’s computers are pseudo-random generators—there is always a cycle or a trend, however subtle. Pseudo-random generators cannot simulate natural random processes accurately for some applications, and can not reproduce certain random effects. Quantum computers can generate true randomness, thus give more veracity to programs that need true randomness in their processing. Randomness plays a significant part of applications with a heavy reliance on statistical approaches, for simulations, for code making, randomized algorithms for problems solving, and for stock market predictions, to name a few."

Thought this might be relevant in the arguments above regarding data and stuff (and the shuffle feature on the ipod). Excerpt was taken from this article.

Any decent random electronic number generator will use a pattern which is far too complex for the human mind to deduce and extrapolate, however. I think it's kind of irrelevant.

There doesn't seem to be any significant evidence for people influencing random number generators, and if there was there would be a field day. Scientists do not conspire to hide controversial evidence; quite the opposite in fact. But this and the fact that there is no possible mechanism currently apparent by which the positions of the diodes in the microchip are detected by the human brain lead to the inevitable conclusion that it's ridiculous, frankly.

So you don't see a connection being possible between two systems (human brain and computer/random generator) both of which run on electrical waves/currents? So it's ok to use such signals to broadcast messages out into space, bounce off a satellite, and to another receiver on the other side of the planet, but not from a complex and not yet completely understood organ such as the brain to a micro-chip across the table?

Not trying to start an argument, not even saying I believe in telekinesis or esp - but the possibility certainly seems to be there.

Originally Posted by Tornado Joe

So you don't see a connection being possible between two systems (human brain and computer/random generator) both of which run on electrical waves/currents?

Not the kind of connection they're suggesting. The connection in question involves some sort of translation of intent from the brain directly to the output of the machine. The machine is not sensitive enough to be affected by the tiny fluctuations in electric charge of the brain in a meaningful way - it's a mechanical system (gates and circuitry) which will not be magically changed by such tiny anomalies.

From what I understand, they also claim that random processes - such as the arrangement of balls falling down pegs - can be affected. This requires the brain to not only affect physical laws somehow, it also has to communicate what exactly it wants the balls to do.

You would need a hell of a lot of evidence to substantiate something which goes so much against everything we know so far.

You would need a hell of a lot of evidence to substantiate something which goes so much against everything we know so far.

That's why we're so far behind where we probably should be - it's just a matter of simply not having the technology at this point to make everyone happy with the proposed explanation. So, it ends up being theory/philosophy until then.

Originally Posted by Tornado Joe

That's why we're so far behind where we probably should be - It could be a matter of simply not having the technology at this point.

We have plenty of technology, and I'm sure it's possible to do testing for this sort of thing (albeit a very delicate process). It just sounds like wishful thinking to me. There is no reason I could conceive of that minute changes in the electric fields of the brain should specifically affect the large-scale outcomes of distant physical processes in a way which reflects the thoughts that they constitute within the brain.

Yes, it's possible, but without massive amounts of triple-and-quadruple-checked evidence, it's very doubtful.

Yeah, air isn't renowned for its conductive properties, I don't see how electrical impulses in neurons are supposed to affect the electrical currents in microchips. Plus those currents are a flow of electrons, whereas in the brain is a wave of motions of ions. It all sounds like a load of pseudo science really.

Oh and Gnome, obviously I agree with you but bear in mind that it could actually be the physical affecting the mind which causes these predictions, not the mind affecting the physical. Not that I'm saying it's plausible, just pointing that out.

There is no reason I could conceive of that minute changes in the electric fields of the brain should specifically affect the large-scale outcomes of distant physical processes in a way which reflects the thoughts that they constitute within the brain.

And you won't be able to conceive such a thing as long as you keep applying one rule to a system which has many. There are those rules which apply at the quantum level (very very tiny, smaller than atoms) - and the rules (or "laws") which apply to the classic science, atoms, elements, etc.

This is the grand equation the scientists are seeking to this day - how at one level, there could be rules that completely go against what's in the other level- yet they co-exist in harmony. Somehow the square and round peg are fitting through the same hole.

Yeah, air isn't renowned for its conductive properties

LOL - ok, I guess tv and radio signals just teleport from one device to another. "Air" as "oxygen" may not be conductive. But "Air" as the "space between you and me" may have a lot more substance than you think. Just because you can see through it doesn't mean it's simply empty. Those big things in the sky, with wings and propellers - that's air holding them up. No air, no fly.

Originally Posted by Xei

Yeah, air isn't renowned for its conductive properties, I don't see how electrical impulses in neurons are supposed to affect the electrical currents in microchips.

Originally Posted by Tornado Joe

LOL - ok, I guess tv and radio signals just teleport from one device to another. "Air" as "oxygen" may not be conductive. But "Air" as the "space between you and me" may have a lot more substance than you think. Just because you can see through it doesn't mean it's simply empty. Those big things in the sky, with wings and propellers - that's air holding them up. No air, no fly.

The word "conductive" here clearly refers to the conducting of electricity, not of radio waves or airplanes.

The word "conductive" here clearly refers to the conducting of electricity, not of radio waves or airplanes.

Correct, but is not everything made up of some sort of energy (or one common sort)? There is no such thing as a solid, really - everything can be broken down as far as who knows, some believe 'strings'. It all comes down to what each person believes; is 'matter' chunks of things floating around in 'space', or is space filled with 'stuff' that we are simply not capable of detecting unless it is arranged in such a way that our senses can interpret (and identify as "matter")?

That question will likely go off-topic for this thread, but I guess the point I'm stating is that if all of what we perceive is made up of the same 'stuff' (including ourselves), then there is already a connection there, which on some level could be conducted from one particle/wave to another without the need for a copper wire or string connection.

None of that really seems to have any relevance to the matter at hand. Fact is there is no way we can detect what microchips are doing or extrapolate their results using the human brain, using the reasons given above by a few people...

Somebody find a reliable source of evidence that this phenomenon occurs and then perhaps this conversation will have a purpose.

Otherwise, let's drop it, there's no evidence, and there's no reason to believe there should be any evidence, so it's pretty silly saying it's true.

Originally Posted by Xei

None of that really seems to have any relevance to the matter at hand. Fact is there is no way we can detect what microchips are doing or extrapolate their results using the human brain, using the reasons given above by a few people...

Somebody find a reliable source of evidence that this phenomenon occurs and then perhaps this conversation will have a purpose.

Otherwise, let's drop it, there's no evidence, and there's no reason to believe there should be any evidence, so it's pretty silly saying it's true.

Actually, this particular line of discussion started with evidence from a research group at Princeton. Whether you accept that evidence or not is up to you.

Accept the evidence? They have an anomaly of 2 coin flips out of 10,000. The whole thing is ridiculous and has caused Princeton quite a bit of embarassment. It was recently shut down after almost 30 years of wasting time. It's not evidence in any sense of the word.

I'd personally quite like to believe in mysterious consciousness related phenomena, but until somebody finds evidence that they exist, which is apparently yet to happen, then such discussions are just silly.

Why isn't the epic mystery of why consciousness arises from clumps of matter and waves of charge, and why such things simply appear as if by magic out of the elusive yet relatively simple laws of the universe, enough for people? Psuedoscientific ramblings about pointless dreams just diminish that incredible beauty. Why do people do it?

Originally Posted by Xei

Accept the evidence? They have an anomaly of 2 coin flips out of 10,000. The whole thing is ridiculous and has caused Princeton quite a bit of embarassment. It was recently shut down after almost 30 years of wasting time. It's not evidence in any sense of the word.

I'd personally quite like to believe in mysterious consciousness related phenomena, but until somebody finds evidence that they exist, which is apparently yet to happen, then such discussions are just silly.

Why isn't the epic mystery of why consciousness arises from clumps of matter and waves of charge, and why such things simply appear as if by magic out of the elusive yet relatively simple laws of the universe, enough for people? Psuedoscientific ramblings about pointless dreams just diminish that incredible beauty. Why do people do it?

Coin flips? They didn't do anything with coins. As for 'being shut down,' the director of the project brought it to a close because he felt there was little point in collecting more of the same data. There was no outside influence in the decision to end the project.

I'd really like to know what you actually understand about how consciousness arises in the human brain, since you make it sound so inevitable, and also since there is currently nobody else on the planet who understands this process. It always amazes me when average people talk about how simple and straight forward science is, because that is how it has been explained to them. What they don't realize is they only know the simplified version of what the people studying it think is happening. Very little of your view of the world is based on things that you actually have a valid reason to know to be true.

My mistake, it was some kind of mechanism with a random flipping device. So essentially a glorified coin. But the point is still exactly the same.

New York Times
"the PEAR team concluded that people could alter the behavior of these machines very slightly, changing about 2 or 3 flips out of 10,000."

Really is that all you're clinging to? Statisticians have discounted this as utterly meaningless and so I don't see why you shouldn't.

And I don't really know what you're rambling about in the second bit. Basically, consciousness obviously arises as a result of some kind of brain activity, that is to say waves of potential being sent along axons to neurons. What else could it possibly be? I have no idea how this happens and neuroscience only has the vaguest of notions at the current time, nor did I claim to have any knowledge. What I did say is that it is amazing that such a beautiful organ has arisen from a set of simple rules which determine the behaviour of matter and energy. It seems to me to be a colossal coincidence that consciousness should ever come to be, but that it has, and to me, speculating about trivialities which have so far shown no evidence to exist such as telekinesis is just shows disdain for the whole thing.

Thought I'd throw another log on the fire - this one isn't about mind over statistics and numbers, it's mind and matter.

The Intention Experiment