Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!nbires!hao!hplabs!sdcrdcf!psivax!friesen From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) Newsgroups: net.sci Subject: Re: Professional Psychics (Re: how about *real* psi info? Message-ID: <1314@psivax.UUCP> Date: Thu, 3-Jul-86 16:05:32 EDT Article-I.D.: psivax.1314 Posted: Thu Jul 3 16:05:32 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 5-Jul-86 05:20:44 EDT References: <3719@decwrl.DEC.COM> <136@cci632.UUCP> Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA Lines: 56 In article <136@cci632.UUCP> rb@ccird1.UUCP (Rex Ballard) writes: > >The problem here is that Randi would want Dykshorn to read specific thoughts, >Dykshorn only gets "symbols" of whatever the person has strong feelings >about at that moment. As to his initial claims, police departments, >the military, intellegence agencies, scientists, and reporters have been >sufficiently convinced that they will use leads given by him. He doesn't >even claim it's PSI. In fact he admits that it might be some form of >subconcious cognition. He looks at the input (picture, scene of the crime, >the victim, whatever), gets an image of something that may or not make >sense, and blurts it out. If he can explaint the image, he will. Sometimes >he can't, but later evidence explains the image for him. Well, I can understand why Randi would not accept this sort of thing, it sounds suspiciously like the old medium's trick of "cold reading". Say something generic, or even better, obscure, and *something* will come up which matches it! If he cannot make specific statements, then the range of possible matches is *very* large, and the probability of *one* of the possible matches occurring is quite high. All that is reallyy needed is a little knowledge off human nature and a talent for uttering ambiguous but reasonable sounding nonsense! Why invoke obscure, unusual phenomena for something that is not even out of the ordinary!! > >There was one fellow who used to get up in front of an audience and simply >blurt out whatever he was thinking and ask if someone else was thinking it. >Sure enough, someone would be thinking about it. The "artist" never claimed >to be a "mind reader", in fact, he assumed that when he mentioned something, >it would trigger someone else in the audience. Clairvoyance or suggestion? > And here is another bit if statistical hocus-pocus! This sounds like a variant of the birthday "paradox". Take a group of about 20 people, what do you think the chances of two of them having the same birthday are? In point of fact, it is virtually certain that there will be at least one such pair! So it is here, given an audience of a couple of hundred or so it is almost certain that *someone* in the audience will be thinking the same thing as the guy in front! It is not even necessary to invoke suggestion to explain this. Really, until those who want to believe in PSI can tell the difference between a simple parlour trick and a truly unexplainable event, they will have very little credibility. >Most of those who experience thoughts and images of this type don't know >what they are. Most would be happy to admit that it was cognition, or >suggestion, or whatever. > Probably because they believe such things are actually unusual, rather than ordinary results of human psychology! -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) UUCP: {ttidca|ihnp4|sdcrdcf|quad1|nrcvax|bellcore|logico}!psivax!friesen ARPA: ??