tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post9045061547189617170..comments2024-01-26T00:50:50.752-08:00Comments on Entangled Minds: Presentiment demosDean Radinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16131263574182645280noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-7464896725034331442010-02-16T14:31:57.839-08:002010-02-16T14:31:57.839-08:00Wow!
Thank you professor!
I wasn't expecting s...Wow!<br />Thank you professor!<br />I wasn't expecting such a quick reply.<br />I will take your comment into consideration and I will try to make my presentation better.<br />Thank you for your quick reply.<br /><br />I also asked this question on the Skeptiko website, am I allowed to post your reply?Spirits1234https://www.blogger.com/profile/00342670415725876593noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-89897916409517584872010-02-16T11:48:40.281-08:002010-02-16T11:48:40.281-08:00What is more credible? Comments left on a skeptics...What is more credible? Comments left on a skeptics forum or blog, or articles that have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals? Peer review is important because the reviewers thoroughly know the literature, so they can evaluate ideas in an informed fashion. People proposing ideas in forums often come up with clever explanations, but they are rarely aware that their ideas have already been thoroughly discussed.<br /><br />This is a good case in point. Those of us who have conducted these experiments are well aware of the proposed anticipatory explanation. It's a form of gambler's fallacy, and my colleagues and I have specifically tested this idea in the data collected in our experiments. The bottom line is that the proposed explanation is not supported by the actual data. <br /><br />It is not the case that skin conductance (or any other physiological measure that has been studied to date in these experiments) is systematically influenced by the previous target. What we see in these studies is a sudden rise in pre-response anticipation just before the emotional target.Dean Radinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16131263574182645280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-6714781663826442852010-02-16T03:13:07.537-08:002010-02-16T03:13:07.537-08:00Hello Pr. Radin!
I know it's an old post but c...Hello Pr. Radin!<br />I know it's an old post but could you please spare some minutes to reply to my question, I would be really grateful for that.<br /><br />I'm doing a class presentation on the Presentiment Experiment you described.<br />However while browsing for materials on the net I came across a skeptic website "http://forums(dot)randi(dot)org/showthread(dot)php?t=123007", which might be the most annoying website for parapsychology researchers.<br /><br />However Robin mention a good counter argument to your argument about the statistical analysis method used.<br /><br />I'm a bit confuse about what to really believe, Could you please reply provide a response on your side?<br /><br />I really appreciate the efforts you've done on Parapsychology research, I really hope for the success of parapsychology.<br />But I hate even more to have doubts in what I believed to be the most prominent research in Parapsychology.<br /><br />Thank you.<br />Allen.Spirits1234https://www.blogger.com/profile/00342670415725876593noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-27175523860261031632009-08-05T14:49:57.580-07:002009-08-05T14:49:57.580-07:00> I was wondering if the 5 second waiting perio...> I was wondering if the 5 second waiting period was a true null period ...<br /><br />It is. <br /><br />One or two tests of this type that I did when I first started to explore this paradigm had the target pre-selected, but hidden, during the presentiment period. All of my later studies, and those of most of the replications, are genuinely precognitive.Dean Radinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16131263574182645280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-28058107321308063202009-08-05T03:31:41.529-07:002009-08-05T03:31:41.529-07:00Dean
In "Entangled Minds" (PP.165) you ...Dean<br /><br />In "Entangled Minds" (PP.165) you say "After the button press the computer waits 5 seconds, selects a picture at random...[and then] displays it on the screen for 3 seconds". <br />In this blog you say "...the moment the target is selected and shown, at second 0...".<br />I understand these quotes to mean that when the presentiment effect starts, the picture has not yet been selected by the computer program. <br />This implies that we can sense something that hasn't happened yet.<br /><br />If the situation was that the computer had already selected the image at second -3, the implication could be that we can sense information that is being witheld from us (ie. the computer already "knows" the image it will display) - which is still amazing (akin to knowing that we are being started at, remote viewing and telepathy) but is different from sensing "the future". <br /> <br />I was wondering if the 5 second waiting period was a true null period of pure waiting or if the computer made use of this time to execute the random algorithm and had possibly already selected the image by the time the presentiment effect starts?BobHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16101979487107879887noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-56787801736537687102009-04-23T09:47:00.000-07:002009-04-23T09:47:00.000-07:00Above, a poster named Robin made some interesting ...Above, a poster named Robin made some interesting methodological criticisms related to the Gambler's Fallacy to which I am not able to find your response. <br /><br />Like Robin, I can't figure out why dichotomous stimuli are necessary, or why a reset is necessary.Nick Bentleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14298663809964746449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-69609302861757094022009-03-18T10:50:00.000-07:002009-03-18T10:50:00.000-07:00> Have professional athletes been tested ...Not...> Have professional athletes been tested ...<BR/><BR/>Not to my knowledge, but it's a good idea. There are fewer than a handful of people in the world conducting presentiment experiments. By contrast [rant on] thousands of people are engaged in conventional psychophysiological research who have the equipment and skills to do similar studies, but prefer not to [rant off].Dean Radinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16131263574182645280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-6814079405571029022009-03-18T05:49:00.000-07:002009-03-18T05:49:00.000-07:00Have professional athletes been tested for more se...Have professional athletes been tested for more sensitive or longer range presentiment effects? One could conjecture that if short term presentiment is naturally occuring in everyone then the best athletes in basketball, hockey, tennis, the martial arts, or batting and infielding in baseball, might have stronger presentiment effects which help explain their talent.anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09701008088467238503noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-90137772549040825042008-10-27T09:57:00.000-07:002008-10-27T09:57:00.000-07:00The physiology monitors made by Wild Divine and He...The physiology monitors made by Wild Divine and Heartmath are affordable. Either of those systems could be used to create a presentiment experiment by someone adept in programming. Of course, as Rupert Sheldrake has shown, you really don't need fancy equipment to do a psi test. Rupert's "feeling of being stared at" or "telephone telepathy" experiments indicate that practically anyone, anywhere, who wishes to seriously conduct an experiment can do so at very little cost.Dean Radinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16131263574182645280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-78119634881480895662008-10-24T10:50:00.000-07:002008-10-24T10:50:00.000-07:00How easy is it to measure skin conductance reliabl...How easy is it to measure skin conductance reliably (e.g. can you get a device that plugs into a USB port!) - I mean the presentiment experiment sounds like something that could easily be set up in a school science lab.<BR/><BR/>If enough people tinker with your experiment, you never know what might emerge!David Baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06172248428321078417noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-63081284828383630362008-10-21T17:15:00.000-07:002008-10-21T17:15:00.000-07:00... inhibit psi performance ... Factors include: E...... inhibit psi performance ... <BR/><BR/>Factors include: Effortful striving, anxiety, unfocused attention, poorly described instructions (for experimental tasks), lack of supportive set and setting, too much feedback (for some), not enough feedback (for others), annoying or confusing feedback, disbelief that the task can be accomplished (in the investigator or the participant), the personality trait of closedmindedness, a sense of being rushed, an inflexible target system (for PK), and so on. <BR/><BR/>In general, anything that would make you feel uncomfortable about performing at your best would also work against psi performance. There are probably some physical factors too, such as lunar phase or LST, but I think psychological and psychophysiological factors are stronger modulators of performance.Dean Radinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16131263574182645280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-22714144110678719472008-10-21T17:02:00.000-07:002008-10-21T17:02:00.000-07:00I once tried an experiment using both sound and pi...I once tried an experiment using both sound and pictures, but I personally found it too disturbing, and I don't ask anyone to participate in an experiment that I wouldn't want to do myself. I also tried a version that used a powerful electrical shock (Ed May built it out of a medical-grade shocking system), but that too was so disturbing that I didn't want to use it.Dean Radinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16131263574182645280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-84222773490890142852008-10-21T15:45:00.000-07:002008-10-21T15:45:00.000-07:00If using sound yields more significant results, bu...If using sound yields more significant results, but the pictures hold subjects' interest better, why not combine the two?<BR/><BR/>Alternatively, why not hold their interest with a silent computer game of some sort, and blast them with noise as required!David Baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06172248428321078417noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-26216572821600923362008-10-21T15:12:00.000-07:002008-10-21T15:12:00.000-07:00Yes, the Ed May and James Spottiswoode study is in...Yes, the Ed May and James Spottiswoode study is intriguing. <BR/><BR/>It must be frustrating though at times to be dealing with such variable systems as human beings are. But that's reality, we are not dealing with a classical physics experiment here.<BR/><BR/>This brings me to another question. <BR/>Have you ever observed anything that seems to inhibit psi performance apart from boredom(or a rabid pseudo-skeptic yelling at the subjects)? Local sidereal time is a candidate to boost psi, but it seems to me that other factors must be at work in some studies too. <BR/>Or do you think all this variability can be explained by the subtle differences in the personalities etc. of the subjects?Torhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00832780160218654422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-49433374632760432632008-10-21T13:43:00.000-07:002008-10-21T13:43:00.000-07:00All studies involving human performance are permea...All studies involving human performance are permeated with noise, so not every experiment can realistically be expected to produce statistically significant results. That's why meta-analyses have become so widely used in the behavioral and medical sciences. They provide a way to assess whether there are repeatable patterns across experiments, without insisting for each individual experiment to be statistically significant. <BR/><BR/>Also, the particular type of presentiment experiment I've run uses pictures for stimuli, and people respond idiosyncratically to pictures, which adds noise to the experiment. My colleagues Ed May and James Spottiswoode have run a version using audio only, and obtained highly significant results (more so than any of my individual experiments).<BR/><BR/>I decided to use pictures because it makes the experiment more interesting for the participants, and it uses pictures that have already been employed in hundreds of mainstream psychophysiological studies.Dean Radinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16131263574182645280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-67905858202348511722008-10-21T12:42:00.000-07:002008-10-21T12:42:00.000-07:00Dean,About your article "Electrodermal Presentimen...Dean,<BR/><BR/>About your article "<I>Electrodermal Presentiments of Future Emotions", Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 18, No. 2</I>, I was wondering if you have any idea why two of the four experiments you conducted individualy turned out non-significant? <BR/><BR/>I can understand why the 4th experiment gave a non-signigifcant p-value, since it had much fewer trials. But experiment 2 had by far the largest amount of trials of all, but still turned up non-significant.<BR/><BR/>My impression has been that the presentiment effect (along with DMILS) was the most robust psi effect since so many have replicated it. Does it too suffer from this inherent unstability (critics would say unrepetability) that is common amongst psi studies?Torhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00832780160218654422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-80646448213637738232008-10-16T19:14:00.000-07:002008-10-16T19:14:00.000-07:00A further couple of points.The anticipation effect...A further couple of points.<BR/><BR/>The anticipation effect requires no "reset" required as you say - I have no such reset in my simulation. All it requires is that there is a slight effect in the opposite direction during "emotional" trials.<BR/><BR/>Further I am surprised that you and your colleagues are so certain that the anticipation effect is not present in your data.<BR/><BR/>I can't even detect it in my simulation data without carefully targetted tests.Robinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16015911138886238144noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-46231955261745390362008-10-16T17:58:00.000-07:002008-10-16T17:58:00.000-07:00Yes, thank you, that clarifies that my initial und...Yes, thank you, that clarifies that my initial understanding or the picture selection was largely correct. But I am interested in why you think the gambler's fallacy only applies to dichotomous data. It seems that it applies in a number of situations - even random walk data like stock market graphs.<BR/><BR/>And it is not even certain that only the gambler's fallacy could produce this kind of artefact.<BR/><BR/>My simulation does not depend on dichotomous targets, only whether the prior stimulus has high or low emotional impact, so I don't know what difference variation in the emotionality of the pictures would have.<BR/><BR/>And why do you think simulations can't have large numbers of sessions or data pooled across sessions? I believe my simulations have pretty much the same structure as your experiments.Robinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16015911138886238144noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-11297759681274120302008-10-16T15:50:00.000-07:002008-10-16T15:50:00.000-07:00After the stimulus the average emotional curve wen...After the stimulus the average emotional curve went up a little as compared to the calm (not significantly). Nothing like the massively significant difference that is observed in people who show a positive presentiment result. It's rare to find someone who systematically shows a relaxation response after actually seeing highly emotional pictures.Dean Radinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16131263574182645280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-22941881448624915692008-10-16T15:06:00.000-07:002008-10-16T15:06:00.000-07:00Did the curve for the negative presentiment guy co...Did the curve for the negative presentiment guy continue negative after the image was exposed - corresponding to his explanation?David Baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06172248428321078417noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-35025248830440556812008-10-16T10:39:00.000-07:002008-10-16T10:39:00.000-07:00Update: Last week I ran another demo as part of an...Update: Last week I ran another demo as part of an interview, and this one turned out significantly <I>negative</I>, meaning opposite to the standard prediction. In discussing this with the interviewer, he said that his reaction to a possible upcoming emotional event is to become extremely calm and quiet, rather than to become anxious. I had previously noticed that some people (mostly men) showed this same type of significantly reversed presentiment effect, but I hadn't thought to ask them how they typically deal with anticipated emotions or (putting it in more common terms) potential danger. In future tests I'll see if this factor predicts how they perform in this experiment.Dean Radinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16131263574182645280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-25729449227510098052008-10-13T19:13:00.000-07:002008-10-13T19:13:00.000-07:00The analysis does use the categories of calm and e...The analysis does use the categories of calm and emotional. But keep in mind that the pool of available pictures ranges from very calm to very emotional. So most of the pictures viewed will not be particularly calm or emotional, and thus those are the pictures excluded from the final analysis to ensure that we're only dealing with a strong contrast in affect. Is that any clearer?Dean Radinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16131263574182645280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-52709549504954206492008-10-13T17:42:00.000-07:002008-10-13T17:42:00.000-07:00Dr Radin,Can you clarify? Are you saying that the...Dr Radin,<BR/><BR/>Can you clarify? Are you saying that the pictures in the presentiment experiments did not fall into the categories upon which the analysis was based, ie "calm" and "emotional"?Robinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16015911138886238144noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-90545671038154296192008-10-09T14:24:00.000-07:002008-10-09T14:24:00.000-07:00I've tried a number of ways of reducing the noise,...I've tried a number of ways of reducing the noise, including combining multiple physiological indicators. The most successful method I've found so far involves measurements based on the behavior of the eye. I'll mention more about this after the paper describing the experiment has been published.Dean Radinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16131263574182645280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16158865.post-82059478755903948472008-10-09T09:30:00.000-07:002008-10-09T09:30:00.000-07:00I wonder if you have tried any way to get the nois...I wonder if you have tried any way to get the noise down - so that a useable prediction can be made before each event.<BR/><BR/>Do you think the noise would go down if you measured several different arousal indicators and combined them in some way, or does the noise simply reflect the way the person's arousal is varying - so all the measures would follow each other.<BR/><BR/>Presentiment seems frustratingly just below the S/N level at which dramatic demonstrations would be possible - such as scoring above chance in certain kinds of gambling!David Baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06172248428321078417noreply@blogger.com