The Ganzfeld Experiments

[Interesting Ian]

"The" ganzfeld experiments? The ganzfeld has been in use since 1974, so includes a much greater database than those included in the four links in amherst's first posts.

Look! If this experiment was not included in the meta-analysis then why the hell is it being discussed???
I'm assuming the meta-analysis includes those experiments which were done in a particular way. I see no purpose in including experiments with a flawed experimental protocol.

And the ganzfeld isn't resctricted to a certain target type. Why wouldn't physical locations be an acceptable target?

Nothing in principle as far as I can think although it would be best to have all the experiments similar.

And why shouldn't the sender say anything?

Huh?? Say to the judges what target he's looking at?? This is what you said before. But then this ain't got nowt to do with the paranormal. But I'm obviously completely misunderstanding everything you're saying as I keep telling you, and you're keep ignoring.

As for a sender saying anything, what the hell is the purpose?? Who's he saying it to?? or is he just talking to himself?? When you watch a TV programme do you continually describe what you're seeing??

Sometimes (as in the PRL tests) the sender is encouraged to verbalise their thoughts as they send their impressions to the target.

Whilst speaking down a mobile at the same time to a mobile glued to one of the judges ears??

Why are we discussing this experiment when

a) I have no idea what the experimental protocol involves

and

b) It was not included in the meta-analysis??

Couldn't possibly answer those 2 questions could you??

Here's the abstract of Shlitz's experiment: Schlitz, Marilyn; Gruber, Elmar. Transcontinental remote viewing. Journal of Parapsychology, 1980 Dec, v44 (n4):305-317. Abstract: Two experimenters carried out a long-distance remote-viewing experiment, with one of them, in Detroit, Michigan, acting as percipient and the other, in Rome, Italy, as the agent. From a pool of 40 geographical target locations in Rome, 10 were randomly chosen without replacement, and the agent visited them one at a time for 15 min on each of 10 consecutive days. The percipient, at the same time, recorded in words and sketches her impressions of the agent's location. Later, 5 independent judges received copies of these sketches, and the impressions translated into Italian. They visited the locations and judged the protocols with respect to their correspondence to the target sites. Analysis of the results by a direct-count-of-permutations method yielded a p of 4.7 * 10-super(-6 ) for judges' ratings and 5.8 * 10-super(-6) for rankings. The authors point out that free-response remote viewing may be a psi-conducive procedure, but that the results may also have been influenced by exceptionally high motivation on the part of the 2 experimenters.

Although (hilariously ) I got my experiments mixed up. The Schlitz experiment didn't have the temporal clues that I mentioned earlier: the fault was that the notes of the agent were in Italian, and were translated by someone who knew what the target was. Some consider this to be a possible source for a leak of information (refuted by Schlitz).

The temporal clues came from a Targ and Tart experiment as I recall. So many experiments, so many faults: no wonder I get them mixed up! [/B]

Look, this experiment was not included in the meta-analysis, you're saying you're getting all these experiments mixed up, and there is no mention of the agent telling the judges what he is seeing. Is there any point to this??

And you mention all these flaws. Well so far you have the Soal fiasco and the one just mentioned. I agree this seems to be a flaw if you're telling the truth (although I find that Skeptics invariably mislead or flat out lie). "Temporal clues"??? I have no idea what this could possibly mean

Let's stick to the subject of this thread shall we??

 

[Interesting Ian]

Tell me which picture out of the three that I sought out and found in the Internet first (they're not my pics). Tell me your reasons why you think I selected it first. Is that too simple a request?

How should I know?? The top one I guess would be the one you selected first, and you selected it first because you found it first.

What on earth this has to do with anything is quite beyond me.

 

[Dancing David]

Amhearst,
I am glad to see you back, what I feel Zep is trying to say is that the target pictures have to be carefully chosen so that there are
1. Clear differences between the photos
2.Very little overlaps between the photos
3.Very simple photos

I will try to explain my feelings about this because it has to be an important part of the protocols.

1.If there are common elements between the photos ,it just really muddies things up. I agree that only one is the target photo, but If you really believe that the psi effect exists as the experiementers are trying to prove then this becomes obvious. If there is some sort of precognitive or other remote knowledge component to psi then it is essential that the pictures be unambigous and clearly different.
Say for example that the real psi effect is not in the sending but in that the reciever has the ability to sense the future, they could then get information about one of the decoys from the judge reviewing the pictures,instead of the target, this could then be a stated word from a decoy image that they are sensing from the future judge. This would then muddy the hit rate.
Clear differences between the photos will help reduce the hit rate from psi effects that are not the alleged target psi effect. This is the nature of science, if you are postulating that a person cans end an image to another, then it is important to eliminate other psi effects in the controls.
That is why it would be better to have the 'arbitrary' protocol of which words are hits rather than the choosing of pictures. A machine could listen to the recievers transcript and decide what words are hits that way. Choosing the oicture that the judge feels best matches the transcript introduces the potential error that the judge is actualy "postcognitive viewing".

2. Little overlap between the photos lessens the chance of experimental error. If two of the photos contain cars it is just a sloppy methodology and you would increase the errror rate from that por method. What is again this time it is the reciever who is precognitively linked to the judge? By having the image of a car in more than one photo you have muddied the water. the goal is to prove that there is a sending and recieving going on, you have too much potential for other psi effects with multiple images per photo.
It also just increases the chance that alist of random words will match the target photo when in fact it will also match the decoy.

3. Very simple photos lessens the chance that a random list of words will match a chosen photo. Which is really a good control measure if you wish to control for the random word match.

 

[Ed]

Why not zener cards and self selection of the "correct" target? Why not a clean design with no subjectivity? Why baroque paradigms that garentee discussions like this?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Amherst said:
Hints? During the sending phase a completly target blind reciever describes the imagry he/she is seeing. This is recorded in a control room by an experimenter who is also completly blind to the target. After twenty minutes, the reciver is presented with four images on a computer screen, one of which is the one the sender was trying to transmit. Over a long series of runs, the reciever should guess the correct target 25% of the time, the average is 32.2%. And the same goes for an independent judge. What hints could be in the transcript except those provided by psi if everyone is blind to what the target is? This nonsense you keep spouting is becoming very tiring. You find these experiments important enough to post about, yet you seem to have an aversion for reading any of the articles.

Sorry, my mistake. Unedited transcripts were used in Targ & Puthoff experiments in the late '70s.

After the Psychological Bulletin article came out in 93, Daryl Bem graciously gave some of his time to discuss the details of paper and other issues on sci.skeptic. This should answer your criticism:

"Not possible. First, the experimenter doesn't even know which of 4 videotape cassettes is in the player. Next, the segments are all equally long so rewind time is identical for all targets."

http://www.csicop.org/si/9603/claims.html

What bias could occur? Everyone is blind to the target.

Bias can occur in experiments where the sender is allowed to select the targets.

You haven't got a clue as to what you're talking about Paul. Read the papers.

I was not describing problems with these particular studies. I was talking about problems in general.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I did not realize that people were restricting their thoughts to a particular set of Ganzfeld experiments. Sorry for confusing things.

So all the experiments used in the meta-analysis are cool. We have a replicable effect. Now it's time to come up with a theory of psi and start testing it. This will involve variations on the standard Ganzfeld protocol. Some have already been done. Here is a paper discussing these attempted replications:

http://comp9.psych.cornell.edu/dbem/Updating_Ganzfeld.pdf

~~ Paul

 

[amherst]

Bias can occur in experiments where the sender is allowed to select the targets.


~~ Paul

The target is always randomly selected for the sender:

"The sender is sequestered in a separate acoustically isolated room, and a visual stimulus (art print, photograph, or brief videotaped sequence) is randomly selected from a large pool of such stimuli to serve as the target for the session."
http://comp9.psych.cornell.edu/dbem/does_psi_exist.html#ganzfeld procedure

READ THE ARTICLES

amherst

 

[Interesting Ian]

I did not realize that people were restricting their thoughts to a particular set of Ganzfeld experiments. Sorry for confusing things.

So all the experiments used in the meta-analysis are cool. We have a replicable effect. Now it's time to come up with a theory of psi and start testing it. This will involve variations on the standard Ganzfeld protocol. Some have already been done. Here is a paper discussing these attempted replications:

http://comp9.psych.cornell.edu/dbem/Updating_Ganzfeld.pdf

~~ Paul

We can't come up with a theory of psi, it would involve denying materialism (IMO). Such would be blasphemy!

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Amherst said:
READ THE ARTICLES

I wasn't restricting myself to those particular articles. Wasn't that obvious?

Ian said:
We can't come up with a theory of psi, it would involve denying materialism (IMO). Such would be blasphemy!

We would have to deny materialism? Wow, who knew? So you're saying the theory could not be a scientific one. No wonder the thing is so hard to study. Hey, wait! Why is anyone trying to study it scientifically at all then?

~~ Paul

 

[CFLarsen]

We can't come up with a theory of psi, it would involve denying materialism (IMO). Such would be blasphemy!

So, how are we going to test to see if it exists??

Does this mean that you will not point to empirical evidence of a paranormal phenomenon?

 

[Interesting Ian]

I wasn't restricting myself to those particular articles. Wasn't that obvious?


We would have to deny materialism? Wow, who knew? So you're saying the theory could not be a scientific one. No wonder the thing is so hard to study. Hey, wait! Why is anyone trying to study it scientifically at all then?

~~ Paul

If consciousness cannot be derived from any scientific theory then I would say a fortiori psi abilities cannot be. This is because of my belief they are teleological in nature rather than being mechanistic.

Parapsychology can be as much as a science as psychology or sociology are. One is simply stating that consciousness and psi is not reducible to processes studied by the fundamental sciences.

 

[Interesting Ian]

So, how are we going to test to see if it exists??

By doing what parapsychologists do.

Does this mean that you will not point to empirical evidence of a paranormal phenomenon?

No

 

[CFLarsen]

By doing what parapsychologists do.

But how do they test for something they don't know how to look for?

No

Meaning that you will point to anecdotal evidence - a.k.a. "Old Wives Tales" - as "evidence" of paranormal claims? Great.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

But if psi is not amenable to scientific study, then parapsychologists are wasting their time. Just declare it beyond the reach of science and be done with it.

~~ Paul

 

[Dancing David]

We can't come up with a theory of psi, it would involve denying materialism (IMO). Such would be blasphemy!

That's silly, most materialists assume that if there is psi then there will be a material reason forit.

 

[Ed]

Why not zener cards and self selection of the "correct" target? Why not a clean design with no subjectivity? Why baroque paradigms that garentee discussions like this?

Why? isn't thi suggestive of fraud?

 

[thaiboxerken]

Why not zener cards and self selection of the "correct" target? Why not a clean design with no subjectivity? Why baroque paradigms that garentee discussions like this?

Oh come on now!! This would introduce objectivity into the testing that would completely destroy the "psi" phenomena. When trying to prove that something exists, one must seed the experiments in our favor.

 

[Zep]

[in response to my asking Ian to say which photo I selected first]

How should I know?? The top one I guess would be the one you selected first, and you selected it first because you found it first.

What on earth this has to do with anything is quite beyond me.

And you would indeed be correct - well done!

And what you have performed as a result of that selection process is a non-psi selection of a target image from a limited target pool using a very simple optimal guessing technique. Note that you did not have to refer to any of the key words I listed either - you used a completely different and completely rational and materialistic method of "improving" your chance of success.

And this is just one of the problems with the ganzfield methodologies being employed where photo images of scenery are used. In fact, using slightly more sophisticated but similar optimal guessing techniques, it has been shown to be possible to raise the success rates of image-guessing by a fair percentage - certainly enough to be statictically significant - without any claim to be using psi whatsoever.

One of the criticisms of the PEAR target selection was precisely along these lines. For example, in one series, subjects had to try and RV a scene chosen and actually visited "at random" by a remote target person. However, the subject knew who and where the remote target person lived. So, for example, if the target person lived in the New England area and the test was done in autumn, just about ANY outside scenery view would involve red and yellow coloured autumn leaves, dark trees, overcast, wind, rain, etc. So naturally you could rationally develop a good basis for optimising any guessing from that target person...

This is why there is strong reason to push for the use of Zener cards or similar in testing psi - they are very simple, clearly quite unique to each other, and form a delimited target pool with which to work.

 

[amherst]

And you would indeed be correct - well done!

And what you have performed as a result of that selection process is a non-psi selection of a target image from a limited target pool using a very simple optimal guessing technique. Note that you did not have to refer to any of the key words I listed either - you used a completely different and completely rational and materialistic method of "improving" your chance of success.

Zep, you are way out of your depth. I've already explained why your suggestion is ridiculous, yet you ignore me and continue to post this nonsense. If a receiver doesn't have any information as to what the correct target is he has a 25% chance of guessing the actual target. There is no "simple optimal guessing technique," that could increase his chances if psi doesn't exist. This is complete nonsense which has absolutely no basis in reality.

And this is just one of the problems with the ganzfield methodologies being employed where photo images of scenery are used. In fact, using slightly more sophisticated but similar optimal guessing techniques, it has been shown to be possible to raise the success rates of image-guessing by a fair percentage - certainly enough to be statictically significant - without any claim to be using psi whatsoever.

Nonsense.

One of the criticisms of the PEAR target selection was precisely along these lines. For example, in one series, subjects had to try and RV a scene chosen and actually visited "at random" by a remote target person. However, the subject knew who and where the remote target person lived. So, for example, if the target person lived in the New England area and the test was done in autumn, just about ANY outside scenery view would involve red and yellow coloured autumn leaves, dark trees, overcast, wind, rain, etc. So naturally you could rationally develop a good basis for optimising any guessing from that target person...

You greatly misunderstand the problems with the PEAR remote viewing work:
http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/PEARCritique.htm

It is painfully obvious that you have no real criticism of the ganzfeld, and because of this, your only recourse is to bring up other, less methodologically sound experiments, in absurd attempts to associate the two.

This is why there is strong reason to push for the use of Zener cards or similar in testing psi - they are very simple, clearly quite unique to each other, and form a delimited target pool with which to work.

The only ones with a "strong reason to push for the use of Zener cards or similar in testing psi" are psuedo-skeptics like you whose extreme fear of not having an explanation for strong experiments, coupled with a staggering lack of common sense, drives them to expound nonsense about issues they won't let themselves understand. If you're not going to read the papers I've listed, why don't you do yourself a favor and at least read what Hyman and Blackmore have said about this matter.

amherst

 

[thaiboxerken]

The only ones with a "strong reason to push for the use of Zener cards or similar in testing psi" are psuedo-skeptics like you whose extreme fear of not having an explanation for strong experiments, coupled with a staggering lack of common sense, drives them to expound nonsense about issues they won't let themselves understand. If you're not going to read the papers I've listed, why don't you do yourself a favor and at least read what Hyman and Blackmore have said about this matter.

This is just an outright insult. The big objection skeptics have with these BS tests is that there is alot of subjectivity being applied. This means that the results cannot be relied upon because of the bias that is introduced.

You accuse skeptics here of lacking common sense, yet you believe that people actually have superpowers. If there was actual science behind "psi" and other paranormal claims, it would be understandable. As it sits now, all skeptics can understand about it is what believers tell us, and their stories change from person to person and time to time. Do yourself a favor, grow up, people don't have superpowers.