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On 11/27/09 00:47, somebody wrote:
>> I fail to see how the hypothesis is irrational and non-scientific. At
>> least not any more than communicating via radio would have been to some
>> scientist 500 years ago.
>
> Just because one (*) thing that was beyond reason 500 years ago turned out
> to be true, anything that is beyond reason today has nonzero probability of
> being true one day. Right.
Strawman. You're suggesting that I suggested that anything under this
sun is worthy of investigating.
> Newton, they laughed at Einstein..." doesn't work. There are millions of
> "Bozo the Clowns" for each Newton or Einstein.
The statement is irrelevant, unless you have a criterion for
differentiating future Bozos from future Einsteins.
>>> built right on a diamond mine worth a "billions and billions" of
> dollars,
>>> which nobody knows about. Should I start digging?
>
>> You've set up a strawman.
>
> How so?
Your diamond mine scenario is not even close to analogous with the one
we're talking about.
See comment at end of message.
>> Would that have been obvious to you 150 years ago?
>
> I was not alive 150 years ago. And even if I were, it wouldn't be relevant
> to what we are talking about today or a couple of decades ago. In fact, I
> might have been extremely stupid and gullible just last year, but that
> itself doesn't detract what I am saying right now, or excuse others,
> especially those in positions of power and influence, to act gullibly or
> stupidly.
>
>> You're suggesting that some decades ago, when numerous people continued
>> to make claims, at times with witnesses, that it wasn't worthy of
>> investigation?
>
> No. I don't even think that the number of people making claims has declined
> appreciably, or at all. It might have even increased. Number of outlandish
> claims in general, definitely has increased dramatically - just check your
> junk mail folder. Numbers mean absolutely nothing in this context,
> especially if certain motives are easily visible behind those numbers.
>
>>> cent wasted on such research is, well, wasted, and the only reasons for
> an
>>> intelligent human to bother to do such research is employement and
>>> publishing.
>
>> It seems you're merely redefining "intelligent" to be someone who
>> doesn't "fall for x", where x is to your choosing.
>
> Could be. Or maybe you are jumping to conclusions.
In all of your messages on the topic, you've not given a *single*
reason why such research was ridiculous, beyond "outrageous", and
"intelligent" people should know better. Which is just a sophisticated
way of saying "because I said so".
I _could_ expand further on my points, but since you don't seem to be
willing to elaborate, I certainly won't. Come back when you actually
want to have a discussion that's not supported by your feelings.
--
Q: What do you call a half-dozen Indians with Asian flu?
A: Six sick Sikhs (sic).
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somebody wrote:
> "Sabrina Kilian" <ski### [at] vt edu> wrote in message
> news:4b0fc0f4@news.povray.org...
>> somebody wrote:
>
>> To you, maybe that is the case. To me, if I have a 1 in a googolplex
>> chance of getting g^g returned, I would be spending at least 100 bucks.
>> Minutely small chances still have a non-zero chance of occuring. Lets
>> say that, over some time, 100 googolplex people played this chance game
>> once each. Chances are that 100 people would have gotten that massive
>> return.
>
> Ah but I am not 100 googolplex people. Nor can I play the game 100
> googolplex times. Neither, for that matter, can whole of humanity even if we
> dedicate every second to the job, even if jackpot is infinite. This is where
> naive application of calculating returns fails: We don't have unlimited
> time/tries for games with vanishingly small probabilities to make playable,
> no matter what the payout. See St Petersburg paradox.
>
>
Wait, first you set up the hypothetical lottery and, when I propose that
it would be profitable to the people playing, you then argue that the
setup you provided was flawed because no one would ever offer it? You
set up the straw man, I demonstrate that it still doesn't apply, and my
argument is invalid because I argued with the straw man? You picked the
big numbers, I proved that it would be worth the investment. If you want
to argue that small probabilities have no chance of providing valuable
returns, pick numbers that don't reinforce the point you are arguing again.
Besides, once you pick numbers over a googol I assumed you had to be
talking purely hypothetical. We don't have the coin to represent a
googol in any currency, much less a googolplex.
Look, the St Petersburg paradox does not say that the value gained by
the player is too low for the effort the put into it. It doesn't argue
that there is no price that makes it worth playing, quite the opposite.
Any price set for the St Petersburg lottery is a good bet for the
player, if they have the time to play it out. Then you have the value of
time to figure out, some people value it as priceless, while others
place an infinite value on every second. That infinite value does
provide for a nice solution to the St Petersburg problem, though.
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Invisible wrote:
> (There are people who think that accupuncture is nonesense. But now
> scientists are finding that it causes measurable chemical changes in the
> body that do, in fact, do something. As crazy as that sounds...)
>
It is nonsense. The people claiming that it isn't are either making up
the research (this isn't uncommon), or ignoring the fact that such
chemical changes can happen even if you a) do it bloody wrong, or b)
without actually puncturing the skin. Hell, I would be willing to even
bet that you could use something that claimed to "beam" magnetic waves
at the key points, make it entirely out of plastic, with no working
parts, and people would still have "chemical changes". If anything, one
has to ask, "Why is it that these claims of chemical changes show up
only *after* people have begun discrediting the prior claims?" You get
the same thing with Chiropractic treatment. The whole **entire** thing
it based on claims of a) misalignments that no medical technique or
machine, including the best MRIs, etc. and other methods we have,
can/have/ever detect, but which the practitioners claim they can "feel",
b) the idea that **all** disease, this means everything from, on one
extreme end *Ebola*, to, on the other end, mild headaches, is the result
of "spinal misalignments", not, you know.. actual diseases of problems.
*True* practitioners actually believe this, which is why you have dead
people, including children, showing up, no and then, on the news, who
went to get their kid treated for non-existent problems, and/or the
common cold. It *is* effective, when it applies itself to the *same* set
of skills that Osteopathy does, which involves the lower back, and
*real* misalignments. Just one problem.. You don't find very many
Osteopaths any more, because a) all the Chiropractors have taken over
their business, and b) the results are usually not any better, and can
be worse, than "other" therapies for the condition. Acupuncture is just
a form of Chiropractic treatment, with needles, and a **far** smaller
chance of it killing you if they screw up.
Why are people still allowed to practice? Because it has been, and still
is, the first and most prominent "accepted" alternative medicine
practice in the country, and **is not**, nor ever has been, covered
under the same rules as the rest of the medical community, including,
ironically, the Osteopaths, who went out of business as a result.
Oh, and you can find "changes" in chiropractic patients too. Its called
"temporary or permanent nerve damage, resulting in numbness.", if you
are lucky. Not so lucky.. you end up with a nicked artery during neck
manipulation, which is virtually impossible to do *safely* every single
time, and 24 hours later end up on a slab in someone's morgue.
All things being equal, accupuncture/pressure, and the host of other
"Feng Shui for the body" methods out there, which like Feng Shui, no two
practitioners can bloody agree on, if they are using a different
"technique", and which seem to work just as well, even when making shit
up about which points do what, is the one I would prefer, if I had to
take it, since I would at least be 99.9999% sure I would live through
the experience. Ironically, if I had **real** non-imaginary, lower back
problems, I would have to pick the other set of loonies, and walk in
with a steel collar, to keep them from doing more than just accidentally
paralyzing me.
There is a lot of quack BS considered *accepted* in medicine,
unfortunately, and plenty of people willing to believe almost anything
claimed by its proponents, even *after* seeing the evidence. But then,
why should medicine be any different than politics, religion, history,
or anything else where you see the same?
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project
>>
>> Goes to tell how much influence the so-called "psychics" have had in
>> the
>> world. Some scammers really do.
>
> Looks to me like the government seriously looked into it, concluded it
> was nonesense, and dropped it. Nothing strange about that...
>
One would wish that they didn't have to "keep" looking into it though.
The same stupid BS being sold in these articles.. was an item "rejected"
after being shown how they didn't work, by the ATF, for the purposes of
looking for drugs in the US. I am serious, some similar half wits in our
own law enforcement agencies *thought* it made sense, and might work,
and where convinced by initial demonstrations. The difference? Over here
they brought in experts on debunking such BS to double check, *before*
spending millions of the stupid things, and even then, it wasn't someone
else that brought them in, not the people who original sought the
original "demonstration", from the con artists selling them.
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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"Sabrina Kilian" <ski### [at] vtedu> wrote in message
news:4b101e6d$1@news.povray.org...
> Wait, first you set up the hypothetical lottery and, when I propose that
> it would be profitable to the people playing, you then argue that the
> setup you provided was flawed because no one would ever offer it?
No, I'm saying no one in his right mind should *play* it.
I know *offering* is sometimes proposed as a solution to the St Petersburg
paradox, but that's a red herring and not the correct "solution".
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"Neeum Zawan" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message
news:4b0feda0$1@news.povray.org...
> On 11/27/09 00:47, somebody wrote:
> >> I fail to see how the hypothesis is irrational and non-scientific. At
> >> least not any more than communicating via radio would have been to some
> >> scientist 500 years ago.
> > Just because one (*) thing that was beyond reason 500 years ago turned
out
> > to be true, anything that is beyond reason today has nonzero probability
of
> > being true one day. Right.
> Strawman. You're suggesting that I suggested that anything under this
> sun is worthy of investigating.
Then riddle me this: How do we determine what's worthy of investigating?
> > Newton, they laughed at Einstein..." doesn't work. There are millions of
> > "Bozo the Clowns" for each Newton or Einstein.
> The statement is irrelevant, unless you have a criterion for
> differentiating future Bozos from future Einsteins.
Exactly. Lacking evidence one way or the other, odds are, the person making
extraordinary predictions is a Bozo.
In other words, odds are, all paranormal claims are nonsense. To even
*begin* investigating, there has to be some extraordinary supporting
evidence.
> >>> built right on a diamond mine worth a "billions and billions" of
> > dollars,
> >>> which nobody knows about. Should I start digging?
> >> You've set up a strawman.
> > How so?
> Your diamond mine scenario is not even close to analogous with the one
> we're talking about.
Again, how so?
> See comment at end of message.
> > Could be. Or maybe you are jumping to conclusions.
>
> In all of your messages on the topic, you've not given a *single*
> reason why such research was ridiculous, beyond "outrageous", and
> "intelligent" people should know better. Which is just a sophisticated
> way of saying "because I said so".
>
> I _could_ expand further on my points, but since you don't seem to be
> willing to elaborate, I certainly won't. Come back when you actually
> want to have a discussion that's not supported by your feelings.
My argument (not feeling) is, there is a finite set of confirmed truths at
any finite time, but potentially uncountably many falsehoods. Unless there's
good evidence *before* we start, we cannot simply waste time investigating
anything and everything. The onus is on who deem paranormal investigation is
worthy to show that the paranormal claim in question is somehow different
than all these falsehoods.
I am sure you get hundereds of Nigerian mail scams a month. Do you
investigate any one of them? Maybe one of them is not a scam and is the real
deal, could it be not?
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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:4b0fa022$1@news.povray.org...
> Disproving a theory is every bit as important as proving a theory. By
> proving that the psychic phenominon does not exist, now nobody else
> needs to study it. This is beneficial.
If *nobody else* studying it is good, an unqualified *nobody* studying it is
even better, is it not?
Besides, the nature of paranormal claims is such that they can not be
conclusively disproven. There will never be a study to disprove that which
is not a theory.
> The *best way* to determine whether something is crazy or not is not to
> stand there and say "that's crazy", but to actually go out and do actual
> research and *prove* the answer one way or the other. THIS IS HOW
> SCIENCE WORKS!
Paranormal is by definition outside the scope of science. You cannot prove
"the answer the other way".
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On 11/27/09 17:18, somebody wrote:
>>> Newton, they laughed at Einstein..." doesn't work. There are millions of
>>> "Bozo the Clowns" for each Newton or Einstein.
>
>> The statement is irrelevant, unless you have a criterion for
>> differentiating future Bozos from future Einsteins.
>
> Exactly. Lacking evidence one way or the other, odds are, the person making
> extraordinary predictions is a Bozo.
Except that evidence wasn't lacking.
> In other words, odds are, all paranormal claims are nonsense.
Again, it seems you're merely defining "nonsense" to your tastes.
> To even
> *begin* investigating, there has to be some extraordinary supporting
> evidence.
Nope. To *confirm* it you need extraordinary evidence. To *begin*
investigating it you need very little.
>>>>> built right on a diamond mine worth a "billions and billions" of
>>> dollars,
>>>>> which nobody knows about. Should I start digging?
>
>>>> You've set up a strawman.
>
>>> How so?
>
>> Your diamond mine scenario is not even close to analogous with the one
>> we're talking about.
>
> Again, how so?
Because no one came to you stating that they had dug a little and found
reason to believe there is a diamond mine there. No one came to you with
a story about how 200 years ago, someone found a diamond there, or found
clues indicative of diamonds.
The only way your analogy is valid is if suddenly some researchers
decided to suddenly do research on psychokinetic activity without even
knowing that some people claim it exists.
> My argument (not feeling) is, there is a finite set of confirmed truths at
> any finite time, but potentially uncountably many falsehoods. Unless there's
> good evidence *before* we start, we cannot simply waste time investigating
> anything and everything. The onus is on who deem paranormal investigation is
Except no one suggested studying "anything and everything".
> worthy to show that the paranormal claim in question is somehow different
> than all these falsehoods.
Actually, no - unless you clarify what you mean by "all these
falsehoods" - keeping in mind that a number of these had not been
determined to be falsehoods.
> I am sure you get hundereds of Nigerian mail scams a month. Do you
> investigate any one of them? Maybe one of them is not a scam and is the real
> deal, could it be not?
It sure could be. Your point? I don't pursue them, because that's not
my area of interest. It's not exactly an academic activity, and if I
were to dig deep and find that some are legitimate emails, humanity has
gained nothing. Sure, I may get rich, but I didn't realize this whole
discussion was oriented towards /personal/ gain.
--
Q: What do you call a half-dozen Indians with Asian flu?
A: Six sick Sikhs (sic).
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There are many strange things in life. Some can be attributed to chance -
but all?
Many truths, things that are completely clear and self-evident, are
overthrown in time. Because some known fools, wastrels and heretics did do
some thinking and, later, some experiments.
Once it was known as true that the earth is a disc. Jerusalem was the center
of the earth, the sun and the planets were proven to revolve around the
earth. Look into the old theories of epicycles and hypocycles which were
used to explain the movements of the planets scientifically. Today we know
better.
Or let's look at more recent scientific turnarounds: just ten years ago it
was known to everybody in the medical sciences that the one sure treatment
for stomach ulcers was to cut them out. Only fools could believe that a
bacterium could survive the hydrochloric acid found in our stomachs.
Self-evident fact. Only a complete imbecile, an idiot and a charlatan would
believe otherwise. Research in this area was, of course, a complete waste of
resources, better to throw the money down the drain.
And along came the discovery of Helicobacter Pylori. Today we all know
better - the surgeons were the bloody fools, in the truest sense of the
word. Instead of cutting people open and mutilating them we now take a
combination of two antibiotics and, given a bit time, we are cured.
Who am I to know what is really possible and what not?
Nothing can be faster than the speed of light? Proven fact!
Well - sorry folks, but the statement above is actually false, as any
physicist knows. There are things like group-velocities and
phase-velocities: the group velocity can exceed c, no problem. So currently
the accepted lore is "no signal can be transmitted at speeds faster than
light". But who knows what the next fool will discover?
There may be things like dark matter and dark energy. Astrophysicists know
that either currently accepted theories are very false (which is highly
improbable but certainly not impossible) or that more than half of the
universe is made of an energy and a form of matter which nobody has every
seen or detected but whose existence can be inferred from experimental
results - if current scientifical theories are valid.
Finally there is the unknowable. What was before the big bang? How did the
universe come to exist? And where does it exist in? If fluctuations of
vacuum energy really did cause our universe to be, why was there a vacuum in
the first place and where was it in? If "branes" did collide, where did they
collide in and how did they come to be into existence, and how came the
place they did collide in come into existence? I doubt we will ever know the
answer to those questions.
But to matters at hand: yes, I do believe that most psychics are frauds. But
I cannot prove that all are. And maybe some are not... I do not know. I
never met the genuine article.
However: today we can detect brainwaves. We can communicate on an extremely
basic level by thought alone (e.g. simple yes-no answers) - granted, we need
a lot of equipment, but it works. And given enough time and research, who
knows what we will eventually discover and what will be proven fact in a few
centuries time?
I find the idea of telepathy or other psychic phenomena much more probable
than the idea of the existence of an abstract "god - being" in general and
the validity of any existing religion in particular. However, billions of
people think otherwise...
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Invisible wrote:
> Stefan Viljoen wrote:
>
>> Didn't both the CIA and the KGB at a stage seriously study psychokinesis,
>> "reading" and other types of "extrasensory" phenomena for possible
>> military applications?
>
> Hey, studying things is a valid way to determine whether there's any
> truth to them - provided you do the studying correctly and don't just
> try to dream up data that supports the conclusion you want to reach. ;-)
Point taken... I've often wondered just how many $ or comecon roubles went
into that before they scientifically decided "nawww..."
The idea of course being that there very likely isn't a more effective
device for making money disappear like a military research organization or
project! If it is for some pipe-dream project or something a lay person
could have told you was utter drivel beforehand, so much the better.
--
Stefan Viljoen
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