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Conference hydra::dejavu

Title:Psychic Phenomena
Notice:Please read note 1.0-1.* before writing
Moderator:JARETH::PAINTER
Created:Wed Jan 22 1986
Last Modified:Tue May 27 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:2143
Total number of notes:41773

187.0. "Psychics at Work?" by --UnknownUser-- () Fri Aug 08 1986 02:29

T.RTitleUserPersonal
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187.1Psychic Protection!?3737::MCCAYMon Aug 11 1986 19:1022
187.2Or?INK::KALLISMon Aug 11 1986 19:168
    re .1:
    
    DIana, you're _sure_ they relate to the same incident?  You might
    have picked up someone thinking of getting in, then, wehen the other
    happened, you assumed it was the same incident...
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    
187.3The Sherlock Holmes Version3737::MCCAYMon Aug 11 1986 21:3548
187.4Intuition Pays Off!3737::MCCAYTue Aug 12 1986 20:3232
187.6A new frontierCSC32::J_SYKESWed Aug 13 1986 00:107
    This has some possibilities.  Here at the "Remote Diagnostic Center"
    we have looked toward AI for better diagnoses.  Perhaps, we should
    hone up mental skills instead.  In fact, there might be some opportunity
    in the area of Preventative Maintenance.  Call the customer and
    tell them that they have a problem before they know.   I'm jesting,
    I think, but....        John
    
187.7" It's perfectly obvious..."CURIE::COSTLEYFri Jun 26 1987 16:1425
    It certainly should be used as a potential selector in many jobs
    that could benefit from an 'extended sensitivity' to other people.
    
    It may well become a simply demonstrable skill (in the manner used
    by the early Duke University experiments using symbol-cards) that
    any personnel department could administer as part of a skill-set
    inventory before/after hiring; add it to the WAIS (Wechsler Adult
    Inventory Series) administered by Psychometrists (i.e. low-level tech.
    classification in psychology & counselling practices, rather than
    those psychic locators who use physical objects as resonator-nodes.)
    
    That would remove simple psychic skills from the roster of the Occult
    and help legitimize the 'low-end' range of sensitivities. It's 
    plainly understood that diagnosis is an intuitive as well as an
    expert (AI/expert) skill. Good Internists are psychic-diagnosticians,
    as my own Internist @ HCHP was to come to admit about himself. QED.
    
    I personally prefer the usage 'It's perfectly obvious...' prefacing
    any intuitive observation as a light touch w/out psychic claims.
    I use it all the time, with a very off-hand & deferential tone,
    having spent many years saying "I don't mean to be right, but...'
    apologetically if things were 'perfectly obvious' but indmissable.
    How were they 'prefectly obvious'? Perfectly, obviously.
    
    - Boleslaw 
187.8It may well become...PBSVAX::COOPERTopher CooperFri Jun 26 1987 17:1627
    ...but it is not now.  Except, perhaps, for high end subjects no
    test has proven to be consistently reliable for testing psychic
    ability.  The tests which exist, including Rhine's Zener card tests,
    are sufficient to demonstrate that something is going on, but not
    really reliable enough to firmly measure the "trait" of psychic
    ability.  The problem is the erraticness of all the tests.  One
    subject may do well on one test but not on another.  The interactions
    between the characteristics of the specific test and the subjects
    personality have only just begun to be mapped out.  Given the extremely
    low funding for parapsychological research, this will probably continue
    to be the case for a while.  Additionally, psi ability, the ability
    to do well on a formal psi test, seems to be very dependent on the
    subjects mood, specific beliefs, environment, the personal interaction
    skills of the experimenter, and perhaps psychic abilities, positive
    or negative, of the experimenter(s).  It has even been proposed
    that all scoring on tests with general population is due to
    unconsciously used psi on the part of the experimenter.
    
    To put it another way, the tests which we have now, both the old
    card tests and the potentially more powerful modern tests, can be
    used to sometimes conclude that psi is present and estimate its
    strength under particular conditions at a particular time.  They
    cannot be used to conclude that psi is not present, since they may
    (probably) only "catch" a small number of weakly psychic individuals.
    
    					Topher