Conference hydra::dejavu

re: .0

Yet another irrelevant sidetrack here (:-))...haven't some scientists
disputed that the original descriptive data about the "law of gravity"
experiments are actually as clearcut as traditionally believed?  It
seems like some folks were talking about a "fifth force" based on this
supposed misinterpretation of the descriptive data...
								Pc.

RE: .1

    The whole issue of the importance of emotional impact in ESP has been
    debated in parapsychology for a long time.

    When you collect stories of apparent spontaneous ESP experiences, you
    do come up with many stories with a high emotional impact.  This would
    seem to indicate that emotional content is part of what makes things
    work in spontaneous ESP.

    Things are less clear when you try to collect things systematically,
    however, e.g., by comparing the contents of dream diaries to actual
    events.  What one then finds is many just as convincing connections
    which are completely trivial.  It seems that much of the apparent
    importance (but perhaps not all) of emotion is in determining which
    such events will be noticed and remembered.

    Successful experiments have been done where attempts have been made to
    make the targets emotionally meaningful.  It is not clear, however,
    whether these were any *more* successful than experiments using
    emotionally neutral targets.  Certainly, they are not outstandingly
    more successful.

    Part of the problem is that ethical considerations place a severe limit
    on how much emotional content can be placed on a controlled experiment.
    We obviously can't go around killing people's relatives at random times
    to see if they react emotionally at those times even though they can't
    know by normal means that it is happening (this calls for some kind of
    face, but, d**d if I know which).

    Also perhaps relevant is the experiments done with motivation and ESP.
    For a while, there were a lot of experiments done on how motivation
    effects ESP performance, but they got very inconsistent results.
    Finally, someone realized that what appeared to be happening was an
    "inverted-U" phenomenon: as motivation was increased, ESP test scores
    increased until a critical value was reached (which varied with the
    subject and other circumstances).  Above that critical value, ESP
    test scores *decreased* with increasing motivation.

    One theory which explains this goes as follows: it has been found,
    pretty consistently, that the best ESP scores occur when the subject is
    alert and interested but calm and physically relaxed.  At first as
    motivation increases improvements result, but as it increases beyond
    the critical point, the "need" to score well, starts to produce tension
    -- down go the scores.

				    Topher

RE: .1

There is certainly a strong appearance of "elegance" in the concept of
a "conservation of psi" law.  Somehow, though, it just doesn't sit right
with me.  Part of it is a sense that if you were to "use up" the "good luck"
you wouldn't be left with "bad luck" but with "no particular luck, at all,
one way or the other."  Well ... differences in intuition is why their is
controversy in science, and scientific controversy is one of the things
that makes science exciting.

Of course, we have to keep in mind that our current measuring instruments
for psi are incredibly crude (though they are orders of magnitude better
than what was available do William James a century ago).  It is handy to
summarize our observations by noting that they are consistent with a
perfect canceling out of hitting and missing (with a randomly selected
group).  It is quite another thing to conclude that that is *precisely*
what is occurring.  If nothing else, I would expect to find that individuals
who had a strong tendency to strongly psi miss would be removed from the
population (probably in a violent accident) which would leave us with
some excess in the extreme positive tail.

					Topher

    What was psi testing like in William James's time?
    
    Earl Wajenberg

RE: .2

    There is really two closely related things going on, here.

    One is that some attempts have been made to make precise measurements
    of the force of gravity (G) deep inside of mines.  These have resulted
    in a value for G that is slightly smaller than the one obtained by
    astronomical means.  The experiments are very delicate, and it is
    possible that there is some incorrect assumption being made in the
    design of those experiments (or, I suppose, in the astronomical
    measurements, but that is much less likely, the great distances
    involved make things pretty simple).

    One exciting possibility, though, is that there is a "medium range
    correction" needed for the gravitational equation, i.e., that the
    force of gravity at a distance of a few meters is slightly less than
    the simple inverse square law would predict.  It is called medium
    range in contrast to the weak and strong nuclear forces (which are
    powerful but short range, they can only influence things pico-meters
    away), and to the electromagnetic and the main part of the
    gravitational force (which are long range, there is no limit to the
    distance at which they can influence things at least a little bit).

    A scientist named Fishbach (along with others) proposed another
    alternative.  He suggested that the results could be explained by a
    completely new force, specifically a fifth force since there are four
    fundamental forces already known to science (actually, probably three,
    since it has been shown pretty conclusively that the electromagnetic
    and weak nuclear forces are basically different forms of the same more
    fundamental force).  This force would also be medium range, but would
    only act between baryons, which is a class of particles which both
    protons and neutrons belong to.  Unlike gravity, the fifth force would
    act slightly differently depending on the material an object is made
    of, even if the mass is the same. 

    He showed that this would also explain a certain anomaly in particle
    physics involving the way that particles called kaons act under
    certain circumstance.

    He also looked at an old, classic experiment by a Hungarian (?) named
    Eotvos (properly spelled with umlauts over both o's).  This experiment
    was designed to measure any differences in the effect of gravity on
    different materials.  Naturally, Eotvos found some variation, no
    experiment is perfect, but it was all less than the amount of error he
    *expected* to find in his measurements.  Eotvos was looking for a
    difference in the attraction of gravity at all distances. Fishbach
    showed, that if the error in Eotvos' experiments was smaller than he
    thought, that a lot of what he took for error would fit the behavior
    expected by Fishbach's theory. 

    Of course, there were later more accurate replications of the Eotvos
    experiment, but one of the ways these were made more accurate was by
    being designed to cancel out any "local" effects -- exactly what
    Fishbach was interested in.

    I know of two attempts to confirm or deny Fishbach's theory.  One was
    consistent with Fishbach and inconsistent with traditional theory, the
    other was consistent with traditional theory and inconsistent with
    Fishbach.  Some seem to feel that the second experiment conclusively
    falsified Fishbach, but things still seem up in the air to me.  Neither
    experiment seemed more conclusive than the other.  Of course I'm not
    a physicist.

				Topher

RE: .5
    
    [Boy this topic sure jumps around.]
    
    In William James' time psychical research (as parapsychology was
    then called) was essentially a purely observational science.  Psychical
    researchers spent their time investigating mediums, hauntings,
    apparitions and other reports of spontaneous phenomena.  Virtually
    all the effort was spent in attempting to detect fraud and exclude subtle
    normal explanations for the phenomena; neither of which could be
    done with complete reliability.  Except for some very simple types
    of experiments (e.g., "I put a coin under the napkin and challenged
    her to tell the date stamped on it") the researcher simply observed
    whatever situation presented itself.  Statistics (in the modern
    sense) had not even been heard of.
    
    Don't get me wrong.  This type of work -- the observation of psychical
    phenomena in more or less "natural" settings -- was and is valuable.
    But it is imprecise; it suggests much of value but proves nothing.
    Experimental methodology is a necessary complement to field
    observations.  We do not yet really have a "pure" experimental
    methodology: the best we can do is set up conditions in the laboratory
    under which we can observe psi in a controlled way if it "chooses
    to show up".  Our "experiments" are therefore more like 3/4 experiment
    and 1/4 observation.  But we're working on it.
    
    					Topher

RE: .7
    
    The drug experiments -- there is a limit to how much we can conclude
    from the non-results of the drug experiments except that there is
    probably not a *very* strong effect from the drugs.  The problem
    is that someone "tripping" on some drug or another is not in a
    great position to pay much attention to an ESP test.  A heightened
    sense of emotional import won't help an ESP test any if the thing
    with that heigtened emotional import is the mole on the experimenter's
    hand.
    
    Approach-avoidance gradiant -- An approach-avoidance gradiant is
    a situation which is frequently the cause of a U or inverted-U shaped
    curve.  It is frequently used in a more specific sense which relates
    to catastrophy theory, with hysteresis apparent.  The theory I
    presented was essentially an approach-avoidance theory.  While I
    find it highly plausible, I don't think that there is enough evidence
    for it, specifically, to call it the probable cause of the curve.
    I therefore think that the "theory-free" description of the curve
    as an "inverted-U" is more appropriate, since that describes the form
    of the curve without implying a mechanism which produces it.  Good
    point though.
    
    				Topher