🚀 go-pugleaf

On 29/09/2010 7:16 PM, Peter Bowditch wrote:
> "|-|ercules"<radgray123@yahoo.com>  wrote:
>
>> You've probably heard Sylvia Else backing down from doing an
>> objective test of my mind reading powers, saying again and again
>> that a negative result doesn't prove I DON'T have powers so what is
>> the point?
>>
>> NOW PETER BOWDITCH, AUSTRALIAN SKEPTICS FORMER PRESIDENT
>> IS USING THE SAME EXCUSE TO DENY PARANORMAL APPLICATIONS.
>>
>>
>> http://www.skeptics.com.au/features/prize/
>> It's important to remember that as this is a scientific inquiry.
>> A failure to successfully complete the test does not indicate
>> that the power the challenger claims does not exist, it merely
>> indicates that on this particular occasion it was not present, and
>> that it remains unproved.
>
> That's the way science works.
>
>>
>>
>> That is the Australian Skeptics web site clearly saying it DOES NOT MATTER
>> if you don't win the $100,000, there is no objective or hidden agenda
>> to prove that you don't have a paranormal power!
>
> Nobody ever said there was. The objective is for YOU to prove that YOU
> have the power.
>
>>
>> But Peter Bowditch again flounders with the stated application protocol...
>>
>> [HERC]
>>>> can you make it clear
>>>> whether either of those 2 claims can be worked on.
>>
>> [PETER BOWDITCH]
>>> They are not good enough. They do not allow for testing and they do
>>> not allow for you admitting that you are wrong.
>
> Is there a possibility that you might be wrong? If you can't
> demonstrate the "powers" under agreed test conditions then there is
> the possibility that the powers don't exist.
>
>>
>>
>> Here is 1 of the 2 claims that is not acceptable by Australian Skeptics,
>> not even to investigate whether a test protocol can be developed.
>>
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------
>> PARANORMAL CLAIM 2 - SEPTEMBER 2010
>>
>> I CAN READ YOUR MIND IF YOU TELL ME A REQUEST LIKE SO:
>>
>> THINK OF AN IDEA THAT YOU FIND INTERESTING.
>>
>> TELL ME:
>> My idea is described on page XXX line XX.
>>
>> TELL ME:
>> My idea is one of the following
>> A a giraffe
>> B a drum kit
>> C a bracelet
>>
>>
>> Then I can read your mind what the idea was.
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> AUSTRALIAN SKEPTICS : NOT TESTABLE
>
> Correct. There is nothing there that forms the basis for any test of
> psychic powers.
>
> Either you can read my mind or not. If you can then you should be able
> to do it without a qualifier like "if you tell me a request line so"
> or that it has to be a question with no checkable answer.

Though I'd have thought an allowance could be made for the psychic 
mischaracterising their power, provided they can state its observable 
consequence. Herc apparently believes that reading and interpreting 
lines from books can be a form of mind reading. If he could deliver the 
goods despite this strange description of his power, that should be good 
enough.

I think Herc is happy for XXX and XX to be randomly generated, so there 
is no possibility of a conventional transfer of information from the 
person whose mind is being read to Herc.

None of which means that Herc can actually do it, of course, and Herc is 
nowhere near reaching first base so as to justify ASS taking an interest.

Sylvia.