🚀 go-pugleaf

On 18/09/2010 4:20 PM, Richard Cornford wrote:
> |-|ercules wrote:
>> Richard Cornford wrote:
>>> |-|ercules wrote:
>>>> Peter Bowditch wrote
>>>>> A question was stated. You claimed to be able to "get an
>>>>> answer from God from random quotes of information". You
>>>>> did not say that the answer would be in any book, but that
>>>>> it would come "from God from random quotes of information".
>>>>> You offered no random quotes. Therefore you offered no
>>>>> answers. Therefore you failed a preliminary test and
>>>>> nothing further needed to be done.
>>>>
>>>> For your FINAL test you have to break 1,000,000:1 odds.
>>>>
>>>> Not sure what your preliminary requirement is but JREF
>>>> is just 1000:1 odds.
>>>>
>>>> I.e. to pass a preliminary all I have to do is roll a 6 on
>>>> a dice 4 times.
>>>>
>>>> To guess Barry's questions right, it would be equivalent of
>>>> selecting one single atom out of every atom in the Universe,
>>>> such are the odds.
>>>>
>>>> Which is harder?
>>>
>>> Your assessment of odds seems very arbitrary. The total number
>>> of words in all the languages spoken by humans is going to be
>>> far fewer than the number of atoms in the universes. If you
>>> are asked for 10 names they will come from the total set of
>>> words.
>>
>> I would still have to do 30 THIRTY correct channels running and
>> the odds are in the realm of Avagadaros number squared : 1
>> to be correct.
>
> So did your claim to be able to answer questions include the caveat that
> only some percentage of your 'cannels' would be 'correct'? And if they
> were "from god" wouldn't omniscience be implied? It seems that your
> claim implies an unending sequence of "correct channels", and if you
> cannot deliver that you should have qualified your claim to remove that
> implication.
>
>> I stated I get the answers from quotes,
>
> A mistake, as that is going to be interpreted as getting correct,
> accurate, meaningful or informative answers, which is something that you
> do not deliver.
>
>> all skeptics assume any mention of 'psychic' means they
>> can ask for lotto numbers or fail.
>
> You seem to be looking for excuses. If you say you get answers to
> questions and then don't deliver answers when questioned then you fail
> on no other grounds than not being able to do what you say you can do.
>
> On the other hand, if you say "from God" then omniscience is implied and
> so long odds can also be expected.
>
>>> Your problem here mostly stems from your inability to formulate
>>> your claim such that it precisely describes what it is that you
>>> think you can do. If you make the unqualified assertion that you
>>> can answer questions then you can expect the testing of that
>>> assertion to be cantered around the asking of questions, where
>>> the failure to answer will be taken as failing the test.
>>>
>>> The odds of correctly answering the questions does not come into
>>> it, until or unless you qualify your claim in such a way as to
>>> exclude questions where the odds of guessing the answer are too
>>> long, or where the odds are anything but meaningless (if the
>>> latter is what you actually want).
>>>
>>> For example, if you qualified your claim such that "for any
>>> question where the accuracy of any response is undeterminable
>>> (such as a 'should I do ... ?' question, where it is not
>>> possible to compare the consequences of 'doing' with those of
>>> 'not doing' as it is never possible to do both) you can generate
>>> a response, where if that response were inserted into a list of,
>>> say, 9 random quotes (genuinely randomly generated) from the
>>> same book, a minimum of 90% of ordinary humans would be able to
>>> pick out the psychically generated response from that list as the
>>> most apt/appropriate response to the question", then such a
>>> formulation would not be tested with questions that you were
>>> expected to accurately answer. Indeed test protocols for such
>>> a claim should be fairly easy to devise, and many of them would
>>> be completely acceptable 'sceptic organisations'.
>>>
>>> It is the vague claims that encompass things that you clearly
>>> are not capable of doing, such as 'answering questions' or
>>> 'reading minds', that are going to leave you running around
>>> in circles not being taken seriously by anyone.
>>>
>>> If you win a paranormal prize by being able to do what you say
>>> you can do (where what you say you can do would be paranormal)
>>> then it seems like a good idea to be very precise about what
>>> it is exactly you are saying you can do.
>>
>>
>> There is a CLAIM, and then there is a mutually worked together
>> test protocol which details all the specifications and limits
>> of the claim.
>
> If you make an unqualified claim to be able to answer questions people
> are going to interpret that as asserting an ability to answer any
> question, and take failure to provide an answer to the questions they
> ask you as indicating the claim to be false. If you don't like that then
> you need make a claim that only includes the thing that you can do.
>
>> I've designed 10 TEN test protocols on my own, 2 to Sylvia's
>> satisfaction but skeptics ignore them. They ask for lotto
>> numbers instead.
>
> What I observe people doing is asking you to match the claims you make.
> You make claims that imply you can do lotto numbers, if you cannot you
> should be clearer about what it is you are claiming to be able to do.
> Recall that yesterday you told me "... just tell me a page number and
> line number and I'll read out what you are thinking about from my book".
> You had your page and line numbers but you haven't yet managed to tell
> me what I was thinking. Unsurprising as the odds of guessing that are a
> lotto number, but you still offered to do it. So don't tell me that it
> is unreasonable for you to be expected to do it because the odds are too
> long, it was you who made the claim that you could do it, not me making
> any demands of you.
>
>> I think the best compromise solution at this point is the skeptics
>> post some acceptable paranormal test protocol documents, publish
>> ALL claims and WHY they were rejected, and comment on
>> demonstrations.
>
> That would be a complete waste of their time. You already know why you
> were rejected: you made an unqualified clime to be able to answer
> questions, you were asked questions and you did not answer them: FAIL.
>
>> The legalese claim just does not work.
>
> Have you tried? In every set of paranormal prize rules I have seen the
> first step for the claimant is to make a precise statement of what they
> can do (the paranormal ability) and the circumstances under which they
> can do it. Your statements about what you can do have been sufficiently
> vague as to encompass things that you can be quickly demonstrated as not
> being able to do (such as answering questions). If your claims did not
> include these things that you cannot do then you could not be failed for
> not being able to do them. Thus narrow the claim to include only the
> things that you can do, and if there is anything left, and it is
> paranormal, the testing process might move forward.
>
>> Skeptics will ARGUE with you that paranormal is
>> impossible and refuse to get to any testing stage.
>
> That is self-evident nonsense. I, for example, tested your offer to tell
> me what I was thinking if I gave you a page and line number. I gave you
> the page and line numbers in good faith. And I judge the outcome of test
> as a failure on your part for no reason other than your not being able
> to tell me the thing you offered to tell me. I do not believe that
> paranormal abilities exist, and I never expected that you would fulfil
> your offer to tell me what I was thinking, but none of that stopped me
> from going through with the test (following the rules you stated) and it
> certainly could not have been a factor in your inability to do what you
> said you would do.
>
>> I didn't apply for a debating competition.
>
> Probably a good thing as your would not do well in such a completion.
>
> But a question remains; what precisely is your supposed paranormal
> ability? Apparently it is not an unqualified ability to answer
> questions, and it certainly is not an ability to tell people what they
> are thinking, so what is it? (And before you say it, thinking that you
> are Napoleon is not a paranormal ability, just an abnormal condition.)

It appears to be an ability to channel responses that have a better than 
random correlation with the questions. The test protocol involves 
shuffling the response, and letting another person assign responses to 
questions. If a power exists (albeit, as BigLN observed, either in Herc, 
or in the other person) then the matchings produces by the other person 
should have a better than random correlation with matchings produced by 
Herc.

Of course, as psychic powers go, it would have to be one of the most 
useless, but consistent above random performance would indicate that 
something strange is going on.

We don't know why Herc believes he has this power, since he's clearly 
never performed a proper test. Randi's post-facto rationalisation 
hypothesis seems plausible, and even likely.

Sylvia.