Documentary on scientific experiments into PSI phenomena

person

This documentary in two parts, about 15 minutes each, interviews several psi researchers and presents several different statistically evident studies in favor of an extended mind.

Part one:


Part two:

Dakini

Dean Radin (who speaks in the film) published a book that catalogues and describes all manner of psi research that offers proof that mind is non-local and psi phenomena are "real". It's very thorough, and a great read. A good reference book.

Dakini

Looks like Radin has a number of books out on this topic:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=stripbooks&field-keywords=Dean+Radin

jll

i am surprised the hard-nosed scientists amongst us havent commented
on this very scientific video.

zombiegirl

After watching this video, I decided to test myself with a deck of cards. All I tried to do was predict if the card was going to be red/black... Yeah, I'm not psychic. Although! I will say, I did much better when I was actually concentrating vs. just trying to "go with my intuition".

It's a long story, but when I'm bored at work, I try and predict who will win at the poker table without knowledge of what cards they have... My score is 17-3 (right vs. wrong) so far. I just noticed that when a client of mine or someone I want to win (like a friend) is all in, I would just sometimes get this sinking feeling when I knew they were going to lose. After a while, I decided to try and test myself and see if I really was right as much as it felt like I was. There's nothing "scientific" about it... just interesting to satisfy my curiosity. One time I had the feeling that I literally could not declare a winner and I wasn't sure why, as it turns out, they both had the same hand and chopped the pot... Could be all in my head, but still interesting. If this isn't all just a bunch of coincidental crap (which it could be), then it seems the human aspect might be essential for me. Next I want to try doing the same experiment predicting red/black but with another person looking at the card. Could be interesting (but of course, will not be 'scientifically sound' as people will likely suspect that if I have a high success rate, then the person is giving me some sort of clue). This is all just for fun.

fivebells

@jll, would be happy to comment if you would summarize which parts you find most convincing, and cite the sections/times of the documentary at which they're reported.

person

zombiegirl said:

After watching this video, I decided to test myself with a deck of cards. All I tried to do was predict if the card was going to be red/black... Yeah, I'm not psychic. Although! I will say, I did much better when I was actually concentrating vs. just trying to "go with my intuition".

It's a long story, but when I'm bored at work, I try and predict who will win at the poker table without knowledge of what cards they have... My score is 17-3 (right vs. wrong) so far. I just noticed that when a client of mine or someone I want to win (like a friend) is all in, I would just sometimes get this sinking feeling when I knew they were going to lose. After a while, I decided to try and test myself and see if I really was right as much as it felt like I was. There's nothing "scientific" about it... just interesting to satisfy my curiosity. One time I had the feeling that I literally could not declare a winner and I wasn't sure why, as it turns out, they both had the same hand and chopped the pot... Could be all in my head, but still interesting. If this isn't all just a bunch of coincidental crap (which it could be), then it seems the human aspect might be essential for me. Next I want to try doing the same experiment predicting red/black but with another person looking at the card. Could be interesting (but of course, will not be 'scientifically sound' as people will likely suspect that if I have a high success rate, then the person is giving me some sort of clue). This is all just for fun.

Sometimes people will get an image or a thought of a particular person in their head and a moment later that person calls on the phone. There is an experiment where they have 1 of 4 people call and the receiver has to guess who it is. That could be a fun way to try to test for yourself any ability.

One thing about most of these studies though is that most of the results are not of a high magnitude, meaning the hit rate is only a small amount above chance. The notable part is that the results are regularly and consistently above chance to a high degree of statistical significance, like more than 1 in a trillion chance of the overall results being random.

zombiegirl

Oh that happens to me all the time. For me though, it's more about clients at work. I won't see someone for a month or two and all the sudden I'll think, "Hey, whatever happened to so-n-so?" and then BAM they will walk through the door like clockwork. It also happens to me with my girlfriend. I will think about calling her and she'll call me first.

Edit: As an interesting side note, I have a friend who is REALLY into all of this stuff and he's always trying to convince me I'm psychic because of different experiences I've had. I'm a really skeptical person, so the whole reason I even started keeping track at work was to try and disprove him... but now I'm not so sure, haha. I haven't told him the results yet because I know he'll go all gloaty about it...haha.

Cinorjer

jll said:

i am surprised the hard-nosed scientists amongst us havent commented
on this very scientific video.

Heh. Wasn't asked for a skeptical viewpoint and don't really want to watch the video so I don't feel it would be fair to comment.

But anyone in the internet world of today can do a quick google if they're interested in another viewpoint and bring up something like this, a tiny clip from an article that explores the problems with parapsychology and associated research:

...any statistical strangeness is attributed to paranormal events. Some researchers, like Dean Radin, write histories of the paranormal that make no mention of fraud (Soal) or cheating (Project Alpha) or embarrassing events like Rhine's declaring the horse Lady Wonder to be psychic. Radin is also fond of meta-analysis, which allows him to lump together numbers of studies of questionable worth and do a statistical analysis that makes the data seem like gold. http://www.skepdic.com/parapsy.html

I find beliefs and stories of supernatural events and powers as fascinating as the next person. At least these parapsychologists, misguided or not, are trying to apply the scientific method to studying the subject and not just collecting anecdotes, which are also fascinating but only from a psychological viewpoint.

person

Geez @jll we were all having fun playing in our little sandbox and you had to go knock the butterfly off the dogs nose, now he's walking all over our pretty sandcastles. :crazy:

@Cinorjer they do attempt to address the skeptic concerns you raise. I don't know enough about statistics to know if their arguments really hold water or not. Basically the video says that while the magnitude of the results are generally only slightly above chance the odds that those kinds of consistently positive results are random is very high.

Mostly I just see from my own life that such things occur and its nice to get some scientific validation for it.

DaltheJigsaw

person said:

This documentary in two parts, about 15 minutes each, interviews several psi researchers and presents several different statistically evident studies in favor of an extended mind.

Part one:


Part two:

Thank you for these!!

jll

Geez @jll we were all having fun playing in our little sandbox and you had to go knock the butterfly off the dogs nose, now he's walking all over our pretty sandcastles.

you mean like when the excrement hit the fan?

fivebells

person said:

I don't know enough about statistics to know if their arguments really hold water or not. Basically the video says that while the magnitude of the results are generally only slightly above chance the odds that those kinds of consistently positive results are random is very high.

This is easily explained as a form of confirmation bias which is rife in modern research (even in widely respected fields.) What happens is that only experiments which report positive results are interesting, so those are the only ones which get reported in the literature, while the boring results go on the junk heap. No one has to be intentionally deceptive for this to happen, there just has to be a bias towards publication of interesting results.

This unintentional censoring of the boring results leads to a statistically significant bias in the reported results, but the apparently interesting result from each reported experiment is most plausibly explained as a random fluctuation from the results predicted by the most boring hypothesis.

It's also worth noting that this kind of "meta analysis," where you combine results from multiple studies, is rife with pitfalls. It's extremely easy to get a spurious statistically significant result from such an analysis.

The intellectually honest and convincing approach would be to do a single follow-up study with enough trials to capture the supposedly statistically significant result from the meta analysis, assuming it's a real effect. Since you don't mention that in your synopsis, I assume that's not reported in the video. Believe me, it will not be for lack of trying, but for lack of an interesting result.

jll

dear fivebells, at the risk of incurring your wrath,
may i ask what are your scientific/academic credentials
for you to dismiss all the conclusions of the obviously
highly qualified scientists in the video whose area
of specialty is studying these phenomena.

i have studied statistics, so i know about statistical bias.
no credible scientist will be able to defend his research if his
statistical data is biased. it will simply crumble under scrutiny.

fivebells said:

person said:

I don't know enough about statistics to know if their arguments really hold water or not. Basically the video says that while the magnitude of the results are generally only slightly above chance the odds that those kinds of consistently positive results are random is very high.

This is easily explained as a form of confirmation bias which is rife in modern research (even in widely respected fields.) What happens is that only experiments which report positive results are interesting, so those are the only ones which get reported in the literature, while the boring results go on the junk heap. No one has to be intentionally deceptive for this to happen, there just has to be a bias towards publication of interesting results.

This unintentional censoring of the boring results leads to a statistically significant bias in the reported results, but the apparently interesting result from each reported experiment is most plausibly explained as a random fluctuation from the results predicted by the most boring hypothesis.

It's also worth noting that this kind of "meta analysis," where you combine results from multiple studies, is rife with pitfalls. It's extremely easy to get a spurious statistically significant result from such an analysis.

The intellectually honest and convincing approach would be to do a single follow-up study with enough trials to capture the supposedly statistically significant result from the meta analysis, assuming it's a real effect. Since you don't mention that in your synopsis, I assume that's not reported in the video. Believe me, it will not be for lack of trying, but for lack of an interesting result.

jll

you seem to value your educated guess over
scientific research.

jll

btw, their conclusion is consistent with brain scan
that predict our decision before we consciuosly make the decision.

jll

http://exploringthemind.com/the-mind/brain-scans-can-reveal-your-decisions-7-seconds-before-you-decide?wpmp_switcher=mobile

Cinorjer

@jll the trouble is, plenty of "real scientists" have looked at the studies and pointed out the flaws and problems. Combining a bunch of flawed studies into one metastudy and then claiming that makes the overall result more valid is the same thing as combining a bunch of junk mortgages into one bond and giving it a low risk rating because what are the chances of a bunch of people being foreclosed in the same year? The banks discovered what's wrong with that logic a few years ago.

More than that, when it comes to dealing with people who claim psychic powers, scientists are some of the worst people to have conducting tests because they have an overblown idea of how much smarter they are than their test subjects and they're used to dealing with a world that doesn't cheat. When you get a professional magician involved in designing a test where people can't cheat and the researcher agrees to share the raw data of their research, this statistical difference never gets duplicated.

But yes, there could be something we don't understand yet going on. All any of these parapsychologists has to do is duplicate their positive results and let the scientific world confirm that. It would amaze the scientific world and lead to other discoveries as we explore and define and explain this remarkable phenomena. Like the placebo effect. We don't really understand how the mind can fool the body in amazing ways, but we can measure and create the effect easily.

There are amazing coincidences in my own family that I can't explain beyond something strange seemed to happen.

person

@fivebells that criticism is addressed in the video. The overall point about needing one large study rather than combining several sounds like a good one to me.

I'm not needing to be convinced that psi exists because I live it everyday. I'm open to the idea that it doesn't but am skeptical on the opposite end and need to be convinced that it doesn't exist.

person

I couldn't remember what they said about the meta analysis so I went back and checked. They say that you'd have to add 1400 studies to the sample size to nullify the effect.

I'm sure that's not the information that will convert you to a believer but that's the defense they make.

fivebells

@person, thanks for the extra info. Increasing the number of studies only worsens the spurious result if there's a systematic bias towards reporting the "interesting" studies. The only feasible way to get convincing data is to do a single study large enough to reliably capture the claimed effect if it's there.

@jll, I would prefer to discuss the claims of the video on their own merits, rather than bring my credentials into it. Appeals to authority are simply a means/excuse for the shutdown of independent thought.

That said, I have a PhD in Applied Math from one of the best Math departments in the country, and over a decade of experience in academic biomedical research, specializing in statistics and data analysis/mining. I have seen firsthand the issue I am describing, and was part of the machinery causing the problem at one point in my life. I have since left the field. Would be happy to verify all this by sharing my real name with a moderator, if you really care.

zombiegirl

@fivebells Did you watch the video? I would be interested to hear what you think about it.

Crap, I tried to mark it to where they talk about selective reporting bias but it won't let me. It's 2 minutes in on the second video:


I admit that I don't understand their methods because statistics are not my thing, haha.

fivebells

Thanks for the pointer, zombiegirl. Anyone have a pointer to the paper describing the analysis the video refers to? It's hard to assess without details. If it's the paper critiqued in these reviews, I have to say, the fact that the results aren't repeatable in the hands of independent experimenters does not inspire confidence. (See p. 73)

person

@fivebells I quickly skimmed through some of the critiques in the paper. Most of them just seemed to me to be nitpicking and naysaying around the peripheries of the studies. However, the critique at 72-73 seems pretty legit to me, that if the samples for the starer aren't really random and lean more towards an alternating sequence that bias seems like it could account for a deviation from random, though I'm not sure that the bias would necessarily be a positive one.