Scientific evidence for psychic phenomena

POSTED BY: citizen
UPDATED: Tuesday, October 18, 2005 17:35
VIEWED: 4039
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CITIZEN

Sunday, October 16, 2005 6:15 PM

Over the previous two threads on this subject the point was raised that there’s no scientific evidence for psychic phenomena. I don’t happen to agree, so did some research and here’s some of what I’ve found on the subject:

Precognition

Quote:
Albert Einstein
People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Abraham Lincoln believed in precognition. He reported a dream he’d had in which he heard people weeping. He followed the sound until he arrived at the East room.
“There,” according to his account to Ward H. Lamon, “was a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards.” Lincoln asked the soldiers, “Who is dead in the White House?” They replied, “The president, he was killed by an Assassin.”

One test that was designed to test for ‘presentiment’ (a type of precognition on the subconscious level, a feeling that something bad is about to happen prior to the event for instance), was conducted at a lab in Nevada. These tests took advantage of a well known psychological effect known as the orientating response. The orientating response was first described by Pavlov in the 1920’s, and is a set of physiological changes experienced by an organism when it faces a “fight or flight” situation. For Human’s these changes are also triggered by less threatening situations, such as films or pictures with emotional content.

A subject was seated in front of a computer monitor. On their first and second fingers of their left hand a device was attached to measure skin conductance. On the third finger was a second device that records both heart rate and the amount of blood in their fingertip.
The subject is then prompted to start the test. This causes the computer to select an image at random from a vast supply of both ‘stimulating’ and ‘non-stimulating’ images. A blank screen is shown for five Seconds, followed by the selected image for three seconds; this was followed by a blank screen for five seconds and a rest period of a further five seconds.
During this eighteen Second recording period the three physiological responses were continuously monitored. Participants viewed forty pictures in a single session, one picture at a time. On each trial the computer randomly selected one target photo from a pool of 120 high-quality digitized colour photographs, divided between calm and emotional.
The following figure is from the book The Conscious Universe By Dean Radin Ph.D. and shows the combined results from a number of these studies:

As was expected by the orienting response, after participants viewed emotional pictures, their autonomic nervous systems reflected the expected reaction: heart rate dropped, blood volume in the finger dropped, and electro-dermal activity increased. By comparison, responses to calm pictures showed that they remained relaxed, which confirms that the experiment worked as planned.
The important thing to note is that before the emotional pictures were seen, the participants “pre-acted” to their future emotional states. When asked after the experiment whether the participants knew what pictures were coming next they all said no, supporting the idea that presentiment is largely a subconscious process.

Quote:
"We can now demonstrate in the laboratory what at some level we've known all along: Many people literally get a gut feeling before something bad happens. Our viscera warn us of danger even if our conscious mind doesn't always get the message."

http://cms.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20000701-000034.html

Telepathy/Clairvoyance

Quote:
Over many such trials conducted in many labs around the world, the average hit rate has been closer to 35% rather than the 25% expected by null hypothesis, a result which is highly significant statistically.

http://en.wikipedia.o

GROUNDED

Sunday, October 16, 2005 8:25 PM

I'd be amazed if there has ever been a president who never had a nightmare about his own assassination ;)

Interesting stuff nonetheless :)

CITIZEN

Sunday, October 16, 2005 8:28 PM

I thought that as I typed it .
But I had a choice of two, and that one was more direct, and more importantly, shorter .

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Even though I might, even though I try,
I can't

LIMINALOSITY

Sunday, October 16, 2005 9:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:

Even though I might, even though I try,
I can't

Great Einstein quote, thanks.

I greedily devour all scientific evidence, as I am certain that everyone is psychic, the trick is only in allowing it to flow, and that the trick to keeping that channel open once you have experienced it has a great deal to do with compassion and acceptance. Agape, as the Christians name it.

I also believe that you don't really get to be a reader in the fullest sense until you have achieved a state of agape, wherein you do not judge the information you receive from others, nor does it frighten you. Gotta be pretty clear and free of fear to do that. The first part is easier, and I believe working to increase your compassion smooths the way to the second part.

"Social systems have built-in mechanisms for maintaining the established order, from experts to executive orders to threats of violence." -The Paradigm Conspiracy

EYETOOTH

Monday, October 17, 2005 11:12 AM

It should be noted that Einstien was referring to the distinctions of past, present and future being hooey only in differing frames of reference, ie on a cosmic scale.

I'm rather soured on these sorts of studies. In most of the ones I have looked into in any detail the researcher(s) apparently had some attatchment to the notion that metaphysical ideas could be empirically proven...or were outright frauds. Tread carefully in these realms; remember the bunkum peer-reviewed study on prayer for Columbia medical journal - one of the researchers turned out to be a career criminal. Credentials aren't a guarantee against bad science, especially when dealing with the "paranormal".

CITIZEN

Monday, October 17, 2005 4:07 PM

True, eyetooth, which is why the studies I cited (and the evidence I didn't show for the sake of being verbose) have all been brought forth by reputable labs, conformed to the scientific, been rigerous to remove all flaws suggested by critics and been exceptionally rigerous with respect to removing the possibillity of fraud.
Even sceptics that are informed on the subject of psi and parapsychology are saying that there's something interesting, beyond our current scientific understanding, going on.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Even though I might, even though I try,
I can't

LIMINALOSITY

Monday, October 17, 2005 8:32 PM

I think science is in general flawed by the 'expectation of outcome' inherent in researching a theory. People won't always look in directions that might lead away from their expectation. There are many ways to fudge, and people are weak.

Then there's the part where the photon chooses which window to go through in the end anyway.

The part I enjoy is that science shows an interest in the woo woo; whether the researcher is trying to prove or disprove makes no nevermind to me. I think we have reached the moment of zero point where science=religion, and the possibilities are glorious.

EYETOOTH

Monday, October 17, 2005 9:00 PM

Sorry to sound like a mystic-bashing ninny, but science =/= religion. The two can be reconciled to a certain point, but at the highest, metaphysical level, there's a fundamental difference of thought. I do consider the core of science to be certain metaphysical assumptions, specifically that science arises from the comparison of evidence, not the evidence in itself; this makes it a kind of extention of philosophy. However its basis in metaphysics doesn't make it any more amenable to religion at the metaphysical level - as the Jansenist Catholics say, "there comes a point where philosophy must end and faith begin."

Your objection strikes me as sophistic - detaching yourself from an expected outcome as much as possible is the very notion of science. Nobody is going to be freed of prejudice, because nobody is God.

CITIZEN

Monday, October 17, 2005 9:01 PM

The thing that interests me is that despite the long documented history of the mainstream scientist of the time being outright wrong about new theories/innovations etc (Heavier than air flight, for instance), sceptics still seem to think it's okay to not bother to even look at, or objectively evaluate, evidence that challenges mainstream ideas.

I agree, to an extent. The desire of scientists to attack new ideas if they challenge the current 'accepted order', despite even scientific evidence to the contrary, borders on the religious.
Kill the Heathen! Stone 'em!
Or is that: Destroy the parapsychologist! Obliterate their career! They aren't real scientists anyway!

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Even though I might, even though I try,
I can't

EYETOOTH

Monday, October 17, 2005 9:55 PM

I don't mean to cast aspersions on parapsychologists, or dismiss their hypotheses out of hand. Admittedly I groan a little whenever I see a study claiming to offer evidence for pre-/tele-/kinetocognition, but this is because such subjects are so often covertly or overtly tied up with mysticism. So I'm prejudiced; I try to get past that, but I'm sure as hell warranted in being cautious.

Shifts in accepted scientific worldviews (or, "mainstream ideas") come from cross-related studies buttressing each other until a sweeping assumption can be made. Science is not a detective story - the clues to the (small-t!) truth are not framed in a single narrative; very rarely is there the study which in one swoop causes a paradigm shift, and even such studies do not create truth in a vacuum.

My point is that there have been fitful steps towards suggesting that somehow there might be some quantifiable of connection between the physical process of cognition and some of the various assertions of parapsychology. How far those steps go is dependent on how many of the studies you think are valid. I'm inclined to think that very, very few are.

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