Science News: Is River's ESP Real?
POSTED BY: two
UPDATED: Sunday, June 17, 2012 21:33
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The best fantasy stories are the ones that could come true, so when I read the science news about precognition, I was pleased by the possibility that River could actually exist, someday. Maybe she is not magical like Buffy and Harry Potter.
I believe River has demonstrated precognition twice. The news articles on precognition:
www.newscientist.com/article/dn19712-is-this-evidence-that-we-can-see-
the-future.html
www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/11/feeling-the-future-is-precognition-
possible/
The preprint that motivated the writing of the articles:
www.dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf
The preprint has this warning of explicit sex in the experiment instructions provided to students who were test subjects at Cornell University:
This is an experiment that tests for ESP. It takes about 20 minutes and is run completely by computer. First you will answer a couple of brief questions. Then, on each trial of the experiment, pictures of two curtains will appear on the screen side by side. One of them has a picture behind it; the other has a blank wall behind it. Your task is to click on the curtain that you feel has the picture behind it. The curtain will then open, permitting you to see if you selected the correct curtain. There will be 36 trials in all. Several of the pictures contain explicit erotic images (e.g., couples engaged in nonviolent but explicit consensual sexual acts). If you object to seeing such images, you should not participate in this experiment.
The location of the image was selected at random by the computer, which means that students should have correctly guessed the location of the pornography 50 percent of the time. However, it turned out that over 100 sessions, the subjects consistently performed above chance, and correctly located the porn 53.1 percent of the time. Interestingly, their hit rate on “non-erotic pictures” did not deviate from chance. (They found neutral pictures, for instance, 49.8 percent of the time.)
The major theoretical challenge for ESP researchers is to provide an explanatory theory for the alleged phenomena that is compatible with physical and biological principles. Although the current absence of an explanatory theory for ESP is a legitimate rationale for imposing the “extraordinary” requirement on the evidence, it is not sufficient reason for rejecting all proffered evidence a priori. Historically, the discovery and scientific exploration of most phenomena have preceded explanatory theories, often by decades or even centuries. The major focus of the article ( www.dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf ) is empirical, but returns to a brief discussion of theory at the end.
River using her spooky precognition powers to see the future in War Stories (2002)
Joss Whedon put River in front of three machine-gun firing bad guys. She kills them all without even looking. Her head is turned away! I don't think Joss wanted us to believe River has a death wish. River didn't take cover from the return gunfire because she knew that she would not be hit. I think River was demonstrating precognition. She was aware of a future event that could not otherwise be anticipated through any known inferential process.
Joss Whedon's brother, Zack, put River in front of six more bad guys in Serenity: Downtime (2010) www.mediafire.com/?i34aqc7bae249zm
Again, I don't think Zack Whedon wanted us to believe River has a death wish. Unarmed and bare foot in the snow, River goes forth to slaughter the bad guys all by herself because she knew beforehand that she won't be injured. She could have asked for help from her crew, but she didn't, for she knew she would not need them.
River's Accurate Imagination
from Serenity: The Other Half (2008) www.mediafire.com/?48dlwxqr81k646k
www.darkhorse.com/Blog/158/serenity-other-half
The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/
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What the? Who came up with that study? Why did they decide naughty pictures would increase precognition? Psychology experiments drive me nuts. It seems like a majority of the time they completely ignore the scientific method. They come up with an experiment, analyze the results and then form a conclusion. Hypothesis be damned. Granted this one sounds like they really did hypothesize that naughty pictures would have a different effect, but who in their right mind would expect such a thing?
I'd also like to hear from someone would knows more about statistics to find out if that's even a statistically significant result. 3.1% depending on sample size might not mean anything.
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Quote:Zeek's objection was covered on page 48 of www.dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf where Daryl J. Bem wrote, “I suspect that the experiments on retroactive priming and retroactive facilitation of recall will be the easiest to replicate successfully and that the experiments using erotic and negative stimuli will be more difficult to replicate, especially on subject populations markedly different from the North American college-age men and women who participated in our experiments. Their cohort’s distinctive experiences with erotic and violent imagery may render their responses to such stimuli unrepresentative of older ages or other cultures.”
Originally posted by Zeek:
What the? Who came up with that study? Why did they decide naughty pictures would increase precognition? . . . Granted this one sounds like they really did hypothesize that naughty pictures would have a different effect, but who in their right mind would expect such a thing?
In other words, experiments using violent Comic Books pictures / Porn might not work outside the North American continent. If the experiments are done elsewhere, different "stimuli" will be necessary for different cultures.
The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two
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You should have stopped reading at "I suspect". That should be replaced with "The following is hot air". His suspicions don't amount to a hill of beans without scientific evidence to support them. All he's trying to do is save face if others can't recreate the results.
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Quote:Daryl J. Bem can't say with authority what kinds of pictures will work in China, for example, if the experiments were repeated there and he admitted that. ( Maybe the Chinese are aroused by pictures of Chairman Mao? ) In most of the world, no one wants Bem to lie about what he knows, but America is an exception: “In America, no one wants to listen to self doubt. Also in America, our reporters don't have a working knowledge of arithmetic, which underlies practically every topic commonly reported on the front page or the evening news. Somehow, I suspect the latter makes the former a lot easier.” - http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/11/image-vs-reality
Originally posted by Zeek:
You should have stopped reading at "I suspect". That should be replaced with "The following is hot air". His suspicions don't amount to a hill of beans without scientific evidence to support them. All he's trying to do is save face if others can't recreate the results.
The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two
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Coming out of hiding briefly to comment.
Quote:
Granted this one sounds like they really did hypothesize that naughty pictures would have a different effect, but who in their right mind would expect such a thing?
Certain quantum mechanics experiments suggest that taking measurements of molecules in various conditions in the present can show signs of retroactive influence on measurements taken previously.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2010-11-21-phys
ics-future_N.htm
Since neurons rely so much on electron transfer, it's not a difficult leap to say that this may have some influence on a neurological level, and when each experience changes the nuerological landscape just a little bit... It's possible some of the information of a neurological change may be available prior to the event changing it.
Even if you take out the quantum mechanics voodoo, most events can be predicted with properly applied logic. As such, any sufficiently advanced logic is indistinguishable from precognition.
As a side note, I predicted this article would exist prior to it's existence. I was even talking to a friend about this earlier today. (kidding, sort of, I don't believe I'm precognitive, I'm not right nearly enough of the time to substantiate such a claim)
But otherwise I agree with you about psychology. I doubt this study will hold up under scrutiny. 1% difference from expected random average is statistically significant? Bah. It made headlines because it's controversial, not because it's conclusive.
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Quote:Why is parapsychology bullshit? Because the exciting, positive experimental results have always failed the test of replication. This is why Bem’s paper is important: It provides the first framework for replicating anomalous psychological properties. Bem’s tests of psi or ESP build upon well-known experimental paradigms and minimize the contact between a true-believer experimenter and the test subject, thus eliminating one way of cheating on the test.
Originally posted by Bytemite:
But otherwise I agree with you about psychology. I doubt this study will hold up under scrutiny. 1% difference from expected random average is statistically significant? Bah. It made headlines because it's controversial, not because it's conclusive.
Bringing this back to Firefly: If ESP doesn't exist, even a tiny bit, there's no justification for operating on River's brain to give her more ESP. And that means there's no reason for River or Simon to be on Firefly. I would miss them both. Unless, of course, Firefly was really about magic and River is a witch . . . In which case, we've left the science fiction genre and gone to the dark heart of fantasy. Personally, I've got a very small appetite for magic-fantasy -- one Harry Potter movie a year is more than enough for me. If River was magic, I wouldn't be interested.
The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two
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From where I sit, using pictures of folks having sex in the experiment is probably the first clever thing I've heard anyone do in studying ESP in humans. Asking subjects to remember words from a list that they would be later asked to type is even cleverer. I'd say Bem comes closer to understanding what he's actually studying here than any researcher I've hear of.
In my experience (I said experience) ESP is directly linked to empathy and emotion. ESP is strongest between people with strong emotional ties, as in a loving and/or familial relationship. Sexuality is important to all us humans and we all have an emotional reaction to it--generally very positive, that would be the baseline, but if anyone has a negative reaction it would have to be all the stronger to override the baseline positive. So, pictures to which a critical majority in the study could be expected to have a strong emotional connection would strike me as optimal. For specific individuals a loved one would prolly work even better. Gee, it sure will be great when science finally grabs a clue and is able to observe this stuff!
Thanks for linking the study!
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Am, there was no precognition in war stories
. Just super observation skills...... She looked out for a sec, closed her eyes and started shooting.
bad quality, since some people still like to record their own screen 
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Quote:
Originally posted by two:
Bringing this back to Firefly: If ESP doesn't exist, even a tiny bit, there's no justification for operating on River's brain to give her more ESP. And that means there's no reason for River or Simon to be on Firefly. I would miss them both. Unless, of course, Firefly was really about magic and River is a witch . . . In which case, we've left the science fiction genre and gone to the dark heart of fantasy. Personally, I've got a very small appetite for magic-fantasy -- one Harry Potter movie a year is more than enough for me. If River was magic, I wouldn't be interested.
It's science fiction. Not science fact. I'm fairly certain in the real world ESP does not exist. That doesn't matter in the Firefly world though. They can change whatever laws or reality they want because it's fiction.
Either way I'm not so sure River has precognition. She reads other people's minds. She doesn't see the future. At least I can't recall any indication that she can.
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