Science News: Is River's ESP Real?

POSTED BY: two
UPDATED: Sunday, June 17, 2012 21:33
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TWO

Saturday, December 18, 2010 1:49 AM

Reply to Cybersnark:
They're getting research priorities backwards. They are “scientifically” explaining something that they did not convincingly prove, in this paper, existed. To quote the paper: “Meta-analyses of "ganzfield" studies[3] as well as "card-guessing task"[4] studies provide compelling evidence for the existence of telepathy.” I call it bullshit. Take a look at the paper and decide for yourselves.

From the paper titled Investigating paranormal phenomena: Functional brain imaging of telepathy is a picture that “proves” telepathy exists:
www.deanradin.com/papers/IntJYoga1266-7404602_203406.pdf

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

TWO

Saturday, December 18, 2010 1:53 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnotherSky:
I would agree Joss left it purposely vague, Two.

But whether River knew Niska's men couldn't shoot, knew they didn't know where she was or that she'd be a threat, or just knew the 'outcome' of not getting shot, or knew she was faster or where they would move to...we could come up with even more possibilities as an audience, and I agree the vagueness is part of the fun of interpretation.

What I'm really interested in is OiS and Safe--those seem almost telepathy to me, especially Safe with the little girl. What do you think?

I think it's telepathy. To keep the stories suspenseful for many years, Firefly stayed coy about River's mind. Perhaps Joss Whedon never worked out in his head the imaginary physics of telepathy / precognition. What Firefly needs today is some Joss written stories explaining it all. And while he is writing that, he can throw in a Grand Unified Theory of Reavers -- my favored theory would have Reavers be a semi-closed community of telepathic murderers. When a Reaver dies, the community “recruits” another, disregarding all the Mal-approved-mythology about Paxilon being the only possible way Reavers are created.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

TWO

Friday, January 7, 2011 8:09 PM

Yesterday, The New York Times covered the ESP story www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/science/06esp.html

Not everyone is convinced that River could be real:
“It’s craziness, pure craziness. I can’t believe a major journal is allowing this work in,” Ray Hyman, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University Oregon and longtime critic of ESP research, said. “I think it’s just an embarrassment for the entire field.”

The editor of the journal, Charles Judd, a psychologist at the University of Colorado, said the paper went through the journal’s regular review process. “Four reviewers made comments on the manuscript,” he said, “and these are very trusted people.”

All four decided that the paper met the journal’s editorial standards, Dr. Judd added, even though “there was no mechanism by which we could understand the results.”

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

ZEEK

Friday, January 7, 2011 8:26 PM

I definitely think River is empathic. Telepathy is a tough one. I would say it's the more obvious answer. Though could she be using her incredible analytical skills along with her empathic abilities to make very educated guesses? Could be possible.

I was watching Ariel recently and saw an example of potential precognition in the series. When she pointed out the patient that was getting poor treatment after surgery I'm not so sure empathic readings from the doctor could be enough.

TWO

Friday, January 7, 2011 9:02 PM

Empathic River doesn't go far enough to explain her.

I saw this great quote about ESP. I think Hofstadter went too far in his sneering, contemptuous attitude:
“If any of his claims were true, then all of the bases underlying contemporary science would be toppled, and we would have to rethink everything about the nature of the universe.” - Douglas Hofstadter, professor of cognitive science at Indiana University, Bloomington, commenting on Professor Bem's article.
www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/01/06/the-esp-study-when-science-go
es-psychic/a-cutoff-for-craziness

What I would love to see is some fanfiction that shows Dr. Mathias is a total fraud who has been faking his slightly positive ESP results. With Mathias, it's about getting his research grant renewed year after year. And then River Tam comes along and produces genuine proof of the existence of ESP.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Sunday, April 3, 2011 6:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zeek:
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.

Yet I'm fairly certain ESP does exist "in the real world" but maybe just not yours.

Quote:

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.

Try to recall Ariel.
River knows in advance the patient is about to die, that the doctor is killing him. She cannot be reading the mind of the doc, he is too stupid to realize he's killing his patient. The patient doesn't know he's about to be killed by his incopetent doc. Nobody else knows the situation, other than God and any other precogs milling about.
River is precog.

War Stories Shooting is not a precog example for River. She peeks out and specifically looks at each of the 3 targets, then ducks back. Then comes back out with the pistol, taking 3 shots to the targets.

About the other studies/experiments, was the duplication unsuccessful for the Technical Remote Viewing (or whatever they called it) double-blind study?
Five volunteers were allowed to select one of 5 blank envelopesd, then select one from another set of 5 blank envelopes. The first selection was a world landmark, along with airfair to get there (I think they included Big Ben in London, Eiffel Tower, Sphynx in Giza). Second envelope was not to be opened until arrival, and while looking at the landmark, op0en the enevlope and think about the number and letter combination within.
Five Remote Viewers also selected one of 5 blank envelopes. Contents were matching number/letter sets to one of the 5 volunteers.
All 5 drew the corresponding landmark, from the perspective of the voluteer who looked at it.
Problem was, the Remote Viewers drew the landmarks 2 days before the volunteers selected their blank envelopes.

Did that one fail to duplicate?

TWO

Sunday, April 3, 2011 7:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
War Stories Shooting is not a precog example for River. She peeks out and specifically looks at each of the 3 targets, then ducks back. Then comes back out with the pistol, taking 3 shots to the targets.

Just because River is a handgun expert does not mean she can't be killed by a gunshot.

River is not going to stand in the open, unprotected by a bulletproof shield, before three of Niska's machine gunners unless she is crazy (which she could well be) or her precognition tells her they won't shoot her before she shoots them. I prefer the 'River is a precog' explanation to 'River is crazy'.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

RIONAEIRE

Monday, April 4, 2011 4:45 AM

I feel that River is empathic, telepathic and something I'm going to call physiopathic here. We know she's empathic because she knows how people are feeling, quick example being when Book is afraid in Out of Gas, easy to dispute but I doubt anyone will, you could say she's just observant but I don't think that's it. We know she's telepathic because she knows what happened to Ruby in Safe. In Ariel I would say she'sdemonstrating an awareness of what's going on in people's bodies, with their physical nature, like when that guy is going to die, she feels that things are coming to an end in his body, I'm going to call that physiopathic for now until I come up with a better word, any takers? I think that knowing about the fire in Out of Gas could be another example of sensing physical things that aren't someone's thoughts, I think she could sense that things were going haywire in the other room with the engine etc.

I do not believe that in the series they give us examples of outright precognition. I know that the story Crystal does, but that was written after.

And I believe that River wassaving Kaylee in War Stories: her friend was in danger and River did what she had to do to save her, which meant taking a risk and using her skills. I do think that maybe she got the line about no power in the verse from Kaylee, she may have been using it to show Kaylee that it is okay now, that River saved her, that she is safe and that they can go back to life aboard Serenity now because Kaylee is now safe. It has always bothered me that Kaylee freaked out and stayed away from River for a while after that. I wish Kaylee would have thanked River and shown her extra respect, she now owes River a life debt after all. I understand why she didn't but I think she should have, it would have been the polite thing to do. But that's getting off topic.

As for whether River having powers discredits the series, I don't feel it does, its scifi after all, does that mean that no aliens discredits all other scifi series' out there?

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

BYTEMITE

Monday, April 4, 2011 1:59 PM

The "No power in the verse line" is an ironic echo of a lot of things. It's first said by Mal, in regards to Kaylee, "No power in the verse can stop her from being cheerful." At the beginning of War Stories, Kaylee takes up a shortened form of the line that's also plainly meant as a call-back, "No power in the verse can stop me." The unsaid portion of the line is "from being cheerful."

Then River says it, right at a moment where Kaylee is not too particularly cheerful. Irony! And also potentially another hint at River's abilities, as River would not normally be aware of the full significance of the line, since Mal first said it before River was on Serenity.

In regards to the Ariel patient and the dying thing, I always thought even if someone weren't consciously aware, that still falls under empathy. But I can see what you're trying to do, by making the fire something in the present and therefore seeing and predicting the physical. I think that the right term for this is "remote viewing."

Something I have thought is that River might be a Medium. In the movie she suggests that she can hear ghosts on Miranda, and also suggests something similar in Bushwhacked. Maybe they're the ones actually telling her what happens in the future in Crystal. Maybe she has long telepathic conversations with Wash and Book's souls that they aren't aware of, and the souls know the future even if the persons don't. That would then maybe be more of a form of really advanced empathy as opposed to direct precognition.

I don't actually believe in the soul, but I think Joss does. It seems to me that Dollhouse was all about how you can't ever completely erase the soul and that it somehow isn't all brain structure or chemistry. So it might be something he might do. It's not too far from some stuff he had Willow doing in Buffy.

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Wednesday, April 6, 2011 1:55 PM

I have not thought River to be a medium, but it's a possibility.

I have normally conjured in Bushwhacked that River heard the screams of "the dead" throught the mind/memory of the lone survivor (he was made to watch).
I have not clearly expresed that view, since many people seem to get confused easily on this subject.

On Miranda, I had conjured she had absorbed it in The Institute from the minds of the Parliament. Perhaps not. These readings can transcend space and time, so she could have been sensing the Mirandans from 12 years prior. The great proximity of their corpses would help trigger her. It seems less likely that all of their souls were still hanging around for her to interact with, 12 years later - most would have moved on.

A medium would be able to interact with "the dead" in real-time, not merely in the past (one way time shift). Had she passed on some comment from Book, or something from Wash to Zoe, I would agree medium. But I don't recall her interacting with the dead (she answers their questions, they answer hers.)

Regarding the patient in Ariel, River already stated he was going to die before the idiot doc injected the vaso-restrictor, so his body could not have sensed his imminent death - not until after the injection. Hence River knew it before it happened, and is precog.

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