From: fudley (fuddley@fastmail.fm)
Date: Sat Dec 31 2005 - 00:32:53 MST
On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 01:35:51 -0500, "fudley" <fuddley@fastmail.fm> said:
> On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 "Richard Loosemore" <rpwl@lightlink.com> said:
>
> > Could you say which of the journals that I
> > cited in my last message you have consulted?
>
> None. And how many times has an article In Nature or Science or Physical
> Review Letters or Cell or New England Journal of Medicine or Lancet
> cited ANYTHING in ANY of the “journals” you mentioned? None.
>
> > Consider the idea that there may be some
> > "causes" that are not local in this universe.
>
> If everything caused something to happen it’s almost equivalent to
> saying nothing caused it. An electron went through the left slot not the
> right because of what an atom in the Andromeda galaxy 2 million light
> years away was doing, and it was doing what it did because of an atom in
> the Hydra cluster 8 billion light years away. For me to predict what the
> electron will do I’d have to know all there is to know about the
> universe; I am comfortable in calling that random
>
> > You set up a quantum-event controlled random
> > number generator (the numbers coming out are
> > determined by exact timing of the decay events
> > of a radioactive substance, for example).
> > Now you ask a person to try to influence it to
> > make certain numbers come out more often.
> > Now suppose that the first time you try the
> > experiment, the numbers are indeed grossly
> > skewed in the desired direction.
> > Was it random? No, it wasn't.
>
> And how do you know it was random or not? I hit a golf ball 300 yards
> and it lands on a blade of grass, the possibility the ball will land on
> that blade is extremely remote, but there it is. Somebody is going to
> win the lottery.
>
> > Did it have a normal-physics cause? No:
> > quantum mechanics states that nothing
> > can bias the radiocative decays to happen
> > according to certain pattern.
>
> If you were to actually do this and most importantly it was repeatable
> then you have found a flaw in Quantum Mechanics, you will have found
> that the radioactive decay can be influenced by something, in this case
> the mental state of the experimenter and so unlike what we had thought
> radioactive decay is not random but deterministic. If that happened then
> any halfway intelligent person would admit that psi existed and we would
> not be having this debate.
>
> But that would not change the fact that everything, absolutely
> positively 100% everything happens because of cause and effect OR it
> does not, and if it does not then it is random.
>
> > the exact connection between "thought" and
> > effect seems to come and go, sometimes
> > working and sometimes not, sometimes doing
> > the opposite of what you planned, sometimes
> > fading away if you get bored and do the
> > experiment too many times. This is what
> > I meant by capricious.
>
> It’s an odd coincidence that capriciousness is exactly precisely what
> you would expect to see if the psi phenomena were one big load of
> ridicules stinking crap.
>
> Me:
> >> BULLSHIT! COSMIC ASTRONOMICAL BULLSHIT!!
>
> You:
> > Could you explain in more detail what you mean by this?
>
> I’m really sorry if you don’t understand what I was trying to say, I
> thought my meaning was clear, but apparently not. I just don’t know how
> to express my opinion more directly. I wish I were more eloquent. Sorry.
>
> > Who was the guy who came up with the theory of
> > continental drift? Was it Wegener? Is your
> > study of the history of science as patchy and
> > selective as your grasp of current research?
> > Or would you care to put, alongside your
> > account of Roentgen, an account of what
> > happened to Wegener as well?
>
> OK. Alfred Wegener published his theory of continental drift in 1915 and
> it was correct, but it was not well received. Like Roentgen he was
> right, like Roentgen he had no theoretical explanation for what he
> claimed to see, like Roentgen he made an extraordinary claim, but unlike
> Roentgen he did not have extraordinary evidence, he did not have the
> equivalent of a photograph of the bones in his wife’s hand. And I’ve got
> to tell you, the fact that Wegener was not a geologist but a
> meteorologist would not add to his credibility if I were a professional
> geologist. It took 45 years to come up with good enough evidence to
> convince people that he was right, and that is a dismal record I think.
> I wish the scientific community had done better.
>
> One the other hand people have believed in the paranormal for many many
> thousands of years, about as long as humans have been human; but in all
> that time they have never been able to produce, ironclad, excellent,
> good, pretty good, or even mediocre evidence that the phenomenon
> actually exists.
>
> People have investigated it with the Scientific Method, or claimed they
> have done so, for well over a century. The net result of all that
> intense effort is, drum roll please, is, is, is,…… precisely nothing.
> After more than a century of vigorous research parapsychology
> “scientists” have contributed exactly precisely nothing to the sum total
> of human knowledge. ZERO.
>
> Just between you and me, I think it’s time to move on to something else.
>
> John K Clark
>
>
>
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