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Paul Buchheit
Could It Be? Spooky Experiments That 'See' The Future - http://www.npr.org/blogs...
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"One of the most respected, senior and widely published professors of psychology, Daryl Bem of Cornell, has just published an article that suggests that people — ordinary people — can be altered by experiences they haven't had yet. Time, he suggests, is leaking. The Future has slipped, unannounced, into the Present. And he thinks he can prove it." - Paul Buchheit
If you read the original paper, Bem has a simple test to select for people who get a 57% (on average) hit rate on the photo prediction test. - Private Sanjeev
What's the test? - Paul Buchheit
You should know already.... - Roberto Bonini
Rebuttal from the point of view of statistical methodology. (PDF link) http://www.ruudwetzels.com/article... But I'd like to see more about this in a few months or a year, after more people attempt to reproduce Bem's results. - Tudor Bosman
How much do you agree with the following two statements: 1. I am easily bored? 2. I often enjoy seeing movies I've seen before. - Private Sanjeev
So people who are easily bored but enjoy rewatching movies are most able to predict photos? - Paul Buchheit
I read an article a while back in New Scientist that theorised that Quantum Entanglement may be heavily involved in DNA. And further theorised that it may be in use throughout the body including the brain. Hence quantum physics weirdness, including time paradoxes, showing up in psychological processes is a natural extension of that theory. - Roberto Bonini
The latter question was reversed scored: so people who "are easily bored" and "do not enjoy re-watching movies" predicted the erotic pictures better. - Keith Coleman
Also, regarding the stimuli-oriented group: "The difference between their erotic and nonerotic hit rates was itself significant with 71% of participants achieving higher hit rates on erotic trials than on nonerotic trials. Their psi scores on nonerotic trials did not exceed chance." - Keith Coleman
I guess James Randi needs to comment. - Sue - Friendfeed is best
Suezanne: Read the PDF link I posted. The guidelines for Randi's $1M prize follow those indicated in that paper for confirmatory studies, which Bem's studies are not. Randi would be unfazed. - Tudor Bosman
They're doing it wrong, you need to do the confirmatory studies *before* you do the exploratory ones. :) - Private Sanjeev
I like to think of the evolutionary advantage of this kind of power :) (which explains why it works only for erotic images) - Paul Buchheit
I bet they could boost the hit rate by replacing the images with, uh, something more stimulating :) - Paul Buchheit
They actually did. The original photo set was not sufficiently explicit to stimulate male subjects, so they had to go out on the internet to get better material. I had a crazy idea to turk this and make a high frequency trading algo out of it. YC startup idea? Just make sure Randi is not in the room or you'll lose money. - Private Sanjeev
Does a roulette wheel that displays erotic pictures to winners differ in performance from one that doesn't? - Sue - Friendfeed is best
Tudor Bosman: "Suezanne: Read the PDF link I posted" - I have read it now; I hadn't till you told me to. - Sue - Friendfeed is best
For (Ex-)Googlers: Daryl is Jeremy Bem's father. - Simon
Paul, Tudor's PDF does discuss the evolutionary advantage. Page 5: "Note that precognition conveys a considerable evolutionary advantage (Bem, in press), and one might therefore assume that natural selection would have lead to a world filled with powerful psychics (i.e., people or animals with precognition, clairvoyance, psychokineses, etc.). This is not the case, however (see also Kennedy, 2001). The believer in precognition may object that psychic abilities, unlike all other abilities, are not influenced by natural selection. But the onus is then squarely on the believer in psi to explain why this should be so." - Stephen Mack
Obviously there's a tradeoff. Precognition makes it easier to get sex (which I assume is what it's for given the need for stimulating images), but causes bordom, which must be some kind of disadvantage. - Paul Buchheit
And, in fact, it must be the case that practically all reproducing males who have ever existed had this ability. "My boy," he said, "you are descended from a long line of determined, resourceful, microscopic tadpoles -- champions every one." (_Galápagos_, by Kurt Vonnegut) - Stephen Mack
I think I'll go and predict some porn now. :) - Morton Fox
I think that what happens is that those with the psi abilities use it to seek out porn rather than reproducing, thus negating any evolutionary advantage it may impart. - Gabe
Simon: whoa, that's quite interesting. - Ruchira S. Datta
Heidegger said roughly the same thing, also Binswanger did some great existential psychology around time issues. It turns out that the future is highly determining of the present. I tracked down some early Nietzsche with just this sort of speculation during my undergrad degree. - Jeff McNeill
"The most important flaws in the Bem experiments, discussed below in detail, are the following: (1) confusion between exploratory and confirmatory studies; (2) insufficient attention to the fact that the probability of the data given the hypothesis does not equal the probability of the hypothesis given the data (i.e., the fallacy of the transposed conditional); (3) application of a test that overstates the evidence against the null hypothesis, an unfortunate tendency that is exacerbated as the number of participants grows large. Indeed, when we apply a Bayesian t-test (G¨onen, Johnson, Lu, & Westfall, 2005; Rouder, Speckman, Sun, Morey, & Iverson, 2009) to quantify the evidence that Bem presents in favor of psi, the evidence is sometimes slightly in favor of the null hypothesis, and sometimes slightly in favor of the alternative hypothesis. In almost all cases, the evidence falls in the category “anecdotal”, also known as “worth no more than a bare mention” (Jeffreys, 1961)." - Goran Zec
(totally OT: I hope you like this one - http://ff.im/wjm73) - PaperDoll
well, it's about future :) - PaperDoll
Wow, weird. I wish I still had vocab tests. I would totally do that "study a list after a test" thing. Just in case. - Chieze Okoye
so, future can change past? - vovasty
len ben türküm - Ender Mert Karagür
«This is not the first time a prominent psychology professor has found statistical evidence of extrasensory perception, but in these experiments, the methods are classical, simple, well known and repeatable. Already one attempt to repeat Bem's work has failed» - 9000
Very relevant: http://friendfeed.com/marebv... - Goran Zec
I liked this before this was shared. - Jemm