I won’t say anything until you have done your remote viewing. Then i will be happy to say if any of the objects has an emotional attachment for me, and, if so, how much.
It is extremely difficult to find anyone prepared to do a remote view test, so please make sure you are happy with the conditions and feel you have done your best.
By all means keep notes on any other experiences, and publish them after you have given your official answer.
Yes, I know this test is not perfect. You only have my word the objects are sitting on my desk. You only have mine and David B’s word that I have sent him an e-mail.
I have never tried to claim this test was anything more than an interesting first step.
The important point for me is that cityboy916 is prepared to put his ability to the test. (Well done, that man!)
I have loads of e-mails from e.g. dowsers saying that can teach me dowsing for a reasonable fee. When I ask why they don’t simply claim the Randi million, the excuses start. :smack:
I’m not saying anything till cityboy916 makes his observation. If you have impressions of my desk, post your list of 12 objects!
I would add that I would consider it unscientific (and bl**dy rude) to move any of the items.
I keep asking for proof of the paranormal. The least I can do is be absolutely scrupulous when someone comes forward.
[Monty Python ON] I’m sorry, this is debating. Insulting is the next door down! [Monty Python OFF]
I think you misunderstand the test. This is remote viewing. Feel free to make non-psychic guesses of the 12 objects on my desk. By all means look at my posts before guessing - your resultant accuracy shows how well-designed the test is.
P.S. I know about cold reading, so I ain’t saying nuffink in reply!
No, that’s not right.
I am not an agent of the Randi Foundation, and anyway my test is not well-designed enough to act as a preliminary (which they require, and will authorise themselves.)
I currently have no evidence of any paranormal act.
If cityboy916 successfully describes the designated object on my desk, then I will feel a sense of excitement and achievement. I will then offer him another, more accurate, test (naming all 12 objects and inviting him to remote view the selected one again.)
A main point for me of the first test is to see how well non-psychics (a control group) do in their predictions.
If loads of non-psychics successfully describe the designated object on my desk, then it was a poorly-designed test.
I don’t think this test is useless.
If cityboy916 says he sees ‘something white, hard & round’, that is indeed ambiguous. (Note that if there is more than one such object on my desk, he has to say which one has the post-it, so would be revealing his lack of precision.)
But this is only the first proposed test. If cityboy916 does complete the first one, then I will issue a list of 12 objects on my desk (making sure they are unambiguous), select one at random and invite more remote viewing.
Now the random element of description will be removed.
As I have said, I also want to see how well non-psychics can do, given the available information on me (and my desk).
This is not the definitive test of remote viewing. But at last we have a volunteer who is ready to try. I assure you I have spent years waiting for this, so will proceed carefully.
If all goes well, I will be delighted to help cityboy916 apply to the Randi Foundation for the million, and, more importantly, for a really well supervised test.
No dilemma here!
I ain’t saying nuffink till cityboy916 has had his go. Respect. 
Its on my windowsill!
I believe so.
I’m in agreement with with glee on this one - if the description is too vague, it’s unprovable. But then that gets into the question of, are we trying to show that there is astral projection or are we trying to show that it is precise enough to be of value? There needs to be enough certainty that the hit is not vague enough to be chance. If astral projection is real but not precise enough for practical use, then it would be very very hard to prove anyway.
So for our purposes, let’s say that the objects should be identified by what they are. However it is entirely possible that there may be an object that I have never seen in real life. If I am uncertain what the object in question is, then my description must be clear enough to distinguish it from the other 11. (And I don’t mean, “the one with the sticky on it.” :D) Is this an agreeable condition for all?
cityboy, if you should be able to distinguish objects, would you therefore agree that you should be able to see a lit-up digital time such that you should get it right to the minute?
At present, I know of no remote viewing test. So we have literally no data to analyse astral projection with.
Anything you come up with will be an advance on our previous knowledge.
I don’t think any of my objects are hard to identify. However you raise a valid point. If I dabble in some obscure field and have a ‘quantum recursive heuristic holographic analyser’ widget*, then many people would be baffled by it.
Still this is just a first test, and hopefully non=psychics will participate too.
Your reservation can certainly be met in test two, where I name (and describe) all 12 objects, and the remote viewer just has to spot the post-it note.
*I don’t, actually. But my mate does and it’s really !
Ideally, you should come up with something that is:
a) Completely random and not affected by any personal bias
b) Completely unambiguous and you can calculate the confidence level that the guess was not purely random
c) something that is clearly within cityboy’s abilities.
The first thing that comes to mind is still numbers but cityboy claims he cannot read while in astral projection.
The things on your desk thing is fundamentally flawed because its impossible to judge how successful he is and it belies a significant part of your personality.
A few questions for cityboy:
Can you read anything at all in astral projection? words? sentences? brand names?
How good do you think your memory would be? how many discrete objects could you hold in there at once?
What level of detail are you able to resolve to? Could you make out a headline of the newspaper for example?
Be fair. He said he’s not confident that he can. He’s not saying he can’t, but that he’d rather try something else.
If he genuinely does have this ability he doesn’t know how it works any more than we do. Have you ever woken up from a dream being able to remember a number?
Cityboy: how about a bit of paper with a couple of words on?
Why don’t you provide cityboy with pictures of the aformentioned objects? Cityboy should be able to see at least some features of the designated object which would allow him to determine the object. Obviously this would void the 2nd part of the challenge but the 1st test was stated as the pass/fail measure.
Yes, I agree, but I have acknowledged these points already. :eek:
This first test is partly to get the first ever result from a remote viewer, and also to encourage non-psychics to act as a control group (they are welcome to use what they know of my personality!).
My second proposed test will give a full list of objects, so the remote viewer can focus on just which one has been selected.
The ideal test is waiting at the Randi Foundation. Proper scientific supervision and a magnificent reward! 
OK, I’ll have a go as a control. Here are the items:
Whoops! I mean, here:
Your sticker is on #8, the book.
For the record: I’m NOT psychic, and I’m making guesses based on imagining that I’ve astrally projected into your room and am looking around, so that I’m in the right frame of mind (I hope).
Scene: The entrance to glee’s computer room.
A large banner is strung over the doorway saying ‘Congratulations, you are our 1st control’ (the word ‘1st’ has been painted over ‘1000th’)
Yumanite enters stage left.
glee rushes forward and shakes hands enthusiastically. He makes this little speech "On this auspicious day, I would like to thank the vast numbers of Dopers who have participated in our experiment. I can do no better than possibly misquote from Waynes’ World 2 ‘If you build it, they will come!’ "
That was Spock??? I thought it was Buzz. Did the dog chew on it?
I claim no psychic ability, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
SentientMeat; the best answer I can give to your question would be summed up by replying to others’ wording of basically the same point (namely, can I read while projected):
I don’t claim that I an and I don’t claim that I cannot.
In order to read from the astrally projected state, what seems to me to be necessary is for the perception of sight to be somehow transmitted to the visual cortex of the brain, at which point the language centers would interpret the characters. The first prerequisite is that the body must be awake enough to read and remember the words/sentences. Secondly there is the matter of how the information gets to the brain; I do not claim to know by exactly what method this is supposed to take place but there is of course the question of the fidelity of the transmitted signal.
One must be rather alert to be able to read, but I would suspect that seeing the size, shape, and color of an object would be a much simpler task. If the object can be identified by its shape and color, then the experiment should be a piece of cake to complete. Brand names are often identifiable by their shape and color so they’d be easier than a black-and-white printed word.
With my eyes closed, I have no problem mentally inventorying the objects scattered about my desk; a dozen come to mind easily. (Note: they don’t tend to stay where they are so my desk might not be a good test subject, in case anyone’s wondering). Of course, those are objects I am familiar with. The lack of familiarity on my part with glee’s desk means that I’d have to list them from having seen them once, and that goes back to how much brain function there is and how clearly the visual signal is being transmitted.
Well in theory it could be possible to shrink down to the size of a flea and examine individual specks of dust. I’m not sure what kind of acuity the astral body has from a near-ceiling vantage point, which is most likely what I’d “default” to. A headline is a possibility (assuming the ability to read, see above) but beyond that it’s hard to say.
Depending on the size and clarity of the print… ??? It’s really hard to estimate these things since I have not yet put the ability to the test of distinguishing things.