Cite!
The test conditions are rediculously lose – there are a million ways to glean the target information that do not require any special powers.
If cityboy916 gets anything like a “hit” I will simply not be impressed, it won’t even move my impressometer’s needle (well not the one measuring for psi-ability, at least).
I guess though, that it might encourage “us” to develop a more water-tight test.
Yes, those test conditions are diculous all over again… [mutter, mumble, pffft]
And the big bear ambled slowly back to his cave, convinced the world around him had gone mad. 
I don’t understand why you take an interest in the framing of this (and future) test(s), then post this sarcastic waste of space.
I mentioned two:
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bad choice of object by me
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cityboy and I in conspiracy
Do please post some of the remaining 999,998 ways to identify the target.
And post what the target is yourself…
Because?
Feel free to do so now.
Okay boys, no fighting. The only thing this test is really good for is for Cityboy916 to figure out if he can direct his AP (if it exists). There’s no real investment here and it’s actually only really a fun exercise that would be expanded and improved if necessary.
As a added note, Cityboy916 and I have been occasionally emailing each other since I made some accurate guesses about him. Expanding on that, offline; because I didn’t want to continue the topic online. Interestingly enough in an email he described a house and asked me if it sounded familar. He described my house almost perfectly down to the color and design, except for a detail on the windows. He also asked about my bottle collection, which he somehow “guessed” I had and described that. He did not claim to AP and said sometimes he just knew things. I still have no strong opinion on this topic, but did ask him to let me know before he drops in next time.
My point is this type of thing could be possible or really major coincidences can happen. There could even be an explanation as weird as our “energy” overlapping and still not mean we have a soul or anything of that nature. You can have fun speculating on irrational things, without being irrational. The learning process usually starts with “Hey, I wonder if this could be true?” It does’t go anywhere if you decide it can’t be true and go no further. And Cityboy I probably should have asked you before I brought this up. I hope it doesn’t bother you that I did.
Glee, I’m not sure you can bring up Musicat’s waste of space, when we have uh, been a little off topic at times. BTW, I could not produce a good comeback in response to your willy definition. You rendered me speechless. But you continue to be my one and only true Glee.
It doesn’t.
FTR, glee over here we also have the same slang meaning for the word “willy” but to us “the willies” are the same as “the creeps” or “the heebie-jeebies.”
Darn it, Cityboy916, don’t cheapen what Glee and I have with your technical explanations. It sounded more meaningful when he said it. 
I don’t know if you remember the thread, something like, “What can you doper’s find out about me on-line?”? Well, several people found out a lot more than was “expected”, and the thread was locked with dire mod-warnings not to do that sort of thing again.
Indeed, I was tempted to seek yours and David B’s permission to do just this, but I figured, a) DB would refuse (a precedent was established in that thread above), even if you didn’t, and, b) I don’t really have the time/know-how.
So there’s only 999,997 to go.
The existence of non-miraculous means to gain the required information removes all possibility of concluding anything about any miraculous means, do you see?
And I did submit a list of guesses, way back. I am quietly confident.
Yes, I had already referred to people finding things out about me from my Internet posts. I have had an entire class of my pupils having a go at that. They even found a photo of me (so sweet!). But even with all their teenage knowledge and enthusiasm, there was a limit as to how much they could find out (and some of it was confusing, as it waas about other people with the same name.)
So if a lot of dopers guess the object, that will show I made a bad choice.
But this is an attempt to be scientific (yes, of course I know about a non-paranormal possibility invalidating the paranormal explanation).
I think your ‘there are a million ways to glean the target information that do not require any special powers’ turning into ‘I know of one way to find out something about your interests, which might help guess the object, and the idea has already been mentioned’ qualifies you for a ‘Comical Ali’ award. :rolleyes:
Glee, it’s odd that you would object to my making light of this test. Is this the first example of humor ever spotted in this thread? We are not expecting to win the Nobel Prize here, are we?
There are some who would say that entertaining the absurd idea that Astral projection is possible is ludicrious, and any test is therefore as absurd. It’s hard not to make light of it when my estimate of success by non-fraud means is very low. Yes, I do believe this test has some flaws, and the results may be interesting and not definitive as several others have recognized. Yes, I would like to help design a tighter test sometime, and I have made posts to that effect. But I also think that this one should continue, at least until CityBoy916 supplies an answer, gives up, or an unreasonable amount of time has passed with no data forthcoming. So I’ll laugh, and you carry on.
IWLN, I’m a little surprised at your surprise that CityBoy916 was able to describe your house so “accurately.” Your experience resembles a psychic reading session; surely you are aware of how cold reading is done? In the absence of an exact transcript of your conversations it would be impossible for me to say for sure, but my WAG is you may have unwittingly supplied a good deal of info for CB, then conveniently forgotten all but the “surprising” parts of your exchanges. This is typical of cold reading sessions by “psychics,” or of a parlor trick by magicians.
When apparently confronted by the unexplained, it’s always wise to investigate the simple, non-supernatural explanations first before postulating things like “overlapping energy fields,” as our good friend W. of O. teaches us. You remember him, doncha?
Do you think?
For this test to have any validity we have to trust:
You, cityboy916, David B, any friends/colleagues/acquaintances of yours (or even David B’s) that might mischievously throw a spanner into the works, every doper capable of engineering information about you (and I am sure that a concerted effort would yield everything about you, your name/address/social security number/employer/etc. (the “experiment” mentioned above yielded information of this richness)).
So, sue me for exaggeration, but don’t pretend the test isn’t deeply flawed.
Not that it isn’t entertaining, 'cause it is. Carry on as if I wasn’t here.
Here’s one remote viewer that failed.
Yes, oh wise “one”, I am familar with how a cold reading is done. As for unwittingly supplying information, that does not explain why when he first brought up my house, before I said anything, he was extremely close. Here, have some exact email transcript, copied and pasted to insure freshness:**
So yes, I did give him a small amout of input after his first reference to it, but he was extremely accurate about many things without prompting. I have not forgotten the unsurprising or inaccurate part of the conversation. If you consider that down to the porch, the color, the screen, the corner in reference to the windows, the bottle collection, etc., how accurate he was; it is uncanny. I don’t consider it proof of anything outside of nature, though.
If you’ll re-read my last description, I did allow for major coincidence also. I could also throw in the fact that he’s less than a day’s drive away from me. O.Razor is supposed to help you come to a reasonable conclusion. I’m content to wait for that conclusion, but of course I did go through plausible explanations. I’m not sure where you’re getting that I am particularly surprised, because I wasn’t at all. I mostly just find it absurdly humorous. It makes no difference to me if it’s true or not, although I think it would be fun if it were. If it’s true, I don’t think it’s supernatural; I just think it’s something we don’t know about our senses yet. Okay, I’ve done my part. Now you can at least have a few more facts before you “WAG”. I’m going to have to start putting " " on every sentence or stop enjoying unexplainabe things so much. And I can always count on you to make sure I keep at least one foot on the ground.
IWLN, if I could find a hundred houses that substantially look like his description, would you be as impressed? Implicit in your comments is the thought that, because your description closely matches his, that he is seeing your house? Could he be seeing someone else’s house, and the description is general enough that you find matches? “I’m seeing a ‘G’ here…” “Oh, my Gawd, my cat’s name is George!” – do you see how unobjective your matching process is? How many houses DON’T have a lot of little bottles (especially women’s, since he already knows your sex) or some blue-green somewhere, or a post or a porch?
An aside: I am trusting you to supply ALL communication between the two of you, since if you selected some statements and discarded others, that would change the hit rate, wouldn’t it?
Nevertheless, I will try to match CityBoy916’s description of YOUR house with my description of MY house. I assure you I will take no more liberties than you have, and you will have to trust me that I am telling the truth. If you doubt, I can send you pictures (I know, they might be faked or of someone else’s house, but that’s all I can offer). If MY house matches the same description that YOURS matches, would you say that casts doubt on whether CityBoy916 really viewed yours? Or maybe he is just a good guesser?
Let’s take the items one at a time:
My mother, an older woman, used to live here. She collected antiques, including little bottles, and some of them are still here. So that’s a match, right?
First of all, he’s saying what he DOESN’T know! He didn’t say he saw fragrances or bottles of fragrances, he’s saying he DOESN’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE! He might as well say he doesn’t know that they are full of cat food or chirping crickets, because he is just throwing out some ideas in the hopes that YOU will link them to YOUR experience.
Nevertheless, I’ll play along. Some of my mother’s little bottles held fragrances (perfume). I doubt if any held home remedies. So, based on the logical OR in the statement, we could call this a match. (True OR False = True)
My house is a fairly bright green with white trim. There are a lot of big windows on the lake side, one of which my webcam is in front of. So that’s a pretty good match, I’d say. There is one load-bearing post outside on one porch. Not two, but maybe his vision was blurred by something, but his following sentence…
…gives him an out. He isn’t really saying it as fact, just bringing it up “in case it means anything.” So if you find a match, he gets the credit. If you don’t, it was just something thrown out there. Either way, he wins and you think he has seen it.
Perfect; describes my house to a “T”. Small porch, 4x4 post holding up the porch roof, screen door in front of the main door in the corner, although methinks CityBoy916 must have come by earlier in the year when the screen was up; right now, it’s a glass storm door. Pretty darn good match, I’d say.
I have trouble defining which side is the front of my house, too, so maybe he read my mind?
But note that he isn’t claiming to have astrally projected to obtain this info, he just guessed! So if HE doesn’t claim to have used supernatual ability, why would YOU even entertain such a notion? Let’s give CityBoy916 credit for being a pretty good cold reader. He’s got the patter down – he could challenge John Edwards!
IWLN, this reads like a textbook case of how cold reading is done. I urge you to buy Ianzin’s book frequently mentioned in SDMB pages.
I know you & I have partipated in several threads, but I can’t remember if we were ever joined on the cold reading topic. FYI, Ianzin is the doper name for very-accomplished magician Ian Rowland. His book is a must-read for all of us.
I just can’t resist it. One more thing caught my eye after I posted.
He didn’t say he was sure he saw the right house. He asked YOU to compare, and tell him. If you think it matches, he wins. If you think it doesn’t, he can say he wasn’t sure, and he wins again. But what impression did you take away from his guesses?
Nonsense, my dear. It’s only uncanny if you think something supernatural or non-coincidental was involved. It’s not uncanny to me (clever, but not uncanny). The hairs on my neck did not stand up upon reading this thread!
He didn’t say they were “guesses.” He was relating a dream he had. I assume he’s not guessing and then lying about it. I think dreaming is different from guessing. Not necessarily any more accurate or paranormal, though isn’t AP connected to dreaming by some? I think your analysis of the information is pretty spot on, but I do think there’s a difference, particularly from Cityboy’s point of view. Saying he “just guessed” seems to misrepresent him somewhat.
For the record, I’m with IWLN on the subject. My judgment is wholly suspended. I am skeptical, but willing to look at anything that purports to be evidence without automatically assuming “it can’t be so.” There are more things in heaven and earth, and all that, and we probably haven’t (and maybe can’t) directly observed a fraction of it. And if there is “something” that accounts for what we presently consider “paranormal” there would be a naturalistic explanation for it.
Yup, that explains why my dream took place before I conversed with IWLN. :rolleyes:
Right. First, out of nowhere I have this dream where there’s an older woman. Next, I begin conversing with an older woman online. It was really a WAG on my part that the description would be of her house.
I’ll respond to your other post later. Right now I don’t have a lot of time.