As you all may know, I sometimes come up with ideas of various kinds. Then I wonder (perhaps needlessly) if my ideas would be of benefit to science in general. One idea I have is to determine if there really is such a thing as telekinesis (you know, the alleged psychic ability to move things with your mind). I get more skeptical with age, it seems. So presently I think not. No matter though. I think I have the perfect test to prove if there really is such a thing for once and for all. Please read:
Why not take an object, perhaps very small (so it won’t take too much mental power;)), and hook it up with very sensitive electrodes–or whatever you call something electronic that measures very small movement (I’m talking about on the nanometer scale, if that’s any help). Then put human subjects in a room behind bulletproof glass (so there is NO way they can move it thru slight of hand of ANY kind). Then tell them to concentrate, and see if there is any movement, however microscopically small. There. If there is really such a thing as telekinesis, I would think even the average person will be able to create movement on this scale.
Actually, I have become more inspired as of late to share some of my ideas. Because apparently I may not be too far off with some of my ideas. Do any of you remember my idea of “circasepian” rhythms? (To refresh your memory, these are cycles on something other than strictly biological clocks.) Anyways, I didn’t find a similiar theory that is exactly like mine. But it is still at least ironic that “Circaseptan” rhythms is so close. Circaseptan rhythms are on the 7-day scale, like mine. And even the name is similiar. No, I did not come up with this idea after reading about it and then forgetting. Somehow I came up with my theory independent of the Circaseptan one. It is ironic, is all I’m saying.
I would be interested in hearing what some of you think of my telekinesis test. Please feel free to tell me your thoughts, even if critical:).
(BTW, if anyone has come up with my theory before, I would love hearing about that too naturally.)
“A lightweight headset containing sensors for the forehead and earlobes measures your brainwave activity. When you focus your concentration, a small foam ball will rise on a gentle stream of air. Relax your thoughts and the ball will descend. By using a combination of physical and mental coordination, you must then guide the ball through a customizable obstacle course.”
The trouble with that test is there are other players willing the ball to land on their number. They might have stronger abilities than his. You have to conduct a test where there’s only one person involved.
If you find anyone who appears to have this or any other psychic abilities, James Randi would love to hear from them. But don’t let them get their hopes up. So far as I know, nobody has claimed one thin dime of the $1 million prize that he offers.
Which, someone will shortly claim, is merely proof that the challenge itself is fraudulent and not that paranormal abilities do not exist.
Much as the continued absence of goblins in my house justifies the considerable expense of the quantum-activated goblin repulsor that I rent from a small Nigerian tech firm.
I’m willing to bet that any self-proclaimed telekinetic would refuse to do that test simply because the glass somehow prevents their mind-moving power rays from passing through.
One potential problem is that if your test measures incredibly tiny fluctuations you need to rule out changes caused by wind currents, changes in temperature, sunlight falling on part of the apparatus, footsteps, trucks going by the building and so forth. If you were to record the value on your sensitive scale for an hour and it constantly varied by (I’m just making up numbers here) +/- 0.01 grams, and you conduct your test and the testee claims they made the scale go up by 0.009 grams, you can’t really say that’s evidence of something odd taking place - you’d want to see something really outside of the experimental noise that cannot be attributed to other external causes.
Ideally you’d have someone who claims a macro ability - if they can lift a 1kg mass off the floor with their mind that’s a lot easier to verify than someone who says they can exert a teeny tiny force that is barely measurable.
I would have a hard time calling a paranormal ability that operates at the level of random chance paranormal.
Didn’t they already conduct tests like this, with random number generators and/or small streams of water jetting up? IIRC, the results were slightly off of what would be expected if they were completely random (i.e., there was potentially some outside influence), but not enough to draw any definitive conclusions.
No, I don’t. Not at this stage of the game. If he’s telekinetic, he oughta be able to control a roulette ball or a pair of dice. If he fails and then claims other, more powerful telekinetics were blocking his mojo, I’d just laugh at him. If he appears to pass, then I’ll be willing to do some further testing under more controlled conditions. After I spend the gambling loot on hookers and blow, of course.
Your test for whether people can move things a little without physical contact is checking to see if the things they try to move a little without physical contact do in fact move a little?
I mean, yeah, I imagine that’s everyone’s first proposed test. I mean, I don’t see what’s so noteworthy about the idea. What’s next, testing alleged levitation by checking to see whether the claimant really does lift off the ground?
(Granted, you want to check on the nanometer scale, which I suppose is distinctive. But surely everything moves on the nanometer scale all the time…)
Yeah, well, I’m not a scientist. I am a gambling man, though. And I’m willing to bet that if I bring the world’s first “known” telekinetic into a casino with me, there’s not going to be a more powerful telekinetic at the same table at the same time. If a guy claims to have extraordinary powers, I wanna see something impressive.