Just a note on distance and RV. There are no restrictions on distance.
Rich
Glenn wrote:
No, it’s a very complex test, with complex rating procedures practically requiring a computer.
For one thing, having a pool of 500 targets seems to me to be an invalid methodology. What you need is to have every viewer work the same set of targets, but in random order. That way, one viewer’s performance is comparable to another’s, since the targets were of the same “difficulty” (or perhaps you’d say, “the same sets of gestalts”).
But now the viewers must not speak to each other between viewings.
But this is still too complex. Let’s set up a pool of 20 target symbols to go in the envelopes. An airplane. A cat. A fork. A truck. Easy, simple images. Black-on-white, like the international symbols for “men’s room,” or “airport,” or whatever. Heck, use the international symbols. Better yet, use “circle,” “square,” “wavy lines,” etc…
Regardless of what symbols are used, pick 20 of them that cannot be mistaken for one another at a glance.
No, even better: create 20 symbols which are designed to trigger individual gestalts. Or, if there aren’t enough gestalts to choose from, then each symbol should have a unique combination of two or three gestalts. Confusing gestalts must be avoided. You mention “water” and “land” as gestalts. A picture of a clear-running stream, then, shouldn’t be allowed as the image for “water,” since there’ll be plenty of “land” in the image (the stream bottom, for example).
What I want to see, after all, is a test of whether or not a remote viewer can remotely view the contents of the envelope itself, which can even be in the same room with the viewer during the viewing.
Anyway, to continue, every viewer gets a non-enveloped set of the images to keep throughout the test. This way, everybody knows what they’re looking for. Everyone knows the contents of the pool. Each image gets an English word as a name. No two names can be so similar that one could be misspelled as another. Preferrably, no two names would be so similar that sloppy block-letter hand printing could confuse them.
Then, have each viewer work through 10 of them (or all 20), in a random order for each viewer, and, at the end of each viewing, the viewer states the gestalt or combination of gestalts viewed. The viewer flips through the symbol pool, and picks the one that matches what he/she saw. That symbol’s name is written on the envelope, and the envelope is locked away until all viewings are completed.
Once all of the viewings have been completed, for each envelope, compare the symbol picked to the symbol actually within the envelope, and say “yes” or “no” as to whether or not it’s a match.
With this outcome measure, the random-guessing odds for 1 match, 2 matches, etc. should be very easy to calculate before the test begins. If the viewers match to a statistically significant degree better than chance, then you can definitively say that there’s something to this RV business.
I’d want to make this as easy as possible for RVers. If you understood Arnold’s question, our expectation if the viewers fail the test would be for all of them to agree that remote viewing does not work. You, Glenn appear to agree that failure would equal disproof of the remote-viewing idea. In my perfect world, failure would mean the disbanding of the HRVG. Success would mean I donate some money for further studies. I’d go so far as to say that any outcome between the pre-test calculated “random chance” and “statistically significant” measures would be a “do over,” a “Mulligan.”
You also wrote:
Apology accepted.
But what about the second issue?
Aloha,
First your testing scheme would not be a very efficient way to test for the RV effect. Since RV is primarily the collection of sensory information about a target and not the contents of an envelope you must keep focused on what RV is and is not. Your tests seem to be akin to those used historically to study PSI. It is our contention that RV is not PSI but an advanced communication of consciousness.
As to the issue of the Human being a transmitter/receiver for EMF it presented best in “The Physiological basis of the Alpha rhythm” by Anderson and Anderson.
I am sure everyone has heard the term “The Body Electric” and understands that each cell in the body (Alive) has electrical and magnetic properties. The brain alone is a sophisticated transmitter of signals from about 30,000 different simultaneous sources, each being one single pyramidal cell pair.
I guess every one knows how currents are conducted: the electrons themselves don’t move much, like Newton’s cradle, but their influence does. One can follow minute field changes in amplitude using EEG but following the frequency changes is a bit more difficult. For example the individual nerve fibers of the pyramidal cells in the cerebrum are connected from one hemisphere to the other across the corpus callosum (which is bathed by extra cellular fluids in the brain’s third and lateral ventricles, hence conducted to all parts of the body by these saline and highly conductive fluids), and these connecting fibers under thalamic control can change their polarity either in groups or individually. The frequency bandwidth is enormous and can include emanations from the ELF to in-excess of 900mhz. We begin to have a problem here detecting the complete range of frequencies in use by the brain as noise levels from the diagnostic equipment itself begins to mask the complete bandwidth. During some surgeries on the brain the corpus callosum radiates so energetically that it will actually cause heating of the surgeons scalpel.
My statement was a fair one. The human receives and emanates RF.
Aloha Glenn
I think I see the problem here. Mr. Wheaton has redefined the term “remote viewing” from the common “the ability to see a distant object or event via psychic abilities” that the rest of the world uses, to “the ability of a commitee of true believers to see any sort of relationship between a random set of words and/or pictures, and a target group of distant objects, events or states of minds{real or imagined), via a pseudo-scientific process that is designed specifically to point out any similarities and throw out any information that doesn’t fit in with the desired result.”
Mr. Wheaton, your understanding of how the human body recieves information is bizarre. Perhaps you could tell us what range of frequencies you group supposedly uses to transmit information. This way, we could detect the emissions via some sort of mechanical instrument not subject to the whims of a committee.
Glenn, I think we could modify DaveW’s procedure to accommodate your objections. How about if a group of viewers makes their usual notes about the viewing session, and then the analysis committee (that normally evaluates the results) chooses which picture from the pool was being described. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just measurably better than a chance outcome. Surely these analysts who are so good at throwing out the bad data, would stand a better shot of picking the right picture out of twenty than the 5% you would expect by chance? That’s all we would need to measure, just a little better than 5% is all we ask for.
Randi’s ranking scheme would be useful here, because it would separate out the real results from the noise with fewer trials, but we could eventually get there either way. How about it?
Thank you Rainfall for the explanation. Has such a test ever been tried?
P.S. I am confused about your comment “Since RV is primarily the collection of sensory information about a target and not the contents of an envelope you must keep focused on what RV is and is not.”
I thought that in your proposed test people were using an image in an envelope.
Something that supposedly relies on the supposed reception and emanation of RF energy doesn’t have any restrictions based on distance? Good heavens! Can I bring one of you RVers down to Northern Virginia next baseball season to pick up Indians games from station in Northeast Ohio for me?
Glenn wrote:
Well, then I just don’t “get” what RV is. The target in my testing procedure would be the inside of the envelopes. To try to put it in your words, the question I want RV to answer is, “what is the collection of sensory information available inside this envelope?”
Don’t latch on to my examples of “circle,” “square” and “wavy lines” and throw my ideas away as testing psi powers. I would want you to develop the symbols used.
Is using a symbol, and getting gestalts from it different in any significant way from using a picture of an actual place on Earth? If yes, how?
Signals that cannot be differentiated from noise, are, indeed, noise. RF signals that are just above noise levels will quickly get lost in the noise due to the distance-squared laws. If the signals used for RV don’t follow distance-squared laws, then they aren’t RF
This should be widely reported in the medical literature. Can you cite one article from a major medical journal (JAMA, NEJM, etc.) on this phenomenon?
Perhaps I should have said “peer reviewed study” instead of simply asking for a reference. Am I safe in assuming that the work you cited by Anderson and Anderson is a popular-press (or self-published) book, and not a peer-reviewed work? If that assumption is a safe one, then, well, anybody can publish a book which says just about anything. I don’t trust non-peer-reviewed books as good sources of medical information.
CurtC wrote:
Well, sort of. What we want is a test which Glenn believes will result in close to 100% accuracy. The cry of “I was having a bad day” will then be eliminated as an ‘excuse’ for failure of the test. We will accept anything statistically significant over 5%, but the expectation going into the test should be for 90-100%. The wider the margin between chance and expectation, the better.
Oh, I dispute that. A full-sized Winnebago gets terrible gas mileage…
Hey, Dave? Glenn says
According to How Stuff Works.
It sounds like he’s saying that human beings can have the equivalent of a cordless phone broadcasting from their corpus callosum. Can this possibly be true? [she said with only slight sarcasm] Wouldn’t Science, or Medicine, have noticed something like this? And if the noise levels from the diagnostic equipment itself begins to mask the complete 900 mhz bandwidth, how is it that cordless phones can continue to work, if their receivers are making too much noise themselves to be able to pick up the phones’ signals?
And I’m confused by his phrasing: “emanations from the E[xtra] L[ow] F[requencies] to in-excess of 900mhz”. This sounds like he’s saying that extra-low frequency is fewer megahertz than 900 mhz, but actually it’s more, greater–isn’t it? Because that’s where the long range deep space radio waves are located. Right?
Sign me,
NOT GOOD AT THIS TECH STUFF BUT WORKING ON IT
How do you unsubscribe from this site? I went to “change profile” thinking I could do it there.
Thankjs
Robert
Got evidence?
We may emanate it, but we do not receive it. If we did, our minds would be alive with all the TV and radio signals that now permeate the environment.
And what RF signals we emanate are extremely weak. According to this site on how EEGs work, the current of the brain is “less than a few microvolts.” “Less than a few microvolts” is not going to produce much of a radio signal. In fact, the EEG does NOT detect radio signals:
If the human brain emits radio signals strong enough for another brain to detect them miles away, then surely we can build a machine that can detect these signals. After all, it would be just like building a radio receiver, right?
robert gargg - what do you mean by “unsubscribing”?
One simple way is to stop visiting the message board. You can change your profile to hide your e-mail address and remove all personal information if you want. If you are gettin an e-mail message every time someone posts a response to this thread please e-mail a moderator or administrator (I personally am one of the moderators here) and we will endeavour to correct the situation.
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To expand on CurtC’s example, a test which should be easy to accomplish:
[ul]
[li]Take a pool of N targets. These targets could be selected at random, or designed by Mr. Wheaton or whoever to be optimal for viewing.[/li][li]Assign each target photo a unique number identifier. The numbers assigned would be random, but would be designed in such a way as to minimize interference. Mr. Wheaton or other viewers could design the random number range available, a process of true random events such as dice rolling would select which number goes with which target.[/li][li]Two copies of each target would exist - one copy would be labeled with the identifying number, the other would not. The labeled copy would be placed in a safe place, perhaps a safe deposit box that requires two keys, and one viewer and one investigator would keep one key each.[/li][li]We now have: a list of target numbers. A pile of target photos.[/li][li]Viewers and their helpers would now view targets based on the number code only. Viewers and helpers would know nothing about the pool of target pictures.[/li][li]After sufficient viewing sessions, the viewed data identified by number, and the un numbered target photos would be brought together.[/li][li]Based solely on data in the viewing sessions, viewers would select which target photo goes with which remote viewing session. These results will be recorded.[/li][li]The safe deposit box will be opened, and the viewers answers for “This photo matches RV session xxxxx” will be matched with reality.[/li][li]Guidelines for how successful the viewers must be would depend on N and our desire for statistical significance.[/li][/ul]
What do you Hawaiian folks think about this?
ALoha,
Perhaps you mis-understand. I do believe that RV is a propagation of consciousness not ELF lol. I have never stated that I believed that RV was the result of radio wave propagation. I wrote a fairly easy article on the subject in the last issue of “ON Target” the RV Newsletter. Which can be found at our website. Click on the Newsletter frame and look for the Article “La Propagation èlègante”. It will give you my views on what RV is. That is not a ploy to get you to our site, it is just where what needs to be said has been said.
The human body regardless is affected by incoming RF and does in fact emanate RF. Don’t confuse that statement with what we believe RV to be.
On the issue of Target Envelopes. The viewer focuses on the target identified in the envelope not the envelope itself, or the paper that the target image is printed on. If the envelope contained a picture of say the Brooklyn Bridge it would be the intent of the viewer to collect sensory data about the bridge itself and not its’ image in the envelope.
ALoha Glenn
Glenn wrote:
This brings to mind two possibilities:
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That this makes RV absolutely worthless for intelligence purposes, since it is impossible to take a picture of “the secret meeting inside the Kremlin” to put inside an envelope. Remote Viewing is constantly touted as being excellent for gathering intelligence (spying). How is this possible if you need a photo of what you’re trying to view?
-
Or, perhaps my version of the test is possible if what we put in the envelopes for the viewers is a picture of the contents of a second envelope.
No matter what, for the purposes of this test, the number of gestalts in any one image must be as small as possible, so that the process of rating success or failure is simplified. There should be no possibility of argument between viewer and skeptic over whether or not a viewer “hit” the target.
As soon as you start talking about writing down the gestalts found in different positions in a photograph, the chance of an interpretational argument skyrockets. This is unacceptable for a good test.
You wrote, Glenn, “You identify the gestalts in their direct proximity to the camera’s viewpoint.” Well, if the viewer gets the right gestalts, but out of their proper order, I have a feeling that RVers would weigh this much more towards “success” than skeptics would. There needs to be a method for either resolving, permanently, such conflicts, or eliminating the possibility for such a conflict to arise (images with very few gestalts, so that “proximity” doesn’t matter).
I don’t have a problem with any of the other parts of the methodology of the test (well, except the 500-image pool, as I already noted). The complexity of the success/failure procedure for any individual image is, to me, a show-stopper, because you most-assuredly aren’t talking about the viewers coming out of their session saying, “the Brooklyn Bridge.” You’re talking about them coming out and writing down the big horizontal gestalt, the many vertical gestalts, etc., etc., and then interpreting that in relation to a set of gestalts created for the image beforehand. What to do with that, then? “This one was 50% correct in identifying the gestalts?”
If there are enough common gestalts for an image, just in different positions, random scribbling could do very well in terms of “matching.”
Aloha,
I see that you have not yet grasped what RV is. It is very easy for you to banter about the word worthless for intelligence when you really have no insight to RV applications. If a debate is to ensue you must be willing to read and educate yourself about what RV is and how its applications are explored. You do not have to believe, just educate yourself.
The skill of RV is employed within a Scientific Protocol. We do many things to provide for administration that have nothing to do with the RV effect. We do them to keep accurate records of applied RV. There really is no need for the target image to be placed in an envelope. There is really no need to provide target ID’s or even have envelopes. We do those things to administer the RV activities under plausible control. I could just as easily walk into the room and ask the viewers to work the target that has been selected for tonight’s work.
We must be able to record what is done, by whom, and why. When you question so earnestly something you refuse to consider you are reduced to picking apart a statement and not understanding the theory employed. It is easy to question minutia. It highlights more what you don’t know and won’t consider than what you know or care to believe.
Perhaps the concept of Remote Viewing is indeed beyond your comprehension.
Aloha Glenn
Ah, just as predicted, we have finally arrived at the “do not ridicule what you do not understand” point.
Glenn, if you could help us understand it, that would be nice.
For example, if you could help us understand how the analysis procedure is carried out, that would be nice.
Not sure how RV got connected to some sort of radio waves.
Puthoff and Targ investigated that aspect and ran experiments with the RVers in shielded rooms. They found no evidence of RF being involved in RV. Experiments were also run using submersibles that eliminate a certain spectrum of radio frequencies.
Again, there are no constraints as to the physical locations of the viewers, taskers, analysts, or the targets themselves.
Whatever test is run, the viewer(s) present a huge variable.
Imagine trying to prove that a baseball player can hit a ball out of the park. For the league leading hitters you would require a lot fewer trials than for a group that is typically hits only a handfull a year.
If you get a bunch of mediocre viewers like me, it would take a lot of tests to show something outside of chance.
Hopefully, any test participants will have a “good” track record.
Then, what will be defined as success? How closely and minutely would a bridge have to be described to be considered successfull? What if the data obviously describes “a” bridge, but not the specific one targeted?
Similarly, as mentioned above, what if the viewer provides
accurate data on objects near or related to the actual target but not the target itself? Normally, that would not be considered a “hit”, but people would tend to feel good about getting “close”.
What if basic Gestalts are dead on but details such as colors are wrong? How would that be scored?
What if the viewer describes a location and focuses on something transient such as a passing thunderstorm? Specifying not only a location but also a time is important and has been a controversial subject among RVers. If a target is supported by a photograph taken in summer and the viewer does the task in the dead of winter, what is his score if he describes snow?
One of the more specific ways to task is the outbounder method. An individual(s) goes to some randomly chosen location at a specific time, notes his surroundings, maybe
includes photos, and stays for a specified time. The task is to RV that location at that time period.
intellegence gathering…
RV was used as one of many resources. Compare it maybe to a
blurred photo or a mostly illegible note, a garbled language translation, a rumor, a hot tip, etc. If you have no other
resources available, you use what you can or you use several resources to confirm or elaborate on information. Maybe all you need to do is arrainge priorities based on a mass of vague or conflicting data. RV was used as a tool. Data from those with the best proven track records for using that tool would be given the most weight for whatever decisions needed to be made.
Hey, Glenn, you could have more-easily have written, “the photos in the envelopes are only for the test, for record-keeping. They aren’t needed for real remote viewing,” that would have worked just fine. I would have freely admitted my mistaken impression about the envelopes.
Instead, you decided to insult me. I submit again, sir, that it is you who are choosing to turn this forum into an ‘arena’. I and others here are attempting to learn. You are making it very difficult by becoming hostile to questions and/or simple mistakes.
I was confused about what you were saying, as it appeared to conflict with other things you and/or others had previously said. I apologize for not stating my confusion more clearly.
Unfortunately, I cannot get over your arrogance in stating what I will or will not consider. I have been bending over backwards to not be just another “remote viewing is garbage” voice. If that were my goal, a single post would have sufficed. Yes, that is my opinion at the moment, but I am also doing my best to make suggestions for the proposed test which will allow you to enter into such a test with the confidence that you will “ace” it, or very nearly so. Because, if remote viewing is real, I want to get involved. I won’t do so, though, until I see hard evidence which everyone (or nearly everyone) agrees is good, valid, and uncontroversial. How much more fair do I need to be to you before you will avoid making judgements about what I “refuse to consider”?
I want to believe, but so far have been given no reason to do so. Pronouncements from you about what I am willing to consider or am smart enough to understand do not help to change my opinions.
All that aside, my objections to your proposed methodology still stand. The proposed test needs to be convincing to skeptics if the RVers pass it, and it also needs to be convincing to RVers if they fail it (this is, after all, a test which could disprove remote viewing).
Therefore the test methodology needs to meet two requirements:
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The people being tested need to believe that the test will be simple to pass with flying colors, and
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The methods and results of the test need to be closed to dispute from any rational person after the fact.
My initial objections were so that the test could meet requirement 2:
A) The 500-image pool is simply a bad idea, since having different viewers work different sets of targets would make one viewer’s performance not directly comparable to another’s. Whether or not the viewers passed the test, the results could be called into question on this point alone, by the “losing” side.
B) The choice of using real-world places seems to me to allow far too much interpretation into the test methodology. Something closer to a binary, “it is or it isn’t” result needs to be obtained.
It would appear to me also that using simpler symbols with far fewer visual gestalts could only make the test easier to pass, if remote viewing is real, thus satisfying requirement 1, above, as well. If this isn’t true, so be it.
douglips’ version of the test seems sound in regards to these requirements, since the interpretation of the viewing is left solely to the viewers themselves. The judge from Glenn’s original proposed test would have been doing some of that interpretation, and so the test results could easily be called into question by either side simply by claiming that the judge was biased in one direction or another, and re-judging the coded gestalts (with a different bias).
That’s bad. Leave all the judging as to which gestalts match which photos up to the viewers themselves. The only ‘judging’ needed then is whether or not the viewers picked the correct target from the pool, which even a child could do.
Also, by this method, there is no need for any of the internal viewing methods themselves (the gestalts, for example) to be known to anyone but the viewers. The testing procedure should be a “black box” as far as that’s concerned. What goes into the box is a number, and what comes out is the selection of a single target from the pool. How that selection is made is completely irrelevant to the question of “is it the correct selection?”
Rich_rv, I believe that all of your concerns from “what will be defined as success?” on down are answered by the test douglips describes. The judging of what target a viewer was viewing is left entirely to the viewers to decide. Once that decision is made, the question becomes “is that correct?” and not “is it the right color/shape/porportions/etc.?” Personally, I don’t care how you arrive at the selection of a target from the pool, I only want to test whether or not that selection is correct.
The only way to take care of your other concern, that of the quality of the viewers, is to do many sessions with as many viewers as possible. But only the best viewers should be used, as chosen by the viewing community itself. After all, none of us are qualified to judge who’s good and who’s not. Have them do lots of viewings, so that an average comes out, and you’re not judging the ability based only on one bad day or good day. Personally, I think 10 sessions per viewer is on the short side, but the testees have lives, and so we can’t keep them locked up for years, in sessions 24/7, promising to let them go “as soon as we’ve got enough data.”
There’s got to be some compromise on that point, which is why the test should been easy to pass. If we can devise a test which even a mediocre viewer could look at and say, “I’d score at least 90% on that,” then an average for the best viewers over just 10 trials, should be better, yes? If the test is also designed so that “failure” is defined at, say, 10%, then the viewers would have to be having tremendously crappy days to fail.
The point is that the test should be designed in such a way that if the viewers fail, anyone saying “oh, all the test subjects were coincidentally having terribly bad luck” would be seen as being irrational, even by the viewers themselves. A rational response to failure would be along the lines of, “Oh, wow! I guess I was fooling myself. I think I’ll go take up scuba diving with my new-found spare time.”
What success rate do you, Glenn, think your best, hand-picked, viewers would achieve in the test that douglips described?