Over at the HRVG bulletin board the most fantastic conversation is going on between Mr. Wheaton, his loyal minions, and myself. They tried to make the claim that I brought up the Kress Report, and refuse to discuss its findings. I tried to point out that pork-barrel funding and inter-agency rivalry might cause different governmental groups to fudge their data to keep the funds flowing, and Mr. Wheaton asked me to prove that such things as pork-barrel funding and inter-agency rivalry actually exist!
Over on Page 1 I’ve got a summary of the basic idea of remote viewing. Basically you make up word lists that apply to the target, mostly adjectives, like “green”, “slimy”, but also nouns like “structure”. Nobody’s asking the remote viewers to look at a random letter code which represents a picture of the Eiffel Tower, and hit the nail bang! on the head by announcing that the target is “the Eiffel tower”. We would be happy if all they could do is remote view a random number that happens to represent “the Eiffel Tower”, and come up with word lists that could be taken to apply to a tall, metallic, man-made structure.
And sometimes they can, BUT. And it’s a very big BUT.
BUT they also produce, in their word lists, lots and lots of other words that have absolutely nothing to do with “the Eiffel Tower”, words like “pink”, or “rubbery”. When they do their “analysis” of the word lists, to decide whether the viewer hit the target, they apparently routinely discard all the words that don’t fit “the Eiffel Tower”, very similar to Suzie Greenberg’s experience above, where she came up with 18 words, only 4 (or 6) of which really had anything to do with a football game, and the other words that didn’t fit, like “timeless journey”, were simply ignored.
That is what I’ve been trying to get Glenn (Rainfall) to explain to me–what are the criteria for which words to discard. How exactly does the analyst decide that it was a “hit”?
Here’s how RV should be done. It’s really very simple, so watch closely.
You pick out an object or a location (the “target”) and do not communicate anything about it to me in any way whatsoever except possibly telepathy.
I fantasize and write or draw anything that comes to mind; the more, the better.
We get together and compare your object to my notes, trying to find anything that is similar. Was the target the moon? Are there any curves in my scribblings? BINGO! Remote viewing works!
And it works 100% every time. Who needs complicated statistics?
Years ago I read about the experiments of Professors Puthoff and Targ (Stanford Univ.) They did some RV of the planet saturn, and the account that I read said that the images received were quoite realistic. Does anybody know if this research was conrinued? And, the Saturn planetary probe is due to arrive in a few years-is anybody going to check putoff and targ’s images against what is actually there 9in the atmosphere of saturn?).
Small note-They were not associated in any way with Stanford University. They apparently named their group Stanford Research Institute to gain unearned prestige.
For further information on SRI and it’s ties to Scientology, click here and here, where we find direct ties to RV hero Ingo Swann, the founders of SRI and the Church of Scientology.
Your proposal is similar to the one attempted at this year’s RV conference. It was a bust as much as from the manner in which it was executed (chaos) as anything else.
But that kind of experiment has been done by psi researchers before and should be totally workable.
Rich
PS: getting a body of RVers to participate in anything seems to be like asking them to participate in practice root canals. Angela Smith who moderates the Stargate e-group and knows many people in the RV community asked for 100 volunteers to participate in an experiment last year. The number fell far short and of the “name” RVers, I believe that only three participated.
Swann’s remote viewing of Jupiter is linked above. In other words, if Puthoff and Targ ever did remote view Saturn, either they didn’t publish their results, or else nobody has bothered to post them on the Web, 'cause they ain’t out there. No such experiments, so no images to check against the Saturn fly-by.
The Cassini is scheduled to rendezvous with Saturn in July 2004. No mention on the JPL website of checking with Puthoff and Targ.
It’s not untestable (remote viewing only gets vague descriptions). As we’ve already discussed here on this board, you could just get the person who did the remote viewing, or a committee of these “analysts” who typically score the results, to pick the picture out of a pool. So if the viewer said “cold, red, slimy,” and they got to choose between a picture of a salamander and one of the Great Pyramid at Giza, they should be able to pick the picture of the salamander a greater portion of the time than a monkey with a dart could.
It can be tested, and I would like to do it. I’ve put some initial thoughts together on it, but I need a little more data from the RVers. So far they haven’t responded to my requests.
OK…just had to check back on this wacky string and see what kind of trouble everyone’s up to. First thing’s first…y’all take yourselves way too damn seriously <g>…loosen up folks.
Anyway, let’s see…
quote from Czarcasm:
It still looks as if you took a random stream of words and played a game of seeing how many could fit the target answer. A more honest approach would be to take the words and try to guess, before knowing what the target was, then sticking to your answer after the target was known. No “analysis”. No interpreters or “targerteers”.
As I mentioned in my last post, I got up off my butt and read through the procedures for doing remote viewing. It says I only need a pen and a bunch of paper…not like I had to go buy a crystal ball. Point is, if you had taken the time to read them as well, you’d note that when you ‘try to guess’, as you suggested I do, that’s called an Analytical Overlay – when your brain takes a guess at the target, you write down the guess in order to clear the thought out of your head. So, it seems that guessing is against the rules since you might just start filling in details about the daydream in your head. Makes sense.
By the way, I have a bit of trouble with the rote “I started out a skeptic” mantra chanted by almost everyone from your group that has posted here.
Your quote above reveals more of your fine attention to detail. I think I was clear. I’m not in ‘the group.’ I’m not a remote viewer. I don’t have an opinion on whether it’s valid or not. I’m here because I’ve been a fan of Cecil for 15 years. Perhaps you label me as a believer because, like I said, I practiced the fine art of skeptical inquiry, something you probably are too cynical to try.
Who was it…oh, Jab1. “I don’t think you’re skeptical enough.” IGNORANCE incarnate! Skepticism isn’t a ‘club.’ That’s cynicsm. Skepticism is the lack of wisdom. By gaining wisdom, we form our personal realities. If we have a mature viewpoint, we practice our realities in a way that respects others, whether we believe their views or not (some of you obviously never learned that aspect).
So how ‘skeptical’ does one need to be in order to live up to your standards, Jab? My GOD what planet do you live on? How can you live without testing the waters yourself? Hell, that’s why I enjoy half of my favorite foods…I gave it a try. Your entire post blatantly reveals your deep-seated fears and biases. Sorry, it’s true buddy.
The RV folks who posted on this board repeatedly mentioned that it’s something anyone can do. So I decided to spend a few minutes learning what the technique is and gave it a try. Meanwhile, some of you are sputtering behind your monitors asking for ‘extraordinary proof for extraordinary claim.’ Read up on it, find targets online and do a target a day for 10 days…THEN form your opinion. That’s what I’m doing – I’m up to 5 sessions. The results? Interesting, but I’m sure as hell not going to reveal my homework to you!
One last thing – I went over to the HRVG site and read through the posts over there. The board is obviously a place for the folks exploring RV to discuss stuff. It’s not a general posting board for outsiders, like Czarcasm, who truly shows a biting anger towards those who don’t follow his path. Jeez - it’s like walking into a quaker community and verbally mocking their lifestyle. Ask smart questions in a respectful way or just let 'em be.
Aparrently their board isn’t for asking smart questions, either. What happens on their board is that one of them makes some fantastic claim or recommends a book by another true believer, and the others rally around to either praise the claimant or thank them for the book recommendation. If you weren’t one of the many of their group that came over to promote their website or claim former “skeptic” status, then I obviously was not refering to you.
Lighten up? A group of true believers came to this message board to claim that Remote Viewing, which the rest of the scientific community considers to be a non-proven fantasy, is in fact a proven fact. We asked for the methodology they use to determine which information is kept and which is thrown out, and was given the runaround. Other questions along the same vein have been ignored.
Over on their message board, I have tried to ask serious questions about the mindset of those who claim to be skeptics but seem to believe a wide range beliefs outside the norm, and was ridiculed. Mr. Wheaton has tried to turn my questioning into some sort of pseudo-psychoanalysis of me, beleive it or not. I responded with more questions about their methodology, but expect to recieve the same sort of “Look! The poor skeptic that just isn’t smart enough to understand the TRUTH is back! Let’s make fun at his expense while telling him to lighten up.” response.
You have made a bad assumption, btw. I have read through everything they have to offer, and after I filtered out the pseudo-science that Mr. Wheaton likes to wallow in, I understood exactly how their system works.
Wishful thinking supported by “me-tooers”.
Czarcasm, I read a bunch of what’s been going on at the HRVG BBS, and it certainly looks like it’s not a forum, it’s an arena.
And thanks a lot. After reading a little about RV and Scientology, I had to go bathe. Ugh. It did prompt some Googling around, which was completely worthless at finding connections between the Church and the names we know here. [Shrug] I did do some more research on Professor Utts, though, and came across A UC Davis ‘Dateline’ article about Utts’ work, in which it states:
Seems like Glenn would be an “irritant” to Utts just on #3, alone. This gives her a hair more credibility, in my book. On the other hand, this bump in respect was diminished by what I found at The Skeptic’s Dictionary:
Oh, Suzie’s latest post reminded me: Below are my word lists and guesses to two of the three targets I posted six days ago. I’ll find out what the actual targets are later on today.
For 47IE-95TS (from Clive Barker’s Everville): terrain, arms, blood, state, joking, line, steal, lamp, going, build, struck, quiz, bread, pusuit, woman, back, staircase, round, led, turned. Hmmm… My guess as to what this describes is “The ‘Exorcist’ Stairs in Georgetown.”
For 4925-LVR1 (from Hofstadter and Dennett’s The Mind’s I): instructions, answer, pressure, seems, prefer, fugue, astonishing, escape, various, copies, crude, molecular, speak, foundation, condition, mechanism, promised, computer, issues, demand. How about “Houdini debunks a medium?”
Both of these guesses are, of course, a stretch to make. I didn’t spend a lot of time on this. We’ll see, in less than a day, how well I would have done if I hadn’t made a guess at all (assuming, of course, my guesses are wrong).
This just in from Glenn Wheaton!
On his bulletin board I asked by what method was information sent and recieved when Remote Viewing was used.
His response? RV as it is curently understood is an “arbitrary model of quantum consciousness.”
Do I use a geiger counter to measure that, or an x-ray machine?
How did I miss “Skepticism is the lack of wisdom” from Suzie the first time through? Good grief. I hope that’s a typo.
And comparing a true skeptical examination of evidence to trying foods to see if you like them is ridiculous. Evidence isn’t about personal preferences. Evidence isn’t based on anecdotes, even one’s own. I’ve seen UFOs, ghosts, had eerie Tarot readings, and a boatload of other paranormal things. I’m wise enough to know (well, now, at least) that just because I cannot explain something in mundane terms doesn’t mean what happened to me doesn’t have a mundane explanation.
If a subject, such as remote viewing, is able to be examined scientifically, then simply reading what’s been written on the subject with a critical eye should be enough to form an opinion. It should not require first-hand experience to, for example, have a valid opinion on the effects of trying to breathe water, given the large body of consistent and damning evidence on the subject of drowning.
Neither science nor skepticism is based on personal experiences. “The fine art of skeptical inquiry” is not equivalent to “how can you know you don’t like that food if you don’t try it?”
Oh, Czarcasm: if it were me, I’d have to ask for Glenn’s opinions on The Dancing Wu-Li Masters and/or The Tao of Physics. :rolleyes:
Your last post is fairly misleading Czarcasm. You actually asked the following…
Are you then saying that Remote Viewing is just a theory? I can accept that if you can provide me the most probable
methods by which it works. A proper scientific theory would have at least that much to back it up. With a theory of
how the information is transmited, we could find a way to measure when it is transmitted and where to.
Again you try to shape dialog to compensate for your lack of comphrehension of the subject matter while attempting to boost your ego. Even now you do not really understand what has been said. It’s far more important to you to run back here and “break the News” ala guess what he said now…
Perhaps if you get really good at that type of ploy…someone will finally take notice of you.
Analysis and scoring a session are two different things.
The problem with the “skeptics” here is that you guys go too far with your assumptions, based on limited information and your personal (cynical) biases.
Tall Tales?!?
Yes Glen, that is the question I asked. And your answer was indeed “an arbitrary model of quantum consciousness.” Which part of this direct quote did I get wrong? The fact that no one outside of your little group would ever accept that as a clear and concise answer? The fact that, once again, you have accused me of not studying the contents of your website?
Remember this, Glenn-Understanding and Acceptance are not equal. "TM"ers claim that they can levitate, and have written much on the subject. I have read their claims and studied their methods, and have still come to the conclusion that, dispite their tortured reasoning and convoluted definitions of “levitate”, they are still only hopping around looking silly.
