What is "paranormal"?

Great Debates
141

If I’m walking down the street and see someone running a three-card-monte scheme, and they tell me that they’re consistently winning because they’ve got the magical ability to change the appearance of a face-down card through the sheer power of their mind, I’m not going to withhold judgment until I’ve proven that they’re lying. I’m going to assume they’re lying until they’ve proven otherwise.

Same thing here. Geller is accomplishing a feat that is commonly accomplished through chicanery. Only he’s telling me he’s accomplishing it through paranormal powers. I’m going to assume he’s lying until he shows me otherwise, because other people who do the same thing do it through chicanery, and “he’s lying” is a simpler explanation.

I’m open to changing my mind, but the onus is on him to get me to do so. Until he does, I’ll figure it’s three-card-monte all over again.

Daniel

142

I saw one on the web about a year ago. Actually it was a fork, but frankly, Cat, that doesn’t prove anything! Because, how could you tell if it was undoctored? With the state of the art today, you could produce a film like that which could not be falsified.
Permit me to be even more skeptical.

143

That’s why I want a metric scad of evidence.

Imagine I’ve got a dog who can solve differential equations, not always, but pretty darn often. Here’s what I’ll do to prove this to the world, assuming it’s worth my time and not too stressful on the dog:
-I’ll issue an open invitation to animal trainers and magicians to watch my dog at work.
-I’ll ask skeptics to videotape the demonstrations.
-I’ll let both myself and my dog be searched before, during, and after the demonstration.
-I’ll get mathematicians, including math education professionals, involved.
-I’ll get animal cognitive scientists involved.
-I’ll apply for the million dollar Randi prize.
-I’ll repeat these steps as often as necessary.

In other words, I’ll acknowledge folks’ doubts, and to allay them, I’ll get multiple professionals involved in the process. The result will be a metric scad of evidence: testimonials from folks with relevant expertise, videotapes, photographs, and so forth.

Geller is putting forth an even more remarkable claim. I expect two metric scads of evidence from him, therefore. Yet he fails to provide much evidence at all to distinguish his claim from the claim of a charlatan.

It may be that he has honest reasons for doing so. If so, I’m doomed forever to misunderstand his awesome powers. I can live with that.

Daniel

144

Accepted. Don’t worry about it; I get the same feeling and confusion all the time with a few of the other posters here, often more than just two at a time, but I don’t think you were ever among them.

145

I’m well aware of the difference, but from the postings and actions I have seen here I have come to believe that there are many cynics here who are either misrepresenting themselves as skeptics or who are fooling themselves or who are ignorant of the difference.

A skeptic, by definition, is one who suspends judgement in the absence of proof.

A cynic is one who denies the possibility of a thing due to a lack of proof.

How could a true skeptic say that something does not exist? That requires making a judgement, coming to a final conclusion.

146

It’s strange that people who deny the existance of a force or power know so much about its operation, while we skeptics sit back and allow that there may be some things we don’t know.

From one day to the next I can’t even bench press the same weight the same number of times.

When I use my torch on the same type and size of metal, sometimes it takes longer to achieve the desired results than others.

And these are well-understood physical effects!

Your debating technique is flawed. I believe it’s called an irrelevent conclusion.

147

Like I said, we have no argument.

148

My debating technique may well be flawed. I am always open to constructive criticism. Praytell what conclusion did I reach? I made no statements of affirmation. I merely referenced assertions made by Aechines and asked if this did not seem incogruent to him.

From day to day does your ability to lift weights vary from “childlike” to “superhuman” ?Does the time required to affect metal vary by several orders of magnitude? if not I believe you are equivocating.

Please show me where I have denied the existence of a force, or claimed to know “so much” about its operation. If you cannot I suggest you are guilty of a straw man argument.

Regards,

TRT

149

No it’s not. Look it up.

150

I asked the same question myself and got a similary evasive answer. Apparantly Geller’s powers work in mysterious (and mysteriously inconsistant) ways, and if Geller is rigourously tested and fails, the fault is that of the tester. If Geller can make metal soft enough to bend, why can’t he make it soft enough to sculpt? And if his powers are limited to bending, but all he needs is a light touch (or even no touch), why not let him display the ability while wearing mittens, so there is no chance he could be bending a spoon just by gripping it and applying force? I picture a test where Geller’s hands are taped up into fists, with him only able to extend his index fingers. If he can do what he claims, simply touching metal with one finger should be enough to produce a measurable effect.

I can’t claim for sure that Geller doesn’t have special powers. I can only point out that he chooses to display them in ways that magicians (who make no such claim) can easily replicate. Given the choice between assuming Geller is a fake and assuming Geller has paranormal abilities, the more logical choice is the former.

And I realize I sound repetitive in this thread. I just can’t think of any better argument I could make.

151

You are concluding that psi power operates without physical contact. Although some researchers and proponents claim that, it has not been proven true.

You are concluding that a force capable of bending is also capable of ripping. No evidence for this exists in PSI.

You’re assuming the rules that apply to physical strength apply to any ‘psychic strength.’ Fact is, we know what factors affect heating metals and muscular strength (and no, I’m never “superhuman,” but some days quite “childlike” in my physical strength, while other days I approach “normal.”) but we have no idea what factors affect instances of PSI. It may be inconsistant for reasons we have not yet determined, or, it may not.

Honestly, this is getting tedious. I expect people debating or even just making suppositions here to at least adhere to logic.

152

Hasn’t Geller claimed the ability to use his powers on objects without touching them?

How about bending versus sculpting? Presumably metal soft enough to bend can also be shaped. Or can’t it? If Geller can make a spoon soft enough to collapse under his own weight, why not spread the metal out like a pancake? That’d be cool.

Then you’ve conveniently argued for something that cannot be proven or disproven.

That’s rather comical. At heart of all of your statements regarding Geller is the unproven assumption that he has special abilities. If we then follow your lead and assume such abilties exist and then question their limitations (i.e. why can Geller do some things but not others? Why can’t Geller perform consistantly?), you can only make additional assumptions to protect the initial claim.

153

Heh, purely unintentional typo. It should read “soft enough to collapse under its own weight”. I don’t doubt that Geller has made many spoons collapse under his own weight, but that’s what this discussion seems to be all about.

154

Where do you get this?

I never alleged or assumed Geller has any special abilities.

Please don’t make up falsehoods just to make yourself appear viable.

155

I suggest strongly that you not post in this manner outside of The BBQ Pit.

156

I “get” this from two of your earlier posts in this thread, in reponse to my questions about how Geller’s claimed power:

and

I’ll admit the possibility of you playing Devil’s Advocate. If not, the implication is that you are trying to explain away flaws in Geller’s presentations by saying his power relies on mysterious and inconsistent factors, i.e. he’s not a showman who occasionally can’t fake a stunt, but a telekinetic who sometimes isn’t in tune with the universe, or the force wasn’t with him that day, or something equally unprovable.

157

Sure, but you seem on the verge of confusing poor application of a methodology with the method itself. There are sloppy scientists, but that doesn’t make science sloppy.

Not exactly. A sceptic is simply inclined to doubt all propositions. From this doubt comes the requirement to verify and confirm, analyze evidence, etc. A sceptic may provide provisional judgement, see below.

Not really. A cynic is one who has no faith in human sincerity and integrity, and therefore has no problems dismissing a priori any claims, assertion, and even hard evidence provided. This is done from an ideological basis rather than a methodological one.

I think I explained how in great detail in the thread I linked in my previous message.

Very simply summarized, it involves provisional agreement. Any sceptic worth his salt is preared to provide provisional agreement that faeries do not exist, on the basis that to date no such creatures have ever been found and no reliable evidence in support of their existence has ever been provided, though they have often been claimed to exist.

So, when another claim about faeries comes along, the provisional agreement is clearly a well-established negative, which of course is entirely open to modification based on analysis of the evidence. If the claim has behind it a level of evidence commensurate with the extraordinariness of the claim, then it’s another matter entirely and a paradigm shift may occur.

But Geller and his various supporters have never provided such evidence for their claims.

Also, there is the problem that to date not one single reliable piece of evidence exists to indicate the existence of any paranormal effect at all – from spoon-bending to telepathy to ghosts. Therefore the informed sceptic – while always ready to consider any evidence presented – nonetheless operates under the provisional agreement that the supernatural in general is a collection of many unsubstantiated claims.

I must say I am also a bit unhappy with the demonizations thrown at Dr. Susan Blackmore in this thread, who I also discussed at length in the previous discussion. The colour and style of her hair is an ad hominem argumentum, irrelevant to the high quality of her remarkable decades-long work. Although now retired, she enjoys a reputation as one of the greatest paranormal experimenters of all time; the beef that proponents of the paranormal have with her is that she failed to prove any of the effects she was investigating.

It’s worth noting that she wasn’t trying to disprove anything throughout her career – she actually wanted to verify various paranormal claims and confirm paranormal effects! The difference between her and some others involved in the same goal is that she applied rigorous science and consistently made the attempt to eschew methodology that would be considered suspect. It is only after decades of research that she accepted to provide provisional agreement for the position that the paranormal is an imaginary set of phenomena.

158

Bryan, I’m a skeptic. I don’t make assumptions. I suspend judgement.

What is so difficult to understand about this???

You, too, are getting tedious! Do you have problems with English language? Do you have problems with logic?

Let me know. I can help you.

S

159

Actually, Snakespirit, as far as I can see you have made some unwarranted assumptions, most recently I cite these indirect ones (bear with me while I get to the conclusion):

This is very true, but does not address the fact that no one has ever proved psi effects, at contact, at a distance, or otherwise.

Besides, the question Bryan asked was “Hasn’t Geller claimed the ability to use his powers on objects without touching them?”

This is not the same as concluding that psi power operates at distance.

True, but ultimately meaningless, because psi itself is without evidential support. Besides, a force is a force, and results in tearing or deformation depending on the magnitude of the force, the material the force is exerted on, and the angle at which the force is applied, among other things. The exact same magnitude force exerted at different angles could push, pull, deform, or rip an object, if it had the necessary newtons behind it.

But, again, there isn’t a demonstrable psi factor in sight; there are only claims that rely on highly particular experimental settings, unfalsifiable hypotheses, questionable statistical manipulation, and frequently desperate argumentation. So the logical thing to do is give provisional agreement that this is all a bunch of hogwash until that extraordinary evidence required is provided.

Now, the thrust I think Bryan was attempting is in fact a valid one in science. An experiment seeks to identify and measure an effect. The results of an experiment are then interpreted. One of the important things to do is attempt to explain mechanisms of an effect or phenomenon, in order to try to square newly obtained information with our existing model of the universe. What Bryan was doing was pointing out that even among psi proponents – supposedly the experts on this subject – there is a most unscientific lack of consistency as regards their claims, and a lack of proposals to explain the mechanisms involved, two serious deficiencies that raise sceptics’ and scientists’ alarms.

160

I’m just trying to keep up with the nonstandard definitions. Let me check my crib notes flipflipflip
Ah, “skeptic”: people who “think they’re sceptics but tend toward cynicism”. Or is it: “A skeptic, by definition, is one who suspends judgement in the absence of proof.”

Hmm, we have a snag.

If I do, I’m not alone. Are you a fan of George Orwell? He described a concept in his novel “1984” that some Newspeak words meant abuse when applied to an enemy, but praise when applied to a loyal Party member.

I’m pretty sure I can help you, but you have to want it.