> And even if you could, “you have no technology to demonstrate the existence of the waves, and everyone justifiably points out that the onus is on you to convince them.
Take the radio into a cave, or stand somewhere where the radio is shielded, and the voices will stop. That should convince people that there's something outside involved.
One of those articles which grabs me by the shoulders and shouts, "WAKE UP YOU DUMB FUCK," directly into my resigned and placid face. This is an increasingly rare occurrence but I'm not dead yet. Thanks.
"A recent finding worth commenting upon from “The Myth of the Decline Effect in Psi Research: The Empirical Evidence”: studies trying to detect ESP find just as much of it today (with our greater attention to methodological rigor) as they did decades ago. (h/t Scott Alexander)"
A comment from Scott's blog says -
(The article) is about a claim that psi effects (don’t) decline in individuals over time, not that they (didn’t) decline in the research with better methods.
After several minutes wrangling with exactly how to say this, I'm just going to write:
1. This was a very interesting post, I enjoyed it very much, I will likely return to it in the future, I'm thankful that you wrote it, and I'm grateful to Dino for drawing my attention to it.
2. You really don't know things that you would have needed to know to make this post accurate. Specifically, the idea that "'intensely boring' experiments like Susan Blackmore’s 1993 study of twin telepathy will never allow us to detect or manipulate transcendence" is belied by the many, many, many parapsychological studies which report some kind of psi effect. Meta analyses of these boring studies have been coming out since the 1940s. Whether you look at studies using Zener cards, dice, the Ganzfeld, or emotional precognition, the results overall are positive. Yes, individual studies do return null results, but common meta-analytic results give astronomically low p-values: https://thingstoread.substack.com/p/the-rising-star-of-parapsychology
Traumatic transcendence may be very interesting; the idea of the third man factor is interesting; reading about Mark Twain's experiences is definitely interesting. But the kind of replicable science on which one can hang a proverbial hat on has been returning evidence for better-than-chance psi effects for over eighty years. Ultimately if traumatic transcendence exists, then it's much more convincing to write "and hey look at this, TT is in line with an enormous mountain of experimental evidence," even if it's not as interesting as it is to quote William Thompson claiming "We are like so many flies crawling across the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel"
> And even if you could, “you have no technology to demonstrate the existence of the waves, and everyone justifiably points out that the onus is on you to convince them.
Take the radio into a cave, or stand somewhere where the radio is shielded, and the voices will stop. That should convince people that there's something outside involved.
The Rationalist reaction to this on SSC was about what I'd expect! 😂
A TT happened to me and another man when he was in a bad car accident and I was in an ayahuasca ceremony an ocean away from him.
It was so profound that I wrote a novel based on it. Still seems unbelievable to me. Yet, it happened.
One of those articles which grabs me by the shoulders and shouts, "WAKE UP YOU DUMB FUCK," directly into my resigned and placid face. This is an increasingly rare occurrence but I'm not dead yet. Thanks.
Birth, falling asleep, waking up...
"A recent finding worth commenting upon from “The Myth of the Decline Effect in Psi Research: The Empirical Evidence”: studies trying to detect ESP find just as much of it today (with our greater attention to methodological rigor) as they did decades ago. (h/t Scott Alexander)"
A comment from Scott's blog says -
(The article) is about a claim that psi effects (don’t) decline in individuals over time, not that they (didn’t) decline in the research with better methods.
Another substacker ("Apple Pie") writing about similar things - "The Rising Star of Parapsychology"
https://thingstoread.substack.com/p/the-rising-star-of-parapsychology
After several minutes wrangling with exactly how to say this, I'm just going to write:
1. This was a very interesting post, I enjoyed it very much, I will likely return to it in the future, I'm thankful that you wrote it, and I'm grateful to Dino for drawing my attention to it.
2. You really don't know things that you would have needed to know to make this post accurate. Specifically, the idea that "'intensely boring' experiments like Susan Blackmore’s 1993 study of twin telepathy will never allow us to detect or manipulate transcendence" is belied by the many, many, many parapsychological studies which report some kind of psi effect. Meta analyses of these boring studies have been coming out since the 1940s. Whether you look at studies using Zener cards, dice, the Ganzfeld, or emotional precognition, the results overall are positive. Yes, individual studies do return null results, but common meta-analytic results give astronomically low p-values: https://thingstoread.substack.com/p/the-rising-star-of-parapsychology
Traumatic transcendence may be very interesting; the idea of the third man factor is interesting; reading about Mark Twain's experiences is definitely interesting. But the kind of replicable science on which one can hang a proverbial hat on has been returning evidence for better-than-chance psi effects for over eighty years. Ultimately if traumatic transcendence exists, then it's much more convincing to write "and hey look at this, TT is in line with an enormous mountain of experimental evidence," even if it's not as interesting as it is to quote William Thompson claiming "We are like so many flies crawling across the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel"
Wow. This was really engaging and thought-provoking.
Excellent piece, love it. Can I call myself an alchemist? lmk