Psience Quest

(2017-09-12, 11:59 PM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry folks, I just don't want to go through this once again, I don't have the time at present.

Funny, you didn't quit so easily over the sound issue. Anyway- that's totally fine. 

For me? Until I hear a valid technical argument, or see data that supports your assertion, I'm assuming there is nothing here.

(2017-09-13, 12:01 AM)Arouet Wrote: [ -> ]If power surges were regularly making the results non random than that would show up when analysing the entire set, I believe as we discussed above, wouldn't it?

I know I keep coming back to this but I think it is a key issue as I understand these things,

Given that the entire set seems to be at expectation I think the global consciousness producing non-random results hypothesis is a pretty hard sell.  Is there any reasonable way to argue that that hypothesis is still viable?  You'd have to hypothesise that not only does global consciousness affect these RNGs in non-random ways, but that it does so in a manner that evens out the distribution, making it indistinguishable from randomness.  

This still leaves open the DAT approach, but that's not related to global conscience.

I don't really understand your point(s).

Are you saying power surges DO happen and DO affect results? Or not?

clip- Given that the entire set seems to be at expectation I think the global consciousness producing non-random results hypothesis is a pretty hard sell.

I don't know what you mean by this (above). Can you clarify?

(2017-09-13, 12:01 AM)Arouet Wrote: [ -> ]If power surges were regularly making the results non random than that would show up when analysing the entire set, I believe as we discussed above, wouldn't it?

I know I keep coming back to this but I think it is a key issue as I understand these things,

Given that the entire set seems to be at expectation I think the global consciousness producing non-random results hypothesis is a pretty hard sell.  Is there any reasonable way to argue that that hypothesis is still viable?  You'd have to hypothesise that not only does global consciousness affect these RNGs in non-random ways, but that it does so in a manner that evens out the distribution, making it indistinguishable from randomness.  

This still leaves open the DAT approach, but that's not related to global conscience.

Yes, I think this is a stronger argument against a global consciousness interpretation than the stuff about the XORing and the lack of synchronisation. If there's a quite strong effect at moments of greatest "coherence", shouldn't there be a more moderate effect the rest of the time, leading the overall average also to diverge from chance expectation? And in particular, as Bancel commented, wouldn't we expect the effect still to be positive on average just outside the test periods - rather than equal and opposite to the effect within them. (Unless there's some kind of conservation law operating.)

But for me the main interest is that, taken at face value, the GCP provides very strong evidence for some kind of psi effect, even if it's not global consciousness.

(2017-09-12, 11:53 PM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]The Skeptiko discussion is here:
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/cl...wolf.3749/

It concerned (partly) this paper by Mason, Patterson and Radin:
http://www.deanradin.com/papers/RNG%20Mason.pdf

I think the kind of concerns Max is raising are more relevant to that study, because it looked at the output of single random number generators, and at the balance of 0s and 1s in that output, and the authors mostly seem to have minimised XOR processing (though they don't make it very clear how much remained because it was built into the hardware). But that is very different from the situation with the GCP, which is usually dealing with correlations between pairs of XORed random number generators.

OK. So I read the relevant posts (thanks for posting Chris) and Max's supposed dissertation about power quality is pretty much non-existent. There is less at Skeptiko on the topic than there is here. And all of it is empty conjecture with no supporting documentation, or even a cogent technical explanation. 

So for anyone who is still paying attention to this thread at this point, you can put this power issue to rest for now. As far as I can see, there was nothing said of any consequence at Skeptiko, or here, that demonstrates a valid technical case for power being the source of data corruption, or effects to the randomness of the RNG.

Case closed (for me) for now.

(2017-09-13, 12:40 AM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]Lol... and all in 14 minutes. 

Yup. Pretty easy to read that little information.

Just to be clear, I read your arguments about power quality and randomness,,, not the Radin test report.

(2017-09-13, 12:40 AM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]Lol... and all in 14 minutes. 

So now I take it you will argue aspects of the topic that have nothing to do with the the actual issue at hand. Things like reading rates.

Well now that's a whole new angle on things.

Really Max? grow up.

(2017-09-13, 12:55 AM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]I couldn't read both those papers in 14 minutes, never mind understand them.

Why do you keep saying this?

I said pretty clearly that I DIDN'T READ DEAN'S PAPER. There, is that clear enough?

BTW: I didn't read his paper because I am already familiar with it.

I was only looking for the material that you suggested was at Skeptiko,, you know- the posts where you apparently thoroughly explained your Zener diode and other power noise/RNG corruption theories?

Surprisingly I didn't find any of it though.  Nor answers or data relating to any of the the questions that I asked, in a real attempt to help discover whether there really IS a problem with RNGs that is attributable to power issues.

OK, as to the sections of papers you cite.

They also are not able to demonstrate divergence from randomness based on "non-random" noise impacting the system. They make a lot of statements seemly pointing to the obviousness of their assertion, but somehow they have forgotten or are (purposefully ignoring?) that a bit of empirical data would go a long way here.

They are also not willing (or able?) to explain in any detailed way HOW noise impacts the randomness of the system,,, that is, other than waving their arms and saying "noise=bad".

Also they seem to have a philosophical problem with digital post-processing. Not sure why. I have a hunch it is because they believe that if a "field" exists that would affect RNGs it must be a traditional Electro-Mag one, and as such, any post processing would disturb the effect we are trying to study. That is a reasonable concern, if the effect was based solely on EM fields.  And I would say that this might be an interesting thing to study to see if this is the case. 

Listen: of course there are more expense RNGs out there that could be used. But apart from the expense of them (which I assume is substantial) has anyone considered that perhaps all this "noise" that power systems are subject to may be a part of the way consciousness is effecting the RNGs in the first place?

A little of a tangent here but...
The way many devices work that have been used to "communicate with the other side" is based on subtly. Based on small/subtle forces.

A psychic would probably not be able to demonstrate any sort of behavior by placing a 50 lb rock in the middle of the room and ask "spirit" to move it. The physics of that situation seem to be hard to overcome. It seems however that if one were to devise an experiment that requires much less actual energy to cause in impact, interesting things can happen.

I'm talking about things like:
Ouija board
small object PK
Affecting coin flips
Interacting with electronics (EVP)
Or the ball drop on the peg-wall experiment that Radin sometimes uses

And in a similar way look at things that require human interpretation such as:
reading tea leaves
tarrot cards
astrology (don't laugh, there are studies that show correlation)
Reading palms

The common thread here is that things that require small physical forces, or cognitive interpretation, seem to be subject to many psi effects. 

Now before you just discard things like reading tea leave as too subject to fraud, I would say: OK so create an experiment that makes fraud impossible, and look at the data to see if it has results greater than chance. Stop being so fixated on how something might or might not work, and start looking at the data to see if it DOES. 

Then and only then attempt (if you like) to understand the physics of it. In my opinion, physics will never explain much of this stuff, and scientists will hopefully accept that fact at some point in the future, or modify the "rules" of physics to accommodate such behavior.

I should have explained a bit more about how the final outputs of the random number generators are calculated. 

In each case, 200 consecutive bits, to which an XOR mask has been applied, are sampled each second, and then added up. In theory that would produce a binomially distributed result, with mean 100 and variance 50. The XOR processing produces the right mean even if the input is biased, but the variance may be affected by bias or correlations between successive bits. Bias will tend to decrease the variance, but correlations may increase it. 

Unfortunately, one of the devices used,  the Mindsong, incorporated an elaborate 560-bit mask designed to minimise the effect of correlations. The purpose of that was to overcome any spurious change in variance due to correlations. But although the whole mask was balanced between 0s and 1s, for any given second the part of the mask coinciding with the 200 bits sampled, wasn't balanced, and the effect of that (if bias was present in the input) was actually to produce a spurious increase in variance. So in the output from the Mindsong devices, the variance was typically about 0.1% higher than it should have been. A renormalisation was periodically applied to the database to bring the variances into line with the theoretical values.

The upshot of all this is that the effect of any bias or correlations present in the raw bitstreams is just to change the variance of the final second-by-second output. That change is found to be only about a thousandth on average (and the data are renormalised to adjust for it). 

But the effect that's observed is essentially a correlation between these final outputs, for pairs of different RNGs in the network. The change in variance, even if it were left uncorrected, wouldn't tend to produce a correlation between the outputs of pairs of different RNGs.

(2017-09-13, 04:19 PM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]There were 102 references in the larger of the two papers I linked to in that SF thread, and 40 odd pages of detailed information in the document itself - all related to RNG's. Great paper.

All that and still no data measuring deviation from randomness correlated to a noise event, etc etc.

You seem totally willing to just point to the papers, but you are unable to speak to the details.

I'll leave it alone because I can't get the answers I need from you to proceed, and I am honestly not interested enough to contact the folks who wrote the paper.

(2017-09-12, 11:19 PM)jkmac Wrote: [ -> ]In terms of the electronics, you sound like a person who may have a little knowledge (as most do), and might be making comments that go beyond that limited understanding. 

In terms of getting a "nice output",, keep in mind: the idea is to get a random number. And we have the ability to quantify the amount of randomness we have a achieved. Whether the process requires heavy digital processing or not is immaterial. The only goal is randomness.

1- The data Max provided contains NO information about power quality, only load.
I am just trying to separate fact from fiction here.

jkmac,  I admit that I have little to no skill-set in electronics, but have worked in the industry and have a conversational background and limited understanding.  I am learning from your effort to bring Max back to the farm.  Help me put your position in context.

In quantifying randomness are you referring to a Bernoulli Distribution? 
In discussing "power quality"  are you referring to wave forms in the "flow" of the current?

I would comment that randomness is not a physical property but an informational property.  There are no SI units referring to randomness in materials or forces.   Probability distributions are abstract and based on informational relations.  Shannon's equations for mutual information can be seen as addressing any two variables, hence linking this to analysis as mutual information.