A simple telepathy test: which word did I write?

In that case, you can write what goes through your mind (I believe this is called "mentation" in ganzfeld jargon), and I'll try to study these impressions.

Problem is that your test doesn't allow for this.

Maybe you should try posting telepathy tests based on open-ended questions, and see how that goes.

Expand your mental horizons, as it were. Try something new.

Problem is that your test doesn't allow for this.

I disagree.

For example, the correct target in this test was "garden", it was the fourth word in a list of four.

You could have written e.g. number 44 (see Typoz' post #25 in this thread), or you could have posted things related to a garden, like trees, singing birds, green grass and so on.

If this can help, I could myself have looked at garden pictures (I admit this is something I didn't do).

I disagree.

For example, the correct target in this test was "garden", it was the fourth word in a list of four.

You could have written e.g. number 44 (see Typoz' post #25 in this thread), or you could have posted things related to a garden, like trees, singing birds, green grass and so on.

If this can help, I could myself have looked at garden pictures (I admit this is something I didn't do).

I strongly suspect that you do not believe in telepathy, or any other psychic phenomena (no telepathy was used in making this conclusion). In my view, if you really want to prove that telepathy does not exist, you have to reproduce the circumstances in which telepathy seems to occur, and then devise experimental conditions that preclude any sort of cheating - accidental or deliberate.

Also you must surely realise that any worthwhile test is a substantial undertaking because you have to collect a large quantity of data to detect the effect statistically.

David

My tests are not uncontrolled, because people have a possibility of verifying the very simple things that I explain.

For example, when I say that your answer was less credible because you said: "I have no idea ... Probably wrong but whatever.", people can go back to your answer, and verify that you did make these statements.

Yeah that has literally nothing to do with control in an experimental sense, and the fact that you think it does says that you have no idea what you're doing.

Yeah that has literally nothing to do with control in an experimental sense, and the fact that you think it does says that you have no idea what you're doing.

My tests are in fact (in my opinion) far more controlled than reports that you can find, for example, in an issue of the Journal of Parapsychology.

When you read an article in a scientific journal which quotes some data, some experiments, you cannot usually control these data.

They could entirely fake or made up.

But I cannot fake anything when I do a test on a public forum (I could not, for example, alter an answer).

On the other hand, in your answer, you gave two very strong warnings.

So this was certainly not an answer that I consider (strongly) credible, according to my usual method.

Which is fine.

I disagree.

For example, the correct target in this test was "garden", it was the fourth word in a list of four.

You could have written e.g. number 44 (see Typoz' post #25 in this thread), or you could have posted things related to a garden, like trees, singing birds, green grass and so on.

If this can help, I could myself have looked at garden pictures (I admit this is something I didn't do).

But that's not how your test works ~ we're supposed to choose which out of 4 words is the legitimate example. There is nothing open-ended about that that I can observe. Because that's not how my mind really feels things.

My mind would not have guessed garden due to the distraction of the other possibilities.

But that's not how your test works ~ we're supposed to choose which out of 4 words is the legitimate example. There is nothing open-ended about that that I can observe. Because that's not how my mind really feels things.

My mind would not have guessed garden due to the distraction of the other possibilities.

I could try to make these tests "more open" by viewing a few pictures related to the target word.

These images would contain more information than just one word.

This is perhaps the kind of things that you might like if you are a visual person.

However, I suspect this might lead to a new difficulty: people might not like to reveal too much information of a private nature about the thoughts that are going through their minds.

In my current method, participants don't need to say much, and I believe this can be an advantage.

I could try to make these tests "more open" by viewing a few pictures related to the target word.

These images would contain more information than just one word.

This is perhaps the kind of things that you might like if you are a visual person.

The problem is in your approach. It is far too limited and specific in scope. It's not about pictures or words, not really, but in your particular design of experiment. It presumes that there is only one valid way to test, when different minds respond differently, and more or less accurately depending on the nature of the experiment.

If people respond much more strongly to stuff with emotional content, your experiment is entirely worthless, as you will not get accuracy. So it will produce misleading results about the nature of how psychic or not one is.

Some need to physically touch an object to understand it. Some need to see. Some might need to hear. Some might just to need some bit of info about someone to then determine an entire swath of apparently unrelated info about the person to that other bit of info.

That is to say ~ your test is far too narrow and assumes too much about the nature of psychic abilities.

However, I suspect this might lead to a new difficulty: people might not like to reveal too much information of a private nature about the thoughts that are going through their minds.

This assumes too much. We can easily communicate complex ideas without delving into the more private stuff. Or we just reword stuff to communicate generally the same ideas. I've had to do that.

In my current method, participants don't need to say much, and I believe this can be an advantage.

There is no "advantage" here ~ only your belief that there is, because you have too narrow a view of how psychic phenomena work.

My tests are in fact (in my opinion) far more controlled than reports that you can find, for example, in an issue of the Journal of Parapsychology.

When you read an article in a scientific journal which quotes some data, some experiments, you cannot usually control these data.

They could entirely fake or made up.

How... arrogant.

Your test is incredibly over-simplified, and doesn't have quite the scope of many actual Parapsychological experiments.

For example ~ Rupert Sheldrake's experiments on animal telepathy involving dogs who know when their owners choose to come home.

There is no control method for the data you provide on this forum. It's just an... incredibly over-simplified test that does barely anything meaningful, and in the end demonstrates approximately nothing.

But I cannot fake anything when I do a test on a public forum (I could not, for example, alter an answer).

You could easily fake answers and we wouldn't know. That is the nature of the internet.

There's a meme... "on the internet, no-one knows you're a cat".

On the other hand, in your answer, you gave two very strong warnings.

So this was certainly not an answer that I consider (strongly) credible, according to my usual method.

Which is fine.

"Credible" to what standard...? A very subjective one that is apparently undefined?

Your test is incredibly over-simplified, and doesn't have quite the scope of many actual Parapsychological experiments.

For example ~ Rupert Sheldrake's experiments on animal telepathy involving dogs who know when their owners choose to come home.

There is no control method for the data you provide on this forum. It's just an... incredibly over-simplified test that does barely anything meaningful, and in the end demonstrates approximately nothing.


You could easily fake answers and we wouldn't know. That is the nature of the internet.

There's a meme... "on the internet, no-one knows you're a cat".


"Credible" to what standard...? A very subjective one that is apparently undefined?

In post #27 in this thread, I said:

... If you had just said, say:
"I have no idea ... OK, my guess is "chair". Probably wrong but whatever.",
you would have been in negative credibility territory (see https://internationalskeptics.com/forums...st-9516155 for details, this is an analysis I did in 2013 on the forum of the James Randi Educational Foundation, which became the International Skeptics Forum in 2014).

In this post on the former forum of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), I did use a method which prevents cheating in the target choice.
The results of that test were similar to those obtained here in my latest test.

The problem is this: if I see, for example, that everybody chooses "garden" even though the actual test target (the word I wrote and highlighted) was in fact, say, "chair" (the word Mediochre said), I could theoretically "cheat" (I didn't!) and claim that the target was "garden".

In other words, I could just pick the word that has been answered most often, and say "this is what I highlighted" to get a better hit rate.

But, on the JREF forum, a forum member suggested a method (the use of a MD5 checksum) which prevents this possibility (the original idea wasn't mine).
The idea is this: I write a very complicated sentence which contains the right word, for example:
"The word oj§'ç I highlited was !"àj garden", and then I condense this into a MD5 checksum (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5), which I post in the thread.

When the test is over, I post the target ("garden") and the complicated sentence. Members can then convert it into the hash value and thereby verify the target.

I didn't use this method in this latest test in the interest of simplicity (a little mutual confidence is not necessarily a bad thing), but I could easily use this method again in a possible future test. It's really not a great inconvenience for me.

I am also sure you didn't notice any suspicious fake member showing up recently, just to answer my test.

I have a great respect for Sheldrake's work, but really I have no way of verifying his data on animal telepathy.

Another thing: my tests are not actually designed to investigate all kinds of telepathy. It is a simple test which is designed to investigate one very peculiar extra-sensory phenomenon: this person (myself) who seems to involuntarily leak his thoughts to the whole word (?).

I remain, of course, open to any realistic and practical suggestion for improvement.