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From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.sci
Subject: Re: Mind and Brain
Message-ID: <700@opus.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 15-Aug-84 21:57:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: opus.700
Posted: Wed Aug 15 21:57:05 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 18-Aug-84 01:26:30 EDT
References: <1564@sun.UUCP> <259@metheus.UUCP>
Organization: NBI, Boulder
Lines: 27

On Psi - a telephone conversation:
>We had been talking for a while about PSI, them believing, me doubting,
>when I (quietly) picked up a knife from the table and said something like
>"O.K., if you're so psychic, what am I holding in my hand?"  Without any
>hesitation, she said "a pencil" and her friend said "a knife".  I was
>about to retort that one out of two wasn't statistically very meaningful
>when I realized that I had been holding a pencil in my other hand for
>several minutes, unconsciously doodling on the newspaper.  At that point
>I screamed.

Would you have screamed if the answer had been "a telephone"?

Seriously, the set of possible answers is not all that large--it would have
to be something near at hand, not too large, a tangible object.  Now, if
you had pursued it with various objects for multiple trials, that would
have been more interesting, although it's still a poorly-controlled
experiment.

Many of the experiences that people have which they feel lend credence to
psi phenomena occur in situations where a lot of unconscious cueing is
possible.  It's surprising just how subtle the cues can be, yet still be
given by observer and received by subject without either realizing it.
In fact, this is a problem even in the physical sciences, let alone psi
research.
-- 
Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
	...Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.