Wednesday, June 23, 2010

I'm Sorry to Have Missed This

Reader Paul C. A. points out that I was too late to attend the International Remote Viewing Association's 2010 conference. Too bad, I would have liked to see so many woomeisters in one room.

Just think, for only $436 I could have heard

* Robert Jahn, formerly of PEAR, a parapsychology lab associated with Princeton that embarrassed them for years until it was finally disbanded in 2006;

* Noreen Renier, a self-proclaimed psychic whose attempts at solving crimes have been extensively debunked;

* Alexis Champion, who advocates "psychic archaeology";

* Paul Smith, who taught dowsing to participants;

* Courtney Brown, a political scientist at Emory University who, according to Michael Shermer, is not allowed to mention his affiliation with Emory when discussing remote viewing. Did I mention that he was a "yogic flyer"?

Oh, the fun I could have had! For example, in the description of Jahn's talk, he says, "repeated applications proved to diminish the yield, suggesting that disproportionate focus on the analytical components of the perception, rather than on the phenomenal gestalt, can result in obscuring the essence of the phenomenon and that the subjective quality of these experiences is more effectively enhanced when their inherent uncertainties are both acknowledged and emphasized."

Translation: we can't figure out why our discovery of tiny psi effects disappear when we do more trials.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why do they have to assemble, physically, in close proximity in space and time?

TomS

Mitch said...

"Translation: we can't figure out why our discovery of tiny psi effects disappear when we do more trials. "

There's a perfectly scientific explanation. Psi energy diminishes with use, so over testing will naturally get fewer and fewer results.

Bayesian Bouffant, FCD said...

Why do they have to assemble, physically, in close proximity in space and time?

Yes, and why not save on the $436 attendance fee by remote viewing the proceedings instead?