Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

[Jan Sand]

No doubt one must speculate cautiously on the operation of an alien mind but if a secret culture of human superiors would put their whole culture into great danger when living amongst viciously brutal inferiors it seems most probable that social discipline would prevail to secure the safety and well being of that secret culture. If it exists where everyone's thoughts are open to equals one cannot generalize about totally different creatures.

[Eduk]

Sure that makes sense. If we aren't dealing with humans then non human behaviour is of course possible.

[Jan Sand]

The relationships with intelligent non-humans has been, of course, totally theoretical since humans, at this point, provide the only reservoir of wide ranging high intellect. The only change that might have some validity has been the possible existence of extraterrestrials in contact with humans. This, also, up to this point has seemed to be heavily overloaded with total nonsense except, since about the time of WWII when strange flying objects such as foo fighters and the original report of flying saucers made their appearance. Official sources and scientific investigations seem to have confirmed that these also have been over-imaginative fantasies. Just recently what has seemed to be official military reports indicating real confrontations of non-human extraordinary aircraft appeared in the NY Times and just this morning a report of the same level of validity has appeared at https://entertainment.slashdot.org/stor ... nter-video which seems to indicate that whatever government cover-up may have officially existed seems to be breaking down. Of course, the government is among the most least trustworthy source of much political and other information but why this multiple outbreak of what has been labeled as fantasy nonsense has occurred now makes me wonder what agenda change has happened. Considering that the total collapse of civilization through the double idiocies of global warming and the build-up of nuclear weaponry might inspire aliens to take interest is a suspected possibility. Perhaps it is still nonsense but I am most curious.

[Frost]

You don't seem to understand. I disagree that there is any effect. We disagree and you are going to have to learn to live with that.
My point about weak effect was simply that if I do happen to be wrong it doesn't effect my day to day life. I don't have to worry, for example, that someone can read my pin code from my mind. Granted, if I am wrong, that might change one day but I'm not wrong.

Okay, I get it. I'm just asking what evidence that is based on. The evidence from various experiments does not indicate anything like reading the pin code from someone's mind.

[Frost]

The relationships with intelligent non-humans has been, of course, totally theoretical since humans, at this point, provide the only reservoir of wide ranging high intellect. The only change that might have some validity has been the possible existence of extraterrestrials in contact with humans. This, also, up to this point has seemed to be heavily overloaded with total nonsense except, since about the time of WWII when strange flying objects such as foo fighters and the original report of flying saucers made their appearance. Official sources and scientific investigations seem to have confirmed that these also have been over-imaginative fantasies. Just recently what has seemed to be official military reports indicating real confrontations of non-human extraordinary aircraft appeared in the NY Times and just this morning a report of the same level of validity has appeared at https://entertainment.slashdot.org/stor ... nter-video which seems to indicate that whatever government cover-up may have officially existed seems to be breaking down. Of course, the government is among the most least trustworthy source of much political and other information but why this multiple outbreak of what has been labeled as fantasy nonsense has occurred now makes me wonder what agenda change has happened. Considering that the total collapse of civilization through the double idiocies of global warming and the build-up of nuclear weaponry might inspire aliens to take interest is a suspected possibility. Perhaps it is still nonsense but I am most curious.

Have you read the COMETA report from the French Government?

https://archive.org/details/TheCometaReport

Also, the Ministry of Defense has their own webpage for their UFO disclosure files:

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos/

[Jan Sand]

I haven't gone through the material in detail but in general the reports were the usual negative denials. Chinese paper lanterns were mentioned but none of the lanterns were clocked at velocities exceeding multiples of sonic velocities. Theoretically, of course aliens could be great humorists that enjoyed releasing paper lanterns to fool people but that leaves me in a quandary as to how they were obtained. Perhaps the authorities should check the sales records of Chinese lanterns to discover if any had been sold to extraterrestrial visitors.

[Eduk]

Okay, I get it. I'm just asking what evidence that is based on.

I already linked a whole article carefully explaining my position. I once had an actual discussion with an intellectually honest Christian on why they believed in God. It was quite a long conversation but basically they believed in God because of the Bible. And they believed God had written the Bible because it was perfect. I then pointed out an obvious contradiction, which to their credit they acknowledged as completely undermining their argument. They then carefully explained that they just believed it anyway. No amount of agreeing on what logic is, or agreeing on what evidence is or agreeing on various terms from first principles and then applying them was going to change the fact that they believed whatever they believed. And that was a conversation with an intellectually honest Christian, conversing with you Frost is much less pleasant and equally as pointless.

The evidence from various experiments does not indicate anything like reading the pin code from someone's mind.

That's my point.

[Count Lucanor]

I will have to take time to read the article you posted, so I cannot respond to that right away. However, I would like to reiterate the meta-analysis that I posted earlier since it must be considered in the mean time:

That issue is dealt with in the article. It shows the tendency to select studies that confirm the researcher's intention.
The key finding, however, is that new studies could not replicate the results.

- A highly controversial article. It made psychologists doubt other published findings in psychology.

"Highly controversial" is not a scientific argument.

If a researcher's own admission in a paper that is regarded as "scientific" reveals that his findings are controversial, and they are dismissed, then what accounts as a scientific argument? The whole idea of you posting this article was that it was supposedly accepted in mainstream science, but as it has turned out, it is not, by the own editor's confession and the effect it seems to have produced in research methods afterwards.
Anyway, at this time I don't know if being a scientific argument or not matters, since you have stated twice that science is not in the business of proving anything. So what exactly is the falsifying method that you're expecting?

Such as? This is not a legitimate objection unless you specify exactly what flaws existed in a falsifiable manner so they are potentially refutable. You know, kinda like how I made an actual argument on Bayesian analysis from the helpful article posted by Eduk. Similarly, you go on about how statistics is flawed. You have to provide specific examples. Just giving a link on a correlation fallacy has nothing to do with the paper, unless you wish to attempt to make a specific argument which you have not done. You fail to provide an argument of any substance that can be addressed regarding methodology, statistics, etc.

Aha!! I made a claim and you responded with a list of articles, so why is it that when I post an article you now claim it is not a legitimate answer and demand specific arguments? What were your specific arguments to begin with? You have posted articles pretending that psi is real, but what does it relate with the statement you were trying to challenge?

In any case, the article specifically addresses flaws in the statistical methods of research. It even shows that the Bem paper helped bring to the surface such flaws and new controls are being added to prevent such errors to repeat.

You also neglect to address specific issues I raised from the Bem paper itself, both from epistemological and methodological points of view. I hope you will.

Yes, it was well known JPSP rejected a replication attempt, but it was rejected because many mainstream journals do not like to publish replications and prefer novel research. This is a problem.

Actually two problems: if Bem's paper is evidence of psi, then aren't the other papers evidence that there isn't?

Multiple papers from a peer-reviewed mainstream physics journal is not an argument? Are you godamn kidding me?

I already dealt with the mainstream pretensions. About the argument: if I state that jews were not slaves in Egypt and wandered the desert for 40 years, the appropriate response to that cannot be saying: "well, here it is the Bible. I'm done". If you think so, are you godamn kidding me?

My claim is that this provides prima facie evidence that consciousness is not merely material.

And what is the difference between something being evidence and proving something? You said science is not about proof. When are you going to make up your mind about this?

In any case, where is the evidence that consciousness is not material? Are Bem's experiments the right approach for determining the nature of consciousness? Which non-material processes are identified and measured in such experiments? Even if Bem's paper was evidence of something (which has not been established yet), it would be only of the 2% better chances of guessing the future, for which a scientific explanation would have to be provided. Woo woo peddlers, like those in the Intelligent Design trenches, are quick to jump into conclusions: "I found irreducible complexity, therefore god". Actually, none of those. Bem's paper is at least honest in acknowledging it doesn't meet the theoretical challenges.

You're damned right posting research papers from a physics journal is an argument, which you continue to not address or provide any scientific argument against. Why can't you just consider the evidence and make an actual argument? Is it really that threatening to your worldview that you must react so irrationally?

I have provided more than enough arguments and objections that you have not addressed. I have even quoted the author, the journal's editors and provided analysis from another article that actually asks for the journal to retract. I have pointed at other studies that refute Bem's findings and I have challenged specific issues found in the paper itself. You are yet to meet those challenges. So, I have approached this more rationally than what you have done. Meanwhile, you're siding with believers in psychic abilities, parapsychology and other superstitions, far from being rational.

[Frost]

That issue is dealt with in the article. It shows the tendency to select studies that confirm the researcher's intention.
The key finding, however, is that new studies could not replicate the results.

That was not indicated in the meta-analysis provided:

The number of contrary unpublished reports that would be necessary to reduce the level of sig-nificance to chance (p>0.05) was conservatively calculated to be 87 reports. (Mossbridge et al., 2012)

This is covered in more detail under “Examination of Potential Reporting Bias” on page nine. It is not plausible that the results are due to reporting bias. Additionally, even if this failed replication were included in this meta-analysis, this would not bring the results to statistical insignificance.

If a researcher's own admission in a paper that is regarded as "scientific" reveals that his findings are controversial, and they are dismissed, then what accounts as a scientific argument?

So what? You do realize the theory of tectonic plates was not only controversial but ridiculed, right? Controversy is simply not a scientific argument. Period.

The whole idea of you posting this article was that it was supposedly accepted in mainstream science, but as it has turned out, it is not, by the own editor's confession and the effect it seems to have produced in research methods afterwards.

No. I never said that. I said that it was research published in mainstream journals which means it was peer-reviewed.

Anyway, at this time I don't know if being a scientific argument or not matters, since you have stated twice that science is not in the business of proving anything. So what exactly is the falsifying method that you're expecting?

What the hell are you talking about? Science deals not with proof but with evidence that appears to support or falsify a theory. Proof is for mathematics and logic, not science. That’s basic philosophy of science. You have to present an argument that is potentially falsifiable in order for it to be a scientific argument, which you have not done.

Aha!! I made a claim and you responded with a list of articles, so why is it that when I post an article you now claim it is not a legitimate answer and demand specific arguments? What were your specific arguments to begin with? You have posted articles pretending that psi is real, but what does it relate with the statement you were trying to challenge?

You posted an article on the Bem presentiment experiments, not on the Radin quantum experiments. The claim you made is that the mind is essentially material, and I posted a link to three peer-reviewed papers from a mainstream physics journal that provides potentially falsifying evidence of your claim. Even if the failed replication of Bem’s paper would falsify presentiment, that has nothing to do with Radin’s papers cited.

In any case, the article specifically addresses flaws in the statistical methods of research. It even shows that the Bem paper helped bring to the surface such flaws and new controls are being added to prevent such errors to repeat.

I still have to read through the link. The meta-analysis that I cited above does not indicate such statistical flaws in analysis. However, I will have to take the time to read through the lengthy article you posted before responding in detail.

You also neglect to address specific issues I raised from the Bem paper itself, both from epistemological and methodological points of view. I hope you will.

You never made a specific claim. You randomly linked to a paper on correlation vs. causation and made no specific claims. Perhaps I am blind and I missed it. What were the specific falsifiable claims you made rather than vague comments about how statistics may be misused?

Actually two problems: if Bem's paper is evidence of psi, then aren't the other papers evidence that there isn't?

That’s what meta-analysis is for. The two failed replications do not have the power to nullify the dozens of previous similar experiments. I have not read through the main failed replication yet since it is a lengthy paper and requires analysis. However, it is critical to see that even if it is an apparently genuine failed replication, it does not have the statistical power to nullify the effect found in meta-analysis.

I already dealt with the mainstream pretensions. About the argument: if I state that jews were not slaves in Egypt and wandered the desert for 40 years, the appropriate response to that cannot be saying: "well, here it is the Bible. I'm done". If you think so, are you godamn kidding me?

Are you really so stupid to compare multiple papers in a mainstream peer-reviewed physics journal to using the Bible as evidence?

And what is the difference between something being evidence and proving something? You said science is not about proof. When are you going to make up your mind about this?

Proof is for math and logic. That is basic philosophy of science. Evidence can provide corroborating or falsifying evidence, although it is rather difficult for even a falsification to be certain due to many confounding variables, including auxiliary hypotheses.

In any case, where is the evidence that consciousness is not material? Are Bem's experiments the right approach for determining the nature of consciousness? Which non-material processes are identified and measured in such experiments? Even if Bem's paper was evidence of something (which has not been established yet), it would be only of the 2% better chances of guessing the future, for which a scientific explanation would have to be provided. Woo woo peddlers, like those in the Intelligent Design trenches, are quick to jump into conclusions: "I found irreducible complexity, therefore god". Actually, none of those. Bem's paper is at least honest in acknowledging it doesn't meet the theoretical challenges.

I provided links to four papers that show effects that are not possible with a mind that is entirely material. And please knock off the “woo woo” bullsh!t and trying to create an association with Intelligent design. I am providing research so try to make an actual scientific argument instead of naked ad hominem attempts.

I have provided more than enough arguments and objections that you have not addressed. I have even quoted the author, the journal's editors and provided analysis from another article that actually asks for the journal to retract. I have pointed at other studies that refute Bem's findings and I have challenged specific issues found in the paper itself. You are yet to meet those challenges. So, I have approached this more rationally than what you have done. Meanwhile, you're siding with believers in psychic abilities, parapsychology and other superstitions, far from being rational.

I have to read through the entire article post. I will attempt to get that done today. However, the meta-analysis does not indicate that there are reporting problem, p-hacking, etc., and the two failed replications, even if legitimate, would not bring the meta-analysis to a null result.

[Frost]

I was able to finish the article posted criticizing the Bem paper. While there was a lot covered, it is clear that most of the statistical issues raised could not plausibly explain the results. The criticism come down to the following:

In sum, a plausible explanation of Bem’s successes that others could not replicate is that he stopped studies early when they did not show a promising result, then changed the procedure slightly. He also continued data collection when results looked promising after a few trials. As this research practices capitalizes on chance to produce large effect sizes at the beginning of a study, the results are not replicable.
Bad research practices are sufficient to explain why Bem obtained statistically significant results that could not be replicated in honest and unbiased replication attempts.

https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/ ... gnition-a/

This paper was a very fair assessment of the evidence. There were two failed replication attempts, one quite small and the other quite large. I have not yet read through the large failed replication to assess the study, so I will have to comment specifically on that later.

The point is that these criticisms do not refute the evidence of Bem’s research. It casts doubt on them, which is the proper scientific position anyway. The failed replications cast additional doubt. However, the meta-analyses cited earlier situate these three papers within a larger context of many more studies. Even with the rather large failed replication, the meta-analysis still provides significant evidence. In other words, the two failed replications become situated within a body of evidence with other failed replications and others with positive results, and meta-analysis finding a significant effect in the body of research.

Similar to the analysis in this paper, the meta-analysis indicates no statistical manipulation such as p-hacking, etc., nor a plausible concern for unpublished research. Indeed, the “Higher quality experiments produce a quantitately larger effect size and a greater level of significance than lower quality studies.”

Mossbridge, Julia & Tressoldi, Patrizio & Utts, Jessica. (2012). “Predictive Physiological Anticipation Preceding Seemingly Unpredictable Stimuli: A Meta-Analysis.” Frontiers in psychology. 3. 390. 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00390.

[Sy Borg]

Greta you paint a bleak picture. Indeed you seem to be describing brave new world. A future where humans are redundant, pampered, controlled and numb. It makes sense, it's a possibility but all I am really saying is that we don't know the future will be so horrible. In my opinion there is every reason to remain optimistic.

I don't see that future as bleak for the well-off. Our ancestors would have considered today's relatively controlled and sanitised suburban existence as rather dystopic too, but to us it's just "normal". So I can look into the sky and probably get as much of a kick from it as our ancestors who would have enjoyed from a far grander spectacle without the interference of light pollution.

In my observation, each generation judges the activities and proclivities of the younger generations as sterile and shallow. Then the next generation judges their progeny in much the same way as their parents did. Yet in each instance the subjective experience of the people is "just normal".

I still find it bizarre that people would go to clubs and dance jerkily to machine music, needing to take stimulant drugs to keep up with the tireless and relentless automated rhythms. That looks dystopian in itself to me - but the kids themselves seem to be having fun :lol: To them, it's just normal.

I am reminded of music. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart have never really been matched. Today's most popular artists are awful beyond compare. Does that mean music is finished? That there was more appreciation for good music in the past than today? That people today are less gifted? Or will it come again? It is it that today's Mozart is simply doing something else?

What's happening is specialisation. Thus polymaths become more rare and experts in specific fields more prevalent. So the gifted and creative have continued to appear: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/201410 ... -composers. In popular culture there have also been many prodigiously gifted artists - Armstrong, Coltrane, Miles, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Frank Zappa, Pat Metheny, John McLaughlin, The Who, Pink Floyd, Focus and so on. However, quality music (or anything) is now further removed from the mainstream, which is now more dominated by cheap product generated by economic rationalists than before.

It's interesting, human knowledge and capacities are increasingly being stored and programmed so that we need not be knowledgeable or capable. Let's face it, in many ways us modern humans are useless lumps compared with our ancestors, who were always making or repairing things with their own hands. However, just as even a talented musical programmer today may look weak next to a master musician, the former can easily produce the output of an entire band at hi fidelity, and what the programmer lacks in physical skills they make up for with considerable knowledge of how to interact with technology.

This is what's happening with us, our skills and abilities are transferring from the physical realm to the informational realm, basically using ever more efficient "levers" to get things done. We moderns appear to be useless by yesterday's standards but those without the modern capacity to interface with machines would be similarly useless in modern society. One might say that humans are becoming ever more differently abled :)

[Count Lucanor]

The number of contrary unpublished reports that would be necessary to reduce the level of sig-nificance to chance (p>0.05) was conservatively calculated to be 87 reports. (Mossbridge et al., 2012)

This is covered in more detail under “Examination of Potential Reporting Bias” on page nine. It is not plausible that the results are due to reporting bias. Additionally, even if this failed replication were included in this meta-analysis, this would not bring the results to statistical insignificance.

All the evidence keeps piling up as to what I said earlier: that statistical meta-analysis is insufficient and that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence (Laplace Principle). I also rejected the notion that the concept of "significant values" was a rock-solid wall of indisputable claims, especially regarding p-values:

It rests on the underlying assumption of which are the significant values and what threshold rejects the null hypothesis.

This is explained with rigorous detail in this article, which specifically criticizes Bem's work and the assumptions behind his p values: https://understandinguncertainty.org/node/1286

An article in Psychology Today dealing with Bem's paper also explains why the "p value is deceptive": https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/on ... -inference

As the previous article above, this last article mentions "the crux of the Rouder-and-Wagenmaker critique of Bem." But who's Wagenmaker? As you might have read, his paper was published in the same JPSP journal where the Bem paper was published and it was titled "Why Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data". A link that works is here: http://www.ejwagenmakers.com/2011/Wagen ... 1_JPSP.pdf

As it was noted, Bem replied to Wagenmaker and Wagenmaker kept replying. But by this time (and it is easy to confirm with the great amount of criticism found online against Bem's paper), it is evident that claims about psi have not really made it into mainstream science. It actually has contributed to cast serious doubts on the statistical methods of research, as explained here:

https://www.americanscientist.org/artic ... in-science

and here:

https://psmag.com/environment/statistic ... cant-82832

What the hell are you talking about? Science deals not with proof but with evidence that appears to support or falsify a theory. Proof is for mathematics and logic, not science. That’s basic philosophy of science. You have to present an argument that is potentially falsifiable in order for it to be a scientific argument, which you have not done.

I think you're unnecessarily tangled with semantics, but OK, let's take your word for it and say that science does not deal with proofs. That's only the business of mathematics and logic, right? So, a science that rests on mathematics will not be a real science, because it will be dealing with proofs. Statistics is a branch of mathematics, so we could confidently say that a science based on statistical inferences is not a good science, because it will be trying to prove something. Will you agree? Let's look at logic now. Why do you make inferences and demand a "scientific argument"? Inferences imply logic. An argument is also a construction of logic; if logic tries to prove something and science doesn't, their goals are opposed and a "scientific argument" would be a contradiction in terms. Wouldn't you agree? I'm really curious about this "basic philosophy of science".

You also neglect to address specific issues I raised from the Bem paper itself, both from epistemological and methodological points of view. I hope you will.

You never made a specific claim. You randomly linked to a paper on correlation vs. causation and made no specific claims. Perhaps I am blind and I missed it.

I did more than that and I doubt that you missed it. Here are some of the challenges you have not addressed:

Now, about p-values and similar statistical concepts. When you say "a p value of 0.05 is the standard for finding an effect", you mean a standard and an effect in which field or cases? All of them? If I put an object in a vacuum, let it fall from a given distance 1000 times, measure its speed and find out that 53% of times it corresponded to the expected speed of gravity in Earth, will that tell you something about the strong likelihood of gravity affecting the object?

And out of Bem's study, how about the "hit rate on the nonerotic pictures (that) did not differ significantly from chance: 49.8%... true across all types of nonerotic pictures: neutral pictures, 49.6%; negative pictures, 51.3%; positive pictures, 49.4%; and romantic but nonerotic pictures, 50.2%..." Since the statistical inference is the same, what is the scientifically-tested explanation that makes these results not evidence of lacking psi abilities?

How about the rigor of the method and its replication: how many of these tests involved not two curtains, but three, four or five, so that it could be shown that the same results are achieved?

Are you really so stupid to compare multiple papers in a mainstream peer-reviewed physics journal to using the Bible as evidence?

Get a grip of your emotions. It's just a debate. That the Bible is used as an example is completely irrelevant, any publication would support my argument: an argument is to be responded with another argument, not with a list of publications. If the publications were specifically devoted to the claim being challenged, they could have been taken as an argument by themselves, but that was not the case. Even if Bem's paper was to be taken as good evidence of psi, where does it give evidence that psi is not materially-caused? And what is Bem's scientific description of something being non-material? Where does he address the problem of a mind that is not "entirely material"?

[Frost]

All the evidence keeps piling up as to what I said earlier: that statistical meta-analysis is insufficient and that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence (Laplace Principle). I also rejected the notion that the concept of "significant values" was a rock-solid wall of indisputable claims, especially regarding p-values:

It rests on the underlying assumption of which are the significant values and what threshold rejects the null hypothesis.

This is explained with rigorous detail in this article, which specifically criticizes Bem's work and the assumptions behind his p values:
https://understandinguncertainty.org/node/1286

First off, I’ve already addressed that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is pseudo-scientific nonsense (see: http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/ ... 79#p307579). It is a result of bad application of Bayesian analysis with biased prior that result in nullifying real results. Extraordinary claims require replication, not insanely large effect sizes, z scores, or vanishingly small p values. Meta-analysis provided by both Bem and Mossbridge et al. (2012) show that these experiments show a decent level of replication.

You do realize that the original article you posted said that there were no flaws in the statistical analysis of the original Bem paper, right? It listed many potential issues, and crossed them off as possibilities one by one. The original Bem study did have some mild criticisms as stated in this paper that may account for the effects seen. However, it is a common flaw to think that merely raising a doubt is sufficient to "debunk" the research. Wrong. It is itself a falsifiable hypothesis. It is interesting to note this was seen over and over ad nauseum in the ganzfeld experiments for decades, only to have each of the possible flaws tested and shown not to be a factor in the results, only resulting in higher quality studies that produced better results. Indeed, the meta-analysis by Mossbridge et al. (2012) indicates that this is not the case and that higher quality studies produce better results: “Higher quality experiments produce a quantitately larger effect size and a greater level of significance than lower quality studies.”

An article in Psychology Today dealing with Bem's paper also explains why the "p value is deceptive": https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/on ... -inference

As the previous article above, this last article mentions "the crux of the Rouder-and-Wagenmaker critique of Bem." But who's Wagenmaker? As you might have read, his paper was published in the same JPSP journal where the Bem paper was published and it was titled "Why Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data". A link that works is here: http://www.ejwagenmakers.com/2011/Wagen ... 1_JPSP.pdf

As it was noted, Bem replied to Wagenmaker and Wagenmaker kept replying. But by this time (and it is easy to confirm with the great amount of criticism found online against Bem's paper), it is evident that claims about psi have not really made it into mainstream science. It actually has contributed to cast serious doubts on the statistical methods of research, as explained here:

https://www.americanscientist.org/artic ... in-science

and here:

https://psmag.com/environment/statistic ... cant-82832

Wagenmakers et al.’s response was a poor and biased statistical analysis and you should read the response from Bem and two very respected statisticians that back up his statistical analysis:

Abstract
Wagenmakers, Wetzels, Borsboom, and van der Maas (2011) argued that psychologists should replace the familiar “frequentist” statistical analyses of their data with Bayesian analyses. To illustrate their argument, they reanalyzed a set of psi experiments published recently in this journal by Bem (2011), maintaining that, contrary to his conclusion, his data do not yield evidence in favor of the psi hypothesis. We argue that they have incorrectly selected an unrealistic prior distribution for their analysis and that a Bayesian analysis using a more reasonable distribution yields strong evidence in favor of the psi hypothesis. More generally, we argue that there are advantages to Bayesian analyses that merit their increased use in the future. However, as Wagenmakers et al.’s analysis inadvertently revealed, they contain hidden traps that must be better understood before being more widely substituted for the familiar frequentist analyses currently employed by most research psychologists.
http://www.deanradin.com/evidence/Bem2011.pdf

A “great amount of criticism” does not mean falsification. People had very dramatic and emotional responses to the subject matter and acted as if statistical analysis must be completely off, like Wagenmakers, et al., and proceed to use put forth ridiculous priors and an unreasonable Bayes factor as some sort of epistemically objective analysis. There is no perfect statistical analysis; judgment must always be used. However, when you have meta-analyses rather than individual studies that result in vanishingly small p values combined with a solid effect size and a high z score, along with no evidence of p-hacking, selective reporting, file drawer problem, etc., just as in the meta-analysis presented by Mossbridge et al., you have solid reason for thinking that there is an effect.

As I said, science is not about proofs. You act as if application of statistics must be a matter of mathematical proof in order to permit us to learn about the empirical world. This is obviously not the case. While criticism and refining of methods is always welcome, this type of skepticism is really rather absurd and it's difficult to see how one could be such an ardent skeptic when science has proven time and time again that mathematical proofs and deductive methods are not necessary to gain knowledge about the world.

You also have to realize that this evidence does not exist in a vacuum, and this is where good science comes in. There are many other categories of anomalous cognition, such as the ganzfeld and micro-PK experiments. When you look at the consistency of the evidence from many labs from around the world that have decent replicability, similar effect sizes, etc., it starts to become rather unreasonable to think that it's just an issue of bad statistical analysis. Furthermore, there have been a number of novel hypotheses that have been confirmed, such as the relation to personality tests. On top of all that, statistical analysis of the "field research" that was performed by Dr. Robert Schoch of Boston University indicates that the spontaneous reports also are not reasonably explained by the normal dismissive arguments (selective memory, etc). And, these are essentially phenomena that have been reported for thousands of years in cultures across the world. All considered, in proper Bayesian reasoning, it seems rather unreasonable to consider that this is all just a matter of bad statistical analysis. You want some sort of certainty in science, which is indicated by your confusion on the whole notion of proof in science, but this does not exist. Yet, we have made leaps and bounds in the progress of our knowledge and continue to do so with the help of such methods that are continually refined as we learn more and more.

I think you're unnecessarily tangled with semantics, but OK, let's take your word for it and say that science does not deal with proofs. That's only the business of mathematics and logic, right? So, a science that rests on mathematics will not be a real science, because it will be dealing with proofs. Statistics is a branch of mathematics, so we could confidently say that a science based on statistical inferences is not a good science, because it will be trying to prove something. Will you agree? Let's look at logic now. Why do you make inferences and demand a "scientific argument"? Inferences imply logic. An argument is also a construction of logic; if logic tries to prove something and science doesn't, their goals are opposed and a "scientific argument" would be a contradiction in terms. Wouldn't you agree? I'm really curious about this "basic philosophy of science".

No. This is all nonsense. Science is not a matter of logic. It applies logic in the form of mathematics and deducing consequences of a hypothesis, but largely the practice of science requires the application of mathematics and logic which requires informal plausible reasoning. This is why empirical research is not a matter of proofs.

I did more than that and I doubt that you missed it. Here are some of the challenges you have not addressed:

I apologize. I didn’t see these as any kind of objection to Bem’s analysis.

A p-value of 0.05 indicating statistical significance is the standard in science across the board. This is not a value that has absolute epistemic objectivity, but neither is it arbitrary. It is what has been established as a convention that has been successful in empirical research.

And out of Bem's study, how about the "hit rate on the nonerotic pictures (that) did not differ significantly from chance: 49.8%... true across all types of nonerotic pictures: neutral pictures, 49.6%; negative pictures, 51.3%; positive pictures, 49.4%; and romantic but nonerotic pictures, 50.2%..." Since the statistical inference is the same, what is the scientifically-tested explanation that makes these results not evidence of lacking psi abilities?

Umm, the evidence from the erotic photos showing a statistically significant effect that would indicate a psi effect. If you find an effect, that would provide evidence of psi ability. Not finding an effect with a different stimulus in no way refutes that.

How about the rigor of the method and its replication: how many of these tests involved not two curtains, but three, four or five, so that it could be shown that the same results are achieved?[/i]

It doesn’t matter because the null hypothesis is a clear numerical value in any case. There shouldn’t be an effect with only two curtains is the point. It needs no control group or additional number of selection options. It is entirely possible, and indeed it seems plausible, that the effect would lessen with more options, but that doesn’t falsify an effect seen with only two curtains.

Get a grip of your emotions. It's just a debate. That the Bible is used as an example is completely irrelevant, any publication would support my argument: an argument is to be responded with another argument, not with a list of publications. If the publications were specifically devoted to the claim being challenged, they could have been taken as an argument by themselves, but that was not the case. Even if Bem's paper was to be taken as good evidence of psi, where does it give evidence that psi is not materially-caused? And what is Bem's scientific description of something being non-material? Where does he address the problem of a mind that is not "entirely material"?

A purely material mind cannot seemingly extract information from the future, nor could it impact the probability distribution in a double slit experiment in the intended direction. This is why presenting the papers was provided as evidence against a materialist interpretation of mind.

Under a materialist classical ontology there is absolutely no way to account for this (a materialist ontology logically excludes the experiential element of consciousness, anyway so it is an incoherent ontology to begin with to study consciousness). This can, however, be accounted for under a quantum ontology, particularly using the orthodox von Neumann formalism and the von Neumann Interpretation.

In fact, I think the concepts of “retro-causation” used by Bem and many others is mistaken. It attempts to keep one foot in the Netwonian paradigm while the other in the quantum paradigm, and results in problems. The quantum information revolution helps to account for these problems, since it is becoming rather apparent that the “physical” is only a manifestation of a certain informational state of the quantum vacuum as indicated by the quantum teleportation experiments by Anton Zeilinger’s team. This pretty clearly indicates that reality is not material.

You can’t understand how all this works without understanding quantum theory and the implications for ontology. You have to understand precisely what causation is. Science and especially philosophy has been under the spell of Hume and Russell on causation and it is all nonsense that has prevented understanding causation.

Causation is an emergent, exclusive, selective pattern of quantum information transactions at a particular spatiotemporal scale that must be actualized in an experiential state (quantum state vector reduction). This experiential state, due to its actualization of quantum transactions, is necessary for there to be causation. In other words, causation can only occur as an information transaction between experiential states, but since the experiential state—the “observation”—creates the history, this “between” is an atemporal process. In other words, time is also emergent from state vector reduction. Since consciousness is fundamentally an experiential state—in the sense of the Hard Problem—it can influence the actualization of those transactions. In this capacity it functions as a non-local projection operator over the physical system in question which can obtain information from potential future states as well as facilitate information transactions in the intended direction through Intentional causation. Intentional causation is the biasing and facilitation of the intended information transaction by the informational state of the Intentional mental state functioning as a non-local projection operator over the physical system.

The point is, none of this has any relation to the concept of a “material mind.” It is an entirely outdated concept that is supported neither philosophically, theoretically, or empirically at this point. Reality is rather obviously not material, which includes the experiential element of consciousness.

This is why AI using algorithms will always only be weak AI. It will never be conscious, will never understand anything, and therefore never know anything. It will be used in increasingly advanced and complex ways to help us study nature and assist in many areas, but it will never be the strong AI that people imagine. Strong AI will require a radically different type of processing and construction that would have to make it conscious…essentially alive.

[Count Lucanor]

First off, I’ve already addressed that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is pseudo-scientific nonsense (see: http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/ ... 79#p307579). It is a result of bad application of Bayesian analysis with biased prior that result in nullifying real results.

This failed argument was dealt with by Wagenmaker:

It is important to note that our default Bayesian test does not depend at all on the prior probability that one may assign H1. Therefore, it is certainly not true that our Bayesian analysis simply confirms our initial bias against precognition, as some bloggers mistakenly believed. Instead, the result of our Bayesian test is known as the Bayes factor, and with respect to prior assumptions it only depends on the effect size ± expected under H1 (see also Liang, Paulo, Molina, Clyde, & Berger, 2008).

Extraordinary claims require replication, not insanely large effect sizes, z scores, or vanishingly small p values. Meta-analysis provided by both Bem and Mossbridge et al. (2012) show that these experiments show a decent level of replication.

Leaving aside the false positives from Bem's 9 experiments (which by now, with all the ongoing debate, there's little doubt that they're easy to manufacture), it was the failure to replicate that moved Bem to produce the meta-analysis, which itself has been shown to be the product of statistical manipulation, so that the results show what the researcher wants. The most interesting thing was that, despite all the justified criticism, he wasn't really mishandling the procedures, but exploiting their inherent flaws, confirming once again that Psychology itself, and most likely all disciplines that rely solely on statistical methods, especially on Modal Research Practice, need to rethink its epistemological and methodological basis:
http://psychology.okstate.edu/faculty/j ... g_2011.pdf

On the basis of these considerations, we believe that the most valuable contribution of Bem’s (2011) article is that, by revealing how general features of MRP bias the interpretation of data, it can promote needed discussion regarding improvements to research practice in empirical psychology. In fact, given that the methodological problems in Bem’s article reflect quite general deficiencies in MRP, it follows that our criticisms and recommendations for improved practice apply directly to all research conducted within this tradition.(LeBel, E. P., & Peters, K. R., 2011).

Wagenmakers et al.’s response was a poor and biased statistical analysis and you should read the response from Bem and two very respected statisticians that back up his statistical analysis:

Everyone is invited to read it, along with the response that Wagenmaker produced for Bem and his colleagues, as I had stated before:
http://web.stanford.edu/class/psych201s ... ohnson.pdf

The complaints listed by Bem et al. (2011) are either overstated or wrong. We have presented additional evidence that the data from Bem (in press) have been obtained through exploration, and noted that our original worries about exploration have simply not been addressed. As noted by Rouder and Morey (2011), the plea for a one-sided test is inconsistent with Bem’s Experiments 5, 6, and 7 and suggests further exploration has taken part. The proposal to multiply the Bayes factors across all experiments is a measure of desperation, and an implicit acknowledgement that the data from each experiment separately do not convince.

As I said, science is not about proofs. You act as if application of statistics must be a matter of mathematical proof in order to permit us to learn about the empirical world.

It is actually the other way around: scientists relying on things like MRP are the ones pretending to shield their research from criticism under the assumption that the facts (reduced to numbers) speak for themselves, as if the numbers were a measure of objectivity.

You also have to realize that this evidence does not exist in a vacuum, and this is where good science comes in. There are many other categories of anomalous cognition, such as the ganzfeld and micro-PK experiments. When you look at the consistency of the evidence from many labs from around the world that have decent replicability, similar effect sizes, etc., it starts to become rather unreasonable to think that it's just an issue of bad statistical analysis. Furthermore, there have been a number of novel hypotheses that have been confirmed, such as the relation to personality tests. On top of all that, statistical analysis of the "field research" that was performed by Dr. Robert Schoch of Boston University indicates that the spontaneous reports also are not reasonably explained by the normal dismissive arguments (selective memory, etc).

But there's no phenomena. One of the common objections to Bem's claims is that even if he had discovered an anomalous effect, he could not describe what it is, what its mechanisms are. He just makes a leap of faith that it means what he ardently wants to believe. He tries to open a gap in our rational understanding of reality, so that he can fill it with his woo woo nonsense. The argument that in the history of science many effects were discovered prior to the phenomena itself is a fallacy.

And, these are essentially phenomena that have been reported for thousands of years in cultures across the world. All considered, in proper Bayesian reasoning, it seems rather unreasonable to consider that this is all just a matter of bad statistical analysis.

And there it is again, coming out to the surface, the old sophistry of the Ad Populum fallacy. If it is believed by many, then it is true.

No. This is all nonsense. Science is not a matter of logic. It applies logic in the form of mathematics and deducing consequences of a hypothesis, but largely the practice of science requires the application of mathematics and logic which requires informal plausible reasoning. This is why empirical research is not a matter of proofs.

You're still lost in semantics. To say that something "is not a matter of logic, buy it applies logic" shows a state of utmost confusion. It doesn't even address the question of why it requires the application of logic if the goals of logic (as you purport) are contrary to its purposes. Real science actually merges both inductive and deductive inferences, they just can't live without each other.

A p-value of 0.05 indicating statistical significance is the standard in science across the board. This is not a value that has absolute epistemic objectivity, but neither is it arbitrary. It is what has been established as a convention that has been successful in empirical research.

At this time I think the problems of such convention has been made pretty clear from several point of views: what is their significance and how they are used.

Umm, the evidence from the erotic photos showing a statistically significant effect that would indicate a psi effect. If you find an effect, that would provide evidence of psi ability. Not finding an effect with a different stimulus in no way refutes that.

The objection is just the same: if there's psi, why it wouldn't show with any other picture? What's the science in the relation between a choice of pictures by the researcher and the supposed significant effect?

How about the rigor of the method and its replication: how many of these tests involved not two curtains, but three, four or five, so that it could be shown that the same results are achieved?

It doesn’t matter because the null hypothesis is a clear numerical value in any case. There shouldn’t be an effect with only two curtains is the point. It needs no control group or additional number of selection options. It is entirely possible, and indeed it seems plausible, that the effect would lessen with more options, but that doesn’t falsify an effect seen with only two curtains.

What happens obviously is that it would make the null hypothesis harder to reject. Just another sign of the researcher working out his experiment to fit the results he wants. Having a controversial claim at hand, one would expect that the researcher will want to put a hard test on it, so that the results staggeringly show an effect.

The point is, none of this has any relation to the concept of a “material mind.” It is an entirely outdated concept that is supported neither philosophically, theoretically, or empirically at this point. Reality is rather obviously not material, which includes the experiential element of consciousness.

And what exactly is the concept supported philosophically, theoretically and empirically at this point? I mean, if it's not material, then it is something else. What is that something else which apparently, being rather obvious, has a nature you can describe?

[Frost]

Okay, I get it. I'm just asking what evidence that is based on.

I already linked a whole article carefully explaining my position. I once had an actual discussion with an intellectually honest Christian on why they believed in God. It was quite a long conversation but basically they believed in God because of the Bible. And they believed God had written the Bible because it was perfect. I then pointed out an obvious contradiction, which to their credit they acknowledged as completely undermining their argument. They then carefully explained that they just believed it anyway. No amount of agreeing on what logic is, or agreeing on what evidence is or agreeing on various terms from first principles and then applying them was going to change the fact that they believed whatever they believed. And that was a conversation with an intellectually honest Christian, conversing with you Frost is much less pleasant and equally as pointless.

The evidence from various experiments does not indicate anything like reading the pin code from someone's mind.

That's my point.

I'll stick with meta-analyses and science. Thanks.