@dang, this title should be labelled (2002). (This is old news; I first heard about remote viewing projects back then myself.)
The article is hosted at "Columbia.edu" but the underlying publication is an Indian foreign policy strategy journal mirrored there, not from a Columbia.edu university academic. Of note is the biographical footnote on the author who was a retired physicist studying cold fusion among other things:
"Dr. M. Srinivasan was formerly Associate Director, Physics Group, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai. He is an experimental Physicist who has specialized in fast breeder reactor physics and Cold Fusion. Since retirement, he has been studying anomalous phenomena not explainable currently by Science."
It's nice to see some of the specific remote viewing anecdotes in print in a relatively short not overly sensationalistic piece. The whole matter of blinding, double blinding, possible cheating, priming, statistical significance, etc is unfortunately not really addressed in a way that would ameliorate anyone with much skepticism.
Ingo Swann is known for a remote viewing session where he was asked to describe the contents of a sealed envelope placed inside a safe. This experiment took place at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) during the early stages of the remote viewing program.
Swann accurately described the contents of the envelope within the safe, reporting drawings of mountains, a horse, and an individual riding the horse. To the surprise of the researchers, the actual contents matched Swann's descriptions, which he could not physically access or see through conventional means.
This demonstration was part of the initial efforts to test and explore the potential capabilities of remote viewing. It's often cited as a compelling instance showcasing Swann's purported abilities, but like other remote viewing cases, it remains a subject of debate within scientific circles regarding its reliability and reproducibility under controlled conditions.
I guess the fact there isn't a US Army nor Navy nor CIA nor FBI "clairvoyant" corp, or that the US struggled to find Ben Laden for a decade, is proof enough that either this is all bullsh*t, or that it was propaganda to lead the Russians on a wild goose chase (like they seem to do today with reactionless engines - and the Chinese seem to have bitten, hook and sinker).
Were these kinds of experiments double blinded, or were the people who interviewed Swann already aware of the contents? Don’t mentalists do this kind of stuff on the regular?
You are suggesting I read more subjective comments to disprove my own subjective comment?
Which comment specifically should I read to have a better informed view of the particular study I recalled here?
I closed the book on remote viewing decades ago as it’s not something I can personally replicate but will still entertain the conversation and argue for either side until it is conclusive.
"Bull indeed. He described them like this: "Maybe the stripes are like bands of crystals, maybe like rings of Saturn, though not far out like that. Very close within the atmosphere."
As it happens, the rings of Jupiter are very far out from the planet.
His description was nothing but rank generalities and bet hedging. Ice crystals in Jupiter's atmosphere were already predicted to be there, and him describing them as "bands of crystals, maybe like rings of Saturn" is bet-hedging at its worst. He made an educated guess that ice crystals appear in bands, and gave a carefully crafted sentence that could be interpreted as "right" regardless of whether actual rings were found. Rings found? Then pay attention to the "...like rings of Saturn..." part. No rings found? Then pay attention to the "...Very close within the atmosphere..." part. Regardless of which way it goes, try to convince people your meaningless declaration means something after the fact.
The Monroe Institute and early pioneers like Jose Silva normalized the method amongst a small group of “Psychonauts” and self improvement hobbyist that were willing to dive deep enough into the unknown to form their own opinions on the topic. I’m not sure that knowing or experiencing the ability actually improves your life but it is an interesting study if you are willing part ways with a well padded and comfortable reality.
David Grusch (UAP whistleblower) seemed to believe this was a legitimate thing on his recent appearance on Joe Rogan. As interested as I am in the UAP phenomena, I just can't seriously believe this is real.
I heard his comments as 'this is a thing the military has studied and taken seriously, and there were real programs with funding towards it' not 'this is a real thing that works'.
To a point - some questions aren't worth testing. Questions like "What if I can eat uranium?" or "What happens if I fill my car's gas tank with water" are costly and avoidable.
Using basic reasoning skills instead of credulous consideration of magical powers seems a reasonable threshold for discarding certain research. I don't need to spend billions of dollars trying to figure out how to cut people in half and put them back together like a magician, even if thousands or even billions of people have "witnessed" such an event.
Science doesn't allow for a rational mechanism that would enable psychic powers like telepathy, seeing the future, and remote viewing without augmenting the brain with a technological interface and machines that captured and transmitted the information. There's simply no room for reasonable experimentation around these types of claims, unless it's psychological in nature; things which are known and provable limit any possible mechanism by which psychic powers can operate.
If you wanted to posit some sort of technological mechanism, then you're getting into simulations, aliens, secret government implants, or other theories that lack plausibility as well.
We'll likely have common BCI augmentations within the next century. Networked human brains will exhibit psychic-like abilities and the potential is amazing, but until that happens, claims about such things are fraudulent, deceptive, or deluded.
> Science doesn't allow for a rational mechanism that would enable psychic powers like telepathy
Yet. Keep in mind that everyone thought getting sick was magic until germs were discovered, we used to be completely unaware of electromagnetism, etc. etc.
> If you wanted to posit some sort of technological mechanism, then you're getting into simulations, aliens, secret government implants, or other theories that lack plausibility as well.
This isn't a statement made in good faith, you're pre-poisoning the well with a slippery slope.
There appears to be ample scientific evidence that at least some future events already exist. Check out _Time Loops_ by Eric Wargo for a good summary.
To be fair, you're also 'pre-poisoning the well with a slippery slope' to a degree in your first point. The way I read it you're basically saying there "keep in mind we also thought we knew how things worked ones, maybe we're wrong again". But this to me is a giant straw man, if a common one. We did not have a convincing model of how a lot of the world worked in those times. It's not that we thought that there are no germs. We could not see things as small as germs, and we knew at the time that there are limits to how small a thing we can see. Right now we know that there is a limit to how small a thing can be, and arguably we can detect things at sizes comparable to that. There were no convincing and "complete" models of most of the areas of knowledge. The models we have right now leave a lot of room for "unknown", but only in very specific amounts and in very specific places, not every possible unknown.
So the direct comparison is whether the current state of knowledge leaves as much room for telepathy as the state of knowledge a couple of hundred years ago left for germs, and the answer is a resounding no.
There's no yet involved - there's no room in the current understanding of science that would allow a completely unmeasurable mechanism to interact with the brain such that you could exhibit psychic powers. You'd need to completely discount everything known about how the universe works in order to allow for brains that can do magical things. What you're suggesting is comparable to "what if it's the unfavorable opinions of micro-organisms that cause illness." According to everything we know, you can't just toss out the germ theory of disease. Things are knowable. Sometimes things we know preclude the possibility of other things being true.
Because knowable things preclude the possibility of built-in psychic powers, you need a technological basis, therefore my statement about simulations, aliens, and government implant theories follow - the statement is in perfectly good faith. I genuinely believe science banishes magic and psychic powers to the realm of delusion and bad thinking.
The universe is a big place, and we don't know everything. Scientific thinking has allowed us to start peeling things back, and build on repeatable observations, and develop a framework and structure for understanding how the universe works. It means opinionated germs, psychic powers, the moon being made of cheese, and other things are excluded from things that can be rationally considered to be possible.
Part of scientific thinking is the willingness to entertain any outcome, no matter how impossible or fantastic it might seem, if the evidence supports it. Another part is the willingness to discard incorrect ways of thinking about things - we know what cells can do and how electromagnetism works. There's no unexplained energy consumption or transmissions involved in human biology that would even hint at the possibility these things could be real. There's no evidence to suggest any possible mechanism to achieve magical or psychic powers.
There is a lot of evidence that humans lie and cheat and defraud eachother - and themselves. The presence of evidence discounting the possibility of special powers, in the additional context that humans are really bad at perceiving baseline reality or communicating proper error bounds, means the only rational way to look at claims of psychic phenomena is to discount them and spend time on meaningful things.
Psychic phenomena aren't real; they're a dead end. That's about as close to "proving a negative" as you might be able to get. There is no magic.
There’s plenty of evidence. Lots of people have seen gods, angels, demons, fairies, aliens, etc. We convict people of murder on less evidence than that.
I’m not sure how you would reproduce those results, though.
I first read about this in the 2007 book, Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind by Elizabeth Mayer. I don't remember what she says about Swann, but the book made a big impression on me at the time, and I bought copies for a couple friends.
@dang, this title should be labelled (2002). (This is old news; I first heard about remote viewing projects back then myself.)
The article is hosted at "Columbia.edu" but the underlying publication is an Indian foreign policy strategy journal mirrored there, not from a Columbia.edu university academic. Of note is the biographical footnote on the author who was a retired physicist studying cold fusion among other things:
"Dr. M. Srinivasan was formerly Associate Director, Physics Group, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai. He is an experimental Physicist who has specialized in fast breeder reactor physics and Cold Fusion. Since retirement, he has been studying anomalous phenomena not explainable currently by Science."
It's nice to see some of the specific remote viewing anecdotes in print in a relatively short not overly sensationalistic piece. The whole matter of blinding, double blinding, possible cheating, priming, statistical significance, etc is unfortunately not really addressed in a way that would ameliorate anyone with much skepticism.
Don't forget that proper skepticism works in both directions though.
Ingo Swann is known for a remote viewing session where he was asked to describe the contents of a sealed envelope placed inside a safe. This experiment took place at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) during the early stages of the remote viewing program.
Swann accurately described the contents of the envelope within the safe, reporting drawings of mountains, a horse, and an individual riding the horse. To the surprise of the researchers, the actual contents matched Swann's descriptions, which he could not physically access or see through conventional means.
This demonstration was part of the initial efforts to test and explore the potential capabilities of remote viewing. It's often cited as a compelling instance showcasing Swann's purported abilities, but like other remote viewing cases, it remains a subject of debate within scientific circles regarding its reliability and reproducibility under controlled conditions.
I guess the fact there isn't a US Army nor Navy nor CIA nor FBI "clairvoyant" corp, or that the US struggled to find Ben Laden for a decade, is proof enough that either this is all bullsh*t, or that it was propaganda to lead the Russians on a wild goose chase (like they seem to do today with reactionless engines - and the Chinese seem to have bitten, hook and sinker).
Definitely a valid point. Like anything on our planet everything has a counter.
Were these kinds of experiments double blinded, or were the people who interviewed Swann already aware of the contents? Don’t mentalists do this kind of stuff on the regular?
This is not what happened. See comments:
https://www.reddit.com/r/consciousness/comments/181s71r/the_...
You are suggesting I read more subjective comments to disprove my own subjective comment?
Which comment specifically should I read to have a better informed view of the particular study I recalled here?
I closed the book on remote viewing decades ago as it’s not something I can personally replicate but will still entertain the conversation and argue for either side until it is conclusive.
Swann also viewed rings around Jupiter as well as a thin atmosphere on Mercury. Both findings were later confirmed by NASA.
"Bull indeed. He described them like this: "Maybe the stripes are like bands of crystals, maybe like rings of Saturn, though not far out like that. Very close within the atmosphere."
As it happens, the rings of Jupiter are very far out from the planet.
His description was nothing but rank generalities and bet hedging. Ice crystals in Jupiter's atmosphere were already predicted to be there, and him describing them as "bands of crystals, maybe like rings of Saturn" is bet-hedging at its worst. He made an educated guess that ice crystals appear in bands, and gave a carefully crafted sentence that could be interpreted as "right" regardless of whether actual rings were found. Rings found? Then pay attention to the "...like rings of Saturn..." part. No rings found? Then pay attention to the "...Very close within the atmosphere..." part. Regardless of which way it goes, try to convince people your meaningless declaration means something after the fact.
Ingo Swann is the worst sort of fraud."
https://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/hvryx/need_help_de...
I am willing to entertain your pov he is no better than a good mentalist. What supporting facts can you provide for this POV?
The CIA is well aware of out-of-body experiences and remote viewing
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R0017002...
The Monroe Institute and early pioneers like Jose Silva normalized the method amongst a small group of “Psychonauts” and self improvement hobbyist that were willing to dive deep enough into the unknown to form their own opinions on the topic. I’m not sure that knowing or experiencing the ability actually improves your life but it is an interesting study if you are willing part ways with a well padded and comfortable reality.
David Grusch (UAP whistleblower) seemed to believe this was a legitimate thing on his recent appearance on Joe Rogan. As interested as I am in the UAP phenomena, I just can't seriously believe this is real.
Do a deep dive into Ingo Swann and form a more informed opinion.
Ingo Swann was a charlatan and fraud. Human credulity is no substitute for science.
Care to present any facts with your opinion? I am neither for or against your statement.
I heard his comments as 'this is a thing the military has studied and taken seriously, and there were real programs with funding towards it' not 'this is a real thing that works'.
So far all of David Grusch's claims are a total nothingburger. All secondhand hearsay with no actual evidence.
I quite like that they were willing to try, even if it was a waste of resources.
Sometimes you just have to do experiments, even if the outcome isn't wholly known.
This is the essence of skepticism: not a knee-jerk, arrogant "NO," but an open-minded "well, let's see."
To a point - some questions aren't worth testing. Questions like "What if I can eat uranium?" or "What happens if I fill my car's gas tank with water" are costly and avoidable.
Using basic reasoning skills instead of credulous consideration of magical powers seems a reasonable threshold for discarding certain research. I don't need to spend billions of dollars trying to figure out how to cut people in half and put them back together like a magician, even if thousands or even billions of people have "witnessed" such an event.
Science doesn't allow for a rational mechanism that would enable psychic powers like telepathy, seeing the future, and remote viewing without augmenting the brain with a technological interface and machines that captured and transmitted the information. There's simply no room for reasonable experimentation around these types of claims, unless it's psychological in nature; things which are known and provable limit any possible mechanism by which psychic powers can operate.
If you wanted to posit some sort of technological mechanism, then you're getting into simulations, aliens, secret government implants, or other theories that lack plausibility as well.
We'll likely have common BCI augmentations within the next century. Networked human brains will exhibit psychic-like abilities and the potential is amazing, but until that happens, claims about such things are fraudulent, deceptive, or deluded.
> Science doesn't allow for a rational mechanism that would enable psychic powers like telepathy
Yet. Keep in mind that everyone thought getting sick was magic until germs were discovered, we used to be completely unaware of electromagnetism, etc. etc.
> If you wanted to posit some sort of technological mechanism, then you're getting into simulations, aliens, secret government implants, or other theories that lack plausibility as well.
This isn't a statement made in good faith, you're pre-poisoning the well with a slippery slope.
There appears to be ample scientific evidence that at least some future events already exist. Check out _Time Loops_ by Eric Wargo for a good summary.
To be fair, you're also 'pre-poisoning the well with a slippery slope' to a degree in your first point. The way I read it you're basically saying there "keep in mind we also thought we knew how things worked ones, maybe we're wrong again". But this to me is a giant straw man, if a common one. We did not have a convincing model of how a lot of the world worked in those times. It's not that we thought that there are no germs. We could not see things as small as germs, and we knew at the time that there are limits to how small a thing we can see. Right now we know that there is a limit to how small a thing can be, and arguably we can detect things at sizes comparable to that. There were no convincing and "complete" models of most of the areas of knowledge. The models we have right now leave a lot of room for "unknown", but only in very specific amounts and in very specific places, not every possible unknown.
So the direct comparison is whether the current state of knowledge leaves as much room for telepathy as the state of knowledge a couple of hundred years ago left for germs, and the answer is a resounding no.
There's no yet involved - there's no room in the current understanding of science that would allow a completely unmeasurable mechanism to interact with the brain such that you could exhibit psychic powers. You'd need to completely discount everything known about how the universe works in order to allow for brains that can do magical things. What you're suggesting is comparable to "what if it's the unfavorable opinions of micro-organisms that cause illness." According to everything we know, you can't just toss out the germ theory of disease. Things are knowable. Sometimes things we know preclude the possibility of other things being true.
Because knowable things preclude the possibility of built-in psychic powers, you need a technological basis, therefore my statement about simulations, aliens, and government implant theories follow - the statement is in perfectly good faith. I genuinely believe science banishes magic and psychic powers to the realm of delusion and bad thinking.
The universe is a big place, and we don't know everything. Scientific thinking has allowed us to start peeling things back, and build on repeatable observations, and develop a framework and structure for understanding how the universe works. It means opinionated germs, psychic powers, the moon being made of cheese, and other things are excluded from things that can be rationally considered to be possible.
Part of scientific thinking is the willingness to entertain any outcome, no matter how impossible or fantastic it might seem, if the evidence supports it. Another part is the willingness to discard incorrect ways of thinking about things - we know what cells can do and how electromagnetism works. There's no unexplained energy consumption or transmissions involved in human biology that would even hint at the possibility these things could be real. There's no evidence to suggest any possible mechanism to achieve magical or psychic powers.
There is a lot of evidence that humans lie and cheat and defraud eachother - and themselves. The presence of evidence discounting the possibility of special powers, in the additional context that humans are really bad at perceiving baseline reality or communicating proper error bounds, means the only rational way to look at claims of psychic phenomena is to discount them and spend time on meaningful things.
Psychic phenomena aren't real; they're a dead end. That's about as close to "proving a negative" as you might be able to get. There is no magic.
[dead]
Richard Dawkins has said that he would be delighted to see evidence of a god.
There’s plenty of evidence. Lots of people have seen gods, angels, demons, fairies, aliens, etc. We convict people of murder on less evidence than that.
I’m not sure how you would reproduce those results, though.
People make a lot of claims. Lots of people once thought the world was flat. Science has little to do with what people say.
I first read about this in the 2007 book, Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind by Elizabeth Mayer. I don't remember what she says about Swann, but the book made a big impression on me at the time, and I bought copies for a couple friends.
https://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Knowing-Science-Skeptic...