From: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Subject: Sensible interpretation of the unknown (was: I don't know).
Reply-To: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 14:29:04 GMT

In article <1992Apr8.170554.7595@donner.SanDiego.NCR.COM>,
kraus@.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Dave Kraus) writes:
> You don't know whether psi is bogus. There have been bogus claims about
> psi, but that proves nothing. Don't confuse the two issues.

   Since you don't seem to accept the point I'll say it again.  PEAR is the
very first example of psi-type research I've ever encountered that was not
obviously bogus.  This in fifteen years of voracious reading of all sorts of
material.  Psi is nonsensical by any reasonable measure.  The only way you can
claim it isn't is by special pleading that psi should be judged by a much
weaker standard than other phenomena.  Notice even PEAR called their work
"conciousness related anaomalies" not "psi".

   In particular psi lacks:

   (i) Anything resembling a coherent theory.

   (ii) Any form of application not explainable by other means.

   (iii) A large body of replicable observations.

   (iv) A council that maintains and enforces standards of quality and honesty.

> 
>>> That is what I was doing... pointing out a bogus argument. That's all.
>>
>>   No, your imposing a straw man and then pointing out it is a straw man.
> 
> I understand what you are saying here. Sure, it is easy for me to say,
> "How do you know that no one has used their psychic powers to win a lottery?"
> I didn't supply any proof that a psychic had used psi to win the lottery.
> But, no one has supplied proof that a psychic hasn't used their powers
> to win the lottery either. Just because they can't supply such proof
> doesn't make this fact any less important. 
> Some questions cannot be
> disproven. This is the nature of reality. 

   Since the class of things that cannot be disproven comprises all of reality
plus all of imagination minus a trivial body of knowledge, membership in the
class is totally worthless.

> This is why I have never
> understood the atheistic viewpoint. There is no way an atheist could
> have reached his viewpoint based on any real knowledge. The atheist's
> viewpoint is based on a lack of knowledge (If I can't see it, it
> doesn't exist). The only really correct viewpoint in this case is
> agnostic (I don't know).

   You seem to ignore the best point of view :) 

   Things that are implausible and untestable are worthless.  The second
something becomes testable, it gains worth.  The atheist (I'm not one)
equates the worthlessness of God by my standard with his nonexistence.  
Everyone who beleives in God finds him to have some positive or negative 
worth :-).

   Likewise, until someone finds some way of verifying psi it remains 
worthless.  Any use of psi would be a form of test.  Produce a clear 
test and I will recommend funding and become a believer.  Recall. I'm
deferring a careful examination of the PEAR results until summer when I 
don't teach.

> It is the nature of science to require proof before asserting something
> as a fact. But, we cannot overgeneralize this principle to mean that if
> you can't prove it, then we know it doesn't exist.

   If we don't know if it exists then the sensible default assumption is that
it doesn't exist.  This is because the nature of our perception of reality
is such that almost all new things we imagine do not and can not exist.  The
assumption of nonexistence should be tested whenever resources allow, 
certianly.  The extensive negative results and weak positive results for psi
indicate the current sensible assumption about psi is that it doesn't exist.
Stay tuned, keep an open mind? yes!  Give psi one shred of creedence?  Not 
yet (maybe this summer).  I invite you to hold your breath.

Dan
Danwell@IASTATE.EDU
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic