What is Digg?123 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+63I am right at guessing everytime someone calls.
/married - zkarcher, on 10/12/2007, -3/+39I look forward to similar trials conducted by other parties, which will debunk this study ;)
- jasgeo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+36"-- now a scientist says he has proof of what he calls telephone telepathy."
I can't help but think maybe the word "scientist" should be in quotes with regard to this guy. - graystar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+30This happens sometimes with my g/f. However I just put it down to the fact that when you get to know someone really well, you just get to know their patterns, and subconsciously are prepared for the call. Given enough chances it is bound to happen enough times to give the perception it is "spooky".
I wouldn't call it spooky that we wake up at the virtually same time each day, we just have gotten used to this pattern together, the same way people when walking generally step in sync. - chris9902, on 10/12/2007, -3/+25you get a +digg for being whipped. ;)
- zediker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22Right, and all those times you think of someone and they dont call are just erronous data?
How about this. Who are the people most likely to call... Your relatives or friends. Who is most likely to call you out of those: your spouse, parents, or friends. Who is it out of those most likely to call that you would think about the most often, umm... Your spouce, parents, or your friends.
Has everyone on this planet gone stupid or something? Can nobody tell when something is just more likely to happen?
*holds head in the amazement of world stupidity* - chris9902, on 10/12/2007, -5/+21co·in·ci·dence
1. A sequence of events that although accidental seems to have been planned or arranged. - ScionX, on 10/12/2007, -7/+22I call *****.
- reevolutn, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18whatever, i think they call it espn or something
- saralk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11I guess its to do with the way you only pick up on weird things.
For example, if you think of someone and they don't call, you wont think anything of it and soon forget it, however if they do call, you find it weird, and make a mental note of it. So then when you look back, you only remember the times it did happen, not the times it didn't. - sbrickner, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13"Scientist" goes in quotes because he's *not* using the same methods/tools. His methodology was completely stupid. If you give me four names of friends and I contact one randomly and get them to call you back, the person I call has to (a) answer, and (b) be willing to call you for me. Depending on the time of day, you can probably adjust your expectations as to who fits those additional parameters to discount at least one of them ("Mike never answers his cell phone unless he knows the caller", "Joe's out of town this week"), and reduce another one a bit ("Sally usually goes out running during the afternoon"). Going from 25% to 45% doesn't require ESP - it just means you know your friends' behavior.
- tutivlahos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Paypal?
- priegog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Can you transfer them to my Caymans Islands' bank account?
- Agret, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Because he's put a keylogger on your computer or he's watching through some VNC style app
- priegog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I prefer Google's micro-payments, thank you very much.
They wouldn't surrender my info the the gov. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Name. Mr. Farkhoff Nijeriyan Pissof Syit
Bank Accnt Number: 6473483-434-3432 - Barclays
Let me know how we can complete this deal. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Can you forward it to my account in Nigeria, I have another 20 million there waiting for me as well.
- reevolutn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8yea i also get the feeling of my cellphone vibrating in my pocket
- Elitie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8zediker's got it right.
- arcrox, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7This guy is wasting his time. I don't know why people can't get over the synchronicity and coincidences that occur in every day life. It's like the guy who's like "dude, every time I look at the clock, it's like 11:11, or 10:10, or 2:02". What about every other time he looks at the clock? What about every time his mom calls him when he's jacking off (and I hope not thinking about her)? Goddamn selective memories.
- nocountries, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7people that call you tend to be people you know.
You tend to think about people you know.
The people that call you the most tend to be the people you know the best.
The people you think about tend to be people you knw the best.
Sometimes, you're going to be thinking about a person when they call you.
Rocket science, it ain't. - zediker, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13too bad there is no such thing as a random number generator. Any results they see from those are due to the innate pattern that lies within the machine, not due to outside influence through psychic phenomina.
- int19h, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Conclusion: Mental telepathy.
- or -
Conclusion: The person knows the habits of those calling
- or -
Conclusion: Divine intervention
- or -
Conclusion: To little statistical data
- or -
... the list goes on and on. How exactly did you reach "Mental telepathy"? - GnuTzu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Drivel!
It's hard to believe that there is any real science behind this. Alternative explanations abound.
But, this article doesn't present anything solid--even if it might happen to exist in the original work. It's just a bunch of pithy nonsense. - bitcloud, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6We shouldn't really be debating the semantics of the word "random". Your original post was intended to illustrate that computers are not real random number generators because they are always reacting to a source. This "causality" is lost on the quantum scale.
It is also one of the basic principles of quantum physics that things are inextricably linked - specifically consciousness. A random "cult nutcase" named Stephen Hawking recently came out with several theories putting consciousness at the core of the existential debate. The link between consciousness and physicality is a well documented and well speculated amongst theoretical physicists, and experiments have provided some evidence to support these ideas. It's very easy to dismiss this sort of research as "psychic" nonsense, but you'd really be missing the point, and laughing in the face of a very solid theory of physics - ie quantum physics - bitcloud, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7If you fire an electron through a double slit, where does it land?
Demonstrate this with causality.
Furthermore, how does your observation of this experiment affect the outcome? Explain Particle/Wave Duality with causality?
Set up a random number generator based upon the random location of a fired electron (which differs depending upon the state of its wave/particle - collapsed or not) and you have a true random number generator.
You are, however, right - a quantum physicist would argue that it isn't random at all, but is determined by the observer. Believe me, you're not the first to try and ridicule quantum physics - carpespasm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6what's odd is how often (at least once a week it seems) i'll try to call my girlfriend at some time in the day, and get a busy signal because she was trying to call me at the same time.
- dawtcalm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Are "scientists" allowed at a place called "Trinity College"... Kinda lame, they could have made it a bigger group of people that *may* call, which would have messed up his stats.
- AnteChronos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"too bad there is no such thing as a random number generator."
Actually, there is such a thing. It works by sampling radioactive decay, and using that data to generate random numbers. Of course, this assumes that radioactive decay can't be deterministically modeled, but I'd say that is probably a fairly safe assumption. - mpitt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5This is shoddy reporting. they forgot to mention that the phone used was a cell phone set to ring differently for each individual.
- fraggle35, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I keep thinking about that fit bird of lost, she hasn't rang yet.
- barry253, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@ajck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke - rsvguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The sample size in this experiment was so small as to be statistically insignificant. For this to have any credibility at all, it has to be double blind and have far more participants.
At this point, I don't think you can read anything into these results. - taboam, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8This is so stupid its just a similar effect to dejavu people don't realize how little information they take in and how much of it is subconscious interpretation.
- carpespasm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4i've already received payment, so i'm not too interested, but there is this prince in nigeria that would probably take you up on that offer...
- inmatarian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Throw a bunch of darts at a dartboard, one at a time. Don't count the misses, only count the bullseyes. You'll feel like the best player in the world. Likewise, think about a person all the time. Get a single phone call from that person and you'll feel like it was telepathy.
This particular scientist only revealed something about human psychology, not about underlying physics. - Kickersny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3While I laughed at your comment, the researcher is right (depending on where you live). In Europe, a "billion" is defined as a million, million (in the US it is a thousand million). So European billion is equal to US trillion.
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Abillion - Eoxx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+51. not so many people to make their statistics
"just 63 people for the controlled telephone experiment and 50 for the email -"
2. What is the error rate of their statistics ?
"The hit rate was 45 percent, well above the 25 percent you would have expected,"
45% with "x % of error" could be not far from "expected as coincidence"
With no error rate I'm not sure we'll know the accuracy of the statistic ... - bitcloud, on 10/12/2007, -7/+10Tell a quantum physicist theres no such thing as a random number generator...
zed - statistically faster than a separate person. Ie average solving time for initial group - 5 minutes, average solving time for secondary group - 3 minutes. The point being that there is evidence indicating that it is a valid avenue of research (which it has demonstrated it is) - flowctrl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Junk science. -digg
- lauridsd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Wow...there are so many things wrong with this "study".
1. The sample size is WAY too small to be of any use whatsoever.
2. As previously noted, the setup is fundamentally flawed. The reduction to a 1:4 guessing game issue is bad enough, but consider the matter of participation. We are not told whether all four of the participant's designated callers are contacted and agree to participate should they be selected. Is there a percentage of designated callers who are not available or willing to make the call at a given time, etc? If so, it is extremely likely that the subject can easily (and without realizing it,) skew the results based solely on their personal knowledge of who (out of the four names they gave) is both *readily available* and *likely* to call them during the test period. The four people selected by the subject might be wildly different in terms of contact frequency, etc.
3. The study does not take into account, measure, or control for all the instances in normal life where a.) a call from an "unexpected/unthought-about" caller is received, b.) the times when someone actively thought about by the participant does *not* call. These situations occur far more often in reality, but they are not considered simply because we do not bother to remembering them. The only reason we tend to be so amazed/intrigued by those times where we are thinking of someone and and they happen to call, is because it *seems* so unlikely. When these other examples are factored in, there would *have* to be a certain percentage of calls that are made by people whom the receiver happens to be thinking about at the time. And while it is probably very small, I would bet that statistical percentage fits perfectly with the phenomena.
The perfect study (presently impossible, ) would be to passively record multiple (seven or eight hundred) random subject's thoughts during all 24 hours of the day for, say, a month, and simultaneously record caller info for all normally occurring incoming calls. Then any relationship between conscious thought about a given subject / caller and related incoming calls could be recorded. Given our current inability to read minds in this manner (thankfully,) we cannot possibly make an objective scientific observation about this phenomena. - keesj, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5It's all in the mind.
- TheBritishGuy1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3She hasn't?! She's called me twice now.
- numptydumpty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2ESPN?
- Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yep, this is probably why. Think of the countless times this coincidence hasn't happened. Same thing with Murphy's Law and e.g. sandwiches that fall with the buttered side down. They even proved this particular one in MythBusters and showed there was approximately a 50/50 chance of which side would be down after a large number of drops to make it statistically reliable.
- flintoid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm not scared of the conclusion, I'm offended that the conclusion claims to be a scientifically verified one when it isn't logically inferred from the actual observation the researcher made, or at LEAST a rational inference from other observations that have been made.
- GnuTzu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence"
Thanks for the reminder. I should have had this one memorized by now. - phronko, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3If that was how the study worked, then yes, it would be flawed methodology. Good thing it's not. Try reading it.
- bitcloud, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4which brings us back to the original point.
These experiments help provide that evidence, and should be continued in order to help validate or disprove these hypothesis. - zediker, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8"puzzles being solved considerably faster by individuals after other people they know have independently solved them"
Well, first off, the person doing the puzzle has to be baselined, to find out how fast they do a puzzle, otherwise you cant say they did it 'faster'. And if I recall, it usualy is easier to solve a puzzle once you have solved it before. Same goes for similar puzzles. There is no psychic phenomina here, its just standard human learning... -
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