DailyDirt: Mind And Body Interactions
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The mind works in mysterious ways. There are all sorts of studies that try to connect how the mind can affect its surroundings. Bending spoons probably won’t fool too many people these days, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions about placebos and other “mind-controlled” effects. Perhaps the fundamental problem is that people in general are just inherently bad at statistics and interpreting data and correlations. Whatever the case may be, here are some quick links about mind-over-matter topics.
Stress might be able to affect your genes. So far, just yeast cells have been shown to have genes changed by stress. Maybe larger organisms’ genes are affected by stress, too? [url] In a 1997 survey, 18 million Americans reported having a near death experience (NDE)… and neurologists are studying the states of consciousness that can “blend” during an NDE. They might figure out how Inception really works while they’re at it. [url] Conquer your fears and self-doubts with acceptance. Easier said than done! [url] Does ESP exist for predicting sexy pictures? Statistics don’t lie… err, yes they do all the time. Guessing something right 53% of the time doesn’t sound like ESP. [url]
Filed Under: genes, mind, statistics, stress
Comments on “DailyDirt: Mind And Body Interactions”
Tests
“Each test attempted to prove the existence of extrasensory perception (ESP)”
Well there’s your problem. Tests aren’t supposed to ‘attempt to prove things’ they are supposed to generate impartial repeatable data. Then you are supposed to twist that data to mean whatever the hell you wanted to prove in the first place.
Damn kids letting their tests run loose again and look what it leads to. Sex. Always with the sex, these kids.
Re: Tests
This is also probably a case of poor peer review… I’d guess that this ESP paper is more about how “random number generators” are not really random than ESP.
Re: Re: Tests
I’d guess that this ESP paper is more about how “random number generators” are not really random than ESP.
I’d tend to agree that this was bad peer review and failure to understand processes at work within their test.
Any computer scientist could have told them that random number generators aren’t random…as they are usually based on highly non-random efforts to generate random numbers. Even PRNG/GRD and the other random seeding efforts rely on activity on the system processor/network/etc, which is not necessarily random. Only random generators that rely on truly random processes (decay of atom, cosmic radiation, etc.) can be completely random. Hence, most of these systems are called “pseudo-random number generator.”
Re: Tests
Here’s the headshot on that research, if you want to call it research:
“This was stated to be statistically significant at p = .01. However, that significance level is simply incorrect. This kind of error (Type I) increases with the number of t-tests conducted, and given that there were at least seven such t-tests, then with a criterion of p ≤ .01, the actual probability associated with each of these t-tests is 1 ?(.99)7 = .06, one-tailed. Thus, none of these t-tests was actually statistically significant, not even at a more generous .05 level.”
From http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/back_from_the_future
Hey, that’s 1% better than Smooth Jimmy Apollo!
Rare individuals.
one of my credos is to remove denial in my thought process. I speak from years of personal experience that the old adage fear of the unknown is a self-delusion. As for my self-doubt? I play online poker for a living.
My tip for life is go strait to acceptance. We do NOT live in a Black & White word. Your going to live in Orwellian times if you constantly re-enforce Thesis+Antithesis = symmetry(or believing both are true). Take a REAL look at history and you’ll find the funding & political pressure originate from the same source to every world event. To what purpose? More power at the top. It doesn’t take reading David Icke to figure this out, though its probably the best read if you can open your mind for 2 seconds. Happy trails.