Today at my sister in law's house I swam some laps, got out of the pool and set down my goggles. Later they were not where I thought I put them. After 20 minutes of searching I could not find them, not even using remote vision, which for me has had a lifetime success rate of 0%. That is much lower than my imperfect success rate at memory recall. So, estimating my time as worth $1 per minute, I ordered another pair on Amazon for $20.
So I guess that I don't meet James's definition of operational consciousness. According to two US polls, 39% to 46% of Americans believe in ghosts and 18% to 27% have personally seen or been in contact with one. I have never seen a ghost and don't believe they exist, but I know of two people close to me that have seen them and I honestly believe that they honestly believe that they did. I have no good explanation other than my own experience with the unreliability of my own memory. Today in Science I read a study on positivity bias, which says that experimental results that report a positive result, like a drug shown to successfully treat a condition, are more likely to be published than a negative results (that it doesn't work). In the study of 107 pre-registered studies, 98% of positive results but only 50% of negative results were published. Without pre-registration, the file drawer effect is much stronger because it's invisible. It is easy to keep repeating the experiment until you get the result you want. The problem is rampant in PSI research. You do 1000 experiments and 50 show a significant effect (P < 0.05). Every PSI researcher then cites those 50 studies and not the 950 that were never published. Meanwhile the gambling industry keeps profiting as predicted by probability theory. The SAIC remote vision results were examined by a believer and a skeptic, who came to opposite conclusions as you would expect. I'm not going to argue who was right. It would be as pointless as arguing about politics or religion. -- Matt Mahoney, [email protected] On Thu, Oct 15, 2026, 11:19 AM James Bowery <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Mon, Oct 12, 2026 at 8:51 AM Matt Mahoney <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> I believe the operational definition of consciousness that James is >> referring to is the mental state of wakefulness, >> > > No. I'm referring to what might be referred to as paranormal perception. > Perhaps I should make clear a few things that bias my position somewhat: > > 1) I worked at SAIC during the era in which this work was being conducted > and rubbed shoulders with some of the folks there most likely involved with > this work while they were doing it. > 2) I worked directly with the Boundary Institute circa 2000-2004 while Ed > May was there, and I did so because of my support of Tom Etter's work that > provided the theoretic basis for the Boundary Institute's investigation of > paranormal perception. > 3) I have personally experience remote viewing, so it is rather like > Jacques Vallee's position regarding "UFOs" -- he is biased having not only > observed one but been present when data relevant data was being destroyed > precisely because it would provide hard evidence. > > Having said all that, the SRI protocol was flawed, which allowed the work > there to be discounted in Nature. However, the SAIC work is another matter. > > Grok4.7 on the SAIC refinement: > > *The SAIC remote-viewing studies (roughly 1992–1994, under Edwin May) > addressed the specific early SRI flaw—chronological cues in transcripts > plus non-randomized/ordered target lists—by redesigning target selection > and judging so that sequence information was no longer available to the > judge.* > > Key changes included: > > - *Proper randomization of targets and judging sets.* Targets were > selected with a tested randomization procedure. For judging, each response > was paired with a set of alternatives (typically the correct target plus > several decoys) in which every alternative had an equal prior chance of > being the actual target. The order of presentation to the judge was > randomized, so knowing the sequence of trials no longer mapped onto the > list. > - *Rank-order judging with a blind judge.* After the session, a judge > who did not know the correct target ranked how well the response matched > each of the alternatives. No one who knew the specific target had access to > the response until after judging was complete. > - *Duplicate target materials.* Separate physical sets of > targets/photographs were used for the experiment itself and for judging, > reducing the chance of physical handling cues. > - *Trial independence.* The earlier practice of sampling targets > without replacement (which created sequential dependencies) was eliminated, > so knowledge of previous trials gave no information about later ones. > > These steps removed the pathway that had allowed a judge in the early > Price/Hammid series to match by chronology alone. In the 1995 American > Institutes for Research review, Ray Hyman noted that the SAIC experiments > were methodologically superior to the earlier SRI work precisely because > they avoided the major flaw of non-independent trials and ensured proper > randomization for both target presentation and judging. > > (Remaining criticisms of the SAIC work focused on other issues, such as > the repeated use of the same judge across experiments, but those are > separate from the original chronological-cue problem.) > > *Artificial General Intelligence List <https://agi.topicbox.com/latest>* > / AGI / see discussions <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi> + > participants <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/members> + > delivery options <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription> > Permalink > <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T2784bbfe524b0b93-M2a0bcc562c0f98e7cb1a5a09> > ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T2784bbfe524b0b93-M849090e7d1f003a4ed472c71 Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
