On Fri, 2 Nov 2007, John Berry wrote: > The level of skepticism in this group even from the moderator makes it very > hard to accept the 2nd rule: > > NO SNEERING. Ridicule, derision, scoffing, and ad-hominem is > banned. "Pathological Skepticism" is banned (see the link > <http://amasci.com/pathsk2.txt>.) The tone > here should be one of legitimate disagreement and respectful debate. > Vortex-L is a big nasty nest of 'true believers' (hopefully having some > tendency to avoid self-deception,) and skeptics may as well leave in > disgust. But if your mind is open and you wish to test "crazy" claims > rather than ridiculing them or explaining them away, hop on board! > > Let's see, Ridicule possibly (saying he is basically incompetent),
Incompetent? Of course he is, and so am I. When measuring, or even estimating high-frequency electrical power, I wouldn't trust myself in a millions years, and I certainly don't trust someone else. THAT'S WHY STAND-ALONE OPERATION IS CRITICAL. Anomaly claims based on high freq power measurements are a prime way of fooling ourselves. It's happened before, repeatedly. That's a piece of FE/OU history which goes way back. Probably you aren't aware of this issue? Of all Ron Stiffler's work, the only thing I take seriously is his videos where his device is contained inside a floating cake pan. "FLOATING," as in "not driven by a signal generator." His success with floating cake pans can win him one of the Free Energy prizes. But unless he can make his other devices stand-alone, then they're probably just another example of errors caused by wrong estimates of high frequency power. For example, if metal objects have about 10pF capacitance to ground, and we're working with 10MHz frequencies, that capacitance can behave as a conductor. Reactance is 1/(2*pi*f*c), or 1600 ohms. If high voltage is involved at all, then 1600 ohms is a short circuit. Read that again. At 10MHz, a small metal object is directly connected to any nearby conductor. But only if a high voltage appears upon that object (so a few thousand ohms can be considered as a dead short.) > scoffing > I think so, ad-hominem for sure (acting like a con-man and 'not a real > Degree'), Pathological Skepticism in spades. Now that's different. Am *I* a scoffer, a Disbeliever? Good question, since the top symptom of disbelievers is not listed in the symptoms. It's self-blindness. People who become scoffers are clueless about it. Therefore it's essential that we listen to outside criticism. So, in what way have I become a scoffer? I need details. Without details it's just namecalling. > And as for "big nasty nest of 'true believers" that now makes me laugh. Yeah, it was meant to. (Or perhaps you meant that it makes you sneer? sneering laughter?) I wrote the above "true believers" line, and it refers to the way a scoffer should view the Vortex-L community. We want to do taboo science, and if groups of hostile debunkers start calling us Woo Woos and Crackpots, then we must be doing something right. But I didn't think to add the following: those who honestly want to know the truth will become the enemies of everyone threatened by the truth, and that includes everyone who's chosen up sides in the fight. So we'll also be attacked by genuine crackpots and Believers. Anyone who wants to find out what's actually happening, is placing themselves between warring camps who are certain in their beliefs or their disbeliefs. If the Believers hate us and call us skeptics, and the Disbelievers hate us and call us Crackpots, then we're right where we should be. I've changed my philosophy since writing the original vortex rules. I wrote them when I was trying to swing my pendulum far from the sneering skeptics who are certain that "weird science" is worthless if not an outright danger. I wrote them them before encountering con artists, weasely dishonest inventors, and the honestly self-deluded. My pendulum needs to stay in the center. Form a big nasty nest of fence-sitters who refuse to join the ranks of the warring sides in the Scoffer/Believer fight. > And clearly no ability to avoid self deception (but in the opposite > direction meant above) That's a fairly serious charge. I require some details about what you mean, otherwise it's just namecalling. > "But if your mind is open and you wish to test "crazy" claims rather than > ridiculing them or explaining them away, hop on board!" > > The best saved for last! > I see plenty of explaining away no testing. Don't confuse "explaining" with "explaining away," since they are opposites. If someone comes here claiming to have discovered an odd phenomenon such as high voltage from a transformer which has the wrong turns ratio, then it's our responsibility to point out their error. To recognize genuine anomalies, first you have to be very experienced in the odd-but- conventional. Transformer stepup ratios become huge at resonance, and all transformers have resonant frequencies. It's well known, called "resonant rise," and it's the central feature of Tesla coils. Are you saying that Ron's earlier discovery of Resonant Rise in ferrite rod transformers is an amazing anomaly, and we should all start building Tesla coils in order to study it? Probably not. So don't you consider the high voltage as now being "explained?" And what about Ron's discovery that a single wire can serve as a power transmission line. That's well known too: Tesla was running motors in 1892 with single wires. And every time a white-hot discharge comes out of a Tesla coil, it's powered by a single wire. So ,is that part of Ron's discovery an anomaly, or is it "explained?" > (getting close to giving it a > shot though I am preparing for an experiment of my own) Definitely try it. This whole topic is extremely weird. Even the well known parts are stunningly bizarre, as millions of Tesla Coil hobbyists will tell you. > > I think that the problems are of a psychological nature, it's protection > against pain. As a world reknown armchair psychologist I say: certainly! (Notice my earlier message about crushing disappointments and heading them off.) I look at the SMOT history. And the "Gravity Capacitor" history. And the Yusmar (remember the Yusmar?) I see some interesting experiments, but I also see some inventors who were almost certainly lying to themselves, and also who were very probably lying to the Vortex-L community in order to convince people here to experiment with those devices. > experience the pain of a failed energy revolution. Yep. Or the pain of being taken in by dishonest people who tell lies in order to get us to perform experiments. Or the pain of wasting huge amounts of time in testing the claims of people who haven't taken even the simplest precautions against fooling themselves. Me, I'm a staunch Feynman-ian: Science is two things: doing everything possible to avoid fooling ourselves. And also admitting that we're fallible humans, and we ourselves are the easiest people in the world to fool. As I said here earlier, to avoid self delusion we have to be brutally self-critical... and then also we have to expose all of our work and our thought process in public, so others can criticize and find the flaws we hadn't already considered. (((((((((((((((((( ( ( ( ( (O) ) ) ) ) ))))))))))))))))))) William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website billb at amasci com http://amasci.com EE/programmer/sci-exhibits amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair Seattle, WA 425-222-5066 unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci
