From: utzoo!dciem!mmt Newsgroups: net.misc Title: Re: Physics of Dousing - (nf) Article-I.D.: dciem.194 Posted: Sat Feb 26 18:10:46 1983 Received: Sat Feb 26 18:22:10 1983 References: ncsu.1114 Following up my note on subjective vs objective (scientific) probability, I will give an example or two that YOU cannot consider evidence, but that are evidence for ME that something beyond conventional physics is possible. (i) The FIRST time my parents allowed me to gamble was on a Transatlantic liner (I know, that dates me), on the last night before arrival in Britain. There were about 250 people playing Bingo (for money) and I won three of the five games (odds about (250**3)/30 if I got it right, or about 500,000:1). Now perhaps this happened to 2 in a million passengers, but the fact that it happened to ME on my first try impresses me. (ii) As a summer student, I worked in Chalk River, which at that time was a place with not much to do in the evenings. I read Rhine's book on ESP, and as a skeptic, tried calling suits from a deck of cards. Initially, I averaged 18-20 correct per deck (chance = 13). Later in the summer, my average went to chance and then down to 7-8, before recovering to chance. This is just what Rhine said would happen. Again, I was impressed. The most interesting part of that was the sequential statistics, which I kept. The probability of a run of N correct should be 1/4 the probability of N-1. This worked, up to runs of 5 or so, but after that, there was too high a probability of long runs (10-15 in a row correct or more). ALL the excess in the early stages came from long runs. 15 in a row has a probability of 4**-15 starting at any particular card, or about 10**-9. I certainly didn't attempt 10**9 cards, more like 10**4, yet I got several runs of that kind of length, and subjectively, I felt that I was not guessing during them. Once I told one of the other guys what I was doing and he said I just knew (subconsciously) what the backs of the cards looked like. He had a deck in his room, and asked me what was at that moment on top of it. I said "Heart Heart Spade Diamond", without thinking, and it was correct. Then he asked for what followed, and I told him I had no idea, but would guess if he wanted. Of course (!) I was wrong. (iii) I told the foregoing to 3 close friends when I got back to University, and 2 laughed at me, whereas one had had a similar experience. So we did a trial around the coffee table. Each of the 4 tossed a coin 25 times for his right-hand neighbour. The coin was called while in the air, and allowed to fall and roll howsoever it chose. Of the 100 calls, 84 were correct, and 12 or 13 of the errors were my calls. In other words, the other 3 called 71 or 72 correct out of 75. I don't know the numerical odds on that, but they must be pretty large, from a SUBJECTIVE base. >From an OBJECTIVE base, any one of 4*10**9 people could have tried the experiment, so it doesn't count for anyone except the four people involved. There are others, but it seems to me that these inherently unreplicable experiences are evidence to the one who experienced them, and to no-one else. I think there is something there. I don't know what, and certainly don't know how to make it reliable or useful. Accordingly, I act as if it didn't exist, apart from writing articles like this one. Martin Taylor