truth and alleged psychics
just watched a free TV episode from iTunes, America's Psychic Challenge (iTunes link here). as a logical guy who's open to accept, with adequate evidence, that there are psychic senses, and that some people are better in that area than others, i'm regularly pissed off at the way the chickenshit fuckfaces alleging such ability "demonstrate" it. in that regard, America's Psychic Challenge is among the worst, though they apparently weren't trying too hard to do anything but get viewers. despite pretense to the contrary, they were not testing and ranking participants objectively.you're probably familiar with the silly hedging and selective tossing of outright misses in most cases where a "psychic" does his thing. from my observation there's little to no psychic ability in "psychics", but plenty of willingness to move ahead on subtle indications (usually with some natural talent) whenever in their preferred element, which is listening to and watching the body language of a subject reacting to their guesses.
supposedly the first "test" of the psychics in the show was to take them into an abandoned hospital and have them pick the room where a man was waiting behind the door. the challenge was fucked immediately by having the host and camera crew(s), who knew the location of the man, not only follow each "psychic" around during the turns, but speak with her. richard feynman wrote about a guy who would have some local celebrity hide an object anywhere, and then he'd take that person by the hand and go to the location. the guy explained that you continually jiggle the person's hand imperceptibly, and that person, who — skeptical or not — normally wants you to succeed, will give subtle, unconscious pressure in the direction of the item. while this may require extraordinary ability which can easily be hyped off as psychic, it's likely entirely non-psychic.
feynman would experiment with similar demonstrations, asking his wife to go into a room without him and handle only one bottle of a collection, after which he'd determine through temperature and smell which one it had been. same with books, which he said have a different smell or something when recently opened. if you're familiar with him, you know there are piles more stories where those came from.
the point is that purely physical observations of sites and human subjects can account for much of which most normal people are unaware. any test of an alleged psychic should attempt to eliminate all non-psychic clues. that obviously includes the ability to observe body language of those who are, probably involuntarily and unconsciously, reacting to contestants trying to demonstrate powers which supposedly need no such input. were i administering a similar test objective, i would go much farther than simply getting rid of the camera crews and host. i would require that remote cameras not be controllable in any way during the challenge, and that each room have the same camera coverage, with all cameras powered up during the test. i would require all participants to shower immediately before with unscented soap, then wear clothing provided by me, laundered without scents. i would mop the floors and ventilate the building between each attempt. that's just the start, and that assumes it's even acceptable to use the building at all. no such controls were mentioned by the host, and there was so much editing and baloney going on that it took a failed test and made it a mockery.
not going to evaluate each thing, but throughout the show is the usual selectivity and bias whenever the participants want the result to favor the theory that people have psychic powers. the subjective scoring of one subject interviewed by each "psychic" was baffling, with a 23 out of 25 points offered to people who, even with unknown editing, screwed roughly half of the vague assertions (rough quote: "i'm getting something about an overcharge related to a car." OMFG!). all along, of course, is the usual stabbing stream of bullshit from the contestants, hedging their way with a crummy mix of vague nothingness and fearful "i'm confident i have no goddamned idea except i'm getting strong energy" bleh.
they take the contestants to a home, have them meet the family living there, and tell at least one, outside on the lawn, "this is also a crime scene, and i can tell you that something traumatic has happened to this family."
you get the picture. the "winning" psychic was exceptional, not for demonstrated ability to divine past events and communicate with the dead, but to manipulate the family and judge with obvious emotional pulls about how the victim's doing over there in death land, and what he wants them to know. give me a break. amid the traditional flow of crap, she says that a photo of the victim is kept in a wallet, blah blah blah. oh. d'ya think? fuck you.
before the contestants arrived, the family removed shrine material from out in the yard. this can leave physical traces not difficult for anyone to pick up if concentrating on being open to subtlety. the "remarkable" insight of the guessers was shit like (not a precise quote) "i'm seeing something sharp. a knife. punctures. possibly a gun", or "she called him 'Baby'."
OMFG, i did call my son "baby". WTF!
while trying to empathize with the family, victims of an apparently anonymous murder, i was laughing out loud at the shameless guesser, so disgusted with her tripe and this terrible show.
there were direct hits (e.g, happened by the tree, drive-by), but usually with so much dreck that it means nothing more than chance, far as any observer can know. as with everything, the hits are scored highly and the misses minimized. i think, given the edited version shown, i could have come in at least second place at the crime scene, and tied for first if i'd been disgusting enough to claim to speak with the dead. fuck it, y'know? if you're willing to commit to alleging that a family member'd been killed, you go with it confidently and the sky's the limit. what do you have to lose? they loved her and asked for a private "reading" afterward. lot o' money in death and grief, kinda like PT barnum said.
of course insipid nonsense like this show isn't proof that there is not such a thing as psychic ability. i had one experience in my early 30s that still freaks me out, with no explanation for it. was too specific to be easily written off as chance, and i can't think of any outside influence that would've driven such detail. as much as i remain open to believing all of these "psychics" are full of it, i remain open to the existence of something "psychic", and the possibility that it happened to me at least once. may have been chance though. i have no clue about it, but i know this show sucks.
Labels: government dumb, truth
posted by saltypig @ 22:03
Again, I think you'd enjoy a related South Park episode, from season 6 episode 15 it's called "The Biggest Douche In The Universe" and the plotline of this episode involves some popular psychic duping people and Stan figures out how he does it and tries to explain to people it's all a trick and instead is awarded his own psychic TV show and fandom. LOL. Excellent episode and the ending is the most hilariously absurd part.
hell, you keep talking about it and i might come close to ending my iTunes boycott because of their shitty customer "service".
nah.
shame though, because i could jam on some south park. it's just one of those things that i'm afraid to get into. if i become a fan of the series, i'll buy them. then i'll be the biggest douche in the universe. same with The Sopranos. i'd love that show and i stay the hell away from it. too much of a project.
Do you think there is something wrong with downloading television shows off bittorrent sites? Or do you just not have a fast connection?
I download all my favorite television show episodes off of bittorrent sites like Mininova.org.
fuck. my reply just got zapped because my WiFi switched to a bogus source with a secure redirect.
no problem seeing stuff for free, but i prefer to pay later if i like it. never done torrent. looked like too much hassle when i looked into years ago. the problem here is more that if i started watching South Park, i'd probably not stop, and it would take a shitload of money.
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