[FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

[Prof David West]

Psi is vastly more extensive (types) and complicated than Daryl seems to recognize. Based on the abstract, his experimental method precludes the possibility of obtaining any but negative results. I would attempt to explain why, but I doubt anyone on the list is interested.

davew


On Sun, May 10, 2020, at 4:18 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> Here is an abstract by Daryl Bem (I thought there was only one 'r'):
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> Abstract

> The term psi denotes anomalous processes of information or energy transfer that are currently unexplained in terms of known physical or biological mechanisms. Two variants of psi are* precognition* (conscious cognitive awareness) and premonition (affective apprehension) of a future event that could not otherwise be anticipated through any known inferential process. Precognition and *premonition* are themselves special cases of a more general phenomenon: the anomalous retroactive influence of some future event on an individual's current responses, whether those responses are conscious or nonconscious, cognitive or affective. This article reports 9 experiments, involving more than 1,000 participants, that test for retroactive influence by “time-reversing” well-established psychological effects so that the individual's responses are obtained before the putatively causal stimulus events occur. Data are presented for 4 time-reversed effects: precognitive approach to erotic stimuli and precognitive avoidance of negative stimuli; retroactive priming; retroactive habituation; and retroactive facilitation of recall. The mean effect size (d) in psi performance across all 9 experiments was 0.22, and all but one of the experiments yielded statistically significant results. The individual-difference variable of stimulus seeking, a component of extraversion, was significantly correlated with psi performance in 5 of the experiments, with participants who scored above the midpoint on a scale of stimulus seeking achieving a mean effect size of 0.43. Skepticism about psi, issues of replication, and theories of psi are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

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> On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 3:50 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Eric Charles,
>> 
>> As you read this recall that I have an MS in psychology so you can think of me as a disenchanted former psychologist.
>> 
>> You hint at something I have wondered about. Psychologists seem to have physics envy. They want to make wonderful counter-intuitive discoveries like the photon slit experiment, etc that seem incredible. But some (not I) claim that their findings are either obvious or incapable of replication. I took classes from Darryl Bem who could fascinate undergraduates with his self-perception ideas. He was also an amateur magician who was in his element when he was performing before an auditorium full of amazed people. Admittedly he explained how he did his illusions. He must have been expelled from the magicians union.
>> 
>> Frank
>> 
>> ---
>> Frank C. Wimberly
>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>> 
>> 505 670-9918
>> Santa Fe, NM
>> 
>> On Sun, May 10, 2020, 2:35 PM Eric Charles <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Frank,
>>> So far as I can tell, no one is denying thought. I'm certainly not. There are phenomenon at play, and one of the things that happens when you science a phenomenon is that you end up with descriptions of the phenomenon (and explanations for the phenomenon) that don't match mundane intuitions about things,. We should expect that the science of psychology defines its subject matter different from mundane intuitions in the same way that the science of physics and the science of biology did for their respective subject matters: Sometimes those definitions end up pretty close to the mundane intuitions of a given era, other times you end up with definitions that are radically different. 
>>> 
>>> In these contexts, I like to remind people how mindbogglingly unintuitive Newtonian momentum is. When was the last time you moved an object and it didn't come to rest? Aristotle's system is much more intuitive. 
>>> 
>>> -----------
>>> Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
>>> Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist
>>> American University - Adjunct Instructor
>>> 
 <mailto:echarles at american.edu>
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 10:46 AM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> As I said to Nick approximately a dozen years ago, people who deny thought must not have it. I don't mean that as an insult. It's that for me thought is the one thing I can't deny because it's the first *experience*
>>>> At that point Nick dismisses me as a Cartesian.
>>>> 
>>>> ---
>>>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
>>>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>>> 
>>>> 505 670-9918
>>>> Santa Fe, NM
>>>> 
>>>> On Sun, May 10, 2020, 8:34 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Ha! Well, by ignoring the poignant example, you've ignored my entire point. And it's that point by which I can't agree with the unmoored distinction you're making. The celery example isn't about being alive. Sorry for injecting that into it. The celery example is about *scale*. Celery's movement *is* movement. An antenna's behavior *is* its movement. I introduced antennas' behavior in order to help demonstrate that behavior is orthogonal to life.
>>>>> 
>>>>>  Now, the distinction you're making by saying that behavior is a proper subset of movement, would be fine *if* you identify some movement that is *not* behavior. I didn't see that in the Old Dead Guy text you quoted ... maybe I missed it? Anyway, that's the important category and celery and antennas fit right in. 
>>>>> 
>>>>>  But the behavior/movement discussion (including observer-ascribed intention) is a bit of a distraction. What we're actually talking about is *hidden* states (a.k.a. "thinking", maybe extrapolated to "consciousness"). So, the examples of light-following or higher order objective targeting is like trying to run before you can walk. Why do that? Why not talk about, say, the hidden states of an antenna? If we could characterize purely *passive* behavior/movement, we might be able to characterize *reactive* movement. And if we do that, then we can talk about the complicatedness (or complexity) of more general *transformations* from input to output. And then we might be able to talk about I⇔O maps whose internal state can (or can't) be estimated solely from their I&O.
>>>>> 
>>>>>  We don't need all this philosophical rigmarole to talk about the complexity of I⇔O maps. 
>>>>> 
>>>>>  On 5/9/20 6:17 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
>>>>>  > Ok, so it sounds like we agree there is a distinction can be made between behavior and "mere movement". So what is that difference? I would argue, following E. B. Holt, that it is the presence of intentionality. Note crucially that the directedness of the behavior described below is descriptive, /not /explanatory. The intention is not a force behind the behavior, it is a property of the behavior-to-circumstance mapping that can be demonstrated by varying conditions appropriately. 
>>>>>  > [...]
>>>>>  > P.S. I'm going to try to ignore the celery challenge, because while we recognize plants as living, we do not typically talk about them as behaving. And I think the broad issue of living vs. not-living is a different issue. We probably should talk about plants behaving a bit more than we normally do, but I think it is worth getting a handle on what we mean in the more normal seeming cases before we try to look for implications like those. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>  -- 
>>>>>  ☣ uǝlƃ
>>>>> 
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> 
> -- 
> Frank Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz
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