Scientific Proof of Seeing into the Future?

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dreaming_lucid

Scientific Proof of Seeing into the Future?

Post by dreaming_lucid »

Here's an interesting article that seems to show we have the ability to see into the future. Probably a lot of people here already know this, but the article appears in a scientific magazine, and the researcher is apparently well respected.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... l?DCMP=OTC
shadowx
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Re: Scientific Proof of Seeing into the Future?

Post by shadowx »

I read this a little while back when it came out, i am undecided... It would be interesting if someone else were to repeat it and get similar results though.
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Kitty
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Re: Scientific Proof of Seeing into the Future?

Post by Kitty »

I read that while I was on the train the other day :) A lot of the stuff on there seems a little ... dubious.
My dad was reading it out loud with his version of commentry as well and his way of thinking about it was hilarious - he basically discredited the whole thing - lol.
I believe in intuition and I guess I believe some poeple have the ability but to me this study has a LOT of flaws. I've got quite a scientific mind and in sociology at the moment we're disecting studies so i think to prove it properly they'd need to do a much more conclusive experiment, especially as it's the first experiment of it's kind ... repeat it with the same results and it might make me reconsider I guess
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dreaming_lucid

Re: Scientific Proof of Seeing into the Future?

Post by dreaming_lucid »

I agree, they will have to repeat it. But if it's a flawed experiment, then it doesn't matter how many times it's repeated. So out of curiosity, what do you see as being the flaws?
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Re: Scientific Proof of Seeing into the Future?

Post by Kitty »

Well for one thing it was repeated independantly and without the same result therefore not very reliable
As for the other flaws - it's more the way the article is written where it is vague on the results - you'd think if it worked that well actual results would be posted - I don't think the one online is the whole article - I'll see if I can dig it up, I remember pretty much going through it like :shock: pfft are you actually serious ? lol
Also the erotic image thing - well how many were they shown etc ...
If I knew more about the experiment I might change my mind but the vagueness of the article sways me into being more skeptical
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Re: Scientific Proof of Seeing into the Future?

Post by Traumwandlerin »

Well, this article seems quite normal like every article that about scientific things, it's reduced so everyone understands it. But I think it's a really clever idea to use the reverse-effect of well-studied experiments. But of course you will need to reproduce the effect. 51% is significant in a large group, only 1000 people is not large enough. Also there is not told many things about the background, was it a double-blind-study? Did they use random for the display of the image and words or was it just reversing a well-known-test and the students tested were psychology students (cause they have to volunteer at least one test at university) and they already known the words? So there are possible flaws despite statistical influences.

But despite this, the study seems well thought-through :)
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Re: Scientific Proof of Seeing into the Future?

Post by JuniperBerry »

Traumwandlerin wrote:Well, this article seems quite normal like every article that about scientific things, it's reduced so everyone understands it. But I think it's a really clever idea to use the reverse-effect of well-studied experiments. But of course you will need to reproduce the effect. 51% is significant in a large group, only 1000 people is not large enough. Also there is not told many things about the background, was it a double-blind-study? Did they use random for the display of the image and words or was it just reversing a well-known-test and the students tested were psychology students (cause they have to volunteer at least one test at university) and they already known the words? So there are possible flaws despite statistical influences.

But despite this, the study seems well thought-through :)
Plus it had glaring typos.


I'm less inclined to agree that this proves the future rather than proves that we shape the future. For all we know, the group influenced the randomly generated second typing test rather than guessed it. And so... I guess it really proves nothing. :mrgreen:
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Re: Scientific Proof of Seeing into the Future?

Post by Traumwandlerin »

One thought to add: Predicting the future is mostly more easy than predicting a random experiment. There are so many hints to the future, you can easily extrapolate with what you know. So, if this experiment was a proof for prediction (which is not sure at all), I would think that it makes real precognition highly likely. But as you stated it could also just be a proof that the mind influences random decision, which would be another but equally interesting effect. How could one influence? Could this lead to some telekinesis/telepathy-things? Or was it about changing reality, which would go much further in the magic-direction?

Also, I'm curious about how they chose the randomness. Did they chose before? That's done often, but then it would not be predicting the future. How well known was this random algorithm? Cause I had a PC-Game once, with a real bad algorithm, I actually could influence the outcome intuitively, cause I figured out the variables they used.
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