Saturday 17 March 2007

Paranormal Night Activity

You all may or may not know, but this girl has got two diplomas. I first have my bachelor in nursing with speciality in neuronursing and second I'm a master in psychology with speciality in theoretical and experimental psychology. In short, I'm trained to be a researcher of the human psyche, trying to make a empirical statistic out of it. Quite a Don Quichote kind of work, so I like the nursing better ... for the time being.
As I was cleaning up my disaster bedroom, throwing away old papers and writings, I ran into two tiny pieces of paper. They are no more than two tiny notebook sheets full of scribblings. At first, I didn't recognize them, but suddenly the paranormal light came back to me again ! While being at university, I attended a presentation of an English professor from a research unit on paranormal activity. Now don't get me wrong, they only try to find proof of para activity, trying to unravel the phonies and the cheaters. So far, no proof of paranormal activity has ever been found in a statistical correct performed empirical experiment. This is what I wrote down, it took me a while to decipher it, it looked almost like a inhuman writing, maybe from an alien ... The Significant Anomalous Experience
  1. Striking coincidence
  2. Misunderstood event
  3. Fraudulent event
  4. Vivid hallucinations / Transpersonal Experience
  5. Truly unexplained by hidden or new causes (is possible)

But NOT EVER : unexplainable events

organism <=> target in environment
receiver <=> source

barieres

barieres can be skirted in advance

problems in comparing records (bias)

problems in interference from similarity

problems in measurement and storage of data

Observer bias information system => information can be :

  1. concealed
  2. inaccurate
  3. mispercieved
  4. misinterpreted
  5. misremembered

attention is diverted !

Strategies of parapsychics :

  1. spontaneous case collection, proof oriented vs process oriented
  2. field investigations = descriptive experiment
  3. controlled experimentation :
  • restricted choice of investigation (boring)
  • free response (stimulating)
  • somatic (physical)
  • discrete outcome (statistics like rolling dice)
  • stable system (influence inside system)
  • static object

Now, did you get it ? Are there any psychologists in the ether ? Anyone ?

I did write down an email address from the professor in Edinburgh ... maybe they have shortage of staff ... Shall I write him ?

Bad thing is ... I still believe in fairies and witches ...

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