Cognitive Dissidents discussion

I started this thread in my recent Robopaths postings but I've decided that it deserves a category-unto-itself. Today I participated in day one of Richard Wiseman's Twitter Remote Viewing experiment. He went to a certain place at a certain time & then asked thousands of people to tweet their psychic impressions of the place.

I awoke this morning w/ a fairly strong place image in my mind (wch is unusual for me) so I tweeted that description instead of any impression I had at the particular time (since I didn't have any).

Here're my Remote Viewing tweets:

"Plastic construction barrels w/ ridges & stripes. Hole in street. Noise. Intersection w/ more than 2 streets crossing. Buildings"

"The buildings are somewhat ornate & 3 stories or more tall. The intersection may be a roundabout or something similar to one."

"Wiseman is watching from a place to his right of what I've just described - perhaps a sidewalk."

Wiseman then had people vote on wch of 5 fotos represented what people imagined. I picked photo C b/c it was of a roundabout w/ a hole in the middle. Interestingly, it was of a type of roundabout that I don't recall ever having seen before. This was an incorrect choice. The CORRECT choice was photo D - of a bldg larger than 3 stories. To see these fotos go to: http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2...

& then here's what I commented on Wiseman's blog:

"June 2, 2009 at 8:20 pm

Psychic_Weed Says:

Interestingly, my tweets describing the imagined place mentioned a hole in a roundabout surrounded by buildings taller than 3 stories. Picture C is of a hole in a roundabout AND PICTURE D (the correct one) is of a building taller than 3 stories. I voted for picture C & was, therefore, wrong – HOWEVER, my tweet description cd be considered more correct if one considers the possibility that I was Remote Viewing the PICTURES rather than the locations. I believe there may be some precedent for this type of thing in psychic research."

Now, strictly speaking, I wdn't call the bldg in D "ornate" (as I described in my tweet) - it's more modern in a BauHaus-ie sortof way. & I don't see any "plastic construction barrels" either. Nonetheless, I find this very interesting in a way that seems beyond coincidence. I'll participate again tomorrow. I don't really expect similar results but I hope I wake up w/ a strong place image in mind.

Ultimately, I seem to be working toward the point that technical networks are TURNING INTO PSYCHIC ONES precisely b/c of the massive biomorphic twistiness of them. I realize that that's quite a claim but it's becoming clearer & clearer to me that this is a possibility.

Today was the last day of Wiseman's Twitter Remote Viewing experiment. I failed to correctly pick a single picture in my 3 tries (I missed the test & day 2 of the 4 days). Still, I had an interesting time.

Today's comment on Wiseman's blog:

"Wrong again! Nonetheless, THANKS VERY MUCH RICHARD WISEMAN FOR CONDUCTING THIS EXPERIMENT! I've found it very, VERY interesting. As w/ so many things, I think Remote Viewing is completely possible - HOWEVER, I don't think I'm likely to experience it w/o being in a very particular state of mind &/OR w/o having a particular perceptual key. This experiment helped me work toward the latter. At least this experience gave me impetus to think about such factors as how yr framing of the fotos effects me - I'm a film & video maker so yr (the photographer's) sense of composition was a potential biasing element, etc.."

This is particularly interesting in light of the recent discussion. The biasing of images in order to produce a particular effect is a primary function of propaganda in our society. This effect is, I think, more subtle than we usually consider. It may just be to make us have sympathy for someone or some idea. It may be to just create the category or reinforce a stereotype so that this idea/notion will be strongly supported in our fundamental psychology. That way, when action is needed (or mass passivity) it can occur. In this way, we are all "primed" by this type of bias in our perceptions. Then, given the deluge of images and information we receive, we are just walking jumbles of conflicting feelings. This type of person is ripe to sell an identity to because they feel themselves in some kind of undefined crisis.

It is interesting when someone plays with this a bit to take a look at how this process works. As always, though, it seems there is such a tiny subset of people who are interested in pursuing such issues. Even though I didn't participate, I am glad such work is being done.

That's an interesting take on things, Brian! I don't think Wiseman had a propaganda-critical motive behind the experiment, I think he was just taking a skeptic's approach to investigating a reputed psychic phenomenon.

Perhaps even more relevant to yr comment is "Pick the Perp": http://picktheperp.com/ - a website where one is shown 5 side-by-side pictures of people along w/ a criminal charge & asked to pick who one thinks is the party likely to've been arrested for this charge. I found out about this from a site of Wiseman's & he speculates that it's an experiment of some sort & I wonder what sort of experiment it is.

I've looked at the site twice now & both times there've been 4 blacks (from left to right) & one white. One doesn't have to think too hard to imagine what people's biases might be! 1st, the deck is stacked against the blacks - if one is to pick from 5 people, 4 of whom are black, then one's somewhat inevitably going to be forced into a stereotyping that there's a higher likelihood of black 'criminality'.

I've been loath to "pick a perp" precisely b/c I don't want to stereotype anyone as more likely to've committed the crime. I wonder if a higher percentage of justice-oriented political activists wd choose the white guy just to try to avoid the anti-black bias so common.

So far the 2 charges have been 'possession of a gun' & 'possession of drug paraphernalia'. Will they / Do they also present charges like 'defrauding insurance customers' & then show 5 different bankers smiling in suits?

I just went to "Pick the Perp" again & kept reloading the page. Every time I did, a new set of faces & charges appeared. Most of the possible perps, if not all of them, looked pretty down & out. Of course, that's an intrinsic aspect of how mug shots frame people: the very nature of a mug shot implies guilt to many or most people AND when a person's arrested they don't usually have any reason to be happy so they're more likely to look grim & dangerous. Imagine a collection of mugshots on file only taken when people are at their happiest & kindest! Who wd look 'like a criminal' then?!

The site gives little info, it frames itself as a game of sorts - & that may be its creator's main motive. It doesn't even tell you what happens when you pick a hypothetical perp.

I saw the same woman w/ braided hair appear 3 times - the 1st 2 in connection w/ a drug charge - so I picked her the 2nd time to see what wd happen. I was told that I was wrong & that I scored a zero out of one or some such - I wasn't informed who the correct choice was.

I doubt that this site actually serves any unstated social studies purpose but it certainly cd be used to study people's biases. Wd the poorest looking person be picked the most often? Wd've the toughest looking black male be chosen the most often? There's no contact info on the site.

This "pick the perp" reminds me of OKCupid's "Gaydar Game" and "Virgin Game" - in which players decide which of 2 personal-ad photos falls into the appropriate category. It seems more like mindless time-wasting for Internet consumers than social science.

On the other hand, OKCupid's motive is clearer - by giving their consumers something "fun" to do, they up the number of "hits" to the site and increase their value to advertisers. "Pick the Perp" doesn't seem to have advertising, so the only thing I can think of for it is that it is up as a demo for "So Crucial Designs."

Incidentally, it does indicate which was the right answer. When you click wrong, the box of the one you picked turns red and an "x" appears, and the correct box is outlined in green.

Ah! I reckon you're right about the "demo for "So Crucial Designs"." ALSO, I didn't notice the correct box outlined in green! Thanks for pointing that out. The weird thing is I just went to it again & what you've pointed out is so obvious that I find it hard to believe I didn't notice it before!! Either they've changed the design (highly unlikely) or I was barely paying attn to it before (also sortof unlikely but MORE likely).

Actually, I got interested enough to track down the following article, which explains it a bit better:
http://www.edge-online.com/features/t...

Shockingly, I got about 40% from 100 attempts. I guess I'm an above-average profiler, whatever that means.

Great! Thanks for that! As for 100 attempts? Now you've got me curious. I didn't want to participate at 1st b/c I hate stereotype projecting & that seems inevitably involved. However, I reckon there's no harm done insofar as my interaction is just w/ the program & not w/ the arrestees, SO, I might take the time soon & actually try out my own "profiler" abilities.

I love stereotyping, so this game is right up my ally! I hadn't heard of the game until reading this thread, so my thanks.

I'm actually pretty good at this unless I second guess myself. I found one thing about myself though, I think young preppy white girls have invalid licence. I'm such a racist...

Speaking of, have any of you played that old 'Are You A Racist?' game where you click, like, z for white and m for black and they flicker words and photos across the screen? I got the middle of the road non-racist score, only I was trying to get the highest racist score, so I don't know what that means.

This is an interesting approach - try to stereotype as much as possible and see what results you get. You can see if you can overcome your bias NOT to stereotype, for example. Also, it might give insight into how the exercise is designed. Perhaps there is some inherent bias in the whole setup (which would not be surprising given the premise).

The problem with the test, is that it goes to fast in an attempt to get you to 'act without thinking' but you really do start forgetting what keys are ignore what's flashing on the screen.

When I tried to get an extremely racist score, I got a 'You enjoy the company of black people over white people' Which is insane because I don't know any black people and never have, I live in a white/spanish/chinese community.

Others play and try to get the least racist score (I'm speaking of my friends that I had do it) and they still get about an even score of 'Not racist. In the middle' even with me yelling "You're hitting all the racist keys! Now the internet will know you hate black people!"

It's not a realistic test.