Electoral Reform Ideas

[Todd]

We discussed this on the show yesterday, but I wanted my opinions posted here in the Nuze also. There are, after all, Nuze readers in 68 foreign countries who probably don’t get to listen to the show.

We don’t need to deal with all of the points from this Jimmy Carter led commission, just the high points:

One Person – One Vote
The commission recommends that the federal and state governments promote the “one person, one vote” principal. Sorry, I disagree. There is nothing in the Constitution which promotes “one person, one vote.” The Constitution simply sets forth some criteria on which neither the federal nor the state governments can deny someone access to the polls.

The brutal fact of the matter is that we need to work on getting some people away from the polls. There are folks out there with voter registration cards who simply should not be permitted to participate in the election process. Voting should not be a right. It should be a privilege earned by the voter.

First and foremost, parasites out! Yeah, strong language, isn’t it? Look – it looks like society is going to have to endure the presence of welfare parasites for some time to come. We just can’t seem to come to grips with the idea that it is fundamentally wrong for one person to be able to use the government to commit an act which, if they set out to accomplish the task personally, would constitute a crime. You want me to phrase that a little more plainly? Fine. It is just damned wrong for one person to use the police power of government to take money from another person for their own personal use. Well, as I said – we’re going to have to endure these parasites – does that mean that we have to give them a place at the decision making table? Isn’t it clear that their vote is going to be based simply on which candidate is going to be the better proxy-looter?

Those people who are not self-sufficient; those people who depend on government coerced income redistribution for their needs, have no business voting. The inmates don’t run the asylum. The animals don’t manage the zoo.

So – how do we limit the right to vote? Income tax payers? That would just serve to further institutionalize the income tax system – a downside. Property owners? That might lock out the transient businessman who pays heavy taxes and has every right to participate in the process. Maybe we could just require the payment of some taxes in some form. Show that you’ve paid an aggregate of $5,000 in ad valorem, property, state and federal income taxes, and here’s your ballot?

Allowing felons who have served their time to vote.

You know who likes this idea? Democrats, that’s who. And why do Democrats like this idea? Because in areas where convicted felons are allowed to vote – guess what? They vote Democratic? Those of us who believe that the Democratic Party will be the eventual instrument of the destruction of the American experiment in freedom aren’t surprised.

Make Election day a federal holiday.

This is a union-led idea. Here’s something for you to think about. On days designated as federal holidays you will generally see more lower-income people off the job than higher-income people. Turning a Tuesday Election day into a holiday would serve to get more Democrat-type (lower income, less educated) voters to the polls. Why not just move the election to the weekend? Open the polls on Saturday morning, close them on Sunday night! Believe me – Democrats will never support that idea. To many high-achievers might be set loose on the polls.

Forbid election reporting until all the polls close.

Yeah, now that’s a great idea. Let’s impose some federal standards on the way television networks can report the news! Again, the Talkmaster has a better idea. In fact, this one idea would be the easiest-to-implement highest-impact election reform idea you could come up with. Read and marvel: Every voting precinct in the entire country – from Puerto Rico to Guam – opens at 6:00 am Eastern time on Tuesday morning and closes at 6:00 am Eastern time on Wednesday morning. With this plan every single voting precinct opens and closes at the same time – and every voter in the United States gets the chance to go to the polls and cast their vote at the very hour that is most convenient to them. Again, I would suspect the strongest opposition to this idea would come from the left.

There’s sure to be much more argument on this subject to come. In fact, today’s Wall Street Journal has an editorial on the subject. Here’s your link: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95000904

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Skeptical Inquirer magazine : March/April 2001

What Can the Paranormal Teach Us About
Consciousness?

Parapsychologists seem to assume that psychic phenomena --
if they exist -- would prove the "power of consciousness." Yet
this may be no more than trying to use one mystery to solve
another. Susan Blackmore reviews some of the evidence for
psi and asks just what it does tell us about consciousness.

Susan Blackmore

Consciousness is a hot topic. Relegated to the fringes of science for most of the
twentieth century, the question of consciousness crept back to legitimacy only with
the collapse of behaviorism in the 1960s and 1970s, and only recently became an
acceptable term for psychologists to use. Now many neuroscientists talk
enthusiastically about the nature of consciousness, there are societies and regular
conferences on the topic, and some say that consciousness is the greatest challenge
for twenty-first century science. Although confusion abounds, there is at least some
agreement that at the heart of the problem lies the question of subjectivity -- or
what it's like for me. As philosopher Thomas Nagel (1974) put it when he asked
his famous question "What is it like to be a bat?" -- if there is something it is like for
the bat then we can say that the bat is conscious. This is what we mean by
consciousness -- consciousness is private and subjective and this is why it is so
difficult to understand.

Meanwhile parapsychologists not only claim to have found evidence for psi (paranormal
phenomena), but seem to assume that paranormal phenomena have obvious and
important implications for consciousness. For example, Dean Radin's (1997)
comprehensive popular review of parapsychology is called "The Conscious Universe: The
Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena" and there are numerous papers on extrasensory
perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (PK) that use such phrases as "consciousness
interactions" (Braud and Schlitz 1991) or "the anomalous effect of conscious intention"
(Pallikari-Viras 1997) or "consciousness related anomalies" (Radin and Nelson 1989). But
why are these two contentious topics so often thrown together? Are ESP and PK really the
effect of consciousness? Would paranormal phenomena, if they exist, force us to a new
understanding of the nature of consciousness? If so they would be most important. I
therefore wish to explore this assumed relationship between consciousness and psi.

I would love to be able to provide a fair and unbiased assessment of the evidence for psi
and decide whether it exists or not. But this is simply impossible. Many people have tried
and failed. In some of the best debates in parapsychology the proponents and critics have
ended up simply agreeing to differ (e.g., Hyman and Honorton 1986; Hyman 1995; Utts
1995) or failing to reach any agreement (Milton and Wiseman 1999). The only truly scientific
position seems to be to remain on the fence, and yet to do so makes progress difficult, if not
impossible.

For this reason, if for no other, you have to jump to one side or other of the fence -- and
preferably be prepared to jump back again if future evidence proves you wrong. I have
jumped onto the side of concluding that psi does not exist. My reasons derive from nearly
thirty years of working in, and observing, the field of parapsychology (Blackmore 1996).
During that time various experimental paradigms have been claimed as providing a
repeatable demonstration of psi and several have been shown to be false. For example, in
the 1950s the London University mathematician Samuel Soal claimed convincing evidence
of telepathy with his special subject Basil Shackleton, with odds estimated at 1035 against
the effect being due to chance (Soal and Bateman 1954). These results convinced a whole
generation of researchers and it took more than thirty years to show that Soal had, in fact,
cheated (Markwick 1978). Promising animal precognition experiments were blighted by the
discovery of fraud (Rhine 1974) and the early remote viewing experiments were found to be
susceptible to subtle cues which could have produced the positive results (Marks and
Kammann 1980). As Hyman (1995, 349) puts it, "Historically, each new paradigm in
parapsychology has appeared to its designers and contemporary critics as relatively
flawless. Only subsequently did previously unrecognized drawbacks come to light."

The Ganzfeld Experiments

The most successful paradigm during that time, and the one I shall concentrate on,
has undoubtedly been the ganzfeld. Subjects in a ganzfeld experiment lie
comfortably, listening to white noise or seashore sounds through headphones, and
wear halved ping-pong balls over their eyes, seeing nothing but a uniform white or
pink field (the ganzfeld). By reducing patterned sensory input, this procedure is
thought to induce a psi-conducive state of consciousness. A sender in a distant
room, meanwhile, views a picture or video clip. After half an hour or so the subject
is shown four such pictures or videos and is asked to choose which was the target.
It is claimed that they can do this far better than would be expected by chance.

The first ganzfeld experiment was published in 1974 (Honorton and Harper 1974). Other
researchers tried to replicate the findings, and there followed many years of argument and
of improving techniques, culminating in the 1985 "Great Ganzfeld Debate" between
Honorton (one of the originators of the method) and Hyman (a well-known critic). By this
time several other researchers claimed positive results, often with quite large effect sizes.
Both Hyman (1985) and Honorton (1985) carried out meta-analyses but came to opposite
conclusions. Hyman argued that the results could all be due to methodological errors and
multiple analyses, while Honorton claimed that the effect size did not depend on the
number of flaws in the experiments and that the results were consistent, did not depend on
any one experimenter, and revealed certain regular features of ESP. In a "joint
communiquŽ" (Hyman and Honorton 1986) they detailed their points of agreement and
disagreement and made recommendations for the conduct of future ganzfeld experiments

The ganzfeld achieved scientific respectability in 1994 when Bem and Honorton published a
report in the prestigious journal Psychological Bulletin, bringing the research to the notice of
a far wider audience. They republished Honorton's earlier meta-analysis and reported
impressive new results with a fully automated ganzfeld procedure -- the Princeton
autoganzfeld -- claiming finally to have demonstrated a repeatable experiment. Not long
afterwards Wiseman, Smith, and Kornbrot (1996) suggested that acoustic leakage might
have been possible in the original autoganzfeld. This hypothesis was difficult to assess
after the fact because by then the laboratory at Princeton had been dismantled. However,
Bierman (1999) carried out secondary analyses which suggested that sensory leakage
could not account for the results. Since then further successes have been reported from a
new ganzfeld laboratory in Gothenburg, Sweden (Parker 2000), and at Edinburgh, where the
security measures are very tight indeed (Dalton, Morris, Delanoy, Radin, Taylor, and
Wiseman 1996). The debate continues

How can one draw reliable and impartial conclusions in such circumstances? I do not
believe one can. My own conclusion is based not just on reading these published papers
but also on my personal experience over many years. I have carried out numerous
experiments of many kinds and never found any convincing evidence for psi (Blackmore
1996). I tried my first ganzfeld experiment in 1978, when the procedure was new. Failing to
get results myself I went to visit Sargent's laboratory in Cambridge where some of the best
ganzfeld results were then being obtained. Note that in Honorton's database nine of the
twenty-eight experiments came from Sargent's lab. What I found there had a profound effect
on my confidence in the whole field and in published claims of successful experiments.

Questions About the Ganzfeld Research

These experiments, which looked so beautifully designed in print, were in fact open
to fraud or error in several ways, and indeed I detected several errors and failures
to follow the protocol while I was there. I concluded that the published papers
gave an unfair impression of the experiments and that the results could not be relied
upon as evidence for psi. Eventually the experimenters and I all published our
different views of the affair (Blackmore 1987; Harley and Matthews 1987; Sargent
1987). The main experimenter left the field altogether

I would not refer to this depressing incident again but for one fact. The Cambridge data are
all there in the Bem and Honorton review but unacknowledged. Out of twenty-eight studies
included, nine came from the Cambridge lab, more than any other single laboratory, and
they had the second highest effect size after Honorton's own studies. Bem and Honorton do
point out that one of the laboratories contributed nine of the studies but they do not say
which one. Not a word of doubt is expressed, no references to my investigation are given,
and no casual reader could guess there was such controversy over a third of the studies in
the database

Of course the new autoganzfeld results appear even better. Perhaps errors from the past do
not matter if there really is a repeatable experiment. The problem is that my personal
experience conflicts with the successes I read about in the literature and I cannot ignore
either side. I cannot ignore other people's work because science is a collective enterprise
and publication is the main way of sharing our findings. On the other hand I cannot ignore
my own findings -- there would be no point in doing science, or investigating other people's
work, if I did. The only honest reaction to the claims of psi in the ganzfeld is for me to say "I
don't know but I doubt it."

Similar problems occur in all areas of parapsychology. The CIA recently released details of
more than twenty years of research into remote viewing and a new debate erupted over
these results (Hyman 1995; Utts 1995). (See Ray Hyman, "Evaluation of the Military's
Twenty-Year Program in Psychic Spying" and "The Evidence for Psychic Functioning: Claims
vs. Reality," both in Skeptical Inquirer March/April 1996.) Whenever strong claims are made
critics from both inside and outside of parapsychology get to work -- as they should -- but
rarely is a final answer forthcoming.

These are some of the reasons why I cannot give a definitive and unbiased answer to my
question "Are there any paranormal phenomena?" I can only give a personal and biased
answer -- that is, "probably not."

But what if I am wrong and psi does really exist? What would this tell us about
consciousness?

A common view seems to be something like this: If ESP exists it proves that mental
phenomena are independent of space and time, and that information can get "directly into
consciousness" without the need for sensory transduction or perceptual processing. If PK
(psychokinesis) exists it proves that mind can reach out beyond the brain to affect things
directly at a distance, i.e., that consciousness has a power of its own.

I suspect that it is a desire for this "power of consciousness" that fuels much enthusiasm
for the paranormal. Parapsychologists have often been accused of wanting to prove the
existence of the soul, and convincingly denied it (Alcock 1987). I suggest instead that
parapsychologists want to prove the power of consciousness. In philosopher Dan Dennett's
(1995) terms they are looking for "skyhooks" rather than "cranes." They want to find that
consciousness can do things all by itself, without dependence on a complicated, physical,
and highly evolved brain.

I have two reasons for doubting that they will succeed. First, parapsychologists must
demonstrate that psi has something to do with consciousness and they have not yet done
this. Second, there are theoretical reasons why I believe the attempt is doomed.

The Missing Link Between Psi and Consciousness

To make their case that psi actually involves consciousness, experiments rather
different from those commonly done will be needed. Let's consider the ganzfeld
again. Do the results show that consciousness, in the sense of subjectivity or
subjective experience, is involved in any way?

I would say no. There are several ways in which consciousness might, arguably, be
involved in the ganzfeld, but there appears to be no direct evidence that it is. For example,
are subjects conscious of their own success? Even in a very successful experiment the hits
are mixed with many misses and the subjects themselves cannot say which is which (if
they could the successful trials could be separated out and even better results obtained). In
other words, the subject is unaware of the ESP even when it is occurring. Indeed in other
contexts there have been claims that psi occurs unconsciously and can be detected only by
physiological monitoring, such as in remote staring experiments (Braud, Shafer, and
Andrews 1993) or by using sophisticated brain recording techniques (e.g., Don,
McDonough, and Warren 1998).

The ganzfeld does involve a kind of mild altered state of consciousness. Indeed Honorton
first used the technique as a way of deliberately inducing a "psi conducive state." However, it
has never been shown that this is a necessary concomitant of ESP in the ganzfeld.
Experiments to do this might, for example, compare the scores of subjects who reported
entering a deep altered state with those who did not. Or they might vary the ganzfeld
conditions to be more or less effective at inducing altered states and compare the results.
These kinds of experiments have not been done. In the absence of appropriate control
conditions we have no idea what it is about the ganzfeld that is the source of its apparent
success. It might be consciousness or the state of consciousness; it might be the time
spent in the session, the personality of the experimenter, the color of the light shining on the
subject's eyes, or any of a huge number of untested variables. There is simply no evidence
that consciousness is involved in any way.

Another example is recent experiments on the remote detection of staring (e.g., Braud,
Shafer, and Andrews 1993). It has long been claimed that people can tell when someone
else is looking at them, even from behind. Ingenious experiments now use video cameras
and isolated subjects to test this claim. Results suggest that the staring and non-staring
periods can be distinguished by physiological responses in the person being stared at. In
other words, they are able to detect the staring -- but not consciously. Oddly enough, these
results are often described in terms of "consciousness interactions" even though the
detection is explicitly non-conscious.

In related experiments subjects are asked to influence biological systems such as another
person's blood pressure or muscular activity, the spatial orientation of fish, movements of
small mammals, or the rate of haemolysis of red blood cells. Influence and non-influence
periods are randomly allocated and effects detected from the comparison. Braud and
Schlitz (1991) call these "consciousness interactions with remote biological systems." Yet
again, I am not convinced that these data need have anything to do with consciousness. If
the data are genuine then I agree with the authors that they show "a profound
interconnectedness between the influencers and the influencees in these experiments" (p.
41). But what could be responsible? Any number of things may change in the influencer --
such as muscle tone, cortical arousal, expectation, the firing of specific neurons, the activity
in different neural nets, and so on. If there is such a thing as PK it might be related to any of
these variables. For example some unknown force might emanate when a particular
cortical firing pattern occurs and this be more likely when the influencer is trying to influence
the system. Such an effect need have nothing to do with consciousness or subjectivity at all.

In PK experiments the claim that consciousness is involved is again made explicit, as in the
title "The effects of consciousness on physical systems" (Radin and Nelson 1989). Yet, as
far as I can see, there is no justification for this. In these experiments a subject typically sits
in front of a computer screen and tries to influence the output of a random number
generator (RNG), whose output is reflected in the display. Alternatively they might listen to
randomly generated tones with the intention of making more of the tones high, or low, as
requested, or they might try to affect the fall of randomly scattered balls or various other
systems. The direction of aim is usually randomized and appropriate control trials are often
run. It is claimed that, in extremely large numbers of trials, subjects are able to influence the
output of the RNG. Is this an effect of consciousness on a physical system?

I don't see why. The experiments demonstrate a correlation between the output of the RNG
and the direction of aim specified to the subject by the experimenter. This is certainly
mysterious, but the leap from this correlation to a causal explanation involving "the effect of
consciousness" is so far unjustified. The controls done show that the subject is necessary
but in no way identify what it is about the subject's presence that creates the effect. It might
be their unconscious intentions or expectations; it might be some change in behavior
elicited by the instructions given; it might be some hitherto unknown energy given off when
subjects are asked to aim high or aim low. It might be some mysterious resonance
between the RNG and the subject's pineal gland.

As far as I know, no appropriate tests have been made to find out. For example, does the
subject need to be conscious of the direction of aim at the time? Comments in the
published papers suggest that some subjects actually do better when not thinking about
the task, or when reading a magazine or being distracted in some other way, suggesting
that conscious intent might even be counterproductive.

Perhaps this is not what is meant by consciousness here, but if not, then what is meant?
Perhaps it is enough for the person to be conscious (i.e., awake), or perhaps the very
presence of a person implies the presence of consciousness. In any case, to identify that
the effect is actually due to consciousness, relevant experiments will have to be done. They
might compare conditions in which subjects did or did not consciously know the target
direction. Subjects might be asked on some trials to think consciously about the target and
on others be distracted, or they might be put into different states of consciousness (or even
unconsciousness) to see whether this affected the outcome. Such experiments might begin
to substantiate the claim that consciousness is involved. Until then, it remains speculation.

Some parapsychologists have suggested to me that when they talk about consciousness
affecting something they mean to include unconscious mental processes as well. Their
claim would then be equivalent to saying that something (anything) about the person's mind
or brain affects it. However, if the term consciousness is broadened so far beyond the
subjective, then we leave behind the really interesting questions that consciousness raises
and, indeed, the whole reason why so many psychologists and philosophers are interested
in consciousness at all. If we stick to subjectivity then I see no reason at all why paranormal
claims, whether true or false, necessarily help us understand consciousness.

Theoretical Problems

The second reason I doubt that the paranormal power of consciousness will ever
be proven is more theoretical. As our understanding of conscious experience
progresses, the desire to find the "power of consciousness" sets parapsychology
ever more against the rest of science (which may, of course, be part of its appeal).
The more we look into the workings of the brain the less it looks like a machine run
by a conscious self and the more it seems capable of getting on without one (e.g.,
Churchland and Sejnowski 1992; Crick 1994). There is no place inside the brain
where consciousness resides, where mental images are "viewed," or where
instructions are "issued" (Dennett 1991). There is just massive parallel throughput
with no obvious center.

Experiments such as those by Libet (1985) suggest that conscious experience takes some
time to build up and is much too slow to be responsible for making things happen. For
example, in sensory experiments he showed that about half a second of continuous activity
in sensory cortex was required for conscious sensation, and in experiments on deliberate
spontaneous action he showed that about the same delay occurred between the onset of
the readiness potential in motor cortex and the timed decision to act -- a long time in
neuronal terms. Though these experiments are controversial (see the commentaries on
Libet 1985; and Dennett 1991) they add to the growing impression that actions and
decisions are made rapidly and only later does the brain weave a story about a self who is
in charge and is conscious. In other words, consciousness comes after the action; it does
not cause it.

This is just what some meditators and spiritual practitioners have been saying for
millennia; that our ordinary view of ourselves, as conscious, active agents experiencing a
real external world, is wrong. In other words we live in the illusion that we are a separate
self. In mystical experiences this separate self dissolves and the world is experienced as
one -- actions happen but there is no separate actor who acts. Long practice at meditation
or mindfulness can also dispel the illusion. Now science seems to be coming to the same
conclusion -- that the idea of a separate conscious self is false.

Parapsychology, meanwhile, is going quite the other way. It is trying to prove that
consciousness really does have power; that our minds can reach out and "do" things, not
only within our own bodies but beyond them as well. In this sense it is deeply dualist even
while making reference to interconnectedness. Parapsychology is often perceived as being
more "spiritual" than conventional science. I think it may be quite the other way around.

With the welcome upsurge of interest in consciousness, and the number of scientists and
philosophers now interested in the field, I look forward to great progress being made out of
our present confusion. I hope it will be possible to bring together the spiritual insights with
the scientific ones -- so that research can reveal what kind of illusion we live in, how it
comes about, and perhaps even help us to see our way out of it. As far as this hope is
concerned parapsychology seems to be going backwards -- hanging onto the idea of
consciousness as an agent separate from the rest of the world. This is why I doubt that
evidence for psi, even if it is valid, will help us to understand consciousness.

 

[sexy-girl]

if either of you think im reading all that your mad

 

[Gawd]

Todd, we're revoking your active membership in Heaven's Young Republicans.

 

[Siren]

hahaha funny as hell

 

[TN_Vixen]

LMAO

!