As part of my pudding tasting, I have been experimenting with Russell Targ's ESP trainer app on my iPod touch. Has anybody else tried this or a similar trainer on-line? I can get 10 - 12 correct out of 24 every now and then, but not consistently. Doing it without thinking about doing it seems to be helpful. The highest accuracy seems to come when I think of my surroundings as a VR rendering and imagine myself as a chunk of consciousness floating in darkness... and connected to everything. It is hard to hold this focus, but it does seem to make a difference.

Anybody else have any successful techniques or approaches to consider?

_________________
-"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find... you get what you need"

I used to play around with card suit guessing when I was younger. I will look for the app.

I would try to imagine looking at the card at the bottom of a pool.

When I was taking a psychological experimental methods class at university, the prof asked if anyone thought they had esp, and my hand shot up.

he designed a test, and calculated thresholds of deviation from randomness, I forget the technical language, negative as well as positive

my results were significantly on the negative side - still very non random, and a successfull test, according to the methodology

the people that would chat with me on coffee break wouldn't make eye contact after that ; - )

for I-apps for binaural, I think there should be a better i-App that permits one to choose a step down and step up tail, more sophisticated than the ones that are available now

I can't imagine this would be hard to put together

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?

Skepticism..... a stone running an image of a mindset thought algorithm (a program). Only being a stone image its not really a thought but a calculation.
The human brain/body can output/transmit into a yet identified media that others can pick up on (i.e. telepathy) but can a stone image do this?

Three possibilities.
The programmer is just making money off of selling an illusion that doesn't do anything real regarding ESP testing and skill development. Most likely.

ESP as a general term could mean any of several more specific abilities. see wikipedia on ESP
With these different possibilities under the heading of ESP, the two ends of that spectrum are foresight and psychokinesis.
In other words, are you seeing into the future or causing the program to output the correct answer?
The Double slit experiment....

Since the program is not more specific as to what its testing for, this leaves it open to the imagination of those buying the app.
How many do you think have bought this app? I think ultimately enough have to have paid him well for his programming time.

I think it was The Field that talked about various studies in which people had a negative effect on the experiments. In other words if the person said white the result was black and vise versa. Pretty interesting. I have played around with this idea on a simple device that I made that produces 50/50 results. By going with the opposite of what I instinctively choose, I can produce positive results. There seems to be a bizarre line in terms of intent though that can throw it off.

I tried a few of the binaural beat apps. I finally gave up and made some custom binaural beats with Audacity for Mac. That way I could customize it with my own voice saying my own affirmation and add in various ques and signals as needed. It has been working great. I could not find a way to ramp in/out, so I just faded the volume in/out. Works for me.



The stone image thing went over my head I guess. I'm not sure exactly what you are saying.

Skepticism does not necessarily equate to refusing something. Open-minded skepticism is to stare a possibility in the eyes and see only results. The formulation of a probable truth may or may not come from doing this over time.

The App is free, so unless it is a very indirect and poorly planned marketing scheme, I don't see it making much money for anybody. It was created by somebody who has been involved with remote viewing and ESP for most of his life. That doesn't mean too much, just that it is somewhat more likely that it was created with positive intentions. See Russell Targ on wikipedia.

Yes, absolutely.

Here is how I see it... If I can somehow obtain better results than what would be expected by chance, then all that means is this: I can somehow obtain better result than what would be expected by chance. I can see how some might jump to conclusions beyond this. All we really have is the results not the conclusion. Any probable truths or conclusions must be found through multiple trials and over time.

_________________
-"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find... you get what you need"

Other than gathering data on who is interested in this, and probably data on who is GOOD at this the main thing is, "There's an APP for that!"
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

I am familiar with Russel Targ, mostly from Ingo Swann's site, Biomind Superpowers. In addition I have run into his work in places other than this board.



Do you really think payment for programming time is a significant issue for someone as Targ ? I'd hazard a guess it's not.

Oh duh, Targ created this APP. I actually almost met him, I said to him it was nice meeting him, but we really didn't get to meet. That was in Campbell, CA. What, does Apple buy the APP from the author and decide if it is free or not?
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

I suspect, the mechanism in place for such wheeling and dealing between Targ and Apple is licensing, likely copyright, specifically.

From the OP link:



I had forgotten reading this. In the case of NASA owning rights, then money was most likely the significant issue.

It's for data collection, strong feeling.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Computers are made of stone, they run images of composed thought processes of the programmer.
Hence "Stone Image" and in this case its the beast of man who made both the stone and the image.

In the distribution of probabilities the odds are .25 for a four choice random. But the fact of the matter is that the random generator part of the program is likely not perfect and to automate running lots of executions you'll probably find the typical sine wave generation of output. In other words, one color will result more than the others and one will result less than the others , etc.. once you run this app enough your subconscious will have picked up on this which will improve you guesses.

As a stone image, there is no biological transmission. I.E. the card selection by one person who looks at he card and thinks of it while another tries to perceive what the card is, or pick up on the transmission pattern contains a biological transmitter.

This is not to say stones can't transmit as AM & FM and digital TV certainly transmit but they are deigned to do so. An I-pod prior to running the program again, can't transmit anything about what it will output next.
However, just as the double slit quantum experiment shows, conscious influence can effect the outcome.

So does this app test for your ability to receive or to transmit?

if anything it can only test for your ability to transmit and influence on the electronics & program execution and to subconsciously calculate the sine wave result
If the random number generator is based on a real time clock, it may be a matter of timing the instant you execute the program again., which would be a physical influence that your subconscious could trigger.

ESP - Extra Sensory Perception of what?

Now I understand there is work going on to make some programs sense your emotions... perhaps for India based tech support and customer service automation.... ;)
And they will call it ESP - i.e. telling you to calm down which in turn triggers off you bing upset. Electronic Suggestive Program.....

Hence what are you talking about Timothy, again. Computers are made of stone?
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Yeah:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... nCroda.jpg

Okay, thank you RBM. 3seas, our bodies are made out of the same stuff as a computer, Virtual Reality. Only Consciousness, which is nonphysical, matters, and it isn't.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

lol.


3seas, I'm just throwing this out there, but maybe you are over analyzing all of this.

There are so many factors that must be taken into account with things such as the ESP trainer (and any pudding tasting item for that matter). There will always be uncertainty while we are alive... always. This is true regardless of who we are or what experiences we have had.

Does one receive or transmit the data when using the ESP trainer? I don't know.

Honestly, I've worn myself out with philosophy, theory, models, and all the technical side of exploring existence. Not to say that I am above it or beyond it. I am normally knee deep in it and will probably be again at some point (after all, I love it!). Right now though, I am just sort of trying to live in it.

My current truth is that all the little details really don't matter all that much. It seems more important to focus our attention on peeling away our layers of ego and working to make more loved-based choices. It appears that much truth finding comes from this process anyway.

Anyway, my point is that if we worry too much about how the projector works or concern ourselves with the process of electromagnetic radiation, then we might miss the movie. Sometimes I think that it is okay to just say, "hey cool, a projector!", and move on.

_________________
-"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find... you get what you need"

Justin, and others, in probability distribution you make choices and move forward. To make an informed choice its good to know enough of the details so you understand the choices. The choices you make will play out the movie of those choices. Some movies you really don't need to go through again.

There is a person I came across on facebook, He uses software that he bought for $79.95 to decode the bible. But all the software really does is just search for the text or letter sequence of his input then sorts the findings to find skip patterns. Then it outputs what he input along with how it found the text. He then holds this up and claims its the word of god. The scary part is that some people believe it and he is getting better at determining his input. Now this movie that will play out in the event enough believe and follow is that of bowing down to the stone image of him, in essence indirectly worshiping him, but for what? We have already seen this movie plenty in human history. Do you really want to see this happen again?

This is just one example how this tool of computers can be wrongly used. All to often end users are being dumb downed, not allowed the tools they would better understand that program are written by others, who are also human and error prone. That it is the constraints placed upon the end users that creates communication problems. Imagine teaching end users the numbering system but keeping from them the other symbols like "+", "-", and "=" but instead telling them they don't want to learn to use those things, as they are to complicated.

There is a natural hierarchy to what exist in existence, from gas to dust to atomic elements, to molecules, compounds, basic life, plants, animals, conscious beings etc. Computer are made of that which falls before life, so to sum it up, understanding enough of the details, stone is the word to use, not alive. Silicon is not the only element used in computers, and I am referring to the integrated circuits here and other electronic components, there are plenty other materials that all fall in the hierarchy before life. Though I am aware that biological elements are being introduced such as Organic Displays, but the configuration is not conducive of a natural biological integration. So its still of stone nature, intended to reflect what it is programed to reflect.

Its important to understand the limitation of computers, that they are an extension of man but not a hologram or even fractal of man.
There is no such thing as artificial intelligence, there is only the automation of enough to present the illusion of intelligence and there are people who do this too.
The Turing test is based of how well the illusion of intelligence is produced. It is not based on actual intelligence.

Science has entered the field of quantum physics. Perhaps its only a matter of time before it more fully discovers media fields of information flow. You can't see radio wave, but they exist. Likewise there are now hints of more which we have yet to fully identify. Perhaps when this happens we can verify at least some of the media that supports the stuff falling under the heading of ESP. However, like AI, when something is fully understood its removed from the gray matter of AI and given its specific title. The same will happen with ESP facets or sub topics when they become understood.

To flip the coin of the ESP trainer, I recently bought a Brain Fitness program (PBS promo). The fact that it adjusts to the users response, so that no matter how good you get at using the program, it'll always push you to do better. The same sort of thing can be applied to the ESP trainer, that by calculating the users response it too can adjust to present bias to the user based on user input. Bias in a manner to keep the user interested, baiting the user with just enough success, but not give itself away as to what it is doing. Not that this is what the program does, but there is only one way to really know, to look at the source code and understand it.

Its really not a difficult thing to write a random number generator that results in one of four (or you decide) possibilities. Just do a search for random number generators in your preferred computer language. Not a rocket science thing to do, unless perhaps you are injecting bias in the output.