Talk:Global Consciousness Project

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Global Consciousness Project article.
Article policies
Archives: 1
Paranormal Portal
This article falls under the scope of WikiProject Paranormal, which aims to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to the paranormal and related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the attached article, help with current tasks, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and discussions.
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale.
Archive
Archives
1


I notice someone changed "data are" to "data is". Of course the word is the plural of datum, and hence should take "are". But I know that English is, like all languages, a living thing, and that change is inevitable. So I won't change it back, but merely point to the Wiki entry on the word -- where you will find examples like, "The experimental data are recorded in files." The following comment refers to the next (and unsigned) entry below. Wikipedia is designed for you to do something about it if you don't like what you see. Go ahead and fix the one-sidedness. And perhaps you can document your statement that the "whole enterprise is worthless" while you are at it. Roger Nelson (talk) 02:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The page as it tands is one sided beyond tolerance and not a balanced discussion. If the whole enterprise is worthless, then why is it staffed and budgeted at such level by Princeton? 5 Nov 2007

An external reference that appears to be an advertisement for Dr Robert Aziz was added on 4 April 2007 by Barry Wells: (Talk | contribs) m (→External links - added another relevant external link). It isn't relevant, but since I am not a neutral editor, it would be better for someone who is to undo that addition. Roger Nelson 16:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

July 12 2007. I undid a misleading change by an anonymous user because he or she confused the website's description of the statistical frequency of a one-second score with the statistics for the full day analyses. My comments in the Edit summary were not registered, probably because I used "undo", so I am adding this explanation here. Roger Nelson 03:38, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

There are now two "label" boxes on the main page which should be removed by someone who has responsibility and is disinterested (not a protagonist). One says the article is disputed, and that may no longer be the case since a good deal of editing has been done to fix problems either in the main article or by adding comments in the discussion. There remain some inaccuracies in the "criticism" section, as explained in the discussion, but some neutral editor needs to address those. The second box says the article needs cleanup, but I could not find out what that refers to. Finally, the article is rated as "start class" but that is probably no longer appropriate, or if it is, the rater should make it clear what is missing. Roger Nelson 06:40, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Why the "of course" in the statement on white noise -- seems a bit editorializing to me.--Wesley Biggs 01:56, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

--Agreed; took it out. The idea was that if there were a correlation between white noise and global events, then there would be no need to muck about with random number generators, so "of course" there is not. But I can see how it could seem like editorializing.

Is it just me, or do the latest edits to the "criticism" section seem to be non-critical? I would like to start a discussion about how to make it fair. If the person who edited it feels that the criticism is unjustified, then reword or delete it, but don't leave it and then rebut it within the section. If I don't get a response within a week, I will do the edits myself. Otherwise let's talk about how to make it fair. Argyrios Saccopoulos 02:19, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I have made the changes as promised, hopefully addressing the objectionable content changed by the previous editor. If any of the criticism is unfair, please discuss why HERE so that we may arrive at a consensus. Argyrios Saccopoulos 21:16, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

What bothers me is that the criticism is more than half the article. This is clearly not a neutral view.

If anyone wants to expand the other part of the article, there is nothing stopping them. Argyrios 17:50, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
The description of the 9/11 spike as the "most striking evidence" is incorrect, technically, since it does not refer to a formal hypothesis test but a post hoc observation. The best evidence is arguably the concatenated result of over 200 pre-specified hypothesis tests, which show a composite deviation of about 4.5 sigma, equivalent to odds against chance of roughly 500,000 to 1. Roger Nelson 01:31, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The response to the criticism seems like it was written by someone from the GCP defending themselves. Should it not be rewritten to be more third person?

I moved it here, as a first step. --Hob Gadling 17:55, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Glad to know the material I contributed was not simply deleted after all. I have added a note at the end of the criticism section to tell readers they can find a response in the discussion section. In the process, it occurred to me to wonder why criticism is not also "discussion". Why, in other words, does criticism have priority of place in the main article, but response thereto only a secondary place, invisible to non-expert wikipedia users? -- Roger Nelson 15:32, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

A criticism section is appropriate to the article, as your project is controvertial. It is appropriate to report the controversy. A criticism-and-response type of format reads too much like a series of forum postings rather than like an encyclopedia, and the way that Hob handled it ("Critics say... Supporters say") clearly violates WP:AWW. However, there should be a way to fairly criticize the project. I agree that the section as it stands has its problems; for example, it is badly in need of citations to avoid violating WP:NOR. Wikipedia:Criticism may also be of help in formatting the section. By the way, welcome to Wikipedia. I appreciate your restraint and patience in this matter. Unsourced criticism of the project will eventually be deleted, and I will work on finding sources in published work. Argyrios 20:45, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Criticism is a necessary part of scientific work, but false criticism is not useful and it is not appropriate to an encyclopedia. The section contains misleading statements, such as that events are "arbitrarily selected post-hoc" allowing "selection bias". While responses and corrections in the discussion section are a step in the right direction, the presence of incorrect information in the criticism section is a serious problem if the Wikipedia entry is to be authoritative. Roger Nelson 02:06, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, it seems that most of the criticisms are based on a complete lack of knowledge of experimental design (moreover, if anyone had deigned to read the project's site, the data are claimed to be blindly picked, which eliminates any basis for claiming that they have 'cherry-picked' the data). As well, who the hell cares if there are random spikes for which no apparent 'world event' can be correlated. If I design an experiment wherein I flip a coin 100 times and predict before each flip what the outcome will be, it doesn't matter if I failed to predict where the 'biggest spike' would lie (e.g., where there were, say, five heads in a row). What matters is that I was able to predict the coins before seeing the resultant data with such startling accuracy as to generate a probability of my getting so many right by chance of 0.000001112 (as the results now stand). --24.141.72.177 02:56, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't there be a "response to criticism" section? That has worked well on many other Wikipedia pages I've seen, and certainly is better than the completely non-standard "see the discussion page" for more information.Pro crast in a tor 21:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Merge request

  • Why should it be merged?

[edit] Explaination?

Could someone explain this: "is a mix of art installation and science experiment" ? If there is anything connected with art, this should be explained. Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 23:08, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] precognition?

For example, on September 11, 2001, it was alleged that in addition to the spikes occurring at the times of the plane impacts and the building collapses, changes in the level of randomness seen in the EGG data began hours and even days before the attacks were themselves caused by the attacks, implying subconscious mass precognition or backwards causality (which is, in fact, not an absurd hypothesis if the theory of retrocausality is accepted).

I cannot see how a response to September 11, 2001 event can imply precognition or backwards causality any more than for someone to hold their ears when they see a firecracker being lit. This was not a random event, but one known by a fairly large number of people likely in a number of different organizations. It took no more precognition to see a significant consequence would be following their actions than seeing that a window is about to break when a stray baseball is headed toward it. Knowledge by a universal subconciousness, perhaps, but precognition? I just don't see any reason to theorize that with this evidence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MarshallDudley (talk • contribs) 20:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC).


It could also be registering other events, such as God turning his gaze towards Earth (haw haw, slaps thigh, crowd murmurs "nice one"), or the effect of premonition on the perceived event, or the effects of future viewers "tuning in" on an historical event. Indeed local weather fluctuations which coincide with an "event". There are more than enough rainclouds in Edinburgh to occlude radiation, even leftover radiation from Chernobyl. 83.70.219.235 01:24, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

PS Isn't it way off NPOV if one of the researchers is actively contributing to the article.

[edit] Interception of transmissions?

A skeptic might suspect another explanation: what if international transmissions of random data were being intercepted and altered? After all, "random" data could conceal a hidden message, so a cautious spy might hit on the notion of replacing it with a pseudo-random data stream of his own just in case. What is intriguing about this idea is that the deviations began at 5:30 a.m. on September 11! So IF you've kept the original data streams it would be very interesting to see if there are discrepancies in what was sent vs. what was received, and WHEN they occurred. If not, if you could find some mathematical hallmark of pseudo-random number generation in a single archived stream at Princeton that would also be something. 204.186.117.146 14:49, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The GCP does keep all the data, in the raw form received at the archiving server. Moreover they are all publically available for download by anyone with the desire to analyse them. Roger Nelson (talk) 02:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cue Scary Music

If there is a spike in their data, they can then search the world and see if anything has happened to explain it. If nothing happens of any significance, they can wait as long as they want and the further away the spike is from the event in time, the more powerful a predicter it is. It doesn’t yet “predict” what will happen or when it will happen or where it will happen, but it is spookily accurate. Hold me, I’m scared! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 1138.182.41.143 (talk) 21:15, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

And yet they claim to (a) pick data blindly after the fact, and (b) retain and record that data in their results, regardless of whether (c) it deviates from the null hypothesis or not. But, now, you go ahead and call their bluff, there never having been a more obviously contrived experiment. Kudos, I say! (And, what's more, they include a bunch of results that in no way contribute to the supposed non-randomness of their results, just to throw you off! What fiends!) [end sarcasm]. --24.36.225.115 (talk) 04:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)