[goombastic]

While people say the CIA invested in woo woo, I believe science progresses this way. Reported edge cases of established theories need to be checked, validated and proved/disproved before moving on to modifying the theory or dumping the case as woo.

As scientists we should not be pre-disposed to shutdown things we do not understand without putting said phenomena through a testing phase.

[whatshisface]

>Reported edge cases of established theories need to be checked, validated and proved/disproved before moving on to modifying the theory or dumping the case as woo.

There are literally an infinite number of possible violations of established physics. Momentum is not conserved inside this cubic inch. Momentum is not conserved inside this other cubic inch...

The only reason one might prefer astral projection as a theory over the cubic-inch-ism of any particular volume is that astral projection fits a few preconceived notions about how the universe should conform to our psychological expectations. It might be surprising to hear, but exploding a goat with your mind is actually more psychologically familiar than any particular fact about quantum field theory. It involves explosions, minds, the exertion of will, and goats, while QFT involves unfamiliar components following unfamiliar rules to unfamiliar ends.

In short, if your idea is to test for a violation of the known laws of nature, great. If your idea is to test for a violation of the laws of nature that is only motivated by the predispositions you acquired in the cradle, that's not so good.

[jfoutz]

I think they were checking culturally popular predispositions. I may claim this one cubic inch is special, but who cares? If 5-10% of the country believes it, it sorta makes sense to look into.

[whatshisface]

If someone believes something that all people are naturally predisposed to believe (compared at least to other competing beliefs), then within the palette of explanations for why they believe it lies, "just because they're predisposed." As a result paranormal theories are actually less credible than cubic-inch-ism.

[mcbits]

Are people also predisposed to believing that people are predisposed to some belief without actually investigating the belief or understanding why people might be predisposed to it?

[thecupisblue]

Most of the things in this paper are pretty good abstractions explaining the truth. Science is moving in this direction, but giving an overview is scary.

[usrusr]

That's what tenured professors are for. Compartmentalized intelligence organizations forever torn between the conflicting goals of oversight and secrecy are a terrible way to fund anticonventional research.

[princeofwands]

It was a Cold War battle between Russia and the US. RAND Corporation found in 1973 that the US was falling behind in paranormal research.

> (1) Soviet research is much more oriented toward biological and physical investigation of paranormal phenomena than is U.S. research, which is dominated by psychologists;

> (2) although visible U.S. and Soviet level of effort appear roughly equal, over forty years of research in the United States have failed to significantly advance our understanding of paranormal phenomena;

> (3) if paranormal phenomena exist, the thrust of Soviet research papers appears more likely to lead to explanation, control and application than is U.S. research;

The paranormal arms race between East and the West may have started with a 1960 French article describing how experiments at Duke University had established telepathic communication with nuclear submarines using Zener cards. The success rate was stated at 75%. The Navy later stated the story was a hoax, but it was likely deliberately planted by Western intelligence agencies to detract from real technological advances in communicating with submarines (such as Very Low Frequency Radio). But the Russians seemed to take the bait, wasting resources, yet later started reporting successes and publishing a wide range of high quality research (of which the CIA became aware). [1]

This in turn scared the USA into keeping up. Meanwhile the Russians promoted their own hoaxes and disinformation, such as Nina Kulagina, who was seemingly capable of telekinesis.

By the way, hypnosis and mass hypnosis are not woo woo, but legit toolsets of the intelligence agencies. Even the Stargate project had its use as a creative tool for scenario development and intuitive thinking. Interesting to note that its participants Harold Puthoff, Edwin May, Ingo Swann, and Pat Price were all involved with Scientology. Even the government may at one time been interested in the supposed powers of the OTO's.

> As scientists we should not be pre-disposed to shutdown things we do not understand without putting said phenomena through a testing phase.

Which is why Dr. Estabrooks (who the Russians knew was funded a big budget by US military to conduct research into the paranormal) wanted to know for sure if it was possible to hypnotize someone into committing murder and forget it ever happened. As real scientists such a test would be quickly shut down on moral grounds, so perhaps it is better to speak of military research when discussing this woo woo.

Given how disinformation and wasting the academic resources of foreign enemies ("eating carrots makes British pilots see at night", or the suggestion to drop the bandit problem over occupied France) is such a common trick, I wonder what current tricks are in use. I suspect that any country which focuses a lot of attention on fairness in AI will be at a disadvantage over a country that does not seem to care about this and just keeps automating no matter privacy or discrimination costs.

[1] https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/files/SovParap...

[3pt14159]

I'm with you on disinformation around AI—that is surely happening—but I disagree on the target. Intelligible AI does more than merely prevent accidental discrimination, it allows humans to iterate more quickly on their approach then cross train models that lack the intelligibility requirement, thus exposing a closing gap between what is possible without this restraint whilst simultaneously speeding up human understanding of AI approaches and algorithms.

No, with AI the thing that sounds like total bullshit to me is the way that some government officials talk of the risks AI in frenetic terms, while speaking as if the risk will become apparent once AI is capable of contemplating abstract concepts and cognition. The reason I think this is bullshit is that I consider those preconditions 20 years away at the very earliest[0] and the real threat is present: Humans harnessing AI is already powerful enough, especially for state actors.

[0] Likely 100 years away or creating so much thermal waste that their true hazard is mitigated.