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National Cryptologic Museum (NSA/CSS) New Temporary Exhibit on Project Stargate (nsa.gov)
70 points by keepamovin 21 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 82 comments



The best exhibit at the National Cryptologic Museum is the WWII-era ENIGMA (3-rotor, but still!) machine that is on display.

In the open.

With instructions on how to encode/decode messages using it.

And little slips of paper and tiny golf pencils right there encouraging you to use it.

This and the National Electronics Museum (colocated with the System Source Computer Museum [which also houses most of the DigiBarn collection]) about an hour north have more hands-on exhibits of actual vintage technology than practically every other museum in the country combined.


That's incredibly cool


>Project Star Gate was used by the U.S. Government during the Cold War. Many of the psychic spies were at Ft. Meade, tasked with collecting intelligence, locating enemy agents and determining American vulnerabilities by using “remote viewing.” Remote viewing is mentally viewing a distant location they have never visited to gather insights on a person, site, or specific information. As outrageous as it sounds, the secret program was very successful and was in use until 1995

Checks calendar..... nowhere near April!

My understanding of "remote viewing" is it's actually about time travel, and recall of the future. In order for a "viewing" to work, it was found that there needed to be a report to the "viewer" at the end of a given "run", which included all the details were needed to make the mission successful.


This could have been a parallel construction mechanism, if they had sources too sensitive then they could feed data via this project and have it successful.

Bonus points for having enemies trying to replicate the technology and observing that progress and espionage around it.


Like space race? Clever theory, but does not account for the fact it actually works.

You just need first hand experience, otherwise really hard for you to see that. Try for yourself. My answer gets you to your first try: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42528680

Also your theory fails on evidence: studies, testimony of people about psi/intuition, thousands of people's sessions on psi/RV, discrete use by law enforcement & business.


But disinformation doesn't accomplish much if the adversary disbelieves it, and ignores it—as anyone with an ounce of common sense would. If you're trying to deflect from your real information source, it helps if the fake one you invent is a plausible distraction.

Hanlon's razor says the unfireable career bureaucrats overseeing this project were genuinely incompetent, and authentically stupid.


I think a lot of it was Cold War paranoia. The US government got into a lot of weird stuff like MKULTRA just because there were rumors the Soviets were working on the same thing, and no one wanted to risk the possibility, however remote, that there might be something to it.

Also probably money laundering. Apparently there were a lot of connections between the USG's various psi programs and Scientology.


psi/RV predates the Cold War, the USA, and Western culture, and there's zero doubt it works, but that will be very hard for you to see unless you get first hand experience. My answer can get you from 0 to 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42528680

It's a self-revealing non-dismissal to associate with something you dislike. Maybe your hick uncle is poor, or a KKK member. Should you be punished, or condemned to poverty? But facts are: the Scientology connection I think is Hal Puthoff who was temporarily a member to study that organized religion apparently. So? US frontier science has a history with occult, such as NASA's Jack Parsons. In the real world, totality of programs is much bigger than 1 dude, unless you're fixated on that aspect, then it would seem to all revolve around that hahaha! :)

Another way to look at this is all of this skepticism is a very monocultural, in fact a very white, and by association with the faux-confident dismissals here a 'white-supremacist' viewpoint to take. While many cultures today embody pseudoscientific materialist dogma in a rush to embrace ‘scientific modernity’ , there’s also a widespread acceptance of psi phenomena (by many names) among Chinese, Indian, Central Asian, African and South American cultures.


There is a book about it, called PSI. They started it because the Soviets also leaked info that their telepathy program, necessary for submarine comms, was successful. Also their aura viewer and what else.

So they assembled a team of scientists and psychics and learned that the success rate resembled the random sample. Some psychics were also good magicians and scammers


Reini I think you would be great at this. Internally directed. Smart. Perceptive. And with your eyesight problem you likely already subconsciously enhanced psi skills to compensate - it’s often correlated, sort of like light-weight 'sort of blindsight'.


psi/RV is 'uncommon sense' which is probably why so many of you have trouble accepting it! :) Even tho it's commonly learnable.

Your thinking is all so theoretical and divorced from the reality that there is zero doubt psi/RV works. It will be hard for you but try it for yourself and you will see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42528680

Also, regarding history your idea counterfactual as US made a program in response to USSR.


It seems that the American efforts were the victims of disinformation rather than the instigators. They were started after reports that the Soviets were already engaged in such research.


There was no disinfo fundamentally. There's zero doubt psi/RV works. Try it yourself, or fail to understand. My answer can help you get to 1st session: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42528680

Most folks neg-commenting here would be perfect candidates for this: unafraid of social ostracism, internally directed. Interested in it. Competitive.


so — what happened in 1995 that provided a better laundry?

(or was the critical date 25 Dec 1991, and the program just had inertia? 1995 is mid-Yeltsin and mid-Clinton, so those can both be ruled out?)


What money were they laundering? They were obtaining funds from DoD.

1995 was the date it went dark, became a WUSAP with a bigot list. The performative disowning by CIA is ritual cover.


Interesting, I think that's part of it but not required. This reminds me of the retrocausality experiments from PEAR lab. I have not seen any good theories on why psi/RV actually works. But there's zero doubt it does work.


There are countless repeatable psi experiments that show unusual deviations from probability, but very few that have been conducted with a large number of viewers by institutions. My favorite is the Ganzfeld experiment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganzfeld_experiment

Unfortunately the more it's replicated, the smaller the deviation seems to become. But if there is a deviation above random, say 1%, then we could use a large number of viewers and an error correction coding scheme to transmit a binary message by the Shannon-Hartley theorem:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon–Hartley_theorem#Power-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_correction_code

At 1 impression per person per second, it might be on the order of 1.44*(1/100) or roughly 1 bit of data per minute per viewer. I'm sure my math is wrong. But a few dozen people might be able to achieve primitive Morse code-style communication across the globe or even space.

It would be interesting to see if/how results differ when participants are shown the answers after the experiment, like with your comment about time travel.

Governments probably worked all of this out decades ago if there's anything to it. But it might mean that aliens have faster than light communication. We can imagine petri dish brains or neural nets trained for remote viewing. Sort of an FTL dialup modem.

As long as we're going off the deep end, I think this works through the magic of conscious awareness, that science may never be able to explain. Loosely it means that God the universe and everything fractured itself into infinite perspectives to have all subjective experiences and not have to be alone with itself anymore. So rather than being a brain in a box/singularity, source consciousness created all of this when something came from nothing. Consciousness is probably multidimensional above 4D and 5D, able within the bounds of physics to select where it exists along the multiverse, like hopping between the meshing of gears that form reality. Or Neo in The Matrix. So thought may make life energy ripples like gravity waves on the astral plane where time and distance don't matter. So feelings may be able to affect the probability of quantum wave collapse.

https://hackaday.com/2021/03/04/can-plants-bend-light-to-the...

This has all sorts of ramifications. Time seems to have an arrow even though quantum mechanics is mostly symmetric in time. If we assume that free will doesn't exist, then people would make the same choices if we got in a time machine and watched them choose repeatedly. But if we assume that free will exists, then people would seem to choose randomly with a probability distribution, which would make time travel impossible since no sequence of events could be replayed with 100% accuracy. Similarly to how the 3 body problem can't be predicted beyond a certain timeframe. So we could have time travel or free will, but not both. This latter case seems to more closely match how the universe works with observing stuff like the double slit experiment, and our subjective experience of having free will that so-called experts tell us is only an illusion.

It could also mean that synchronicity and manifestation are more apparent to someone having the experience than to the rest of us in the co-created reality. So the subject and conductor of an experiment might witness different outcomes from their vantage points in the multiverse, with echoes of themselves in the other realities, even though the total probability adds up to one. Like how you are still you now and one second before now or after now. It's unclear if subjective mental efforts can hold sway over the shared reality. That gets into metaphysics and concepts like as above, so below.

Happy holidays everyone!


Wall of text above. Response is wall of text. TLDR; Lots of acceptance issues that bias towards lack of exploration/acceptance.

Read through the Ganzfeld experiments, and many of the same issues with the field jump out fairly readily.

1) The opinion from society at large, is generally negative and dismissive. Therefore, much of the work is to discredit, rather than to positively try to replicate or support.

2) There's a chilling effect on those who might actually possess any such ability. Per above, the societal response is mostly negative. Much risk, little reward, and generally a promise of being a social outcast, pariah, or weirdo. Possibly an experimental guinea pig forever with needles in your skull as the only reward.

3) Social antagonism, since almost nobody likes the idea somebody else is wandering around thought scraping them like LLMs pulling your website design. Historically , mostly shown negatively (possibly for good reason) in literature, TV, movies, video games. Governments don't like you, even your own. Corporations don't like you. Most have not civilians don't like you. If it's positive (there's some lately) you're usually that wacky eccentric who solves cold cases or talks to ghosts.

4) Jealousy / envy / greed. One of the most reliable responses of having almost anything unique in human civilization is desire for others to take what you have.

5) For those that can demonstrate such abilities to themselves, there's an Extreme benefit for not reporting, and not socially revealing. Chief example, like always, money. If someone can thought scan your plans for corporate, or stock choices, then why ever report? Better to read the thoughts of Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, ect... executives, buy or sell before anybody has the information without any risk of insider trading accusations, get rich and powerful, and never, ever tell anybody anything.

6) There's a liar's dividend issue. Any group that might possess such abilities (espionage obviously a strong candidate) gains far more by spreading false debate, causing the argument to be about lies or red herrings, and maintaining their secret edge.

7) There's a weaponization issue. What did the government immediately do? Try to weaponize. If you're opposed to being used as a government weapon, there's not much motivation.

Has many of the same issues that animal coginition, animal conciousness, and animal language had for years. An implied threat to the researchers that they may not be the most superior, or that humanity may not be all that special. Up until the early 2000's, most animal consciousness or intelligence work that proposed anything other than severely sub-human was heavily dismissed.

Personal favorite was Alex the parrot [1], that asked questions I'm not sure most humans would ask about objects and the world. Yet, general academia response ... mostly negative. General subject has gotten much more attention lately though, and so maybe some of the ESP / PSI ideas will eventually also. Mishka Wants Waffles!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot)


Oh come on! You must expand on your theories of remote viewing. Did you mean that after a remote viewing session the subject is shown a true report of the target location?

For example, a subject is told to do a remote viewing of Trumps toilet. After the session or sometime later they are shown evidence of Trumps toilet. Or even get a vip tour. Is that the gist?


Right, most of the reported military tests are blind, and they can be because the judge is different to the viewer. Still, feedback is important.

All the self sessions and RV mobile apps use feedback, because otherwise how to know?

But strictly speaking you don't need feedback.


I love that museum; try to visit whenever I'm nearby.

During Covid, the new director of the museum changed policy substantially -- primarily focusing on original artifacts, rather than the "displays" which had been built before to illustrate concepts (when something wasn't available, or where the original artifacts weren't impressive or illustrative enough). As someone fairly familiar with the field, seeing the actual objects is much more worth a trip than seeing a museum display illustrating a concept which I could see better in a wikipedia article or a book.

Both approaches work for museums, but I'm glad his one changed. The most striking thing for me was seeing the actual computers used in SIOP and nuclear war initiation a couple decades earlier (fairly run of the mill high end DEC Alpha boxes).


This museum, just outside of DC, is worth the visit if you enjoy encryption and learning about code breaking. They even have a pair of enigma machines that let you encode a message on one and decode on the other. It is small but packed with some unique artifacts including some of the earliest super computers.


What seems to be a related project, Project Scan 8, is mentioned briefly in this 1980's Nova episode about scientific research into ESP. See it at about the 44 minute mark.

https://archive.org/details/TheCaseofESP


I think it's actually Scanate. See for example: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp79-00999a000...

For "coordinate scan"


There is a movie that makes fun of project stargate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Stare_at_Goats_(fi...


It's ostensibly based on Jon Ronson book of the same name but it falls pretty far, and is much less funny, vs the book.


And there's a NSA exhibit that doesn't. Just sayin'


“Remote viewing” is a scam, debunked time and time again by psychic debunkers like James Randi and others.

The people doing the “remote viewing” use vaudeville tricks but pass it off as real.

Sadly the US government has spent millions on programs like this. The programs always fall apart when someone, usually a professional magician, steps in and shows the researchers how they’re being fooled.

In other news, the lady isn’t actually sawed in half.


This oversimplifies decades of research. While early remote viewing studies at SRI had methodological flaws, later experiments at SAIC addressed these issues and produced statistically significant results that haven't been adequately explained. Randi's million-dollar challenge isn't considered scientifically valid - it's more publicity stunt than proper experimental protocol. The circumstances and rules for awarding his prize were opaque, controlled by Randi, and has nothing to do with how science tests hypotheses.

The government programs (like STARGATE) actually produced some compelling results according to their declassified documents. The issue wasn't that they were "debunked" - the programs ended largely due to inconsistent results and questions about operational usefulness, not because of exposed fraud.

I'd encourage looking at the peer-reviewed research rather than relying on stage magicians' critiques. While healthy skepticism is good, dismissing the entire field based on cherry-picked cases misses the nuance in the data.

The book "Phenomena" by the investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen is a fantastic and fascinating starting point.


SRI was scammed.

Randi literally walked in, showed how vaudeville magicians do spoon bending (spoiler alert: the spoon is swapped for one that’s already bent using sleight of hand) and the researchers blushed in embarrassment.

They’d been HAD!

Cite this so called research you claim to have.

ps: your uncle didn’t actually steal your nose. That’s his thumb.


Can you cite this? Blushed in embarrassment?

How was SRI scammed? They initiated the project and won the contract. Werner von Braun helped allocate the funds after meeting Targ.


> I'd encourage looking at the peer-reviewed research

I'm very skeptical. Do you have a good one?


Papers won't help much due to your priors, you'll just question method, design and stats and pretend they confirm your biases. See my answer for why: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42528680

If you want to move beyond skepticism you need 1st hand experience. My linked answer gets you on the path :)


Phew... where to start? I think before randomly citing research, it's best to approach this subject theoretically first.

Assume "psi" exists. Purely as a thought experiment. What does this mean?

One key implication would be that consciousness can somehow access information beyond normal sensory channels. If this ability exists, it would likely be influenced by psychological factors - just like any other cognitive function. This leads us to a fascinating paradox: Our beliefs and expectations about psi would logically affect our ability to demonstrate it.

This is exactly what researchers have found with the supposed "sheep-goat effect" - where belief in psi correlates with performance in psi experiments. While skeptics often dismiss this as special pleading, the ultimate cop-out for negative results, it's actually a logical consequence of the initial premise. Strong skepticism could act as a psychological barrier, while openness might facilitate the phenomena.

This creates an interesting epistemological challenge. Unlike testing a new drug where belief shouldn't affect the chemical reaction, testing psi inherently involves consciousness - and therefore belief systems. The field has faced intense scrutiny because of these challenges and its implications. When Bem published his precognition studies in 2011, it sparked unprecedented criticism and launched psychology's replication crisis.

However, this scrutiny has led to increasingly rigorous methods in the field - despite this controversial topic being a potential career-ender and underfunded (although there are some private initiatives...).

So, having said all that as an important preface, in my opinion... One answer to your question: a recent example is the 2023 study in Brain and Behavior examining CIA remote viewing experiments (Escolà-Gascón et al.). Using extensive controls and blind conditions, they found significant above-chance results in high emotional intelligence participants. The authors - who describe themselves as skeptically oriented - conclude their data shows "robust statistical anomalies that currently lack an adequate scientific explanation and therefore are consistent with the hypothesis of psi." They argue for continued rigorous research while acknowledging the philosophical challenges these findings present.

This isn't hard proof of psi, yet, but it's evidence that there may be more going on than skeptics may think. We shouldn't dismiss it out of hand, just because it's so controversial, and because it seems incompatible with a materialist worldview that says "mind" must be spatially and temporally localised, and cannot access or manipulate information elsewhere.


That sounds like a gigantic pile of rationalization for why proof is unobtainable. It sounds a lot like my religious school teachers telling us about “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” This powerful being is totally real and definitely takes visible actions in the world but don’t try to check this fact because it stops working if you try to check it.

Tons of human abilities are affected by our belief in them. Medicine is more effective when the patient believes it’s effective, to the extent that pills with no medicine in them can still have an effect if the patient believes it will. Do we just throw up our hands and say, crap, it’s super hard to figure out of any of this medicine actually works? No, we sit down and design experiments that account for it and end up with a massive library of proven drugs.

We don’t dismiss this stuff because it’s controversial and seems incompatible with a materialist worldview. We dismiss it because there’s no good evidence for it and no proposed method of action despite decades of trying. Arguably millennia of trying; “remote viewing” and similar things are just new framings of ancient religious ideas. There’s no actual difference between attempting “remote viewing” and praying for a vision.

And sure, it’s possible this stuff is real. But when there’s no conclusive demonstration of it after thousands of years, the burden of proof is firmly on the people who think it’s real, and it is definitely not the job of the rest of us to take this stuff seriously.


I did say my preface does sound like a rationalization... The difference with religious arguments is: here we can gather statistical evidence, build better experimental protocols and generate hypotheses about potential mechanisms. And the believer vs non-believer thing is, as the evidence shows, an important piece of the puzzle.

It's true the placebo effect affects other research too (and honestly I think the explanation for why it does so, isn't different than in parapsychological research, but I digress). It's also true studies (including the study I cited) try to account for this, so I don't understand why you bring this up as if it's a counter argument for what I wrote?

If psi doesn't exist, then it shouldn't matter if you believe in it or not - empirically we would observe the same outcomes for both groups, no? That's one starting point.

And while you are claiming you aren't dismissing it because it's controversial, I feel like you are literally doing so.

No, the results published so far aren't conclusive (I stated this as well in the post you are replying to), but again, if you are truly impartial, how can it not be evidence that it may be worth exploring further? It's okay to say it doesn't interest you and not have an opinion on the matter, but I think, if you are dismissing it as invalid, you should at least provide arguments for why the evidence is invalid, so enthusiasts like myself can learn from it & help improve future studies.


> And sure, it’s possible this stuff is real. But when there’s no conclusive demonstration of it after thousands of years, the burden of proof is firmly on the people who think it’s real, and it is definitely not the job of the rest of us to take this stuff seriously.

Yeah, I've got a simple way to test this:

Go win the powerball lottery using whatever techniques you believe in. Then, even if nobody believes you, you have the proof in your wallet.


Not many people can read. In context, getting a good hit on an image or future event is very achievable, but zeroing on set of specific numbers is hard.

Probably possible with error correction and extremely clever design, by you need to hack the 'sensor' to make it work. This is a sensor like anything else, and it's more impressionistic than fine-grained resolution. Try it and you'll see, my answer gives you all you need to get to your first session: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42528680

Without first hand experience you'll never be able to think about this clearly, due to stigma and materialist priors. So try! :)

Analogy to winning powerball is hitting 18 holes of hole in 1s.


> Analogy to winning powerball is hitting 18 holes of hole in 1s.

I work in cryptography, so I have a pretty good handle on discrete probability. This is precisely why I posit the powerball lottery as the most convincing proof of any paranormal abilities.

That it's hard, or improbable, isn't a deterrent in my eyes. It's exactly what makes successfully being able to win such powerful and convincing evidence.

People are free to believe what they want. But if you want me to believe you're correct, I need extraordinary evidence.

(And if being able to accurately predict lottery numbers isn't convincing to others? That's their problem.)


It also isn't enough to win once. A winning lottery is only about 1 in 2^28.

I'm going to need this experiment repeated 9 times in a row (1 in 2^252).


These odds! Nuts. What else has that standard? hahaha :)

far more important tho my reply to your other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42538042


> These odds! Nuts. What else has that standard? hahaha :)

Zero-knowledge proofs.


? Which has relevance to this for you how? You seem to be resisting trying. Did you try it yet?


Once again, you are assuming a purely antagonistic frame that simply doesn't exist.


You know what I'm assuming? No, you have no idea. I take my word for it not yours. Again, you're lost in this imagining trying to make your 'not trying' about other people or excuses. It's not. Just about you.


I'm inferring your assumptions based on what would logically cause a person to continue the conversation in the manner you are.

And this has been a hilarious exhibition for all parties involved.

I proposed a simple way to prove remote viewing without needing to have a complete theory for why or how it works. You assumed I was playing gotcha with an impossible test. Instead, I proposed an impossible-to-debunk way to prove you're right. You continued to ask if I "tried it" yet while insisting you don't care what I believe. And now you say

> Again, you're lost in this imagining trying to make your 'not trying' about other people or excuses. It's not. Just about you.

And, like, this is obviously projection. I don't need supernatural powers to realize this.

You've been cascading your own misunderstandings to the point of ridiculousness.

Yet all I was doing was say, "Hey, if you do this, you'll have an irrefutable outcome that will give any skeptic pause".

If you had any intuition for analytic thinking, it would be clear that proposing such a test makes me on your side, not against you.

But no, you instead continue to respond in a way that is best explained by assuming that I wanted to fill James Randi's shoes.

I'm a goddamn furry. It's in my username. I never made any attempt to obfuscate this. I spend a lot of free time with people who aren't just "playing pretend" online, but who are significantly psychologically comforted by calling them their fursona species. And I have no trouble squaring objective biological materialism with "here's an easy button to make a friend feel better". When it comes to remote viewing, I'm agnostic. I have no strong opinions either way. That you keep insisting I'm here to discredit you or your beliefs is your own insecurity screaming through the actions and context of your words.

I don't need a fucking crystal ball to see it. Maybe you do.


Wow, that got ugly.

  I'm inferring your assumptions based on what would logically cause a person to continue the conversation in the manner you are.
  And this has been a hilarious exhibition for all parties involved.
  I proposed a simple way to prove remote viewing without needing to have a complete theory for why or how it works. You assumed I was playing gotcha with an impossible test. Instead, I proposed an impossible-to-debunk way to prove you're right. You continued to ask if I "tried it" yet while insisting you don't care what I believe. And now you say
  > Again, you're lost in this imagining trying to make your 'not trying' about other people or excuses. It's not. Just about you.
  And, like, this is obviously projection. I don't need supernatural powers to realize this.
  You've been cascading your own misunderstandings to the point of ridiculousness.
  Yet all I was doing was say, "Hey, if you do this, you'll have an irrefutable outcome that will give any skeptic pause".
  If you had any intuition for analytic thinking, it would be clear that proposing such a test makes me on your side, not against you.
  But no, you instead continue to respond in a way that is best explained by assuming that I wanted to fill James Randi's shoes.
  I'm a goddamn furry. It's in my username. I never made any attempt to obfuscate this. I spend a lot of free time with people who aren't just "playing pretend" online, but who are significantly psychologically comforted by calling them their fursona species. And I have no trouble squaring objective biological materialism with "here's an easy button to make a friend feel better". When it comes to remote viewing, I'm agnostic. I have no strong opinions either way. That you keep insisting I'm here to discredit you or your beliefs is your own insecurity screaming through the actions and context of your words.
  I don't need a fucking crystal ball to see it. Maybe you do.
You don't need to prove it: there's zero doubt. The test is obviously cooked, you didn't listen, and haven't tried.

You assume I'm encouraging you to try because I care what you believe. Nope. Wrong again! Because I enjoy the idea of people becoming stronger, and seeing more reality does that. A world filled with stronger people is better.

Dude, there's a lot of delusion in your answer, I appreciate you for revealing it. Maybe you can read it back and learn.

Hahaha! You try to convince people you are on their side by exploding into abuse? After mislabeling and projecting your stuff onto people? Hahahahaha!

However you saw your role here in the arc of the psi/Remote Viewing story, it was never that. This was just 1 moment in your life where you had a chance to try something new. And you failed. Because of fear. Just like I laid out in my OG linked answer why it would be hard. You showed the example.

I hope you have a nice day and give it a shot another time.


> You don't need to prove it: there's zero doubt.

You don't seem to understand the point, or the value, of proof. Ironically, this belies a poor understanding of the value of belief.

If you're going to assert "there's zero doubt", then you should have profound amounts of proof. But to couple that with "you don't need to prove it" exposes a very fragile worldview.

Doubt isn't the opposite of belief, but its opening act. If I believe something to be true, I can explain why. This requires proof and a state of humility. The strongest faith is forged in the fires of the deepest doubt.

If you aren't willing to entertain doubts or understand the value of proofs, why are you even on a hacker forum? Everything here is science, mathematics, and technology. Hacking requires a mix of curiosity, rigor, and imagination. It's not that any discussion outside the accepted consensus is unwelcome, but if you're going to engage in such a silly way, you shouldn't be surprised when things "[get] ugly".


Dude you just need to get first hand experience. That’s the whole point. You can keep dancing around it, but that’s a fact. Until then, you’re just lost in delusion. You have no concept of my worldview, barely your own. You need to try. If you don’t do that, you just keep generating garbage like this, unchallenged, think you’re right - you’re missing so much of the picture. You’re so wrong, you don’t even know it.


> Dude you just need to get first hand experience.

Why?

> That’s the whole point. You can keep dancing around it, but that’s a fact.

Why do you believe this to be true?

First-hand experience doesn't seem to offer me much except confirmation bias and feeding one's ego. No thanks.

> Until then, you’re just lost in delusion.

What belief have I uttered in this discussion that warrants the word "delusion"?

> You have no concept of my worldview, barely your own.

How would that even work, having "barely [my] own" concept of my own worldview? If I barely have a concept of a given worldview, how would it be mine? Even if it were flawed?

> You need to try. If you don’t do that, you just keep generating garbage like this, unchallenged, think you’re right - you’re missing so much of the picture. You’re so wrong, you don’t even know it.

We have language for a reason. If you can't explain something and convince me of it being true without me having to experience it first-hand, and independent experts cannot interrogate your explanations to agree that it's correct, then how do you know it's actually true?

You keep making absolute statements, but get really defensive when I ask simple questions.


Dude, there's a lot of delusion in your answer, I appreciate you for revealing it. Maybe you can read it back and learn.

However you saw your role here in the arc of the psi/Remote Viewing story, it was never that. This was just 1 moment in your life where you had a chance to try something new. And you failed. Because of fear. Just like I laid out in my OG linked answer why it would be hard. You showed the example.

I hope you have a nice day and give it a shot another time.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42528680


That you keep assuming I have fear is both incorrect and belittling. Please stop.

So you're securely confident you invented a gotcha statistical test to disprove what you see as other people's delusions and you're enjoying what you feel is the security of that? A position you've arrived at by your own intelligence, yes? So...what are you avoiding in that?

I'm not tryin' to convince you, and I don't care what you believe. Nobody is coming to convince you - except you! - it's your responsibility. Your life. Own it. And... you got it ... try! Just try. Extraordinary conservatism leads to extraordinary ignorance! :) hahaha. Your grasp of stats appears loose if you require such odds to see an effect.

Right now, you're coming at this all wrong! It don't matter what you work in, and it ain't about belief. You look like you're hiding behind priors and statistics. "Extraordinary" depends on your priors. So, your prior beliefs in "the impossibility of golf" are deluding you into thinking you need 18 hole-in-ones to know you can play golf. When there is zero doubt psi/RV is real. All you have to do is try. 1st. Hand. Experience. :) I refer you to my other answer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42528680


> So you're securely confident you invented a gotcha statistical test to disprove what you see as other people's delusions and you're enjoying what you feel is the security of that?

You totally misunderstand. I invite you to try remote viewing my intentions here instead of misreading my post defensively.

> I'm not tryin' to convince you, and I don't care what you believe.

Interesting thing to say, for someone who assumes so hard that I'm being dismissive.


Lol, no.

You could try instead of making excuses, and acting like it's other people's fault: incorrect concept of personal responsibility.

You think I'm defensive? Defensive? me? Here? Dude, I am so assured about this stuff. I have zero reason to be defensive here at all. I am not. You are misreading it and projecting.

But I will bat back your mislabeling and confused entitlement. You’re not entitled to my viewing, but I don’t need to view your intentions, I knew them before I even opened the page to read your comment. They’re irrelevant to me, tho. Totally irrelevant, even tho they’re not good, no matter how you disguise them. Here, a mirror -

So…Defensively? Assumes so hard? I totally misunderstand? Hahaha, your fantasy of import and vanity, your talk of you, right? Twistedly projecting to make your stuff about others is classic toxic behavior. You need see others like that? I get if you need that, but that ain’t how reality is.

You do not understand, do you? Nobody is chasing you. Nobody needs your approval or judgement. Nobody needs to prove to you. This is just your chance to prove to yourself, that’s all. But instead of trying a session, maybe doing that, and sharing how it was, you … made stuff up, tried to make it about other people, and invoked maths, lies and hiding. When you coulda just…tried a session. Afraid?

And that unsatisfied entitlement which leads to provocation for attention, being also a mark of fear blurring intimacy, just another way to hide.

Lol - I think you’re dismissive? Why would I not just then dismiss you back? Haha! No, you’re fixated. But on the wrong thing. You don’t have serious ideas about this topic, just lazy ones. Your commentary is a lot of lonely, boorish mental gymnastics to avoid the one thing this is all about. You trying. I guess you’re not interested in that.


I dunno, people typically don't keep editing their HN comments to remove then re-add sections of text if they're not being defensive.


Lol, no. This sounds crazy. ‘Edits are defensive’? And you’re reloading to watch the same comments? Fixated creepy af.

You could try instead of making excuses, and acting like it's other people's fault: incorrect concept of personal responsibility.

So you know what I'm feeling? No, you have no idea. I have zero insecurity, zero defensiveness about any of this. I take my word for it not yours. You read in your projection of your insecurity and defensiveness to compensate issues. You got some serious emotional boundary issues. Again, you're lost in this imagining trying to make your 'not trying' about other people or excuses. It's not. Just about you.


Just to play devil's advocate, perhaps it has already been done (multiple people have won more than one ’1 in XX million chance' lotteries). And perhaps none of those who have the capability of something that specific/difficult (I.e. masters of the craft) want or care to have people know how real their abilities are.

I think it's all bullshit, but it doesn't hurt to play the other side sometimes.


I don’t think the lottery is where to look. Look at hedge funds instead. If this stuff were real, hedge funds would be hiring them at insane salaries. There would be a pipeline for identifying, recruiting, and training people with the ability.


This is used in finance, business, law enforcement, and other areas. In the same way that private security firms are used to dig up dirt on counterparties. It's very discrete.

Also, to run a real operation you can't rely on 1 talent. You need to run a team so it's typically outsourced. Companies don't have the political capital to run a real RV department due to stigma, which has surprising power: business is conservative and not always smart (think dress code, remote work, tech debt), so the test of "used widely by business" is not a great test. Many people in tech know that business decisions are not often rationally about what works best.

If you need external validation of why this works, try doing it yourself instead. Then you'll know! :)

My answer has all you need to get your first try: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42528680


True, with the lottery the information density is a lot higher. In market predictions with binary outcomes, you really only need 1 bit of "information transfer".

And about the economic argument: let's continue the thought experiment I suggested above. Imagine a universe where psi exists as a real phenomenon of anomalous information transfer & manipulation. Assume anyone has some level of psychic influence on everything else. Let's say this explains the phenomenon of "hey I was thinking of this person and now they're suddenly calling me" (instead of it being purely confirmation bias).

In such a universe, you wouldn't want to publish much about your psi-based hedge fund, lest your profits would come under attack from the psi-influence of the active disbelievers... No, you'd keep it under wraps and do your recruiting secretly and selectively. And any disclosure would need happen very slowly and in the right way.

The rabbit hole goes deep :-)


Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/808/


Cope! I like xkcd but this cartoon is wrong. There's zero doubt psi/RV is real.

I’m not sure that ‘would be used widely by business’ is a great test of anything. Business is pretty conservative. Observe their adoption of technology, of cyber, even of dress code. Not to mention remote work!

Many things that work, as you working in tech in a business context will understand, are specifically not adopted by business for reasons that often don’t make sense (or at least aren’t right) to those who know what works and its value.

Even so, this capability is used by business. It's like a high end sensor system used in D&D and corporate espionage, very discrete.


Wow, an open minded skeptic! Caught on in the wild - haha :)

Normally it's obvious why people think it's all bullshit, but you seem a little deeper, so I'm curious. What makes you say that?


Actually the dismissive answers on this thread are what sounds like 'gigantic pile of rationalization' and cope. LK lays out why well.


Is this study? https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10275521/#brb33026-...

They give 347 nonbelievers and 287 believers a set of 32 locations. They must clasify them as (a) military bases, (b) hospitals, (c) schools (or education centers), or (d) cemeteries. The expected average is 8 but they get 8.31 and 10.09 respectively.

[I'm skiping a lot of confusing parts, like figure 4 and 5 that I can't understand what they mean and how are they related.]

Anyway, 8.31 for believers vs 10.09 for believers is interesting.

But ... from the article:

> A total of 347 participants who were nonbelievers in psychic experiences completed an RV experiment using targets based on location coordinates. A total of 287 participants reported beliefs in psychic experiences and completed another RV experiment using targets based on images of places.

These are two different tasks! It's impossible to know if the difference of the result is cused by nonbeliever/believer or cuased by coordinates/images.

As a technical opinion: This inmediately invalidates the whole study. I don't understand how this was even published.

As a personal opinion: It's obvious that the guys/gals with the photos would get better results than the guys/gals with only the coordinates. The CIA should build more spy planes and satelites.


Can you please explain why coordinate-based vs. image-based RV is relevant here?

I mean, if you assume psi is possible, sure, then it's a valid criticism that this is a confounding variable that causes the believers to score better.

However, if you're a skeptic, it shouldn't matter. I mean, if you assume psi is BS, then why would it be obvious image target X23AY would be easier to "guess" as an image of a hospital instead of getting the coordinates (39.2965, -76.5915)?


OK cool. Now please cite some of that peer-reviewed research you mentioned.


Please read before replying first.


Exactly! The guy just totally misrepresented your answer where you clearly linked to one. Shameless


You could have just said 'no'.


And confirm your biases, even tho they're wrong? Sorry, that ain't our job here hahaha! :)

There's zero doubt psi/RV is real. You require 1st hand experience: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42528680


I'm sorry, but comments like this have no place on HN.

If you read what I wrote, you would've seen the reference to one example published in Brain & Behavior, so yes, there is peer-reviewed research.

There are more examples, more datapoints, but I don't think it's very useful to share those in a discussion where you know the other person already made up their mind and isn't willing to engage very productively.


Part of the point of making claims -- and defending them -- in a public forum is that many more people than "the other person" get to read them. You claimed "decades" of research, and when asked where it is, mentioned one review of second hand information from a discontinued program, couched in a torrent of handwaving. I stand by my assessment of your post, and am not interested in armchair moderation. I remain of the opinion that if you could have made a compelling argument backed by research you would have. I, like a lot of people, am uncertain about this topic and would have liked to have some good research to consider, but I still don't, and you're blaming someone else for that outcome. It's not a good argument.


I'm glad to hear you are uncertain and sound as if you are willing to learn more. This is a good position! This topic needs smart people who are strong enough to overcome the significant barriers to entry. So I'll try to help you do that. By you here I address it not just to you, specifically, but to all the others who will see this. While most other answers of mine on this thread will be tiny and short, this one I made particular effort to construct, as it's necessary you hear every word. So if you can read all of it, and not skim, it is written for you! :)

But you will need the stomach for it. Reading this comment will likely require a process of pairing away, and like any cutting back it may be painful, but if you can bear with it, treasures await! :)

So let's begin: unfortunately the pre-requisite section here will be somewhat lengthy, and you will most likely and understandably complain, or find yourself wanting to reactively discredit simply due to the number of paragraphs, or you find the introductory apparatus excessive and obnoxiously handwavey. You will most likely experience an urge to yell "Shut up!" or to fight with every point and wording. If you can endure beyond these perceptions, and if you can retain sufficient patience, and keep in mind that as your goal sincerely is learning, then these words are the necessary sanding down, because if you jump straight to the facts without this minimal introduction, you will be in no position to comprehend them.

So, there's a sort of selection process already in operation. Only those who can resist attacks on multiple fronts (both from within and without their own minds) can get through and retain their rational faculty. This perhaps unique-to-this-topic challenge is oft under appreciated but once perceived will be readily apprehended, and its importance and necessity, including the necessity of overcoming such limiting beliefs to learning, realized.

You have hinted at what's there for you in your comment, so let's directly address that: the objection raised in the above comment is a fairly standard academic dismissal, not specific to psi/RV and to be expected anywhere, tho the tone of multiple commenters here was a tad too spicy to encourage the standard academic responses.

Which again is not that surprising given the understandable yet irrational resistance to something like this, especially for those minds embedded in a Western materialist framework, a contrast about which more can be said in another place.

Given all that, it's understandable (is it not?), and hopefully forgivable, that a bit of couching (counter couching?) is required, when those with different ideas, either from having opposite views, or from lacking the priors required to view this correctly, come heavily encumbered in their own couching, and display it so overtly -- hahah! :)

So hopefully that can dispense with some of the spiciness, so now down to practical matters.

Papers? Sure, we've got a few, but first a question on methodology of approach to the topic, and pre-requisites. The following two paragraphs could easily be taken personally, but shouldn't be. If you find yourself doing that, look around to the prevailing biased or dismissive commentary on this (here or wherever you like), and reassure yourself it applies to them, not to you! Yet these paragraphs are a necessary introduction to help you unlearn obstacles, and be aware of impediments to your curiosity and learning about this. So, the key insight is that: papers are not the best way for most of you to approach this given the significant obstacles you will face from pre-existing biases. But equally important, unless you are an actual psi researcher, who do you want to read stuffy academic papers? Especially when you can just experience it for yourself, right now!

In that context it's likely that papers will be simply a mill for you to dismiss each study with methodological, design, or analysis quibbles, as that confirming of your existing biases is what you want to do anyway. And even if you don't want to, it will be easy for you to pseudo-confidently do as such questions can be levied at any papers in any discipline, and even if you levy them, either unfairly on this topic; or to a stricter standard than you apply to other topics; you will sincerely believe you are in fact objective, because you want to achieve your aim. And even if you don't take the lead, you will easily be lead by others who do. The talk of being 'taken in by shysters' is funny, because it can be so often applied to those who inconsistently dismiss studies by enslavement to legacy bias! Ha :) There is no cure to this beside first hand experience, which is, sensibly where we will go first, and now!

So, again papers are not the best way for many of you to initially approach this. The best way is by having a conversion experience (without drugs!) -- and free, and only taking a few minutes of your time. So, take the responsibility, don't outsource it, and try :)

What other topic can offer you such a compelling and transformative re-vivisection/reorientation of your worldview at such low cost, and entirely within your capacity to effect? I challenge you to name one, haha! :)

So, I will give you papers, but only on the condition that you do not read them until you have given an honest try to it yourself. And I will not listen to your whinnying about papers until you have attained the proper training and experience, albeit brief but sufficient, via such first hand experience, a fairly standard academic bar to raise.

So, finally we come to what you probably hope we had just said at first, but hopefully by now you have some understanding of why that was unwise to do before the introduction above. SO: first and most importantly, head to https://www.reddit.com/r/remoteviewing/ and head to the pinned "[START HERE] INTRODUCTION | FAQ | RESOURCES" post, just as you would when learning any new technology (and believe me, this is a technology, although the public versions are not as advanced as the current state of the art). Read all of that, and then go to the "beginners guide" (linked in the same), and do all of that. That will take you through your first psi/RV session. All of this is a small investment of time, and the largest obstacle you will find to doing it is your own fear, because the implications of this are so huge. Briefly: there are other paths, and intros (just like to any tech there are a glut of resources), but this one is clear, simple, checked through experience, and comes with a community -- all very important for a supportive first time.

I trust you have sufficient discipline to do the above prior to possibly getting mistracked reading any papers, so I will provide you a decades long bibliography, which you can find here: https://www.irva.org/library/bibliography

Much more can be said, but the necessary initiation for you to understand is to perform the self exercise first. The papers are not important (for reasons given, you can always simply abuse them to confirm biases), but if approached with the right mind, only obtainable through first hand experience in our materialist Western purview, they may help you.

So to conclude, hopefully this painful, and difficult comment, likely also made harder to read by its difficult long-sentence style, could nevertheless assist those true learners to step forward beyond the difficulties and into the light of this topic. The point of that? Their own enrichment. And expanding the community of understanding, acknowledgement and acceptance around this. Greater treasures await if we can do that. Finally, in the gestalt this process of approaching this topic is analogous to (and likely essential to) the very process of psi/RV itself where conventional senses must be moved beyond to access information from what lies beyond them. Hopefully this effort by me today helped you in some way on your path to that :)


The secret programs with lots of money little oversight, and the normal bureaucratic inertia. Plus, people in that realm like to play political games where they imply that they have access and power to things other people aren't even allowed to know the names of the programs. Secret squirrel stuff goes to their heads.

"Major Dumbass is researching what?" "Well we didn't have any actual useful work for him so we figured this was harmless"


True but not exclusive with the reality of psi/RV. True statement about bureaucracy sadly.


Heh, well I guess the scam is the lie that it's fake. As to what you say, can you cite that?


Worth the risk/read purely for the wtf factor. #nospoilers


Just another comment that this small, niche museum is worth a visit. I’ve been twice, once when visiting Ft. Meade on business and once when passing through DC.

The thing that impressed me is the typewriter-size Enigma machines of legend, and the multiple-refrigerator-size Bombe nearby that decoded the Enigma output. Seeing the actual hardware makes an impression that reading stories can’t get to.


I would love to visit and try out those machines. Very cool! :)




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