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Pickover's
ESP Experiment
I happened across an on-line ESP test. If you merely say the name of a card aloud, your computer can tell which card you named. It's successful 98% of the time. To go to this web site and be baffled, click the eyeball at the right. Then don't fail to check out the various "explanations" that people have offered. These e-mails are the real data generated by this experiment. According to the author Dr. Clifford A. Pickover, they illustrate "how easily we can be fooled and how great our will is to believe in the spiritual, the paranormal, and phenomena beyond science." Some of the ideas:
One woman wrote that she was having problems with her spirituality, but the paranormal powers of Pickover's program persuaded her of a positive prognosis. "If you can do it over a computer and several thousand miles, my soul is not that far from me; I just have to open up to it. Thank you." After you try the test a few times, you may still wonder how the computer can read your mind. If you want a hint from me, click here.
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