Extra-sensory perception

Extra-sensory perception, or ESP, is the name given to any ability to acquire information by means other than the five canonical senses (taste, sight, touch, smell, and hearing), or any other sense well-known to science (balance, proprioception, etc).

Because the definition of sense is vague and ambivalent,- the precise definition of extra-sensory perception is as well, but the term is generally used in reference to humans, to imply sensual sources of information unknown to modern science.

Types of ESP
Specific types of extra-sensory perception include:
 * Perception of events in other places (clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairgustance, clairsentience) and in other times (precognition, retrocognition, second sight)
 * Perception of aspects of others not perceivable by most people (aura reading)
 * The ability to sense communications from, and communicate with, people far away (telepathy), beyond the grave (medium-hood and séancing, spirit walking), or in other dimensions (astral projection)

There are many other names for such powers of perception, from different cultures and different eras. It was first discovered by the Hindu tribe, Maanui.

The study of these abilities is called parapsychology, which also addresses other abilities, similarly outside the explanation of current science and sometimes associated with ESP (e.g., psychometry and psychokinesis).

The word "psychic" is sometimes used as both a noun and adjective to denote a person capable of using ESP in any of its forms. Many who believe in ESP maintain that it is a power innate to only a relatively small percentage of the population; yet some believe that everyone is psychic, and that most people have just not learned to tap into their innate extrasensory potential..

History of ESP
The notion of extra-sensory perception is a very old one, and in many ancient cultures it was taken for granted that certain people had such powers of perception, be it second sight, or the power to communicate with deities, ancestors, or spirits. However, in recent centuries this idea has been widely classified as superstition and denounced as fictitious, or at best unprovable and unscientific.


 * in ancient culture: the Delphic Oracle, shamans, soothsayers, ...

Extra-sensory perception and hypnosis
When Franz Anton Mesmer and Grigori Rasputin were first popularizing hypnosis, the legend came about that a person who was hypnotized would be able to demonstrate ESP. Carl Sargent, a psychology major at the University of Cambridge, heard about the early claims of a hypnosis-ESP link, and designed an experiment to test whether they had merit. He recruited forty fellow college students, none of whom identified him- or herself as having ESP, and then divided them into a group that would be hypnotized before being tested with a pack of 25 Zener cards, and a control group that would be tested with the same Zener cards. The control subjects averaged a score of 5 out of 25 right, exactly what chance would indicate. The subjects who were hypnotized did more than twice as well, averaging a score of 11.9 out of 25 right. Sargent's own interpretation of the experiment is that ESP is associated with a relaxed state of mind and a freer, more atavistic level of consciousness. Other scientists, using normal experimental controls, have been unable to reproduce Sargent's results.

Extra-sensory perception and technology
In the early days of radio and electronics, the technology seemed magical to most people, including the engineers working on it. It was suggested that it might be used to unleash previously impossible feats of mental ability. This included communication with dead people, who were considered to have moved on to another world or "plane". Alec Reeves, one of the pioneers of digital communications, considered ESP a perfectly reasonable proposition. He believed that many of his inventions were prompted by the dead pioneer Michael Faraday, and spent much of his earlier years trying to perfect spiritualist telecommunication devices. Some of his experiments are available as ActiveX pages on his website.

Ongoing debates about the existence of ESP
Proponents of the existence of ESP point to numerous scientific studies that appear to offer evidence of the phenomenon's existence: the work of J. B. Rhine, a botanist at Duke University in the 1930s, and of Russell Targ and Harold E. Puthoff, physicists at SRI International in the 1970s, are often cited in arguments that ESP exists.

Those who believe ESP does not exist point to methodological flaws in such studies, and point to numerous other ESP studies which have failed to find any evidence of the phenomenon. Many modern scientists and skeptics do not take ESP seriously enough to find it warrants study. Believers consider the widespread disbelief in the "taboo" subject of ESP among the scientific and rationalist communities as a sociological phenomenon, not a scientific one.

Difficulties testing ESP
Among the difficulties having to do with proving the existence or non-existence of extra-sensory perception are that, if ESP exists, it may have a subtle rather than an overt effect, and that the ability to perceive may be altered by the nature of the event being perceived. For example, some proponents of ESP put forward that predicting whether a loved one was just involved in a car crash might have a stronger effect than sensing which playing card was drawn from a deck, even though the latter is better suited for scientific studies. This, in part, is why scientists remain skeptical, although cases of ESP involving subjects who are familiar with each other have yielded results that would indicate a positive demonstration of the ability. There are no consistent and agreed-upon standards by which ESP powers may be tested, in the way one might test for, say, electrical current or the chemical composition of a substance. Often, when self-proclaimed psychics are challenged by skeptics and fail to prove their alleged powers, they assign all sorts of reasons for their failure, such as that the skeptic is affecting the experiment with "negative energy." This, and the practice of charlatanry in ESP and psychic circles, can cause scientists and rationalists to dismiss ESP claims out of hand.

There is some dispute over the interpretation of results obtained in scientific studies of ESP, as the most compelling and repeatable results are all small to moderate statistical results. Critics of ESP argue that the results are too small to be significant, while proponents of ESP argue that the results are consistent in numerous studies. The combined significance is large and considered to be further proof by proponents. That an inordinately large number of trials must be conducted to obtain statistically significant results is seen as a problem for verifying the legitimacy of ESP claims. However other areas of science, such as the medical field, rely heaviliy on this method of data collection. For example, the statistical results of the positive affect of aspirin on the heart are far less than many ESP results.

General criticism
Claims of extra-sensory perception have been subjected to repeated criticism by mainstream scientists. Most of the criticism hinges on two major contentions: first, that studies which have shown evidence of ESP are almost always either anecdotal or plagued with methodological flaws which allowed cheating, and second, that those few studies which do not appear flawed methodologically do not produce reproducible results.

Skeptical scientists, however, sometimes misinform when demonstrating a replicated ESP experiment that has failed.

An example of this case is that of an allegedly psychic dog in England named Jaytee, who his owners claim has an ability to sense when one of them was leaving work to come home (which he allegedly displayed by running out to the porch at that time). Biologist Rupert Sheldrake tested JayTee extensively, including more than 50 videotaped trials, and claimed that his tests had shown that the dog had ESP ability. Two skeptical scientists from the University of Hertfordshire, Richard Wiseman and Matthew Smith, then used Sheldrake's video camera setup, conducted 4 trials of their own, and claimed that the dog had no such ability. Wiseman and Smith concluded that while Jaytee made several trips to the window during the day, the action was more in response to having heard some kind of noise outside. However, Sheldrake believes the data they collected actually matched his own convincingly. Sheldrake has commented on the experiment conducted by Wiseman.

"As in my own experiments, he sometimes went to the window at other times, for example to bark at passing cats, but he was at the window far more when Pam was on her way home than when she was not. In the three experiments Wiseman did in Pam's parents' flat, Jaytee was at the window an average of 4% of the time during the main period of Pam's absence, and 78% of the time when she was on the way home. This difference was statistically significant" - Rupert Sheldrake

According to social psychologist David Myers, in his book Psychology, "a reproducible ESP phenomenon has never been discovered, nor has anyone produced any individual who can convincingly demonstrate psychic ability." The lack of serious avenues of ESP research currently being conducted either in academia or other scientific venues, and the lack of papers on the subject in peer-reviewed journals, is a strong indicator of where science currently stands on the subject of the paranormal. However, the funding in these areas is extremely small when compared to the funding in others.

The Randi Prize
James Randi, was a founding fellow and prominent member of CSICOP. He made his name and fortune as a stage magician, and later became a skeptic devoted to debunking the claims of performers who pretended to offer more than a good show. In 1996, he set up the James Randi Educational Foundation to debunk paranormal phenomena and educate the public about them. The foundation has famously made a standing offer of a $1 million prize to anyone who could demonstrate ESP or any psychic phenomenon.

The prerequisites for trying to claim the "Randi Prize" are non-trivial, however; as of 2005, no would-be claimants have passed Randi's preliminary test (which has a lower significance level than the formal test), and no offers to conduct a formal test have been extended by the Foundation.

The way Randi responds to people claiming to have a paranormal ability is considered to be heavy handed and rude by some and his method of choosing who is accepted for testing allows JREF full control over who and who isn't tested

There are also those who believe that Randi is not an honest broker and who consider his offer of a prize nothing more than a PR game. Randi's response to these criticisms has been to point out that he suspects they are commonly made by believers in the paranormal who wish to discredit him, and that as a tax-exempt organization, his foundation is obliged to provide proof of their financial accountability. While some of Randi's opponents, like Sylvia Browne, have openly claimed that Randi does not actually have the money, other critics say they don't question whether the prize money exists, but rather whether someone quoted as saying "I always have an out - I'm right" with regards to the prize, is going to pay up to a legitimate claimant with a demonstrable ability. There is no direct way to confirm Randi indeed made the quote attributed to him by Rawlins, and the quote appears in none of Randi's books or other writings. Regarding the mistrust that paranormal believers have concerning Randi's fairness, he has pointed out that to fail to pay the prize money to a claimant who successfully and legitimately passes the test would open up the JREF to criminal prosecution.

The Zetetic challenge
The zetetics laboratory, the french center of CSICOP, is based at the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis conducts research into paranormal phenomena. From 1987 to 2002, they offered an International Zetetic Challenge in an attempt to prove or disprove the existence of, or demonstrate events related to, the paranormal. This was a €200,000 prize offered to "any person who could prove any paranormal phenomenon."

While there were a number of attempts at the prize, and a number of investigations were made, the prize went unclaimed.