Dr. Targ - awesome stuff!

[starise]

 

[Infolad1]

Fantastic Episode Gene and Chris. Dr. Targ is a truly amazing individual. I highly recommend interested people get a copy
of Jim Schnabel's "Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies". A very detailed history
of that whole period.

I just flipped through my copy, and it's very interesting that the first mention of Dr. Targ in the book is about
how Ingo Swann hated his Psychic testing machine, and the arguments they got into about using it. Also, how
Hal Puthoff and Dr. Targ initially disliked the coordinates protocol that Swann devised, until he and Pat Price
proved it worked, so much so that they had the NSA and Pentagon do a full investigation into whether they were Soviet spies.
Price was able to view actual documents in classified installations. Amazing:

Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies: Jim Schnabel: 9780440614050: Amazon.com: Books

I was sorry to hear about Ingo Swann's passing. I always wanted to meet him. I've got a number of his books that I've still got to read. If you get a chance, check out this great talk he did:

The first couple of seconds are ironic now, in light of his actual passing. Great lecture.

And in response to the temporary thread hijacking earlier , I'd like to quote from an incident involving two giants in the field of Science, Paul Dirac
and Wolfgang Pauli:

Heisenberg recollected a conversation among young participants at the 1927 Solvay Conference about Einstein and Planck's views on religion. Wolfgang Pauli, Heisenberg and Dirac took part in it. Dirac's contribution was a criticism of the political purpose of religion, which was much appreciated for its lucidity by Bohr when Heisenberg reported it to him later. Among other things, Dirac said:


I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards—in heaven if not on earth—all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins.

Heisenberg's view was tolerant. Pauli, raised as a Catholic, had kept silent after some initial remarks, but when finally he was asked for his opinion, said: "Well, our friend Dirac has got a religion and its guiding principle is 'There is no God and Paul Dirac is His prophet.'" Everybody, including Dirac, burst into laughter.

Later in life, Dirac's views towards the idea of God were less acerbic. As an author of an article appearing in the May 1963 edition of Scientific American, Dirac wrote:

It seems to be one of the fundamental features of nature that fundamental physical laws are described in terms of a mathematical theory of great beauty and power, needing quite a high standard of mathematics for one to understand it. You may wonder: Why is nature constructed along these lines? One can only answer that our present knowledge seems to show that nature is so constructed. We simply have to accept it. One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe. Our feeble attempts at mathematics enable us to understand a bit of the universe, and as we proceed to develop higher and higher mathematics we can hope to understand the universe better.

The atheists and theists are both right. And wrong (calling Prof. Schrodinger

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Hamlet (1.5.166-7), Hamlet to Horatio

An oldie, but still a goodie.

Finally, it'd be great if you could get Hal Puthoff, and Jim Schnabel on.
Cheers

 

[Konrad Hartmann]

Has anyone tried the iPhone trainer app? I am the last person on Earth to not own an iPhone and plan to continue being so, but I am curious about the trainer.

 

[Ian]

Great show, but what I really, REALLY wanted Gene and Chris to ask when the nearly empty 9/11 flight came up was:

1) How does the flight loading compare to the same flights from previous months?
2) Did this mean there was a noticeably higher passenger no-show for these specific flights?
3) Or were they just not booked?
4) Or were they cancelled?
5) How unusual was it for these flights to have this level of passenger loading? Individual flights could fluctuate significantly for no obvious reason. Lower than usual passenger number on these specific four flights would be significant. Did that happen?
6) What about other domestic flights that day?

There really is some digging to do here. All this info must be available somewhere, and would really show up statistical anomalies that would need explaining if true.

Ian

 

[Gene Steinberg]

We left a bunch of potential questions on the table. Next time.

 

[Jimi H.]

That was quite an interesting interview, it had my mouth agape a few times. In fact, because of his confidence in speaking, and my general ignorance about the subject, I was thinking woa, how did I miss this!?

What spurred most sceptism with me were the reports from the casinos. Is that really credible information he's putting forth, that he can routinely pick the right cards? If so, considering the iPad app and general promulgation of his theories and claims, how long will the casinos survive? Will the casinos be employing 'counter-attackers'? Basically, the issue clashed with the stark realities of moneymaking, those casino-manager types don't take stuff lightly.

Then I read these reports about his tests, e.g. in this thread. It doesn't sound too convincing. Why didn't he fess up to posssible problems himself?

Then there's the problem with his book, simply it's publication: If this stuff was real, that book would basically be a psychological and political revolution. Because we count on keeping things physically secret etc. It's a total gamechanger if people could pick up his book and start meddling away with secrets, the stock-market would be one big mind-fest etc etc.

I'm not going to throw everything in one basket, there was stuff there that certainly makes one wonder, e.g. the story about 'seeing' Saturn and other things, I'll read up on those things and look for other sources when I get the time. But overall I can't help think that he perhaps believes his own stuff more than he should, the story about his daughters research is an indication of that. I'm also very sceptical of his fusing it with his personal spiritual beliefs. Red flag.

But who knows, if this stuff is real, I'm looking forward to seeing the casinos wither away, the usual stockmarket suit-and-ties replaced by alternative psychic types etc. How long time do we give this public experiment before drawing conclusions on it? Who is going to Vegas?