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February 26, 2012 — Dr. Barry Taff

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I'm a vodka man. There's a competition for being the earliest between the Poles and the Russians. Wikipedia says the original stuff the Poles called vodka was really brandy and that the Russians are first.

Back to the serious discussion, in the other thread Dr. Taff denies having invented remote viewing per se. He worked on developing psi abilities in general.
 
I would like to call this a carnival, but carnivals are supposed to be fun. Unfortunately there is more to the Barry Taff story.
 
To me the whole idea of Remote Viewing is just a rebranding of the ancient concepts that go back thousands of years. Seers, prophets, and what have you have been claiming to be able to do the same basic thing for a very long time. Somebody may have invented some protocol, some prescribed method, but really now, the concept of getting information about a remote location or time through extraordinary means is old as the hills. I'm still not convinced it actually works as advertised myself.
 
trainedobserver said:
To me the whole idea of Remote Viewing is just a rebranding of the ancient concepts that go back thousands of years. Seers, prophets, and what have you have been claiming to be able to do the same basic thing for a very long time. Somebody may have invented some protocol, some prescribed method, but really now, the concept of getting information about a remote location or time through extraordinary means is old as the hills. I'm still not convinced it actually works as advertised myself.
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That's a good point. It wasn't invented by the Russians; it is ancient. As far as its reliability is concerned, my impression is that it gives reasonable results, but that they are less determinate than what could be obtained by other means. That strikes me as believable. Impressionistic, vaguely accurate results.

Remote viewing example 1
Remote viewing example 2
Remote viewing example 3
 
wwkirk said:
That's a good point. It wasn't invented by the Russians; it is ancient. As far as its reliability is concerned, my impression is that it gives reasonable results, but that they are less determinate than what could be obtained by other means. That strikes me as believable. Impressionistic, vaguely accurate results.
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If remote viewing worked as advertised or was actually useful in any real practical sense, it seems like the world would be a very different place than it is. I have several broken watches that right twice a day and I have experienced seemingly precognitive events myself. Things can appear to one thing when in reality the mechanism behind an event can be something else entirely.
 
Did you look at the examples? They were somewhat accurate, but with differences of detail. They seem believable. The remote viewing seems to give rough approximations of the targets. For such an ability to be real, since it is not overwhelmingly precise, needn't require a big change in our picture of reality.

The first missed the qualitative detail of the path and the building, but gave a crude approximation of it. The second was really not very accurate, missing all the cars and the shape of the building. The third captured the arches but missed the overall shape of the building. If this is what is being advertised, then I can buy it. It crudely works, but not even close to what aerial photography would give you.
 
wwkirk said:
Did you look at the examples? They were somewhat accurate, but with differences of detail. They seem believable.
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Sure I looked at them. The test for any of this sort thing for me is the practical application and exploitation of it. Where is that? The main use for remote viewing seems to be in the generation of revenue through the sale of instructions that allegedly tell you how to do it. If something has a practical use it will be exploited, marketed, and sold for that use. The very fact that remote viewing just gets talked about rather than employed to perform work tells us a great deal about it don't you think?
 
As far as I understand, the results are not good enough for the military. But that doesn't mean it can't be used for entertainment purposes. That's a practical use.;) Supposedly, remote viewers also work as consultants to various businesses. But I'll admit, mostly "training" is offered. In my opinion the examples show there is a there there, even if not terrific.
 
wwkirk said:
As far as I understand, the results are not good enough for the military. But that doesn't mean it can't be used for entertainment purposes. That's a practical use.;) Supposedly, remote viewers also work as consultants to various businesses. But I'll admit, mostly "training" is offered. In my opinion the examples show there is a there there, even if not terrific.
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Really? What practical military use has there been? There seems to be have been a complete failure of regular or extraordinary intelligence methods in regards to 911, OBL, and numerous other world problems that remote viewing could have played a major role in preventing or dealing with and obviously did not.

The number of practical uses for something like remote viewing in everything from medicine to space exploration (and everything in between) would more than justify research and development costs, if reliable, repeatable, and therefore useful results were being achieved. The fact that we don't see it being used for anything other than to sell DVDs that talk about it seems to be a strong indicator of its true nature to me.
 
Could you comment on your appraisal of the examples? They appear to show the quality that can be expected from remote viewing. It seems to work on a crude level.

As for predicting specific events, I would suppose they can only see what they distinctly look into. On the other hand, they may have come up with results that are too vague to be useful. Do you see the examples as evidence of a perceptual ability? Albeit a crude one?
 
wwkirk said:
Could you comment on your appraisal of the examples? They appear to show the quality that can be expected from remote viewing. It seems to work on a crude level.
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I don't know what I'm actually looking at with those examples. Where is the miss data for example? It's meaningless to me as presented.
 
S.R.L. said:
I would like to call this a carnival, but carnivals are supposed to be fun. .
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Well, you brought Dr Zhivago into it. Now I can't stop thinking of Omar Sharif sitting in some dacha tasting his home-brew before writing his newest poetry. And carnivals are mostly noisy and crowded.

S.R.L. said:
Unfortunately there is more to the Barry Taff story.
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So you're sceptical about his work or what? Why don't you just tell us what evidence you have?

wwkirk said:
In my opinion the examples show there is a there there, even if not terrific.
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I think so too. I've seen some "tests" in TV programmes that were otherwise quite sceptical. Although the desriptions are never quite a perfect fit, there are always way too many quite specific details right for it to be mere coincidence.

RV has even arrived in my country, the high fortress of sceptics and debunkers. Just because I knew others would frown at me if they knew I went to their website and made a test myself. A randomized process gives you a picture which you have to "guess". All I "got" was a color - green - and the feeling of "healthy". The picture was of a lush green meadow with a few wild flowers. No kidding.

I looked at other pictures the randomizing thingy would give out and they were of machinery, buildings etc. Not much green there. Haven't tried again, though. I think I got scared. :oops:
 
One can compare the two pictures to gauge the relative accuracy. If you don't know how often they miss, it certain that its too often to be useful for military intelligence. I already admitted that. I still haven't heard your appraisal of the degree of accuracy. Suppose they only get results that accurate occasionally? Suppose they score with a high degree of accuracy one percent of the time? That still suggests a real phenomenon to me, even if not very practical..

I've read that the results have only reached the level of statistically significant, meaning it is beating the results of random outcome, but not yet a repeatable experiment without exception. Yet some accepted aspects of science, including much of psychology, are at this same level of working theory. From this I infer that it is not terribly useful, but that there is something to it.

By the way, I don't remember Taff saying that he could do remote viewing himself.
 
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