Talk:Psychokinesis

Talk Page Archive

Archive 9 has been created with a link at right. Archive 10, when needed in the future, should be a new subpage titled "Talk:Psychokinesis/Archive 10" (same as creating an article). For further information on archiving see Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page. There are also Step-by-Step Instructions - Archiving a Talk Page on my User page for the beginner. (Please retain this notice, as it is mentioned in the Wiki talk page how-to article.) 5Q5 (talk) 18:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Why not just have Miszabot automatically archive the page? Do you want me to set it up? MartinPoulter (talk) 22:24, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I checked out MiszaBot/Archive_HowTo and ordinarily I think it would great, but since this particular page's manual archiving code is held out as an instructional example to the greater Wikipedia community (those interested) to come and visit, and since I'm still available to manual archive, let's hold off on that. If I disappear from the article as an editor, then okay, but make sure you also remove the link here from the how-to archive page at that future time so editors aren't confused. Didn't know about that bot, thanks. 5Q5 (talk) 17:19, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Consensus requested on adding external link to JSE archive

I would like to add the following peer-reviewed journal archive link to "External links" or "Published Papers on PK / TK" (which one would be best?). There are many articles concerning PK, usually using politically correct (and creative) cover terms such as "Operator-Related Anomalies," "Influence of Intention," "Anomalous Human-Machine Interaction," "Physical Interpretation of Very Small Concentrations," and so on. 5Q5 (talk) 17:49, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

• Journal of Scientific Exploration Archive of peer-reviewed research articles, including PK subjects.

Personally, adding that EL to "Published Papers on PK/TK" doesn't bother me, but since it contains a wide range of papers on everything from reincarnation to luminous objects, it may not be strictly relevant. Might it not be more appropriate to add it to the Journal of Scientific Exploration article? - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:30, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

My mistake, I see on the archive link I gave above that linking to the individual PK papers (pdfs) is possible rather than requiring linking to the entire journal issues as I originally thought. Let me revise my question then. There are a lot of PK scientific papers in the JSE archive. Does anyone see any there that are significant enough to inlude as a link in the Wiki article Papers section? 5Q5 (talk) 15:40, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Update: I am slowly going through the scientific papers mentioned above and will have something to report at a later date. It's a lot of technical reading. 5Q5 (talk) 17:04, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Aksakof or Aksakov?

An editor on 10 May 2010 in this edit changed the name of Russian researcher Alexander N. Aksakof to Alexander N. Aksakov in the line attributing the coining of the word telekinesis in the Terminology/Early History section. This, I suppose, needs additional verification if possible on what the Russian-to-English spelling translation actually is. It seems like a reasonable correction to me, as "Aksakov" is more in line with Russian spelled names, but the source material does spell it with an "f." I just wanted to mention this here in case anyone can comment. Unfortunately, Google isn't too helpful because many websites have used the Wikipedia page with "f" in the writing of their articles. 5Q5 (talk) 15:26, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Resolved, as best can. My research indicates unfortunately that the correct spelling of the name is dependent on which language is being used. I have encountered many different variations. First name: Alexander, Alexandre, Alexandr. Last name: Aksakof, Aksakoff, Aksakov. Because this is English language Wikipedia and the published English book and journal references I can find only indicate Aksakof or Aksakoff and not Aksakov, I am reverting the edit back to Aksakof, the way it originally read in the article. I believe the English Wiki article Alexandr Aksakov is wrongly titled. One good reason to support Aksakof or Akasoff is that he was fluent in German and translated German books. He may have chosen an ending of "of" or "off" himself to translate his Russian name because those letters are common in German (Hoffman, Hasselfhoff, etc.). On world Wikipedia, there are four additional articles: French: Alexandre Aksakof, Portugal: Alexandre Aksakof, Swedish: Alexander Aksakov, Russian: Аксаков, Александр Николаевич. Posted by 5Q5

2006 meta-analysis criticised

The meta-analysis referenced in the third para (Examining psychokinesis: The interaction of human intention with random number generators--A meta-analysis) has been responded to in another paper, which points out various problems with the analysis. As the conclusions of the original paper are disputed on several grounds, it probably should not be given such a prominent position in this article, at least until the criticisms are shown to be invalid.

Alternatively, the response could be referenced also. It can be found here: http://www.deanradin.com/papers/radin_RNGMA_psych_bull.pdf

Thoughts anyone?

Bazmatic (talk) 05:27, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Fringe theories#Sourcing and attribution and Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (science-related articles)#Respect secondary sources (disclosure: the latter is an essay that I wrote based on the corresponding guideline for medical sources), we should not use a comment from Dean Radin to rebut or detract from the conclusions of a meta-analysis. There might be a place for the comment paper in the body of the article if clearly attributed, but it would almost certainly represent undue weight to do so in the lead. I am not sure at the moment, but if you make a specific proposal we can talk about it. - 2/0 (cont.) 06:29, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not the one who originally put the line in the article, but, perhaps it could be reworded from: "A meta-analysis of 380 studies in 2006 found a "very small" effect which could be explained by publication bias." to: A meta-analysis of 380 studies in 2006 claimed to have found a "very small" effect,[ref] which also could be explained by publication bias.[ref] Sorry, I don't have the second new bias ref editor Bazmatic mentions. 5Q5 (talk) 15:45, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Self-published sources

This article needs a purge of [[[WP:SPS|self-published sources]]. This includes Randi's email newsletter, books published through iUniverse, and personal web sites. These are not reliable sources according to Wikipedia's definition. MartinPoulter (talk) 10:26, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I would argue that "reliable source" is not a boolean, black-and-white thing, particularly in this field. The JREF newsletter appears to have an element of editorial control - it's not just one person's random babble - so I think it's perfectly reasonable as a source for things that Randi or would-be-testees claim to have done. It's difficult to get more reliable sources in this area, alas... bobrayner (talk) 14:39, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The sources to which you refer are a skeptic and parapsychologist writing about Martin Caidin. Even's Caidin's article "Telekinesis" was published in Fate magazine and not self published. Granted, the Heath book PK Zone was self published in its first edition by iUniverse. An updated version titled Mind-Matter Interaction is being published by McFarland, a regular publisher. The same Caidin material appears in that. I will change the reference tomorrow when I have more time. 5Q5 (talk) 16:56, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Done. I replaced both Heath's and Randi's references to the quoted material on Caidin. 5Q5 (talk) 16:54, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Consensus requested - clean up pop culture section

(Settled: the consensus among participating editors was to shorten the section in favor of proposed revision #2.)

Delete to proposed revision #2. I'd like to delete/revise the material below from the popular culture section. Some of it is mine and some other editors (an editor recently readded Charmed w/mispelling). These can all be found on the offsite Hollywood/former Wiki pop culture list via the external link. Having these in the article just keeps inciting the public to add more examples. Long-time editors here know we have been through this before on previous talk pages. Please add your input: Keep or Delete. 5Q5 (talk) 15:06, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

PROPOSED DELETION:

Numerous characters have the ability to control the movement of objects using "the Force" in the Star Wars canon. The character Prue from 1998 supenrnatural drama Charmed exibited powerful telekinesis. In the 1988 anime movie Akira, a few of the main characters use telekinesis throughout the film. In the 2009 film PUSH and the subsequent DC Comics series, the "Mover" characters Nick Grant and Victor Budarin display a very advanced mastery of telekinesis. Also in 2009, the U.S. soldier character Lyn Cassady portrayed by actor George Clooney was able to stop a goat's heart using psychic powers in the feature film The Men Who Stare at Goats, inspired by the book of the same title. Also in the Sonic the Hedgehog, one of the characters, Silver the Hedgehog has psychokinetic powers to destroy enemies. There are many Pokemon that practice telekinesis. Most of these Psychic-type Pokemon, and they have telekinesis-inspired moves such as Psychic and Confusion. Notable examples of such Pokemon include Mewtwo, Alakazam, Jirachi, Metagross, and Gardevoir. In the Mortal Kombat Series, the character Ermac has telekineses.

In the television series Heroes (2006–2010), the serial killer Sylar, portrayed by actor Zachary Quinto, frequently exhibited telekinetic ability.

The comic book character Jean Grey of the X-Men exhibits extremely powerful telekinetic ability.

PROPOSED REVISION #1 (another is below):

Psychokinesis has been an aspect in movies, television, computer games, literature, and other forms of popular culture. An early example in literature is the 1952 novella Telek by Jack Vance. In the 1976 film Carrie, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, Sissy Spacek portrayed a troubled high school student with telekinetic powers. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, the first psychokinetic character portrayal in a film ever to be so recognized (Ellen Burstyn was the second, in 1980's healer-themed film Resurrection). Psychokinesis is also commonly used as a power in a large number of videogames and role playing games.

I don't mind the cleaned up and stripped down version, but implying the Best Actress awards to mean that the actresses "characters" have been "recognized" by the academy is a bit over the top. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:44, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Per your concern I changed "psychokinetic character" to "psychokinetic character portrayal" in the above proposed revision. The Oscars are given or nominated to recognize achievment in acting out a character by an actor. Thanks for catching this. 5Q5 (talk) 14:22, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

If we have a 3rd party source such as a film reviewer or movie historian noting the number of Oscars given to psychokinetic character portrayals, that would be fine to report it. But as far as I know, we don't. Spacek and Burtsyn's oscars are notable. But whether they were given because the character was psychokinetic (or just psycho) we can't know, e.g. the "ever to be so recognized" bit is needless puffery, so I took it out. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:02, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

The oscar nominations at the least need to be mentioned in the article; otherwise, "notable" is a subjective term and everyone will be adding their favorite movie or TV PK character again, which is what I'm trying to avoid. Your edit. 5Q5 (talk) 15:33, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Clicking on Carrie or Resurrection (1980 film) makes their notability immediately apparent - the Oscars are prominently noted. I don't think we require written justifications of notability for every item mentioned, especially when the article links suffice. Also, since telekinesis was only one of Spacek and Burtsyn's character's supernatural abilities, we encourage original research interpretations of what's notable based on who thinks telekinesis was a feature of a number of Oscar winning characters in film history (e.g. Superboy, etc.), which I think we should avoid. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:50, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Good job cleaning up the original research. This will be an improvement over the current section. If you want to work on expansion you could flesh the section out with pre-20th century references (any books or paintings feature it prominently?) and you could try to find an example video game for the last sentence. ThemFromSpace 16:23, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Here is my new proposed revision. As for adding a public domain painting, I had one of Jesus performing PK with the raising of Lazarusyears ago, but editors took it out because there was no specific reference to "psychokinesis." As for re-including a video game example, I say only if it is the most famous example that can be found; otherwise, here we go again, everyone will be adding their favorites. 5Q5 (talk) 15:37, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

PROPOSED REVISION #2:

Psychokinesis has been an aspect in movies, television, computer games, literature, and other forms of popular culture. An early example is the 1952 novella Telek by Jack Vance. Notable portrayals of psychokinetic characters include Sissy Spacek as a troubled high school student in the 1976 film Carrie, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, and Ellen Burstyn in 1980's Resurrection. 1 2 Psychokinesis is also commonly used as a power in a large number of videogames and role playing games.

The whole purpose of shortening this section is to stop the ongoing problem of people adding their favorite movie or TV PK characters, of which there are hundreds. To do that we need to reference why Carrie (4 Oscar noms, incl Best Actress) and Resurrection (2 Oscar noms, incl Best Actress) are the ones chosen above all others. 5Q5 (talk) 18:30, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

I think you have consensus (at least from people who bother to post on the Talk page) for making the proposed edits. Might as well go ahead and do it and point to Talk in your edit summary. Cheers - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:25, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Y Done. Revision #2 has been posted in the article. However, once there I noticed Carrie had a brief description so I added "healer-themed film" to Resurrection. 5Q5 (talk) 15:33, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

North Korea's Kim Jong-il - add to claimants?

Discuss: Should we add the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to the list of notable PK claimants? Apparently the official line was that he could control the weather. This is also mentioned, both with different references, in his Wiki bio and the North Korea article. I have also come up with these high quality supporting refs: MSNBC, Dec 22, 1011 "In life, he was extolled by North Korea's fawning media with feats like a miraculous ability to control the weather and several holes-in-one on the golf course. and The Telegraph Dec 28, 2011 "He reportedly spread the myth across North Korea that he could control the weather with his moods, as if by magic.". Probably other refs out there. I've seen some that say it is in his official biography and that North Koreans are taught it in school. We could also add his photo from his bio. I think it would be an interesting addition. Thoughts? 5Q5 (talk) 18:47, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

No point in adding his photo, since it's just a portrait, so I'm proposing just adding a sourced line to the list mentioning his name and above claim. 5Q5 (talk) 15:15, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I saw those news stories as well. There were many other such frivolous claims of Kim's "powers" e.g. he was golf prodigy, inventor of the hamburger, fashion taste-maker, etc. Good material for his bio article, but not appropriate to add to our articles on golf, hamburger, fashion, etc. ...or, I think, this one. However if you decide to add it, I will not lose any sleep over it. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:39, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Even though it's my proposal, to be honest, I'd actually like to see a little more definitive source quote than the ones I gave above. Maybe his official autobiography is translated into English somewhere. If I have the time someday, I'll go looking online. If anyone else can locate a better reference in the meantime, please post it here so we can check it out. If there is ever a PKer who is maintream scientific community approved, then I think that would justify deleting the entire dubious claimants section. 5Q5 (talk) 17:00, 31 December 2011 (UTC)