Anyone Do The Test? Options

Wondering if anyone tried the proof of principle experiment of magickal/psychokinetic effect I posted back in December 2010 in the "Real Ultimate Power" thread in the fight club and, if so, what are your results?

Not butting in at all. I've always believed that a rational, scientific approach ( see http://yudkowsky.net/rational/virtues ) is the best way to investigate magickal effects as long as you also realize that magick will always contain aspects of irrationality that must not be ignored.

One bit of advice: never discuss your interest in magick with scientists unless they are already investigating the field on their own. For most scientists science is not really the search for truth, it is their personal version of religion and anyone who expresses an idea that may contradict their view of truth will be severely punished. I speak from experience.

Not butting in at all. I've always believed that a rational, scientific approach ( see http://yudkowsky.net/rational/virtues ) is the best way to investigate magickal effects as long as you also realize that magick will always contain aspects of irrationality that must not be ignored.

One bit of advice: never discuss your interest in magick with scientists unless they are already investigating the field on their own. For most scientists science is not really the search for truth, it is their personal version of religion and anyone who expresses an idea that may contradict their view of truth will be severely punished. I speak from experience.

I love Yudkowsky and his blog.

The first virtue he outlines there is what started me in magick. I'm not afraid of knowing myself and the world around me, and I dislike baseless belief - but magick is anything but baseless. If you do a spell and the result happens as was described multiple times and you're honest to yourself about it, then there has to be more to it than confirmation bias. It's true that it's easy to ascribe meaning to coincidences or convince yourself of something, but isn't that the first thing we need to overcome as we learn? In every beginner's book I've read the first thing said is "keep a record". All I did was try to follow the instructions to the letter: if it was true, then that meant the results must also be to the letter, or within reasonable parameters. Physics experiments do the same thing, except with equipment that costs more. It's not hard - I'd say it doesn't take much time either, but I don't remember how long it took for me to start getting serious results out of tarot. Not long, though, or my 13-year old self would surely have abandoned it.

And, lol, yes, I know. As I'm not particularly fond of organized religion so people seem to think I'm an atheist, which is just fine with me. If they outright ask, I say "Pagan" with a cheeky smile which they'll inevitably understand as "not christian". It's hard to blame them though - science right now is doing some amazing things. They've figured out teleportation (for particles, at least) and invisibility, they isolate the part of the genetic structure that causes aging and are making good progress in making robots mimic emotions well enough to fool humans. It was easier at the beginning of the 20th century. The more humanity unravels the building blocks of the universe and themselves, the more it loses sight of the whole.

...yes, I've been having trouble with "as above, so below". Either the "above" resembles quantum mechanics (which would be pretty awesome), or the axiom doesn't universally apply.

...I'm rambling. Um. Anyway.

Results: it's day 5, and so far it went from 'none of the coins?!' to three coins yesterday and today, consistent with my mood and self-confidence improving. I used 5, then 10 flips - 3 coins in 5 flips had 6 coins in 10 flips.