Quote from: Hogman on August 17, 2017, 08:38:25 pm

Allow me to translate.

"Using established scientific methods..."

Translation:

"Using statistical tests that were never meant to be used in the way we're going to use them, we will produce a large number of false positive results to convince people they're psychic".

Hi there, totally understandable response. However I am going to direct you to a few of the academic journal articles which I based the app upon. I hope you read them

1. goo.gl/P7nYwG 
Correlations of Random Binary Sequences with Pre-Stated Operator Intention: A Review of a 12-Year Program (1997). J. Scientific Exploration, 11, No.3, pp.345-367.

2. goo.gl/QC3jbY   
Correlations of Continuous Random Data with Major World Events (2002). Foundations of Physics Letters, Vol. 15, No. 6, pp. 537-550.

3. goo.gl/irrBrg     
Consciousness, Information, and Living Systems (2005). Cellular & Molecular Biology, 51, pp.703-714.

4. goo.gl/b14wuqcontent_copyCopy short URL
Biological Utilisation of Quantum NonLocality (1991). Foundations of Physics, Vol. 21, pp. 197-207

Interesting articles. I didn't actually claim psychic abilities don't exist, although I personally don't believe in them. I was claiming that your app won't be able to determine their existence on an individual with any kind of accuracy.

Since psychic ability is largely shunned by the mainstream, we can take it that at least one of two things is true: psychic ability is "small", and/or it is rare. If it were "large" or commonplace it would be accepted by the mainstream.
If psychic abilities are "small" then you'll need thousands of tests to determine if an individual has them. See your first reference for a perfect example - in table 1, column HI, they had 839,800 repetitions of 200 Bernoulli trials to get a mean difference of 0.026 in the number of successes. They couldn't even achieve a mean difference of 1.
If psychic abilities are rare then your app will suffer from the notorious problem of having very poor positive predictive value. This article describes it: http://www.badscience.net/2006/12/crystal-balls-and-positive-predictive-values/

I can't find a thread anywhere that discusses the thing we've all missed, so this is it.

In the Unholy Consultation thread, Bakker says the following:

Quote from: jurble on July 28, 2017, 10:33:13 pm

In TTT, Kellhus says the Mangaecca squat, chanting about Aurang's real body to relay him to the Synthese.  But, the Consult's Brain Trust seems to be restricted to just Mek, Shauriatus, Aurang and Aurax (and then the Mutilated).  Were there any other Minds among the Consult for the past 2 millenia or has it just been those four?  If so, given their .. dilapidated status how did Consult programs like breeding the Inversi actually function?  How did they manage it with so little sane manpower? 

Your second question leads me to believe that pretty much everyone has missed a certain boat, in which case, I can only say, RAFO!

Quote from: Likaro on July 31, 2017, 05:07:55 pm

3. It seems kind of foolish that the Consult would bring Dunyain back as prisoners. Was it simple arrogance that made them feel safe in doing so, or are you actually kind of saying that the Consult brain trust isn't that great and has degraded?

3) Hmmm. I'm beginning to suspect that something rather significant has gone unrecognized. Either way, humility is not among the many virtues enjoyed by the Consult.

I've been pondering this for a few days, and I have a theory. It goes like this:
The original Dunyain were composed of an Anasurimbor, and some "refugees". Who were these refugees? My theory is that they were agents of the Consult, whose mission was to protect the Anasurimbor until such a time as the Consult were strong enough to resurrect the No God. Since they were able to activate the sarcophagus with Nau Cayuti, they believed one of his descendants would be able to do the same. Some or all of the refugees/Dunyain have been working with the Consult the whole time, communicating with them via sorcery. This was why sorcery was considered blasphemous by the Dunyain - so the Anasurimbor would never be able to work out that the communication was taking place.

This would appear to answer both points above, namely that the extra brainpower was coming from the Dunyain, and the Dunyain were taken to the Ark not as prisoners but as comrades. We found out right at the end of TUC that at least one of the Dunyain possessed sorcery, which was already implied anyway by the fact that Kellhus considered them any kind of a threat. Maybe they knew sorcery all along?

Any thoughts on this theory? Any other theories? I have one big hole in mine that I can't fill: At the end of one of the books (the WLW?) the Consult are torturing people to try to find out what the Dunyain are. It appears they genuinely don't know of their existence.

There was a TV programme in the UK about ten years ago that demonstrated this really well. A volunteer was asked to bet on five horse races, with the presenter (Derren Brown - is he famous outside of the UK?) telling them which horse to back in each case. He correctly predicted the winner five times in a row. It was revealed at the end that there were in fact 7776 volunteers, each receiving a different combination of horses. One of them had to win!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Derren_Brown_shows#Derren_Brown:_The_System_.282008.29

Does anyone else ever have a little smirk to themself whenever they hear Bakker-related things innocently spoken by someone who knows nothing of him? My favourite was in a lecture a few years ago, when the lecturer said, "I see a number of blank faces in the audience". I had no idea some of my peers were skin-spies, nor that the lecturer was Dunyain!

I'm sad enough to keep a list of every fantasy book I've ever attempted to read, together with ratings for each and every one. It wasn't until I finished it that I realised The Unholy Consult is exactly number 100! It also takes the crown as the best book I've ever read.

Just thought I'd share that. 

Quote from: Hogman on August 14, 2017, 10:39:09 am

I think the child was stillborn because the No God was resurrected in between the two births.

The NG didn't come about until after both births. The "dread" or  whatever it's called wasn't present until *after* the carapace descends from the Horn and after Mimara looks on it with the Eye, so it didn't cause the still birth.

Not necessarily. I assume the horde begins to flee when the No God is reborn. The second birth happens after that (page 426). There could have been a delay before the boding began. Or maybe the horde flees because they sense Ajokli. Who knows?