PSI Experiments (Phase 2) [frozen copy of original DreamViews post]

I'm preparing to perform "phase 2" of my psi experiments in the coming months.

For those unfamiliar with it, you can find the details of my previous experiment [URL="https://www.dreamviews.com/beyond-dreaming/149679-nature-shared-dreaming-5.html#post2235280"]here[/URL]. (Summary of the results, in graph form, seen [URL="https://imgur.com/a/iKkSxKn"]here[/URL].)

Phase 2 will be quite different than the first. There are two major differences planned:

Difference 1) I am planning to use a "divide and conquer" approach, to isolate what may have been causing the deviation found in my previous experiment (recap: peak rarity by chance of 1 in 32,258, while the control series remained within the expected range the entire time, having a peak rarity by chance of only 1 in 5.96). Maybe it was "actual psi", maybe it was just a mistake in my code, some sort of interaction leakage, etc. -- either way, I want to confirm/understand it better.

So what I'm going to do is come up with all sorts of different variants of the experiment, and perform a "mini-session" of each variant, within each day's session. This will let me get "incremental results" from those (possibly dozens) of variants each day, which will hopefully let me narrow in on the possible cause more quickly.

Some potential "variant" ideas: (as deviating from the original protocol)
A) Perform the experiment without touching your mouse at all. (The software only used the mouse to change the location of an on-screen "intention-focusing" marker, with the simulation code being separate. The RNG-sample modulation layer [details in linked thread] also made mouse-directed interference very unlikely. That said, it's always good to add further confirmation.)
B) Perform the experiment from another location, only viewing it through remote desktop. (mitigating the chance of "temperature-based" interference, from proximity)
C) Perform the experiment with pseudo-random data rather than data from the hardware random-number-generator.
D) Perform the experiment with your eyes closed. (Only visualizing your own imagination of the session state; again, the point is not that this is expected to work, but that we want to try all sorts of crazy variations, to get some sort of handle on what factors might be involved. Think of all these pieces as "partial-result shards", from which inferences can be made later, during analysis.)
E) Perform the experiment, except set your intention to make the results go exactly opposite of what you normally would.
F) Try variations on the code that selects numbers from the hardware RNG, for example discarding every other number, using PRNG to select from each second's buffer of numbers, etc.
G) Try variations on the way the session state is displayed in the UI, while the session is running. (there are many variations possible here)
H) Perform the experiment with and without music playing. (for whether the sound waves, or one's enjoyment level, could have an impact somehow)

Anyway, the idea is that I'll be doing a short bit of experimentation with each of these variants each day. And then at the end of each day, I'll load up the statistics page, and get a historical view of how each of the variants is "performing". If any of those variant lines starts greatly rising above, or greatly falling below, the rest of them, then it might provide a clue as to what the "cause" of the earlier anomaly may have been. (I will then, of course, attempt to "confirm" the deviation of that line, through extensive additional testing.)

Difference 2) This one may confuse people: The phase 2 experiments will be done without sharing of the detailed results.

"Why would you do this!? Isn't the whole point of these experiments to improve society's understanding of the subject? Why would you be concealing data!? This is the opposite of what you've spoken of previously!"

I'll tell you exactly why. Well actually, there are two major reasons:
1) To allow freeform, expansive experimentation with dozens of variations, without the concern of selective reporting when I (according to plan) do not publicly share the numerous, overlapping, multi-faceted results. In other words, I am pre-committing myself to not sharing the results; this lets me quickly iterate on ideas, without those numerous mini-experiments creating potential for selective-reporting/data-dredging/p-hacking. Those are real concerns, but it's also the go-to excuse people use for experiment results they "find implausible" (ie. "these results are surely just the best selection from a large set of previous attempts, and they're presenting it without telling us that, skewing the true significance"). This approach of committing to a pre-defined, minimal "Q/A set" for the results, solves both concerns. (My next post will contain the text specifying exactly what the set of questions will be, with each one having a pre-defined set of answer options, with future me required to select one and only one answer for each. Additional details are included in that text, explaining the rationale for the selected questions and answers, as well as protocols for handling various "gray areas" that might come up.)
2) I think it's possible that the strength of the psi effect for a given experiment, depends partially on what the experimenter's conditions/intentions are for sharing it. I'm aware that this will sound ridiculous, perhaps even delusional, to some; nonetheless, I consider psi "more likely than not" given the full set of data, and that it has evaded detailed understanding so far suggests that, if it is real, there are some additional factors we've been missing which need to be accounted for. So I want to try a set of experiments in complete "isolation mode", to see if that has some sort of an impact. (When there's something you don't understand, you don't keep staying within your existing assumptions, you expand them even to things that seem very unlikely -- if for no other reason than to loosen up your thought process to further possibilities. For example, when you've lost your keys/wallet, and you've looked every place you can reasonably imagine it to be placed, that often means you need to expand your search/thinking even to those "ridiculous" location possibilities. Many times you'll find it was placed in an odd place for a very specific reason, but you just couldn't think of it at the time, because those peculiar reasons were only active for that brief window of time.)

Even given those reasons, I can see how it would be annoying as a reader to not be able to see the raw results. But not to worry! After this "phase 2" isolated experimentation period, I plan to take what I learn from it, to construct the protocol for "phase 3" -- which is where I will do everything I can to make the experiment as fast and streamlined as it can be, for other people to either:
1) Perform the experiment themselves, once I've made the software public. (regarding hardware, it may be possible to make use of my existing HRNG over the internet; if not, the HRNG device is commercially available, and I can maybe help subsidize the costs for serious inquirers)
2) If it appears that the protocol is robust to (the hypothesized) intention/reporting effects, then I'll work to set up a nice online interface, letting users review all data obtained from the experiment, from users around the world. (well, for those who authorize the sharing anyway; though for that, we'd need some way to prevent selective reporting, perhaps by requiring users to select their setting before doing any experimentation)

Anyway, with that background explained, my following post (well, after one empty post, reserved for updates) will provide the draft of the "Q/A set", that I will eventually use (after I've completed my phase 2 experiments) to share (the predefined portion of) its results.