Transhumanist pundit George Dvorsky has noted on his Sentient Developments blog an illustrative case of the ‘taboo of psi’:
Much to the chagrin of his readers, AI theorist Ben Goertzel has dared to explore the topic of parapsychology on his blog (or just ‘psi’). He argued that the scientific evidence for psi is stronger than we think.
When his readers complained in the comments section, Goertzel came back by saying…
I’ve omitted Goertzel’s comments, which you can read on his own blog. What is worth pointing out is the way that Dvorsky has to frame the story. A post about psi research is “much to the chagrin” of Goertzel’s readers. He “dared to explore” the topic. I mean, really, are we living through the Inquisition again, when scientists have to “dare” to explore a topic?
Whether there is something to psi, or whether it’s just an artifact of the experiments we haven’t worked out yet, there is one certain thing. Scientists *should* be investigating it. There are decades of positive, replicated ganzfeld results suggestive of telepathy (among various other experiments into topics such as presentiment and remote viewing). It makes an absolute joke of modern science that someone needs to “dare” to look further into it, and all those who vent their anger at such a person have no right to categorize themselves as a scientifically-minded person. Simple as that.
