DBT

Just been browsing through a book on the psychic experiences of identical twins, it was full of the stuff we hear from time to time,
one twin feeling the pain of the others broken leg while they were living in seperate city's and so on.
To a casual reader this would seem to suggest that their is more to life than what appears on the surface.
Any thoughts on the subject?

sakrilege

My first thought is that anecdotes aren't enough, actual evidence is required. Were appropriate tests done to establish the 'psychic' connection?

SimplyAtheistic

The idea that twins have some metaphysical connection is pure nonsense. They share the same DNA, not some odd connection.
Jake

DBT

Sakrilege,
Yes it is all completely anecdotal but the events if true as described are sporadic and completely uncontrollable and so could'nt be tested, but to lay readers at least suggest an unknown dimention to life.
The book also speculates on the connecton of widely seperated quantum particles.

LeftCoast

In most ways, the data on the twins is the same as the stories you hear after just about every airplane crash or the like. There's almost always at least one story in the paper where someone claims that they had "feelings of foreboding" just before their loved one boarded the ill-fated airliner or what-have-you. What they don't says is that they probably had that same feeling of foreboding before every trip their loved one took it's just that when they returned safe the feelings were forgotten.

sakrilege

Anecdotal evidence is generally useless other than providing ideas for investigation and always has to be followed up with real testing. If it can't be tested then the phenomena isn't real. Proposed double blind test ...

set of consenting twins, triplets, whatever in different cities
one observer for each participant
one cell phone for each observer, identical make & model
one scheduler with programmable phone
one phone programmer

all cell phones have numbers independent of participant city, probably should all have area code of scheduler location.
phone programmer programs one button for each cell phone randomly, is shot - j/k
cells phones are randomly given to observers
scheduler choses random time, selects button and rings an observer
observer verifies number is from schedular (CallerID)
observer pokes participant with pin, I don't think breaking the leg would be appropriate

Anyone think of any improvements?


(edited to add links)

Baloo

Shoot - no need to make it that difficult.

Have two twins sit in separate rooms (completely out of sight of each other). Stand next to one of them, flip a coin, if heads, prick his right thumb with a pin; if tails, his left thumb. Write down your action, yell to other twin to write down his. Repeat 20 times. Reverse twin, repeat another 20 times.

For all tests, have a non-subject sit with the twin doing the writing, and make his own "guesses" based on your shouts... this should make mischievious signal-sending or other cheating much more difficult (as well as provide a control).

Bugs

And if they get it right all 20 times, help them fill in the application form for James Randi�s $Million challenge. Make sure you negotiate your 10% fee and get that in writing too, before you send it in.

I know one pair of identical twins. I asked them if they got any such psychic experiences, feeling the other�s pain etc. Sadly they replied in the negative.

DBT

OK chaps, thats good, thanks for the effort.
I think i'm falling in love with this website.

Hypatia

Since I'm an identical twin I'll throw my $.02 in. Every once in a while something slightly odd will happen (e.g. - I'll think of calling her and within ten minutes or so she'll call me). These events perhaps do occur more often between us than I suspect happens between non-twins. However, I don't buy into any of that psychic connection crap. I believe in our case, based on 30+ years of observation by two science types (she's a microbiologist and I'm a physics and math person), that this is partly coincidence and partly because we are so much alike (identical genetics and nearly identical background/childhood). Nothing paranormal needed to explain it, IM(slightly more informed than most)O.