ESP and Luck

In this chapter of God's Debris, ESP and luck are discussed. The old man argues from an observer we may not be able to work out if someone is lucky when guessing things, or if they do have ESP.

“If you define ESP narrowly to include only the transfer through the air of information, then skeptics will never detect it,” he said. “But if you accept luck as being the same as ESP, then ESP exists and it can be useful, though not reliably so, since luck can change in an instant.” (page 77)

The chapter ends with the chance that someone may in fact have ESP as they may be able to detect signals from someone's brain because the signals do exist. An evolutionist may use the "given enough time" argument and say that someone may in fact get these special powers. After all, it would benefit a creature to know what others are thinking. Speaking of which, seeing through walls would also benefit a creature. Why aren't we (or any other animal) learning to see more of the light spectrum? Evolution is meant to advance our species. I think I want my money back as everyone still gets the common cold.

I side with the skeptics with ESP. No one could pick up someone else's brain signals. If they could detect signals that small, they would then be able to detect other signals, like the flow of electricity in wires which may drown out the brain signal. Also the brain is incredibly complex and is doing more than one process at a time, that in itself may cause too much noise for someone to focus on one signal and then to decode it.