Consider
the bilking experiment, and develop a self-consistent logical explanation for
how bilking would or would not work. Write at most one single-spaced typed page
of your own analysis. (As far as I know a bilking experiment has not been carried
out, and so is just a thought experiment at this point.)
You
could consider as an example RadinÕs precognition experiment. A viewer sits in front of a computer
screen, and the computer decides in advance upon an evocative versus calming
image, and displays it later. The
viewerÕs galvanic skin response is measured before the image is displayed, and
shows a statistically significant preaction response. In the bilking experiment, the computer measures the
viewerÕs advanced response and changes its decision about what to display such
that the image is set to produce the opposite effect of the advance response
that has been measured. Or you
could consider Spottiswoode & MayÕs experiment, or another of your own
creation.
The
following are some possibilities of what would happen (without any explanation
or justification), to stimulate your thinking:
1.
The viewerÕs measured response changes to that of the newly set future
2.
The viewer continues to respond as s/he had originally, which has become inappropriate
for what has now been set as the future.
3.
The experiment doesnÕt work. Once
bilking is introduced, there is no longer a statistically significant
measurable preaction effect.
4. The viewer responds to the single true future,
no matter what bilking takes place.
5. Once the precognition signal is sensed, then
the decision that it sensed can no longer be changed.
---------------
Another description of bilking (from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-metaphysics/)
The bilking argument is explained by Mackie, with
reference to a backward causal hypothesis that a drawing made by an alleged
clairovoyant on Monday might be caused be a pattern made Tuesday: ŌBut on every
occasion, after the drawing is made, it is possible that someone or something
should intervene so that the corresponding pattern fails to be produced.
Consequently, it cannot on any occasion be the pattern that is responsible for
the details of the drawing: the precognition hypothesis must be false even for
those occasions when the device is not stopped, when the pattern is actually
produced and turns out to be just like the drawing.Ķ (1974, p. 178) So backwards
causation is said to be impossible.