http://randi.org/jr/021105an.html

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I guess you could say that I have been a lifelong skeptic. I have to laugh at the follies and beliefs that seem to be legion in our "technological" world. Your Web site is fascinating reading and light against the darkness.... While it may not have a direct bearing on the type of flim-flam flummeristic behavior that you see from practitioners of the magical art of making money disappear (except your prize), the following article is a fascinating study that can explain part of the self-delusion: [http://content.apa.org/journals/psp/77/6/1121]. I first saw it mentioned on the front page of USA Today, and then recently ran across it again. Funny, isn't it, that one could conclude that the largest percentage of people who are most likely to say they are a competent "medium" are least likely to be giving a realistic evaluation of their abilities, even if their abilities really existed? Hmmm. The ramifications are interesting, if not stunning.

As an aside, for some time now I have been postulating the existence of bubble people in the general populace. I have known they were there but could not prove it. Now, however, I am able to actually observe them in everyday life, based on indirect effects, behaviors, and other results. These are people all around us that create and inhabit a special, invisible bubble world within which the observation and acknowledgment of reality is partially or completely suspended.

The effect is like a bubble or aura, surrounding the affected individual(s). All objective information is altered when it crosses the wall of the bubble (call it re-fact-tion), based on the internal set of rules randomly defined by the bubble's inhabitant(s). "It can't be that way, it would be painful or inconvenient or expensive or ..." — therefore it isn't. "I want it to be true" — therefore it is. Voilà. The bubble springs into being. I am working on a special electronic measurement device to detect the presence of a bubble, no matter how small.

The issue is that bubble itself is invisible — bubble people look normal at first. The only way an objective external observer can detect the presence of a bubble is indirectly, by checking the perturbation in the stream of facts before and after it encounters the bubble around the bubble-person. The better the bubble inhabitant is at altering or deflecting objective facts, the freer the bubble floats away from any real-world anchor. It is a form of information anti-gravity, and there are a remarkable number of applications for the effect if you are so inclined.

The further the bubble is floating from reality, the greater the eventual danger to the inhabitant(s). Unfortunately, there is also a danger to unwary bystanders. I am still exploring collateral effects, but they appear to be real. Look out below.

Verifying the ostensive rules of bubble people (bubble heads?) is not an easy task. The rules seem to change whenever confronted or observed directly, like a bad attempt to duplicate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in sociological cloth. I observe, however, that there are several fundamental (fuzzy) laws implicit in the creation and sustenance of a fully-functional anti-reality bubble:

0. [The Zero-eth Law] We are free to dictate what is real based on our beliefs, feelings, and personal needs.

1. Bubble size is directly proportional to the number of inhabitants and the strength of their beliefs.

2. Bubble buoyancy increases with size -- the larger the bubble, the further it floats from reality.

3. Money and advertising act to increase the size of the bubble and reinforce the strength of the bubble walls.

4. Small bubble effects aggregate over time [the recruitment effect].

5. Sharp objects (facts, truth, etc.) can destabilize (burst) the bubble and are instinctively avoided at all costs.

My theory and the fundamental laws/rules still require further fleshing out and refinement, but I promise to keep working on them — it has been a life work so far. The preliminary theory does have some immediate practical use. For example, it explains the problem that most identifiable bubble-people have with you and the JREF in general — you are both very sharp objects. Some day, I will have the GUTEM (Grand Unified Theory of Embolistic Methods) ready to publish. Until then, keep up the puncturing, er, good work.

P.S.: I hope my attempt at humor isn't taken the wrong way. I already have several people living in my theory bubble with me. We find it a very useful mental model to explain certain behaviors around us. It helps keep our feet on the ground and our minds sharp.

"We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth.... For my part, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst; and to provide for it." -- Patrick Henry http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/henry.html

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