The cue is pointing at the ghost ball when the steps are followed....
Touche John. I misstated my question, which is: after using the reference lines to position your eyes/head/body, what do you align the cue with? Clearly, you can't rely on the former to accurately bring the latter onto the proper shot line (or pre-pivot direction if you're pivoting).
...Exact descriptions of how to use CTE have been printed.
Let's stay with Stan's version for the moment, if you will. I'm not sure what you mean by exact descriptions. I'm looking for well defined steps, such as "after you've acquired the visuals and gotten everything into position, your cue should be parallel to such and such" or "aligned with this or that."
I don't know why you say that pocketing balls is a crude metric? Pocketing balls is the only metric you have when it comes to defining successful shot making. A good player knows themselves well enough to know when they are pocketing balls cleanly or not. And they know themselves well enough to know when they are doing it more consistently or not.
We're talking a few tenths of a degree in cue direction between a successful shot and a miss, and we're not mind readers. Nor can we see what you're seeing. Unless the cue is guided and constrained at each step of the way with unusual precision, more than is evident in your videos, for example, it's impossible to know just how it got to the final aim line. That's why we have geometry; it provides answers with a precision unachievable in real life, especially casual demonstrations.
If you take a person who is say very proficient and pocketing a certain shot using GB and another one who is equally proficient at the same shot using CTE and you give them both a harder shot and the CTE guys success rate is higher then what is your conclusion based on that small sample?
The fact that you and Pat Jerkson won't acknowledge is that success on the pool table doesn't lie. There is no placebo to hide behind, either the balls drop or they don't.
The parameters are that you have a defined set of steps for the user to follow, when those steps are followed a valid shot line is produced. It's not millimeter precise and is subject to errors in judgement but it does produce a valid shot line more often and works equally well for all shots.
So I don't know what other metric you want to see. Good players who have been in this game a long time can see the results immediately. James Roberts is a good player and he has clearly stated his own experience.
You're assuming the results of an experiment that hasn't been performed, at least not with a large sample of players. Even if, overall, players do see an improvement, that doesn't mean that CTE by itself is producing accurate shot lines. Our contention, of course, is that it's CTE + ghostball-like adjustments that are doing the job. In fact, if CTE is explicitly defined as not using those adjustments, there's no question about it for anyone with a working knowledge of geometry (logic is sufficient).
Let's say for a moment that you and Jerkson are right and there is NO mechanical benefit to CTE. As in CTE will never and can never be shown to work on paper. No possible way to show it mathematically as you were able to do with GB. (I assume your math was right there).
So let's say that it's just a set of directions designed to get you in the ball park and then allow the subconscious to do the rest. This is your premise right?
Yes.
If so then it is STILL subject to the basic criteria of shot making which is did the shot go or not?
For example let's compare two methods and two shooters:
Shooter #1 is given 10 shots of varying difficulty and told to shoot the balls in the hole with no instruction other than that.
Shooter #2 is given the same 10 and instructed on the Ghost Ball method.
How do you define success between these two shooters to determine which method is better?
Now introduce Shooter number 3 and give him CTE.
If his pocketing percentage is higher than 1 or 2 or both then what does that say?
Now give shooter #1 CTE and test him again against shooter #2. Now give shooter #2 CTE and test him again.
Throughout all these test the BASIC metric is whether the balls were pocketed or not.
Again, you're assuming the results of an experiment not yet performed; certainly not with a large enough sample to draw any conclusions. But even if it went the way you described, and we all agreed that there are benefits to using it, would that contradict our general point of contention?
Now you can decide to film each shot from the pocket perspective to determine how close to "center" pocket each ball got to for the purpose of defining which method produces the "cleanest" lines so to speak. But be honest, that doesn't really matter does it?
Well, I think it would, a little.
Just like knowing the math behind ghost ball is a purely academic exercise which has zero practical value on the pool table.
Tell that to DeadCrab. Generally speaking, though, I think you're right. However, it can be used to prove or falsify statements of a "theoretical" nature with regard to aiming...but we won't get into that.
By the way, who's this Jerkson? He sounds like he really knows what he's talking about.
Jim
and as far i know the person he is debating there has his own form of cte that he made up and is disusing that and not Stans system, because neither one were able to figure out stans system 
