Schmidt, H. Non-Causality as the Earmark of Psi, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 7, 1993, pp. 125-132.
Not a very long article, but it serves as a reminder the scientists have been [screaming] about the importance of the non-local aspects of psi phenomena for quite some time. (Someday we'll talk about the 1974 international conference on Quantum Physics and Parapsychology.)
The article begins by reviewing how different psi phenomena violate local spatiotemporal causation. We can all agree on this, yes?
"It wasn't easy for me to take the possibility of PK seriously." (p. 126) It wasn't easy for me either to accept the idea that PK is the exertion of some mental force upon the world out there. And no wonder it has been so hard for scientists to find experimental support for this type of model. But, recognizing the importance of the non-local aspects of the effects, how do you break away from this type of model, and what type of model do you replace it with?
As with the other Schmidt article reviewed earlier in this blog, this article provides some keys insights into aspects of observation that are critical in effecting willful state selection. For example...
"the subject...succeeds with a goal oriented attitude, focusing only on the final outcome shown by the display device rather than on the necessary preliminary steps leading up to the outcome." (p. 127, my emphasis) Recall our earlier discussion on framework and the importance of the perceptual representation?
"...there is no indication that the time delay makes PK success more or less difficult." (p.128) Indicating once again that it is the moment of observation and it's related representations that should be our main focus?
"The relevance of psi effects for quantum theory is emphasized by the finding that the effects we observe in the laboratory act only on chance processes." (p. 128, my emphasis) Perhaps reflecting not so much a limitation of psi as a limitation of the testing situation? Anecdotal evidence suggests that such effects need not be limited to chance processes, but perhaps are simply easier to effect on outcomes for which there is no expected outcome.
Unfortunately psi researchers have taken a wrong turn here by assuming that psi effects are therefore weak in nature. Schmidt goes on to make allusions that the apparent smallness of psi effects may be related to the smallness of the particle level where non-local effects are easily observed.
The end of this article takes a pretty wild turn into speculating about the roll of the observer in guiding its own evolution via retro-psychokinetic influence towards favorable mutation rates. Additonal interesting, but unsupported, speculations can also be found near the end of this article.
We'll end with one of Schmidt's concluding comments. "Indeed, the development of new phenomenological models or improvements of the old ones (Schmidt, 1975) may be the most efficient thing to do at this time..." I agree.
