Welcome to Smearland

Release of Effort

2007-12-28T06:48:00.000-08:00

"Feats of magic will make your name known everywhere, sir, but they will never make your opinions understood. For that you must publish."

Writing a blog was never supposed to be anything other than a jumpstart to writing something more serious. But I like this medium, and I like what I have been able to create here, so I think I will leave this blog here in this, its final form. Many thanks to all those who helped in its creation. :) And, because I can't bear to leave them out, I'll sign off with these quotes from Flatland.

"When I could find my voice, I shrieked aloud in agony, 'Either this is madness or it is Hell.' 'It is neither,' calmly replied the voice of the Sphere, 'it is Knowledge; it is Three Dimensions: open your eyes once again and try to look steadily."

"Yet I exist in the hope that these memoirs, in some manner, I know not how, may find their way to the minds of humanity in Some Dimensions, and may stir up a race of rebels who shall refuse to be confined to limited Dimensionality."

The Observer and the Observed

2007-12-27T14:35:00.000-08:00

"It is not our job to put our heads in the sand. Our job is to learn to control these forces."

It's occurred to me lately that the story of Smearland is finally nearing completion. Most of the critical ideas are here, with one notable exception...

It stands to reason that if an observer can select an outcome, the same observer may be impacted by similar forces generated by other observers. And indeed we can find everyday accounts of people's behaviors being affected by the observations of unknown/unseen others, as well as scientific attempts to verify these effects via laboratory experiments.

Having a basic understanding of what it takes to select an outcome, I began to wonder what signals the observer might have access to that tell him that he is being observed. Could sensitivity to these signals be developed and exploited?

I've added some more links - take a look...

For the World is Hollow...

2007-12-16T19:59:00.000-08:00

... and I have touched the sky."

I did not slide easily into the Smearland perspective.

I went through periods of angst, particularly when I realized just exactly how mutable some things were and how easy it was to slip into another universe. The other day I was going through some old notebooks and I came across some thoughts I had jotted down during what was probably the most intense of these periods. I hesitate to post any of this material in its raw form because it is, well, raw.

When I began to think seriously about these things, I had no framework upon which to lay my observations and experiences. I had nothing that told me what any of it was or what it meant. It's very possible that, save for a few things, I might have become seriously unhinged by some of the things I experienced.

"... it is feasible that a mutant human might come along every now and then who was exceptionally sensitive to the entangled universe. The question is whether this mutation would be sufficiently compatible with normal psychological functioning for it to survive..." - Entangled Minds, Dean Radin, (2006), p.273.

(I'm letting the 'mutant' crack slide... for now... because Radin is right to question how something like this might or might not be compatible with normal psychological functioning.)

I was aided most of all (believe it or not) by a healthy skepticism. I generally had to experience something quite a few times before I would acknowledge that something real was going on. Furthermore, I decided to seek validation in science. I suppose I could have adapted more quickly to what I was experiencing if I had studied magick, or metaphysics, or another framework of knowledge that more readily acknowledged things like this. But these systems of knowledge were not within my range of experience, and besides, science had the promise of being able to unlock any secret if applied rigorously enough. ;)

Still, I had nothing to tell me what any of it meant. In retrospect, this was probably a good thing, as it allowed me to collect observations free of any paradigm-driven assumptions. But it did make for some uncomfortable moments of questioning. :) I still can't claim to understand what it means. But the faith of a scientist says that there will be more data, and that that data will clarify what we don't yet understand.

Walking Between the Worlds

2007-12-15T18:39:00.000-08:00

"There were by now so many different memories, so many skeins of life experience, jostling in his head, that he scarcely tried to remember anything. He took it as it came. He was living almost like a child, among actualities only. He was surprised by nothing, and by everything."

Awhile back I brought up the significance of memory in understanding the 5-dimensional perspective. We need the information about past experiences that feeds our ability to generate expectations about future outcomes. But is this forward flow of information inviolable?

I've suggested that true freedom/mobility in 5 dimensions involves overriding the influence of memory. But what happens if the circuitry of memory is circumvented too often?

Perhaps I should back up and give an example of 5-dimensional navigation might involve overriding the influence of memory... Okay, suppose you are at the store. You want a frozen mushroom pizza. The store is having a sale on the brand of pizza that you want to buy, but you scan the shelves and there isn't a mushroom pizza of this brand to be found. 'I don't like this universe', you mutter to yourself. But you know that it is theoretically possible to find a future that is inconsistent with the observation you have just experienced. 'I can UNDO this', you smugly think to yourself.

Now, the majority of people would never see a future outcome that is inconsistent with that observation. Or, if they did, undoubtedly they would assume that they simply hadn't seen something the first time they looked. But you have practiced and can willfully shift your attention, alter your expectations, and override the influence of that past observation upon your next observation. In effect, you aren't horribly anchored yet in this particular universe, so you dive back into the smear and re-emerge in a slightly more-satisfying universe. ;)

Memory is a powerful anchor to be sure, and its mechanisms are not completely understood. (For example, sleep does not involve the cessation of visual imagery or a feeling of experience; it simply has a different relationship to the mechanisms of memory. I know I am awake again when I can willfully access and reflect on the contents of my past experience.) But what happens if we become slightly less dependent on having a past that is consistent with the future?

Let's assume you have discovered that you like being able to jump universes. How are the influence and the architectures of memory altered to cope with this type of inconsistency in observations? What are the consequences of too much of this UNDOing?

So far I have two observations of note in this area...

1) I have a hideous short-term memory, and it seems to me that this has gotten worse over time. It now requires much more of an effort on my part to hold information in short-term memory.

2) Non-local drift.

Ante Up

2007-12-12T15:54:00.000-08:00

"The physicist Erwin Schrödinger concluded that organisms are subject to “a new physics,” which he did not produce, but rather viewed as necessary. This new physics might well be the domain of anticipation. Indeed, from within physics itself—that is, quantum mechanics—a possible understanding of some aspects of anticipation can be derived." - antE Institute website (my emphasis)

Successful, willful five-dimensional navigation is predicated on the ability to accurately anticipate the possible outcome states for any future observation. Only once the possible outcome states have been anticipated, can the desired outcome be selectively reinforced against other possibilities. This brings up a series of questions...

What are the mechanisms that govern our ability to anticipate a future event? Is anticipation guided largely (or entirely) by memory, in which case our ability to anticipate would be an entirely linear function of past experience? Or is there room for time-reversed information from the future to have an effect on the accuracy of anticipation, as suggest by Radin/Lobach in their recent study?

Is it possible that we may even be dependent on a time-reversed flow of information from the future for our successful survival? (Okay, back away from the wild speculation.)

If we cannot escape the need for time-reversed information flow, as per physics, and we can agree that there is a dependency of some sort on previous experience in determing what we can anticipate, then where/how do these two components of anticipation interface? How much influence does time-reversed information have on our ability to anticipate (or, on normal cognition in general)? How is that influence manifest within the otherwise-linear dynamics created by the architectures of memory?

Yep, I still have some reading to do...

Wizards in Winter

2007-12-11T17:59:00.000-08:00

"Whatever elaborate, and grotesquely counter-intuitive, underpinnings there might be to familiar reality, it stubbornly continues to be familiar."

I am not fond of winter driving. [Understatement]

The fear that provokes white-knuckled cursing as one attempts to negotiate treacherous byways alongside one's fellow travelers can drive all thoughts of 5-dimensional physics out of one's mind. :) As one is consumed with thoughts of speed, mass, and traction and the loss thereof, expectations that other drivers will behave reasonably and perform a specific (sane) action can quickly turn against one, creating moments of escalating panic.

And so, before making the mandatory return voyage, I lectured myself. The lecture went a little something like this...

...Okay, driving on ice-covered roads is not an experience that is immune to the laws of 5-dimensional physics. (Anticipate. Visualize. Execute.) It is possible to choose the universe where the best of possible conditions prevails. (Anticipate. Visualize. Execute.) You can eliminate the outcomes you don't want. (Anticipate. Visualize. Execute.) You can layer frameworks of expectations to maximize safety...

Did it work? Well... there were fewer instances of immanent peril on the return trip. There was also less fear and a large decrease in the amount of cursing. ;)

And now I am free to obsess over the question of how I got to the universe where I have to engage in this particular form of battle with the elements...

Meeting of the Minds

2007-11-08T23:57:00.001-08:00

"The first attempts at merged consciousness would probably be temporary; after a time the individual minds would separate and work independently again. This would give them a chance to see whether they preferred individuality or the merged state."

Quite a few years ago I took part in a Ganzfeld ESP experiment. (The gist of the Ganzfeld is the creation of a uniform/no information feed of visual and auditory input, which is designed to help you ignore these senses in favor of extrasensory information.)

My partner is this escapade was an acquaintance/friend who took the role of 'sender' to my 'receiver'. The task goes something like this... Sender sees target picture. Sender focuses on target picture for the duration of time (15 or 20 minutes, if I remember correctly) that the receiver is in the Ganzfeld and actively monitoring the impressions and images that pass through his/her mind. Sender is hearing the receiver's verbalizations during this period, presumably because this allows the sender to mentally 'endorse' or 'reinforce' the receiver when s/he gets something right. Sender may also draw pictures to try to reinforce a specific idea or image they are sending to the receiver about the target.

Don't get too hung up on that part of the protocol though. The idea of needing someone to 'send' the information to the receiver presumes that the receiver is most competent at tasks involving telepathy with his/her partner, as opposed to simply identifying information that s/he will be subjected to during later feedback portions of the task and temporally displacing that information to conscious awareness at an earlier time during the task. And by the way, yes, I was able to correctly identify the target picture from a set of four. And, yes, I know that that's not particularly impressive to you all unless I'm able to repeat it quite a few times in a row. No, I did not have the opportunity to try to repeat it.

Now, admittedly, I shouldn't try to draw too many conclusions from a single experience. So let's just say that this experience raised some interesting questions...

The most vivid image that I 'received' was actually an image that my friend had drawn during the 'sending' phase of the experiment. After the judging and feedback portions of the experiment were complete, I had the opportunity to see these drawings and discuss the session with my friend. Naturally I had a strong reaction to that image when I saw the drawing of it, as it was the image I had 'received' during the experiment. Had I gotten that image telepathically from my friend? If so, why hadn't I gotten the actual target image telepathically? Or had I been drawing on my startled reaction to the image when I was casting about for information during the 'receiving' portion of my session? If so, why hadn't I pulled the target image, which I subsequently saw and knew to be the correct image? (And so on.)

Attempting to resolve these questions becomes difficult, as I don't have the time-locked data that would let me compare the time I 'received' that image to the time my friend drew/'sent' it. I was able to speculate a little bit about my friend's ability to 'release'/'send' that image, based on what I learned about what happened during the 'sending' session. I suspect that my friend was able to more easily 'release' this image than the target image, due to the shifting of attention that happened during the 20 minutes or so of 'sending'. I don't think that this was a conscious act on the part of my friend, as neither of us had had any training in 'release of effort'.

And, from what I have read and experienced, in order for telepathy to function in a productive way, the sender must be as equally adept at releasing the information as the receiver is at identifying it and being able to act upon it. The sender must also be able to release/control his/her expectations of the receiver's ability to receive the information and/or act upon it.

Stand and Deliver

2007-11-06T19:37:00.001-08:00

"Believe me, I discarded the telekinesis myth long ago. I know I am choosing outcomes, not manipulating processes."

I'm in the process of developing a presentation. And I'm not above cannibalizing my previous work for said presentation. In doing so, I try to ask 'Is there a way I could have said this better?'.

For example, I could have said...

The most promising variable that is not currently accounted for in psi research is the ever-changing knowledge of the system in question. With each observation, expectations of future outcomes within that system are adjusted. If you accept that these varying states of expectation can have some effect on the outcomes that are selected, then it becomes necessary to control either 1) the input of information about the system, or 2) the expectations that can be generated about future observations, or both. (This was discussed a bit in Entangled Expectations.)

Think of motion through our 5th dimension just like you think of motion through time - it is constant; you can't escape it. Each new input of information in conscious awareness modifies the forces that contribute to the process of state selection for future outcomes. Only when you account for this shifting of expectations due to new information, can you begin to see the pattern of motion through Smearland.

...but then, I have a splitting headache right now, so perhaps this only makes sense to me

The Prometheus Project

2007-10-24T17:15:00.001-07:00

"To refuse this challenge of providing something entirely new in the world would be to fall somewhat short of our full humanity."

[ASIDE: Several months ago I googled Gerald Feinberg to see if he had ever written a follow-up piece to The Prometheus Project: Mankind's Search for Long-Range Goals (1969). Sadly, I learned that he had passed away in 1992, and I was unable to locate any follow-up to this optimistic vision of man's potential to shape his future.]

But on to business... that being, the ongoing search/struggle for a formula/mathematical model.

Let me just say that strange thoughts about matrix manipulations have now returned to plague me at odd moments. My search for a workable model of 5-dimensional navigation devolved some years ago into a struggle to master and manipulate matrix mechanics. But I never succeeded in creating a model of anything more than a single aspect of what I felt needed to be represented. I don't remember how I decided to use matrices and matrix operations for these representations, save that I was not familiar enough with anything else (say, set topology) to be able to use it for what I needed.

Anyway, as this progressed, I got further and further into the intricacies of matrix mechanices, and farther and farther from the big picture I was trying to capture. And I was never really sure a matrix representation would work at all. There were too many things I still didn't know how to represent using matrix mechanics... How could I model degree of correspondence between representations? How could I model forward flow of information, and feedback, and priming? Was it possible to model emotion or conviction or attention as operators with differing effects on the mental representation's position in determining the final outcome? Can you use matrices as members of a zero-sum set? (And so it went.)

Eventually I decided to table the model-creating until after I had achieved some brilliant insight that would enable it to go much faster. (Translation: This isn't working.)

Staring in the mirror this morning, I came to the moderately depressing realization that I was probably not going to be the recipient of such a gift of sudden insight. If I want to create a working model, I am probably going to have to model (independently) all the various aspects of 5-dimensional navigation as I believe I understand them, and then hope a more global model can somehow be synthesized from the results. (Oy.)

Which brings me back to the thought - "This would be so much easier if someone else were here in Smearland with me!"

"The Prometheus Project cannot be an effort of one man, or a small number of men, since no small group can encompass the total wisdom or feelings of mankind. I am writing in the hope of stimulating enough interest in these questions so that eventually a sizable fraction of the human race will take part in the discussion..."

A Shortcut Through Time (Pt III)

2007-10-17T16:53:00.001-07:00

"It seems to me quite likely that the risks of plunging every day into the unconscious without a tether are considerable... it is too easy to become overwhelmed by ego after successful trials. I do it very well and it scares me. So I don't do it in general."

After the training exercise that produced The 5th Dimension: Channels to a New Reality, I didn't push too many other boundaries for awhile. (Yep. That book is still sitting on the bookshelf, waiting to be read... someday.)

One day though, in the afterglow of some surfing, I wondered briefly if I could task to an object that represented information about an event whose outcome I had not yet observed. Just a very vague, half-formed thought. Couldn't be considered proper protocol for any type of training exercise. But then there was an object, right in front of me, commanding my attention. 'Alright, I'll study the object', I thought, with no particular expectations about what parameters, if any, of the object would contain significant information.

Once I had observed the outcome of the event, I began to analyze the object in light of the event. That analysis morphed into an experience that must be one of the closest things I have ever had to a mystical experience. (I don't really know what a mystical experience is, so I'm guessing here.) I could see connections between almost every element of the object, and the event - concepts, words, symbolism, connections between ideas. That experience became so disconcerting that I soon had to stop thinking about the whole thing.

But it did make me seriously think about the nature of information, time, and reality in general. For awhile, anyway. Then self-preservation kicked in and I went to find some coffee. ;)

A Shortcut Through Time (Pt II)

2007-10-16T17:23:00.001-07:00

"I had become a [scientist] in large part because I considered science - pure science, the search for knowledge for its own sake - to be the noblest and most meaningful of human endeavors. We are here to figure out why we are here. What other purpose is worthy of us?"

I like puzzles. I played Set until I mastered it. (Nineteen seconds was my personal record. Pardon me if I brag a little bit. ;) Some might say that I get a daily paper primarily for the Sudoku puzzle. And then there is the word scramble...

LYRCIAT

Normally you solve this puzzle by systematically re-ordering subsets of the letters to make recognizable pairings. EX: 'LY' is commonly seen at the end of words. You keep doing this until you recognize where all the letters fit to form the unscrambled word. ('No kidding!' you are thinking.)

The point is, that solving this puzzle usually involves 1) a serial set of tasks, 2) which are performed consciously. You are aware of the process that results in the solution. Well, usually...

Many times when I have played this puzzle, I have had the experience of looking at the scrambled word - not staring at it, mind you, but looking at it for a second or so - and then looking up to begin the systematic process of unscrambling the word. And before I can begin the process, the unscrambled word appears in my conscious awareness, before any conscious processing could take place. (And it's right.) This is a little bit disturbing to experience, for the following reasons...

1) There is only a matter of a second or two between the time the scrambled word was acquired for processing, and the time the solution appears in consciousness. This is not enough time to complete the serial set of tasks needed solve the puzzle in the conventional way.

2) I haven't played this puzzle so much that I could be familiar with all the possible words used and all possible recombinations of the letters of those words.

3) There is no context from which the word can be inferred. And these aren't words that you see every day, though the combination of letters in them are not usually unique enough to make the word obvious.

One day, after I had spent a few minutes thinking about that 'instant solution' experience, I had the thought - 'I wonder if this is what it's like to be a quantum computer.'

These experiences led me to ask the following questions...

Was I really bypassing the serial tasks involved in solving the puzzle? Or were they happening, but just at a much faster rate than what can be shunted through conscious awareness? And if that was the case, what does that say about the concept of time? Does it imply that our ability to consciously perceive time is drastically slower than the speed at which processing in our brain can/does occur?

My experience with the Set puzzle was an ongoing study in the process of pattern recognition. When I began to play Set, it took me 5 to 6 minutes to solve the puzzles. Eventually I broke the 60 second barrier. Then I was consistently solving the puzzle in less than 30 seconds. The sets began to 'jump out' at me. I had managed to train some part of my brain to recognize a very specific set of cues in a very specific setting. I was recognizing the sets more quickly each time I played the puzzle, despite the fact that the actually cards in the sets were not the same ever time, nor was I limited to searching for only one or two patterns. (Seriously, read the rules and try the game. It's fun!)

Had some similar kind of complex pattern recognition network been building all the while I had been playing the word scramble puzzle? If so, how did it get so fast?

Or, was I pulling the solution into awareness from a future point in time? Perhaps from a point in time after I had verified the solution? Hmm...

(Have you figured out the word yet?)

A Shortcut Through Time (Pt I)

2007-10-15T17:06:00.001-07:00

"... what if expectation acts to focus our attention on our potential future states, and allows us to 'select' favorable paths to pursue? If gaining information from our futures were possible, then in principle we might be able to navigate through potential futures to achieve a desired outcome." - Radin and Lobach (2007) (here)

Reading that paper got me thinking... and remembering...

One of the first things I wondered about, after accepting that there was a correlation between certain states of expectation and the outcomes I actually observed, was whether or not this was some form of convoluted, inverted precognition (an effect of the actual outcome that traveled back in time), or whether my expectations were somehow the cause of the outcome. Somewhere along the way, I decide to focus on the causal perspective, and from then on I researched primarily from that perspective.

I don't have a whole lot of notes from that period, as it is generally easier not to leave crazy-sounding notes lying around when one has roommates. ;) But I do remember thinking that if it were more cause than effect, then I should be able to change my expectations mid-way to the outcome and see the corresponding results in the observed outcome.

Here's an illustration... Let's say I flip a coin. Prior to observing the outcome, I generate the expectational components that steer me towards the outcome 'Heads'. Then I change my mind. I now want the outcome 'Tails'. So I go about generating the various representations that will steer me to 'Tails'. Which outcome will I observe, and how will that outcome be determined?

What I found across repetitions and a variety of outcome situations boiled down to this ... Those expectational components and representations of the outcome that were more accurate, more vivid, more convincing, and which utilized more of my attention, determined the outcome I observed. If I were better able to generate the required representations after I had decided to steer towards a different outcome, then I was going to get the 'changed my mind' outcome.

This result also helped lock me into a causal mode of thinking about this effect. It really seemed like there was something (a forces model was helpful to me at this time) that was summing together, and the end result was rather like adding a positive and a negative number. Whichever number had a higher absolute value won out.

Needless to say, that is probably an overly simplistic representation of what is actually happening.

And now, among other things, I want to know... can the causal role (if any) of non-observational states upon the actual outcome be separated from the effect of the actual observation (traveling back in time) upon those same pre-outcome non-observational states? What would information traveling backwards in time from a future outcome feel like as an experience? Is it possible to enhance sensitivity to this type of effect as well?

Hmmm... must find more coffee now...

What Happens In Vegas

2007-08-03T06:42:00.001-07:00

(Time for another story...)

Once upon a time, I attended a convention. At this convention, I attended a talk. Prior to the talk, I conversed with two individuals sitting next to me. They asked what I did, I told them about what I was studying and, like clockwork, their eyebrows went up in the fashion of skeptics everywhere. "A demonstration is in order," thought I.

There were roughly 100 people attending this talk, and two fairly substantial and desirable door prizes were to be given away before the talk ended. Skipping to the end of the story... Yes, I walked away with one of the door prizes. The interesting part of this story is HOW I plotted a trajectory through Smearland that led a universe where I won one of the door prizes.

To be a truly impressive feat in keeping with my claims, the door prizes would have to be given away in some random fashion. (As opposed to as prizes for a competition which involved knowledge or skill.) Task #1 - Make sure we end up in the universe where the prizes are given away via some random or quasi-random system. (Done.)

Task #2 involved the framework problem. The gist of my problem was this... Under these circumstances, it would have been more difficult for me to navigate to the winning universe if only one critical observation were involved. Ex: If every person had a unique number, all numbers were put into a bin, and two were selected at random. Task #2 - Secure a more favorable framework of observations. (Done. I found the universe where a subgroup of the audience was selected, and then from the subgroup, a winner. Much easier course to navigate for reasons we will discuss later.)

Task #3 - Find the universe where I win one of the door prizes. (Done.)

Task #4 should have been to ensure that I also landed in a universe where the individuals in question put two and two together and concluded that I did know what I was talking about. Alas, I failed in this task. Probably because I was too preoccupied with winning, and I assumed (fatal error) that recognition would follow.

The moral of this story is that each task involves its own critical observations, and each observation was critical in determining the nature and success of the next task. This is the nature of navigating through Smearland. You need to be aware of what other possible outcomes might arise before they occur. You also need to be aware of how one result will impact your ability to see the next set of outcomes and to generate the forces necessary to select that outcome at will.

What would have happened if I had not been successful in Task #2? Of if I had not thought to find a universe other than the obvious one where the two winners were drawn from a pool of all audience members at random? Certainly, if I had won under those circumstance, my skeptic friends may have remembered our conversation and been a little impressed, but the point is, one way or another, I decided to find a universe where I won, and I did. :) Shhh... don't tell anyone.

Journal Club #4

2007-08-01T21:14:00.001-07:00

I've talked a bit about expectations. So, what happens when you try to manipulate expectations within the context of a psi experiment?

Pitman, J. A., The effect of manipulating expectations both before and during a test of ESP. Journal of Parapsychology, Spring 2004. (here)

This paper begins with a very general overview of expectations as they may relate to psi performance. The thing to note here is that 'expectations' are never precisely defined in terms of their components - mental imagery, representations of time, degree and nature of emotional content, changes in expectations as testing progresses, etc. It's assumed that everyone has the same definition of 'expectation' and that 'expectation' means the same thing in every study that is discussed. This means that 'expectations' are not being manipulated with a level of precision that will easily lead to future testable hypotheses.

Pitman presents two experiments which have basically the same design. The second experiment corrects subtle flaws in 'random' presentation and increases the number of subjects, as compared to the first experiment. Pitman manipulates expectation in two ways - by artificially inflating (or not) the degree of positive feedback the subjects are given about their ESP 'guessing' trials, and by giving them a placebo (or not) that is presented as a substance that enhances ESP. We are largely left to speculate as to what the actual effects of these manipulations might be upon expectations for success. It is assumed that subjects will have greater expectations of success when given the 'ESP-enhancing' placebo and when given artificially inflated positive ('false') feedback about their success. But again, the nature of these expectations is never elaborated upon.

In both experiments, Pitman found a significant interaction between the placebo manipulation and the feedback manipulation.

"When participants were given false feedback, there was a placebo effect... However, when participants were given true feedback, there was no placebo effect... Further, when participants were given a placebo, there was an effect of feedback... However, when participants were not given a placebo, there was no effect of feedback." (Results - Experiment 1; confirmed in Experiment 2)

In other words, unless your expectations were (theoretically) artificially inflated in two different ways at the same time, your performance was no different from that of everyone else in the study.

Pitman acknowledges that this is a problematic result. "Without a significant effect for the placebo manipulation in increasing predicted ESP performance, explanation of the additive performance for placebo and falsely positive feedback is challenging." (Her next sentence brings to light an additional problem with this study - "One must conclude that all participants started the ESP test with similar levels of expectancy...". Yeah, that's a problem for many reasons.)

I think it's a fascinating result. Due to the imprecise definition of 'expectation' and the vague manipulations thereof in this experiment (and pretty much all similar studies), any conclusion that I would attempt to draw from the data would be highly speculative. But go ahead and twist my arm... okay, okay, I'll speculate.

The first thing that comes to my mind is that, with two sources for expectations of success, participants may have been able to shift their attention between two significantly different frameworks. For example, when I am told that I got the answer wrong, I may be able to shift my attention and draw upon my expectations about the placebo, and it may take several trials worth of false positive feedback for my expectations to again center on the outcome/feedback. With only a single source of expectation for success, my expectations will probably begin to be altered in the subtle ways that lead to a pull towards the opposite outcome. (I tried some of this out on slot machines in Las Vegas. I could only be successful for so long before my expectations, by virtue of simple exposure to success, had qualitatively changed to the point where, without a much greater effort, I was pulled towards an unsuccessful outcome.)

Before I digress too far, I should point out that other studies have shown effects of a single manipulation of expectation. Pitman points out that J.B. Rhine was successful in getting a single main effect of placebo upon ESP performance. Other studies have also attempted to manipulate the participants' beliefs about ESP in an (sometimes successful) attempt to improve their performance. So further speculation about the results of this study would probably only be productive if I were able to include the other studies for comparison purposes.

Subjects in this study were also asked to predict their ESP scores prior to testing, but it appears that these predictions were collected after the placebo manipulation. Of course it's possible that asking the subjects to quantify expectations had an effect in and of itself, but there are not enough details about when and how this data was collected to allow for useful speculation.

The author attempts to make further inferences about 'expectation' as it relates to the subjects' scores on the 'sheep-goat' scale of psi belief, but these are not the expectations we are interested in, and therefore they will not be discussed here. The expectations that occur at the time of testing are, IMHO, the ones most likely to influence the outcome. Their nature most closely matches the representations of the outcome and success or failure, therefore these are the expectations that I think need to be more carefully teased apart and manipulated in future testing.

Kudos to Pitman for a simple, elegant experimental design, and a fascinating finding!

Surfing the Waves of Probability

2007-07-27T06:03:00.001-07:00

"But after the momentary exaltation of lifting the rock I saw clearly that such acts were in no sense the goal of the spirit, but just a by-play of its true life, amusing, and sometimes useful, and often dangerous, but never themselves the goal."

That being said, I do still manage to have some fun here is Smearland... :) Especially when I can isolate myself from competing observers and get into the 'zone' where synchronicities are immediate and abundant. I like to call it 'surfing the waves of probability'. It's difficult to explain to someone the sheer joy that you can feel when you throw yourself into the ocean that is the multiverse, find a wave, get into the zone and ride it to a spectacular result? This is a metaphor, of course, but it is most appropriate.

It takes a certain amount of skill to find the universe where your favorite song plays back-to-back on three different radio stations, or to find a universe where something materializes in front of you that perfectly captures your thoughts or feelings. Or to find a universe where the item that you've been looking for, the one that wasn't there a second ago, is now right in front of you (and on sale).

These may seem like trivial examples, and certainly much more spectacular feats have been achieved, but things like this give you a strange sense of oneness with the Universe while allowing you to stretch your wings and soar. So this is what I do for fun - I surf the waves of probability. Some of my most prized possessions are the 1-in-incaluable-odds 'trophies' I've collected after an awesome ride. And some of the greatest opportunities I've had have come about because I rode a wave to that universe.

This was the good part of my vacation, and these are the things I cling to when it seems like I will never succeed in establishing this idea as a valid paradigm for scientific study. You tell me how I can do these things, and I'll let it go. :)

Dueling Observers

2007-07-26T15:48:00.001-07:00

"Has anyone, including and especially the claimant, gone out of the way to disprove the claim, or has only confirmatory evidence been sought?"

Believe it or not, I have spent quite some time thinking about how this theory/explanation might be falsified. A true test of falsification would require more concrete predictions about the effects of and interactions between multiple observers of the same outcome. To that end, I am particularly interested in people and situations where someone besides me may be the 'strongest observer'.

One way to find an observer who is likely to have more of an effect on the outcome than I will is to find a situation where the other party has more of an emotional investment in the outcome. I wouldn't attempt to induce any situation where another person might be traumatized (informed consent would taint the experiment anyway), so mostly I take what I can gather from existing situations. And sometimes card and board games get a little out of hand when people think they can best me at 'picking the universe'. ;)

Today provided an excellent situation for study. Two observers (call us N and O) in a situation where O has spent a lot of time thinking about a particular outcome (call it P). O has very specific expectations that lead him to think the outcome will be P1 and not P2 (dichotomous split). O also has a lot of emotions invested in the outcome and claims to want P1. (O tells this all to N, so N isn't guessing at what O is thinking.) N agrees that P1 would be the preferable outcome. N agrees that P1 is the likely outcome based on classical knowledge of the situation, but N (knowing how these things go) suspects that O, as the strongest (or only) observer of the critical moment of observation, would likely find himself in the universe where he experiences P2.

N agrees to be present at the critical window of observation. (The critical window of observation is all observations made at a specific place during the period of time that define the 'event'.) Now we have N and O as the only two observers of significance for the event/outcome P. N can consciously make an effort to steer both N and O towards outcome P1. O is a wild mess of chaotic thought and emotion that is likely to pull them both towards P2. As the end of the critical time window approaches, N feels safe enough in the outcome (P1) to depart from the critical observational space in order to answer the call of nature.

No doubt you can guess what happened. By the time N returned to the scene, the outcome was irreversibly P2. N wants to say to O "What? You couldn't hold that universe for two minutes without me?" but doesn't.

And now N gets to speculate about multiple observer dynamics. :) N has sympathy for the original creators of Observational Theory who must have had one helluva time trying to deal with summing together all the possible forces that contribute to an outcome. The truly disturbing question is - What, if any, elements of N's decision to momentarily leave the scene can be attributed to O's pull towards the ultimate outcome P2?

A Tale of Two Universes

2007-07-13T07:05:00.001-07:00

(In light of yesterday's post, this seemed like an appropriate story for today.)

One evening, coming back from the store, I was doing about 50 on a six-lane road when a dog ran out in front of my car. I could see it coming, but didn't have enough distance to avoid hitting it. According to all the laws of classical physics that govern motion and force, I was going to hit the dog.

Not wanting to hurt the poor animal, I threw up a barrier to the universe where I would hit the dog. That is to say, in the split second before I would have observed the impact, I eliminated that observation (hitting the dog) from the set of possible observations. The only other possible observation was not hitting the dog. And this observation would be incompatible with the forces (speed, monentum) and distances that were in play. (Incompatible observations ---> UNDONE.)

The laws of Smearland won out and I did not hit the dog. The dog vanished. It did not appear in front of my car, behind my car, or off to either side of my car. And believe me, I slowed down to look. Never shut my eyes. Couldn't have missed it if it had been miraculously able to move out of the way. It didn't go over my car or under my car, and I never felt an impact. I don't know where it ended up. And, believe me, I looked.

What happened to the dog?, you ask. I don't know. I don't make any claims to having teleported myself or the dog. I only suggest that I was able to shift the coordinates of my position in Smearland. Perhaps to another, parallel, universe where there was no dog to hit, if that is an analogy that helps you.

Postscript (3:06 PM) - By now you've torn that story apart looking for every possible 4-dimensional explanation. :) Maybe I have lousy depth perception and underestimated the distance between my car and the dog. Maybe the dog was never there and I saw something else that my brain registered as a dog. Maybe I was distracted just long enough to miss the dog as it ran off. Good! You should be skeptical! And, I have to say, I have wondered what any nearby traffic cameras might have caught on tape...

Fortunately, it is not necessary for you to believe the story in order to see the point. :)

Still Skeptical of The Secret

2007-07-12T16:08:00.001-07:00

"A new scientific revolution is new scientific knowledge that satisfies at least one of the following two criteria
1) It makes possible previously impossible, even unimaginable, technological capabilities.
2) It engenders a fundamental reconstruction of our philosophical outlook."

What to my wandering eyes doth appear but yet another article on The Secret. Side by side with an article called The End of Science Revisited in the latest issue of Skeptic magazine. (The premise of The End of Science irks me because it bespeaks a lack of faith in the power of the human intellect and the human spirit to see beyond the current 'boundaries' of science. How do you hold on to that idea for 10 - sorry, 11 - years?!?) I feel compelled to snark just a little bit... ;)

"[T]he first thing you need to know is that The Secret isn't a secret" (Applause.) I can honestly say that I had never heard of the 'Law of Attraction' until after I had developed the 5-dimensional model. And having The Secret as a reference point for trying to describe Smearland is a bit like having 'Cooking for Dummies' as the textbook for chef school.

"Like attracts like". Well, actually, no. 'Like' would be creating a replica of actually 1) seeing/hearing/etc. the outcome, 2) at a specific moment in time, 3) with the conviction that it has actually happened, and 4) the forward flow of information that enables a reaction to the experience. Alter any of these components of your 'fake' represenation, and you alter the results as they pertain to your actual observation. These are some of the details that The Secret hasn't revealed. As clever skeptics have already pointed out, when it comes to magnetic signals, like repels like.

The 'Law of Attraction' also fails to mention that where there is the ability to attract, there is also the ability to repel. (You would think that when the primary analogy used is that of a magnet, someone would have come to that conclusion.) That means that it should be possible to 1) attract a good outcome, 2) attract a bad outcome, 3) repel a good outcome, and 4) repel a bad outcome. The Secret/The Law of Attraction deals only with how something might be attracted.

"If you turn it over to the universe, you will be surprised and dazzled by what is delivered. This is where magic and miracles happen." A phenomenon also know as 'release of attention/effort' (#9). Talked about in psi research and in the practice of magick.

"When dealing with instances of extraordinary evil, ... The Law of Attraction break[s] down rather spectacularly." Perhaps that is because The Law of Attraction is only focused on part of the picture. What if attracting a good outcome is not the same as repelling a bad outcome? Why should it be? Think about it. Then read this again, and ask yourself why the dichotomous split between outcomes was important.

Postscript (8:40 PM) - I don't want to leave you with the impression that I think the above paragraph adequately accounts for the problem of evil. The answer to that problem lies, I believe, with a better understand of mutliple-observer dynamics.

Outside the Gates of Science

2007-07-05T21:41:00.001-07:00

Outside the Gates of Science, by Damien Broderick (2007).

Couldn't wait any longer. Had to buy it. Oddly, reading this book feels like coming in from the cold. It takes me back to a time when I thought that all that I wanted was a job researching the limits of the mind.

I'm just flipping through the book and I see references to probability fields, Greg Egan, 'applied psychic technology', Evan Harris Walker, Houtkooper, and Observer Theory. (happy sigh)

Put your skepticism on hold for a few days, read this book, and see how the other half lives. ;)

The Psychic Grid

2007-07-03T16:24:00.001-07:00

"It is a fearful thing to set out to determine truth for oneself."

Many years ago, when I was going through my first 'What the hell is this?!' phase of curiousity about psychic phenomena, a well-meaning person purchased the book The Psychic Grid by Dr. Beatrice Bruteau (1979) for me at a used book sale. While the book ended up having nothing to do with the ESP definition of 'psychic', it was nonetheless extremely eye-opening.

Today I was thinking about writing a short piece of fiction about what it might be like to be connected to other minds, in the telepathic, mind-web kind of way. When I thought about calling the piece The Psychic Grid, I decided it might be time to take another look at the book that I remembered as being so key in pushing me to study the mind. I pulled it out of the permanent collection, and began to flip through the pages. I was astonished that so many of the quotes I had underlined (in various colors of ink, for each of the times I had read that book) still had the same 'punch you in the gut with the profoundness of truth' quality that I remembered.

Even though it has nothing to do with synchronicity or probability, I still have to put this book on the 25 Best list.

"Confronting change and the unfamiliar is unsettling, but perfect settledness is death."

"Most new discoveries are suddenly-seen things that were always there."

Entangled Expectations

2007-05-30T17:49:00.001-07:00

I have to get this out of my system before I can finish reading this paper... Pardon me.

Here's the paper I'm in the middle of reading... Lucadou, W.v., Romer, H., and Walach, H., (2007) , 'Synchronistic Phenomena as Entanglment Correlations in Generalized Quantum Theory', Journal of Consciousness Studies, 14 (4), pp. 50-74. (abstract)

The premise of the paper is that entanglement correlations will explain 'synchronistic or psi' phenomena. Can't argue with that yet, because I haven't gotten that far into the paper.

I stopped at the descriptions of various 'observations' associated with psi phenomena. Quoting now from pages 52-53 (my emphasis)...

(a) The well known decline effect: Whenever a psi-experiment at first shows positive results, later data or replications will wipe out the primarily observed effect and will, possibly after tantalising revivals (see footnote 8) eventually level off to the null hypothesis.

(b) The reciprocity between effect strength and reliability of psi phenomena: the more drastic an effect, the less reproducible it turns out to be and vice versa.

(c) Elusiveness (evasion): When one tries to pinpoint psi phenomena, they show a tendency to disappear, where they are sought for and to surface at some other unexpected place. This is the so-called displacement effect.

(end quote)

I'm going to argue that there is already an underlying common denominator in these phenomena. It is the same denominator that we've touched on before in this blog. The common thread here is EXPECTATION.

Picking apart the wording of these descriptions will point out that in each case observations have been made that alter expectations for future results. Here we go...

"Whenever a psi-experiment at first shows positive results [observation], later data or replications will wipe out the primarily observed effect [fail to meet the expectation generated by the first observation that such results continue at the given strength/rate]" When you think about it, expectations are really the only things that change from the first set of results and the later data or replications. None of the conditions of the experiment change. One has to wonder if failure to observe the first set of results would have allowed the effect to continue unchecked.

"the more drastic an effect ['drastic' means I have compare this effect to previous effects I have observed and expectations I have about what should be a normal effect], the less reproducible it turns out to be and vice versa [Bigger effects are, by definition, more signifcant to the observers. The more significant an effect is, the more impact it has in the reorganization of associated memories and the generation of future expectations.]"

"When one tries to pinpoint psi phenomena ['pinpoint' means that I know when and where I can expect to see psi phenomena], they show a tendency to disappear, where they are sought for [expected] and to surface at some other unexpected place [didn't even have to insert the word]"

Expectations and their various components and precursors are what we use to navigate in Smearland. Sometimes the effects are intentional (if you are good at what you are doing), and sometimes they are unintentional. Expectations can be manipulated fairly easily, leading to a plethora of testable hypotheses.

I expect that I will now be able to calmly finish reading this paper. :)

Shermer's Secret

2007-05-29T22:15:00.001-07:00

I admit it. I did it. In the name of research, I finally watched the movie The Secret. (And because I was also interested in seeing how people reacted to such an idea, I went to a metaphysics group showing of the movie.)

My first reaction to the movie - "Oh my God, this is boring!" I expected the watered-down psuedo-science on the level of What the Bleep, but this just took too much time to say too little of practical value. Most of the time was spent saying it again and again and again.

Skeptic Michael Shermer wrote about The Secret in this month's Scientific American. He does a great job of tearing apart the 'science' that was presented, so I won't repeat those observations here. I do want to say one thing though... the fact that this movie presented such weak 'science' in an attempt to support the idea that we can somehow control our experiences does not mean that the idea is invalid. Some people are able to exert predictable, repeatable effects upon the outcomes they observe. I'm arguing that the actual mechanism is still waiting to be brought to light.

More fascinating than the movie were the reactions to it from the various members of the group I was with. My observations from that discussion...

1) Across the board it seems, people feel safer discussing this idea when it is applied to trivial issues, such as finding a parking space or getting green lights when driving. (This phenomenon could be a series of blog entries in and of itself.)

2) No one liked the fact that someone would charge money to share this knowledge. Apparently that's not too 'enlightened'. (I object to charging money for something with such poorly detailed information as to the actual procedures for practical use.)

3) Only one person brought up the fact that this idea could be put to use in malignant ways. (And he was the person that everyone had a bad reaction to before his comments.) Just as we were beginning to drift into a productive discussion on ethics, the group ended.

One final note...

Shermer's objections to The Secret also come in the form of 'No one would have chosen that evil/suffering/tragedy for themselves. How can you say that their thoughts brought them that?!' That's a valid objection that needs to be addressed by any system/theory that claims that the mind has an influence on reality, including mine.

In the Palaces of Memory

2007-05-06T18:39:00.001-07:00

"The wizard knows that to be truly alive, she must die to the past at every moment."

Since I had to choose something a bit more conventional to study in graduate school, I ended up studying memory. Good choice, as it turns out.

I hinted at the importance of memory mechanisms last week. How is it useful to understand the fragile nature of memory, the different levels of encoding, the mechanisms of encoding, the role of attention in encoding, the function of sleep in sorting partially-processed information, long-term potentiation, etc.?

So glad you asked.

Current theories of quantum physics hold that once I have observed the outcome, something (the wave function) has 'collapsed' and the outcome I observed is now the only possible outcome I will ever observe. Gotta disagree there... A observation is nothing more than a particular pattern of neural activity. Further, it is a pattern of activity at a particular moment in time. That pattern of activity, which is the sum of goings-on at the subatomic level, will influence future patterns of activity, but there is nothing supporting the idea that an observation casts a permanent change in the state of universe, other than that usually most future observations are consistent with it. This does not mean that future observations have to be consistent with it.

And how do we know that most observations are consistent with past observations? By accessing our memories of past observations. Suppose it were possible to find a future outcome that is inconsistent with a past outcome, and to have experienced them both? (Remember the UNDO project?) So let's ask the following questions...

What does it mean to UNDO an event? What factors might determine whether an event can be UNDONE?

To 'UNDO' an event means that new observations exist, and that these observations are inconsistent with previous observations. Furthermore, this inconsistency cannot be resolved with a 4-dimensional explanation. It's possible an event could be fully or partially UNDONE. Accordingly, new observations can be described in terms of their consistency with past observations using the following continuum...

consistent -- compatible -- inconsistent -- incompatible

You cannot tell that an event has been UNDONE until key observations exist which are incompatible.

Which raises the second question - What factors might determine whether or not an event can be UNDONE? From the Smearland perspective, the short answer is - the number and strength of the memories that must be 'overwritten' and/or contradicted. An event that is like many other events has little weight in the neural net. It might be more difficult to counter the impact of an event that is unique and significant.

Break it down a little bit more... A 'significant' event is one that generates many other moments of conscious experience (leaving many memory traces), and therefore has a lot of potential to influence expectations about future events/outcomes. A significant event will be much more difficult to UNDO in a single shot. An insignificant event, which is not prioritized within the neural net, is less likely to be recalled when a contradiction arises, or when expectations are being formed about a new event/outcome.

There's a lot more to be said about the role of memory, and the process of UNDOing. But unless you have personally experienced two sets of incompatible observations, you will need to think about this for awhile to understand the true impact of what I'm suggesting.

Je L'ay Emprins

2007-05-05T21:18:00.001-07:00

"How strange are the manuscripts, great traveler of the unknown. They appear separately, but seem as one to those who know that the colors of the rainbow become a single white light. How to find that single ray?"

I guess no one ever said this would be easy.

When I talk about this idea to anyone with a science background, I inevitably get some version of the following... Well, how does that fit with what (name)'s book/paper/theory says about consciousness/neuroscience/physics?

Quite frequently I can't answer that question because I haven't read said book/paper. I would probably be shooting myself in the foot to name all the 'significant' books and papers I haven't read. What I have read has been largely determined by the data I was looking at.

Nothing will get you to Smearland faster than paying attention to what is going on in your own mind. (Read that sentence again.)

The books and papers I have mentioned here will help you figure out to what you should be paying attention. They may give you the necessary jolt that changes your perspective just enough that you can begin to see what we are talking about. But that is all they will do. By themselves they will never convince you that anything we've discussed here is valid. Only data will do that, and rightly so.

"Do not accept what you hear by report, do not accept tradition, do not accept a statement because it is found in our books, nor because it is the saying of your teacher... Be ye lamps unto yourselves."

When, Why ...If

2007-05-04T06:48:00.001-07:00

An it harm none, do as ye will.

As you make your way into Smearland and you begin to see exactly what is possible, you will be tempted to try a few things out.

I'm not going to tell you what you should and shouldn't try if/when you find yourself able to navigate at will in 5 dimensions. I have no authority to do so.

I will tell you that the Universe has absolutely no problem kicking your ass if you get too cocky or arrogant, or do something you know you shouldn't be doing. It seems to be a self-correcting system that is limited only by its input. Most of us can't escape the input from our conscience. And arrogance alters our expectations of ourselves and those around us.

Neural networks are a good analogy. Every time you activate a particular node, you change the likelihood that that same node will fire (pass on a signal) the next time it, or the nodes surrounding it, are activated. One activation may also change the level of activation that is necessary for it to pass on that signal the next time. Navigation in Smearland has a whole lot to do with what is going on in your brain. Neurons activating and firing are the sources of chemicals, and chemicals are the (ultimately) the sources of subatmoic particles. I'm grossly oversimplifying this right now - we haven't even begun to talk about the mechanisms of memory, attention, emotions, etc. - but trust me when I say that each action alters the potentials associated with future action.

I highly recommend educating yourself - psychology and neuroscience being more important than physics at this point. The paradigm of 5-dimensional existence is so new that many, if not all, of our assumptions about the ways things are can be questioned. It is largely from these assumptions that we derive ethics. I'm not saying that you should not be guided by an ethical or moral code of some kind; I'm saying that I am not able to tell you which one is best and why. That you will have to decide for yourself based on reason and experience.

And if you are in Smearland and you begin to feel the pull of the 'save the cheerleader, save the world' mentality, might I highly recommend Robin Wood's book When, Why ...If.

The Mind Over Matter Study

2007-05-03T05:28:00.001-07:00

The Rhine Research Center, haven for parapsychological research, has the following on their website...

"There are reports from all cultures throughout history in which objects or events in the environment appear to be influenced by the human mind. We are looking for people who may have experienced such effects known as psychokinesis or PK (also called telekinesis) to participate in a research study at the Rhine Research Center.

PK experiences are those where your conscious or unconscious mind seems to directly influence the physical world around you, without the use of any known physical means. Some examples might be: affecting the roll of dice, affecting lights or other electrical equipment, affecting your computer, bending spoons, moving objects, or psychic healing. Unexplained physical effects are also reported surrounding times of near-death, dying or after the death of a loved one, for example, a clock stopping at the exact time of someone’s death. These are also of interest for this study.

We are collecting reports of this type of experiences and would love to hear from you by email or postal mail. At a later stage we will be undertaking face-to-face or telephone interviews with some individuals who have experienced this type of phenomena, and who are willing to discuss their experiences in more detail. All reports are confidential."

I wonder what they would make of this story...

Once upon a time, I had a seasonal job dealing blackjack at casino parties. (Come on, you knew I was going to try that.)

It was a slow night, and near the end of the night a man walked up to my table. People play for fake money at these parties, and they usually use that fake money to buy raffle tickets or to participate in some kind of bidding for prizes. This man (naturally) wanted to win some more money before the end of the night. My table is empty and he quips to me something to the effect of 'Is this a lucky table?'. (Knowing smile.) Me: Let me see what I can do for you, sir.

He plays all seven available hands at the table, and bets the max ($5000) on each hand. At this point, I don't just want to ensure that he wins one or two hands; I want to ensure that he wins every hand. (I get a little cocky when challenged.) To ensure that he wins every hand, I first have to ensure that none of his hands bust. Which I did. I didn't do this by focusing on the initial two cards in each hand; focusing on getting him one or two blackjacks probably would have resulted in less of a payout overall because I would have been working within a less favorable framework of events. Rather, I waited until there was a need to control the outcome - i.e., when the man felt compelled to hit for more cards. (We haven't discussed the advantages of a dichotomous split in possible outcomes yet, but that's the tool I used to keep him from busting in these situations.)

After he played out his seven hands (all of which were still viable), I then had to focus on my hand. And the easiest way for him to win was for me to bust. Which I did. That man walked away with an extra $35,000 and never had a clue as to what went down during that game. He didn't even tip his friendly (and talented) dealer.

Do-It-Yourself Quantum Eraser

2007-05-02T06:41:00.001-07:00

Here's something interesting to play around with, provided you have and can find the 'business end' of a laser. Also, check out the accompanying article from this month's issue of Scientific American.

The gist of the article is this - "How particles behave can depend on what information about them can possibly be accessed... By removing information about things that have happened, a quantum eraser seemingly influences past events."

When we are thinking about that sentence in Smearland, we are thinking in terms of what the observer can see at the moment and how that process is impacted by what the observer has seen previously and the knowledge that the observer has which generates expectations about what s/he should be seeing.

The fact that we can see this effect at all should be telling us NOT that the world out there is incomprehensibly strange, but that our ability to interface with whatever the ultimate state of reality is (conscious experience) has some interesting limitations. (Are they limits that can be transcended? Absolutely.) What would happen if we looked at this effect from the perspective of what is going on inside the observer, and used these perceived limitations to work backwards to something that might be an essential component/substrate of conscious experience? One big question to ponder - Why are we incapable of perceiving matter in its smeared state?

Other questions to think about...

Would it be possible to replicate the same kind of quantum erasing if the only information that needed to be 'erased' existed in human memory? (Yes.)

Is there any good reason to think that the nature of the memory enneagram containing the information about a particle might be substantially different than the nature of the enneagram containing information about a larger object or event? (Nope.)

To Tell A Tall Tale

2007-05-01T05:57:00.001-07:00

"All at once, I think, it came to him that the lecturer must remain standing in the square on a rickety soapbox and speak at the top of his lungs, and be heckled by boobs... but the storyteller sits in cross-legged comfort in the shade, and his listeners crowd round to hear him whisper, offering beer for his sore throat. And when he is done, they give him money, without him even asking."

There have been a couple of times when I've thought of chucking it all and becoming a science fiction writer. Inspire the next generation in much the same way I was inspired.

Chris Roberson can say the following, and people eat it up. (Lucky him!)

"I found a way to escape, rising above the four-dimensional limitations of space and time to grow into a being of five dimensions, able to survive in and navigate the larger world beyond." - Chris Roberson, Here, There, & Everywhere, (2005), p. 272.

But I guess ultimately I still want the research project and collaborators and the chance to see where someone else can take this research. At least one person found a way to have both... (Read that last one twice and then do some googling.)

Desperately Seeking Substrate

2007-03-12T20:30:00.001-07:00

Ten years ago you would have found me looking for the NCC - the neural corraltes of consciousness - but nowadays it would be more accurate to say that we are looking for the underlying layers of whatever upon which consciousness exists.

At the head of the charge to look for consciousness at the quantum level is Stuart Hameroff. Hameroff, a professional anethesiologist, has written several compelling papers arguing that quantum-level effects (like tunneling), especially in cellular structures know as microtubules, are critical in explaining the phenomenon of consciousness. Hameroff's recent publication is the latest salvo in the ongoing battle with the 'traditional' neurocomputationalists.

Anything involving differentials or the disruption thereof is of interest to the inhabitants of Smearland, so we cannot ignore the significance of neurocomputational models and data. But we are looking for differentials that can explain 'random' quantum-level state selection. So Hameroff's attempts to integrate quantum-level activity into the not-entirely explanatory neurocomputational models meet with applause in Smearland.

To be sure, there are still some shortcomings in his model... "The fate of isolated quantum superpositions remains unexplained; Penrose OR (Penrose, 1989; 1994; 1996) is one tentative proposal which is testable, and can also account for consciousness. It is true, as Litt et al state, that if Penrose OR is proven correct then quantum theory would have to be rewritten. But quantum theory as it stands is incomplete: it must be rewritten." ... and he does invoke the infamous 'E' word, which we have thusfar largely avoided mentioning in this blog. He also glosses over the actual problem of state selection. 'Objective Reduction' should imply that something rule-based would govern the process of state selection. And, while the hypothetical construct of quantum gravity might be one place to look for such a mechanism...

Might I suggest that we look at the phenomenological data in an attempt to get a clearer picture of what drives state selection?

Turning Science Fiction Into Science Fact

2007-02-20T16:47:00.001-08:00

This is why I love science fiction. Fifty-some years ago, a physics-major envisioned the following...

"There were no constants for the psi-drive. Everything was a variable, a function of many components depending on the potential gradients and on each other. The setting for 'ahead' could become that for 'reverse' under new conditions, and there was the uncertainty principle to reckon with, the uncaused chaos of individual electrons, flattened probability curves, the unimaginable complexity..."

In a flash, you can see how one might extend the individual's ability to navigate the differentials between what is known/observed and unknown/unobserved (Smearland) to something larger.

A presentient peek at things to come? He was dead-on about an ever-changing set of baseline differentials...

I think I've mentioned that I enjoy a good speculation. Something crossed my path about a year ago that may shed some light on how we might eventually turn this piece of science fiction into science fact. More on that research in a future post.

Training and Obstacles

2007-02-17T18:30:00.001-08:00

Eight-martini results: "results so good that your perception of reality is shattered and all you can do is go to a bar and drink eight martinis to regain your senses"

I should be pretty hard to shock by now. Trust me. I know how this works, so not too much should surprise me.

Today's training exercise was focused on operating within time constraints and overriding familiarity with the target environment. The target this time is a novel item - something with which I have had no previous experience or exposure. However, the target item must conform to certain predetermined criteria designed (in theory) to make it more difficult to locate.

Outcome: Target item located within the parameters of the training exercise. And while the target item conformed to the predetermined criteria, it also had few unexpected implications.

Target item: The 5th Dimension: Channels to a New Reality, by Sheila Petersen-Lowary. (Cover quote from Evan Harris Walker.)

Yeah, and when they say 'channels', they mean psychic spokesperson for 'spiritual entities'. It's hard enough to be taken seriously when all of quantum physics has been co-opted for ambiguous and ill-defined New Age 'truths', but if the concept of a 5th dimension falls...

Do you see now why I need a drink, or eight?

That #@&* Secret Again

2007-02-16T18:53:00.001-08:00

Today I happened to be visiting someone and what do I overhear emanating from a box in the corner... Oprah is going to be discussing "The Secret". That's right. Oprah will be discussing (again, apparently) that book/DVD sensation "The Secret" that is sweeping through metaphysical groups across the nation.

For those of you who are not familiar with the "The Secret", let me summarize. In the style of "What the Bleep", this movie presents the metaphysical/spiritual Law of Attraction. (Hello again, Fred Alan Wolf.) For those not familiar with the premise of the Law of Attraction, here it is - "you get what you think about, your thoughts determine your destiny." (Here in Smearland, we would say your thoughts determine your destination in the multiverse, but no need to nitpick.)

Heaven help me, I had to watch. And here's why...

Here is something that resonates with so many people as being true, something they can see and experience as a more accurate description of reality. Okay. If this thing is so obvious and so true, perhaps it reflects some physical, natural laws, as opposed to some metaphysical, spiritual laws. The terms 'metaphysical' and 'spiritual' imply something that is outside the realm of science. Something that should be approached with emotion and intuition instead of logic and intellect. And I think we've illustrated here the exact place in science where these ideas fit.

Don't get me wrong - I'm glad millions of people are positively impacted by what has been given to them under the guise of 'spiritual law'.

But I want to take the science to the next level. That's what will usher in your promised "new era for humankind"!

Entangled Minds

2007-01-05T08:35:00.001-08:00

Observational Theories appear to have died a slow death because they were unable to separate the effects of a single observer from the effects generated by other observers. This implies that the effects of all observers of the same event are somehow either 1) summed together or 2) subsumed under the effects of the strongest of the observers.

Two different dynamics, leading to different predictions, and different resolutions to those pesky philosophical questions - like the question of 'free will'. Is this question any more resolvable in Smearland?

I personally don't feel like the question has been completely resolved, so I'll briefly summarized what I see on each side of the argument...

Free Will - YES

Your consciousness represents a unique interface with whatever the ultimate reality is. The mechanics of the interface are such that, when you understand them well enough, you will be able to select outcomes in any situation, even situations where there are other observers. If your interface remains unique and isolated from any other observer interface, then the sum of your experience is entirely self-contained within the parameters of your interface. You are therefore free to learns it mechanics and determine your own experience to the extent that you are able to master them.

To me, this perspective is a little depressing. And there is one particular piece of evidence that has always kept me from falling into this view completely. Anyone who has ever been hundreds or thousands of miles away from a loved one and has felt that person sustain great injury or die at the moment it happens will never accept a viewpoint wherein we are not somehow connected to other 'observers'. Whatever the nature of that connection, this type of evidence is, IMHO, the strongest we have for resisting the urge to adopt the attitude of an isolated observer who can do whatever s/he wishes. Naturally, I can't prove that this isn't simply part of the mechanics of the interface, but if you've had the experience, it's pretty damn convincing.

Free Will - NO

The dynamics of multiple observer interactions are not completely understood, but, assuming they exist, projects like the Global Consciousness Project might provide insight into what is possible when the attention of a great number of observers in focused on a single event. Would any individual observer, even one well-indoctrinated in the 'isolated observer' perspective, ever be able to produce this level of effect in the presence of other observers? I would guess no, but then have we ever had such an observer available for testing?

If multiple observers are somehow cumulatively producing these effects, then this also implies we are never truly free from the ability of others to exert some type observer effect upon us. Hence, no free will - we are always to some extent the product of our interactions with other observers.

Free Will - SOMETIMES?

If we are connected to other observers in a way that gives them the ability to exert some level of observer effect upon us, then true freedom would lie in isolating ourselves from other observers. This would also imply that our ability to generate observer effects that 'defy the odds' would be greater when we were the sole observer of the system, or were working in concert with other like-minded observers.

Free Will in Smearland means 1) being able to choose your outcomes in any situation proportionate to your understanding of the mechanics involved, as well as 2) being free from being the sum of the expectations and effects of other observers. While the first part sounds desirable, would you really ever be able to attain, or would you even desire, the second part?

Something to ponder.

Right now my free will is telling me to get some more coffee.

What Mad Pursuit

2007-01-02T21:15:00.001-08:00

(Warning: The following post will probably bore you unless you geek out on discussions about research methodology.)

"One should ask: What is the essence of the type of theory I have constructed, and how can that be tested? even if it requires some new experimental method to do so." - Francis Crick

You get the impression (while reading the Houtkooper article reviewed awhile ago) that psi researchers thought the Observer/Observational Theory approach to psi research was promising, but that they were stymied by the fact that traditional experimental methods left them unable to carry the research to more definitive conclusions.

Observational Theory is still talked about...

"Thus Observational Theory became one of the first theories of psi to predict and successfully confirm an outrageous time-reversed effect. Incidentally, the delayed-choice experiments discussed in the previous chapter provides exactly the same prediction as these 'retro-PK' experiments. The only difference is that those experiments are considered mainstream in physics." - Entangled Minds, by Dean Radin, (2006), p. 252

.... but why isn't it being actively pursued as a valid research approach to solving the observer problem?

The key to testing for observer effects is to be able to isolate the system from all observers save the one you are interested in. (Duh, you say.) One way to do this is to be both subject and experimenter yourself. This does wonders for your ability to learn about generating observer effects, but does little to generate 'publishable' data. Were your research methods invalid? No, but they weren't independently verified, so good scientists are hesitant to accept the results as genuine data unless you already have a good reputation in the field. (I understand Houtkooper and Dick Bierman both used themselves as subjects at times while testing Observational Theories.)

Another way to do this is to devise a test framework that has a number of key parameters 'open' - a range of possible values, from which the subject can select the ones to be used. This gives the subject more information about the system than the experimenter. (Information leads to the ability to generate explicit expectations.) This does not completely resolve the problem of the experiment or data checker ultimately selecting the outcome, but with proper computer coding and analysis of the data, it can help.

The final problem is that ultimately someone will see the results in an all-or-nothing framework while asking Did we get the effect? At this point they too have the ability to influence the ultimate outcome, according to Observational Theories. The proposed resolution?

Well now, the answer to that question might be the key to taking the Amazing Randi's one million dollar prize. ;)

Collapsing the Cat

2006-12-30T17:58:00.001-08:00

This quote, from Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner (2006), illustrates what is perhaps the biggest psychological obstacle to the 'Smearland Interpretation' of quantum physics...

"Since your looking collapsed the superposition state of the cat, are you guilty of killing the cat if you find it dead? ... You could not have chosen how the wavefunction of this entire system would collapse. The collapse into either the living or the dead state was random." (p. 119)

The quote is referring to Schrodinger's cat, but it brought to mind a discussion about another cat. (Bear in mind that the 'Smearland Interpretation' of quantum mechanics disagrees with the idea that you could not have chosen the outcome.)

A cat-loving friend of mine had several cats. One day one of the cats got sick and had to be rushed to the vet. I don't remember the details of its illness, but I do remember the discussion I had with my friend later about what she was thinking about in the car while racing to the vet. (The cat died en-route to the vet.)

My friend knew about my theory wherein one can 'pick the universe' but she had never had the 'lightbulb moment' wherein her worldview was irreversibly altered. She did know enough to wonder about how her thoughts and expectations might have contributed to her ending up in the universe where the cat died. We started to have the discussion, but because of the painful nature of the topic, I didn't push the point by going into explicit details about 5-dimensional navigation.

Was she guilty of killing the cat? Absolutely not. 'Guilty' requires intent to kill, and she had none.

Nor do I argue that selecting the universe where the cat lived would necessarily have been an easy task. Evidence from psi research shows that 'selecting outcomes' at will is a hard task. I spent three years simply investigating the effect and what it took to produce it before I decided to look for a possible physical mechanism.

The good news is the effect gets easier to produce. Just as you would train to master various types of motion in 4 dimensions, you train to master them in 5 dimensions.

Oh, and one more thing while we're talking about this quote... We assume that the wavefunction collapses because most of the time subsequent observations are consistent with the first observation. Most of the time. If it were possible for subsequent observations to be incompatible with prior observations, we would assume that some type of law of conservation or energy dynamic was responsible for observational consistency, rather than assuming an absolute and irreversible wave collapse. Enter the UNDO project...

Riddle Me This

2006-12-22T07:30:00.001-08:00

"Newton was not the first of the Age of Reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and the Sumerians... because he looked on the universe and all that is in it as a riddle, as a secret which could be read by applying pure thought to certain evidence, certain mystic clues which God had lain about the world to allow a sort of philosopher's treasure hunt..."

(No comments. I just thought that was a cool quote.)

There Are No Accidents (Pt II)

2006-12-21T07:36:00.001-08:00

Okay, I will now officially add this book to the "25 Best" list.

There Are No Accidents: Synchronicity and the Stories of Our Lives, by Robert H. Hopcke (1997)

Why this book?

1) This book contains the best of several other books on synchronicity. The bibliography even contains a book or two that has not found its way into my collection.

2) The author is not afraid to tackle religion, miracles, magic, or painful experiences in the search for a comprehensive explanation for synchronicity.

3) As mentioned earlier, the author relays a broad spectrum of synchronistic experiences from a variety of people. Reading these detailed accounts will no doubt remind you of your own synchronistic experiences. This, in turn, will help you break through to the 5-dimensional Smearland.

The author makes one point that I would argue with...

"...synchronicities always occur within a transitional context" (p. 46) and "Meaningful coincidences, which always occur at points of change and transition..." (p. 47)

Naturally I'm protesting the use of the word 'always'. Synchronicities may manifest in the most unusual or improbable ways during times of great stress, for the average person. This does not mean that synchronicities are limited to times of great stress, or that they cannot be observed or cultivated on a daily basis.

The author even begins to acknowledge that synchronicities might be something one can cultivate. "If you want a meaningful coincidence to change the story of your life, wander the world randomly and be willing to listen to whatever life presents... an attitude of openness" (p.101) Interestingly, the authors of the two versions of The Luck Factor also acknowledge openness as a key attribute in obtaining good luck. Why openness? Perhaps because it is a state free of explicit expectations about outcomes.

Quest for A(nother) Scientific Revolution

2006-12-18T19:05:00.001-08:00

"Characters tend to either be for or against the quest. If they assist it, they are idolized as simply gallant or pure; if they obstruct it, they are characterized as simply villainous or cowardly."

"What is the future? What is the past? What are we? What is the magic fluid that surrounds us and conceals the things we most need to know? We live and die in the midst of marvels."

Recently I had occasion to be trapped in a small enclosed space with a man who felt compelled to use the time to talk loudly and incessantly on a cell phone to several individuals about a multi-million dollar deal that was, at that very moment, falling apart. Normally I would have ignored this individual and continued to read my book (from which I filched the above quotes). However...

This man, after several phone calls and some time pondering the situation, proceeded to call several more people and tell them that this must be God's will that the deal was falling apart and if God wanted it this way, he wasn't going to fight it. At this point I got a little scared.

You see, the image that sprung to mind at that moment was a picture of the Dark Ages; a time when illness was attributed to evil spirits instead of bacteria or viruses. A time when anything that science hadn't yet shed light on was attributed to gods or spirits or demons. And people do strange (read: irrational) things when they begin to attempt to placate 'beings' whose 'will' can, ultimately, only be guessed at.

For my 5-dimensional viewpoint, this man's arrival at his current situation was entirely explainable without invoking God or a Higher Power. Any 'chance events' that may have played a role in his situation were never really beyond his control. And he could have willfully navigated a course through the multiverse that avoided this outcome.

Similarly, the fact that I was trapped with him long enough to overhear this conversation was never really beyond my control. (I analyzed the navigational antecedents that led to my landing in that universe, made the necessary course adjustments, and landed in an even better outcome than the one I was expecting.)

Hey, if you wish to believe that God occupies himself with the minutia of your life, I won't attempt to stop you. I, however, would give a Creator credit for a much better (built-in) system for determining what your daily experiences are. The ultimate purpose of such a mechanism? Who knows. But certainly the limits of such a mechanism are worth investigating.

Three Wise Men

2006-12-12T21:19:00.001-08:00

So I'm reading There Are No Accidents and Hopcke (the author) is talking about Jung's writings on synchronicity. [Aside: I have generally avoided Jung as a source because his collective unconscious idea/explanation makes me cringe.] And I read...

"Jung, in fact, specifically developed his idea of synchronicity as an acausal connecting principle in order to be able to discuss the phenomenon of meaningful coincidences - a universal experience among humans - in a purely descriptive way without obliging himself to make metaphysical statements on the nature and structure of the universe, a theological and philosophical task he considered beyond the purview of empirical psychology." (p. 141)

And I'm thinking "That is a wise man."

And not too much later the author, in a discussion on synchronicity involving dreams, adds a similar bit of wisdom...

"To see this dream as 'predicitive' rather than synchronistic is to understand the event in a wholly different, and much less subjective fashion. If a dream of mine is able to predict the future, then I must certainly be endowed with rather special abilities. It would be these special abilities of mine - my clairvoyence, my psychic talents, my chosenness by God - and not the symbolic subjectiveness of the outer event which would take center stage, a shift in emphasis which, for almost anyone's ego, exerts quite an attraction." (p. 149, my emphasis)

Wouldn't it be great if science has finally reached a place where we can discuss this phenomenon without referred to anything metaphysical?

And, in a accidental quote search of the wrong name, I came upon our third wise man... "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."

Journal Club #3

2006-12-07T21:06:00.001-08:00

Was rummaging around in the hard drive today and found this...

Houtkooper, J.M. Arguing for an Observational Theory of Paranormal Phenomena, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 16, 2002, pp. 171-185. (here)

A good summary of published research attempting to explaining psi phenomena by invoking the observer problem of quantum physics. Full of statements like...

"the statistics of single events become biased if the observer is motivated and prefers one of the possible outcomes over the other" (p. 171)

"The act of observation by a motivated observer of an event with a quantum mechanically uncertain outcome influences that outcome." (p.172)

"the only possible... mechanism for psi lies in the measurement problem and in hypothesizing a role for the conscious observer" (p.176)

This article is worth reading because 1) it wasn't written that long ago, 2) there just aren't that many people thinking along these lines, so it pays to pay attention to those who are, and 3) Houtkooper does a good job of explaining the complications that arise when trying to design experiments from this perspective.

Houtkooper makes some statements that are dead on - "that psi effects are independent of the complexity of the random process involved can be explained by the act of observation as the crucial event at which a psi effect is mediated" (p.180) - and some statements that contain erroneous assumptions - "an observer who adds information at the collapse of the wave function" (p.171).

This article should provoke several questions...

Why only give the observer a critical role in special case psi events? What about regular everday observations?

Where is the mechanism by which this observer influences the outcome? And how is it that it kicks in only in special cases? Or is it active all the time?

A hearty salute to Houtkooper for this contribution, especially that part where he takes on DAT. ;)

There Are No Accidents (Pt I)

2006-12-06T16:55:00.001-08:00

Yesterday's training exercise yielded a double dose of synchronicity... There Are No Accidents: Synchronicity and the Stories of Our Lives by Robert H. Hopcke (1997). A national best-seller apparently, that I have not yet read.

Based on what I have read so far in the first 30 pages, I'm thinking of putting this book on the 25 Best Books and Papers to Read to Understand Smearland list. (Yeah, hereafter I'll have to shorten that name.) The author gives you detailed accounts of synchronistic experiences; enough detail in fact, that you can almost imagine yourself having the experience. And that may help you to understand what navigating Smearland is like, and prime you for the transition to a 5-dimensional view of the Universe.

Next Step?

2006-11-19T18:52:00.001-08:00

"It is not encumbent upon thee to complete the work, but neither are thou free to desist from it altogether."

What to tell you now...

Do you have what you need to understand and duplicate what brought me here?

I've tried to filter what I have and give you only the best and most relevant. I've tried to refrain from regressing into arguments about necessary precursor ideas. Plenty of people have written very credible and readable books on the existence of psi phenomena. Along the same lines, plenty of respected science professionals have expounded on the observer problem and its significance. I suppose I could work up and post a bibliography... The 25 Best Books and Papers to Read to Understand Smearland. ;) Hmmm...

"There is never an ending to the exploration of human potential and man's relationship to the cosmos, nor can any one person carry more than the slightest burden for opening new doors of understanding. On the course of my own adventure, I have used and been inspired by the ideas and insights of many great men and women throughout all of recorded human history. My hope in reporting my work is that in some small way - perhaps moving us a step or two further in our quest for understanding - I might have been able to help a little to illuminate the path for those willing to continue the exploration. Which of us will come up with the next 'right question'?"

Eureka Moments

2006-11-17T07:54:00.001-08:00

As I think I mentioned earlier, for quite some time during this journey I had no coherent model to explain the effects and relationships I was studying. The data was there, but attempting to discuss it with someone usually took me quite a bit of time because I had no reference points and no cohesive picture of what I thought was happening. My first attempt to discuss this with a seasoned science professional failed so miserably that I still flinch when I think about it. He was very polite about it, but then I had just bought him lunch, so...

Fortunately, after that, I had some great friends who let me talk about it until they understood what I was trying to say, and who then helped me to express myself more clearly. What seems so obvious to me now was by no means obvious then. But as I kept looking at anything that might help me explain the data, I eventually fell into the observer problem and the problem of state selection. Jackpot.

While this provided a more recognizable framework for what I was trying to say, it still didn't provide a model that was easy to describe and use, and from which one could generate predictions. That 'a-ha' moment came one day as I was walking from our building to the parking lot. Two thoughts collided - "There's got to be an easier way to describe this!" and a phrase I had heard a couple of nights before on a sci-fi program, "I've solved the seventh dimension." And the 5-dimensional model was born.

Astonishingly, it proved to be more adept at explanation and prediction than I thought it would. As it turns out, the 5th dimension even integrated well with the other four, as the elements of our various mental representations of space and time could be isolated in terms of their effects on state selection.

Unfortunately, my skill at mathematical representation has yet to prove equal to my vision for what it should contain. Spherical matrix mechanics, anyone?

One Theory To Rule Them All

2006-11-12T19:03:00.001-08:00

Once upon a time I began to write an article on the process by which a scientist becomes what our skeptic friends like to call a 'crank'. You know the type - 'My theory explains it all/is the only thing we should be worried about.'

Why would I attempt such an article? Because I could see exactly how I could become so enamored with the explanatory power of my own model that I could begin to ignore and gloss over the hundreds of questions I couldn't answer. (And those were just the questions I came up with.) In fact, I had become so absorbed in my work that my life began to get horribly out of balance in other respects. People noticed and, eventually, I did too.

So rather than choose to continue to battle for recognition in the scientific realm - an arduous process at best, designed to kill whatever joy you may have once felt for your work - I chose to put my observations and ideas here for any and all to judge. No admission fee. User-friendly metaphors. And FUN. Dammit, science should be fun!

If you find any merit in these ideas, please feel free to work on them to your heart's content. If not, then I think that there's an exit here somewhere... :)

Life in Smearland

2006-11-11T15:18:00.001-08:00

What would experience be like if you thought in terms of finding the right outcome/picking the universe? Of maximizing the differentials associated with what you had already observed and using them to influence observations you had yet to make?

Thusfar I have mostly stayed away from discussing my own personal applications of this theory. And there are good reasons for that. But sometimes a picture or demonstration can convey what theoretical discussion cannot. And so I re-post the following...

Mission:Improbable

Okay, so here's something really mundane that just struck me today for some reason...

Today I needed to go to the store and purchase three items - conditioner, toilet paper, and laundry detergent (brand, type and size specified beforehand for all three). Let's call these the target items - all parameters for achieving a 'hit' were specified beforehand, including acceptable price (on sale - less than $3, less than $3, and less than $4, respectively - based on many years of purchasing these same items and knowing what a good sale price is). In addition, this exercise included the additional parameter for success of finding all three on sale at the same location.

Once the mission parameters were in place, the search began with a perusal of the ads in the Sunday paper. Oh that I could easily navigate myself to the universe where I simply pick up an ad for my favorite store and see all three items on sale, but for now we'll just leave it that I didn't/couldn't. (Sometimes what looks like the easiest road is not the easiest road simply because we resist things that are too easy.) But I did find the universe where one store had the detergent and the toilet paper on sale. Good enough. Off I go. (Insert Mission:Impossible theme music here.)

An exercise is never a success or failure until all the relevant observations have been made, so I just needed to nudge a little to find the universe where all three items were on sale. No problem. I didn't know exactly how it would be accomplished, but I pulled toward the universe where I got the target item at the target price. And lo and behold, a special in-store coupon book with the coupon that put my item within the target price range. One down. Toilet paper - got it! Two down. Get the laundry detergent and it's mission accomplished.

Wherein I run into an unforseen potential obstacle... there appears to be no target item on the shelf. Has it sold out already? Is it stocked elsewhere in the store? What sequence of observations ensures that I find it? Rapidfire calculations of various standards probabilities flew through my head. As it turned out, the easiest way to ensure success was to find the universe where one last bottle of detergent was hiding at the very back of the shelf. An observation with an easy dichotomous split between the possible outcomes. Ensure the desired outcome, and when ready, make the relevant observation. And sure enough, there it was. The lone bottle of detergent hiding at the back of the shelf.

Proceed to checkout counter, where I am hit with the knowledge that nobody else in this store is thinking like this while buying their items. What would the Universe be like if everyone could get exactly what they want, for exactly the price they want, anytime they want? (Deep thoughts last until a really good song comes on the radio during the drive home.)

Journal Club #2

2006-11-10T16:32:00.001-08:00

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.

Lunatic Fringe

2006-11-09T15:19:00.001-08:00

"Your theory is crazy, but it is not crazy enough to be true." - attributed to Niels Bohr

In fulfillment of my professional obligation to share the fruits of my endeavors, I have participated in several forums, including the Towards a Science of Consciousness conference and its offspring, the Quantum Mind conference.

You would think that the coming together of such a group of pioneers would engender a spirit of camaraderie amongst the participants and a sense of respect for the other individuals who have ventured into the final frontier. You would think...

And then you are confronted with the harsh reality of the difference between science as a way of thinking and science as a profession. For example - Science as a way of thinking would examine ideas and evidence for merit, not credentials. Science as a profession demands that you be a little more circumspect in deciding with whom you will associate.

I left these conferences with several impressions...

1) Those trained in hard science (myself included) have a bias against data from the 'soft' sciences or unconventional sources. This bias tends to rear its ugly head when surrounded by the plethora of perspectives and approaches to consciousness research found at these events. Anything 'softer' than you is deemed crazy and not worth your time, and you tend to seek validation from the sciences that are 'harder' than yours.

2) There is strong tendency to associate with those individuals within your own stratum. Maybe it's a comfort-level thing. Maybe it's a fear of risking even more of your reputation as a scientist by failing to know your place.

3) Many more people who participate in such forums are motivated by the desire to validate what they have chosen to do than they are by the desire to explore what others have done. Everybody has something to say, but nobody is listening unless what is being said will impact the credibility of their own research. Is there another way to structure these events that might result in a quicker, more efficient and productive exchange of ideas? One wonders... Perhaps if collaboration facilitation were an occupation unto itself...

I have participated in such forums both before and after receiving my Ph.D., and I do not exempt myself from these failures. But I do think that I have learned that science as a profession can quite often stand in the way of scientific progress.

Still, these are the games scientists play, so I'm sure I'll turn out for a few more conferences. ;)

The UNDO Project

2006-11-03T06:58:00.001-08:00

(And just to show you what lies on the edges of the frontier now...)

Once upon a time, in a place where the sky was always blue and 100 years meant nothing, a small group of inspired individuals pondered the critical question of quantum physics - Is there an arena in which quantum events occur, and does it exist before we observe it or emerge as we observe it?

Ridding themselves of the constraints of common assumptions about quantum topology, these individuals imagined that past events could be altered "as a result of appropriate measurement". And the UNDO (or Topology Leaps) Project was conceived.

Text from UNDO project website...

<<'Undo' follows from the claims of quantum topology. `Undo' involves the changing of spacetime. Say for instance that an explosion has occurred; in principle it is possible that by observation itself the arena that is spacetime may be so altered that the explosion did not occur. In this sense it has been undone. This is a quasi undoing or altering, which occurs as a result of appropriate measurement. This would not be possible without quantum effects, and the goal of this project is to find appropriate measurements of spacetime, which involve those effects. Quantum measurements are those which unavoidably effect that which is being measured. The point about this process is that it is the act of measurement itself, which creates the stadium, and further measurements may create altered or different stadia. This is not the same as travelling back in time; what takes place is an alteration so that a previous setting is undone, in the sense that it did not exist. Einstein claimed that the past and the future are in a given, predefined or frozen spacetime. The Undo project melts it.>>'

Can it be done?' is the obvious question. The more interesting question is 'Who or what inspired these individuals to think outside the quantum box?' ;)

The Final Frontier

2006-11-02T14:14:00.001-08:00

So I was doing the requisite coffee-run today when I came across a copy of last week's U.S. News and World Report. And lo and behold the cover story - about "one of the last great intellectual frontiers", the study of consciousness.

And so I re-post the following...

The Final Frontier

By the time I was looking for the ultimate adventure, space was no longer the final frontier. It was the late 1980s and the mind was being hailed as the last uncharted terrain. Or consciousness was, or the brain, depending on who was talking. Physicists realized that they needed the mind to explain how the state vector collapsed. Psychologists were already so specialized that few knew the history of anything except their own sub-discipline. Neuroscientists were beginning to acquire the level of technology needed for obtaining new insights into the workings of the brain. And everybody wanted to understand the mystery of consciousness. Including me.

Perhaps I would not have cared so much if I hadn't had my own set of experiences with the anomalies of consciousness. Certainly I had always preferred the adventure of the unknown, and I was observant enough to realize that there were wonders of the mind that were acknowledged by society but which science had difficulty explaining. Call me hooked. A mystery. A Holy Grail that was within reach. What power could be gained by understanding the nature of the human mind? And what adventures might be had in explaining its limits?

More than even I dreamed possible...

Socratic Method

2006-11-01T22:10:00.001-08:00

"...but one thing I would fight for to the end, both in word or deed if I were able - that if we believed we should try to find out what is not known, we should be better and braver and less idle than if we believed that what we do not know it is impossible to find out and that we need not even try."

I didn't start out asking big questions. For several years I mined data fields that had nothing to do with quantum physics or the observer problem; in fact, I couldn't have told you the first thing about either of them. I wanted to know about the anomalies of my experience.

The first place to look for answers was my experience. Did these correlations replicate? What parameters could be altered, and what, if any, were the corresponding effects? What experiments might be designed to determine if cause-effect relationships were in play? What limits existed to these effects?

The next place to look was at the experiences of others. Who else had these types of experiences? What were they called? How were they studied? What was documented and known about them? How did it match to what I experience? Thus began my affinity with parapsychological research.

After that came the search for the mechanisms behind the effects. Parapsychologists were focusing on the effects themselves and on the correlations (personality types, etc.) that went with them. But what lay behind those effects? Ultimately this leads to the study of consciousness, the brain, and the mind. And it was only here that I really began to study the concepts of quantum physics. Even then, the concepts of navigating parallel universes/the multiverse/5-dimensions represented a progression of ideas as more and more pieces fell into place.

The next step with a new idea was, of course, replication. Could I teach someone else to produce these effects using these methods? Only after satisfying myself that the answer to this question was 'yes' did I decide this was something to talk about.

The Broken Dice

2006-10-28T19:03:00.001-07:00

I've acquired quite a collection of obscure writings on chance, randomness, etc., and one of the most unique books I've come across on this subject is The Broken Dice by Ivar Ekeland (1993, English translation).

What I enjoy most about this book is that it is packed with excerpts and references to the role of chance in history. Perhaps I should be more clear... The casting of lots, the throwing of dice, the Urim and Thummin, etc. - used as tools to make major decisions or achieve justice.

Did they know something we've lost?

Admittedly, I am no historical scholar. And, in concession to the skeptics, it could be that these were just isolated instances of a favorable outcome told and retold to make the victor appear to be divinely favored or supernaturally gifted. Or they could reflect mass ignorance as to the nature of chance and randomness. But tools of chance were systematically employed across culture and history to make important decisions - why?

What if, at some time in ancient history, it was more widely know that there was a connection between 'chance' outcomes and human will? What if concepts like the strongest observer and the sum of the effect of multiple observers were blended into a ritual for the masses, which then became a custom whose origins were lost over time?

Like I said, I am no scholar in matters of history, but I do enjoy a good speculation. And occasionally I'll post said speculation. :)

Evan Harris Walker

2006-10-26T08:24:00.001-07:00

This man gets his own blog entry because someone once suggested that what I was saying was no different than what he had said. Which, at the time, led me to purchase and devour the newly-published book The Physics of Consciousness (2000) and which led to me accumulating quite a file of EHW articles. According to web reports, he recently passed away.

The earliest EHW material I have concerns attempts to link quantum physics to psi phenomena. (I heard that groan.) Some of it is quite mathematical in nature, but the basic premise of his idea remains the same - he attempts to define the data rate of Consciousness (C) and posits a Will channel (W) that has a much smaller data rate capacity but which can still influence Consciousness in a way that would produce psychokinetic-like effects. He also speculated on ways to enhance the W/C signal-to-noise ratio to boost psi effects.

A reviewer of Walker's 1979 paper in Psychoenergetic Systems notes that while EHW suggests that the observer selects the state obtained, he did not convincingly address how this interaction was effected. I have been unable to find any specific attempts on his (EHW) part to address this issue in later work, though he concedes numerous times that "the conscious state experienced is correlated with the state into which the state vector collapses." (Journal of Indian Psychology, 1985)

My own work has always been attempting to breakdown the effects of different components of various types of cognitive representations and link them to contributions to state selection. At the time I was focused on the various ways and degrees of representing a point in time.

"The truth does exist, and when the truth is honestly sought, with a mind that is ready to accept the truth, whatever the truth turns out to be, then the answers do come, and the answers change people." - EHW, The Physics of Consciousness (2000), p. 13.

"We stand at the threshold of a revolution in thinking that transcends anything that has happened in a thousand years." - EHW, The Physics of Consciousness (2000), p. 137.

Quantum Shmantum

2006-10-25T17:35:00.001-07:00

"But I would bet my bottom dollar that the new theory will either retain the parallel universes feature of quantum physics or it will contain something even more weird." - From an interview with David Deutsch in Discover, September 2001. (My emphasis.)

Hardly seems like this was 5 years ago.

Came across this quote in a notebook while sorting through a decade's worth of articles, presentations, and notebooks. (Bless Discover for freely archiving past issues online. If only all good articles were so easily accessible.)

Bear with me while I get organized...

Rapid Framework Shift

2006-10-19T22:08:00.001-07:00

Rapid Framework Shift (RFS) : a tool designed to compensate for the decline in psychokinetic (PK) performance seen in standard repetitive PK tasks. Developed in response to speculation that standard PK tests began to bore or fatigue a subject because of their repetitive nature (repeated presentation of exactly the same stimuli, etc.), thereby causing subject to be less able to exhibit the desired PK effect.

A differential-based theory of outcome/state selection also predicts that a subject will have a successively more difficult time selecting the desired outcome in a series of tasks where the outcome choice set (event family) is the same. The subject is exposed to the same level, nature and quality of information again and again. Additonally, at the level of experience, the subject's expectations for future outcomes are altered with every subsequent success or failure to achieve the desired outcome. A differential-based theory (even one that cannot yet pinpoint the exact nature of the differentials) would predict that something that can be likened to a charge building up on a capacitor would build up after repeated activation of the same representations. It is entirely in line with existing experimental findings to speculate that such a build-up might require increasing attentional resources to overcome in an attempt to produce the specified target effect.

RFS allows the same parameters of the test (source of randomness, standard odds associated with target outcomes, etc.) to be expressed to the subject on a variety of perceptual levels. Boredom and fatigue are further overcome by rapidly shifting between these frames of perception, preventing the subject from further processing or generating expectations regarding future success or failure at the task (a process invoking additional cognitive resources and processing time).

Think of an RFS PK test as a video game where 'success' comes only from obtaining certain possible outcomes from the set of possible random outcomes. This video game engages the subject on several perceptual levels (visual, auditory, tactile) with varying degrees of information complexity, but the subject can only advance through the game with aid of a series of PK 'pushes' on the random generator to obtain the necessary outcome. And, like a standard video game, the pace of action can be as rapid as necessary to allow the subject to access her ability to respond with PK more instinctively.

And this would be just an example of what might be needed in order to more accurately capture the range of 'psi' abilities in the confines of a laboratory.

Critical Concepts

2006-10-16T16:38:00.001-07:00

"Oh... neural linear decomposition of the state vector, followed by phase-shifting and preferential reinforcement of selected eigenstates. You're right: we'd better think of something catchier, or the whole thing will end up being grossly misreported."

Successful navigation of Smearland requires a firm grip on the idea that an event can be defined and observed in many ways and at many levels.

Ex: In following my favorite sports team, I can know the outcome of last night's game (win or lose) by reading about it in the next day's paper, or tuning in periodically throughout the game for updates, or watching the game in its entirety in person. Different amounts of information to answer the same question - win or lose? A different picture of the game. A different framework for the critical observation that answers my question about whether my team won or lost. Watching the whole game in person is a long series of observations, each of which contributes just a little to the final observation of a win or a loss. Reading about the game in the paper is a single observation that resolves the win/lose question.

Why is this important?

If you decide to try to steer yourself to a specific universe (outcome), you will have to select a framework in which to make the critical observations. In selecting a framework for your observation(s), you will want to consider the event family in each frame. Event family refers to the set of possible observations for a given set of timespace coordinates.

Ex: We are playing poker and I have a wicked hand that would be made better by any of the following cards - any club, any seven, and especially, the seven of clubs. According to standard odds calculation, the odds of drawing each of these cards gets progressively smaller as we move up the list. This is because the way the deck has been divided and classified has changed in each case. (Remember that classification is a cognitive function, not an inherent property of the deck.) I may choose to focus on pulling a club out of an event family where the possible observations are club, diamond, spade, and heart. Or I may choose the event family with 13 possible observations - Ace through King. Event family reflects, but is not completely defined by, the choice of sorting criteria. The other criteria by which the cards may be sorted once an event family is selected can become irrelevant because they are cognitive constructs. And since perception becomes observation only after cognitive filtering, a skillful inhabitant of Smearland directs himself to the final observation in part by controlling the influence of these filters.

I emphasize framework and event family here because it will take you awhile to break away from using standard odds calculation as a landmark in Smearland. In Randomness Isn't Random, I began to tell you why standard odds calculation becomes meaningless in Smearland. I'll come back to the topic of redefining probability in future posts. In the meantime, think about how why these concepts might have an impact on an unobserved outcome.

Science Is Thrilling Again

2006-10-15T16:28:00.001-07:00

"True science teaches, above all, to doubt and be ignorant."

Once upon a time I was at a conference, attempting to present support for the idea that state selection was not a random occurrence and that there was solid evidence for looking at the brain/mind in an attempt to find the differentials that guide it.

While conversing with two gentlemen, I gave the illustration of a coin flip and being able to steer oneself into whichever outcome (Heads or Tails) one desired. Being the good scientists they were, they immediately asked for a demonstration and produced a coin. They chose the target outcome before the flip and they flipped the coin; we all observed the outcome. And we hit the target 6 times in a row before another gentleman walked up. At this point, beer was wagered on subsequent outcomes. (You still owe me that beer!) And we hit the target outcome 2 more times before my fellow observers became too freaked out to continue.

Now obviously I can't prove that I didn't just make that whole story up. But I have often wondered if that demonstration (and others like it) made any type of significant impact on the people who witnessed them. I never would have gotten to the point where I could have produced such a demonstration if I hadn't been willing to push science to tell me more.

Science is observation and experiment and deduction, not rationalization or comfort zones or excuses. How will science ever be thrilling to you if you aren't at the very edges of what is known? If you aren't struggling to find new methods and coax new secrets from experimental data?

If you can't even look at the borderlands of science without whining about how it can't be true, then you will have to be content with boring science. Just stay out of my way. ;)

Journal Club #1

2006-10-13T21:01:00.001-07:00

Schmidt, H., Collapse of the State Vector and Psychokinetic Effect, Foundations of Physics, 12, 1982, pp 565-581.

Psychokinesis - the effect of the mind upon matter - is a well-studied phenomenon. Most studies of psychokinesis (PK) use random or quasi-random systems, as these systems are thought to be easier to influence with the mind than larger objects. Once you are dealing with random systems, it's not too much of a leap to the problem of state selection in quantum physics. This article attempts to bring together what was known about PK and what was known (or thought to be known) about the crux of quantum physics - the collapse of the state vector (and the selection of a single state from many possible states) by the observer.

The stated purpose of this article is to introduce equations for the collapse of the state vector that allow for the type of mental influence that PK represents, and the first part of the article rehashes some of the basic point of quantum physics and the role of the observer. I'm not really going to dwell on this, as the idea of a permanent collapse caused by a conscious observer is not the best model for understanding Smearland. What you do want from this article are the pieces of information about successful PK efforts that will help you understand what an inhabitant of Smearland needs to do in order to successfully select the outcome s/he wants.

Schmidt accepts the premise that "human will can under certain conditions affect the outcome of random processes", as do I (obviously) as this has repeatedly been shown to be true by many laboratory studies. Schmidt also acknowledges the major obstacles with this type of research - small effect sizes and the decline in subjects' interest in and motivation to complete the task. (More about overcoming these obstacles in future posts.)

The fact that decreasing interest in the task is a problem when studying these effects should indicate that mechanisms involved in attentional focus have a role to play in selecting the outcome... Keep this in mind.

Schmidt introduces two variables that he feels represent critical aspects of the PK effect - K, "the alertness parameter", which represents the idea that "a highly alert observer might produce a faster collapse of the state vector than a sleepy one"; and E, "the PK coefficient", which measures "the strength of the associated psychokinetic effect". The variable K has no corresponding role in Navigating. The difference between an alert observer and a sleepy observer is not the speed with which a state vector collapse is achieved, but the relevant level of encoding of the observation into memory. The strength of the memory will determine its influence in subsequent observations. The variable E needs to be recast as well; the strength of a psychokinetic effect can only truly be measured when the expectations and prior knowledge involved are measured as well. In summary, these variables, as defined by Schmidt, attempt to quantify key factors for achieving PK effects, but they fall short of capturing exactly what is going on.

Another point worth noting in this article is that "the combined PK effect from the two observers cannot be stronger than the effect from the 'better' PK subject alone." (More on the effects of multiple observers in future posts.)

And finally, Schmidt approaches the idea that an observation does not completely collapse the state vector when he hypothesizes about "incomplete reductions" and "half asleep or inattentive" observers. However he stills suggests that a permanent reduction takes place somewhere along the way, with speculations about cats and cockroaches as effective observers.

We'll end with Schmidt's question - "Could the singular role of the human subject as source of the PK effect be related to the controversial role of the observer in quantum theory, and does the reported PK effect on quantum jumps indicate some incompleteness in the current quantum formalism?" Yes, and yes.

But What Can You DO with This?

2006-09-27T18:36:00.001-07:00

(Lest you be tempted to dismiss this research as a quasi-spiritual search for truth/God/something really big...)

Imagine if you will... the door to a highly-sensitive research laboratory, and the lock on the door isn't any form of bioverification, but rather a series of flashing lights linked to a random trigger. To unlock the door you have to activate the window of opportunity and then 'find the universe' where the lights flash in a predetermined pattern. If you can successfully control the randomness and get the lights to flash in a predetermined pattern within the window of opportunity, you gain access to the lab.

Imagine if you will... a quadriplegic, trapped in an immobilized body with no way to interact with his environment. Prototype technology that attempts to convert EEG recordings of brainwaves into instructional signals exists, but it is unsightly and imprecise. What if an visual interface with a random feed existed, where specific output patterns could be translated into instructional signals? Control the randomness, and feed your instructions to the machine.

Why hasn't this technology been developed? The basic formula of random feed plus perceptual interface is already in use in psychokinesis experiments around the world... But it is commonly perceived that your ability to influence such a device is sporadic and unreliable. Hhhmm... perhaps then what is needed is a paradigm and a training plan that will enable a person to gain better control over his ability to influence a random system at will.

Think it can't be done? Think again...

Randomness Isn't Random

2006-09-22T10:02:00.001-07:00

One of the first things you need to learn before you are ready to live in Smearland is that randomness isn't random. (And yes, that contradicts the currently-held fundamentals of quantum physics. Einstein never liked the idea that chance and unpredictability were at the heart of the universe. And he was right.)

Random can be defined as "lacking any definite plan or order or purpose; governed by or depending on chance; unpredictable". But your ability to predict or identify a pattern depends on your KNOWLEDGE of the system. Therefore, what you perceive as random (or not) is based, in large part, upon what you know about the system. (You'll have to ponder this idea for awhile; it's simple, yet the implications are profound.)

Why is this important? Because we are searching for the hidden variables that determine what outcome will be observed. And we are looking where no one else has looked before - in the mind, where observation occurs.

Synchronicity, Coincidence, & Luck

2006-09-20T21:06:00.001-07:00

What I'm doing doesn't seem quite so crazy when you stop to looks at all the concepts we have for the same basic idea - that there is a relationship between what the mind is thinking/believing/imagining, and what appears in the world around us. Think about the concepts of synchronicity, coincidence, and luck...

There have been two books written on the subject of exceptionally lucky (and unlucky) people. It is oddly coincidental that these books were written almost 30 years apart, yet both were called The Luck Factor, and both reached almost the same conclusions about the psychological correlates of luck. Almost... Both authors (Max Gunther and Richard Wiseman) described the role expectation plays in luck, but they are on opposite ends of the spectrum when describing the types of expectations held by 'lucky' people. Gunther claimed lucky people showed a marked tendency to expect the worst, while Wiseman claimed that lucky people showed a marked tendency to expect the best. An unresolvable contradiction in findings? Not at all...

There are many states of mind that fall under the category of 'expectation'. You might even go so far as to describe degrees of expectation, ranging from a vague feeling of apprehension, to a detailed image of what you expect to see and your reaction to it. Something to keep in mind when you are trying to navigate Smearland... What exactly where your thoughts leading up to the observation of this coin flip? Did you create an image of the flipped coin? Did you have an accompanying feeling of boredom, or a sense of impending failure?

We'll talk much more about specific states of mind, their neurophysiological and neurochemical correlates, and their effects in Smearland. But don't wait for me... Start paying attention to what is going on in your own mind.

The Elegant Universe

2006-09-19T17:15:00.001-07:00

Yes, indeed. The universe and its laws are elegant, particularly when viewed from a slightly different perspective than the one you are used to...

In case you arrived late to the party... Quantum physics tells us that we only ever see one state of a particle that could have expressed any of several other mutually-exclusive states. It goes on to say that these particles exist in an entirely different way when they are not being observed. This causes a major and previously-assumed-to-be-unsolvable problem for those who'd like to know about the true nature of things.

The science of physics has drifted away from observation and into math to try to move beyond this problem. I ask - have we really learned all we can from observation? Perhaps it is simply time to alter what we are observing...

Rather than assume that the stuff of the universe is collapsing from wave state to particle state, and then reverting back to wave state when we aren't looking, why not take the perspective that our consciousness is simply only able to interface with 'reality' in a limited way? Rather than spend time trying to figure out the rules that govern the stuff (which we know we cannot observe in its 'true' state), why not spend time studying the interface (consciousness) and the the mechanisms and rules that govern it? Ten-dimensional string theories may generate great math, but they don't generate great testable hypotheses. Consciousness, as a phenomenon, has and does generate testable hypotheses.

Beyond the observer problem (a place few dare to go) is the problem of state selection. Of all the possible states of a system that we could experience, how is the state that we actually experience chosen? Again, if we shift our focus away from the behavior of things 'out there', and look to the dynamics of perception and cognition, we may begin to approach a logical and rule-based answer to this problem. Perception and cognition are already acknowledged mechanisms for deciding what from 'out there' will end up in conscious experience; why should they be excluded from a role in the state selection proces?

It has been suggested that state selection is accomplished by some type of differential(s); the nature of that differential(s) has been the product of speculation, as it has usually involved hypothetical constructs. What if the differentials are completely contained within the mechanisms of consciousness? What would they look like? How would they manifest themselves in our everyday experiences?

And the question at the heart of my investigation... How could we harness them?

Introduction to Smearland

2006-09-13T21:51:00.001-07:00

"Listen, there's a hell of a universe next door: let's go!"

Imagine for a minute that the Universe had another dimension to it... Not the hypothetical, you'll-never-see-it dimensions of string theory or M theory, but an actual dimension that you could move through much as you move through space, provided you knew how to manipulate the forces that propel you through this dimension.

Naturally this extra dimension would have to be 1) integrated with our perceivable temporal and spatial dimensions, 2) capable of explaining more of our everyday experiences than the current 4-dimensional model, and 3) on friendly terms with Occam.

This 5-dimensional picture of the universe can be conceptualized as a multiverse - a Universe containing all possible parallel outcomes. And rather than rehash quantum physics, parallel universes, etc. in the necessary level of detail, for now let me give you this illustration of the multiverse... Suppose, when you flipped a coin, that it was possible to navigate your way to the universe where the coin landed on Heads, and that it was equally possible to steer yourself toward the universe where the coin landed on Tails. The outcome of the coin flip is not random at all; rather, our movement toward the final state of the coin is governed by laws and dynamics of force, just as our movements through the spatial dimensions are.

When you can understand and use these dynamics to plot a course through the sea of possible universes that is the multiverse, you have entered Smearland.

DISCLAIMER

2006-09-12T17:15:00.001-07:00

I have spent many years collecting data and notes with the aim of one day writing a book or a (really long) paper. Haven't written that yet. But I have collected some thoughts on what I have studied and put them in this blog. As this blog is obviously not a scientific paper in a refereed journal, please accept the following suggestions and disclaimers before diving in...

In the event that what you read here distresses you in any way, you are cordially invited to view this entire blog as a piece of fiction: the work of an overactive imagination. Enjoy it and return to the ennui of the 'real' world. That doesn't mean that it is a piece of fiction; it's simply easier to tell yourself two words - 'science fiction' - than it is to get upset about anything you find here.

You should absolutely seek to verify anything you find here that you are tempted to believe. Seriously - don't take my word for any of this.

Some quotes found here may not include the proper attributions because these quotes have be recopied over time and the source information has been lost. Or I find that the quotes have more of an impact when the source is not acknowledged.

This blog may appear fairly chaotic in its presentation of ideas. Original post order has been maintained throughout the editing process, but some of the stimuli for the individual posts have been deleted. Also, some portions of the text have been altered for narrative cohesion, but the substance remains the same.

Additional editing may happen at any time.

Additional disclaimers may be added at any time.