Quest for A(nother) Scientific Revolution

"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

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

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)

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?

"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

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

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

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

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

"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

(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

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

"...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

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

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

"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

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

"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

"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

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.