Re: [Sadhu Sanga] [FWD: Anesthesia and Consciousness.]

[Kushal Shah]

Hi Stuart,

It is a well accepted fact that meditation works well when the spine is straight. This means that a bend in the spine prevents flow of consciousness energy, thereby making its wavelength in the range of few centimetres. If we agree with this, it naturally follows that the neural-physical structures related to consciousness vibrate in the GHz range and not THz. 

Best,

Kushal.

On Mon, Apr 22, 2019 at 5:25 AM Hameroff, Stuart R - (hameroff) <hame...@email.arizona.edu> wrote:

Thanks Eric

Actually 613 terahertz is 489 nanometer wavelength, in the blue  blue/green region of the visible spectrum. That doesn't mean we radiate blue light (though Hindu deities seem to) because the photons stay internal to the system, normally.

But the resonances/consciousness could extend to higher frequency, smaller scale fluctuations in the structure of spacetime geometry, as Roger Penrose and I have been suggesting.

 

Stuart

---

From: 'Avtar' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2019 8:14 AM
To: Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] [FWD: Anesthesia and Consciousness.]

 

Eric

This applies only to the neurological sensory consciousness and not to the cosmic or universal consciousness. Such restrictive biological consciousnesses can’t explain non local mind or consciousness and empirical very low frequency EM waves and dilation of space time during transcendental meditation. 

Best Regards 

Avtar 

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 21, 2019, at 6:00 AM, <con...@howgravityworks.org> <con...@howgravityworks.org> wrote:

Well done Stuart Hameroff.

I have sent the following commentary to all my other contacts.

Best regards,

Eric Sabo

I have been following this endless consciousness debate in my website "Contact" email address inbox. I have recently come to the conclusion that consciousness is linked to the Aether.

Recently someone brought up the point that Anesthesia renders you unconscious but doesn't affect heart and respiration the same.

 

I always thought it was a simple and straightforward mechanism that Anesthesia employs that interfered with neurotransmitters in the synaptic junctions.

But that is clearly not the case to a point. (People do OD) At the lighter doses, the patient is rendered unconscious but respiratory, heart and other autonomic functions are unaffected.This suggests consciousness is a more delicate aspect of the central nervous system.

A recent paper published by Stuart Hameroff and colleagues Craddock and Tuszinsky from Univ of Arizona points to the consciousness mechanism as being a result of collective oscillations in the Tubulin protein that forms micro-tubules in neurons in the brain. Anesthesia dampens the oscillations causing unconsciousness.

 

These collective consciousness oscillations occur in the Tera-hertz (10¹² cycles per second) frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Curiously, this Tera-hertz frequency range exists between microwaves and infrared light and is referred to as the Tera-hertz gap.

Even more curious, is not measurable by any instruments we possess.

Perhaps it is reserved by nature for the undisturbed operation of the consciousness mechanism.

 

It has always been my belief that certain people are somehow tuned into each other and perhaps ancestral experience and connection make it more pronounced than with anyone else. This could explain phenomena like "Love at first sight" where two people are instantly "in sync" with Tubulin oscillations tuned into each other.

Also, these Terahertz spectrum oscillations being, in fact, radio waves, and now with this observation, mental telepathy has a viable means of existence and operation.

Some individuals may possess greater ability in receiving and sending these telepathic Terahertz frequencies. Most would be unaware of it and write it off as intuition or a "gut" feeling. Perhaps an unforgettable vivid dream that stands out could also be a manifestation of this phenomena.

Perhaps the gathering at religious services with a large group sharing oscillations accounts for the sense of well being after attending the service. Even the power of faith could be explained in any particular belief system as they all share the same Terahertz bandwidth.

All of the above and other personal experiences of consciousness referred to as "Quanta", could be explained as a result of Terahertz oscillations in the Tubulin Cytoskeletal Microtubules in neurons. And, these oscillations could be capable of interacting with and through the Aether.

With the lack of any other explanation for the existence or mechanism of consciousness, a modified Occam's Razor would seem to apply;

"All things being equal, the only explanation tends to be the correct one."

http://www.newswise.com/articles/consciousness-depends-on-tubulin-vibrations-inside-neurons-anesthesia-study-suggests 

Thank you for your time,

Eric Sabo

 

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Kushal Shah @ EECS Dept, IISER Bhopal
http://home.iiserb.ac.in/~kushals

[VINOD KUMAR SEHGAL]

Kushal

Has consciousness energy like that of e.m energy any wavelength/frequency? Has consciousness energy as distinct from the physical energy detected empirically and its wavelength/frequency measured?

Vinod Sehgal

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[Deepak Chopra]

Consciousness is the potential for information energy and matter as modes of knowing and experience 

Deepak Chopra MD

7668 El Camino Road

Suite 104-612

La Costa, CA 92009
Tel: 760-494-1625

www.deepakchopra.com

Apple iTunes     

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[Deepak Chopra]

Consciousness cannot be empirically measured. It is formless and Infinite. It measures itself out as the finite 

Deepak Chopra MD

7668 El Camino Road

Suite 104-612

La Costa, CA 92009
Tel: 760-494-1625

www.deepakchopra.com

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On Apr 22, 2019, at 7:55 AM, VINOD KUMAR SEHGAL <vinodse...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Kushal Shah]

To be precise, I was referring to the neural-physical manifestation of consciousness energy.

Best,

Kushal.

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[BT APJ]

Dear All:

Deepak´s last formulation has the essential ingredients, but scrambled!

The metaphysics of TAM proposes, instead:

Energy is the power and potential for Matter, Information and Feeling.

The three aspects together are necessary and sufficient for conscious experience.

Alfredo

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[VINOD KUMAR SEHGAL]

Deepak --  Consciousness is the potential for information energy and matter as modes of knowing and experience 

Sehgal _ This will make information energy more fundamental than the consciousness.  What is that which constitutes information energy and where does it exist?   Has there been any empirical evidence for the existence of any information energy as distinct from the physical energy of 4 fundamental forces -- e.m, gravitation, weak, strong as known to the science of the day?

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[VINOD KUMAR SEHGAL]

If consciousness can't be measured empirically then it will not be right to talk of any frequency/wavelength of consciousness as mentioned by Kushal.

Vinod Sehgal

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[Deepak Chopra]

Potential for infinite frequencies 

Deepak Chopra MD

7668 El Camino Road

Suite 104-612

La Costa, CA 92009

The Chopra Foundation

Jiyo

The Chopra Center for Wellbeing

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From: scientific-basis...@googlegroups.com <scientific-basis...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of VINOD KUMAR SEHGAL <vinodse...@gmail.com>
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To: scientific-basis...@googlegroups.com
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[VINOD KUMAR SEHGAL]

Alfredo -- Deepak´s last formulation has the essential ingredients, but scrambled!

The metaphysics of TAM proposes, instead:

Energy is the power and potential for Matter, Information and Feeling.

The three aspects together are necessary and sufficient for conscious experience.

Vinod Sehgal -- with the mere presence of the above stated 3 aspects, there can't be any conscious expereince. What is required before the 3 aspects is the prior presence for the consciousness per se before any conscious expereince? In fact, no feeling is possible without consciousness. It is the consciousness which feels. The inert entities/particles have no consciousness and hence no feeling.

Consciousness is much more fundamental than feelings since consciousness can continue to exist even without any feeling.

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[VINOD KUMAR SEHGAL]

Infinite frequencies pertain to e.m energy spectrum and NOT to the consciousness per se. Now how and from where and how e,m energy having infinite frequencies manifest is a different issue.

Vinod Sehgal

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[Avtar]

Agree 

🙏Avtar 

Sent from my iPhone

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[Avtar]

Matter and information are temporal relative realities complementary to the eternal absolute reality of consciousness. 

Best Regards 

Avtar 

Sent from my iPhone

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[John Jay Kineman]

Excellent. Inwould also say that the metaphysical  ature of the “wheel of birth and death” so often described in Vedants, is consciousness, and we can say its cause and driver is consciousness. Thus mind and body are aspects of a conscious process that in one direction describes a cycle of creation and dissolution (implication of new birth), and in the other direction describes the process of reasoning and questioning.

John

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[BT APJ]

Vinod,
I am a philosophical and scientific person. I am not against religion, but keep it separated

from philosophy and science.

In the framework of all types of systematic philosophy, empirical and formal sciences I know,

any petitio principii should be avoided. Your argument that consciousness requires

copnsciousness falls in this case, which may valid for religious and mystical persons, but not

for philosophy or science.

Alfredo

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[Ram Lakhan Pandey Vimal]

It is unclear how the physical information with THz or higher or lower frequencies can cross the hard skull. Stan (Klein) might also argue for this issue.

Cheers!

Kind regards,

Rām

----------------------------------------------------------

Rām Lakhan Pāndey Vimal, Ph.D.

Amarāvati-Hīrāmaṇi Professor (Research)

Vision Research Institute Inc, Physics, Neuroscience, & Consciousness Research Dept.

25 Rita Street, Lowell, MA 01854 USA

Ph: +1 978 954 7522; eFAX: +1 440 388 7907

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Researched at the University of Chicago and Harvard Medical Schools

[John Jay Kineman]

Stuart,

Can you say more about quantum entanglement as a means for connecting with a larger domain of information beyond the hard skull? We had quite a discussion about possible mechanisms for remote viewing, for example, but to my knowledge no consensus on how it could work. The people who do this experience “non-local” connection. But doesn’t the current physics of entanglement preclude information transfer? Is there a way around that? The 20 years of Stargate research by the US Government concluded that “informational Psi”, i.e., remote viewing as an example, is scientifically confirmed, but physical Psi, as in psychokinesis, could not be confirmed.  So, if informational Psi is real, how can it work via entanglement or non-locality concepts? Clearly there would have to be some micro physical Psi for it to be informative.

John

PS please consider joining the discussion of consciousness at google group: scientific-basis-of-conscioiusness.

On Apr 22, 2019, at 1:29 PM, Stuart Hameroff <sham...@anesth.arizona.edu> wrote:

Ram Lakhan Pandey Vimal

 

It is unclear how the physical information with THz or higher or lower frequencies can cross the hard skull. Stan (Klein) might also argue for this issue.

Stuart

Its quantum information via entanglement (at higher than terahertz frequencies)

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[Siegfried Bleher]

Dear John,

One mechanism for transporting entangled information from within the brain to outside is to envision resonant coupling between scales that preserves entanglement.  An external field, for example, that couples to the body's nervous system--through its senses, or perhaps directly if the wavelengths are such that the waves are not attenuated beyond the skin--should exhibit measurable changes once such a field is partially absorbed and selectively altered by the 'sink' constituted of nervous system functions.  Of course, the onus is demonstrating the many stages of resonant coupling.  I don't think that's out of reach--Franck-Condon principle is one such mechanism of intrascale dynamic molecular coupling.

Best,

Siegfried

Sent from Outlook

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[Ram Lakhan Pandey Vimal]

Hi John and Stuart,

My understanding is that quantum entanglement does not transfer physical information, only correlations are judged, which experimenters already know. However, Alfredo might like to say more about it. 

Perhaps, we have a 6th sensor in our system (such as in sensors in a heart as Dominique mentioned I guess), which might be responsible for remote viewing. 

Microtubules networks (MTNs) are in the dendrites of all neurons, so they might be involved in all normal and paranormal phenomena including the 6th sensor (if it exists) related neural networks: is this correct Stuart?

Cheers!

Kind regards,

Rām

----------------------------------------------------------

Rām Lakhan Pāndey Vimal, Ph.D.

Amarāvati-Hīrāmaṇi Professor (Research)

Vision Research Institute Inc, Physics, Neuroscience, & Consciousness Research Dept.

25 Rita Street, Lowell, MA 01854 USA

Ph: +1 978 954 7522; eFAX: +1 440 388 7907

rlpv...@yahoo.co.in; http://sites.google.com/site/rlpvimal/Home

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ram_Lakhan_Pandey_Vimal 

Researched at the University of Chicago and Harvard Medical Schools

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[Stanley A. KLEIN]

Dear John, It is my understanding that the 20 years of Stargate remote viewing research wasn't done with careful controls. Is the US Government still doing that sort of awesome research? I'm very much looking forward to seeing some psi research done with some fairly simple controls for "sloppiness".  Getting positive results would be fantastic since it provide evidence that quantum mechanics and neuroscience would need to be modified. I would love to see some solid evidence for things like remote viewing. 

Stan

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[Ram Lakhan Pandey Vimal]

Hi John,

I agree with Stan. Is it possible to invite Dominique again?

She is great in CRV.

Cheers!

Kind regards,

Rām

----------------------------------------------------------

Rām Lakhan Pāndey Vimal, Ph.D.

Amarāvati-Hīrāmaṇi Professor (Research)

Vision Research Institute Inc, Physics, Neuroscience, & Consciousness Research Dept.

25 Rita Street, Lowell, MA 01854 USA

Ph: +1 978 954 7522; eFAX: +1 440 388 7907

rlpv...@yahoo.co.in; http://sites.google.com/site/rlpvimal/Home

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ram_Lakhan_Pandey_Vimal 

Researched at the University of Chicago and Harvard Medical Schools

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[John Jay Kineman]

Stan, how did you arrive at that ‘understanding’ of Stargate sloppiness? Did you read the report?

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[John Jay Kineman]

my guess would be gravity fluctuations

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[Stanley A. KLEIN]

Hi John, thanks for asking.    I'm very familiar with lots of books on psychic phenomena. My deep interest began in 1972 when I starting my subsciptions to "The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research".  I was on and off again with my membership with my latest Journals being in 2004. But I would visit them for lectures when in New York. In fact I was there for a talk at their West 73rd St New York building less than a year ago for a talk. My favorite writer on these topics is Dean Radin and I have 4 of his books at home and I think one in my office. I also have read books by Targ, Tart and Krippner, and have met them all as well as Puthoff.

The most interesting and relevant to Star Gate is the awesome 2017 book by Annie Jacobsen titled "Phenomena-The Secret History of the US Government's Investigations Into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis". There is a section on Star Gate (Chapter 21) of how it began and Chapter 22 is devoted to how it embarrassingly had to end. I strongly recommend reading Jacobsen's book. She is a very strong supporter of psychic phenomena, so many SBC members will enjoy reading it.  You can get it from Amazon for <$14.00 including shipment. 

For me it was a huge shock that the government supported a number of large projects on psychic phenomena without having friendly non-believers like me involved with the experimental design. In addition to my recommendation on reading Jacobsen's 527 page book, to get a balanced view it would also be good to read Ray Hyman's book "The Elusive Quarry:  A Scientific Appraisal of Psychical Research". 

As I've mentioned before I'm a non-believer, but I'd love psi to be validated with an astute friendly non-believer involved with the experimental design. I want to see it validated so that crazy quantum mechanics will be forced to change.  It is shocking that so few psi experiment involved include a non-believer in the experimental design. In fact I can't think of any that would involve the non-believer be in charge of the computer that generates the stimuli and stores the data. The friendly non-believer shouldn't know when the experiments are being done in order to avoid "the experimenter effect". 

Woops this already became too long. 

Stan

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[John Jay Kineman]

Hi Stan and all;

The mantra of “friendly skeptic” has finally triggered my somewhat dusty memory and sleeping experience. I would like to take a little room here to recall some of it. It is based on a lifetime of experience in a different kind of science that most are not familiar with. Please excuse me if it seems at times to be a rambling story - I have to weave together many disparate experiences to make this point. But let me say first that it is not that I disagree with this important aspect of skepticism in designing traditional domain experiments that are the mainstay of current science. It is that a different kind of science exists, and should exist, and that kind of science disagrees — strongly, with the application of skepticism. But it is not well-recognized nor currently pursued in a programatic way, so I have to make the case from a number of personal career examples.

From 1976 to 1979, during the same time as Stargate was apparently going on (I only recently learned of it), with personnel from SAIC, the government, and academia , I also worked with the same contractors such as SAIC, along with government and academic scientists, on an oil spill research team in NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). We were also doing unusual research - the first ever “crisis science” (as it was later called). You could easily call it sloppy because indeed experiment design was 90% of the challenge and traditional design was next to impossible. The problem in crisis science research is that you are not designing to test a known hypothesis because in unfamiliar territory in a complex unfolding situation, you cannot look methodically for answers because you don’t even know the questions. The nature of the problem prevents normal design approaches, so a ‘discovery phase' dominates. Human nature seems to be complacent and we tend to gravitate toward believing we know the important questions in life. So, it makes sense in that frame of mind, formalized in many ways in our society, to design neat experiments because we think we only need to add depth to what we already know. But that is not the real world in its raw form. That is civilized, tamed, reduced, and cultured reality. Its where we might want to live, but unfortunately, times of crisis tell us it is not where we actually do live. In traditional science one would assign aspects of the problem to domain experts, conduct the research as planned with perhaps some surprises, and then do synthesis if you need to know about the larger system or interdisciplinary issues. Synthesis is the sum of analysis in this mode of science. But in complex systems, analysis and synthesis do not commute; which is why we have trouble studying such systems. So here’s the story.

All of us on the Spilled Oil Research (SOR) team were very familiar with the traditional science approach because the oil spill team was one of the research units in a much larger environmental assessment program for the Alaskan outer continental shelf; all designed (albeit rapidly, with the expected political ugliness) as leading edge environmental science and assessment. SAI was strongly involved in that and they hired scientists from every sector including a lot of industry scientists. Peer review was paramount as was experimental design. There were not-so-friendly skeptics a lot of the time, but the idea was to get something done to satisfy environmental concerns and national policy to develop domestic oil reserves. A lot of research was conceived to discover what oil did when spilled in the marine environment - nobody knew. But we obviously could not rely exclusively on traditional experiments in lab or in situ. One can’t purposely dump oil in the environment for research - we needed accidental events. So the team was created to go to “Spills of opportunity”. We became an emergency science response team, training in the natural oil seeps off Santa Barbara between spill events. We designed portable in-situ experiments for rapid deployment and we practiced survey methods by boat, helicopter, and airplane, for example flying 300’ above the water in a Cessna 182 with the right door off to toss out experiments and take pictures. I experimented with infra-red photography (distinguishes oil and live vegetation). Needless to say, we also had to prepare for the unexpected. We evolved into a very ad hoc, spontaneous bunch. You might call it “Cowboy Science” as with Gene Roddenbery’s term “Cowboy Diplomacy” in Star Trek. But we were good. And to our surprise we became known as having the only credible knowledge on scene. So good that the team was immediately asked to give briefings and advice to the on-scene coordinators, a task everyone responded to but which also interfered with the primary mission to do the research. But because of that obvious need for credible advice, after only 5 years it evolved into a series of national contingency planning programs, including creation of new programs and the impetus for a whole new agency - FEMA. When does a military trained on-scene crisis commander and politicians who have jurisdiction, stop and listen to a scientist? Especially a rag-tag team of scientists in the field all day and barely presentable at night? Answer: It happens only during an emergency when nobody else knows anything and they are scared to death of making the wrong decision. 

But don’t think that bred sloppiness. The information we got had to be 100% actionable, not speculative. It had to be right, and we would see the results almost immediately. Mistakes were made, but few came from this team because we generally learned about our mistakes as eagerly as we made them. The serious mistakes came mainly from political forces or management decisions meant to for expedience, to avoid something or to cover something up. Our mistakes led to important lessons. Many discoveries were by accident. One I recall. The SOR team was in Sweden during the Tsesis tanker spill in the Baltic. We had collected water samples below the slick to do GC/MS to type the oil (for research and litigation). But Sweden was so captivating that our chemist decided to wait to morning to process the samples. This is an example of experiment design “sloppiness” and also how it doesn’t go unnoticed. In the morning, after he was sober, he processed the samples. When they came back from the lab the signature of oil was all wrong. It was there, but it didn’t match the tanker and wasn’t a crude-oil profile. It was as though we were at another spill. We suspected the plastic Nisken bags. Back home we contracted to one of the chemistry labs we used with SAI to study the bags. It turned out that within hours the plastic bag would absorb the crude oil fractions and replace them with plasticizer from the bag. After 12 hrs the substitution was nearly complete. Think about that when you store liquid food in a soft plastic bag. I also learned how to make gravy on this team. Gravy is an 80% water in oil emulsion. Spilled oil does the same thing in the sea. It forms ‘chocolate mousse’, we called it, when churning with sea water, the salts and sediments acting as surfactants like the flour does in gravy. The toxicity is preserved in a floating mass that can come ashore as it did in France during the Amoco Cadiz spill that oiled 240km of bays along the Brittany coast producing the largest marine life kill in history. In cold water off New England the oil separated into light and heavy fractions, the heavy fraction settling to the bottom and the lighter dissolving or evaporating. Unless we were there to see it and experience it, these phenomena would not be known. In the Baltic oil settled into sediments long-term without much degradation because of the low-energy environment, preserving toxicity and a risk of later re-suspension or pollution of bottom dwellers. Small crabs were not killed because they evacuated the area immediately. Mussels can’t do that but they are strong survivors and not killed, so they are good indicators of oil impact because it gets absorbed in the tissues and can be measured in the lab. So we discovered the difference between indicator species and impact species. There was no place for belief or skepticism about these unknown phenomena at the time. We didn’t know what we would learn. Openness, not belief or disbelief was needed. Believers one way or the other were just too slow to adapt to reality. The key was willingness and curiosity to look where tradition might say there is nothing to see.

So the challenge was that not only did we not know the questions and thus were very limited in doing planned domain expert experiments on anticipated phenomena, we also didn’t know what part of the system the important issues or phenomena would come from. So a traditional domain experimental approach was quite a different thing. We were inventing a new kind of science altogether - crisis science, exploratory science, participatory science, “cowboy” science. We were forced to become holistic scientists working as a team and crossing boundaries, and at the same time very practical and rooted scientists - nothing flakey (except the oil). It was necessarily multi-disciplinary and evolved toward inter-disciplinary. It started with a physical scientist modeling trajectories. Then a chemist to look at weathering and fate of oil. Then a biologist - me to see if anything at all could be learned about the living system. Then  a psychologist and a sociologist were added during the France spill because of its magnitude and extreme impact on people and society. Each was to head up a sub team, but we all crossed the disciplinary boundaries. Everyone did all four jobs: physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology. I was the first to address what we knew was a  complex system problem, the biology, because in an ecosystem crisis you don’t even have baselines. Did the bottom crabs die from the oil, did they migrate, or were they even present to begin with? If they were killed by the oil they may have been eaten and all evidence removed. “Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence”, or at least not of the reason for absence.  How do you study a phenomenon you cant keep still long enough to study?  

Do you see the similarity with the problem of Psi research? You just cant approach it in traditional ways because you can’t part it out and you don’t know the questions that would drive design. Experimental design itself has to be a participatory process. But as participants in the experiment, we also found that we were fully engaged as human beings. It tapped every talent (or lack of talent) we had. Being forced to be holistic in our approach we experienced what it was like to be whole ourselves. It was intoxicating, engaging, and nobody wanted to quit. Nobody wanted another job. In fact people became so committed to it they got pilot licenses to fly their own missions. Some disobeyed military boundaries and flew into Kuwait during the war to gather data around the burning oil wells. One person’s plane went down in freezing water in Alaska where he swam several miles to shore with a broken leg. And came back for more. Holism is not some airy, dreamy trance; it is full engagement with existence itself.

The SOR TEAM science was excellent and cited to this day.  But being non-traditional ‘cowboy’ science, many traditionalists considered it too sloppy, perhaps necessarily so, but nevertheless something we should replace with traditional methods as soon as possible. So once the planning agencies were created the crisis science team itself was terminated and more planned science - less sloppy science planned by friendly skeptics - took over. It was better at community planning, but not for scientific discovery. To my knowledge that kind of discovery science was never done again in the environmental agencies. I argued to continue it, that domain science could not do the same thing, but to no avail. 30 years later Joe Salazar, head of the DOI restarted a crisis science group.  When I heard of it I was excited that someone had finally seen the light. I invited the director, Gary Machlis, to my ISSS conference in Boulder. That was 2016. He fully understood crisis science, but he was frustrated because his team was not given the freedom we had. They could not even visit the spill site and do their own experiments. They had to work with domain data collected in traditional ways and were confined to a hotel where they would write reports about what might become a political problem for those in charge. Very little new science could be discovered. Hints at new phenomena would be quickly buried in skepticism and not addressed with exploration. You can recall the news of the Gulf spill and how much we didn’t know and didn’t explore. It became a spin team. And I understand it no longer exists. Real crisis science research would be important to maintain between crises to prepare methodologically, scientifically, and personally; but skeptical spin science designed for politicians can be started up on a moment’s notice when there is another catastrophe. So much for friendly skeptics. I can tell you that on the SOR team the friendly skeptics and supposed experts were weeded out very quickly even during training, but certainly on-scene where their uselessness was an unproductive embarrassment. They were either sent back to the office to resume as desk-jockeys or assigned a clerical task. The last thing we needed was someone who didn’t think there was something very interesting going on out there that we needed to dive into head first to learn from experience. We needed science improv. And to get at it took every fiber of our Being combining creativity, adaptiveness, curiosity, and guts. Gary described the qualities of the kind of person he would look for as “a rigorous research scientist who could win a bar fight”. That’s a little off - what he means by a bar fight is the challenge of being 100% a part of the experiment - doing and learning personally, not at a safe, skeptical distance. Doubt and caution needed to be left in the hotel room, except that we also needed to know how to survive. The main thing different about this kind of science is 100% engagement with the unknown. Traditional science is incremental improvement of the known, with safe consensus, care planning and controls, and comfortable funding (ideally), and often waiting a very long time for the extreme shock of a new paradigm. If we did that in oil spill research, climate change, or now in the vital need to learn the nature of human existence, we could be waiting for our own extinction.

So now, looking back on all these experiences, I see this as a very clear but different kind of rigorous and even tough science. You are in the trenches with this, a participant. It is “participatory science”. One reason is it put down is that most people don’t have the guts for it, so it is dismissed as sloppy or egotistical or faked because of inexperience (I won’t say ignorance because that is unkind). Indeed in getting the data, sometimes at the risk of one’s own life, we may not also come back with political and social cover. But that CAN be added later from traditional methods once we know what to study. Meanwhile, the participatory phase can be done rigorously if it is taken seriously and done by people who know this kind of work. I think Jane Goodall was one of the pioneers in participatory science. It went against all the friendly and unfriendly skepticism of the time. She was derided as a secretary turned adventurer and the very idea of participating personally in a primate group for research was anathema. But LSB Leakey had a vision of doing research from the INSIDE of a system, and working out the methods for that. Others just said it wasn’t science. Diane Fossey followed and I think was less scientific adding to some of the critiques. But her work was no less monumental in what it discovered. I worked in Diane Fossey’s research station doing gorilla census in the early 80’s. I think the SOR team prepared me for that. Then, for 20 years, I tried to introduce something similar as holistic methodology into global science because we are facing global crises and need crisis science. But the friendly skeptics killed it. It resides half dead in the “Systems Sciences”, which are too unsure of themselves to promote it, but it needs to be resurrected. Paranormal psychological research is no different in method. It is exploratory and necessarily participatory because it involves a very complex system where phenomena are not nailed to the dissection table.  To know what’s going on you have to experience it, and yet also preserve a scientific rigor that translates that experience objectively and connects it with domain science. You have to personally know how to expunge the purely personal impression that might arise and extract the science that can be applied to other situations. It can’t be done by a textbook method. Its a personal skill and you need trained people. I would like $40M to start a participatory science research training center. It would be money well-spent.

John

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[Stanley A. KLEIN]

Hi John,   I'm sending SBC an item that I just now sent to another group. It is on the same topic of testing precognition. Bem's precognition experiments involved a random number generator in the future choosing a random number 0 or 1 that would cause either an erotic (or some other very interesting item) or a regular picture to be shown onto one of two monitors. The observer had to choose which monitor to look at.  Bem found that the observer picked the interesting monitor 54% of the time. There were enough trials and enough observers for the outcome was very significant!  

	11:22 AM (24 minutes ago)
							Does anyone on this list who knows someone or some organization that has  $150,000 - $200,000 to fund a project to test precognition. The project itself would be $300,000- $400,000.   I'm told that NSF and/or NIH (or others) has a higher likelihood of funding if there is a partner for the other half. The grant would be to replicate Bem's awesome precognition experiments.

http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/psp/index.aspx

There have been a number of critiques of Bem's methodology so it will be very easy to replicate his findings with some very simple non-intrusive controls.

I can't think of a cheaper experiment to require a modification to QM.  It is very exciting!

Stan

****************

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[Christopher M H Nunn]

Stan and John. The series that Bem first reported involved reversing the stimulus presentation to outcome measurement order in nine different and fairly standard psychophysiological tests. There was nothing non standard about them apart from reversal of stimulus/measured response orders. Randomisation and double blinding occurred in the usual way. Eight of the nine tests showed statistically significant PRE-sponses of the sort that would normally be expected as REsponses though with a much reduced effect size.

The work confirmed results that people had been reporting from less rigorous tests for over ten years and has subsequently been replicated in some ninety laboratories worldwide. Money would perhaps be better spent on exploring the hows of this phenomenon than on yet more replication.
Best
Chris

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[Stanley A. KLEIN]

Many thanks Chris for your thoughtful comments. There have indeed been about 90 replications.  As I recall there were

also many non-replications done by non-believers.   It is my understanding that none of the Bem replications included 

a non-believer like me who would have included some rules for keeping track of all the data. In my opinion it would be

wonderful if the Bem experiments can be replicated. I also like Bem's idea of doing half with a pseudo random number

generator (RNG) and half with a quantum RNG (Bem did both). The reason for doing both is because of the 4 types of psi 

only precognition directly violates quantum mechanics. One can in principle replace the QRNG by psychokinesis (influencing

the QRNG) and one can in principle replace the PRNG with clairvoyance (looking inside RNG of the computer to see 

what the future random number will be). Of course influencing the QRNG and predicting the PRNG are beyond the 

capabilities of our present 18 known particles but they don't in principle violate quantum mechanics. 

My point is that if the Bem experiments are replicable when done with simple controls, our present physics and 

neuroscience will need to be radically changed. In my mind that would be truly wonderful!!!

Stan 

[Christopher M H Nunn]

Hi Stan,

So far as i know the data have been better tracked than happens in most standard psychology work, especially since psi researchers started insisting on publication of negative findings.

Of course, given the small effect size, some negative series are to be expected. It would be very suspicious if they didn't turn up! Whether inclusion of skeptics directly increases negativity remains uncertain. Some of Randi and Wiseman's behaviour, for example, suggest active sabotage, whether conscious or unconscious. The PEAR results are perhaps relevant here since volitions of skeptics in that setting sometimes produced opposite effects to those allegedly wished for.

The random versus pseudo-random suggestion was also looked at in PEAR and Dick Bierman in Holland has done some work on it. It appears that positive findings do tend to vanish with use of pseudo-randomisation. We clearly need radical extension of contemporary QFT but it is unlikely to need radical change, any more than Newtonian gravity has needed to be changed for most practical purposes.

All best
Chris

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[Stanley A. KLEIN]

Hi Chris, In comparing the two types of random number generators (RNG) you mentioned PEAR and Dick Bierman. What a cute coincidence. Dick Bierman is a friend going way back, and PEAR is where Helmut Schmidt did most of his work after I had met him over two summers at the Aspen Center for Physics. What fond memories. Many fancy physicists had fun being subjects. I forget what his machine was doing. I have heard comments similar to what you pointed out that quantum RNGs produce stronger backwards in time psi that pseudo RNGs.  Henry Stapp also points that out that simple psychokinesis could do the job without needing precognition. For the pseudo RNG one would need to use clairvoyance to figure out what is going on inside the transistors of the RNG. That seems pretty impossible.  

I'm quite surprised that given the importance of all these experiments that we're discussing that no effort is being made to include a friendly non-believer in helping design the experimental conditions and secure handling of data. That would be so easy to do. I suspect that there are plenty friendly non-believers like me who who would like to see psi succeed. I fully agree with you that Wiseman isn't a friendly skeptic. His work with Marilyn Schlitz turned out to not be useful because it came up with different outcomes. 

In any case it is nifty to be reminded about Schmidt and Bierman.   Thanks,

Stan

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[Chris Nunn]

That’s a lesson to us all John. Many thanks. I think the big problem with applying that sort of approach to investigating consciousness is that, if you throw yourself in at the deep end, you are going to alter your investigatory tool (your own consciousness) in unpredictable ways.

 

All the DMT conference participants that I wrote to Kashyap about had taken the stuff themselves and, while some came across as unusually sane, others took me back to my clinical psychiatry days – and, sadly, some groups of meditators show the same dichotomy. Any ideas about how to get round this problem without throwing out the baby with the bathwater?

Best

Chris

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[Chris Nunn]

Stan. I certainly agree we need better data on correlates of the skeptic effect, and on differentiation of randomisation v. pseudo-randomisation, before we can draw any firm conclusions. I guess most psi researchers are well aware of this and slow progress is probably down to funding problems as you suggest. I expect Dean Radin knows much more about this than either of us; maybe he’ll have time to comment.

Best

Chris

 

From: scientific-basis...@googlegroups.com <scientific-basis...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Stanley A. KLEIN
Sent: 24 April 2019 07:58
To: Scientific Basis of Consciousness <scientific-basis...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] [FWD: Anesthesia and Consciousness.]

 

Hi Chris, In comparing the two types of random number generators (RNG) you mentioned PEAR and Dick Bierman. What a cute coincidence. Dick Bierman is a friend going way back, and PEAR is where Helmut Schmidt did most of his work after I had met him over two summers at the Aspen Center for Physics. What fond memories. Many fancy physicists had fun being subjects. I forget what his machine was doing. I have heard comments similar to what you pointed out that quantum RNGs produce stronger backwards in time psi that pseudo RNGs.  Henry Stapp also points that out that simple psychokinesis could do the job without needing precognition. For the pseudo RNG one would need to use clairvoyance to figure out what is going on inside the transistors of the RNG. That seems pretty impossible.  

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[John Jay Kineman]

Chris,  yes, isn’t that why academia frowns on it compared with methodical disciplinary work? But the point Id like to make is that both are needed and should be complementary. The thing about investigative controls in participatory research boils down to the degree of participation. The methodological control in this case is the persons personal vulnerability and direct experience of the result. We have great evaluative capabilities when survival is at stake. In this sense Im also comparing with the inner experiences in meditation and beyond. And Dominique’s experiences with RV.  Of course this builds somatic knowledge that has to be translated into descriptive and testable terms, but it is very effective at discovery.

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[Christopher M H Nunn]

So we should be going out into the wild and looking for anomalies that hit you in the face, like poltergeists and levitating monks? I certainly agree if so. But they can be hard to find and are often understandably shy of investigation. We were very lucky with Dominique. Any chance of further involvement?

I sometimes wonder, also, about magicians like 'Dynamo' (plenty of videos on the net if you don't know of him) or some base runners and gymnasts for example. Do they sometimes incorporate a bit of actual psi into their performances? After all it's pretty sure that apparently genuine mediums often use a bit of fakery, consciously or unconsciously. Why not the reverse?

Chris

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[John Jay Kineman]

Sorry, I didnt get to the answer to your question. I think the control is full exposure to consequences. I dont know how that would work out with a drug experience, perhaps disastrously. But the disaster wouldn’t be unnoticed or promoted as the right thing. There is an instant test.

John

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[cmh...@btinternet.com]

Thanks John. You’re probably right. The DMT people do come up with all sorts of significant stuff and I guess we should be grateful to those brave enough to go there.

chris

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[John Jay Kineman]

I think its an excellent point, Chris.  I’m quite sure the line is blurry. I’ve spoken candidly with some good magicians and came away feeling that sometimes they also don’t know. The ’trick’ is beyond their perception at some point and it just happens. They are convinced it is a trick only because they had to practice a method to attain it, but once attained the ’trick’ is like the trick we all perform when we think of coffee and our hand automatically picks up the cup. I very strongly suspect this is the explanation of many miraculous physical feats demonstrated by people like Sathya Sai Baba. It may be some amazing trick, but probably it is on such a sub-conscious level that “even he does not know it”. That combined with very clear evidence of ability to alter other people’s perception more directly than just distraction - inducing an entire experience. Instances of mind reading were well-demonstrated to me personally, but I did not have the privilege of directly experiencing anything physically bizarre. 

John

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[Chris Nunn]

Yes. People operating in two domains are often quite genuinely unaware of which they are using at any particular moment. This applies even to simple things like typing/thinking (in my experience at least!) – how much more to mediums and magicians. The likelihood does suggest a whole new field of enquiry; we really have to stop doing this 😊

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