While anecdotal evidence abounds for strange coincidences mind to mind communications, and the supposed laws of physics being broken in ways we find meaningful, it has been very hard to capture these events in a laboratory in a way that the rump of the scientific body finds acceptable. Rupert Sheldrake has spent a whole career applying scientific method to try to measure and understand these phenomenon but while many 'common' people seem perfectly accepting of those ideas, serious and professional scientists are not, and such topics continue to be outside the realm of serious science despite repeatable experiments indicating something is afoot.
We are left with confusing parallel discourses; one which says that we frequently experience and can observe paranormal events under scientific conditions, and the other asserting that the laws of physics cannot be broken and that contrary assertions are willful or ignorant delusions.
I would like to draw your attention to one experimental program which seems to offer incontrovertible evidence of a connection between a random number generator and human perception. Conventional science predicts that there can be no correlation between randomly generated 1s and 0s and a human's ability to predict them, yet the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research programme has proven otherwise with all-but absolute certainty. If these results are to be believed, conventional science and indeed the philosophy underpinning it, falls over. I would imagine that probing, testing and repeating, even discrediting these results would be an urgent task; that speculation about the nature of reality would be frenzied; that research would spin off in all directions. Yet I suspect most of my readers have never even heard of this program.
I at least, have been giving the matter serious consideration for a few years, tethered though I am through demand for my software, to a sociological discourse about money and power. If consciousness is a private phenomenon experienced by separate and individual beings which emerged out of a slime on a rock journeying though an objective universe, then there is no way to have foreknowledge of random events or for minds to be connected. But if Mind can know or influence events in advance of their being 'determined' then then consciousness cannot be a private phenomenon, and all the dismissed superstitions, ancient wisdom, fantastic claims, insane ramblings, miracles, magic, occult and deviant science deserve a fresh hearing.
The act of 'willing' a random click into one ear or the other does not require knowing anything about how the random number is generated. it is almost as if the intention on the 'effect' leads to some kind of backward calculation, at the quantum level (or below!). What other explanations are there?
These revelations about the nature of the universe and causality should certainly be considered by those who wish to have impact in the world. I think we have demonstrated, though without understanding the mechanism, that prayer insofar as it is a process of visualising a possible reality, works! Activists need therefore to revisit the spiritual masters and maybe the occult to better understand how to bring about a better world. We might also explore the rumours about strange practices, rituals and symbols used both formally and informally by our ruling elites, and consider whether their impact could be more than psychological.
My work with money systems is based on a purely materialist analysis, because I could only pour my energy into something which I could actually see working. But if the Princeton experiments are to be believed, my work is missing a whole dimension.
Comments2
I found a skeptical post
I found a skeptical post about this study: https://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=24406
Personally, I'd rather wait until credible studies establish new facts before asking myself how hypothetical new facts would revolutionize science and philosophy. I think it is a waste of time and energy to do otherwise. And nowadays, this is a huge source of confusion in "alternative" social change circles.
Vianney
Member for
16 years 1 monthThanks Vianny for pointing
Thanks Vianny for pointing out a skeptic's view. Unfortuanately I found many of those criticisms irrelevant, or defammatory. For example the religious beliefs of the experimental subjects, accusation of 'woo', or simply the assertion that the original experiment was an embarrassment.
The one persuasive criticism I found