Latest translation of Entangled Minds

Entangled Minds in Portuguese.

Behind and Beyond the Brain

Here are a few pictures from the Bial Foundation conference, Behind and Beyond the Brain, which took place during the last few days of March in Porto, Portugal. This picture is during a panel discussion held after the second day's main session, on the theme of emotions and psi. From the left it's me, Roger Nelson, Dick Bierman, Daryl Bem and Stefan Schmidt.

Here I am on the final panel discussion at the end of the conference, with moderator Fernando Lopes da Silva, Ralph Adolphs and Paul Ekman.








One thing that struck me during this conference, which was about two-thirds on the cognitive and social neurosciences and one-third on psi, was how similar the practice of today's neurosciences are to what I used to do when I was an electrical engineer (EE): reverse engineer black boxes. As an EE I would figure out how electronic devices worked by tracing circuits, injecting signals, studying the operation of components both in and out of the circuit, and in general see how changes in the circuit affected the behavior of the black box. This is what the neurosciences are doing with animal and human brains, and much of the internal circuitry is slowly and surely being worked out. The undeniable explanatory power of this approach is seductive, and much of it is probably correct.


However, the seduction also tends to blind us to annoying anomalies that don't fit a mechanistic, physicalist model (like psi, NDEs, evidence suggestive of reincarnation, etc.). That said, I am not a fan of so-called non-materialistic, non-physical, or dualistic models of psi. My guess is that as today's concept of "physical" continues to evolve (which includes our understanding of basic ideas like space, time, matter and energy), we will find the neurosciences and psi converging towards a model of consciousness which is partially localized (brain-based) and partially nonlocalized (an inherent property of the fabric of reality, as in panpsychism).

Another thought I had while listening to the neuroscience talks was that most neuroscientists assume that classical physical explanations are sufficient to account for brain-based behavior and experience. Deeper explanations of physical processes, such as quantum models, are not viewed as being either necessary or relevant. The problem with this assumption is that classical descriptions are not simply approximations of the microworld, which is where most of the action occurs in the brain, such descriptions are fundamentally wrong.

If an EE was tasked with understanding an unknown, complex electrical circuit, but only knew about classical principles, he or she would probably figure out some simple aspects of the circuit, but the details would remain exceedingly mysterious. By comparison, I suspect that what might be called "classical neuroscience" will continue to make some progress in understanding relatively simple aspects of the brain, but many details (and especially the anomalies) are likely to remain mysterious.

Report from Portugal

I just spent a week in Porto, Portugal, at the 7th biannual symposium of the Bial Foundation. This unique Foundation is supporting perhaps 80% of the world's experimental psi research, and it also supports mainstream studies in psychophysiology and the neurosciences. The symposium brings together researchers from all these domains, and the three-day conference is unusually eclectic and interesting. This one was no different -- the theme was emotion, and there were some very interesting presentations about the neuroscience, cognitive and social science of emotions, as well as a half day of talks on psi and emotion.

I discovered at the meeting that the Portuguese translation of Entangled Minds was published last year, so I bought a copy. I'll post more about this meeting, perhaps including some pictures and videos I took in Portugal, when I return home. (I'm writing this from Dulles airport near Washington DC, waiting for a flight.)

Money for nothing (sort of)

I meditate about an hour a day. Sometimes during a meditation I get a flash of information, seemingly out of the blue. Last Friday morning I got a flash that a large sum of money was going to appear in my bank account. This money would appear unexpectedly, anonymously, and it would be large enough to make me do a double-take. I figured this money for nothing scenario was a nice fantasy, but I didn't make much of it otherwise.

Friday evening I checked my bank account (online), not expecting to see anything unusual, but I was still curious given my morning information flash. When I saw the amount in my checking account I practically fell off my chair. The modest amount I keep in the account had increased very substantially. Funds had been wired into my account a few minutes before I checked it, and because it was still a pending transaction there wasn't any information on who had sent it.

So I did indeed anonymously and unexpectedly receive a very large sum of money. As it turns out, I later discovered that this was a payment on a grant I had received last year. But it showed up this past Friday without any advance warning, and since I had received the first payment over a year ago, I had long forgotten that I was supposed to get a second payment.

Where did this information come from? It might have been sparked by an unconscious memory or concern, wondering if or when the next grant payment would arrive. That's possible, but in all past instances I've received an email or letter or phone call announcing that the payment was on its way. I've never had money just mysteriously show up. So perhaps I was responding to a precognitive hit on my startled future reaction, upon checking my account.

Whatever the explanation may be, I find it's worth paying attention to flashes of insight, because regardless of how surprising or bizarre the information may be, they often contain a kernal of truth.

Flat line memories

I haven't read Dr. Allan Hamilton's new book, The Scalpel and the Soul, yet, but based on hearing him in a radio interview, I am intrigued. For example, this short video clip describes a striking NDE case in one of his patients. If this clip doesn't work (it seems Firefox doesn't know what to do with this), try this page and scroll down to the link on this line: "To watch a Video Interview..."

I find it refreshing that Hamilton admits that all sorts of miraculous events (meaning extraordinary experiences) occur in hospitals all the time. But as with scientists' psi experiences, most physicians are afraid to talk about them.

Subvert the dominant paradigm

While surfing I ran across dedroidify and its associated blog. Such sites remind me of the exploratory spirit of Harvard psychiatrist John Mack.

These two sites are good repositories of conspiracy and consciousness-related links, videos, and commentary. I am not a big fan of most conspiracy theories, in the sense that I don't actively worry about what the Illuminati or aliens or Opus Dei may be up to. But I do think it's important to question authority.

However, I am not in favor of mindlessly overthrowing anything until the consequences of the new (paradigm, government, etc.) is better understood. Anarchy might be fun for 20 minutes, but after Shiva's passion subsides and you'd like to call out for pizza delivery, you better hope that you haven't accidentally torched the telephone system.

10 short clips

The Global Oneness Project site has posted 10 short video interviews that I did in January.

Birthday thoughts

I received lots of nice e-cards and notes today for my 14th birthday, some from friends I haven't seen in nearly 40 years, some from people I've only met on the Internet, and some from colleagues, local friends and family. Thank you all for your kind thoughts.

To celebrate this rare day, my wife and I saw the movie Jumper. The plot revolved around the question, What if some people could teleport where ever they wished, and other people really hated them because they believed only God should be able to do that? The special effects and scenery were good, but the plot was disappointing because it didn't develop beyond adolescent power fantasies. The only thing the protagonist jumper could imagine doing with his miraculous powers was to rob banks and live like a playboy. And the only thing the people chasing the jumpers could imagine was to kill them. I kept hoping that one of the characters would mature and provide a deeper story line. That didn't happen, but I still thought it was mildly entertaining.

After the movie we had a BBQ chicken and ribs dinner, followed by chocolate cake. It's been a fine day.

SF Chronicle interview

I was interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle last week. Here’s a link to the article.

The comments after the article are entirely predictable.

The Paranormal and the Politics of Truth

To gain a better understanding of the psi controversy (and topics labeled paranormal in general) from a sociological point of view, I recommend this 2007 book by Jeremy Northcote. Until I became involved in psi research, I didn't pay much attention to the sociology, politics, philosophy or history of science. I just assumed that science was as we were taught: a rational, logical enterprise, independent of all those troubling human frailties so evident in sociopolitics. But of course the way science is actually practiced is nowhere near as pristine as we were led to believe. As I encountered the irrational side of science, this led me to wonder what in the world had gone wrong with the way that science is taught. And that led me to study the human factors involved in science as a social effort towards "truth-making." As a sociological study this is fascinating, so I'm grateful to Northcote for publishing this book (and likewise to Chris Carter for his book, Parapsychology and the Skeptics), because if he hadn't done so, I would have been motivated to write a similar book myself.