Feeling the future meta-analysis
Before Cornell University psychologist Daryl Bem published an article on precognition in the prominent Journal of Social and Personality Psychology, it had already (and ironically given the topic) evoked a response from the status quo. The New York Times was kind enough to prepare us to be outraged . It was called " craziness, pure craziness" by life-long critic Ray Hyman. Within days the news media was announcing that it was all just a big mistake . I wrote about the ensuing brouhaha in this blog . But the bottom line in science, and the key factor that trumps hysterical criticism, is whether the claimed effect can be repeated by independent investigators. If it can't then perhaps the original claim was mistaken or idiosyncratic. If it can, then the critics need to rethink their position. Now we have an answer to the question about replication. An article has been submitted to the Journal of Social and Personality Psychology and is available here . The key
Comments
The idea that (your example) the positron became a possibility when Dirac conceived of his equation - and more generally that reality morphs to represent what people en-mass expect, is scary but believable!
Perhaps 'primitive' societies really did have magic, demons, etc., not just as myths, but as reality. Then people combined myths with maths - which created a "parameterised myth" - an infinite number of myths rolled into one.
From that perspective, the taboo against psi starts to make sense - if we all stop believing in standard science, will it still keep working?
Even just an audio version would be good!
I suppose the producers want to maintain control of the content, which is not unreasonable.
I did some of these interviews in October 2007, others a few years before. I did not know in advance what was going to be discussed, so all of my remarks are spontaneous. My strong suit is not theory, and I would have been more comfortable talking about data. But that wasn't on the table for this interview.
From experience the more that people heal themselves the more that get to experience the divine.
Have you attended a Reiki healing training course? From your own admission in the video about angels and demons you have only ever been blessed to see a light that you then go on to explain in your terms of comprehension backed up with scientific thought.
I appreciate and value your work beyond measure and honour you for being so brave and courageous in exploring the options.
Angels and other beings certainly do exist. In the same way that we still exist when we leave planet earth. Many worlds and states of existence do exist as do many different dimensional realities, it is wonderful that the cutting edge scientists are unveiling the spiritual laws in a way that the people can understand.
Keep up the great work.
I specially liked the one that David referred to. Based on some personal experiences and some hard thinking, I suspect that we just may be living in such a universe that shapes itself to some extent to our current way of thinking. Mind boggling though.. and fun!
I think the theory of all this is important too - and I think you underestimate yourself!
I think a lot of science-oriented people balk at the concept of psi because they can't begin to think how it works - they need a possible mental model in their head before they can start to accept the data.
A lot of people talk about psi in ways that do not connect with science at all - sometimes even using words, such as magnetism, in totally different ways.
Excellent interviews. Your views on the fundamentality of consciousness seem to be similar to Hameroff's Orch OR model. Would this be right? I find this theory and your views strangely compelling. There is a deep intellectual resonance that transends problematic dualistic thinking.
For your more recent interview for Danish TV, do you have a link or website I can go to?
Thanks,
M.
Since we're on all topics radical, let's try and push things forward. Tor says: "I suspect that we just may be living in such a universe that shapes itself to some extent to our current way of thinking". Now I know Tor is far from anthropocentric, but this consciousness ought to be shared by other physical beings, including on other planets. Well, one place to look that I think would be fascinating is the work of Prof. Simon Conway Morris of Cambridge University, a leading paleontologist who has done work on evolutionary convergence. Much to my loathing, I must quote from wiki, Conway Morris and the phenomenon of evolutionary convergence maintain that:
"Evolution shows an eerie predictability, leading to the direct contradiction of the widely-held view that insists on evolution being governed by the contingencies of circumstance.
Eyes are not the only example of repeated evolutionary convergence on the same solution. There is evidence for fundamental equivalences of sensory perception and the implication that deeper in the nervous system there is only one mentality. Minds may be not only universal, but also the same."
Check out his work and his Gifford lectures here, there's one on consciousness where he mentions parapsychology and discusses Near Death Experiences and has previously endorsed a belief in the 'filter model' of mind-brain interactions as outlined by James, Myers, Bergson etc:
http://www.iscast.org/conway_morris_bio
This could straddle sorts of Platonism, certain religious beliefs and phenomena, psi and current science together (including evolutionary biology).
So, now perhaps, if Tor will excuse my amendment, "we just may be living in such a universe that shapes itself to some extent to on all conscious beings' current way of thinking"! (Apologies, Tor!)
The implications of psi are a very, very interesting part of this subject - so please don't hold back!
(Apologies, Tor!)
No apologies needed. We are thinking the same here :)
Another interesting question to ask would be:
Can we get in touch with this fundamental mind, common to all?
There are other traditions that have been and still are exploring this. One of them is Tibetan Buddhism. What do they say? As you go deeper, beyond our "ordinary" chattering mind, you go to something beyond our human mind/consciousness that is not species specific anymore. And then you can go further, beyond to something they consider the very basic fabric of reality.
According to Alan Wallace, at the root there is a kind of energy/consciousness that is both at the same time. Science have been around for 400 years. Other traditions have been around for thousands of years. I am not going to laugh them off as old and superstitious. I think we should be more open to other ways of knowing.
It takes about 20 years of western training to reach the top of our educational system; the PhD. That is 20 years of training for a would be scientist to shape his/her mind, learning to see things that others can not. Without proper training like this, you can not really see what some high-tech instruments show you, and certainly not understand it.
Along the same line of thinking, 20 years of training inside a tradition that is more inward focused could lead to you seeing things that others without this kind of training can not. And maybe even applying your new insight in the world in some way that would seem impossible according to someone trained in science.
I used Tibetan Buddhism as an example since I recently became surprised by the rigor and skeptical attitude this tradition applies. To me it looks a lot like science, but starting at the inside, not the outside.
Alan Wallace books was a bit of an eye opener to me, both when it came to the philosophy of science and other traditions.
I understand how 20+ years of education, inculcated by social approval, can give one a strong sense of confidence in how some things work. But that same confidence can also become a blinder against other views.
The trick when dealing with uncertainty is to avoid premature collapse just because it's more comfortable than ambiguity. Easier said than done.
Yes, there's some overlap. I also find concepts from Advaita Vedanta and panpsychism appealing.
> Danish TV, do you have a link or website I can go to?
Not yet. Video interviews often take a year or more before they hit the big (or small) screen.
I am struggling quite much with this at times. Especially when I am practising qigong and experience phenomena that my scientific mind does not know how to conceptualize. I am supposed to be calm and silent inside when practising, but this part of my mind some times enters a state of frenzy because it does not understand and wants 100% certainty. Obviously some mental fixing needs to be done.
The interesting thing is that when I manage to still everything and have confidence in my own experience without conceptualizing them, the effects of my training gets amplified a 1000 times.
When in this state, it strangely does feel like one directly perceives the world more as it really is. It is a state filled with compassion and a feeling of connectedness for all things.
See for example philosopher Stephen Braude's writings in this regard. To be fair we are simply in the dark about consciousness (if we admit materialism/monism is scientifically bankrupt which it is) and how the brain mediates the mind, but I do see what Braude is getting at. See his essay for the conceptual problems underlying the notions of 'memory traces' for example, and how these underlying problems are simply not properly recognised. The hard problem of consciousness, the problem of qualia remains elusive and completely mysterious. We have just begun here..
One sees a similar problem with QM (which nobody really understands) and psi, when psi supporters and psi friendly physicists are quick to cite QM (esp the Copenhagen Interpretation) as support for the notion of consciousness affecting reality in paranormal ways for example (ie PK effects for example), whilst I think we are on the right track, this approach is problematic for there are legitimate non-materialist objections here.
On a similar tack and related to my first point about the unintended
and largely unrecognised reductionism of non-reductionist models of mind, Evan Walker's model of quantum tunneling shares in a similar problem (and others re the nature of consciousness/the qualia problem) and psi-friendly physicists like Walker and Henry Stapp and others have maybe overreached here. I can't explain what I mean on such a staggeringly
complex subject in a few lines, although there is a significant academic literature here, that is growing every year.
I'll just say that models like Hamerhoff's, Pribram's and others are not radical enough, they suffer from the same shortcomings of their materialist opponents, that is they are limited by reductionist explanations in an attempt to get around reductionism! I am indebted to S Braude here, who in my mind is one of the greatest living philosophers. A real philosopher, he goes where the evidence leads but is always very cautious and exemplifies the expression,
'thinking things through'. Does he ever.
God bless you Dean and your work.
What does this mean btw?
"Perception is also an illusion that has no basis in reality So to humanity we have to help them to heal their perceptional consciousness so that they can move beyond it"
Maybe Dean can tell us what it means, if he wants to try figure it out. Maybe I'm just not spiritually evolved enough to grasp the language of the more uh spiritual among us, those who tell us perception has no basis in reality.
Biology of Belief
http://www.brucelipton.com/
However, I stick with 85%, the other 15% is karmic chosen pre-destination. There is an interesting prophecy in the bible that states that those that live in New Jerusalem will live to over a 100 and children will not not die young e.g. no disease. Why is that? Those that live here would have broken their karmic cycles as such they are not passing them on to their children.
Cancer is created by fear and in my own case unforgiveness in a past life. The condition that I died with in the last life with its root causes I brought back with me into this life to heal.
I just wanted to let your blog readers know that Dean Radin, Senior Scientist of the Institute of Noetic Science will be interviewing Diane Powell on a teleseminar Wednesday June 2nd at 5:00 pm Pacific time... you can sign up to participate in the call FREE here: http://bit.ly/b0oh8i
Diane Powell is the author of The ESP Enigma: http://amzn.to/dmdaFZ
Lindsey King
Institute of Noetic Sciences