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Subtle Energies and Uncharted Realms of the Mind The Mysterious Side of Psychokinesis (PK)
1) Three hypotheses for how psi might work Theories of Psi Schmidt started his presentation by discussing the relationship between quantum physics and psi phenomenon. He noted that it is tempting to search for a connection between these two fields, because in both the concept of chance and the role of the human observer are central factors. Twentieth century quantum physics has demonstrated that the role of the observer must be included in our understanding of what is "real." Quantum equations can only be interpreted with respect to what is actually observed. Schmidt expects that psi and quantum theory will come together in the future, but he is realistic about how large a task this is. Harris Walker made a first attempt to extend quantum theory to explain psi. While, more recently, Henry Stapp, a physicist at U.C. Berkeley, has tried too. In his own investigations, Schmidt has restricted himself to a less ambitious but more descriptive model of psi that is not so profound and all-encompassing, but at least is somewhat closer to actual experimental evidence. After his opening remarks, Schmidt described three fundamental hypotheses about psi that mainstream psi researchers are working with: 1st Hypothesis About Psi and PK Schmidt calls the first hypothesis about PK the "weak violation hypothesis" because it produces no effects that are impossible by standard physics. For example, PK does not violate the law of energy conservation. Only in cases where quantum theory permits different possible outcomes does PK favor one or the other outcome. PK can only act where true chance processes are occurring. Schmidt made reference to the famous Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment (frequently called the EPR experiment or EPR paradox) which was devised by the three physicists in 1930. They showed that one can generate a pair of photons flying in different directions so that the photons are strangely correlated. The polarization vectors (specifying the direction of the wave vibration) of the two photons are identical, whereas nature has not yet decided what the direction of this polarization will be. Only when the polarization of one photon is actually measured (for example, with the help of a polaroid filter) does nature decide on the polarization direction. The intuitively surprising feature, however, is that the other distant photon also assumes instantaneously this same polarization, such as if the two photons were in some "telepathic contact." Einstein considered this situation too weird to be acceptable and saw it as an argument against quantum theory. Further theoretical and recent experimental work showed, however, that quantum theory is that weird and counter-intuitive. On the other hand, quantum theory also made it clear that the strange correlation could not be practically used to transmit useful information, such as we seem to observe it in telepathy experiments. But if we had a gifted PK subject that could affect the random outcome of the measurement on the first photon, then this PK influence should be directly observable at the location of the second photon. This suggests one way to utilize PK for instantaneous information transmission. And there are other more practical ways as well. The 2nd Hypothesis About Psi and PK This hypothesis was based on the finding that PK seems to affect all chance processes to the same degree. To show this, Schmidt used a box with a red and a green lamp on top. Inside the box was a random generator that lit the lamps in random sequence while the PK subjects tried to light the red lamp more frequently than the green one. Working with very different random generators inside the box Schmidt found that the subjects’ success rate was independent of the type of random generator. The subjects succeeded just by focusing on the end result, the lighting of the red lamp, without having to know any thing about the random generator. This led to the hypothesis that PK is "goal oriented" and to later experiments that suggest an "action of PK into the past." The 3rd Hypothesis About PK This hypothesis if there are different ways that PK can result in a successful outcome. Schmidt gave as an example the early experiment by Remy Chauvin, in which children were able to influence the counting rate of a Geiger counter. Each counting event was displayed on a panel by flashing lights which the children tried sometimes to speed up and sometimes to slow down. In this case, success could be achieved in different ways: PK might affect the radioactive decay rate. But it might also affect the direction of the decay particles, or even influence the capture rate of the decay particles in the Geiger counter. Schmidt proposed a mathematically formulated hypothesis, which states how PK utilizes the different possibilities. Generally speaking, PK utilizes all possible ways to success to the same degree. As another example, Schmidt mentioned the case where a healer tries to cure mice that have been randomly selected from a larger group. If the selected mice heal faster than the others, the question is to which extent the healer’s PK (assuming that healing acts via PK) merely affects the random selection of the mice or whether it has an actual healing effect. According to the hypothesis PK works in both ways simultaneously. Concluding his discussion of these three hypotheses, Schmidt discussed the role of feedback to the psychic performing the experiment. Schmidt has observed that subjects usually need something to aim for, and they perform better when receiving feedback on their performance. Russell Targ, however, countered by pointing out that he has conducted experiments in which feedback was not offered and yet it still worked well. Action into the Past? Considering the goal oriented nature of PK, Schmidt studied the question of whether good psychics could affect events that happened in the past. For such experiments, a sequence of randomly generated 1’s and 0’s was generated and stored in a computer, without anybody looking at the data. Only weeks or months later the data were slowly played back to a subject who then tried to enforce the appearance of more 1’s than 0’s. The success of such experiments emphasizes a strange time-independence of PK, or a violation of causality in that a current mental effort can have an effect on something that happened in the past. Possibly one can interpret the results in the picture of quantum theory. This theory suggests that, perhaps, random events (like the registration of a 1 or a 0) become reality only after they have been observed. Then the subjects would not have reach in to the past, but had to affect only an even that had not reached the state of full reality yet. The most interesting and still open question is what happens if some assistant looks at the data before the PK effort is made. Does this prevent PK success? Does it matter if the assistant is half asleep or forgets the results immediately? Would perhaps even "observation" by an animal inhibit the later success? Schmidt reflected on Elizabeth Targ’s AIDS experiment in light of this. If the healer gets immediate feedback on the effect that is being created, then the patient’s state might be "locked in" so that the experimenter cannot further effect the outcome or influence it only minimally. This raises the question of whether immediate feedback does not allow for the full flowering of psychic potential to influence events. In response Elizabeth Targ pointed out that the psychic information exchange that would influence the immune response for an AIDS patients might be fundamentally different from someone trying to influence the electrons or numbers coming out of a random generator. Schmidt said that he had made the tacit assumption that healing is related to PK. It seems that the reason feedback is so necessary is that it creates a link with the event. Dean Radin suggested that we should test the degree of the healing effects in instances where there is and is not feedback. Is successful healing the result of a strong connection on the part of the healer to the future end-goal of complete health or is it something that instead occurs in present time. Either way, according to Schmidt, all non-feedback models have not worked successfully. Schmidt believes that PK takes the easiest path, whether that be in the present, past, or future. A New Experiment Schmidt concluded by brainstorming a potential new experiment that would be both easy to do and a source of reliable data. The experiment could be supervised by external observers, such as to convince critical outsiders of the reality of psi effects. One would program a laptop computer to show, for example, a pendulum swinging on the screen with randomly varying amplitudes. The swing amplitudes would be determined by a sequence of random numbers that had been previously recorded on computer disk. The subject’s task would be to make the pendulum swing strongly with above chance amplitude over the screen. The participants could do the experiments securely at home on their own computer after they had obtained a data disk. And one could use the setup to study many of the open question, such as the effect of a pre-observation of the data by an assistant. An external supervisor could be in charge of the random number generation and check the results at the end. The supervisor would have to invest little time, would not have to leave his office, and could still gather convincing evidence of psi. For such experiments to succeed one needs good subjects. Schmidt emphasizes the importance of a good relationship between experimenter and participants and cautions against mass experiments with unselected subjects. Dean Radin suggested that everyone doing this experiment be sent the same unobserved sequence of data so that everyone is trying to influence the same sequence of random numbers. The interesting question would be: how does one person’s observation and influence on the data affect another person’s attempt to alter the data? Can one person lock in the data for all the people trying to influence it? Or can multiple variations on the data really occur? Overall, one of the central questions at issue is whether a given healer or psychic is able to actually heal in the present moment or if what is really happening is that the psychic influences the selection process. In other words, the psychic is going back in time to select a healthier line of development.
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