Which theory may explain PSI?

[Scott]

Originally Posted by Iyace

Oh wow, are you just saying things now just to object? You don't even use anything to back up your objections. By that merit, m-theory, string theory, mant worlds theory aren't hypothesis because we currently dont know any way to test them, am I right? But these are scientific hypotheses. Have you even had ANY formal scientific training?

m theory and string theory do allow some testing of what those models predict. I would say that they do not meet the consensus to be called theory. Then we don't have a solid Theory of Gravity (Higgs is just about there). The Law of Gravity describes how the variables interact. The Theory would have to explain why they react that way.

It is difficult because some of these terms get used and misused so much that it is hard to know what someone is inferring when using them. Kind of like Mass and Weight - They are different, related, exchanged for each other in communications all the time.

Knowing how to test something is different than is something testable. There is some grey area that we think we might be able to create a device that might let us test XYZ. If LHC does not find Higgs - it might be the instrument is not up to the challenge, or they don't exist, or they exist but we were off about some critical aspect/s. They can be tested for.

How do you test for some supernatural something - well, if it interacts with the natural world, you can predict and test for that. If it does not interact - then there is no way to test is or even pretend to know it is there.

[Scott]

Originally Posted by eveshi

Where's the physics experiment demonstrating this?

What technology have parapsychology led us to?
I would say physics has a good track record.

[Scott]

Originally Posted by darryl

Obviously this means alot to you so just forget the whole theory/hypothesis terminology for a second (we can touch on that later) instead just go with the word idea. Which idea (mechanism) do you propose causes so called PSI (paranormal phenomena)? You must advocate something, even if it is hallucination or fraud. Would be interesting to know your idea/s of how you think PSI occurs.

Fraud is there - at least for setting up the existence -
Culture - there is a comfort in there being more, having more control
Culture - practitioners are presented in the media as real, celebrities use them and we have been brainwashed to do as they do (good marketing)
Marketing - It has been shown and used that people can be influenced in so many ways without them knowing they are being led around - even when you tell them this is what you are doing to them.
Law of big numbers - we really suck at comprehending odds and probabilities when numbers are big. Even when small - how powerful is the Monty Hall effect.
Cognitive Processes - think of optical illusions for example, paradolia, ...
Confirmation Bias - Framing, ... It is not a small list of known mechanisms that can influence our perception of reality.

I am not saying that nothing is going on when people have 'Psi experiences' I just think there are other more likely things than Psi.

[darryl]

You seem to be confused about this. I am basically advocating a form of panpsychicsm. In this form, all matter, down to the most elementary particles have some form of consciousness since it is a fundamental property of the universe. More complicated systems have more complicated consciousness. Telepathy is rather easy to explain because we are entangled all the time. There are no such things as completely separate consciousnesses. Everything is part of larger and larger systems of consciousness eventually extending to the whole universe.

What you appear to be advocating does not seem to be panpsychism the belief that all matter has a mental aspect, there is alot of confusion about panpsychism, but it could best be understood as a form of materialism. You keep saying on your blog that consciousness is not a macro effect and that it is seperate to matter, you appear to be linking consciousness to the observer effect, in other words this is philosophical idealism, things only exist when they are observed by a mind this is not panpsychism the belief that matter has an objective reality.

On your blog you seem to have a soft spot for the Biocentrism hypothesis. The biocentrism idea does not support or advocate panpsychism. According to Biocentrism subatomic particles electrons, quarks etc do not have an objective existence, the theory claims they are not "self-existent" instead they only exist due to the presence of an observer. Such ideas are not new this can be traced back to Sanskrit writings and philosophers such as George Berkeley, it's philosophy it's also popped up in the idealistic monism of Amit Goswami.

The more we examine consciousness and apply the template of evolution to it, the clearer it becomes that the pieces are not fitting the puzzle. Consciousness cannot exist as a result of evolutionary forces; it is not demonstrating any traits associated with evolution so therefore it must be something else.

You are avocating dualism here.

Very interesting blog and is a great contribution to philosophy but your theory does not explain how PSI operates, you have not explained any mechanism/s.

First you need to define where consciousness is located in the organism. Do you believe consciousness and the human brain are seperate? You make it clear on your blog there is evidence for consciousness existing in cells etc but elsewhere you seem to conclude matter and consciousness are not the same thing, you do not explain the relationship between the brain and consciousness either, you seem to conclude they are seperate so where in your opinion does human consciousness originate if it is not in the brain? To help explain your theory it would help if you would give your opinions about the relationship of matter and consciousness.

[Craig Weiler]

You've got a few different questions here:

How does psi operate. If consciousness is fundamental to the universe then it has the capability to interact with energy (and matter). Everything then, is an exercise in psychic ability and the stuff we call psi is just a wee bit farther out and only appears to be unusual. In other words, we are always telepathic, clairvoyant and can do telekinesis, but it normally shows up in ways we believe to be material. In fact, everything is energy and is directed by consciousness, we're just not aware of it.

So you can't place consciousness anywhere in particular in an organism because the entire organism and the entire universe are themselves consciousness. Matter is a just a different form of it.

I do have a soft spot for biocentrism because it brings up a lot of important points and puts forth some good ideas and non of it is purely philosophical in nature. He makes an evidentiary case for his theory. I don't embrace it completely, but I think it goes along the right track.

[EthanT]

Originally Posted by darryl

To those who are open to PSI existing. Which theory do you believe may explain PSI (paranormal phenomena) such as telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences or apparitions etc?

Bottom line is NO current theory of physics can explain psychic ability, or provide a "mechanism" for it. However, some theories, like quantum mechanics, seem to be heading in the right direction, and certain phenomenon offer nice analogies for how psi might work.

Entangled particles that seem to communicate instantaneously (across vast distances even) seem to provide a mechanism, at first. BUT, there are subtleties here that actually prohibit information transfer ( as we understand it ) to propagate faster than the speed of light.

Time symmetric quantum mechanics - a flavor of quantum mechanics invented by Aharanov - seems to allow a type of retrocausal influence. Once again, there are subtleties that preserve our common sense notions of causality. This theory uses two state vectors - one that propagates forward in time, and another that propagates backwards in time. So, it doesn't provide a mechanism for psi per se, but we do seem to need a theory that treats time differently than we currently view it and TSQM does just that. The only problem here is that it has been shown this theory is mathematically equivalent to standard QM (with it's single state vector propagating forward in time) with no experiment being able to trump one over the other.

I think understanding psi boils down to understanding what informaton is at its most fundamental level - something we still haven't done.

[EthanT]

Originally Posted by Scott

m theory and string theory do allow some testing of what those models predict.

I think it would be more correct to say String Theory MAY be able to be INDIRECTLY tested.

What I mean is clarified by the example of the compactified extra spatial dimensions. The theory allows these to be large enough to be detected within a particle collider like the LHC, but it may turn out they are also on the size of the Planck scale, in which case, we may never detect them.

This is far from a solid prediction, since String Theory does not claim what exact size these dimensions need to take. Therefore, even if we did detect the presence of these extra dimensions, it would indeed lend support to String Theory, but it would not be a clincher in proving the theory.

Much else in String Theory goes along similar lines. This is why Peter Woit titled his book about String Theory, "Not Even Wrong".

[darryl]

Originally Posted by Sniffy the Atheist

Hi Darryl, welcome to the forum, PSI is at odds with Physics, sadly

We all agree that Physics is the whole truth about reality. We must accept the picture painted by Physics. Why must we trust Science? Because in Science nothing is take for granted, everything is rigorously checked and replicated many, many times before being accepted as truth.

Science has a built in mechanism to reduce its errors. Ok now getting back to Physics, everything in the universe must be grounded in Physics.
Physics tells us how every thing works.

Ever since Newton and the Scientific enlightenment, Physics has been revealing more and more about the natural world. We know about giant galaxies, stars and black holes, we also know about the smallest quantum worlds.

Physics has demonstrated an amazing predictive power. Sadly PSI has never been predicted by any theory in Physics. PSI just does not fit in the natural world. We must therefore dismiss PSI as a massive illusion or we must come up with new physical laws.

Regarding PSI, I would say there has to be a physical explanation for the phenomena, I believe it does fit in with the natural world. I am searching for a physical explanation and have come across quite afew (I will touch on this at some point). You say PSI it at odds with physics that is where I disagree.

There have been a handful of physical theories to explain PSI. They fit in with physical laws, we don't need to rewrite physics to account for them, just most people are not exposed to these theories.

The downfall of parapsychology was when investigators started invoking dualism and nonphysical theories. Mainstream science then can dismiss PSI research as pseudoscience and that exactly what has happened.

It would be interesting to note that many Soviet scientists wanted a purely physical materialistic explanation for PSI and ended up supporting the electromagnetic theory. Alot of reported PSI phenonmena can be explained by electomagnetism. Some scientists have pointed out that when the human brain is exposed to high levels of electromagnetic activity then the normal functions of the brain are disturbed and all kinds of strange things can happen, altered states of consciousness, hallucinations etc.

[Craig Weiler]

Darryl,
You can't go with a mechanistic, materialistic explanation of psi for a very simple reason: It's clearly a product of consciousness.

If there is one thing about consciousness that we absolutely know, it's that nothing is outside of it that we can possibly be aware of.

We require consciousness to experience the world and there is no way to remove it from the system. There is nothing outside of consciousness. That's just a fact. Nothing is real until it has been processed by our consciousness.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by Craig Weiler

Darryl,
You can't go with a mechanistic, materialistic explanation of psi for a very simple reason: It's clearly a product of consciousness.

If there is one thing about consciousness that we absolutely know, it's that nothing is outside of it that we can possibly be aware of.

We require consciousness to experience the world and there is no way to remove it from the system. There is nothing outside of consciousness. That's just a fact. Nothing is real until it has been processed by our consciousness.

There has to be a physical explanation for PSI, otherwise PSI does not exist it's that simple.

The theory that you mention there about consciousness, I believe they call that the "observational theory of PSI". That arguement has been around for quite along time, John Beloff started to say that PSI does not exist where consciousness is not present and later some parapsychologists did some interpretation on quantum physics and concluded the consciousness of the observer causes the PSI to operate and that PSI can not operate were it is not being observed.

You may want to read this paper:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q...Qw&safe=active

"Arguing For an Observational Theory of Paranormal Phenomena"

Of course the theory however explains nothing. It is totally non-falsifiable as anything to do with PSI will at some point have to be observed. Can not be tested.