74. Dr. Dean Radin And Dr. Roger Nelson Respond to Global Consciousness Project Criti

[hoggworks]

Originally Posted by FastEddieB

I believe we may be on the verge of creating an entirely new kind of intelligence. While the power of individual computers is amazing, when hooked together (i.e. the Internet) I believe we may be approaching a level of complexity and information storage which may give birth to a new global consciousness. It's interesting to hypothesize how the first glimmer of intelligence will make itself known. Two analogies come to mind. The first is a colony of ants. An ant colony is an organism in its own right. An individual ant cannot survive on its own, and you can see an ant colony exists on a "higher level" of being than does its individual component, the ant. Due to its very simple central nervous system, we can be pretty sure the individual ant has no idea of the motives, struggles, movements, The second example is the human brain. Each individual brain cell is a living organism in its own right, but tied inextricably to the higher organism. A brain cell is just a soft "on-off" switch, almost certainly with no consciousness of its own, or awareness of the thoughts, passions and needs of the organism it helps. Similarly, each human at a keyboard or mouse may be serving as a "neuron", tied into the larger consciousness of global awareness. Already you can log onto the net and "see" a real-time image of a coffee pot in a University in England. You can connect to a computer in a robotics lab thousands of miles away and use your mouse to move real items about. You can even be a virtual person in a virtual world. It may seem like science fiction, but I believe within 50 years (barring catastrophe) we may see the undeniable first proof of a Global Consciousness emerging from the Internet.

There are a growing number of people who wonder seriously if Google will become the first true AI. If that happens, it would indeed be a Global Consciousness, though it would seem to relate to Radin's conceptualization of it in the same way that a cellphone relates to telepathy.

[sr332603]

Originally Posted by fabkebab

1 ) Ah- but I am not sure we have hit on an explanation for the PSI phenomena yet all we have are the curious measurements - So we are in the interval between scientific discovery and theoretical explanation (where people were clinging to existing beliefs)

2 ) The experimental proof of Einsteins theories was not cut-and-dried - At the time, some astronomers confirmed his predictions, others produced results that were claimed as proof that his theory was not correct - Of course the truth emerged sooner or later, regardless of skeptics and believers- thank goodness!

Ah, yes. But where Einstein provided cogent hypothesis and testable theories, psi proponents offer...what? There is no theorize mechanism, no physical / evolutionary justification. Just statistical anomalies. And also, notice that they truth came out regardless of skeptics. That is how science works. The community follows the evidence regardless of naysayers.

Most of the "phenomena" you are speaking of don't even need explanations and can be explained away with conventional statistics and psychology. I am still waiting for good, solid evidence of the caliber that is generally required to convince the scientific community.

[fabkebab]

Originally Posted by hoggworks

I would wonder how it is that a man like Einstein could essentially sit down and intuit this fundamental structure of the universe, and through this intuition derive testable predictions which turned out to be right (and do it in a relatively short period of time), while on the other pside of the fence, decades of supposedly "high quality" research hasn't even begun to yield a possible framework to explain what it even MIGHT be.

Speed of light - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


1887 : Michelson/Morely experiment : the first detailed look at the speed of light, even though you will see from Wikipedia that people had been trying to get it for a while - since ancient greek times!!

1905 : Einstein proposes special theory of relativity

1914? : Theory of special relativity is confirmed by astronomical measurements


Its not like an Einstein comes around every year to solve problems, and in this case, although the equipment was complicated for 1887 technology, the experiment was repeatable without years of data gathering for each result

Its easy to think everything happens quickly in science, but in this case. from odd measurement, to intervention of a genius, to scientific acceptance is 27 years

I propose, in equivalent (but nonlinear) years, we might be in about 1890 - nobody is close to coming up with a theory that "works" and many people keep retesting the experiment because they think something is wrong

[Miguel]

Originally Posted by fabkebab

Its not like an Einstein comes around every year to solve problems, and in this case, although the equipment was complicated for 1887 technology, the experiment was repeatable without years of data gathering for each result

Its easy to think everything happens quickly in science, but in this case. from odd measurement, to intervention of a genius, to scientific acceptance is 27 years

I propose, in equivalent (but nonlinear) years, we might be in about 1890 - nobody is close to coming up with a theory that "works" and many people keep retesting the experiment because they think something is wrong

But there was already psi-research in the literal 1890s. For example: The Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882.

Here's something that William Fletcher Barrett (a physicist and co-founder of the SPR) wrote in 1923:

"I consider that the mysterious and marvellous production of what one calls 'ectoplasm' has been established and that it is no longer reasonable to doubt it. One can foresee that the astonishing consequences of this fact will bring about a revolution in the biology of the future. But my opinion on this subject is without importance beside that of Prof. Richet who, after laborious investigations, made under rigorous conditions, has, with all the authority behind his name, vouched for the authenticity of these stupefying phenomena. As to the origin and nature of these extraordinary emanations of moving and living forms exteriorised by certain mediums, the explanation has to be deferred for a later time. We must be patient and not be irritated by the slow and careful methods of the serious psychical researcher. Let us count ourselves lucky that we can embrace the hope of resolving in a few generations the most puzzling problems that confront psychic science."

That Prof. Richet is Nobel prize winning physiologist, BTW.

Where did all that go?

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by hoggworks

I'm genuinely confused at how you get from "Person A claimed to have something in his possession. Person B cataloged Person A's belongings and couldn't find said possession" to a hint of fraud?

You are indeed confused, you have reversed the order of events!

Eric Dingwall cataloged long before William Lindsay Gresham (or James Randii) claim, Dingwall was a research officer for the SPR (during 1920s) ...he was also a die-hard skeptic, debunker, research officer for the SPR in 1920s ... member of CSIcop in later life .....he cataloged Daniel Dunglas Home's collection on its arrival at the SPR he did not report any minature harmonicas in the SPR possession.

Compare this to the Randi encyclopedia... '....Since a number of tiny one-octave mouth organs were found among Home's belongings when he died, and he wore a very full “soup-strainer” style mustache, it might be suspected that he was able to play the music by means of such an instrument hidden in his mouth

Where does this information come from?

The source of this information comes from James Randi ... According to Randi 'around 1960' William Lindsay Gresham told Randi he had seen these mouth organs in the Home collection at the Society for Psychical Research. This is deeply implausible

.... Eric Dingwall magician, skeptic, writer of books critical of mediums cataloged these on arrival at the Society of Psychical Research did not report minature mouth organs / harmonicas. ... so how could William Lindsay Gresham have seen these later at the Society for Psychical Research?

Incidentally William Lindsay Gresham wrote the Houdini biography 'The Man Who could Walk Through Wall' in 1959 ... he was apparently helped by James Randi to write this book ... (this is the book that also mentions Houdini tried to frame a medium by planting a ruler in seance room, according to magician Fred Keating).

If Randi/Gresham (also a debunker of mediums) were correct why didn't they mention this startling information against D D Home in his book on Houdini written in 1959?

Unfortunately one can't ask William Lindsay Gresham ... he committed suicide in 1962 at the age of 53.

[fabkebab]

Originally Posted by Miguel

But there was already psi-research in the literal 1890s. For example: The Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882.

Where did all that go?

I believe my link to wikipedia shows that the ancient greeks were attempting to determine the speed of light - so PSI is a relatively new field of study

[kimosabu]

Originally Posted by hoggworks

Fair enough, though they're still random number generators, and who says that the RNG chips that Radin et al are using are "true" random? And even if they're only pseudo-random generators (which I agree is a much easier thing to find), who says that the global consciousness wouldn't also effect them? (I don't know, as I'm unaware of that level of specificity in GCP theories)

I didn't see any reference to specifically how the RNG hardware works. If they take an analog event and use some kind of algorithm to convert it to a digital/binary value it seems like there would have to be some kind of calibration to insure a 50/50 outcome. The circuitry has to know what the demarcation point between a 0 and 1 is, yes?

Almost all the "events" they track seem like they would be periods of increased electronic usage (TV, computers, phones). During 9/11 everyone was watching TV non-stop, checking for internet updates, etc.

If the RNG's are at their heart just electronic devices, isn't it possible they may be temporarily slightly influenced by localized power consumption, increased wireless signals, etc?

I'm sure somebody's thought about that already, but just my $0.02...

[fabkebab]

Originally Posted by kimosabu

I didn't see any reference to specifically how the RNG hardware works. If they take an analog event and use some kind of algorithm to convert it to a digital/binary value it seems like there would have to be some kind of calibration to insure a 50/50 outcome. The circuitry has to know what the demarcation point between a 0 and 1 is, yes?

In looking at this about 2 years ago, I found a good (free to test) product that works along similar lines, and it has some blurb about how it works and the sorts of numbers it produces

Random Number Generator: Really Random Numbers Generates High Quality Easy-to-Use Random Numbers for Windows.

Although I am definately not encouraged by the GC research (now I have read a bit more) It is still on my "to do" list to download it and see if I can influence the numbers in some prediictable (but not rigorously scientific) way

[FastEddieB]

Almost all the "events" they track seem like they would be periods of increased electronic usage (TV, computers, phones). During 9/11 everyone was watching TV non-stop, checking for internet updates, etc.

If the RNG's are at their heart just electronic devices, isn't it possible they may be temporarily slightly influenced by localized power consumption, increased wireless signals, etc?

I'm sure somebody's thought about that already, but just my $0.02...

I HAD thought of it and was mentally composing a post to that effect, but thank you - you saved me the trouble!

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by kimosabu

I didn't see any reference to specifically how the RNG hardware works. If they take an analog event and use some kind of algorithm to convert it to a digital/binary value it seems like there would have to be some kind of calibration to insure a 50/50 outcome. The circuitry has to know what the demarcation point between a 0 and 1 is, yes?

Almost all the "events" they track seem like they would be periods of increased electronic usage (TV, computers, phones). During 9/11 everyone was watching TV non-stop, checking for internet updates, etc.

If the RNG's are at their heart just electronic devices, isn't it possible they may be temporarily slightly influenced by localized power consumption, increased wireless signals, etc?

I'm sure somebody's thought about that already, but just my $0.02...

they have addressed all these issues... check out their FAQ:
Global Consciousness Project -- consciousness, group consciousness, mind then click gcp faq