"All the World's a Stage We Pass Through" R. Ayana

Showing posts with label retropsychokinesis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label retropsychokinesis. Show all posts

Saturday, 16 April 2011

Reality Doesn't Exist - according to the latest research

Reality Doesn't Exist - according to the latest research

photo

A team of physicists in Vienna has conducted a set of "reality" experiments that prove to a level of 80 orders of magnitude that reality doesn't exist unless you observe it.  In other words, in case you ever doubted the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment, doubt no longer.  It seems that experimental evidence has confirmed that we create our own reality by looking at it, measuring it, or observing it.  The detail are here.

The results of many recent experiments twist our perceptions of reality even more.  Studies by Helmut Schmidt, Elmar Gruber, Brenda Dunne, Robert Jahn, and others have shown, for example, that humans are actually able to influence past events (aka retropsychokinesis, or RPK), such as pre-recorded (and previously unobserved) random number sequences.  


No huge surprise to me, who questions everything about our conventional views of reality.  But I still think the evidence is fascinating and probably a bit unnerving to say the least, to the majority of those out there who don't typically consider such things.  Cause and effect, and reality are certainly not what they seem.

What could be the explanation?  Certainly, more experiments to probe the depths of reality are needed.  But that doesn't stop us from speculating.  Once again, Programmed Reality offers a perfect explanation.  Assuming that the programmed construct can detect "observation" (which, in principle, does not appear to be that difficult of a process), all the program has to do is the following:

if(observed)
select result from a subset of coherent results
else, randomize result


For example, in the classic reality experiment, pairs of photons are generated which are "entangled" by virtue of the fact that they were generated from the same reaction.  Those photons can be separated by large distances and then a property of one of them is measured.  The act of measuring the property of one photon immediately determines the property of the other photon, even if it is so far away that it precludes "knowing" about what is happening to its twin photon because of the limitations of exceeding the speed of light. 

However, in the Programmed Reality model, the properties of the two photons can be related programmatically.  Once an experiment determines one property, the program sets the other photons property accordingly.  The program is aware of the observation and could be in full control of the properties of the paired particles.

For the RPK effect...

when(observed)
set result from archive to a subset of coherent results


For an example of this effect, imagine a set of random numbers generated programmatically and stored in some sort of archive.  The archive, of course, being a product of Programmed Reality, is under full control of the program.  The archive is not observed prior to the experiment and the subjects perform mass consciousness experiments on the data.  The program measures the level of "coherence" of the consciousness in the experiment and then sets the correlation of the stored numbers according to some algorithm, formula, or table.  When the experimenters unveil the data, lo and behold, they are not truly random, but rather, appear to be affected by the consciousness experiment.  A simple software algorithm can make this work!

The interesting question, though, is "What is the motivation behind the program?"  Why would it have such an effect?  Perhaps the answer lies in the idea that sentient beings do truly create their reality.  Much like "Sim City," where the players create their reality, perhaps our reality is created accordingly to a complex set of rules and algorithms, which include such attributes as intent and observation.

This doesn't prove the validity of Programmed Reality, but I have to wonder, how many anomalies does the theory have to solve, for it to be seriously considered?  Wink
 
Wink
 


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Friday, 1 October 2010

Does the Past Exist Yet? Evidence Suggests Your Past Isn't Set in Stone

Does the Past Exist Yet? Evidence Suggests Your Past Isn't Set in Stone
  http://fractalartgallery.com/gallery/58/manyworlds30.jpg
Recent discoveries require us to rethink our understanding of history. “The histories of the universe,” said renowned physicist Stephen Hawking “depend on what is being measured, contrary to the usual idea that the universe has an objective observer-independent history."
Is it possible we live and die in a world of illusions? Physics tells us that objects exist in a suspended state until observed, when they collapse in to just one outcome. Paradoxically, whether events happened in the past may not be determined until sometime in your future -- and may even depend on actions that you haven't taken yet.
In 2002, scientists carried out an amazing experiment, which showed that particles of light (photons) knew -- in advance what their distant twins would do in the future. They tested the communication between pairs of photons to determine whether they were either a wave or a particle. Researchers stretched the distance one of the photons had to take to reach its detector, so that the other photon would hit its own detector first. The photons taking this path already finished their journeys they either collapse into a particle or don't before their twin encounters a scrambling device.
Somehow, the particles acted on this information before it happened, and across distances instantaneously as if there was no space or time between them. They decided not to become particles before their twin ever encountered the scrambler. It doesn't matter how we set up the experiment. Our mind and its knowledge is the only thing that determines how they behave. Experiments consistently confirm these observer-dependent effects.

More recently (Science 315, 966, 2007), scientists in France shot photons into an apparatus, and showed that what they did could retroactively change something that had already happened. As the photons passed a fork in the apparatus, they had to decide whether to behave like particles or waves when they hit a beam splitter. Later on - well after the photons passed the fork - the experimenter could randomly switch a second beam splitter on and off. It turns out that what the observer decided at that point, determined what the particle actually did at the fork in the past. At that moment, the experimenter chose his history.

Of course, we live in the same world. Particles have a range of possible states, and it's not until observed that they take on properties. So until the present is determined, how can there be a past? According to visionary physicist John Wheeler (who coined the word "black hole"), "The quantum principle shows that there is a sense in which what an observer will do in the future defines what happens in the past." Part of the past is locked in when you observe things and the "probability waves collapse."
But there's still uncertainty, for instance, as to what's underneath your feet. If you dig a hole, there's a probability you'll find a boulder. Say you hit a boulder; the glacial movements of the past that account for the rock being in exactly that spot will change as described in the Science experiment.

But what about dinosaur fossils? Fossils are really no different than anything else in nature. For instance, the carbon atoms in your body are "fossils" created in the heart of exploding supernova stars. Bottom line: reality begins and ends with the observer. "We are participators," Wheeler said "in bringing about something of the universe in the distant past." Before his death, he stated that when observing light from a quasar, we set up a quantum observation on an enormously large scale. It means, he said, the measurements made on the light now, determines the path it took billions of years ago.

Like the light from Wheeler's quasar, historical events such as who killed JFK, might also depend on events that haven't occurred yet. There's enough uncertainty that it could be one person in one set of circumstances, or another person in another. Although JFK was assassinated, you only possess fragments of information about the event. But as you investigate, you collapse more and more reality. According to biocentrism, space and time are relative to the individual observer, we each carry them around like turtles with shells.
History is a biological phenomenon it's the logic of what you, the animal observer experiences. You have multiple possible futures, each with a different history like in the Science experiment. Consider the JFK example: say two gunmen shot at JFK, and there was an equal chance one or the other killed him. This would be a situation much like the famous Schrödinger's cat experiment, in which the cat is both alive and dead both possibilities exist until you open the box and investigate.
"We must re-think all that we have ever learned about the past, human evolution and the nature of reality, if we are ever to find our true place in the cosmos," says Constance Hilliard, a historian of science at UNT. Choices you haven't made yet might determine which of your childhood friends are still alive, or whether your dog got hit by a car yesterday. In fact, you might even collapse realities that determine whether Noah's Ark sank. "The universe," said John Haldane, "is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."
byRobert Lanza, M.D.
 Robert Lanza, M.D., Scientist, Theoretician
Biocentrism (BenBella Books) lays out Lanza's theory of everything.
From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lanza/does-the-past-exist-yet-e_b_683103.html?ref=fb&src=sp

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Rewriting the Past

"I don't believe in yesterday, by the way."
-John Lennon

The past is set in stone, right?  Everything we have learned tells us that you can not change the past, 88-MPH DeLoreans notwithstanding.  However, it would probably surprise you to learn that many highly respected scientists, as well as a few out on the fringe, are questioning that assumption, based on real evidence.
For example, leading stem cell scientist, Dr. Robert Lanza, posits that the past does not really exist until properly observed.  His theory of Biocentrism says that the past is just as malleable as the future.
Specific experiments in Quantum Mechanics appear to prove this conjecture.  In the "Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser" experiment, "scientists in France shot photons into an apparatus, and showed that what they did could retroactively change something that had already happened." (Science 315, 966, 2007)
Paul Davies, renowned physicist from the Australian Centre for Astrobiology at Macquarie University in Sydney, suggests that conscious observers (us) can effectively reach back in history to "exert influence" on early events in the universe, including even the first moments of time.  As a result, the universe would be able to "fine-tune" itself to be suitable for life.
Prefer the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of Quantum Mechanics over the Copenhagen one?  If that theory is correct, physicist Saibal Mitra from the University of Amsterdam has shown how we can change the past by forgetting.  Effectively if the collective observers memory is reset prior to some event, the state of the universe becomes "undetermined" and can follow a different path from before.  Check out my previous post on that one [reposted below].
Alternatively, you can disregard the complexities of quantum mechanics entirely.  The results of some macro-level experiments twist our perceptions of reality even more.  Studies by Helmut Schmidt, Elmar Gruber, Brenda Dunne, Robert Jahn, and others have shown, for example, that humans are actually able to influence past events (aka retropsychokinesis, or RPK), such as pre-recorded (and previously unobserved) random number sequences
Benjamin Libet, pioneering scientist in the field of human consciousness at  the University of California, San Francisco is well known for his controversial experiments that seem to show reverse causality, or that the brain demonstrates awareness of actions that will occur in the near future.  To put it another way, actions that occur now create electrical brain activity in the past.
And then, of course, there is time travel.  Time travel into the future is a fact, just ask any astronaut, all of whom have traveled nanoseconds into the future as a side effect of high speed travel.  Stephen Hawking predicts much more significant time travel into the future.  In the future.  But what about the past?  Turns out there is nothing in the laws of physics that prevents it.  Theoretical physicist Kip Thorne designed a workable time machine that could send you into the past.  And traveling to the past of course provides an easy mechanism for changing it.  Unfortunately this requires exotic matter and a solution to the Grandfather paradox (MWI to the rescue again here).
None of this is a huge surprise to me, since I question everything about our conventional views of reality.  Consider the following scenario in a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) or simulation.  The first time someone plays the game, or participates in the simulation, there is an assumed "past" to the construct of the game.  Components of that past may be found in artifacts (books, buried evidence, etc.) scattered throughout the game.  Let's say that evidence reports that the Kalimdors and Northrendians were at war during year 1999.  But the evidence has yet to be found by a player.  A game patch could easily change the date to 2000, thereby changing the past and no one would be the wiser.  But, what if someone had found the artifact, thereby setting the past in stone.  That patch could still be applied, but it would only be effective if all players who had knowledge of the artifact were forced to forget.  Science fiction, right?  No longer, thanks to an emerging field of cognitive research.  Two years ago, scientists were able to erase selected memories in mice.  Insertion of false memories is not far behind.  This will eventually perfected, and applied to humans.
At some point in our future (this century), we will be able to snort up a few nanobots, which will archive our memories, download a new batch of memories to the starting state of a simulation, and run the simulation.  When it ends, the nanobots will restore our old memories. 

Or maybe this happened at some point in our past and we are really living the simulation.  There is really no way to tell.

No wonder the past seems so flexible. 

 
From Paraspiracy - http://www.theuniversesolved.com/theuniversesolved/blog/post/2010/09/Rewriting-the-Past.aspx

Change the Past, Change the Future Simply by Forgetting

Here's an interesting idea.  To avoid an impending disaster, all you have to do is forget your past.  So says physicist Saibal Mitra at the University of Amsterdam.  Even changing the past seems to be possible, believe it or not.

His idea is predicated on accepting our old friend, the Everett interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, aka the Many Universes theory.  According to Mitra, if the collective observers’ memory is reset prior to a cataclysmic event, such as a species ending asteroid impact, the state of the universe becomes "undetermined."  As a result, it has an equal likelihood of following any of the many subsequent paths, most of which should have nothing to do with an asteroid impact.  And so, by selectively forgetting our past, we can avoid certain doom by starting with a clean slate of future outcomes.  See this New Scientist article.

There is something unsettling about the logic, but his paper seems to be on firm footing: http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3825.  And the implications are fascinating.  Not happy with how last year's Superbowl turned out?  Keep a single copy of the event, erase everyone's memory, replace all archived bits of history relating to the game, and then we can all sit back and watch the recording again.  Mitra says if we do that, there's a good chance Arizona will win.  Watching the same tape!  Well, maybe not the same tape.  Because once the universe became undetermined again, the physical tape could have encoded any number of outcomes.

This is vaguely reminiscent of "Last Thursdayism," which is one of the possible aspects of Programmed Reality.  Once the universe is reset from an observational standpoint, we would never know the difference and an entirely different future course of events is possible.  If you make the restart point somewhere in our current past, then the recent past can be changed too.  Programmed Reality explains it all! 

From Paraspiracy: http://www.theuniversesolved.com/theuniversesolved/blog/post/2009/04/Change-the-Past2c-Change-the-Future-Simply-by-Forgetting.aspx
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For further enlightenment see –

The Her(m)etic Hermit - http://hermetic.blog.com


This material is published under Creative Commons Copyright – reproduction for non-profit use is permitted & encouraged, if you give attribution to the work & author - and please include a (preferably active) link to the original along with this notice. Feel free to make non-commercial hard (printed) or software copies or mirror sites - you never know how long something will stay glued to the web – but remember attribution! If you like what you see, please send a tiny donation or leave a comment – and thanks for reading this far…

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Monday, 25 January 2010

Psychokinesis and Telekinesis: Exploring Mind and Matter

Psychokinesis and Telekinesis

Exploring Mind and Matter

Evidence for Psychokinesis
Rhine's Early Studies


J. B. Rhine conducting a PK experiment using dice in a machanical dice tumbler. 
(Courtesy Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man)

In 1934, several months prior to publishing his famous paper on Extra-Sensory Perception, Dr. J. B. Rhine received a visit from a young gambler. After comparing notes on conditions for success in psychic testing, he remarked that similar conditions seemed to favor his luck in gambling. Furthermore, he claimed that he himself was sometimes able to exercise a mind over matter effect on dice-throwing games. While belief in such an influence on dice was both common and ancient, until then it had not been deemed a serious problem for scientific study. Rhine discovered that preliminary experimentation would be quick, easy, and inexpensive. The results proved encouraging enough to warrant further research.
 
Experiments continued during the next decade using protocols that systematically eliminated bias from unbalanced dice. The dice were placed in special cups, so subjects could not use special tricks to throw them. Still later, the dice were placed in electrically-driven rotating cages and were also photographed automatically in order to eliminate experimenter error. In general, the tests entailed asking the subjects to will the fall of the dice with selected target faces showing. Numerous throws were made in succession for each target before another target was chosen.
 
By the end of 1941, a total of 651,216 experimental die throws had been conducted. The combined results of these experiments pointed to a phenomenon with 10115 to 1 odds against chance occurrence. Nevertheless, Rhine hesitated to publish his results. The scientific world was still reacting emotionally to his announced proof of ESP, and he felt no need then to raise eyebrows by announcing another unorthodox discovery.
 
In 1942, with most of the staff at the Parapsychology Laboratory called away to war, continued experimentation in PK proved difficult. At this time, Rhine went over the records of earlier experiments so conducted that an analysis of position effects could be made, similar to the decline of high ESP scoring toward the end of experimental sessions, detected a few months earlier. If the above chance results had been caused by probability, artifacts, or illegitimate means, one would expect the distribution of hits would be consistent throughout the experiment and would not decline.
 
The results of this survey indicated there were more hits near the beginning of each run of 24 die throws. There were also more hits during the earlier runs of each experimental session which would typically last for ten runs. These results were not expected or even considered by the experimenters and subjects at the time of the experiments. The odds against such distribution occurring by chance were about a hundred million to one. This evidence of a presumably psychological effect, similar to that noted with ESP, made a case for psychokinesis strong enough to warrant publication. The first of the papers appeared in the Journal of Parapsychology in 1943. Many others followed.
 
In 1946 a study was published that pitted the psychokinetic skills of veteran gamblers against those of divinity students. In this contest atmosphere, both groups scored well above chance expectations.
 
PK With Random Number Generators (RNGs)


PK test equipment
(Courtesy Helmut Schmidt)

The random number generator experiments pioneered by Helmut Schmidt, previously described as tests of precognition, have also been used extensively as tests for psychokinesis. As mentioned earlier, it seems theoretically impossible to clearly distinguish between psychokinesis and precognition in quantitative research. Generally, the tests for psychokinesis are those in which the experimenter instructs the subject to will or intend that a particular target be selected by the RNG. This reduces the possibility that the subject could be using precognition, but does not eliminate the possibility of experimenter precognition. The hypothesis of intuitive data sorting suggests that the subject might use precognition to start the RNG at the exact time required to match the preselected PK target sequence.
 
One interesting version of the Schmidt RNG studies involved the cooperation of Robert Morris and Luther Rudolph at Syracuse University, with the experimental protocol published prior to the beginning of the experiment., These studies, which used prerecorded targets, were reviewed by skeptic James Alcock in a report for the National Research Council's study on methods for enhancing human performance. Alcock, who had access to the pertinent raw data, admitted that this study was much better executed than other studies by Schmidt and merited further replication attempts.
 
An elegant and sophisticated research program involving Random Event Generators has been underway for a number of years at Princeton University under the aegis of Dean Emeritus of Engineering, Robert Jahn, and management of psychologist Brenda Dunne. Other staff members include psychologists Roger Nelson and Angela Thompson, electrical engineer John Bradish, and physicist York Dobyns. 
 
In the formal test series, generation rates of either 100 or 1000 per second are used, and each trial comprises 200 binary samples. The count data are permanently recorded on a strip printer as well as being entered on line into computer memory. The subject receives immediate feedback via electronic displays which show the number of trials, the number of hits in the last trial, and the average number of hits since some predetermined starting point. The REG and the on-line IBM PC/AT computer independently calculate the mean of each trial and the standard deviation for every block of fifty trials.
 

REG Testing at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Program

The equipment can be run in one of two modes, either manual or automatic. In the former case, the machine will generate a trial only when a switch is pressed; while in the automatic mode, once started, the machine will automatically initiate a block of fifty trials.
 
There are two types of procedure, either "volitional mode," in which case the subject chooses whether to aim for a high score (PK+) or a low score (PK-) in a given run, or "instructed mode" where some kind of random process determines which way the subject is to aim.
There are also baseline runs interspersed ("in some reasonable fashion," the nature of which is unspecified) with the PK runs; in this case the subject is to exert no influence, so that these will serve as a randomization check. The choice of volitional/instructed mode and automatic/manual mode are "normally left to the preference of the operators (subjects), but they are encouraged to undertake additional series employing the other modes for comparison."
 
The formal data base consists of well over 750,000 trials (or 150,000,000 binary digits) carried out on two different machines by thirty-three different subjects over a period of nearly ten years. Typically, a session had three types of trials: high aim, low aim, and a control series. Pooled, overall results of the high- and low-aim trials are clear: significantly higher scores for high aim; significantly low scores for low aim. The outcome of the control trials was illuminating. Here the subjects were told not to try to influence the REG. Presumably, they hoped their data would be "normal." In fact, although the mean score was almost identical with the theoretical mean, the distribution was unique: a statistically significant surplus of scores at the precise theoretical mean. When control, high-aim, and low-aim series are pooled, the distribution is what would be expected by chance. This result, which may be the consequence of the subjects' intentions to "achieve a baseline" in the control condition, shows the difficulty of conducting psi experiments with a true control group. 
 
Interestingly, both earlier and later calibration trials nicely conformed to a normal statistical curve, showing that the equipment was probably operating properly. If psi is operating in the ostensible control tests, then the critics' demands for additional control tests seems naive.
 
Ironically, comparable results were obtained using a pseudo-random noise source (i.e., based on both computer algorithms and prerecorded targets). This finding makes it difficult to interpret the Princeton data in terms of a conventional psychokinesis hypothesis. How can one psychokinetically influence targets which have already been determined? For this reason, the Princeton team does not attempt to describe their research program as a test of PK, but simply refers to the program as a study of anomalous man-machine interactions.
 
The Princeton team has gone to great lengths to try to ensure that their equipment is unbiased. Internal circuits are continually monitored with regard to internal temperature, input voltage, etc. Successive switching of the relationship between the sign of the noise and the sign of the output pulse on a trial-to-trial basis was done to provide a further safeguard against machine bias. Results were automatically recorded and analyzed. Extensive tests of the machine's output and its individual components were also carried out at times separate from the test sessions. The provision of baseline trials interspersed with test trials provided a randomization check which overcame some of the weaknesses of Schmidt's procedure.
 
Psi researcher John Palmer has drawn attention to the fact that there is no documentation regarding measures to prevent data tampering by subjects. This is of concern since the subject was left alone in the room during the formal sessions along with the REG. 
In evaluating these studies, skeptic James Alcock claimed that only one subject (Operator 10) accounted for virtually all the significance departures from chance in the Princeton studies. Noting that details regarding precautions against subject cheating were not specified, Alcock stated:
 
I am not trying to suggest that this subject cheated; I am only pointing out that it would appear that such a possibility is not ruled out. Had the subject been monitored at all times, such a worry could have been avoided or at least reduced. 

The Princeton team has chosen a policy of keeping the identity of all experimental subjects anonymous -- among other reasons, in order to eliminate motivation for subjects to cheat. However, the fact that Subject 10 contributed considerably more to the database than any other subject, suggests that this individual was either a member of the experimental team or someone who had become a close friend of the experimenters. As such, Subject 10 might well have had access to information which would make it possible to tamper with the data recording system. 
 
In response to the criticisms of Palmer and Alcock, the Princeton researchers have prepared a detailed analysis of the equipment, calibration procedures and various precautions against data-tampering. According to the researchers, the automated and redundant on-line recording of data preclude data tampering -- as does the protocol requirement that the printer record be on one continuous, unbroken paper strip. It would appear that all necessary precautions have been taken, short of submitting subjects to constant visual observation. The subjects are submitted to intermittent visual observation which the researchers believe is sufficient to control against tampering with the equipment, given their particular setup.
 
In further response to Alcock's critique, the Princeton team conducted further analyses of the data which show that the anomalous RNG effects were contributed by most of the subjects, and were not dependent upon the scores of Subject 10. Several other subjects, who participated in fewer experimental trials, actually had scores with greater chance deviations. By analyzing the data from only the first series of 7,500 trials (1,500,000 binary digits) from each subject, it was possible to level the influence that Subject 10 exerted on the database. In this analysis, with each subject carrying an equal weight, the results were significantly beyond chance. Another analysis was conducted which eliminated all of the data from Subject 10. This, too, was statistically significant.
 
A comprehensive meta-analytic review of the RNG research literature encompassing all known RNG studies between 1959 and 1987 has been reported by Radin and Nelson, comprising over 800 experimental and control studies conducted by a total of 68 different investigators. The probability 597 experimental series was p < 10-35, whereas 235 control series yielded an overall score well within the range of chance fluctuation. In order to account for the observed experimental results on the basis of selective reporting (assuming no other methodological flaws), it would require "file drawers" full of more than 50,000 unreported studies averaging chance results.
 
Some people seem to produce data in random number generator (RNG) experiments that display idiosyncratic patterning that appears to be consistent from one run to the next. To explore the idea of person-unique signatures, Dean Radin, working at Princeton University, used a powerful, new "neural network" computational technique that is proving to be adept at discovering weak patterns in noisy data. 
 

Dean Radin

Neural networks are a form of parallel processing based upon research about how the brain encodes and processes information.

The power of these networks rests upon the discovery that when numerous elementary processing units are richly interconnected under the right conditions, they can automatically learn to associate arbitrarily complex inputs with arbitrarily complex outputs. Information processing in these networks takes place in the interactions among large numbers of artificial neurons. Learning takes place by changing the interconnection strengths between neurons.
 
The study involved training a network to associate data with given individuals, then observing whether the trained network could successfully identify these people based upon new data. Two sub-datasets were required for each person: One was used to train the network and the other was used to see whether the trained network could transfer its knowledge to new data. Thus, each series of 50 runs was split in half, using the first half as the training set and the second half as the transfer set. Results showed that these networks were able to learn to associate data with 32 different individuals, then, in statistical terms, successfully transfer that knowledge to new data. 
 
PK Placement Studies

A number of researchers have conducted studies designed to determine whether naked human intention could affect the movement of moving objects. The most recent version of this approach is the database of studies using a random mechanical cascade at Princeton University's Engineering Anomalies Research program. 

The experimental apparatus allows 9000 polystyrene balls to drop through a matrix of 330 pegs, scattering into 19 collecting bins. As the balls enter the bins, exact counts are accumulated photoelectrically, displayed as feedback for the operator and recorded by a computer. Subjects are asked to concentrate on shifting the mean of the developing distribution of balls to the right or left, relative to a concurrently developing baseline distribution. Over three thousand experimental runs have been conducted with twenty-five individuals. The results are significantly beyond chance expectation.
 


The Princeton University researchers note that virtually all of the statistically significant results have come from a deviation of the balls to the left of the baseline. This, they claim, cannot be attributed to any known physical asymmetry in the system.
 
Chinese Reports of Psychokinesis Associated with ESP

Reports of psi research in China claim that certain subjects showed consistent success in ESP tests.,, A report from the Chinese Academy of Sciences states that if the ESP response was incorrect there was no change at the target; but that, in over 700 trials when the ESP response was correct, there was always an accompanying PK effect at the target location. These effects included clouding of X-ray or photographic film; or pronounced changes in the records of photoelectric tubes, thermoluminescence docimeters, or biological detectors. It should be noted, however, that the quality and reliability of reports of Chinese research is very inconsistent. At least one set of knowledgable observers believes that some reported results resulted from slight-of-hand.
 
Scott Hubbard, Edwin May and Harold Puthoff at SRI International in Menlo Park, California, searched for such changes using a detector that the Chinese had found most sensitive -- a photomultiplier tube. ESP targets were slides of scenes from the National Geographic. There were four subjects with six sessions each. The pooled sessions showed significant ESP success. The researchers then correlated ESP scores with four measures of photomultiplier output: low-amplitude increase and decrease and high-amplitude increase and decrease in number of pulses. One correlation was significant: the correlation with increase in the number of high-amplitude pulses, as the Chinese had reported.
 
PK Metal-Bending

A renewed interest has recently developed in large-scale (macro) PK effects, particularly metal-bending. The most extensive research on metal-bending has been conducted by physicist John Hasted at the University of London's Birkbeck College.
 

John Hasted

His subjects were mostly adolescents who had developed an interest in metal-bending upon exposure to the public performances of Uri Geller. They were asked to bend or deform latchkeys or bars of aluminum alloy without touching them. The specimens were attached to resistive strain guages or (in later work) piezoelectric sensors. Signals from these devices were then amplified and registered on chart recorders.
 
Actual bending was observed in only a minority of sessions, however anomalous signals frequently appeared on the chart records -- from sensors separated up to several feet from each other. This led Hasted to hypothesize an unknown form of conduction of electrical charge from the subjects' bodies through the atmosphere to the sensors.
 
Hasted claimed that the subjects had no opportunity to interact directly with the chart recorder. Furthermore, he employed dummy loads along with electrical shielding of the test channels to minimize global electrical artifacts.
 
Psi researchers have been rather reluctant to accept Hasted's findings. In part, this is because macro-pk effects remain very controversial. In part, as enumerated by psi researcher John Palmer, it is because Hasted's research procedures would benefit from additional refinements:
 
Even if one grants the paranormal origins of the signals, Hasted's methodology makes it difficult to draw valid conclusions about their nature, including whether or not they truly represent strain. Use of an inadequately fast chart recorder, failure to adopt proper principles of experimental design, and failure to use statistical analyses are the most serious problems. In particular, it is impossible to distinguish basic physical characteristics of the phenomena from those correlated with preferences, attitudes, etc., of the subject or experimenter.
 
In general, "non-touching" is considered an essential prerequisite control for a variety of possible conventional influences in PK metal-bending research. However, some studies were conducted which allowed touching of the target specimens and, yet, still merit some scientific consideration.
One test used by Hasted employed a brittle alloy bar that supposedly could not be bent to a particular angle of deformation in less than a certain known time. 
 

Brittle alloy bars bent in Hasted's experiment

When excessive force was applied it simply broke. The only way to bend it is to apply a small force slowly over time, which produces bend by a process known as creep. Hasted has reported bending of such alloys in well under the minimum time thought to be possible using a creep process.
 
Charles Crussard and J. Bouvaist, two French metallurgists whose research was funded by a metals company, took the following experimental measures in PK studies with a magical performer, Jean-Paul Girard:
 
(1) All dimensions of metal strips or rods were measured before and after bending; (2) The microhardness of the metal was measured at several points before and after bending; (3) Residual strain profiles (measures of crystalline stucture) were examined; (4) Electron micrograph analyses of the fine structure of ultrathin foil specimins were often made; (5) Analyses of the chemical composition at various places along the strip or rod were made. Additional precautions included consultations with magicians, video recording of trials, and the marking of test specimens.

Crussard and Bouvaist described eight of 20 trials conducted with Girard. The specimens were bars of aluminum alloys, stainless steel cylinders, and Duralumin plates. During the trials, Girard was allowed to touch and hold the specimens, while at all times being observed by the experimenters. Bending was observed in four of the specimens. Structural changes inconsistent with physical bending were found for a stainless steel cylinder and Duralumin plate. 
 
Since Girard is a conjurer, researchers are cautious in interpreting the above results. In his 1985 evaluation for the U.S. Army, psi researcher John Palmer reached the following conclusion with regard to this report:
 
Only in the case of the bending of one of the aluminum bars do the controls as reported seem to completely rule out the possibility of Girard substituting previously deformed specimens for the test specimens. Nonetheless, the assumptions that must be made to explain away these results seem rather farfetched.

Bio-PK

A number of studies are suggestive of the possibility that conscious intention can influence the growth and movement of biological targets. One of the first of these involved the one-celled protozoan, paramecium. The organism was centered under the cross hairs of a microscope, and it moved with significant frequency into the randomly selected quadrant of the field. Water fleas observed under a microscope turned in the randomly selected direction, i.e., either right or left, with greater frequency than these crustaceans turned in the opposite direction. Significant results were also obtained in mentally directing ants to carry away matches on the selected side of a wooden slide. Carroll B. Nash conducted an experiment in which bacterial growth was psychokinetically accelerated and retarded according to the intentions of randomly selected college students.
 

Carroll B. Nash

In two separate studies, the growth of fungus was less when an attempt was made to mentally retard it than was the growth in the controls., Physicist Elizabeth Rauscher conducted a study with biochemist Beverly Rubik in which bacteria exposed to an antibiotic grew more rapidly in a sealed tube surrounded, but not touched, by the hands of psychic healer Olga Worrall than in tubes not treated by her. 
 

Beverly Rubik

Elizabeth Rauscher

(Further experimental work in the area of healing is reported in the section on potential applications of psi.)
 
In a study following up on his earlier finding correlating students' intentions with bacterial growth, Carroll B. Nash conducted another study looking at mutation rates. He put suspensions of E. coli into nine tubes, in a 3x3 arrangement, for each of 52 subjects. He randomly designated one set for rapid mutation into another strain, one set for inhibition of mutation rate, and one set for control. He arranged that the subjects would know the instructions but the student experimenters would be blind. The rapid mutation tubes showed significantly more growth than the inhibition tubes. The promotion tubes had nonsignificantly more growth than the controls; the inhibition tubes had significantly less.
 
In a computer automated study, Charles Pleass and N. Dean Dey, at the University of Delaware, tried to have subjects use PK to speed or to slow the swimming of algae. They measured swimming speed by the Doppler effect of laser light, which does not affect algae adversely. Each experimental run was preceded by a control run. A run consisted of the collection of 1,000 data points and ordinarily took thirty seconds. Each subject participated in ten runs. Data analysis showed differences in speed, in the anticipated direction, between scores for PK and control runs, and also indicated changes with the subject's mood and with differences in the instructions.
 
References

. Louisa E. Rhine, ESP in Life and Lab -- Tracing Hidden Channels. New York: Macmillan, 1967, pp. 166-168.
. Joseph Banks Rhine, "Psychokinesis," in R. Cavandish (ed.), Man, Myth and Magic. New York: Marshall Cavandish, 1970, pp. 2285-2291.
. Joseph Banks Rhine & Louisa E. Rhine, "The Psychokinetic Effect. l. The First Experiment," Journal of Parapsychology, 7, 1943, 2043.
. Louisa E. Rhine, op. cit., p. 175.
. Helmut Schmidt, Robert L. Morris & Luther Rudolph. "Channeling Psi Evidence to Critical Observers," in W. G. Roll, R. L. Morris & R. A. White (eds.), Research in Parapsychology 1981. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1982, pp. 136-138.
. Helmut Schmidt, Robert L. Morris & Luther Rudolph. "Chaneling Evidence for a PK Effect to Independent Observers," Journal of Parapsychology, 1986, 50, 1-16.
. J. E. Alcock. A Comprehensive Review of Major Empirical Studies in Parapsychology Involving Random Event Generators or Remote Viewing. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1988, pp. 99-102.
. According to a personal communication from Robert Morris, October 1989, a replication of this study did not yield significant data.
. Robert G. Jahn, Brenda J. Dunne & Roger D. Nelson, "Engineering Anomalies Research," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1(1), 1987, 21-50. The researchers at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research program have offered to make full details of the design of this equipment available upon request.
. Roger D. Nelson, Brenda J. Dunne, & Robert G. Jahn, An REG Experiment With Large Database Capability, III: Operator Related Anomalies (Technical Note PEAR 84003. Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University School of Engineering/Applied Science, 1984, p. 10.
. Robert G. Jahn & Brenda Dunne, Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987. As this research is ongoing, the database is growing. 
. Ibid., p. 25
. John Palmer, An Evaluative Report
. James E. Alcock, A Comprehensive Review of Major Empirical Studies in Parapsychology Involving Random Event Generators or Remote Viewing. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1988.
. Roger D. Nelson, G. John Bradish & York H. Dobyns, Random Event Generator Qualification, Calibration, and Analysis. Technical Note PEAR 89001. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University School of Engineering/Applied Sciences, 1989.
. In a personal communication, October 16, 1989, Brenda Dunne informed me that several skeptics including James Randi and Phillip Klass have made detailed inquiries about the experimental setup and have not, to her knowledge, uncovered ways in which data-tampering could have occurred.
. Brenda J. Dunne, Roger D. Nelson, Y. H. Dobyns & Robert G. Jahn, Individual Operator Contributions in Large Data Base Anomalies Experiments, Technical Note PEAR 88002. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science, 1988.
. Brenda Dunne, personal communication, October 16, 1989.
. Dean I. Radin & Roger D. Nelson. Replication in Random Event Generator Experiments: A Meta-Analysis and Quality Assessment (Technical Report 87001). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Human Information Processing Group, 1987.
. For example, with a 10 hidden-node network, trained for 4,000 passes, the difference between the mean number of correctly identified individuals obtained with the transfer dataset versus the same mean using the random dataset resulted in t(198 df) = 3.02; the t test between the transfer dataset and scrambled dataset produced t = 4.01; and the t test between the random and scrambled datasets was t = 0.98. Other tests using different network configurations showed similar results. See Dean I. Radin, "Searching for 'Signatures' in Human-Machine Interaction Data: A Neural Network Approach," in Linda A. Henkel & Rick E. Berger (eds.), Research in Parapsychology 1988. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1989.
. Brenda J. Dunne, Roger D. Nelson & Robert G. Jahn, "Operator-Related Anomalies in a Random Mechanical Cascade," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2(2), 1988, 155-179.
. Chen Hsin & Mai Lei, "Study of the Extraordinary Function of the Human Body in China," in W. G. Roll, J. Beloff & R. White (eds.), Research in Parapsychology 1982. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow press, 1983. pp. 278-282.
. L. L. Haft, "Abstracts of Chinese Reports on Parapsychology," European Journal of Parapsychology, 4, 1982, 399-402.
. Harold E. Puthoff, "Report on Investigations Into 'Exceptional Human Body Function' in the People's Republic of China," in W. G. Roll, J. Beloff & R. White (eds.), Research in Parapsychology 1982. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow press, 1983. pp. 275-278.
. Chinese Academy of Sciences, "Exceptional Human Body Radiation," Psi Research, 1(2), 1982, 16-25.
. Wu Xiaoping, "Report of a Chinese Psychic's Pill-Bottle Demonstration," Skeptical Inquirer, 13(2), Winter 1989, pp. 168-171.
. G. Scott Hubbard, Edwin C. May & Harold E. Puthoff, "Possible Production of Photons During a Remote Viewing Task: Preliminary Results," in D. H. Weiner & D. I. Radin (eds.), Research in Parapsychology 1985. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1986. pp. 66-70.
. John Hasted, The Metal Benders. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.
. John Palmer, An Evaluative Report.
. Hasted, op cit.
. Charles Crussard & J. Bouvaist, "Experiences Psychocinetiques Sur Eprouvettes Metalliques [Psychokinetic Experiments with Metal Test Samples]," Memoires Scientifiques de la Revue de Mettalurgie, 1978, 13-23.
. Palmer, An Evaluative Report.
. N. Richmond, "Two Series of PK Tests on Paramedia," Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 46, 1952, 577-587.
. L. Passidomo, "PK Effects on the Course Direction of Eurycereus, Lamaellatus, Eruycerine," New Realities, 1(1), 1977, 40-44.
. Pierre Duval, "Exploratory Experiments with Ants," Journal of Parapsychology, 35, 1971, 58. This study was actually conducted by the famous French biologist, Professor Remy Chauvin of the Sorbonne who often published his psi research studies using the pseudonym of P. Duval. For an overview of his perspective see Remy Chauvin, Parapsychology: When the Irrational Rejoins Science, trans. by K. M. Banham. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1985.
. Carroll B.