Conference hydra::dejavu

    
    	Is it possible for a brief synopsis of some of the 
    	findings?
    					Chris

    Hi Chris,
    	Sure thing.  Give me a day or so to do some homework, I don't
    	have any of the sources with me.  Hopefully in the next day or
    	so Roger will send me something on the latest state of his
    	research too.
    
    	Just to give a summary of my understanding, the 
    	experiments largely involve a device with a lot of balls falling in 
    	random patterns, and people attempting to influence the balls to
    	fall in non-random patterns.    And succeeding.  Details to be
    	deferred till later.  :-)
    
    	The significance of the result comes from its extremely tight 
    	experimental methodology, and the sheer mass of experimental data, 
    	millions of data points.  As I recall, it is fairly widely recognized 
    	that a legitimate anomaly is suggested by this data, although the 
    	exact meaning of the anomaly is open to interpretation (whether it 
    	represents PK or other paranormal influence, or possibly a previously 
    	unknown methodological problem).
    
    	Topher must really be busy these days to not have replied to
    	this one.  This is his speciality.  
    
    							kind regards,
    
    							todd

    It is?  Gee, he never told us that... sounds really interesting.

    You got it todd, I wanted to reply before now but just haven't had
    time.

    Mary, todd only meant that, broadly speaking, laboratory research on
    psi phenomena is my specialty.

    I do keep up, of course, on the work at PEAR (Princeton Engineering
    Anomalies Research lab).  The mechanical cascade stuff is one big chunk
    of their data, but their main body was collected using an electronic
    "event" generator.  Basically, the light goes on or it doesn't.

    The mechanical cascade is a very impressive device -- a lot of fun,
    which I think helps keep people's interest up.  It takes up a whole
    wall and makes an unbelievable racket.  Hundreds of balls run down
    between two glass plates.  They hit little pegs and each time they go
    either right or left.  At the bottom each ball goes into one of a
    number of bins.  Basically each bin represents a different number of
    left turns vs right turns that the balls in it took on the way down. In
    theory they number of balls in each bin should follow an approximately
    "normal" curve.  A lot of work went into precisely lining up
    everything, but that's not really apparent when you are "playing" with
    it.

    Each time the balls drop the person using it is told, randomly, to try
    to get the balls to go to the left, to the right, or not to try to
    influence it.  The "average" position for all the balls is a measure of
    how successful they are.  There is a slight but measurable tendency
    for the average to be larger than the center point for those trials in
    which the "operators" try to make them go right, to be smaller than the
    center point for those trials in which the "operators" try to make them
    go "left", and to be pretty much dead on center when they aren't trying
    to influence it.

				    Topher

    	Sounds fascinating, you only wet the appetite.
    	
    	Questions which  come to mind.

    	1. In the original note it was mentioned that the effect was
    	   statistically significant when people tried to direct
    	   the left or right turn. I would assume that the effect
    	   is greater/less for certain people. Or is it the same.

    	2. If there is a statistical difference among subjects
            if so is it:
    		      (a) gender based
    		      (b) correlation with personality profile
    		      (c) Effect of left versus right brain activity.
    		      (d) Is it the effect the same over varying
    			  distances from the device.
    		      (e) Does the same subject always have about the
    			  same effect or does it vary depending on
    			  whatever.
    		      (f) Is the device isolated from electric /magnetic
    			  fields
        3 What hypothesis has the experimenters suggested to explain
    	  the effect.

    	Just a few questions which came to mind.
    		
    					

    I think you'll find that researchers, especially those who favor
    this engineering approach to psi, will be reticent to draw conclusions,
    they are extremely focused on working out the details of getting
    the results to be impeccably replicable and consistent.
    They do look for trends among the operators, and they work from the
    philosophy that psi ability is distributed among the population
    somehow, not concentrated in a few extraordinarily talented people.
    
    Here's the more detailed information on P.E.A.R. work from Richard
    Broughton in his Parapsychology_the_Controversial_Science.
    
    All data from formal tests is computer stored automatically.
    
    A progress report from 1987 on the random event generator 
    on 33 operators for a quarter million trials in each direction showed
    an average of 100.037 in the plus direction, 99.966 in the negative
    direction.  Odds against chance are estimated at over 5000 to 1.
    
    A 1988 progress report on the giant pachinko machine (which is
    actually more a high-tech version of the Galton board, used in elementary 
    statistics classes) had 25 operators over 3393 runs (1131 in each 
    direction) with a result of odds against chance of 10,000 to 1.
    
    There was also noted at that time a curious tendency for the balls to 
    collect more to the left than the right, which the meticulous
    researchers attribute to a neurological or psychological effect rather
    than to any bias in the equipment.
    
    Distinctive features of the PEAR work include extremely large
    databases and great emphasis on engineering aspects (the details
    of the target devices is strongly emphasized, rather than the
    details of the goal-orientation of the operator, as is focused on
    in various other research).
    
    All experimental protocols involve three parts :
    	influence the device in one direction
    	influence the device in the other direction
    	try to not influence the device
    
    In December, 1989, Foundations_of_Physics published the article
    'Evidence for Consciousness-related Anomalies in Random Physical
    Systems' which features a meta-analysis (special cross-experiment 
    statistical analysis) by Dean Radin and Roger Nelson of 152 reports
    on 597 experimental studies and 235 control studies on the effects
    of consciousness of micro-electronic systems.
    
    The result was odds against chance of one in 10 to the 35 power.
    
    Meta-analysis also suggests that 54,000 unpublished unsuccessful
    studies would have had to have been done to statistically cancel out
    the significance, nine times the number of known studies.  This
    makes nay 'file drawer' argument against the result very weak.
    
    Meta-analysis also suggests that the results do not significantly
    diminish over variations in experimental methodology, as would be
    expected if the effect were the result of experimental errors.
    
    So, unless a critic is willing to propose that 60 experimenters
    conductiong 600 experiments over 3 decades were all in 
    exacting collusion, or that a methodological artifact is in common
    to all these different studies, the evidence for a legitimate
    Pk-type anomaly is very hard to deny on the basis of the P.E.A.R.
    work.
    
    R.E.G. results from 1987 were published in the Journal of Scientific
    Exploration, a peer reviewed journal, volume 1, p. 21-50, article
    called "Engineering Anomalies Research," by Jahn, Dunne, and Nelson.
    
    Ain't that something ?
    
    						kind regards,
    
    						todd

    Given that the evidence for an effect seems conclusive surely the
    next step would be to investigate its mode of action.

     I understand the reticence of the experimenters to propose an
     explanation seeing as they have no data upon which to base an
     explanation. I suppose this was the reason for the questions
     posed previously. Does the subject have to be certain distance
     from the experiment to exact an effect. What would happen if you
     blind folded them and turned them away from the experiment, or even
     took them to another room. Would the effect be the same.

     Was the apparatus shielded from know energy fields, maybe some sort
     of Gaussian cage shielding it from magnetic and electronic fields.
     This would suggest that the medium through which the effect operates
     could be something new.

     The personality profile correlation may point to a connection between
     left/right side of the brain with this effect.

    It seems once the effect is established one must wonder who it works,
    and why?

    					Chris 

    re: .7,  Chris,
    
    I think they're doing some of that, it just isn't their emphasis.
    
    For the moment, PEAR is probably doing what they do best, and
    what is going to be neccessary in order for certain anomalies
    to be slowly recognized as legitimate fields for research. 
    Even though it doesn't give us as much information as we'd
    like to have as fast as we'd like to have it on the parameters
    of the effect.
    
    There's sort of a continuum in psi anomalies research, from the 
    precision engineered laboratory equipment that gets robust but tiny 
    effects, to the spectacular spontaneous effects that leave only anecdotal
    trails and evoke remnants of the spiritualist roots of the field.
    
    Along that continuum, there are a number of somewhat replicable effects
    under less stringent laboratory conditions, and various analyses of 
    massive amounts of anecdotal data.  In that research, a number
    of distinct relationships between personality profiles and other
    observable 'human factors' were correlated to suspected psi effects
    across many studies.  
    
    The classic relationship between the disturbed adolescent and
    'poltergeist' phenomena comes immediately to mind.
    
    I think Louise Rhine did a factors analysis of a large amount
    of anecdotal data, and Puharich did some work with electromagnetic
    shielding, and there are probably dozens of others.   Individually,
    such studies have always invited severe critcism from some quarters,
    but to the extent that their findings correlate with each other, certain 
    patterns emerge that seem fairly robust.
    
    If Topher or someone else doesn't beat me to it, I'll write up
    a summary of what I have so far and post it next week.  I don't
    want to try to rattle it off from memory because I've found the details
    can be very tricky to interpret.
    
    						later,
    
    						todd

    Thanks Todd.  I'd like to know what the patterns were.

    I agree, one must look for a pattern first, a theory, or hypothesis,
    then people will start to work out ways to see if there is any
    meaning in the patterns, or if there are really patterns at all.

    The work is fascinating in its own context, but has far reaching
    implications in many areas, including notions of collective
    consciousness.

    				Chris

    I thought this was interesting.  It is in this topic because it
    comes from Roger Nelson.
    
In a recent discussion on Usenet sci.skeptic, Roger (who is a senior
    engineer at the Princeton lab investigating certain physical anomalies) 
    discusses his perspective on the significance of the experimental
    psi data.  The context is a discussion of the reasons why people
    believe or not in the transcendental, and the imagined response of 
    diehard 'skeptics' to the observation that something they consider
    implausible but wondrous might be true.  That is, beyond developing a 
    reliable technology for psychic garage door openers.  
    
    [rdnelson@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger D. Nelson)]
 
In article <2qb7ih$857@news.CCIT.Arizona.EDU> cary@afone.as.arizona.edu (Cary Kittrell) writes:
>In article <pepke-040594171508@pepkemac.scri.fsu.edu> pepke@scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke) writes:
><
>< [ ... ] I would dearly love it if a whole host of psychic things were
><true or if extraterrestrials really were visiting our planet or if there
><really were big hairy bipedals walking around in the woods.  If Roger
><Nelson perfects a psychic teevee channel changer, I'll be the first to buy
><a copy of the plans.  I just don't think there's a helluva lot of evidence
><for those things right now.
>
>Well put.  Well put indeed.
>
>I imagine that there are lots of us among the skeptical who would be
>hugely delighted if just one of these "sense of wonder" items were ever
>to prove true.  (I remember Martin Gardner confessing in one of his books
>how discomfited he would be if anything of the kind he debunks ever
>came up true.  I was very puzzled by that attitude.  I still am).
>
>But I fear we'll wait forever ...
 
I've always appreciated Erik's pragmatism, and I certainly respect the
feeling both he and Cary express.  Oddly, though, as best I can be
objective about what would delight me, the psychic things and ET's and
other "sense of wonder" items don't amount to much except to the extent
they teach us how to grow to our potential (which I assume to be a
positive change from where we are).  The example I use to symbolize how
little practical use there is for the psychic effects we appear to be able 
to demonstrate in the lab is a garage door opener, sort of a big teevee
channel changer.  I don't think such are likely applications, not least
because these are so easy to do so well in the mundane way.  I don't think 
I would spend my time in this research if it were not for the implications
about consciousness and world.  The findings, if veridical (and I have a
great deal of confidence in those of my own lab, at the very least) mean 
that there are missing elements in standard physical models, and 
interactions that connect us directly as conscious beings to our environment.  
Not to allow us to indulge our sloth yet more deeply so much as to allow 
us to create, probabalistically and incrementally, change in the world.   
 
Just to be clear:  The data suggest/indicate that human intention is
directly, though weakly correlated with changes in the distribution of
probabalistic events.  They suggest that a small amount of information
can be transferred by consciousness across both spatial and temporal
separations anomalously, and this is tantamount to a capacity for
entropy reduction without energy transfer.  If this is all true, it is
worth more than a garage door opener, as a scientific and philosophical
challenge, and as a pointer toward understanding our place and
possibilities as humans.  
 
Roger
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