This is an PhenomInvestigator Quote:
"For example, in mediumhip research, the goal is to determine if anomalous information transfer occurs.
This is done by carefully isolating the participants, including experimenters, and then seeking patterns in the data suggestive of such information transfer phenomena. Clearly we can use statistical analysis for this purpose, so in this sense we have measurement. But to date there is no measuring device for confirming the flow of such information although there are those in the neurophysics community quite interested in that problem. More importantly this example illustrates what is and is not scientifically demonstrable: we can (and have repeatedly) demonstrated anomalous information reception. What has not been proven (and frankly I have no idea how one could) is that this information must be coming from the deceased as many believe. So there are limits as you have suggested."
I appreciate his input................................................some of the discussion below is relevant to these comments.
I was very fortunate yesterday to be part of a three way email dialogue with two Professors, both of them in their 60's. One is a Physics Professor the other is a Philosophy Professor. For privacy reasons I wont say their names, but the discussion was fascinating..................
Both Professors have spent time over the decades doing "Paranormal Research", unknown to each other, they may have actually met decades earlier working with "Serios/Eisenbud" Research. Both are highly intelligent, highly educated, highly experienced Paranormal Investigators.
Both Professors have had interaction with "PEAR" and 100% agree on the ability of the observer to influence the experiment. To put it simply and quote, both believe,
"All scientists, and anomalies researchers in particular, must assume that their
interests or expectations might be causally relevant to their experimental outcomes.
They certainly can’t pretend that, as experimenters, they’re merely neutral
participants in an objective search for scientific knowledge"
Now for the differences.....................................
Here are some quotes from the Philosophy Professor:
“That's why ghost hunters with their fancy equipment are just flaunting their ignorance and conceptual naivete, I think anybody familiar with the issues knows that the source of psi problem in fact hugely complicates the interpretation of any result in parapsychology, especially evidence that's wholly quantitative and in which there's no reason to believe that a previously identified "star subject" is a likely potential psi source. But many, no matter how good their intentions, think that the only prerequisite for doing parapsychology experiments is to have training in some other scientific discipline."
"it's naive to think that psi effects occur only for parapsychologists, and only when they set out to look for them. And I do think that quantitative evidence, especially in the absence of a star subject, are pretty much of a waste of time."
Now for a reply from the Physics Professor:
"I believe that "Schrodinger's cat" is a misinterpretation on the part of Schrodinger of the meaning of the quantum wave function. His exact wording (translated) in the 1935 essay is the following:
"One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following diabolical device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of one hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The first atomic decay would have poisoned it. The Psi function for the entire system would express this by having in it the living cat and the dead cat mixed or smeared out in equal parts.[1]"
It was not unreasonable for Schrodinger to state the problem in this way, for he was just exploring the meaning of the wave function that he created for his equation,
but we now know that one must use a "density matrix" for such a situation rather than a psi function, and that outcome then does not imply anything about the effect due to a measurement. Bottom line: conscious intent changing a wave function is a myth. The evidence is very strong, however, that quantum phenomena are truly probabilistic and physical measurements do, indeed, affect the probability.
In terms of quantum phenomena, I must also emphasize that deBroglie waves constitute a rather inaccurate view of the wave-like nature of particles on a quantum scale. The truth is, you can construct deBroglie waves in the sense that you can set up any kind of mathematical parameters and then "quantize" them to arrive at the correct quantum mechanical properties. This is done in the quantization of fields, and all kinds of mathematical parameters that can be mathematical combinations of physical parameters (such as the center of a composite particle of an atom or molecule, treated the combination of electrons, protons, and neutrons as a single quantum particle), or as a parameter that is completely outside of locational parameters, such as isotopic spin and hypercharge.
Going on to the experimentally well-verified "quantum entanglement", here is my mental model of the phenomenon of two previously interacting, but now separated by a huge distance, quantum systems continuing to act instantaneously at that huge distance. It may or may not constitute a theory of the mechanism. Physicists now believe that there are many dimensions outside the three spacelike and one timelike dimensions we are aware of in our everyday lives. I think of signals of the continued interaction between the two systems to simply be accomplished through another dimension where the separational distance is still small. That is, because that other dimension is outside of our awareness, we just think the separation is huge.
At to paranormal mechanisms being localized, it is hard to judge, but let me say that I participated in experiments with the famous thought photographer Ted Serios in the 1970s. Though there have been articles published stating he was a fraud, they did not even come close to a debunking in the sense that the method of his deception was ever discovered. We took all the precautions given to us by many famous scientists of the day, and I am convinced he did, in fact, have a paranormal ability. Does that say anything about the localization of paranormal effects? I don't know, but at least I think my presumed acceptance of his ability might lend some credence to the side of localization."
The above dialogue is very deep and profound, hopefully it will be of interest to some
Edited by Robot, 20 April 2010 - 07:10 AM.
4
Old Guy, on Apr 12 2010, 10:40 AM, said:
