I my post entitled Consciousness and the Brain I introduced the idea by David Bohm and Karl Pribram that consciousness was the result of a holographic interplay of matter and forces both inside and outside the body. At the end of that post I promised I would return to discuss fields of consciousness, or in other words: consciousness acting at a distance.
Although I'm not averse to presenting theories of consciousness that are not yet verified by scientific experimentation, I am going to begin with irrefutable objective evidence that a field of consciousness exists. I am referring to The Global Consciousness Project, directed by Princeton professor Roger Nelson. This consists of a scientific experiment that has been continuously running since 1997 which has demonstrated statistically that human thought can and does influence the environment.
Nelson had previously worked on experiments that attempted to test whether human intention could be used to influence the outcome of random chance: in this case, the stream of ones and zeroes coming out of a random number generator. He showed that it is possible to change the output of a generator in the direction of the observers' intention by carefully statistically analysing the the results of thousands of independent trials.
Following on from this, Nelson posited that perhaps there was such a thing as global consciousness. If so then, if a single incident simultaneously aroused the attention of a sufficient number of minds, it might create a conscious field effect that modifies the randomness of the generated number streams. There are now scores of random number generators distributed around the world that continuously feed their "random" data back to Princeton 24/7/365. This means that for significant world events that cannot be predicted in advance which attract global attention, scientists can go back to the data and check if it deviated from random during that event.
I'll let Dean Radin explain the results:
Dean Radin: the Global Consciousness Project (09:43)
In 2008 when the above video was posted on Youtube, there had been around 200 world events that had been analysed and shown that indeed, an effect had also been observed by the experiment.
I spoke earlier of (as yet) unverified scientific experiments on fields of consciousness. Described as an "unorthodox" scientist, Rupert Sheldrake proposes that a "morphic field" exists which connects the consciousness of all living things. His theory of morphic resonance seeks to offer an explanation of behaviours such as the beautiful formations of flocking birds and shoals of fish and mass migrations of animals. In humans, morphic fields could account for the sense of being stared-at and the phenomenon of pets knowing when their masters are due to arrive home.
Sheldrake was interviewed by CMN TV. Notice how, even before the interview begins, he is presented as something less than a serious scientst.
Rupert Sheldrake Interview - trailer (02:28)
You would have to join the CMN site to see the whole video but there's much more Sheldrake material on Youtube.
Shedrake is treated as an outsider and a maverick by the conservative scientific establishment and several of his key research papers have been refused for publication in prestigious scientific journals because, I believe, when they are peer-reviewed prior to publication, the reviewers refuse to accept that his findings could be correct - in spite of the evidence. This is because as he says in his best selling book "Seven Experiments That Could Change The World" - the dogmatic views of science would have to be completely revised if it could be shown that fields of consciousness exist.
Dean Radin has himself been the victim of this wholly unscientific prejudice and I too expect to be included in this list of "outsiders", if my work gets taken-up more widely. As I said when I posted on this blog A new Definition of Consciousness there are taboos in science. The dogmatic resistance of scientific prejudice has held-back an objective study of consciousness for decades - just as the dogma of the Catholic Church held back astronomy for centuries by its insistence that the Earth was the centre of the universe. In those days you could be executed for suggesting that the Bible might be wrong.
Radin talks of the subjects we are not allowed to talk about in the following video:
Taboos in Science (03:51)
I think that string theory provides a mechanism to create a scientific framework to explain what are now considered to be "supernatural" events - higher dimensions. I understand why Richard Feynman (et al) insisted that we "just shut up and calculate" when higher dimensions were first proposed. There are so many uncomfortable "real world" implications from this beautiful mathematical theory that he must have feared for his reputation if these ideas were to be voiced. Well it's too late now Richard - I'm afraid Schrödinger's cat is now well and truly out of the bag!
FURTHER READING
If the video on taboos in science irritates you as much as it does me then take a look at Radin's 95 minute Google lecture on Science and the taboo of psi.
From the perspective of THIS universe, I am "The REAL" Jeff Hall
Although I'm not averse to presenting theories of consciousness that are not yet verified by scientific experimentation, I am going to begin with irrefutable objective evidence that a field of consciousness exists. I am referring to The Global Consciousness Project, directed by Princeton professor Roger Nelson. This consists of a scientific experiment that has been continuously running since 1997 which has demonstrated statistically that human thought can and does influence the environment.
Nelson had previously worked on experiments that attempted to test whether human intention could be used to influence the outcome of random chance: in this case, the stream of ones and zeroes coming out of a random number generator. He showed that it is possible to change the output of a generator in the direction of the observers' intention by carefully statistically analysing the the results of thousands of independent trials.
Following on from this, Nelson posited that perhaps there was such a thing as global consciousness. If so then, if a single incident simultaneously aroused the attention of a sufficient number of minds, it might create a conscious field effect that modifies the randomness of the generated number streams. There are now scores of random number generators distributed around the world that continuously feed their "random" data back to Princeton 24/7/365. This means that for significant world events that cannot be predicted in advance which attract global attention, scientists can go back to the data and check if it deviated from random during that event.
I'll let Dean Radin explain the results:
Dean Radin: the Global Consciousness Project (09:43)
In 2008 when the above video was posted on Youtube, there had been around 200 world events that had been analysed and shown that indeed, an effect had also been observed by the experiment.
I spoke earlier of (as yet) unverified scientific experiments on fields of consciousness. Described as an "unorthodox" scientist, Rupert Sheldrake proposes that a "morphic field" exists which connects the consciousness of all living things. His theory of morphic resonance seeks to offer an explanation of behaviours such as the beautiful formations of flocking birds and shoals of fish and mass migrations of animals. In humans, morphic fields could account for the sense of being stared-at and the phenomenon of pets knowing when their masters are due to arrive home.
Sheldrake was interviewed by CMN TV. Notice how, even before the interview begins, he is presented as something less than a serious scientst.
Rupert Sheldrake Interview - trailer (02:28)
You would have to join the CMN site to see the whole video but there's much more Sheldrake material on Youtube.
Shedrake is treated as an outsider and a maverick by the conservative scientific establishment and several of his key research papers have been refused for publication in prestigious scientific journals because, I believe, when they are peer-reviewed prior to publication, the reviewers refuse to accept that his findings could be correct - in spite of the evidence. This is because as he says in his best selling book "Seven Experiments That Could Change The World" - the dogmatic views of science would have to be completely revised if it could be shown that fields of consciousness exist.
Dean Radin has himself been the victim of this wholly unscientific prejudice and I too expect to be included in this list of "outsiders", if my work gets taken-up more widely. As I said when I posted on this blog A new Definition of Consciousness there are taboos in science. The dogmatic resistance of scientific prejudice has held-back an objective study of consciousness for decades - just as the dogma of the Catholic Church held back astronomy for centuries by its insistence that the Earth was the centre of the universe. In those days you could be executed for suggesting that the Bible might be wrong.
Radin talks of the subjects we are not allowed to talk about in the following video:
Taboos in Science (03:51)
I think that string theory provides a mechanism to create a scientific framework to explain what are now considered to be "supernatural" events - higher dimensions. I understand why Richard Feynman (et al) insisted that we "just shut up and calculate" when higher dimensions were first proposed. There are so many uncomfortable "real world" implications from this beautiful mathematical theory that he must have feared for his reputation if these ideas were to be voiced. Well it's too late now Richard - I'm afraid Schrödinger's cat is now well and truly out of the bag!
FURTHER READING
If the video on taboos in science irritates you as much as it does me then take a look at Radin's 95 minute Google lecture on Science and the taboo of psi.
From the perspective of THIS universe, I am "The REAL" Jeff Hall
