Mind May Affect Machines

[Zorbuddha]

Mind May Affect Machines


By Kim Zetter

02:00 AM Jul. 19, 2005 PT

For 26 years, strange conversations have been taking place in a basement lab at Princeton University.

No one can hear them, but they can see their apparent effect: balls that go in certain directions on command, water fountains that seem to rise higher with a wish and drums that quicken their beat.

Yet no one hears the conversations because they occur between the minds of experimenters and the machines they will to action.

Researchers at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research program, or Pear, have been attempting to measure the effect of human consciousness on machines since 1979.

Using random event generators -- computers that spew random output -- they have participants focus their intent on controlling the machines' output. Out of several million trials, they've detected small but "statistically significant" signs that minds may be able to interact with machines. However, researchers are careful not to claim that minds cause an effect or that they know the nature of the communication.

The lab is led by Princeton professor emeritus Robert Jahn, a physicist and former dean of the university's engineering school. Jahn became interested in the mind-machine connection in 1977 when an undergraduate student proposed designing a random event generator, or REG, for her thesis. Jahn was intrigued by the idea of using the device to measure the effect of minds on machines, so in 1979 he launched the lab.


http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0%2C1282%2C68216%2C00.html

[tridim]

1. "Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research program"

Damn, I want to work there! I'll even be a TA.

"they've detected small but "statistically significant" signs that minds may be able to interact with machines"

Wouldn't it follow that machines may be able to interact with minds?

[Zorbuddha]

3. I need a tune-up

and a lube-job.

[tridim]

10. Don't we all.

:woohoo:

[Speck Tater]

2. This is old news, of course, BUT...

I guess it needs to be taken out and trumpeted over and over again to get the attention of those ulta-skeptical curmudgeons whose almost religious dogma is "mind cannot affect matter, my Physics 101 professor told me so."

What is truly disgusting is to see outright lies, distortions and fabrications in a magazine calling itself "Skeptical Inquirer" that bend to truth purely for the purpose of promoting their dogma of ultra-materialism. They're worse than Republicans when it comes to closing their minds to the facts all around them. And they lie and distort just as readily to defend their dogma.

Oh well. Eventually they will come around to the truth. (And the truth shall set them free.) Denial, whether it be from Repubulicans or those equally blindly dogmatic skeptical materialists, has a way of coming back to bite them on the back side.

[evlbstrd]

5. Maybe that's why my car won't start sometimes.

It's mad at me.

[Speck Tater]

14. Liberals and serious PSI researchers have one things in common...

They are both very easy to ridicule with snide remarks about distorted "straw man" versions of their positions. But ridiculing them doesn't make them wrong.

EX: "Liberals all want to get a free hand-out from the government and don't want to have to ever do any real work. They want a welfare state where people are rewarded for being lazy."

EX: "PSI researchers all believe that little green men from Mars abduct people, and aliens built the pyramids and the lost continent of Atlantis used magic crystals to generated unlimited free energy, and think we should never make a move without consulting our astrologers."

Both false statem,ents, but both easily used by the Repulicans (skeptical materialists) to discredit the other side.

True life example: I know, from personal experience, that thought transference can and does work. I also believe that astrology is utter nonsense, crystal healing is the worst kind of garbage, and alien abductions is just as ridiculous and unbelievable as leprechauns and woodland elves. Does that make me a "nut case"? Does believing that corporations should not have the power to virtually enslave people make me a "commie traitor bastard"?

Sorry for the rant, but it really bothers me when people mindlessly chant politcal slogans without any intention of actually examining the issues. And it bothers me just as much when people mindlessly chant the scientism slogans they learned in freshman year of college without any intention of ever giving serious consideration to rational alternatives. The Freeptards "know" they are right, so they don't need to think about the issues. The skeptics also "know" they are right, so they, too, don't have to think about the issues. In fact, they are both blind fools.

[evlbstrd]

16. How is my joke a politcal or "scientism" slogan?

Relax, I'm just a smartass. But a skeptical one.

[Speck Tater]

25. My appologies.

Closed-minded (politciallym, or scientifically) people are a hot-button topic with me. I tend to way over-react. I, myself, used to be both an arch-skeptic and a Reagan-voting Republican. Having all the answers felt so comforting. But reality isn't that simple.

Personal experience of political injustices opened my eyes to my political narrow-mindness, and the personal experience of living in a genuine haunted house for two years opened my eyes to my scientific narrow-mindedness. (Dang, all those years of college and graduate school done brainwashed me into believing stuff that wasn't true.)

Personal example (after I "saw the light"): In a graduate-level software engineering class I designed a program to test PSI ability. I showed the results of several thousand runs to a couple math profs and they uniformly agreed that the results were statistically inconclusive.

Then I showed the exact same numerical results to a couple more math profs only I told them they results were from a hardware random number generator I had built and asked them if it was behaving properly. They uniformly agreed that my random number generator was faulty and showed decidely non-random behavior. The same data was judged to be statiscally significant, and conclusive beyond any reasonable doubt.

In other words, the same numerical result were interpreted as either "conclusive" or "inconclusive" depending on whether the hypothesis supposedly being tested violated, or did not violate the a priori worldview of the person examining the data. So much for objectivity. Sounds way more like politics that science to me.

[evlbstrd]

28. I really haven't looked into PSI ability.

But I sense a very sincere convert in you.
My mom converted to Catholicism when she married my dad. She became more Catholic than he was, and had us in parochial school and chatecism classes, until they had too many kids to pay for it.
World view is everything.
My ex believes the house we owned, and I still live in, is haunted. I have experienced none of the things she claimed. I only know that this house needs work.
I profess no answers to questions outside of my real experience. I can show you how to fix your plumbing, or lay tile. I can also tell you I'm no longer a practicing Catholic. Nor are my siblings.
When you did your small study on a priori world views, did you publish the results?

[The Doctor.]

34. LOL... one of my students did something like that...

But the premise was Cognitive Psychology...

How perfectly it all fits together, yes?


For the Record, I too am a Republican who has seen too many curiousities to dismiss... which is why I took up Human super conscious research.

And what remarkable things you will find when you realize just what kind of processor the wet squishy human brain is...


"It's all true... God's an astronaut, OZ is over the Rainbow, Midian is where the monsters live, and you came here to..."

[Zorbuddha]

23. It's truly remarkable how many believed as you do, about alien abductions,

until they were abducted. Now, many don't know what to believe.

I don't consider it a matter of belief, at all.

[Zorbuddha]

6. Yes, it's been going on since '79,

but it is evolving and developing, and every article contains a bit more. And I post this mostly for those that haven't seen this. That said, I agree with you whole-heartedly.

[Trillo]

9. Not ultra-skeptics, pseudo-skeptics.

I found a long time ago here on DU that they wouldn't stop lying when confronted with truth.

[Zorbuddha]

13. Cynics

is more accurate.

[Trillo]

32. Perhaps.

In CYNIC there's at least partly a reference to some 4th century greek philosophers where there's an implication of good or virtue. Perhaps the usage with cynic has become bifurcated.

[beam me up scottie]

17. You mean like how Deep Impact couldn't land on Temple I ?

And how that made it impossible for NASA to mine the comet?

Yeah, people just keep making stuff up...

[Trillo]

21. Wrong again....

wasn't you, at least not the alias I'm replying to. It was much further back in time, and back then I realized it was pointless to argue with people who had an agenda and who wouldn't argue truthfully.

Skeptics, so far as I can tell, are objective. Psuedo-skeptics aren't.

But I do remember a particular, ahem, lets call it an 'illness' you suggested I might, ahem, 'catch'.

[beam me up scottie]

26. I think the only experience I've had with you

other than the comet thread was something I saw you post about christianity a while back.
And on that subject, we were in agreement.

[Trillo]

27. Hey, it's no big deal.

Everyone's emotions get raised from time to time.

As I was using the term "psuedo-skeptic" I was not referring to any temporary emotional state.

[beam me up scottie]

31. I honestly don't remember saying you would catch

anything.

If I did and it offended, I apologize.

It's usually christians I end up apologizing to when I lose it after being told one too many times that I don't know the definition of "atheist".

[evlbstrd]

4. Does Bill Murray work there?

[Ready4Change]

7. I can will hesitating engines into starting.

I need to be a bit removed. Doesn't work with my own cars, or friends.

But, if sitting in a parking lot, for example, I hear a stranger trying to start a car without success, I can often will it into starting.

I noticed this early on. Thinking I was imagining it, or that, in general, hesitating cars would start after X number of tries, regardless, I started playing with it.

For example, I've held off willing until I hear the starter motor slowing down. The batteries getting drained, the engine isn't spinning well, the sparks getting weak. I'd will it and voom, running engine.

I'm still not 100% convinced. Sometimes it still doesn't work. Sometimes, waiting for the battery to run down the car starts on its own.

I haven't submitted this to tests as it seems likely to fail. Like if it's my own or a friends car. Call it performance anxiety if you like.

So I just do it once in a while, on a lark. If the engine starts I smile a little personal smile, happy that I might have given some stranger a little gift.

No charge.

[Zorbuddha]

11. You probably wouldn't do it under any pressure, if you are doing something

Remember the Twilight Zone with Buddy Ebsen?

[Ready4Change]

12. Hmm, nope?

Thought I'd seen all the TZs? Which one is this?

[Zorbuddha]

18. He works in a diner

A car crashes out front one night and a guy is pinned, he is being crushed and they can't lift the car off him so Buddy's character wills it to lift, and the guy is saved.

His co-worker realizes what has happened and Buddy confesses he has a gift, an ability to influence things with his mind. Buddy is a simple guy and doesn't want to exploit it, but his friend takes him to Vegas where they run the table.

The friend pushes it to the limit, and just as they are about to break the bank Buddy blows a fuse and they lose it all.

They return home and the episode ends with Buddy sweeping the diner in the middle of the night, he drops the broom, he looks at it with his special look and it rises back up into his hands. He just smiles and goes back to his sweeping.

Camera pulls back to Rod Serling's epilogue.

[Ready4Change]

19. Wow. Don't think I've seen that one.

Hot diggitty. I can still see "new" old Twilight Zones!

Love that show.

[Zorbuddha]

20. It's a classic episode.

One of the very best.

[Ready4Change]

22. So, did Ebsens character intentionally blow it?

Or was it the pressure? Or was it left vague?

[Zorbuddha]

24. That's the ultimate implication, as per the final scene

but his burn-out is convincingly portrayed. And the immediate emotion is of a great loss of something special and powerful and wonderful. A 'what might have been' moment. There is a crushing sort of let-down, until the ending - which is incredibly satisfying and reassuring. It restores your faith in humanity as the fable's lesson hits home.

[skids]

8. THAT EXPLAINS IT!

I always wondered why, when I finally get in the vincinity of the computer that is "acting up," the user says something to the effect of "Well, it was acting strangely a few seconds ago, but now it is back to normal."

[Ready4Change]

15. We used to have people labelled "magic crystals."

We had a pool of PC techs on a contract. Every so often one of us would notice the phenomena you just described. He/she would call the others and say "I'm todays magic crystal."

If someone ran into problems fixing a PC they'd call in the magic crystal. It was spooky when it worked. Most often it worked because the magic crystal would know how the fix the problem. But every once in a while they'd just walk in the door...

[Zorbuddha]

29. Those sort of 'unrepeatable' events are not scientifically verifiable

yet are very real.

Maybe the Princeton work will bridge the gap?

[Ready4Change]

30. Anecdotal.

Could very easily be just coincedence. But it kept us entertained, gave us another way to feel like we were "in control." And stories to tell at times like this. :)

[Zorbuddha]

33. Yes, I know. People can be fooled.

If not, we'd have no use for the scientific method. But some anomalous events are not misunderstood, yet are anecdotal and unverifiable. This is the spice of life, if you ask me. If we could pin everything down we are given hints and glimpses of, it would soon be a crushingly boring existence. IMHO

[arwalden]

35. Wow.

<< This is the spice of life, if you ask me. If we could pin everything down we are given hints and glimpses of, it would soon be a crushingly boring existence.>>

The mysterious and unexplained are the only things that makes life interesting and worth living?

Wow.

[Pepperbelly]

36. it's one of the things ...

I don't know where you live but I do know this ... there are places here where one can go where it is very easy to wonder about those things we don't know. A little wondering is good for you.

[arwalden]

37. What Are You Talking About?

[DemExpat]

38. Locking

The author of this thread has been banned.