Time is relative too

I am not sure how this relates, but it should be of interest as it describes what appears to be interactions between consciousness and material processes. I have summarized the info on the site and the site URL is included.

Enjoy!

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Global Correlations in Random Data

The purpose of this project is to examine subtle correlations that appear to reflect the presence and activity of consciousness in the world. The scientific work is careful, but it is at the margins of our understanding. We believe our view may be enriched by a creative and poetic perspective. Here we present various aspects of the project, including some insight into its scientific and philosophical implications.

We have been collecting data from a global network of random event generators since August, 1998. The network has grown to about 65 host sites around the world running custom software that reads the output of physical random number generators and records a 200-bit trial sum once every second, continuously over months and years. The data are transmitted over the internet to a server in Princeton, NJ, USA, where they are archived for later analysis. < noosphere.princeton.edu/> ;


Scientific Objectives

1. scientifically treated results

2. a study of apparent patterns that should not exist in truly random sequences

3. analysis providing details and context to support building good models

4. an unambiguous picture of data with minimal interpretation

5. the goal is to learn the sources of structure and understand mechanism


Results

Table 1: Overall Summary of Results, August 1998 to March 2005

Category Hypothesis : Rigorously Defined Events
Hypothesis: Positive Trend
Number of Events: 204
Stouffer Z: 4.520
Probability: 3.091x10-6

The bottom line is that the output distribution of data from the REG differs from what would be expected without the influence of consciousness. Two major questions should be kept in mind to help focus our speculations:

1) What is the physical meaning of the statistically unlikely patterns that appear in our random data?

2) What is the social meaning of the correlation of such patterns with events of importance to humans?


Theory and Speculations

We have little real understanding of the mechanisms that might underly the anomalous correlations found in the GCP data. Here we offer some speculations that might be useful in thinking about possible models, or in any case thought-provoking. We will be interested in comments and suggestions, which you may send to Roger Nelson at rdnelson@princeton.edu.

Many questions are asked about underlying mechanism, such as whether there is an optimal speed or frequency for data collection, or whether the number of bits which are momentarily in play will matter. The short answer is that these and similar questions harbor assumptions that aren't correct. It appears that the domain for most of the effective variables is not physics but psychology, not matter but mind. So counting the events or measuring the speed are not relevant unless the counts and measures are in the non-physical realms we usually leave to poets and musicians.

....

The GCP analyses are based on canonical statistics, and while some argue that this cannot provide "real" evidence, the implications of statistical measures can be profound. Though we don't know how an REGs behavior can be altered by thoughts and emotions or intentions, we know empirically the effects touch upon information theory and imply entropy reduction, and we think that resonance and coherence are good metaphoric descriptors for the necessary conditions. It also appears that the global consciousness effect is more than just casually related to nonlinear dynamical system models.

We find some useful points in models based on David Bohm's notion of active information (which I'll summarize below), and in Brian Josephson's recent article on String Theory, Universal Mind, and the Paranormal. One of the most coherent approaches to the evidence demanding extensions of physical models is Rupert Sheldrake's description of Morphic Fields. Abraham Boyarsky argues that any theory of mind is better than none, and uses the language of nonlinear dynamical systems and ergodic theory is to present a theoretical framework for the study of mind.

....

We do not know how a mental state such as an intention or emotion is able to inform the physical system to affect its behavior. In addition, all of the robust measures we have providing evidence for the anomalous effects are statistical in nature, and the signal to noise ratio is extremely low. This means that we typically cannot be sure that the "signature" of an effect in any individual analysis is driven by the hypothesized influence of consciousness. The details written in the data from single instances are more likely to be chance fluctuations than consciousness effects. Only in larger concatenations, gathering the weak signals from many separate events, can we be satisfied that trends and structure represent the hypothesized effect.

After all the caveats, however, we can say that the evidence for an effect of consciousness on REGs is strong. We are driven by that evidence to infer that something like a "consciousness field" exists, and that intentions or emotional states which structure the field are conveyed as information that is absorbed into the distribution of output values of labile physical systems.


Scientific Conclusions

While it is possible to draw some scientific conclusions from the analyses in hand at this time (early 2005) they must remain tentative.

We can say that the GCP/EGG project has produced a large, consistent database of random numbers in which subtle but significant structure occurs. Over the past two years, we have been engaged in a major analysis project that is producing substantial new results, as well as a rigorous re-analysis of previous findings.

We are planning a working meeting to discuss and dissect these results, in a focused effort to work toward models that can integrate and accommodate empirical facts that are anomalies from the perspective of standard (mainstream) scientific models. The GCP data, and the most recent analyses provide what we can call "meat" that is ready to be chewed and maybe digested into viable models. We will attempt to connect the anomalies with consciousness and intention. Maybe we will draw some conclusions.

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shando