A PROPOSAL TO CORRELATE REMOTE VIEWING WITH POSSIBLE ORGANIZING EFFECTS ON A QUANTUM BASED RANDOM EVENT GENERATOR


Melvin L Morse MD, FAAP
Paul H. Smith, MS, ABD
John P. Stahler


Contact Person: 
John P. Stahler
P.O. Box 381
East Windsor Hill, CT 06028
(866) 374-4782
email: jstahler@irva.org

In conjunction with the 
International Remote Viewing Association


THE STUDY: Recent experiments have shown that events involving concentrated human consciousness may correlate synchronously with statistically-significant deviations from randomness in the data streams of random event generators (REG). These correlations seem consistent with a possible organizing effect which focused consciousness may exert on random processes that are intentionally associated. We propose to study whether similar excursions from randomness in the data stream of operating REGs will correlate with remote viewing sessions conducted concurrently. A set of five to eight experienced remote viewers (hereafter referred to as ‘viewers’) will each be tasked to describe remote viewing targets randomly selected from a larger target pool. The viewers will employ the Controlled Remote Viewing (CRV) method (see ‘Definitions’). Viewers will access the intended remote viewing targets under double-blind conditions. We will assign each viewer and session to a synchronous REG episode to document any possible organizing effects of the remote viewing sessions on the random REG output.

We are employing controlled remote viewing in this study for three reasons: 1) The ordered sequence of events (‘stages’) in the CRV process particularly lends itself to correlation with mile-post events in REG data streams. 2) The accessibility of a pool of research subjects whose general performance level is already known. 3) The relatively uniform level of training and experience of this particular subject pool helps avoid the possible confounding variable of too much heterogeneity within the pool.

Members of a separate control group of beginning drawing students taken from a community college art class will perform activities requiring behaviors and cognitive effort approximately equivalent in complexity and difficulty to the tasks being performed by the viewers. The art students will be asked to sketch or draw familiar household objects or other subjects of similar complexity. They will also be encouraged to verbally describe what they are sketching and discuss their internal processes of deconstructing the object into its basic visual elements and reconstructing it on paper. As in the case of the remote viewing subjects, an intentionally-linked REG session will be conducted during each control subject’s performance. In both groups, the REG results will be chronologically indexed to the corresponding stages of the remote viewing or drawing experience respectively. As much as possible the verbal and physical mannerisms of the subject, the breaks and stages of the CRV protocol, and the informal breaks, casual conversation, and off task behavior of the art students will also be noted.

PRELIMINARY STUDIES: There is a growing body of published literature on REG effects observed during mass-consciousness events. However, we know of no published or informal studies attempting to correlate remote viewing with REG output. The basis of our proposed study is twofold: 1) There are theoretically-speculative reasons to suspect that the stages of CRV which involve "capturing the signal line" (see below) would have an organizing effect on the output of the REG, based on the considerable research of the Princeton Engineering Anomalous Research (PEAR) Lab and the Global Consciousness Project (Nelson and Radin, 1989; Nelson, et al, 1996; Nelson, et al, 1998). 2) In a single but striking preliminary study of one CRV session, there were apparent significant deviations from randomness, consistent with an organizing effect, in a concurrently-running REG’s output during the Stage 2 portion of the session (see below), and smaller, yet still significant effects during the Stage 3 portion, including the final and accurate impressionistic drawing of the target. (A further informal replication of this preliminary experiment by experimenters in the United Kingdom produced a similar result.)

DEFINITIONS:
1. Remote Viewing: Remote viewing might be typified as a disciplined form of clairvoyance (this is overly simplistic, but suffices for this brief proposal). One accepted definition of it is: "The acquisition and description by mental means, of information blocked from ordinary perception by distance, shielding or time" (Defense Intelligence Agency, 1986). It has been argued that this definition is somewhat deficient, in that a full definition should also include reference to provisions or a mechanism to either avoid or ameliorate mental noise (see paragraph 2 below). To count as remote viewing, certain protocols must be in place. For example, (especially in research settings) the process must be executed under double-blind conditions, include provisions to avoid sensory leakage to the viewer from witting parties or other sources of contamination, employ a non-informative cuing method, and provide for feedback for the participant once the session is complete and all risk of biasing the experiment is past. When evaluative judging is employed, it should be conducted in a blinded, randomized manner, with any cues associated with or embedded in the transcripts that might bias the judging results removed.

2. Controlled Remote Viewing: Controlled Remote Viewing is a formally-structured remote viewing method originally developed under contract to the US Army by Harold E. Puthoff, Ph.D. and Ingo Swann at SRI-International (formerly Stanford Research Institute). In the CRV process sensory-like and other impressions are perceived by non-ordinary means and expressed verbally, in writing, and/or via sketching on paper. These perceptions are derived from subconscious impressions deposited by a hypothesized ‘signal-line’ (a term of art in CRV for the presumed stream of information about the intended target which becomes available in the course of a session). Perceived impressions are collated over the course of six incremental and increasingly information-rich "stages." Our experiment relies only on the first three of these stages:

  • Stage 1 presents a brief gestaltic notion of the nature of the intended target (e.g., the target is human-made structure, water, land, etc., or is a combination of these elements).
  • Stage 2 produces sense-related impressions of smells, tastes, textures, colors, qualities of light, and so on.
  • Stage 3 incorporates the preceding elements plus comprehension of dimensional elements of the target. Central to Stage 3 is representational sketching of the target or of aspects and sub-elements of the target.

A core feature of the CRV methodology is identifying and separating which mental events represent veridical sensory and other impressions in the viewer, and which merely constitute mental "noise" -- mental elements which represent analytical "conclusion jumping" or other similar distracting processes in the viewer. Such interpretation/distortion is characterized in CRV by the technical term "analytical overlay," or AOL. The process of collecting and reporting correct target-related information by the viewer is termed a CRV ‘session,’ and produces a paper transcript of the various stages recording veridical data and noting episodes of internally-generated mental events ("noise"). Ultimately, the viewer produces sketch(es) and a collection of verbal reports which can subsequently be compared with a photograph and other feedback material of the actual target.

3. Random Event Generator (REG): A REG is a portable, self-contained device that produces a stream of digital, micro-scale random events. As opposed to a pseudorandom number generator, such as is found on a personal computer (and which is essentially deterministic), the Psyleron is a true-random event generator. It utilizes quantum noise generated in the junction of a solid state device to produce a fully non-determinate stream of data. The statistical output of the REG is monitored and recorded by a notebook or desktop computer connected via a USB cable to the REG. The data stream can be displayed on the computer screen, and a paper hard-copy of the resulting graphic data can be printed out. We will use the Psyleron Random Event Generator which is based on technology developed at the PEAR Lab.

4. Control Group: Our control group will be taken from local community-college students in a beginning drawing class who are generally naive to the subject of remote viewing and scientific parapsychology. They are all adults over the age of 50. One can describe their beginning drawing instruction as involving training in perception and the task of taking complex objects and landscape scenes, conceptually breaking them down into fundamental lines, colors, shapes, and dimensional elements, and then reconstructing the object/scene as a finished sketch or line drawing. Thus, their task is similar in behavioral and cognitive demands to what the controlled remote viewers are being asked to perform, though lacking the extra-sensory perceptual component. Like remote reviewers, they are learning to "draw what they perceive" rather than what they imagine or what the analytical processes resident in the left brain-hemisphere presumes to see (this has been referred to as "inferred elements not visually present"). Hence, the control group is similar to the remote viewing group in many aspects, but is distinguished from them in that control group members are expected to describe and draw actual objects in front of them, whereas members of the remote viewing group are directed to describe and draw a remote target not visually present.

HYPOTHESIS: Our primary hypothesis is that if random systems are influenced by consciousness, then the focused consciousness integral to a successful remote viewing session will correlate with departures from randomness in an intentionally-linked portable random event generator.

IMPLICATIONS:
 If our hypothesis is borne out, it will have implications of much broader scope. There is extensive empirical evidence for both remote viewing and REG-effect phenomena, but no accepted model or explanation within the presently-accepted scientific explanatory framework for either remote viewing or distance mental effects on REG randomness. We speculate that the human brain may interact with non-local processes at the quantum level in an as yet unidentified way. Remote viewing, and CRV methodology in particular, makes use of known aspects of human perceptual, linguistic, and cognitive processing and yet clearly manifests non-local components. We further speculate, then, that the extra-sensory elements of CRV may bridge the gap between underlying non-local characteristics of the universe and the brain’s standard neurobiological pathways, thus producing reasonably accurate target impressions that are primarily perceptual and to a lesser degree linguistic and cognitive in nature.
This study is designed to develop a deeper understanding of which (if any) mental processes may associate with a significant organizing effect on a REG data stream. If such effects are found to correlate with appropriate stages of remote viewing sessions, that may provide support for the notion that human consciousness can interact with quantum level events.

SUMMARY STATEMENT:
 This study is a hypothesis-generating and protocol-developing project. As such, it is an opportunity to conjoin the scientifically-derived methodology of remote viewing with considerable literature on human consciousness and the REG, providing a better understanding of the dynamics - and perhaps boundary conditions -- of both phenomena. The study design will produce publishable results of interest to the scientific community no matter what the outcome. If, for example, we learn contrary to our preliminary experiment that our control groups influence the REG just as robustly as the CRV group, or that neither group affects the data stream of the REG, we have results which will provide a basis for further studies, and which we anticipate will prove of great interest to the scientific community. If, however, our hypothesis is borne out and a correlated effect is observed in the REG data streams associated with remote viewing sessions that is not present for the control group sessions, that will provide a number of points of departure for further experimentation to explore possible permutations of the effect. The authors are currently in the process of creating a detailed outline of the experimental design, which will be made available.

Melvin L Morse MD, FAAP
Paul H. Smith, MS, ABD
John P. Stahler

REFERENCES

Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). (1986). Controlled Remote Viewing. Defense Intelligence Analysis Center, Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, DC. 1 May 1986. p. 1.

Nelson, R.D., R.G. Jahn, B.J. Dunne, Y.H. Dobyns, and G.J.Bradish. (1998) "Field REG II: Consciousness Field Effects: Replications and Explorations." Journal of Scientific Exploration. vol. 12, no. 3. pp. 425-454.

Nelson, R.D., G.J.Bradish, Y.H. Dobyns, B.J. Dunne, and R.G. Jahn. (1996) "FieldREG Anomalies in Group Situations." Journal of Scientific Exploration. vol. 10, no. 1. pp. 111-141.

Radin, Deam I. and Roger D. Nelson. (1989) "Evidence for Consciousness-Related Anomalies in Random Physical Systems." Foundations of Physics. vol. 19, no. 12. pp. 1499-1514.

(Note: The entire issue of Journal of Science and Healing (May/June 2007) vol 3 no 3 is devoted to work Jahn and Dunne, and Global Consciousness Project, noosphere.princeton.edu )