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From: lian g. sidorov
Date: 3/19/2001
Time: 1:33:40 PM
Remote Name: 207.144.212.128
(Note: for those unfamiliar with it, please see "Experimental Model for Collapse of the Quantum Wavefunction" in our Cog. Sci. Archive section, as well as his November 7, 2000 post on Quantum-Mind: "Experimental evidence for Stapp Model". The articles mentioned below are all indexed on our site, either under Archives or under Research Leads. Please use the Search function to locate them quicker.)
Mark Germine's 1998 "Experimental Model for Collapse of the Quantum Wavefunction" may well become a turning point in the history of science, not to mention mankind as a species. That is because his paper represents the first bold attempt at scientific proof for one of man's most esoteric and eschatological ideas: the belief that consciousness is One, distributed across the entire globe, with each individual brain merely a node in this all-pervading matrix. To quote from his Nov. 7, 2000 post on Quantum-Mind, "We perceive our knowledge as private. It is not. What is known is known to the One Mind. It is universal. This One Mind is the core of each of our seemingly-separate minds."
But is this just wishful thinking, another beautiful idea in a showcase of scientific haute-couture, or do we have evidence that such a theory might fill in gaps irreducible by conventional wisdom? Examples that immediately come to mind include:
1. archetypal imagery in children not culturally exposed to it (Jung) 2. foreign/ancient language recollection in children (Jung) 3. Ian Stevenson's extensive study of reincarnation cases (verified knowledge of distant locations/events by children who claimed to have lived as different personalities) 4. Stanislav Grof's accounts of atavistic/animal memory (experience) 5. Sheldrake's morphic resonance 6. Michael Talbot's accounts of severe hydrocephalus cases where individuals led successful careers and maintained average and above-average IQ's in spite of their cerebral cortex being reduced to only a few percent of the normal size by their condition (see his book "Beyond the Quantum") 7. results of the Global Consciousness Project (GCP) 8. last, but not least, the results of Mark Germine's elegant experiment(see above article)
Most models in today's physics and cognitive science forums admit to the possibility (if not likelihood) of some degree of "anomalous" communication existing between our "separate minds". However, even these fail to account for a host of observed ( yet logic-defying) phenomena, such as remote viewing, precognition, and retropsychokinesis. A tremendous lot of mathematical slight-of-hand is going on in our high priest's e-mail rituals, but little comes out in terms of experimental substance. On the other hand, so much has been said about the holographic nature of the mind that one begins to wonder: isn't it time we applied some of our technical knowledge of holography to the design of new experiments meant to incorporate this mind-to mind communication? And maybe, in the process, we will discover that mental reality is indeed One.
In the meantime, here are some possible questions/directions for future research within the framework of Germine's theory:
1. If we view global consciousness as One Mind and individual brains as functional modules within this Mind, can intentionality (i.e. activity) of one module behave as the reference beam in the holographic model of recall?
For example, let's look at "psychic sleuth" scenario, where information is sought by the police regarding the whereabouts of a missing person of which the psychic (reader) knows only a few details - say age, a strong affinity for some obscure Spanish poet and the way he was dressed on the day of his disappearance. Why are these details important? Why are they so often requested by those asked to perform distant healing or psychic searches? In the context of a One Mind holographic model, these details would function much like our associative recall stimulus - activating an entire basin of attraction and gradually highlighting areas of "recorded information" (Germine's collapsed wavefunction, or "text already written" by the actions/thoughts of the missing subject): these bits of information would then be "read" by the psychic as sudden flashes of intuition - images and information that appear seemingly "out of nowhere" (lacking logical association from the point of view of the "reader", but not that of the subject who was responsible for imprinting this information on the One Mind template). This is indeed how psychic viewing feels (see R. Targ's "Psi, Sight and Awareness" - Arch180): sudden impressions that appear and persist in spite of a lack of logical connection with what has been previously going on within our stream of consciousness. To extend the speculation one step further, one could also place our great intuitive leaps of "creative thought" in the same category - arguing that we don't create, but discover the mathematical intelligence inherent in nature.
2. What is the substrate of Global Consciousness? How do the modules (brains) communicate among themselves? Is there a very low frequency EM network surrounding the Earth, with each brain a local amplifyer/Fourier transducer capable of accessing any background information, but decoding primarily those interference patterns (codes) that are most relevant (recognizable) to it? [See Arch281: "Comparison Between Karl Pribram's Holographic Brain Theory and More Conventional Models of Neuronal Computation", by Jeff Prideaux; and Arch223: "Dissipation and Memory Capacity in the Quantum Brain Model", by G. Vitiello and J. Sarfatti]. (Thus "selves" become the equivalent of memory attractor basins, each sensitive to a limited number of stimuli, but in principle capable of receiving input from other "areas of the brain". The GCP's observation that peaks of deviation were most noticeable in areas of high population density may also be due to this reduced local module resonance in sparsely populated areas.)
How would we measure the One Mind EEG? Does the Schumann resonance (or something equivalent in the Earth's environment) function as a natural reservoir of energy, serving to maintain a baseline level of activity (background resonance between modules, responsible perhaps for spontaneous psi phenomena)? Is something akin to Germine's wavefunction collapse responsible for Sheldrake's morphic resonance?
3. Finally, it might be useful to try incorporating the "collapse" idea into a variation of the GCP protocol, by looking at significant events that are culturally of even significance to all nations, and ideally which happen in neutral locations (international waters, outer space, Antarctica, etc). Assuming that most people get their international headline news between 6-9AM, and selecting for EGGs located in areas of similar population density/cultural and economic IQ , we could then compare the 6-9AM EGG peak amplitude as the news travels around the globe. Are the peaks even? Is there a slight decrease in amplitude? If the latter is the case over a number of these events, could we begin to consider the possibility of something akin to Global Mind habituation being the result of Germine's wavefunction collapse? If, on the other hand, we see increasing amplitudes, we could begin looking at models of signal amplification/entrainment of modules in the brain and volatile network attractors (see Arch282: "Bipolar Spectral Associative Memories", by R. Spencer) - all roughly equivalent to a transient (functional) resonant global attractor such as would dominate our state of mind for several days in the event of a major personal tragedy or success.
Of course, the technical difficulties associated with eliminating extraneous variables from any protocols designed to test consciousness at a global scale are rather daunting. The challenge ahead will probably have much to do with finding simple, 1-bit (rather than complex task) experimental variables that can be made available to large masses of people at the same time. (Obviously, there's little chance this type of information will ever make it on CNN - but then again, perhaps with enough will power... ;-)