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From: M. Sue Benford
Date: 5/11/2001
Time: 2:50:05 PM
Remote Name: 207.144.212.96
The Illusion of Nonlocality (Letter to editor). Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. March 2001, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 20, 22.
In "Distant Nonlocal Awareness: A Different Kind of DNA, Dr. Dossey makes a statement that may go inadvertently unrecognized for its significance to our understanding of what we commonly refer to as "nonlocal events." He writes, "Acquiring information nonlocally implies that human consciousness is more than the physical brain and body, and that the barriers separating us from others are not as fundamental as we imagine." This realization begs the question: do we need a new perspective on the issue of "nonlocality?" Let me elaborate by using the example of a single muscle cell located in your big toe. From the perspective of this individual cell, local events are those contained within the cell wall and, as some research would suggest, cellular awareness may extend into the adjoining "neighborhood." When your thought-process evokes the need to move the big toe, a "message" is transmitted via the nervous system to the cell attempting to induce the appropriate contraction response. If the cell is fully functional, and all receptors are operational, then the cell dutifully contracts and, along with its adjacent muscle cell peers, results in the desired movement of the toe. Since the electrical stimulation originated outside the cell wall and cell "neighborhood," the cell perceives the event as "nonlocal." Assuming this particular cell is rather contemplative, it might define this as "spooky action at a distance." The cell knows that it certainly did not generate the impetus to perform work so, who or what force caused this to happen? Clearly, having the perspective that we do it is easy to understand that the poor little cell is not seeing the whole picture -- not by a long shot. What it considers as "nonlocal" is only "perceived nonlocality." In actuality, from our heightened "top down" perspective, the action of moving our big toe is perfectly local in nature. If one extends this analogy to a human body and what are typically known as "nonlocal events," then, as Dr. Dossey insightfully noted, fundamental barriers separating us are also illusory. This may seem logical and understandable for the single muscle cell but what evidence supports this statement for human beings as complex entities? What if one human organism could, via the same thought-process that moved the big toe, discern another "separate" human being's internal organs without ever being in contact with that person? Would this be akin to the muscle cell recognizing a separate nerve cell as a part of its "neighborhood?" An article in the Journal of Theoretics (http://www.journaloftheoretics.com) entitled "Empirical Evidence Supporting Macro-Scale Quantum Holography in Non-Local Effects," presents compelling evidence validating that, in fact, we just may be interconnected in subtle ways via what appears to be a "quantum hologram." This concept was originally derived from research championed by physicist David Bohm, a protégé of Einstein's, and Karl Pribram, a highly-respected neurophysiologist from Stanford University. The work reported in the article is based on over 13,000 images created by British engineer George DelaWarr in the 1950s. The link to "nonlocal" perception is in the basic mechanism of operation of DelaWarr's remote imaging system, in that it is dependent upon the camera operator focusing a thought on a specific "test object," a small sample of blood, hair or sputum from the subject, in order to create the resultant image. As with the originating thought-process necessary to generate the cascade of events needed to move the big toe, without this initial thought-process, no image is produced. According to quantum hologram theorist, Edgar Mitchell, Sc.D., former Apollo Astronaut and founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, ". . . I have read most of the De La Warr book and . . . there is now no doubt in my mind that he was playing with quantum holography (QH), as all the characteristics described in his work, fit exactly the description we have of the QH characteristics (written communication, June 2000). At first glance remote imaging of a distant subject from a strand of hair or drop of blood may appear like "spooky action at a distance," but, if we permit ourselves to "think outside the cell wall" we recognize that it's possibly the discovery and documentation of the "nerve cell messenger," or interconnection, which links us to other parts of a greater whole. By insisting that these and other unexplained psi-phenomena are "nonlocal" events, are we falling prey to the same perceptual handicap that plagues our obviously underinformed single muscle cell? Perhaps, considering this new evidence and perspective, a more enlightened term for what is occurring would be "perceived nonlocality."
M. Sue Benford, Ph.D., R.N. Dublin, OH Larry Dossey, MD responds: "Do we need a new perspective on the issue of 'nonlocality'?" researcher M. Sue Benford asks. She uses the example of a muscle cell located in the big toe. The cell interprets a message that is transmitted via the nervous system as being local, when in fact it is merely an electrochemical event that can be explained locally and classically. In the same way, Benford further suggests that we often mistake local events for nonlocal ones-- the mistake of " perceived nonlocality."
I could not agree more. We often prefer the exotic to the mundane. Most of the seemingly anomalous, nonlocal experiences we encounter can probably be explained by good ol' ordinary, local means. How can we keep from deceiving ourselves and committing the mistakes Benford warns against?
In previous editorials in this journal, I have discussed the criteria for distinguishing local from nonlocal events.1,2 In brief, distant events are considered to be nonlocally connected if they display 3 characteristics: (1) if they are unmediated by any of the 4 forms of energy known in modern physics, (2) if they are unmitigated (if the strength of the connection does not dissipate with increasing spatial separation), and (3) if the correlated changes are immediate, which implies that there is no time-requiring energetic signal linking the distant events. If Benford's big toe muscle cell had used these criteria, it would not have been misled. Benford mentions the DelaWarr camera, in which a camera operator attempts mentally to interact with a tissue sample from a remote subject to create an alleged image on film of at least part of the distinct individual. This phenomenon implies a degree of connectedness between the camera operator, the distinct individual, the tissue sample, and the camera itself that is quite remarkable, to say the least. Benford finds a possible explanation for these events in quantum holography. I, and many others, look forward to this ongoing research with immense interest.
In support of this degree of connectedness, Benford quite correctly cites physicist David Bohm. For Bohm, an invisible, intrinsic connectedness uniting everything in the universe was merely " perceived, " but fundamentally real. In his words: " Ultimately, the entire universe ( with all its 'particles,' including those constituting human beings, their laboratories, observing instruments, etc.) has to be understood as a single undivided whole, in which analysis in separately and independently existent parts has no fundamental status."3 There are currently a great many hypotheses being advanced within science to account for how consciousness is involved in nonlocal events, which I've reviewed in the above- mentioned editorials.
In general, these hypotheses consider consciousness to be fundamental in the universe--an irreducible, omnipresent entity without spatial or temporal confinement. But regardless of which theory eventually floats to the top to explain these happenings, our task is to engage them because of the empirical data on which they rest. References
1. Dossey L. Healing and modern physics: exploring consciousness and the small-is-beautiful assumption [editorial]. 1999;5(4):12-17,102-108. 2. Dossey L. The forces of healing: reflections on energy, consciousness, and the beef Stroganoff principle [editorial]. 1997;3(5):8-14. 3 Bohm D. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London, England: Routledge and Kegan Paul: 1980:175.