String Theory, Universal Mind, and the Paranormal (Physics has hit rock bottom)

www.arxiv.org ^ | Dec 2, 2003 | Brian D Josephson

[mikegi]

ABSTRACT

A model consistent with string theory is proposed for so-called paranormal phenomena such as extra-sensory perception (ESP). Our mathematical skills are assumed to derive from a special ‘mental vacuum state’, whose origin is explained on the basis of anthropic and biological arguments, taking into the need for the informational processes associated with such a state to be of a life-supporting character. ESP is then explained in terms of shared ‘thought bubbles’ generated by the participants out of the mental vacuum state. The paper concludes with a critique of arguments sometimes made claiming to ‘rule out’ the possible existence of paranormal phenomena.

Keywords: ESP, string theory, anthropic principle, thought bubble, universal mind, mental state

* To appear in the Proceedings of the 2nd. European Samueli Symposium, Freiburg, October 2003

[ovrtaxt]

Now that I think about it, I wonder if Howard Dean is gonna accuse us of being tipped off about 9-11?

[R. Scott]

Deja vu is pretty well documented even if little understood.

[PatrickHenry]

Now that I've read the article, I think the only way to preserve my sanity is to abandon thread!

[RightWingAtheist]

Physics hasn't hit rock bottom; Josephson has. He's sort of the Michael Cimono of physics; he makes a repuatation for himself with genuinely impressive achievment, but then torpedoes it with a self-indulgent fantasy which everyone but him recognizes as boondoggle, and has spent the rest of his career living it down.

[RightWingAtheist]

I don't have time to debunk all the nonsense going on here myself (C'mon guys, I expect this from the DUmmies, but not from the FReople!), but here's an appropriate cartton to cheer you up. You might want to save it, and use it whenever something pseudoscientific like this comes up:

[LibWhacker]

You're psychic!!! :-)

[gcruse]

I've had first hand experience with predicting dice throws.
It doesn't occur on demand, but when it comes up it has been perfectly accurate on several occasions. If only I had been in Reno at the time...

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I think he also said guns aren't useful for self-defense.

[jimt]

I don't have time to debunk all the nonsense going on here myself...

All the recounting of deja vu here is not nonsense - it's reality. I happened to me once as a teenager, and I've never forgotten it.

[servantoftheservant]

I don't have time to debunk all the nonsense going on here myself

What nonsense? Do you have some pre-defined idea of the experiences 'FReople' should and shouldn't have? You can't control people's experiences. If people are having these experiences and you can't accomodate them, then there is a hole in your world view. Or you can just shut your eyes and plug your ears and pretend that you know everything.

[RightWingAtheist]

Oh, deja vu is real, all right, but it is completely explainable as both a)a mental process and b)coincidence. There's nothing magical or paranormal about it. It's happened to me too, and it's happened to everyone else-but it's part of the process of recognition that's essential to the way our brains help guide us through our everyday lives.

[RightWingAtheist]

As my previous post will tell you, I am able to accomodate other people's experiences completely into a rational framework. However, the same rational framework-the very same worldview which led me towards conservatism-also tells me to question both my own and other people's experiences, and how they correspond with outside reality. It's odd that you seem to advocate "argument from experience," which is typically a leftist strategy, rather than argument from principle or evidence, which are the basis for rational thought.

[servantoftheservant]

It's odd that you seem to advocate "argument from experience," which is typically a leftist strategy, rather than argument from principle or evidence, which are the basis for rational thought.

Look, man. I just related an experience I had. I didn't ask for the experience, and can't explain it. That doesn't mean I'm a leftist, ya dingbat.

...'and how they correspond with outside reality.'

What the heck is 'outside reality'? Some general statement of 'the way things are' according to concensus thought? You sure have a lot of faith in that. You prefer to disbelieve my and others' similar experiences. It doesn't mean they didn't happen. It just means that you can't accomodate the possibility that your mental construct of 'the way things are' is not complete.

[Phaedrus]

I have series dreams, as in "I'm series" ... ;-} (sorry, couldn't resist)

[B-Chan]

I, too, have dreams that later come true. That's what deja vu is — when one "remembers" something that one saw beforehand in a dream even as the same events occur in reality. It's an eerie feeling.

I'm not necessarily a believer in ESP per se, but I am a Christian and I do believe in the immortal spirit of man. Anything that is truly immortal (anentropic, eternal, as opposed to merely durable or longlived) must necesarily exist outside the boundaries of the entropic universe — beyond the reach of entropy's arrow. Such an entity would not experience duration as we do; rather, they would exist "above" the whole tapestry of Time, with the abilty to see some part of that tapestry depending upon their "height" above it. Using this analogy, the Almighty would exist at an infinite distance "above" the tapestry of Time, with its entire length therefore in His view; other beings extant in Eternity would be "closer" to the tapestry, privileged with a view only of some part of it within their smaller "horizons". Since our eternal spirits are intimately connected to our physical bodies, our "altitude" above the tapestry of time is generallly zero — except, perhaps, when we are asleep. Perhaps it is during these times, when our minds are "dead to the world", that we gain just enough altitude to bring the events of a few months or years hence into our spiritual "view" — a premonotion that we forget until the same scene appears again, this time as it happens all around us.

I'm neither a theologian nor a physicist, so I may be dead wrong about all of this. But I know from direct personal exerience that dreams sometimes do come true — literally.

[B-Chan]

The idea of argument from evidence is flawed. It is impossible to demonstrate objectively that anything we see, hear, taste, touch, or smell has any relationship to the universe outside us. Why? Because seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling are subjective experiences— they occur entirely within the mind of the person perceiving them. A dreamer, for example, experiences sights, sounds, and other sensations while dreaming, and accepts them as being real at the time they are experienced. He cannot demonstrate the unreality of the "universe" he pereceives in his dream; how then can we therefore demonstrate that we are in fact not dreaming right now?

We cannot. Because we depend upon our subjective sensory perceptions for data on the world outside of ourselves, we have no objective way of demonstrating that anything exists except our own selves. A man in a sensory deprivation tank cannot feel, hear, taste, touch, smell or see anything; how, then, can he know that anything exists? He cannot — with one exception: he can know that he himself exists. He can "hear" himself think; "see" with his mind's eye, "feel" himself becoming disoriented or afraid — all without any recourse to the senses. Thus, as Descartes proved, the true skeptic can always be certain of one thing: his own existence. As long as a man can "hear himself think", he undoubtedly exists. Cogito, ergo sum.

And thus collapses the objectivist house of cards.The senses can be fooled; therefore, any being relying on the "evidence" of his senses as "proof" of a given assertion is basing his entire wordview on his blind faith that what his eyes and ears tell him is true. In othe words: in the end, we can prove nothing. We must assume on faith that the world outside our skulls is really there.

And, since all systems of thought are faith-based anyway, why not just believe in God?

[Nateman]

I find it amusing that you dismiss what I claim so easily. Amusing because I'm a very hard core believer in a world that is utterly objective , a world where contradictions cannot exist. However having experienced what I have first hand I don't have the luxury of being able to dismiss it away so cavalierly.

  There is a lot of bunk out there and allot of people who will believe it because they want to believe it. In my particular case I don't want to believe it because it shakes up a world view that is otherwise quite consistent and logical, but it did happen and I'm at a loss to convincingly explain it.