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The studies and results of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) laboratory have been a major stimulus and source of inspiration in the development of the Inergetix-CoRe system for me.
That is why we post this letter here, and my correspondence with PEAR below.
Kiran Schmidt
-~Founder and Chief Scientist~-
The science of Inergetix-CoRe is based in part on an experiment lasting more than 20 years that began in the late 1970s and was carried out at Princeton University’s Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory.
TThe study found that different people have highly individual patterns of effect on a totally random and therefore unpredictable process. The uniqueness of the patterns led the researchers to call the patterns ‘signatures’. Using filters, it is possible to read in the computer’s white noise a representational signature of each person, each symptom picture, and each remedy. A greater similarity between compared patterns indicates a greater resonance between the client, the symptom, and the remedy information stored in the Inergetix-CoRe System’s database.
Brenda Dunne <bjd@princeton.edu> wrote:
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:34:34 -0500
From: Brenda Dunne <bjd@princeton.edu>
Subject: [(PEAR] Closing the PEAR Laboratory
To: PEARMAIL-US@Princeton.EDUDear PEAR Friend,
As you may already know, the PEAR laboratory program at Princeton University closed its experimental facilities at the end of February. Despite rumors to the contrary, this move was not imposed upon us but was our own carefully considered decision, based on a constellation of relevant factors. We felt that we had accomplished what we originally set out to do 28 years ago, namely to determine whether anomalous consciousness-related phenomena could be studied under rigorously controlled laboratory conditions and, if so, whether they were real and what were their salient characteristics. The enormous databases produced by PEAR have provided clear evidence that human thought and emotion can produce small but measurable influences on physical reality and have established numerous insights into their major correlates. They have also established the basis for several conceptual models that attempt to accommodate the empirical results within a scientific framework. While there are still many important questions to be addressed before we can hope for a full understanding of the nature, function, purpose, and utility of these phenomena, productive further study will require a coordinated interdisciplinary approach to the topic that has not been feasible under the prevailing intellectual and technological constraints of our university environment.
Given the substantial technological, financial, and human resources that would have been required to continue the existing program, we agreed that the most productive and efficient use of our own future efforts would be to provide guidance and encouragement to a new generation of scholars who can extend this study into fresh and more challenging domains of investigation. To this end, we have transferred several pieces of our experimental equipment to a respected colleague at another university, and have been engaged in an extensive archiving program of PEAR’s insights and databases. We shall continue to maintain and periodically update the PEAR website, which now includes more than 50 archival publications and reports that can be downloaded from the Publications page and which are indexed in the “Current Web Contents” of Thomson Scientific’s ISI Web of Knowledge. We shall also continue to maintain our mailing list and provide information about future publications and activities. Look for an anthology of PEAR publications pertinent to the burgeoning fields of complementary and alternative medicine that will be appearing in a special May issue of Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, edited by Dr. Larry Dossey.
Our future plans include oversight of the International Consciousness Research Laboratories , a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization established in 1996 to promote quality research, educational initiatives, and practical applications of consciousness-related anomalies. The members of ICRL represent some 20 countries and a broad range of professional backgrounds, and most of them have had associations with the PEAR program in the past. In addition to ICRL’s affiliation with Strip Mind Media, which created our educational DVD/CD set entitled The PEAR Proposition, we also serve as advisors to Psyleron, an emerging company in Bethlehem, PA that produces a new line of state-of-the-art technology for human/machine studies, and to EcoGnosis in Nashville, TN, which investigates the effects of sound, color, and geometry on the functioning of human consciousness. Among other current ICRL projects are several REG-based investigations, the study of acoustic resonance patterns and regional brain activity, preparation of a book of essays on the nature of consciousness “filters,” and development of a web-course addressing the role of consciousness in the physical world. All of ICRL’s funding derives from charitable contributions, so if you are interested in, and in a position to support any or all of these activities we would welcome your gift.
We shall also continue to serve as Officers of the Society for Scientific Exploration and encourage you to consider joining that organization if you are not already a member.
Although the era of the PEAR laboratory, per se, has been completed, we look forward to these next chapters of the PEAR saga with considerable enthusiasm. While we take great satisfaction in the intellectual accomplishments of our long-standing research program, we have derived even even greater pleasures from the extensive network of friends and colleagues that our work has attracted, and we thank you most warmly for your continued interest and support.
With kindest regards,
Bob Jahn and Brenda Dunne
Correspondence of Kiran Schmidt with a person at PEAR who does not want to be mentioned or have her replies publicly posted.
and quotes from publications:
(1) “Margins of Reality” by Robert G. Jahn and Brenda J. Dunne ISBN 0-15-657246-X
(2)”A Modular Model of Mind/Matter Manifestation (M5),” http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/pdfs/m5.pdf
(3)”Information and Uncertainty: 25 Years of Remote Perception Research,” <http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/>
Remark: Most of the effects considered as paranormal as well as those studied by the PEAR Laboratory are assigned by the CoRe-Model to the Information Space (or Level) also called Coincidence/Synchronicity Space which is considered complementary to Causality -Space.
All comments and summaries highlighted in pink are those of Kiran Schmidt
Questions:
(please see quotations from the actual research results by clicking on the hyperlinks)
Question: White noise source versus Pseudo Random Generator
Question: Which environment is most helpful to get a strong effect size?
Question: What is the role of Uncertainty in Information Space effects.
Question: What significance has spatial or temporal separation on the Informational Level?
What I consider the limiting factors in the PEAR protocols
Consequences:
1. First of all here we have a clear indication that Pseudo Random Sources can show effects which deviate from chance expectation. The effects are however not usually in the direction of intention of the test person or tester. This in fact is the effect which the CoRe-System uses to determine person specific significant pattern.
2. Research in this direction has to be based on individuals not on accumulated results of groups of people…. because really most possible human tendency cancel each other out if viewed by averaging large enough populations….. just as if you would ask “Which average color is the average person inclined to wear” ….. you would most likely get the result GRAY . The CoRe-System shows such an individualized blueprint of the momentary state of a person.
3. In the CoRe-Model (COincidenceREcognition) of Information Level Phenomena, effects are not the Results of “Doing” not even of Intention on the part of a person, but Coincidences, however not in the sense of Insignificant but of Synchronistic. This was shown in the fact that test persons could not effect a change in accordance with their conscious intention towards plus or minus in a significant way, but simply their presence leaves individualized marks on the statistical distribution of the results which clearly distinguish them from a pure chance distribution.
4. However and this again is in accordance with the CoRe-Model, results were Intension-independent but Person-specific. According to the CoRe-Model Information Level effects do not stand in a Cause-and-Effect Relationship to anything or somebody, they are synchronistic phenomena. This does not mean that they are random unpredictable phenomena, however they cannot be studied with traditional methodology, but they have to be investigated with different conceptional tools.
5. Equally understandable from the CoRe-Model is the fact that processes which are under less restraints….. idealistically not caused by anything…. usually called random processes are the best medium to study such effect. This means all those effects which are tried to be eliminated from traditional science because of their unpredictability are actually the research field of the “Science of Coincidence”.
6. Just the Presence of a test person leaves a personalized imprint on a random process, physically unconnected to the process even if they are not aware that such experiments are conducted with them (this is shown by the PEAR Field-REG experiments).
7. In the very strict PEAR study only the variance of one intention-independent parameter from chance expectancy was investigated (correlation between the high and low data) in detail, and showed person-specific significant variance. However the CoRe-System goes much further, in that it that it uses significant variances from chance of hundreds of possible patterns occurring in the the data-stream to create a user-and-time-specific profile.
Question: White noise source versus Pseudo Random Generator
The experimental data from the PEAR Laboratory today show that (see communications below):
1. If one looks at the accumulated data of all test persons, no such significant deviations from chance are observed.
2. If one looks at the results of individual people, also there ability to effect a deviation towards plus or minus are not significant, however…..
3. if one investigates if there is a persons-specific trend towards plus or minus INDEPENDENT of conscious intention then one is getting results which deviate significantly from pure chance results.
At 08:53 AM 6/19/2003 -0400, Kiran Schmidt you wrote:
> Dear Robert,
>
> with great interest I have been studying the findings of your PEAR
> program for quite some time now. What I found when comparing the
> results of your 1987 book and the latest findings you state that
> pseudo random devices don’t show this correlation whereas previously
> particularly on page 122 and 123 you point out a striking similarity
> and from table D, I can see these findings were based on many hundred
> thousand trials.
>
> Do you think these early results were flawed or do you have any other
> explanation.
> My idea is that actually over these many years and the accumulating
> number of trials a collective learning process has developed on an
> informational level which might have interfered and could not happen
> with the noise-random set-up.
>
> To support this hypothesis I wonder if you have in fact observed the
> effectiveness of the pseudo-random generator to decline over time and
> if you have most of the time used the same pseudo random generator
> of Borland program and the same shift register.
>
> My theory is connected with a model in which learning is actually
> counter productive for every effect produced and observed in what is
> generally called the field of Extra Sensory Perception…. I would
> like to tell you more about this if you are interested.
>
> with great appreciation
> and gratitude for your perseverance in
> a field which must have been lined with thorns
>
> Kiran Schmidt
At 12:51 PM 9/14/2003, you wrote:
>Dear ***
>
>it was so good to find your long and very honest reply after coming back from
>my vacation. As you might see from my website www.bioenergeticMedicine.org, I
>have studied your publications much in detail and drawn much inspiration from
>it.
>
>Are you aware that some companies are using your material quite heavily to
>advertise their radionic systems with quite questionable reasoning to justify the use of an
>identical white noise source (to your setup) for radionic testing.
>In 6/2003 issue of COMED a leading german alternative health magazine appeared
>an article example using several graphs from your book.
>
>I have a few ideas and suggestions how to find test person specific deviations
>and your chi-squared approach is one possible approach for a more qualitative
>and not only quantitative analysis of results.
>I am preparing a more lengthy reply on that issue, but please bare with me for
>a little while as I first have to deal with some of the materials which have
>accumulated during my vacation. You might also find a lot of information on my
>website www.bioenergeticMedicine.org
>
>best regards
>and thank you again for taking the time to reply
>Kiran Schmidt
Question: Do the effects studied become more pronounces as learning sets in or is the opposite effect the case as suggested by the CoRe-Model
Particularly Rupert Sheldrake has advocated that learning increases effect in the paranormal field just as well as in our common day experiences, however the CoRe-Model is predicting an inverse effect. Particularly results from the PEAR Remote Viewing project indicate that increased training and precision, possibly both on the part of the participants as well as the experiment protocol leads actually to a decrease of effect size, this is a supporting fact for CoRe-Model which holds that uncertainty is a major distinguishing characteristic of the Informational (Coincidence) Space compared to the Causality space.
From (3) page 207 : “However, over the course of the program there has been a striking diminution of the anomalous yield that appears to be associated with the participants’ growing attention to, and dependence upon, the progressively more detailed descriptor formats and with the corresponding reduction in the content of the accompanying free-response transcripts.”
Question: Are the observed effects a result of conscious (Intent) or unconscious Mind activity or something else as suggested by the CoRe-Model
Particularly clearly show the so called Field-REG experiments in which the participants were not even aware of experiment or the presence of the Random Event Generator REG that Intent has at best an additional effect but is not essential for the results. Intent is clearly a concept derived from the Causality view point and here again the CoRe-Model gets support in that no cause has to be present, in whatever subtle form, to manifest the observed phenomena.
From (2) page 299: “In contrast to prevalent presumption, re-examination of several large databases from this laboratory raises doubt that such effects are produced by direct attention of the conscious mind”
From (2) page 303: “In contrast, other designs in which feedback was rudimentary or totally absent, or where the tasks seemed much more difficult or illogical for the operator to accomplish, have yielded surprisingly strong results.
From (2) page 306: ” It does not seem clear that there is little positive correspondence of operator performance with the degree of conscious attention to the task”
From (2) page 307: “In a number of experiments, most notably a huge three-laboratory Port-REG replication study conducted recently, the anomalous results have shifted from direct correlation of the mean shifts with operator intentions, to an assortment of unsolicited structural aberrations in the database that collectively compound to a similar level of statistical departure from chance expectation. Since these aberrant sub-correlations were not consciously considered, let alone desired, by the participating operators or experimenters in any of these studies, it again would seem that other than conscious mental processes may be implicated.”
From (2) page 324: “Indeed, in most situations (involving a Field-REG) the participants are unaware of the presence of the device. On the other hand, we now have lost the primary correlate of all other human/machine experiments, namely the pre-stated intentions of the operator. so while it is clear that the box is responding to some mental property of the group, it is less clear what collective property that may be.”
Question: Which environment is most helpful to get a strong effect size?
More studies will be necessary to find which measures are supportive to get a strong effect size. The CoRe-Model predicts that it is not particular strategies and peculiarities of individuals which are important but the state of those individuals, particularly when they can be kept out of a causality-frame of mind and emotion set.
From (2) page 306: “Where there is more impressionistic and generic aspects of the target scenes tend to be more readily perceived than their objective or specific details..”
From (2) page 318: “….it follows that physical target systems entailing complex or chaotic processes, strong non-linearities, quantum physical domains and entanglements, or nay other processes embodying high degrees of dynamic uncertainty would offer the greatest possibilities for dialog with the corresponding mental states. Historically, these were not the targets of choice in the earliest mind/matter experiments.”
From (3) page 219: “…. it was actually the instructed subset that produced the larger effect size”
Questions: Can Information Space effects be explained within the domain Causality or is an extension necessary?
One can see from these Quotes that the Idea of a complementary realm to that of causality is not new to the CoRe-Model but has been suggested by some of the most renowned physicists, however it seems that now in the field of energetic Medicine this hypothesis finds strong support.
From (2) page 320: (Quote from Max Planck): “Once we have decided that the Law of causality is by no means a necessary element in the process of human thought, we have made a mental clearance for the approach to the question of its validity to the world of reality.”
From (2) page 320: (Quote from Niels Bohr): ” ….the impossibility in introspection of sharply distinguishing between subject and object as is essential to the idea of causality would seem to provide the natural play for the feeling of free will.”
From (2) page 320: (Quote from Pauli): “In physics however we do not speak of self-reproducing “archetypes”, but of statistical laws of nature involving primary probabilities, but both formulations meet in their tendency to extend the old narrow idea of causality (determinism) to a more general form of connection.”
From (3) page 232: “It is as if the “noise” of the random process provides the essential raw material out of which the mind of the operator is able to construct a small amount of ordered “signal”.
From (3) page 234: “Both Jung’s representation and our own emphasize that the the causal and synchronistic perspective or reality are complementary, rather than mutually exclusive. Jung maintains that the “coincidence” of synchronistic event occurs because the physical events are of the same quality as the psychic events and because all are the exponents of one and the same momentary situation. Our representation of this concept speaks of the emergence of both cognitive experience and physical events from a common underlying substrate of the unconscious mind and the undifferentiated world of physical potentiality.”
Question: What is the role of Uncertainty in Information space effects.
It becomes obvious from the PEAR research as well as from a hundred years of experience in Radionics and now with computerized Radionics in the CoRe-System that Random Events are a very appropriate medium to observe and study effects of the Information Realm.
From (2) page 323: “In this regard, we might note that since the very concept of “uncertainty” and probability,” includes their objective observation, inescapably entail subjective features, it may be that only within such a bonded state of uncertainty can the elemental binary probabilities be biased, and thereby the subjective goals become objectively manifested. In short the mind of the operator needs to enter a “fuzzy” state….”
From (2) page 323: “Considering the critical role of uncertainty in this transmutation of information, we would expect that those features of the scene that intrinsically entail the least precision of specification, i.e., the most generalized and impressionistic aspects, should survive this gauntlet better than features that require sharper definition.”
From (3) page 230: “… all efforts to enhance the effect by progressively more analysis techniques not only failed, but even had proven counter-productive”
From (3) page 231: “It appeared that as the percipients became more familiar with the descriptor questions, their subjective impressions were increasingly guided and circumscribed by them, as though the questions were establishing the informational framework for their responses. The original free-response remote perception experiment thus had taken on the characteristics of multiple-choice task and locus of the experiment had shifted from the realm of intuition to that of intellect.”
From (3) page 232: “….Yet, each increment of analytical refinement appears to have resulted in a systematic reduction not of the “noise” but of the “signal” itself. This raises the somewhat radical possibility that manifestation of the anomaly may actually require a certain degree of the very noise, or uncertainty, that we had invested so much effort to reduce.”
From (3) page 232: “It is as if the “noise” of the random process provides the essential raw material out of which the mind of the operator is able to construct a small amount of ordered “signal. Such effects are by no means restricted to explicit anomalies research. similar departures from canonical expectations can be found in contemporary engineering applications of “stochastic resonance”, wherein a deliberate increase in the overall level of noise in a certain kind of laser or sensitive electronic circuits can actually enhance the detection of weak, fluctuating signals”
From (3) page 235: “Yet, Jung’s model, the ancient divinatory traditions, evolutionary theory, contemporary signal processing research, and human/machine anomalies all suggest that noise may be a requisite component of the process of signal generation, and that objective linear causality may not prevail under these circumstances.
Question: What significance has spatial or temporal separation on the Informational Level?
Actually a fact long known in any form of paranormal science is that these effects are space and time invariant and consequently there is no need to postulate any form of medium or signal which would carry this kind of information from A to B. That this is hard to imagine shows only how much our mind is accustomed to think in terms of time and space.
From (3) page 221: “… there are no significant correlations of effect size with either distance or time. In particular, when a regression of the data is plotted as a function of the reciprocal square of the distance, the results specifically refute any 1/r2 dependence of the anomalous “signal”.
What I consider the limiting factors in the PEAR protocols
Even so the people at PEAR are certainly some of the most courage peoplethey are also locked into contemporary “good scientific practices”. In this respect theCargo-Cult lecture of Feynman comes again into mind, however what Feynman, and certainlymost of his audience did not realize isthat this Cult behavior applies most to contemporary science, were experiments are again and againbeen set up within the same time-tested conceptional framework only with the hope that what workedin the past will also work in the future.What you can clearly see in ***’s very honest reply are such time-tested-assumptions like:1. The particular psychology operator of these experiments was not given a systematic attention, although it is recognized that this is an important parameter.2. The State(Being) of the operator of these experiments was not given a systematic attention, although it is recognized that this is an important parameter.3. The effect size in these kind of experiments is usually very small therefore the results of many test persons had to be combined and averaged to get a large enough database to give it statistical significance.(However the CoRe-Research is actually revealing that it is this averaging that covers up the actual effect, the “average indivdual” will never be proven to have any significant talents, be it Remote viewing or playing piano.)To be clear I applaud the PEAR for their somewhat outstanding work but I do not think that they will get.
very far,…. after all they have to a large part obey classical ways of working and modeling in order not to loose funding and reputation completely.
Particularly in computerized radionic systems we are looking for and finding statistical aberrations of data not for the “Averaged Person” but for the person in front of us at a given time.
Here is the excerpt from the e-mail:Kiran wrote:>1. I feel that the greatest shortcoming of the way PEAR research was set-up
>until now lies in the fact that (quote from your publication) “No systematic
>records have been maintained on the relative effectiveness of various
>personal strategies”. And I am almost certain that this stems from the aim
>that experiments should be reproducible in other places without resource to
>specific test persons. However I believe these new kind of phenomena a
>intricately linked to individual qualities of people, to leave this out as a
>variable is like “investigating electric resistance” without taking note of
>”what kind of different kind of materials” one is working with. Our
>contemporary viewpoint of human beings is severely split, scientifically we
>treat humans as if they are all the same (most prominently seen today in
>medical testing and treatment) and personally we each believe that we are
>most unique and refuse any attempt of even been put in any typological
>class. Both are obviously not useful. My suggestion therefore would be to
>focus on the question, what strategies, environment, personal history,
>individual characteristics and most of all momentary “state of mind, emotion
>and consciousness” give what kind of effect size.
Kiran wrote:
>2. The second major and stumbling block in this kind of research is for
>example expressed in your writing like this “It is as if the “noise” of the
>random process provides the essential raw material out of which the mind of
>the operator is able to construct a small amount of ordered “signal”.
>It is so hard to go back to the old esoteric truth most clearly expressed in
>”TAO Te King” that not for all observed phenomena, we should imagine us as
>the “Doer”. Many phenomena particularly in the more subtle sphere are not
>connected with us, in us being the doer, but are coincidental, reflections
>maybe of our state.
Kiran wrote:
>3. And this brings me to the third point, the constant confusion of “Mind”
>with “Consciousness”. The best contemporary exposition of the difference
>between Functions like Intellect or Emotions and Consciousness on the other
>side is given in Peter Ouspensky’s works whom you also quote in your
>”Margins of Reality”, most recommendable reading here is his “Psychology of
>men’s possible evolution”. As long as we do not acknowledge the old truth
>that behind psychological functions exists a “wordless observer” who’s
>presence has different degrees in different people and also depends on
>circumstances and psychological techniques, we will always be surprised that
>our intellectual Intent has one direction but measurable results go into
>another direction, like your experiments also show. This is so because
>Intellect and Emotions are subordinate to the state of Consciousness.
Indications that there are statistically significant pattern in apparently random events
also found in the PEAR studies
Kiran wrote:
>4. I think you are going in the right direction and that is also the line of
>development I am pursuing with the CoRe-System is to find significant
>aberration from chance in the total database (e.g. chi-squared) and not
>limit your search only to that which the intellectual intent was (deviation
>towards plus or minus) but to find what modification of predominant pattern
>become apparent on an individualized and statistical basis. In this respect
>it would be good to use Pseudo Random Number generators with long pattern
>sequences in comparison to the length of each trial. In this way a test
>person could “select” more clearly defined pattern just via the point of
>time at which he presses the start button.
See Also:
- “Margins of Reality” by Robert G. Jahn and Brenda J. Dunne ISBN 0-15-657246-X
- “A Modular Model of Mind/Matter Manifestation (M5),” http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/m5.pdf
- “Information and Uncertainty: 25 Years of Remote Perception Research,” http://www.princeton.edu/~pear