The Science of the Craft

"The study of magic is not a science, it is not an art, and it is not a religion. Magic is a craft... This is not to say that we understand magic, in the sense that physicists understand why subatomic particles do whatever it is that they do. Or perhaps they don't understand that yet. I can never remember."

"Anyone with a spark of the research spirit does not need to be exhorted to chase for all he is worth a really promising clue when one is found, dropping for the time being other activities and interests as far as practicable."

"To see what no one has seen before, look where no one has looked before."

(Because your response disappoints, on several levels.)

When I was a bit younger, in a used bookstore I came across a book on spells. Since I was investigating the effects of mind upon matter, I could not resist having a look. I came across a spell for attracting money (or some such), and I can remember thinking "I understand why that works." All the extra 'fluff' - the specific-colored candle (or whatever), etc. - fell away and it was clear how saying/doing whatever the spell 'required' simply created (and released) a specific set of visualizations/expectations/emotions about future outcomes. The 'fluff' is just a reinforcing support structure that works/helps because it taps an associated knowledge structure. (Yes, it works because you believe it works.)

Sounds like a load of 'useless crap' to many scientists. But why?

1) Perspective - It is difficult/unacceptable for the scientific method to make use 'data' that is only accessible from a subjective perspective. What goes on in my head is only really accessible to me. I can tell you about it, but you have no means of verifying anything I've said, other than to attempt to replicate it in your own mind. "To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning." (q)

2) Evidence - What constitutes 'acceptable evidence' of certain phenomena is, by current scientific definitions, evidence that can be procured under circumstances that specifically discount any collective effect of mind. For example: what can be produced in an environment where one is alone is required to be exactly the same as what can be produced in a room full of skeptical observers. Only then is the phenomenon deemed to be a 'true' phenomenon.

3) Correlations - Scientists are taught to look for correlations. They are also taught that correlation does not equal causation. What they are not taught is to look inside for correlations - to dissect and examine their own mental processes. The assumption is that there is no need to do this - that 'science' stands beyond/above the (non-local) influence of mind.

With the above limitations on what is acceptable 'science', it is no wonder that religious/magical belief systems persist. If data persists, then the search for explanations (and the attempts to harness this knowledge) will also persist, even if it is not/cannot be called 'science'.

4) Replication - Replication of something that requires a specific type of subjective awareness can be achieved, but it involves teaching a naive subject. Then, of course, you have only your word and the word of your pupil. (See #1.) This might be worth something if you had a pupil with the appropriate background, reputation, and integrity... But most people still will not believe a thing like that until they have experienced it themselves. However, narratives like that produced by William H. Keith can be powerful stimuli for people to start/continue their own explorations. "I was well aware that my senses could deceive, that my will to believe could play tricks on my mind, that what I seemed to be experiencing - my subjective reality - might well be different from things as they really were."

5) Falsification - "No amount of experimentation can prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." (That's Einstein, not Keith.) Yes, we're still looking for that magical experiment that could prove this picture of reality to be wrong. (With a less-pedantic approach to things, you could be useful there. Skippy's best (though perhaps unintentional) contribution was simply asking the question 'Where does the entropy go?')

No doubt submitting this idea to peer-review in a journal would point out all these things, and more. But these are big enough problems to overcome, and we are already well-aware of them. If you can contribute nothing more than yet another 'burden of proof' argument, then you really don't bring anything to the table that wasn't already there and you should probably move on/back to some 'real' science. Best,

N

The Art of Scientific Investigation

(This blog post is a spontaneous act of creation - because creating is fun, and wordplay while creating is double (entendre) the fun. ;)

"Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination,
the real relation, the underlying theme."

"What is more important - knowing, or being known for knowing?"

"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."

And from The Art of Scientific Investigation, by W.I.B. Beveridge (revised edition - 1957)...

"It is the duty of every scientist to give generously whatever advice and ideas he can and usually formal acknowledgement should not be demanded for such help."

"The chief incentives of research are to satisfy curiosity, to satisfy the creative instinct, the desire to know whether one's conjecture has led to new knowledge and the desire for the feeling of importance by gaining recognition."

You'd get the impression from some scientists that that last bit is their top incentive. And perhaps it is a powerful motivator to do research and to put great effort into explaining that research... But I would argue that the first three 'incentives' are in a different (and, IMHO, a far more rewarding and productive) class than the last one.

"If it becomes a standard procedure to use somebody else's work without mentioning it's not our own, in the end nobody will see the point of creating anything themselves." (q) So not true. People create because there is joy in the creative process. People create because there is satisfaction in knowing that you were the first to do a thing, and that others liked it well enough to use it. Or that what you did was better than whatever else was available, or whatever the other person could have created themselves. And in the end, only those who are willing to create matter anyway - they are the only ones who really challenge you/us to be better.

I'm not saying that recognition doesn't matter... I'm only saying that obsessing over recognition detracts from fully engaging in the process/joy of discovery/creation. Best,

N

(h/t WB, for our conversation about this most-excellent book)

Expecting Synchronicity

"For a true magician there is no very clear line between what lies inside the mind and what lies outside it. If you desire something, it will become substance. If you despise it, you will see it destroyed. A master magician is not much different from a child or a madman in that respect. It takes a very clear head and a very strong will to operate once you are in that place. And you will find out very quickly whether or not you have that clarity and strength."

"When we do magic, we do not wish and we do not pray. We rely upon our will and our knowledge and our skill to make a specific change to the world."

(I know, I'm on vacation... What can I say? When the spirit moves you, you gotta go with the flow. ;)

Just a quick post to say 'hi' to a new 5-dimensional friend. Welcome to the super-elite club!

Of course welcoming you to the super-elite club also means that I'm going to talk about your interpretation of the 5th dimension. As your interpretation bears a striking resemblance to my own, I'm just going to insert a key quote from your article before we move on to the part wherein we fight - er, politely disagree.

"Any situation that you have not yourself observed actually exists as a collection of possible outcomes in the Fourier realm... These things are undetermined , and until you experience them, there are many possible outcomes for each. The many possible outcomes of your future are what make up the fifth dimension." (my emphasis)

Well said. But now your article swings into something called Spiritual Mind Treatment (?), and you equate the Fourier realm with God. I'm not sure why. Don't get me wrong... I don't believe that I have complete conscious control over my trajectory through this realm, but my versions of the Higher Power(s) (that explain why I don't have complete control) are the Power of the Collective (the effects of other observers) and the Power of the Future (retrocausal influence of information/events in the subjective future). (FWIW, here's my two cents on free will.)

You state: "I don't believe we can control or manipulate the Fourier realm." At all? I would urge you to re-examine that belief in light of a range of data about human experience. Review psi experiments, the Global Consciousness Project, magick, or even a modest book on prayer called The Isaiah Effect, which deals with specific techniques for praying 'successfully'. Even your own descriptions of 'expecting' synchronicity bear closer examination. Just what is 'expectation', why is it critical, and are you really monitoring how your expectations are constantly changing?

"For me, prayer is a dance with physics, a give and take that allows me to guide my car with certainty to an 'as yet unknown' parking spot, appropriate for me." For me, it's no longer necessary to call this practice 'prayer'. 'Letting go and letting God' has another name - one that's well-known in the psi literature: 'release of effort'. Similar 'release' practices are discussed in magickal literature. Calling it 'God' at this stage of the game just seems to confuse things.

I enjoyed your article, and I hope that you, as a physicist, will find your way to taking that next step towards ownership of this natural aspect of the human condition. Namaste.

When the Sleeper Wakes

"We have a rule... we never free a mind once it reaches a certain age. It's dangerous, and the mind has trouble letting go."

"It is not good to overwhelm another person with argument even when he is wrong and you are right. Yet it is also not right to give up easily, saying 'I am wrong,' when you have every reason to believe you are right. The best way is to drop the argument naturally, without pressing the other person or falsely admitting that you are wrong. If you don't listen to his arguments and don't let them bother you, he will do the same and not become angry. This is something to watch carefully."

"Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things. Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds: do not overload them. Put there just a spark. If there is some good inflammable stuff, it will catch fire."

(For T, who keeps trying to understand this all because it's me who's doing it.)

Had a wonderful conversation yesterday about consciousness, the nature of reality, and modeling experience in 5 dimensions. By 'wonderful conversation' I don't mean that I 'won the day', but rather that it was gratifying to engage someone who was willing to challenge his (fairly well-entrenched) ideas about the universe. Mind you, this person watched The Primacy of Consciousness talk that I mentioned earlier, and concluded "I've decided that I believe in an objective reality." Okay.

How interesting to come upon you now reading Reading the Enemy's Mind, which is a substantial tome about the Stargate remote viewing project. The seeds of many previous conversations are germinating, perhaps, eh?

The major challenge for this person (and, I assume, for a great many others) is reconciling these ideas with the Bible. [Editorial Aside: You cannot productively engage a person of religious faith about things which appear to challenge that faith unless you are familiar with the faith and its doctrines.] Fortunately for this conversation, abilities like this are discussed in the Bible, so we are not sidetracked by disputing the reality of the abilities (according to the Bible), and are free to move onto the implications of such abilities. What do these things tell us about the nature of God, the nature of time, the nature of the universe?, etc. Though irrationality (in the form of accepting the Bible as primary/absolute truth) was present, the conversation was ultimately more productive than what one could have with a die-hard skeptic, whose irrationality is failing to see the implications of the records of these abilities that have existed throughout human history. Neither party has (presumably) had direct experience with such phenomena, but based on a few words in an old book, one of them is willing to engage the idea, while the other clings to dogma of a different kind...

I decided long ago that, for my own sanity, this would have to be a Johnny-Appleseed endeavor. Plant a seed if the ground appears fertile, foster it if the opportunity presents itself, but move on if nothing appears to be growing. Sometimes something does take hold, and blossoms when you least expect it.

The Primacy of Consciousness

"Among scientists are collectors, classifiers, and compulsive tidiers-up; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and others artisans. There are poet-scientists and philosopher-scientists and even a few mystics."

With the current level of chatter on paradigm shifts, artificial brains/AI, etc. being what it is, it seems like a good time to throw this excellent talk into the mix. It was originally given at a Physics of Consciousness conference in 2004. (How did I miss that one?) It's worth watching in its entirety; don't cut corners and watch the edited versions. ;).

Go on and watch it. I'll update this post with discussion points later.

Catching the Light

"If you are a physicist, you won't find it unusual to be confronted with a problem much too difficult for you to solve..."

"For the rest of my life I will reflect on what light is!"

(This one's for PR and BJ.)

Some time ago I mentioned that I wanted to post all the questions that I had accumulated during the process of trying to explain certain experiences. But in the end there were really only a few questions that stood out. To me, they represent the crux of understanding the connection between mind and matter, and how mind emerges from matter and/or matter emerges from mind, as well as explaining the experiences that prompted my query in the first place. These questions reflect our/my current state of knowledge about the correlates of consciousness; the most substantial correlates that we've currently identified are specific energy dynamics within the brain, therefore it makes sense (to me) to focus on units of energy and their behavior. Most of my other (physics-related) questions can (currently) be subsumed under one of these over-arching themes.

What is the relationship between entanglement and the Pauli exclusion principle? (I'm currently trying to make sense of this, this and this, among other things, like boson-fermion correspondence.)

What enforces the dynamics underlying the Pauli exclusion principle, and what, if any, relationship does this have to certain dynamics of conscious experience that appear to forcibly exclude specific states?

Here's a special question for the psi-entists... Why is there still a time-dependent element in certain interactions that we like to label 'non-local'? Our understanding of entanglement is presented largely as 'spooky action at a (spatial) distance' in (essentially) zero time. But unless I've missed something, the unification of space and time suggests that entanglement should also occur across a temporal distance in (essentially) zero space. What would that look like? How would it show up in conscious experience?...

DISCLAIMER: Occasionally I'm tempted by the idea of information as a primary unit, and certainly information-transfer dynamics are a large part of what I look at, but I have a hard time ignoring the idea of a substrate upon which information is stored/transmitted.

ADDITIONAL DISCLAIMER: As much as I'd sometimes like to throw up my hands and give in to some kind of mystical proclamation that 'everything is light expressing itself', I'm not ready to do that either. I think that there are very real dynamics that can tell us important things about exactly how we are connected to each other, and how to use those dynamics in beneficial ways. I think that those dynamics are worth exploring. In detail.

Back From the Future

"Half my life I sacrificed
But I only came to party tonight."

"The idea was that ripples of the measurements carried out in the future could beat back to the present and combine with effects from the past, like waves combining and peaking below a boat, setting it rocking on the rough sea."

Those of you playing along at home might want to take a look at the April 2010 issue of Discover magazine. It highlights the work that Jeff Tollaksen and Yakir Aharonov have done on isolating/quantifying the effects of information from the future on the present.

If the arrow of time "may be not just an illusion but a lie," is it really so hard to believe that a mind, properly trained, can recognize subtle differences in its own states that reflect/reveal the influence of the future? Retrocausation is not a new idea (Aharonov himself has been 'pushing it for four decades'), and neither is the idea that a mind, adept at pattern recognition, might see (and exploit) the same types of correlations between past and future within itself. "This isn't airy-fairy philosophy - these are real experiments" applies to psi research as well as quantum physics.

"It is upsetting philosophically... All these experiments change the way that I relate to time, the way I experience myself." Amen, brother.

But Tollaksen manages to keep free will alive in the process - "You simply have to put it down to random error in your apparatus." "The future can only affect the present if there is room to write its influence off as a mistake." - Aharonov. I've got to think a bit more about that one...