He may have unraveled the secret of synchronicity. Will science prove him right?|306|

Sciborg_S_Patel said:
I ultimately think Psi won't be explicable by quantum anything, but at the same time I do think it might offer an inroad to some acceptance of the phenomena.

I'm not 100% clear what people mean by information, since different people take it to mean different things. I think it's a politically useful word though, as people with different metaphysical positions seem to partially unite on the concept.
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Yes, I agree that, even if my (or anybody's) quantum explanation doesn't prove to be the answer, more importantly it shows that psi IS possible, that it doesn't defy our understanding of the physical world. This is the necessary prerequisite for making it palatable to mainstream sensibilities.

And you are not alone in not understanding "information." I was always taught that information was the opposite of entropy (i.e., a measure of order in a system), but some of the leading minds in the field, including Seth Lloyd, use it to mean almost the exact opposite: the amount of information needed to describe a system, which increases with entropy/disorder, such that information is always increasing in the universe.
 
Alex,

You've got me curious about this "NDE cult" stuff you mentioned at the end of this episode and I believe in the previous one as well. Looking forward to hearing about it.
 
Max_B said:
There are simple single and multicellular organisms, and cells that navigate space-time, cooperate, communicate, solve problems, even seem to understand periodicity etc. They appear intelligent, yet they have no neurons at all. But if they navigate space-time, they all appear to have centrioles, and other similar protein structures with cavities.
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Yes indeed!

Eric, you might want to look at this!

http://www.basic.northwestern.edu/g-buehler/FRAME.HTM

David
 
Eric Wargo said:
And you are not alone in not understanding "information." I was always taught that information was the opposite of entropy (i.e., a measure of order in a system), but some of the leading minds in the field, including Seth Lloyd, use it to mean almost the exact opposite: the amount of information needed to describe a system, which increases with entropy/disorder, such that information is always increasing in the universe.
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There's an analogy here with digital photography, when images are saved using JPEG compression.

Assuming a good quality camera and a subject in good light and so on, a subject containing a lot of fine detail such as foliage or grass which is sharply in focus, will result in a larger sized jpeg file. But if the lens is out of focus, or there is strong camera shake which makes the image blurred, then the compressed jpeg file will be smaller. We can understand this as the larger file size corresponding to the higher quality image, which contains more information.

However, in poor lighting conditions, where the image becomes noisy due to insufficient light, the file size can be large, while putting the camera on a firm tripod and using a long exposure to capture a less noisy image can give a higher quality image but a smaller file size.

So in these two scenarios, a larger file size can correspond with either a very high quality image, or with a very low-quality image.

What is important in the context of photography is pretty obvious - does all that data in the file mean anything useful or is it just noise.
 
Typoz said:
There's an analogy here with digital photography, when images are saved using JPEG compression.

Assuming a good quality camera and a subject in good light and so on, a subject containing a lot of fine detail such as foliage or grass which is sharply in focus, will result in a larger sized jpeg file. But if the lens is out of focus, or there is strong camera shake which makes the image blurred, then the compressed jpeg file will be smaller. We can understand this as the larger file size corresponding to the higher quality image, which contains more information.

However, in poor lighting conditions, where the image becomes noisy due to insufficient light, the file size can be large, while putting the camera on a firm tripod and using a long exposure to capture a less noisy image can give a higher quality image but a smaller file size.

So in these two scenarios, a larger file size can correspond with either a very high quality image, or with a very low-quality image.

What is important in the context of photography is pretty obvious - does all that data in the file mean anything useful or is it just noise.
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Hi Typoz,

Yes, great example. The crucial distinction is between information and meaning. The universe can be described in terms of information, and even as a giant computer (i.e., Lloyd), but meaning is ultimately a semiotic function and is relative to the intentions of the conscious agent. It's around this distinction that I part ways with today's Platonists and Jungians (and crypto-Jungians) who think that an information universe entails a meaning-full universe. I think meaning is produced by individual minds and encoded in culture, but not part of some deep structure of reality (or consciousness).

Eric
 
Eric Wargo said:
Yes, I agree that, even if my (or anybody's) quantum explanation doesn't prove to be the answer, more importantly it shows that psi IS possible, that it doesn't defy our understanding of the physical world. This is the necessary prerequisite for making it palatable to mainstream sensibilities.

And you are not alone in not understanding "information." I was always taught that information was the opposite of entropy (i.e., a measure of order in a system), but some of the leading minds in the field, including Seth Lloyd, use it to mean almost the exact opposite: the amount of information needed to describe a system, which increases with entropy/disorder, such that information is always increasing in the universe.
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I suspect it's a dual-aspect problem.

You look at it one way and it's all about the intentional-subjective realm - goals, experiences, thoughts.

You look the other way, it's physics - particles & entanglement.
 
Baccarat, I would offer that you have unconsciously conditioned yourself to see such numbers -- a typical precognitive/presentimental effect. Each time you look at repeating digits you are rewarding your "psi eyes" to alert you. This fits with my explanation for synchronicity. So, I think there is indeed more to it than "just coincidence," although it reflects your own unconscious precognitive processes.
Eric
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Thanks for the reply, I think its more then coincidence. I literally will stop videos at 333 or 222 when I pause them on Youtube or Netflix ETC. 7 months of coincidences and my mom started seeing around the same time, and she told me she was before I told her anything....I want to look in to it someway, thanks for the reply
 
Eric Wargo said:
Hi "Inner Space,"

I'm not able to link to it, but my post "Scarabs and the Send Button" from a year ago addresses Jung's theory and shows how the precognition can explain these events more parsimoniously than the kind of transpersonal matrix of meaning required by "synchronicity." The meaning in these events, I argue, is the meaning we ourselves give to them. This is why they feel so personal -- because they are personal, constructed from our own unique associative language. It's just that we have no clue we are precognitive, and our culture doesn't allow us to even think that possibility, so we are forced to fit them into another framework.

Coincidence still plays a role however. Because future information lacks context, it influences us via stimuli or thoughts in the present that resemble a salient future emotional event. Our present thoughts, feelings, sensations serve as a kind of "noisy channel" that can reveal future information via association. This, in fact, is precisely why various forms of divination (Tarot, tea leaves, etc.) work: They provide a noisy channel with many possible interpretations, and thus the mind is free to be guided by future information toward an interpretation that "fits" with the individual's future.

Cheers,
Eric
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Thanks Eric - I read your very interesting article "Scarabs and the Send Button." I'm not sure whether I agree with you that precognition is a more parsimonious explanation then "synchronicity" and I think the key to our disagreement is your contention that people "give" meaning to an event rather then "find" meaning in an event. Did Jung use the Scarab beetle event to boost his own ego? Probably, anyone who knows anything about Carl Jung would not be surprised. I have read the Jung and the Scarab beetle story multiple times but I still do not know whether Jung's patient was impressed by his interpretation or if she thought it was a load of hogwash. Jung may have well been guided by some quite strong - not necessarily unconscious - principles in deciding that the Scarab beetle's appearance was a synchronicity event. This is not to say Jung was not genuine in his contention about the Scarab beetle as a synchronicity event just that - as you noted - Jung may have had other motivations in defining it as a synchronicity. The scenario sets itself up for the patient to be complicit in Jung's theory by bowing to his "authority" as the expert therapist and complying to Jung's interpretation that the appearance of the scarab beetle was in some way meaningful to her. In other words she "gives" meaning to the event by way of Jung's subtle influence on her. Truly synchronistic events involve creation of meaningful connections from seemingly unrelated events, hence we can't force meaning onto the event, rather, it just "hits us in the face" so to speak. A bit like when you received your parcel. Of course, none of this is to argue that precognition or presentiment does not exist but I do think Synchronicity as a concept brings us closer to understanding why it is so damn hard to consistently find evidence for it in the experimental lab. As the philosopher Hilary Putnam once said - meaning ain't in the head.
 
Inner Space said:
Thanks Eric - I read your very interesting article "Scarabs and the Send Button." I'm not sure whether I agree with you that precognition is a more parsimonious explanation then "synchronicity" and I think the key to our disagreement is your contention that people "give" meaning to an event rather then "find" meaning in an event. Did Jung use the Scarab beetle event to boost his own ego? Probably, anyone who knows anything about Carl Jung would not be surprised. I have read the Jung and the Scarab beetle story multiple times but I still do not know whether Jung's patient was impressed by his interpretation or if she thought it was a load of hogwash. Jung may have well been guided by some quite strong - not necessarily unconscious - principles in deciding that the Scarab beetle's appearance was a synchronicity event. This is not to say Jung was not genuine in his contention about the Scarab beetle as a synchronicity event just that - as you noted - Jung may have had other motivations in defining it as a synchronicity. The scenario sets itself up for the patient to be complicit in Jung's theory by bowing to his "authority" as the expert therapist and complying to Jung's interpretation that the appearance of the scarab beetle was in some way meaningful to her. In other words she "gives" meaning to the event by way of Jung's subtle influence on her. Truly synchronistic events involve creation of meaningful connections from seemingly unrelated events, hence we can't force meaning onto the event, rather, it just "hits us in the face" so to speak. A bit like when you received your parcel. Of course, none of this is to argue that precognition or presentiment does not exist but I do think Synchronicity as a concept brings us closer to understanding why it is so damn hard to consistently find evidence for it in the experimental lab. As the philosopher Hilary Putnam once said - meaning ain't in the head.
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I appreciate your posts on this topic
For what it’s worth
I’ve always felt that synchronicity is the most adaquate explanation for telepathy and that telepathy derives from an archetypal field which transgresses space and time which is why it’s so hard to pin down using a standard causal model. One example would be being in love. In that state (field) telepathy (synchronicities) abounds in ways that would be very difficult to test but uncanny in their persuasive impact that something outside our normal causal understanding is at work. The archetype seems to have a power to animate the scenario. Regarding precognition being the engine doesn’t fit the phenomenon for me. I think Erics reductionism here might be useful in some areas of science but when it comes to consciousness I think it’s not adequate in that we are always trying to explain away any more expansive ideas’ in favor of ones that are compatible with materialism where we are able to add some naturalistic post hoc explanation( just this). Reminds me of Freuds insistence on drive theory and sex(libido) being a primary drive for all our desires and motivations.
 
manjit said:
Actually, I don't think we really understand what, precisely, our CURRENT "life" is, what "death" is, what consciousness is, what identity is, what "PSI" may be etc etc.
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nice. this seems almost certainly true... I mean, I don't think we can read the data any other way -- if we don't/can't understand the afterlife then we can understand our current life.

I personally believe the concepts of "Super-Psi" is an tentative first step
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super-psi seems like passing the buck. explain one unknown with the greater unknown. I think it's more fun to play with the fragments of data we have.
 
Alex said:
super-psi seems like passing the buck. explain one unknown with the greater unknown. I think it's more fun to play with the fragments of data we have.
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I agree. Let me also say one thing I have said before but which I feel is very important (but is off topic too I guess, sorry). This is the importance of the index and how the index has implications on things like super psi and remote viewing and other things.

I develop databases. If I have a field that is straightforward like "first name" then this field can be indexed and then I can do a search on, say, 10000000 records and get a result almost instantly. Other fields can be calculated values that depend on other things. These fields cannot be indexed. If I do a search on one of these fields then I am waiting hours (as the computer must go through EVERY record to determine if it is a record I want).

So, if we posit super psi we are saying that the mind is able to draw things in from different sources and assemble them into whatever it is (a premonition, telepathy, a synchronicity, a remote location). If this is true, we need the index. Ultimately, this is a big index and it seems to contain everything that is, has been or will be (if we accept all this paranormal stuff). So, who could compile such an index? I see "God" as the only possible origin of the index.

So, I guess what I am saying is we can infer God in the existence of all of this. You wrote "...play with the fragments of data we have". I agree with that but let's not forget that we actually have some data points that are easily forgotten - such as the implied existence of an index and therefore a compiler of said index.

Furthermore, this says things about the nature of God. If God is an amorphous blob like posited by Buddhism or a "collective unconsciousness" then your index would quickly become a mess. God must be conscious like us and capable of making decisions and taking actions and furthermore God must be omniscient in order to compile such a complete index. A "collective unconscious" could exist in addition to God but God must exist as a discrete, thinking entity.
 
Those are some interesting ideas regarding the workability of super-psi. However I'm wary of updating the "God as Watchmaker" to "God as Computer engineer". I think we should be looking for something more timeless than the latest trending technology.
 
Actually, to me the most interesting question about synchronicity is "who/what can pull this off". Synchronicity implies the moulding of reality for extended periods in the past in order to bring together things in the present. Certainly God is capable of pulling off synchronicity but what about Angels, "demons", spirits, ourselves? I don't have an answer.

That said, I think the whole "intention" / "archetype" thing to my mind degenerates into "Seth" crap (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Material) which I don't buy (i.e. the idea that we create our own reality).
 
Typoz said:
Those are some interesting ideas regarding the workability of super-psi. However I'm wary of updating the "God as Watchmaker" to "God as Computer engineer". I think we should be looking for something more timeless than the latest trending technology.
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The index isn't really a computer thing. Libraries used to have card catalogs. Card catalogs are indexes. Really an index is a "timeless" thing (kind of like math perhaps).
 
Alan Amsberg said:
I agree. Let me also say one thing I have said before but which I feel is very important (but is off topic too I guess, sorry). This is the importance of the index and how the index has implications on things like super psi and remote viewing and other things.

I develop databases. If I have a field that is straightforward like "first name" then this field can be indexed and then I can do a search on, say, 10000000 records and get a result almost instantly. Other fields can be calculated values that depend on other things. These fields cannot be indexed. If I do a search on one of these fields then I am waiting hours (as the computer must go through EVERY record to determine if it is a record I want).

So, if we posit super psi we are saying that the mind is able to draw things in from different sources and assemble them into whatever it is (a premonition, telepathy, a synchronicity, a remote location). If this is true, we need the index. Ultimately, this is a big index and it seems to contain everything that is, has been or will be (if we accept all this paranormal stuff). So, who could compile such an index? I see "God" as the only possible origin of the index.

So, I guess what I am saying is we can infer God in the existence of all of this. You wrote "...play with the fragments of data we have". I agree with that but let's not forget that we actually have some data points that are easily forgotten - such as the implied existence of an index and therefore a compiler of said index.

Furthermore, this says things about the nature of God. If God is an amorphous blob like posited by Buddhism or a "collective unconsciousness" then your index would quickly become a mess. God must be conscious like us and capable of making decisions and taking actions and furthermore God must be omniscient in order to compile such a complete index. A "collective unconscious" could exist in addition to God but God must exist as a discrete, thinking entity.
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Hi Alan,

The "index" you mention is precisely the key issue, I think. On the surface, psi looks like access to an omniscient intelligence or a kind of Akashic record. A double-blinded remote viewing feat (for example) requires finding information that the RV-er doesn't even know he wants to know (e.g., "What's at such and such a coordinate") -- how does he know where in space and time to look for the information? It seems like there's a cosmic librarian who is able to direct him to a piece of information he doesn't know he wants to know.

But there's another -- to my mind more parsimonious -- way of looking at it: The one-stop-shop for both the data (what's at the site) and the metadata (the identity of the site) is his own future, when he learns what his task was and whether he got it right. I think it's more parsimonious to suppose some mechanism whereby we access information in our own future than to suppose a universal librarian/God who is able to know what we don't know we want to know and guide us to the answer. I'm arguing that this basic model CAN explain nearly all kinds of ESP experiences (and perhaps PK but that's a more complicated issue).

I think that the character of psi as shown both in the lab and in the real world supports this view, rather than some kind of nonlocal omnisicence. Psychics can't know anything and everything happening in the universe. A psychic generally cannot learn anything that he/she won't find out (through non-psychic means) in their own future, through some kind of confirmation or feedback. When you consider that, it starts to look much less like an access to some cosmic database and more like our own memory. It's personal, it generally operates unconsciously, and it's organized associatively and subject to various distortions, just like memory information (I discuss this in a few of my posts, including "The Physics of Information").

Cheers!
Eric
 
Eric Wargo said:
Hi Alan,

The "index" you mention is precisely the key issue, I think. On the surface, psi looks like access to an omniscient intelligence or a kind of Akashic record. A double-blinded remote viewing feat (for example) requires finding information that the RV-er doesn't even know he wants to know (e.g., "What's at such and such a coordinate") -- how does he know where in space and time to look for the information? It seems like there's a cosmic librarian who is able to direct him to a piece of information he doesn't know he wants to know.

But there's another -- to my mind more parsimonious -- way of looking at it: The one-stop-shop for both the data (what's at the site) and the metadata (the identity of the site) is his own future, when he learns what his task was and whether he got it right. I think it's more parsimonious to suppose some mechanism whereby we access information in our own future than to suppose a universal librarian/God who is able to know what we don't know we want to know and guide us to the answer. I'm arguing that this basic model CAN explain nearly all kinds of ESP experiences (and perhaps PK but that's a more complicated issue).

I think that the character of psi as shown both in the lab and in the real world supports this view, rather than some kind of nonlocal omnisicence. Psychics can't know anything and everything happening in the universe. A psychic generally cannot learn anything that he/she won't find out (through non-psychic means) in their own future, through some kind of confirmation or feedback. When you consider that, it starts to look much less like an access to some cosmic database and more like our own memory. It's personal, it generally operates unconsciously, and it's organized associatively and subject to various distortions, just like memory information (I discuss this in a few of my posts, including "The Physics of Information").

Cheers!
Eric
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That last bit doesn't make any sense to me. I may weave associations together, as a pattern of space-like separations for my own future access, but it appears I'm still accessing, storing and most importantly sharing stuff via the external world. It can't be just personal? If it were just personal I couldn't explain NDE's, OBE's, Classic Haunting Apparitions, Time Slips, or any everyday interactions where I process a summed spatial pattern temporally, like a book etc.

Your focus on future/precognition is too narrow in my view, that perspective is at least only an aspect of 'temporal' (time-like separations) when accessed spatially.
 
Typoz said:
Hmm... how does that square with this:

See http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/on-being-an-empath-and-claircognizant-channel.3091/#post-86653
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This is indeed an important question. Although military RV-ers often weren't given explicit feedback, it was often forthcoming indirectly. Paul Smith in his memoir records some cases where the accuracy of his remote viewings was confirmed in some news story etc. Like I said, there ARE a few RV cases that do seem to defy my model, like some of Pat Price's viewings, although there are other peculiarities in those cases that make them hard to assess. I do think this is an important question for future studies to focus on. (Incidentally, the Honorton and Ferrari meta-analysis of precognition studies found high significance overall but not for studies that lacked some form of feedback.)

And, RV-er and OOBE-er extraordinaire Joe McMoneagle himself, in his book Mind Trek, came to the identical conclusion I'm arguing: his future self, at a time when he learned the right answer, was sending the information back in time.
 
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