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From: PEARmail-US
[mailto:PEARMAIL-US@Princeton.EDU]
On Behalf Of Elissa Hoeger
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005
1:49 PM
To: PEARMAIL-US@Princeton.EDU
Subject: [(PEAR] PEAR news
Dear PEAR Friend,
In the event that you have not
looked at the Publications page of the PEAR website recently, we bring your
attention to three recent publications that have been added, the abstracts of
which are reproduced below.
As we anticipate the closing of the
physical laboratory in the not-too-distant future, much of our current effort
has been focused on a comprehensive archiving enterprise to assure the
availability of our data, publications, and insights to future generations of
scholars. Consistent with this agenda,
"The PEAR Proposition"
<http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/Allen_Press/PEAR
Proposition.pdf> presents an overview of the
goals, methods, and findings of the PEAR program over its 26-year history.
Abstract-For more than a quarter
century, the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) laboratory has
engaged in a broad range of experiments on consciousness-related physical
anomalies and has proposed a corresponding selection of theoretical models that
have combined to illuminate the fundamental nature of the provocative phenomena
that emerge.
Productive pursuit of this topic has
inescapably involved a spectrum of political, cultural, personal, and
interpersonal factors that are normally not encountered in more conventional
scientific scholarship, but have both enriched and complicated the enterprise
in many ways. Some of the insights
gleaned from the work are objectively specifiable, such as the scale and
structural character of the anomalous effects; their relative insensitivity to
objective physical correlates, including distance and time; the oscillating
sequential patterns of performance they display; the major discrepancies
between male and female achievements; and their irregular replicability
at all levels of experience. But many
others relate to subjective issues, such as the responsiveness of the effects
to conscious and unconscious intention and to individual and collective
resonance; the relevance of ambience and attitude in their generation; and the
importance of intrinsic uncertainty as a source of the anomalies. This blend of empirical features predicates
radical excursions of the dedicated models, and hence of the more general
scientific paradigms, to allow consciousness and its subjective information
processing capacities a proactive role in the establishment of objective
reality, with all of the complications of specificity, causality, and
reproducibility that entails. The
attendant complexities of conceptualization, formulation, and implementation
notwithstanding, pragmatic applications of these phenomena in many sectors of
public endeavor now can be foreseen.
A second archival document, which
summarizes our extensive remote perception enterprise, is accessible as
"Information and Uncertainty in Remote Perception Research" <http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/IU.pdf>.
Abstract-This article has four
purposes: 1) to present for the first
time in archival form all results of some
25 years of remote perception
research at this laboratory; 2) to describe all of the analytical scoring
methods developed over the course of this program to quantify the amount of
anomalous information acquired in the experiments; 3) to display a remarkable
anti-correlation between the objective specificity of those methods and the
anomalous yield of the experiments; and 4) to discuss the phenomenological and
pragmatic implications of this complementarity. The formal database comprises 653
experimental trials performed over several phases of investigation. The scoring methods involve various arrays of
descriptor queries that can be addressed to both the physical targets and the
percipients' description thereof, the responses to which provide the basis for
numerical evaluation and statistical assessment of the degree of anomalous
information acquired. Twenty-four such
recipes have been employed, with queries posed in binary, ternary, quaternary,
and ten-level distributive formats. Thus
treated, the database yields a composite z-score against chance of 5.418 (p =
3 x 10-8,
one-tailed). Numerous subsidiary analyses agree that these
overall results are not significantly affected by any of the secondary protocol
parameters tested, or by variations in descriptor effectiveness, possible
participant response biases, target distance from the percipient, or time
interval between perception effort and agent target visitation. 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. The possibility that
increased emphasis on objective quantification of the phenomenon somehow may
have inhibited its inherently subjective expression is explored in several
contexts, ranging from contemporary signal processing technologies to ancient
divination traditions. An intrinsic complementarity is suggested between the analytical and
intuitive aspects of the remote perception process that, like its more familiar
counterpart in quantum science, brings with it an inescapable uncertainty that
limits the extent to which such anomalous effects can be simultaneously
produced and evaluated.
Finally, "Sensors, Filters, and
the Source of Reality"
<http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/Allen_Press/Filters%20pdf.pdf>
builds on our earlier efforts in "A
Modular Model of Mind/Matter Manifestations (M5)" to establish a viable
conceptual framework for meaningful representation of the empirical anomalies
observed in our research.
Abstract-The failure of contemporary
scientific theory to correlate and explicate anomalous consciousness-related
physical phenomena may trace to inadequate comprehension of the process of
information exchange between the mind and its ultimate source.
Elevation of the subjective
capacities of consciousness to complementary status with the more objective
physical senses, along with recognition of the bi-directional capabilities of
both categories, allows establishment of resonant channels of communication
between the mind and its source environment that can exceed conventional
expectations. In this manner, order can
be introduced into randomnicity, and self-consistent
realities can be extracted from transcendent chaos. The key elements in tuning these channels to
amplify such information creation are the physiological and psychological
filters imposed upon them, some of which can be enhanced or altered by
conscious or unconscious attention. Specifically,
such attitudinal tactics as openness to alternative perspectives, utilization
of transdisciplinary metaphors, self-sacrificial
resonance, tolerance of uncertainty, and replacement of dualistic rigor by
mental complementarity can enable experiential
realities that are responsive to intention, desire, or need, to an extent
consistent with prevailing empirical evidence.
We hope you enjoy them.
With all best wishes,
Bob Jahn
and Brenda Dunne
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