Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0500380002-6 Introduction This topic was originally suggested for an AAAS Symposium by the late Professor Wilbur Frank- lin of Kent State University, and it was only after his recent untimely death that I agreed to take over as organizer and moderator of the panel. Unfortunately, I was not privy to Professor Frank- lin's original conception of the subject, nor to his plans for the membership of the panel. From his most recent research activities and articles in the field of psychokinesis, one might assume that he would have focussed fairly explicitly on the direct interaction of human consciousness with physical systems, but that is only my personal suspicion. Thus, the assembly of the panel and the circumscription of the topic had to be my own responsibilities and probably differ from those he envisaged. My sense of the subject is somewhat broader than that just mentioned. Let me state it via this complex question: As the mind of man pushes inexorably forward with its ever more elaborate and abstract formalisms and its ever more precise and powerful experimental equipment into ever more remote and exotic domains of physical phenomena, may we continue to presume that those phenomena invariably remain passive to our inquiry, simply waiting, as it were, to be labeled and catalogued, or is there the possibility that to some degree, insignificant in many situations, but potentially controlling in others, we may create our own reality in the process of observing it? Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0500380002-6 Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0500380002-6 nificent accomplishment in the modeling of physical phenomena, are moderately comfortable with such quasi-philosophica.1 dilemmas as the wave-particle dualities, and the "role-of-the-observer" in quan- tum mechanics, but tend to discount psychic exper- imentation because of the illusiveness and irre- producibility of the phenomena, the intangibility of some of the parameters, and the difficulties it presents for established formalisms. Yet many of these same physicists have faithfully followed the trail of fundamental particle theory down to such present-day enigmas as "quarks," anti-quarks," and "gluons." Currently touted as the basic ingredient of the physical structure of matter, quarks are now characterized by various permutations of three "colors," five "flavors," and one "charm." Sidney Drell admits, with others, that these are particles which may never be observed, and which might in some sense be compared to poetry, in that they need not "mean, but be"; that one should not ask "what" they are, but "when" they are.3 In this he is reminiscent of Werner Heisenberg who, shortly be- fore his death, reflected that the question "what do nuclear particles consist of" may be illegiti- mate, and will happen to yield sensible answers only if those particles can be broken into compo- nents by investing energy significantly smaller than their rest mass.4 Fritjof Capra puts it even more boldly: "Quarks are not particles at all, but events."5 Lest all of the suspicion be laid on the quarks, consider their bizarre relatives, the "tachyons." As Jayant Narlikar reminds us, these particles routinely travel faster than light, have an imaginary rest mass, lose energy when increasing speed, can approach infinite velocity, in which condition they have zero energy but finite momentum.6 Nor do we need to stay in the sub-nuclear do- main to find such difficult conceptions. If we turn our human eyes to the other extreme--to as- trophysics, cosmology, and the dynamic universe, and follow our scientific formalisms carefully, albeit courageously, we ultimately encounter simi- lar strains to our comprehension. Most notable *is the palpable distortion of our fundamental space/ time grid forecast by general relativity theory to derive from intense concentrations of mass.7 This Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0500380002-6 Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0500380002-6 distortion reaches its climax in the "black hole," the most powerful of physical entities, character- ized only by charge, angular momentum, and, once again, by mass, and for whose interpretation a special "black hole physics" has been propounded.8 May we not at least muse that if this space- and time-distorting property we call "mass" ulti- mately traces down to particles we are forced to experience, rather than to observe, to describe in quasi-poetic terms, to regard as events rather than substance, then we have indeed allowed human con- sciousness to enter the structure of physical reality? Indeed, it may not even be necessary to go to these extremes of physical concept to identify par- ticipation of subjective perception in the defini- tion of reality. The wave-particle dualities men- tioned earlier, whether.of electrons or of light, or the Bohr atom with its striking dismissal of classical rationality, also hint at some interjec- tion of consciousness into the physical process. So, too, with the full superstructure of electro- magnetic theory, built upon the totally intangible concepts of electric and magnetic fields. Perhaps if we were humble enough, and honest enough, we might even be driven to reopen our dialogue with Newton himself, to question precisely what we do mean by a ''force," a "distance," a "time," or a 11mass." Clearly none of these questions, nor any other facets of the subject, are settled by this symposi- um. It does, however, bring together considerable insight from the domains of basic and applied physical science, and of modern parapsychology--in some cases embodied in the same human conscious- ness, in others separately. If the multivaried ideas and experiences that are here presented and allowed to reflect off one another do not produce certain conclusions, they unquestionably do illu- minate this intriguing topic from divergent points of view. The question is far from answere5; but it has now.been fairly asked. Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0500380002-6 Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0500380002-6 References 1. E. D. Mitchell, "A Look at the Exceptional," proc. Electro 77 Professional Program, The State of the Art in Psychic Research, New York, April 19-21, 1977, pp. 1-5. 2. J. A. Wheeler, "The Universe as Home for Man," American Scientist, 62, November-December, 1974, pp. 663-691. 3. S. D.brell, "When is a Particle?," Physics Today, 31,, June 1978, pp. 23-32. 4. W. Heisenberg, "The Nature of Elementary Par- ticles," Physics Today, 29, March 1976, pp. 32-39. 5. F. Capra, Paper LBL-796, Lawrence Berkeley Lab- oratories, University of California, Berkeley, Ca., 1978. 6. J. V. Narlikar, "Cosmic Tachyons: an astro- physical approach," American Scientist, 66, Septem- ber-October, 1976, pp. 567-593. 7. L. L. Smarr and W. H. Press, "Our Elastic Spacetime: Black Holes and Gravitational Waves," American Scientist, 66, January-February, 1978, pp. 72-79. 8. S. W. Hawking, "Black Holes in General Rela- tivity," Communications in Mathematical Physics, 25, 1972, p. 152. Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0500380002-6 Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0500380002-6 Chai.tman',s Note: The jo,,Lmat ptesentatio" kep~Loduced above we)Le 6ottowed by an animated peAiod o~ questionz, answeu, comments and di,scus,sion which incZuded many o6 the audience, " weU " the panet membeu them,setva. No attempt wiU be made heAe to tepticate the detaitz o6 that discuzzion, othe)L than to note that it deatt pteponde)Lantty with the izsue taized by Pto6u,sot WheeteA in the appendica to W tatk concetning the vatidity*o~ AAAS a~6itiation jot the Patap6ychoZogicat A.6,6 o ciatio n. Az editot, I have mu,sed 6ot many month.6 what tuponze, any, shoutd ptopeAiy be made to that statement in the con text o6 thiz votume. On the one hand, the izsue waz cteaAty tangentiat, i6 not iAtetevant, to the stated topic o6 the ze,s.6ion, and one coutd quaAAet with the puptiety o6 itz miginat inttoduction into tkiz 6otum. On the otheA hand, once int,,Loduced, it dominated the dL6cus,6ion, engendeted immediate and sub.6tantiat coveAage in the pub,'-ic ptus, and wa,6 the bazis jot a numbeA o~ aAtictez, Zetteu, and te- ,5ponza in voAiou,5 magazinez. Sevetat o6 the panet membetz, inctuding the chaiAman, took immediate exception to both the ,sty-ec and 6actuat content o~ the statement, and theiA sub- ,sequent considaed study o~ it ptovoked 6uAthvt tuetvationz on theit patt. 06 the zeve)Lat optionz: abstaining 6,tom ~u.~thvL commei,,t on the mattvL; attempting ~Leptoduction o~ the many etemetit's o6 tebuttai p,,Lo6vfted by the panet membetz and audience; ex- amining in detait the 6actuat ba6a o6 the .6tatement; etc., I have etected zimpty to teconzt~Luct the .6pontaneou-6 tematks with which, " chairman, I ctozed that zusioji. In .6c, doing, it is my hope that 6uAthek debate on the i,6,suc, i6 aity is needed, couf-d be kept in dZ6pazzionate peAspective acid cat- .kied ~otth with the same high pto6e,6,sionaU6m, opennus on' mind, and humitity be6o~Le vaZid data that chatactetize ati otheA a.6pectz o6 this p,,Logtam, o~ the Society which zponzoted it, and o6 good science in genetat. Tapu o~ ati ptezentationz and the entite di6cuz,sion a,te avaitabte 6,tom AAAS undeA the titte "RoZe o6 Consciou,6- nezz," (Cas,6ette numbeAz 79T4891-4893). Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0500380002-6 Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0500380002-6 Chairman's Summary In bringing this vigorous discussion to a close, I would like to invoke the chairman's pre- rogative for a final comment on what clearly has been the most contentious item in the various presentations. I am sure that Professor Wheeler anticipated this when he raised the issue, and that he will not be surprised by my response to it. In the technical body of his talk, John dealt with an important physical topic in a scholarly and instructive fashion. He focussed on well- defined experiments, interpreted in terms of spe- cific theoretical models, and I for one learned much from his insight. I was less persuaded by the substance and logic of the argument presented in his Appendices. While I fully agree with his criteria for any scientific endeavor, and with his sense of responsibility for the AAAS to protect itself from exploitation and from providing a haven for fraudulent pseudo-scientific work, the case he presented against psychic research was, in its generality and lack of accurate and relevant evi- dence, much less convincing. To my mind, agglom- erating such disparate topics as the Bermuda Tri- angle, the multi-headed Hydra, some fraudulent work to which friends had been subjected, concerns about inappropriate expenditure of public funds, and the sincere scholarly work of his companions on this panel is not a productive way to address such a difficult issue. If there is a case,,it should be developed in terms of specific pieces of work that have been presented to this Society, accurately represented and vigorously contested in the traditional form of responsible, critical dialogue. Nor can I concur with his recommendation that work such as some of our speakers presented here should be totally relegated to the appropriate specialist societies. As I understand it, the AAAS is not intended as a linear combination of special- ist organizations; it does not simply provide an alternative route for specialist presentations. Rather, it is meant to establish a forum for ex- change of knowledge and ideas across traditional disciplinary lines, and as such its concern should be more for the clarity, rigor, and interdisciplin- Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0500380002-6 Approved For Release 20DOID8/07 : CIA-RDP96-007817ROO0500380002-6 ary significance of the work presented, than fo.r the heritage of a particular field. Finally, on his allusion to the cyclical nature of the enthusiasm for, and frustration with, psychic experimentation as indicative of a funda- mental invalidity of the field, I would offer the following observation: true scholarly study of such phenomena is barely one century old, and over that period, in comparison with most fields of high science and technology, the resources deployed for this study have been miniscule. Given the complex and elusive character of the phenomena proposed, their immense significance if validated and compre- hended, and the recent availability of instrumenta- tion and data processing techniques of sufficient sensitivity to sort out various possible implica- tions, modest but incisive continued effort by sincere and able scholars does not seem to me inherently ignoble. For my part, I would far rather an organiza- tion like AAAS assume some risk of accommodating, in its generosity of scientific spirit, some in- consequential, incorrect, or even fraudulent re- search, than assume the fa.r more insidious risk of categorically excluding an entire domain of sincere scientific inquiry, regardless of how tawdry its history, or how provocative its subject matter may be. If our concern is indeed for the truth, it is less likely to be found by relegating conscientious investigators to their own provincial hovels than by exposing their work to the open air of just such disciplined discussion as this panel has provided. Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0500380002-6