'Plurnal of the Socieyfor Psychical Res.Wrch Notes pproved For Releaselidb&b&P5~'i' lA-RDP,96-oV92Re0W6b830001-9 chology. In addition, there is much philosophical discussion on its possible participation in the constitution and operation of consciousness. However, this Note deals with a completely non-technical aspect of the relationship and consequently an understanding of quantum th ory is quite unnecessary, providing the conclusions drawn from quantum ex riments are accepted. Some of these conclusions might seem to a layman eve more preposterous than the claims of parapsychology appear to a physicist, ut there is no escaping their veracity. Quantum physics is one of the most rmly established branches of science and its validitv has been confirmed by th work done on i' t, which ranges from sub-atomic experi nts to many types of ndustrial application. The main types of para rmal mental act , ,=a,u et- ity are telepathy and PK and included in the former are enc as crisis apparitions which are ,c probably visual 3-dimensional anifestatio of it. The materialist maintains there is no indisputable evidence suggest hat there can be any communica- tion, apart from the established hysica means, between two individuals separated by hundreds of miles. (Of ur , even Sir Isaac Newton in his day, would have agreed it was utterly impo si le for somebody in Europe to hold a conversation with a person in the Ne World!). Little attention is paid to anecdotal accounts or the results of no repeatable experiments. There is no answer to questions asking how a sign e anating from an agent in Brighton knows how to locate a recipient in Bi ing am, and yet disregard every other possible recipient. Distance between gent nd percipient does not appear to affect the signal's effectiveness, there , sugges fng that telepathy must break one of the fundamental laws of science- he invers square law. Again, nothing has ever been discovered in the brain ich could related to telepathy, and one cannot have an informatory radia on without so' e means of transmitting it. is The scientific attitude is radher rprising in vie of the fact that there exist in u uplic the physical world virtual duplic tes of these 'impo ible' criteria. If an atomic particle explodes into two fragm ts, A and B, which re allowed to travel apart for a great distance, then an tion, such as a mea rement of one particle, immediate]-y produces a reac on in the second pp r cle, irrespective of its distance away. (A detailed ex ple of a particular f.O?r f interference with the first particle A, and the react* of the second B, is describe by Davies, I but only the principle involved is rel vant here.) There therefore. xists in physics the equivalent of the basis of lepathy. The first particle A orresponds to the telepathic agent, and is abl to locate and communicate with article B without regard to the inverse squa law and without affecting any ot er particles in its sphere of influence. In ad ition, the disturbance created in particle A induces a configuration in B wbic is dependent on the type of influence exerted on A, thereby suggesting the transmission of an informatory signal. All this is indisputable, vet it raisis exactly the same questions which it is claimed render telepathy an impossibility. By what means does the first particle A communicate with B' How does it Pnow where to find it and avoid extraneous particles? Particle A can be influckced in various ways and B always makes the appropriate response, which suggests an informatory signal from A to B. The parallel, with telepathy is obvious. One of the most extraordinary characteristics of the quantum factor is that the act of conscious observation can affect the properties of the observed particles, A4qwoved For Release 2000/08/15: C being able, for example, to convert what is referred to as a 'ghost' electron into a concrete reality. It is sometimes claimed that this is confirmation of PK on the grounds that if consciousness can affiect It sical matters in one set of circumstances, then it can operate in PK xperiments, although it does not necessarily follow that the behaviour of a ingle atom will be duplicated in the case of the im~n sely larger molecular rouping of a dice. More impor ant y, wever, is tZhe 1 lication of this situation for dualism and t2 accordingly for parapsyc -Cartesian dualism presumes there is an interaction between a possibi physical consciousness and a material brain. bly This hypothesis has been unac p 1e to many scientists for several reasons: it is impossible to conceive the ture o non-physical entity, it is impossible to comprehend how anything insubstanti could modify a physical system, it is impossible t suggest the rce of the n c ary energy and how it is utilised, su 1e is t and so on. 0 1 sghgoerst, th, w o e situ e' In short, h h I i atio terly impossible, yet qua_n um experiments it d t s take place. n Show cto does not suggest that the min i not physic The quantum fia aT, nor does it n, 6 ven if it does so, but indicate how the m' d might interact with the brain, what it clearly pro s is that it could, and thus makes it impossible for responsible `,p scientists todismis ualism and pa~a~ sychology out of hand on the grounds that mental influence on a physical body A~t a distance cannot exist in nature. AshfoTd, Kindlestown Hill. Delgany, Co. Wicklow, IRELAND REFERENCE 1. Davies, P. (1983). God and the New Physics. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. EXPERIMENTS WITH GOD. ESSAY REVIEW OF CORNELIS W. RIETDIJK'S EXPERIMENTEN MET GOD* by J00P M. HOUTKOOPER There may be as many as a few dozen SPR members that know the Dutch language, but this review is intended to be of interest, not only for them, but also for the general reader of the JSPR. We no longer live in a classical world. Like a hundred years ago, apples fall down, cannonballs follow parabolic trajectories, and planets move in a predictable way in the sky, but this no longer reflects natural law in a fundamental manner. T hough we may not be aware ofit t, our daily lives are more and more shaped by the applications of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity. We also live in an age which may be characterized as moral. The 'limits on pollution, natural resources are visible on a global scale. Economy develops on a global scale, and, as some say, the Third World War hasjust ended, having been fought by economic means. The most prominent question society has to deal BRT Press. Brussels 1989 (In Dutch) 269pp. Dfl. 41.50. 6-00792ROO0700830001-9 361 Approved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792ROO0700830001-9 journal of the Societv,for Psychical Research [Vol. 57, No. 822 January 19911 with may be: What to do ifwe want humanity to stay on its feet? That is, for those who have a hang for morality. 'Experiments with God' carries as its motto the well known citation from Einstein: 'God doesn't play dice' (1), to which Rietdijk has added 'with the world', thereby indicating a tendency in his thinking. A few words from the biographical note the book contains: Rietdijk is a physicist and a mathematician. During and following his long career as a physics teacher, he has published, first, books and journal articles about social and cultural philosophy, and second, articles and conference contributions on theoretical physics. About the first, Rietdijk shows concern about the fate of society in its broadest sense, often expressing rather libertarian and controversial views. (At the end of the sixties he wrote that we should, in the interest of human happiness, sp end ten per cent of our GNP on parapsychological research!) About his, over a dozen, publications in physics: since 1966 he has written on retro-active effects (in a.o. Philosophy of Science and Foundations of Physics), and on matter-wave interference. I have heard his publications been described as 'controversial, but technically sound'. In 'Experiments with God', Rietdijk bridges the gap between these two aspects of his writing. He certainly succeeds in being controversial, and we shall see to what extent he is technicall sound. y 'Experiments with God' consists of three parts, entitled: 'L The new physics', '2. Are there laws in human destiny? Parapsychology comes of age', and '3. The new science and religion'. Each part consists of five chapters, each chapter being preceded by an abstract. Part I may be compared to Zukav's well-known 'The dancing Wu-li masters'. Rietdijk doesn't dance however, he sets a brisk pace. So he succeeds in the first twelve-page chapter to give a very clear picture of the Bohr-Einstein controversy, the EPR-paradox, the Bell-inequalities and Aspect's experiments validating the strange non-local character of quantum mechanics. To me, Zukav's dance suddenly seemed to be a sluggish meandering. The second chapter of Part I gives an expos6 of relativity theory. Rietdijk gives a note on the existence of the four-dimensional space-time continuum, implying that the future already exists. (Very sensibly be adds a remark on the proble~n of the free will.) In chapter 3, he gives an account of his proof of the retro-active effect in quantum mechanics, underpinning the above implication. In chapter 4, the non-locality of quantum mechanical systems is viewed from a new angle, showing the significance of the concept of 'action-distance' of events in the four-dimensional space-time continuum. The action-distance of non- locally related events is shown to be zero. Planck's quantum of action is the yardstick of action-distance. I At this stage we have all the elements at hand of the idea how distant events may physically (!) interact, other than through the known physical forces such as the gravitational and electromagnetic. Moreover, we are introduced to the possibility that the non-local interactions may take the form of feed-back relations and this allows the formation of patterns of events, otherwise separated in space and time. This formation of patterns throu~Lh non-local interactions is iermed the 'super-local co-ordinatiorp Amprqlycectrci?F,RgftflslRr~PAPI98/15 : C1 Notes in chapter 5 Rietdijk localizes his ideas with respect to others. He tackles on the one hand, the proponents of Eastern-intuitive and holistic approaches, exemplified by Capra's 'The Tao of Physics' and, on the other hand, the positivists who maintain that everything in physics is said by measurement results and the formulas to predict them, foregoing understanding and model-formation. Both groups are dealt with, fairly but severely. Rietdijk most extensively treats the view of the positivists, including the historical development of a conservative trend and, finally, its self-defeating nature. Rietdijk returns to the Bohr-Einstein controversy and concludes that both were right to a large extent. Both the dependency on the observation (Bohr)and the objective reality (Einstein) can be maintained about quantum phenomena. Retro-active effects allow pattern formation and 'orchestration' of events. While he admits that he cannot bring the role of the observer to very much ',&~~ity, Rietdijk hypothesizes that the retro-active effects play the role 4th~ 'hidden variables' that describe the randomness in quantum mcchani6al events. To what extent this very fundamental randomness is deterrgined by the retro- active effects, Rietdijk cannot say, Uht 'it cannot be excluded that God plays dice with the world to an even lesser extent than as implied by the local causal laws of classical physics'! At the end-of chapter 5 Rietdijk puts forward the idea that the 'orchestration' e of events, as allowed by physics, may connect with aspects of natur usually termed psychical, to integraiive forces, tendencies and, purposes. This form of holism, Rietdijk emphasizes, this occurrence of integrating aspects of nature, is not a paradigm, but a phenomenon, that can be revealed by the normal scientific method. There is nothing vague here, like the term 'complementarity' for instance, but a real improvement of our world-picture7 which becomes more consistent and better explainable. In this way, the gap between rational thought and 'integral' or retigious thought can be bridged. There is a perspective that this can be achieved wit4out aw ul water in the scientific wine') discovering by scientific means a 'deeper, I 'f consistency' of events, showing that 'something we could name Arch-Cause or God does not play dice with the fate of the world and that of mankind'. This is at the end of Part 1, still under the heading 'the new physics'. My opinion is that this can all be called 'technically sound', as Rietdijk care- fully distinguishes fact and inference from hypothesis and speculation, but the latter always as allowed by the facts. There is one exception, and that is the hypothesis of realism, implicit in his proof of retro-active effects, to which I will return later. Part 2 starts with an account of parapsychology. In view of the preceding chapters it is not surprising that Walker's version of observational theory is adopted as a theoretical approach, Rietclijk sees the tendency for coincidences to occur as most fundamental. In the case of PK the coincidence is between the goal Dursued by the agent and the actual outcome. With clairvoyance it is between ihe impression of the percipient and the actual situation. Super-local pattern formation is put for-ward as the possible mechanism to achieve this. While Rietdijk acknowledges the special role played by the observer, he really r92ROOOtftO83GOUTcg)f coincidences and he refers to Jung, Schopenhauer, Von 362 363 -journal of the Socieyfor Psychical Research Vol. 57 No. 822 Approved For Release 4000M/15 : CI,4,-RDPP6-00792ROO0700830001-9 Scholz and Koestler to argue that there are integrative forces working to achieve nicaniligIful coinciticnccs. The integrative forces run from the simple 'like attracts like'-hypothesis of Kammerer, to a more teleological version. For many years, Rietdijk has collect - ed meaningful coincidences in his own experience. To facilitate their explanation he puts forward three further hypotheses: The first is introducing a dualistic element, namely that consciousness is just as primary as matter and playing a role in super-local pattern formation. The second is about God as pattern forming agent with the whole universe as a body and human beings possibly playing the role of cells. The third hypothesis is building upon Jung's collective unconscious, stating that cultures, nations or other smaller or larger groups of human beings may act to some extent as integrated 'supersouls'. In the following chapters of Part 2, the role of super-local pattern formatio i related to parapsychological concepts, n is like goal-orientedness, the psychical inductor, voodoo, experimenter effects, psi-missing and the cross-correspon- dences described by W. H. Salter. The main thrust is that quantum mechanical randomness propagates into real -life events and this provides room for the 4 orchestration' of events. The findings of parapsychology support this view. Coincidences can be seen as exemplary to the fact that the integrative forces produce events that show likenesses, often of a meaningful character. Moreover, Rietdijk sees a sense of purpose in all this, at the level of the individual, the group and the universe. When Rietdijk introduces religiosity, moral .ity and the Grand Pattern of events in which we all take part, this reviewer is subject to mixed feelings. Of course, religious experiences and feelings are known to exist widely and morality may be founded as 1 suggested in the introduction of this review.' Nevertheless, moral judgments cannot logically be derived from existential judgments. Here Rietdijk is not clear. His religious notions are of a general Christian nature and bear some similarity to Einstein's. However, as he tries to convince the reader that scientific and religious world views are part of the same pattern, apparently it becomes difficult to stick to his own 'No water in the scientific wine'. In the last part of the book Rietdijk gives his view on trends in society and how this relates to his view on religion. Of course, he turns against nihilism, relativism and the like, but nowhere does he become dull - His ideas bear much resemblance to the Enlightenment, but with an underlying religious foundation which implies a continuing 'creation' and an increasing degree of integration and organization. He is wise enough to see that the 'orchestrations of events may well play a role in less beneficent developments, like, for instance, that orNazism. Such might be seen as a consequence of operating within the limits of quantum uncertainty and the course of development from primitive to more integrated forms of matter. I have to criticize the book on a few points: Unlike other assumptions made, there is implicit in the proof of the retro-active effect the hypothesis of realism, namely of unobserved quantum mechanically random events. I take issue with this hypothesis. In its place, I have advocated the hypothesis of indefinite reali t*y (2), from which a very different world-view might be developed. Most valuable's the fact that we have an unobvious choice between two alternatives which migh' be settled by experiment. t i January 1991] Notes Furthermore, about the Grand Pattern, it might be asked what it has to say about humanity that is different than could be said about the dodo. But that's mere uneasiness with the result, not an argument against it. he introduction of consciousness as a primary concept, More problematic are t which is in my opinion unnecessary, and the introduction of morality which is shaky. from the book a citation of Giordano Concluding, I cannot resist to borrow Bruno: 'Si non ~ veto, & bene trovato.' That is to say, Rietdijk's choice of hypotheses is not necessarily that of the reader. The book argues for an which is maybe nothing new, but it is enlightened form of Christian belief, eded are so clearly distinguished as such. applaudable that the assumptions ne This makes the book a pleasure to read, even while disagreeing with it. The argumen are such that they are ts, primarily developed from modern physics, I understandable to the interested lay-person. ti ns toreal-life For parapsychologists, the book contains interesting connotati like meaningful coincidences, but also to observational t ediY1 events) such as s alf, is assumptions the above-mentioned hypothesis of realism. Rietdijk suggests alf are experimentally testable. The crucial experiment, deter -mining whether there is an omniscient observer looking over our shoulder, still,'has to be invented. I hope this book will be tran~llated into English soon and on that occasion an index would be a welcome addition. It will provoke profound discussions and deserves a wider readership. Houtkooper Software Engineering De Maalkorn 7 1191 LP Ouderkerk aan den Amstel THE NETHERLANDS NOTES I. Translating between languages is always tricky, but in this case playing a negligible~ le,lbelieve. N 6 noted here The original citation is in German: 'Der liebe Herrgott wilrfelt nicht.' It might b that, apart from the intended meaning, Einstein also expressed a general sentiment. 7his maj be illustrated by words written by Ira Gershwin in 1934: 'To get into Hebben, don' snap for a sebben! Live clean!'From'lt ain't necessarily so', from'Porgy and Bess', in: The best of George Gershwin. Chappell, London, 1976. by the ganzfeld i, 2. See, for instance, J. M. Houtkooper, L. R. Gissurarson and E. Haraldsson: W conducive to ESP: A study of observational theory and the percipient-order effect. European journal of Parapsychology, 7(nr.2-4), 169-192, (1989). AppO&~ed For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP90-00792ROO0700830001-9 365