Consciousness and the Source of Reality

摘要

CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SOURCE OF REALITY by Robert G. Jahn and Brenda J. Dunne. Princeton, NJ: ICRL Press, 2011. Pp. ix-xii + 398. $19.95 (paperback). ISBN 1-936033-03-8. From 1979-2007, the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) lab produced the most comprehensive of controlled laboratory studies of micro-PK on random event generators (REGs) and macro-PK on mechanical, optical, and acoustical physical processes ever assembled. In addition, the lab amassed one of the largest databases of viewing (or as the PEAR team prefers, remote perception) trials, and developed new quantitative methods of evaluating correspondences between percipient-agent descriptions of target sites. Along the way, the lab established a multifaceted network of scientists, engineers, philosophers, artists, entrepreneurs, and generalists, all of whom have participated in PEAR's research activities (either as interns or human operators) and are linked by their common conviction that the statistical results of PEAR's research indicates that human consciousness can influence events in the physical world in ways that transcend the known sensory faculties, and the normally experienced boundaries of time and space. Consciousness and the Source of Reality is, according to Jahn and Dunne, intended as a sequel to their 1987 book Margins of Reality, and one that summarizes the complete history of PEAR's research findings, the theoretical models developed to try to account for these findings, and their current thoughts on the scientific, philosophical, and cultural implications of their findings. The core of the book is outlined in five sections. Due to the breadth of experiments and theories discussed, and the spatial constraints of this review, I will outline the topics discussed in each section, and then select the topics that I found the most interesting to comment on. The first section, Venues, Vistas, and Vectors, outlines five domains (or vectors, as Jahn and Dunne prefer) that, according to Jahn and Dunne (hereafter J&D), have become progressively more important in the study of consciousness over the past two decades, and for which PEAR's findings seem to be applicable either directly or indirectly. Those domains are biology, medicine, creativity, spirituality, and information technology (IT). While I found it interesting to see how J&D argued for a connection between the PEAR findings and these domains, it was difficult to evaluate how valid some of their interpretations are of controversial views such as neo-Lamarckianism, or alleged medical such as spontaneous remissions, prayer therapy and energy healing, placebo effects, and so forth. Unfortunately, this is often the case with nonstandard claims made about fields outside of one's area of expertise (which in this case is physics), and therefore leads me to take these claims with a grain of salt. Also, given that this section involved applications of PEAR's findings to different domains, I felt it would have been better for organizational purposes if discussion of these connections was left for the final section of the book, where they give an appraisal of their findings and discuss their scientific, philosophical, and cultural implications. In the second section, Human/Machine Connections: Thinking Inside the Box?, J&D summarize all of PEAR's experimental work on micro-PK phenomena with REGs (though they prefer the phrase human/ machine anomalies instead of PK) and macro-PK phenomena with mechanical, optical, and acoustical physical processes. They start with a summary of the basic statistical techniques (e.g., the normal distribution, z scores, effect sizes, statistical significance, etc.) used in their research program, and then go on to discuss their basic experimental strategy, their initial experiments with the so-called tripolar protocol, their Benchmark database of REG experiments, the co-operator experiments, the PEAR 200 operator competition experiment, ArtREG, the Yantra experiment, Mega