String Theory, Universal Mind, and the Paranormal (Physics has hit rock bottom)

www.arxiv.org ^ | Dec 2, 2003 | Brian D Josephson

[mikegi]

ABSTRACT

A model consistent with string theory is proposed for so-called paranormal phenomena such as extra-sensory perception (ESP). Our mathematical skills are assumed to derive from a special ‘mental vacuum state’, whose origin is explained on the basis of anthropic and biological arguments, taking into the need for the informational processes associated with such a state to be of a life-supporting character. ESP is then explained in terms of shared ‘thought bubbles’ generated by the participants out of the mental vacuum state. The paper concludes with a critique of arguments sometimes made claiming to ‘rule out’ the possible existence of paranormal phenomena.

Keywords: ESP, string theory, anthropic principle, thought bubble, universal mind, mental state

* To appear in the Proceedings of the 2nd. European Samueli Symposium, Freiburg, October 2003

[Aria]

I saw the future once. I had a "dream" about an Italian boat racer who was killed in Paris. I told my husband about it the next day on the plane we took out of Portland bound for Europe. Three weeks later it happened exactly the way I had seen it although in real life I never saw what I had seen in my dream, I was just told about the circumatances and they were exactly what I had forseen. My main questions are how and why?

[Nateman]

I have had dreams that have later occurred.

So have I! The most unusual one involved a game of Master Mind that I was playing with a friend. In the dream, tired of being beaten he simply cheats and makes random responses to my moves. After I figure out that no setup is possible to match his answers I remove the shield to find nothing there. Sure enough I find myself repeating the dream in reality and boldly announce to my friend. "I know you are cheating but through the help of a dream I will still get the correct answer: which is you have nothing at all behind that shield!" Knocking the shield away before he could do anything it revealed just what the dream had predicted. No pegs , no colors, simply nothing!

[HitmanLV]

Yea, I agree. I am a lawyer and worked with very bright people who did very well in school, but truly most barely manage to keep their heads afloat in the office world.

By a wide margin, most of the attys I have known and worked closely with (several hundred in the toughest lawyer market in the USA, NYC) are dull individuals, much more interested in avoiding blame and passing the buck, than doing anything of merit. It's not their fault - it's a symptom of the system they are in.

That being said, independent of that, I would not trust most of these Ivy School geniuses to balance a checkbook. I certainly don't trust any to watch my back.

The smartest man I know is still my dad, though. Could he write a killer brief for court in a 3-day weekend? Nope. Could he smell trouble, a phony, a racket, a waste of time, from 100 miles away? You bet!

I like to think he taught me that. So far, I've done ok! ;-)

[monkey]

Matter of fact, I'd have to rule them in, and if a guy like me is ruling them in, there must be a scientifically explainable phenomenon.

You forgot the Q.E.D.

[monkey]

Oh, I did have a dream about the lottery numbers once. So I played them. None of them came up.

Still, you dreamed the very numbers you ended up playing. So you did dream the future. Hmm...

[LibWhacker]

LOL. That's true. With my perfect 0 for 6 record, I'm hoping next time I dream about 42 numbers . . . You know, the ones that won't come up?

[servantoftheservant]

Fascinating. I've only met one other person who has had a similar experience, again something mundane. It's exciting to hear both of your accounts.

I'm encouraged to see scientific professionals acknowledge subtle phenomena and try to incorporate it in their universal models.

[lelio]

With my perfect 0 for 6 record

I had a dream last night that LibWhacker will go 0 for 7 in lottery picks.

[fire_eye]

I've been waiting for this.

When I was in college in the 60's, us physics majors had a favorite saying: "Chemistry is becoming physics, biology is becoming chemistry, psychology is becoming biology, religion is becoming psychology, and dope is becoming religion".

Since then, I have been awaiting the magical moment when the circle is completed, and physics becomes dope.

I see we have now arrived at that exalted state of affairs.

[PatrickHenry]

Thanks for the ping. I'll dig into this a bit later in the day.

[chilepepper]

I think the mistake is to say physics has hit rock bottom: more correctly i'd say it has hit a brick wall, an impasse. The future of physics, the really wild theories that will be the bedrock of science say 200 years from now, are IMHO hiding in some of what most people would consider the bizarre stuff.

An example is Roger Penrose's ideas, or Hameroff of the U of Arizona's theories on who the brain works... very elegant theory that ties in a lot of really esoteric stuff!

[Monty22]

"warning dreams" are very real. I've had numerous ones, including 9/11. I'd told a friend the week before that I had a dream of a south NYC building collapsing, with a single hand sticking out of the rubble and some stuff about a subway system with wreckage.

She reminded me about the dream right after 9/11.

Creepy stuff, but it's real.

[Trickyguy]

I have had dreams that have later occurred. Nothing spectacular....for example, dreaming of being in a mall, and then going to visit a relative in a town I've never been to and going to the mall I dreamed about. Freaked me out the first time it happened.

I had a dream that an old lady I knew was going to die. She did, that night, right at about the time I had the dream. She said goodbye in my dream.

[Poohbah]

A theory of everything has to include...........everything.

Well, my theory of everything includes everything except flightless waterfowl.

This doesn't make any sense.

Wait a minute. I see the problem--I forgot to carry the two.

[Joe Brower]

All one needs to do to see a ‘mental vacuum state’ firsthand is attend any meeting of the local democrats political committee, NOW chapter, MMM, ACLU, or any one of the dozens of other liberal/leftist groups.

[Physicist]

Has physics hit rock bottom???

Since there's apparently only one physicist saying this right now, at worst you can ask, "has Brian Josephson hit rock bottom?"

As for superstring theory, what is your basis for calling it "sillystrings"? If you've found some mathematical flaw in it, by all means, publish.

[djf]

I've thought about these things alot. As a result, I'm never surprised when we get another "New particle discovered in Tokyo" thread.

As long as they look for new particles, they will find new particles. Of course some of them may turn out to be the same old particles that seem to appear different because we're looking at them in a new way.

For most of my life, I held great hopes that physics could really tell us about the nature of reality. Those hopes have decreased very greatly.

Remember Newtonian mechanics? The clockwork universe ideas? The concept that if we knew all the particles positions and velocities, we could deduce what had happened in the past and predict what will happen.

While Newtons theories have been somewhat supplanted by Einstein et al, there is still a kind of "truth" to them as what science is really all about is cause and effect.

Imagine by some miracle we woke up tomorrow with reems and reems of paper in front of us, each particles position and velocity printed on it. The whole universe.

So we start looking at it.. and looking... and looking. Doesn't make much sense.

We look for evidence of anything we know about. A sunset. A tear. A planet or waterfall.

Nothing. Nada. No way can we relate any of the info on the pages to what we experience in normal life.

Because what the universe is about is PATTERNS not BUILDING BLOCKS.

Here's another example. We've all heard the "butterfly" theory that says that a butterfly somewhere either decides to take of or not, and his decision effects the weather somewhere distant.

I do no dispute this theory AS A THEORY.

But if it rains some afternoon, and two raindrops hit me in the head, then where is the butterfly? Is there one? I defy anyone to give me any evidence whatever that a butterfly had anything to do with it. And when you inspect things closely, you start to wonder whether the butterfly effect may in fact BE A MYTH.

Why?

Because any effect it might have is probably lost in the thermal and quantum "noise".

Physics needs a much bigger picture of the universe.

[Physicist]

A theory of everything has to include...........everything.

Everything fundamental, that is. A "theory of everything" doesn't have to include chemistry, for example, because all of that is an application of quantum electrodynamics. And all of biology is an application of chemistry.

[ovrtaxt]

Sounds like my wife. Not as booksmart as I am, but man can she tell when someone is lying, even being a little disengenuous. It's freaky as anything.

Of course, she grew up in a REALLY bad neighborhood, so her 'street smarts' were well developed.

[ovrtaxt]

I had a dream of a passenger jet hovering over a field near my house, then exploding. There was an emotion of alarm and panic when it happened. I woke up, wide awake. A month later, 9-11 happened.