We discussed this on Skeptiko and at the time I had asked one of the researchers if the entire set of numbers was at expectation and IIRC the answer implied that it was, although I can't recall exactly. In any event, that is something to check.
If the RNGs are producing all these non random substrings based on global consciousness then over the vast sample size the 0s and 1s should vary wildly from a random distribution. If the entire set follows a random distribution then supposed substrings that look non random are probably just noise.
At least, that is my understanding.
(2017-09-12, 06:47 AM)Doug Wrote: [ -> ]Dr. Peter Bancel published a paper in 2016 in which he states the evidence from the GCP rules out a global consciousness effect, and instead favors mind/matter interactions (aka micro-PK) operating between the individual owners and their computers (which comprised the network):
Searching for Global Consciousness: A Seventeen Year Exploration
In an earlier paper, a draft of which was published in 2014, Bancel demonstrated a remarkable fact: that correlations between individual RNGs in the network were more likely to occur when the owners of the networked computers were awake:
An Analysis of the Global Consciousness Project (draft)
Here's the video from a 2013 webinar presentation of Bancel being interviewed by Dean Radin. IIRC, Bancel got into some detail over his reasons for regarding the MMI explanation as more likely than that of global consciousness. I think he also spoke about the connection between wide-awake networked computer owners and correlations in the network.
https://vimeo.com/80156408
Yes, Bancel has looked at the data in great depth, and if people want technical details about the random number generators they can find them in his papers. The technical appendix to the first of those papers is here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication...al_details
One of the things he found was a kind of diurnal variation based on the local time for the random number generators, suggesting the effect tended to be larger in the daytime, though as the effect is essentially made up of correlations between two RNGs in different parts of the world, it's not quite as simple as the owners of the computers being awake. In fact he later suggested it might be that the effect was strongest when Roger Nelson, the organiser of the project, was awake!
(2017-09-12, 07:37 AM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]Haven't read it, but that's what you would expect to see with power fluctuations... when people are awake there is a lot of fluctuing demand/supply in the power supply grid etc. It's much quieter when people are asleep and not consuming.
"Fluctuating power supplies" is one of the oldest suggestions that have been made, but I've never seen it explained how that could produce the observed results. What's needed is an explanation of how there can be a correlation of the outputs of two random number generators in different parts of the world on a second-by-second basis.
(2017-09-12, 07:14 AM)Arouet Wrote: [ -> ]We discussed this on Skeptiko and at the time I had asked one of the researchers if the entire set of numbers was at expectation and IIRC the answer implied that it was, although I can't recall exactly. In any event, that is something to check.
If the RNGs are producing all these non random substrings based on global consciousness then over the vast sample size the 0s and 1s should vary wildly from a random distribution. If the entire set follows a random distribution then supposed substrings that look non random are probably just noise.
At least, that is my understanding.
It's true that if the network is detecting "global consciousness", and if it is producing quite a large deviation from expectation during the chosen events, then one might expect a significant deviation at other times too. That's not the case, which is one of the facts that's consistent with Peter Bancel's eventual conclusion that the results reflected experimenter psi.
But the cumulative deviation from expectation during the chosen events obviously remains hugely statistically significant.
(2017-09-12, 08:20 AM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]It's true that if the network is detecting "global consciousness", and if it is producing quite a large deviation from expectation during the chosen events, then one might expect a significant deviation at other times too. That's not the case, which is one of the facts that's consistent with Peter Bancel's eventual conclusion that the results reflected experimenter psi.
But the cumulative deviation from expectation during the chosen events obviously remains hugely statistically significant.
Another interesting discovery Bancel made concerned the behaviour of the network just outside the periods specified for testing. Sometimes these began and ended at midnight, but in other cases, he found that just before the beginning of the periods and just after the end of the periods, on average the statistic expressing correlations between the RNGs was lower than expectation. He also found that the deficit outside the testing periods balanced the excess within the periods. He considered this to be strong evidence that the experimenter was exercising psi when choosing the start and end points of the test periods.
For the periods beginning and ending at midnight, whose start and end points were fixed, there was also an excess of the correlation statistic within the periods. On Bancel's interpretation, presumably the experimenter was exercising psi when deciding whether or not to include the relevant event in the experiment at all.
(2017-09-12, 12:41 PM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]Another interesting discovery Bancel made concerned the behaviour of the network just outside the periods specified for testing. Sometimes these began and ended at midnight, but in other cases, he found that just before the beginning of the periods and just after the end of the periods, on average the statistic expressing correlations between the RNGs was lower than expectation. He also found that the deficit outside the testing periods balanced the excess within the periods. He considered this to be strong evidence that the experimenter was exercising psi when choosing the start and end points of the test periods.
For the periods beginning and ending at midnight, whose start and end points were fixed, there was also an excess of the correlation statistic within the periods. On Bancel's interpretation, presumably the experimenter was exercising psi when deciding whether or not to include the relevant event in the experiment at all.
Sounds like he's saying the data was noise but decision augmentation theory used psi to pick a period that expressed a period that gave the correlation.
(2017-09-12, 12:51 PM)Arouet Wrote: [ -> ]Sounds like he's saying the data was noise but decision augmentation theory used psi to pick a period that expressed a period that gave the correlation.
Yes, that was his eventual conclusion. But before that he had spent a long time looking for structure in the data, and the earlier paper to which Doug posted a link shows some of those results:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication...JECT_draft
Although some of the structure seemed significant, and wouldn't have been consistent with the decision augmentation interpretation, he seems ultimately to have decided that the structure had just arisen as a result of post hoc testing of multiple hypotheses.
I'm not sure about that. For example, the diurnal variation mentioned by Doug is very strong. If the average value of the correlation statistic is significant at Z=7, is it so easy to dismiss the diurnal variation in the statistic, which is roughly going between 55% and 145% of the average? (Unfortunately the variable Bancel chose to express the diurnal variation makes it a bit awkward to work out its statistical significance.)
[Image: Diurnal.jpg]
(2017-09-12, 07:37 AM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]Haven't read it, but that's what you would expect to see with power fluctuations... when people are awake there is a lot of fluctuing demand/supply in the power supply grid etc. It's much quieter when people are asleep and not consuming.
I wonder if there have been any tests that correlate randomness with power-line noise?
I am having a hard time coming up with a reason to think that normal AC line noise would have a measurable impact on software created randomness. We are not talking about an analog circuit that would be directly impacted by things like spikes or harmonics.
If the power is clean enough to keep the OS is up and running, the software/CPU doesn't give a whit about the power supply sees on it's input. A serious enough power disturbance will cause CPU and other hardware related failures that will be quite obvious (reset, hang, blue screen etc).
Also any spurious error that did occur somehow, would tend to be "random" in nature anyway and so would not really skew the results.
(2017-09-12, 02:13 PM)jkmac Wrote: [ -> ]I wonder if there have been any tests that correlate randomness with power-line noise?
I am having a hard time coming up with a reason to think that normal AC line noise would have a measurable impact on software created randomness. We are not talking about an analog circuit that would be directly impacted by things like spikes or harmonics.
If the power is clean enough to keep the OS is up and running, the software/CPU doesn't give a whit about the power supply sees on it's input. A serious enough power disturbance will cause CPU and other hardware related failures that will be quite obvious (reset, hang, blue screen etc).
Also any spurious error that did occur somehow, would tend to be "random" in nature anyway and so would not really skew the results.
The random numbers aren't being generated by software. The input comes from devices generating electronic noise. There's a detailed description here:
http://noosphere.princeton.edu/reg.html
I have a very silly question. Maybe too silly... but still...
If RNGs can be affected by non local consciousness (i.e regardless of distance) how the heck do we create a proper control?
Wherever you go you will be affected by the "consciousness field", there's no hope to see how these devices operate when "no consciousness" is interfering.
Sorry, maybe I misunderstand the GCP. After many years I still don't think I get it.
Cheers