(2017-11-01, 04:50 PM)Chris Wrote: I'm still trying to figure out what may (or may not) be going on in these experiments, and in the previous ones by Dean Radin and others.
Could any Quantum Mechanics enthusiasts give me some help with the underlying concept? If I understand correctly, the motivation for looking at a double-slit system, from a psi point of view, is that the interference pattern is the result of wave-like behaviour by the photons, and that if a measurement is made of which slit the photons are passing through, the fringes disappear. So if the photons could be "psychically measured", that should tend to weaken the pattern. (Note, however, that the participants in Guerrer's experiments were told only to try to enhance the feedback they were receiving, and those in Radin's were told various things, but weren't usually told explicitly to try to measure where the photons were going.)
[Image: doubleslit.jpg]
Radin used various analysis techniques, but the common feature was an attempt to quantify the intensity of the double-slit interference pattern (at the bottom in the figure), relative to that of the single-slit diffraction pattern (at the top). Again, Guerrer uses a different analysis technique - he assumes that the effect is to change the amounts of light which go through the two slits, and to introduce a phase-difference between the light going through the two slits.
What I don't understand is why a psychical measurement of the photons - if that were the mechanism - shouldn't also affect the single-slit diffraction pattern, as well as the double-slit interference pattern. The diffraction pattern is also a result of wave-like behaviour by the photons, and if I understand correctly, it should also be disrupted by measurement of the photons as they pass through the slit - if that measurement yields extra information about position and momentum, in addition to indicating which slit the photon is passing through. And I can't imagine any reason why a psychical measurement would be confined to "which way" information.
But maybe I am misunderstanding something.
Have you reached out to Radin? This isn’t a new experiment. He references various papers decades ago that were testing similar concepts.