6.37 sigma replication of Dean Radin's double slit consciousness experiments

Incidentally, it seems that Gabriel Guerrer visited the Institute of Noetic Sciences (where Dean Radin is Chief Scientist) in Spring last year. The introduction to this short interview mentions that he was "preparing a replication of experiments at IONS exploring quantum measurement and consciousness."
http://www.noetic.org/blog/communication...sciousness

Can you replicate an experiment, and also fail to mention the possibility of sound energy driving the parts of an extremely sensitive 1.5m long measurement device... apparently so.... you couldn't make it up.

I did wonder if Guerrer was being groomed for a future position at IONS's... as he's boxing himself into a academic corner producing papers like that.

Really? You took the time to claim that the test had a serious flaw and you hadn't even read the report in detail???

What the &($%#^ ?

I guess I'll have to keep that in mind the next time I see "Max_B" at the head of a post.

I didn't need to read it in detail to find the 'thing' that had not been controlled for, Radin has done it in all his experiments (that I have read). This guy obviously does the same.

If experimenters could affect their results in the way that Radin claims, different QM experiments, from different experimenters around the world wouldn't turn out the same, so we know it's bunkum anyway.

These are just bad experiments which are not properly controlled, are they deliberate, not sure, but if you look at ION's business model one has to raise the possibility.

I didn't need to read it in detail to find the 'thing' that had not been controlled for, Radin has done it in all his experiments (that I have read). This guy obviously does the same.

If experimenters could affect their results in the way that Radin claims, different QM experiments, from different experimenters around the world wouldn't turn out the same, so we know it's bunkum anyway.

These are just bad experiments which are not properly controlled, are they deliberate, not sure, but if you look at ION's business model one has to raise the possibility.

I don't know,,, seems to me that if you are going to take umbrage with a report, you might want to actually read the entirety of the report. 

After-all, perhaps the flaw that you identified is explained or accounted for in some way. It just feels to me like you are guilty of the same sloppiness and agenda-promoting you are accusing them of. But that's just me.

I don't know,,, seems to me that if you are going to take umbrage with a report, you might want to actually read the entirety of the report. 

After-all, perhaps the flaw that you identified is explained or accounted for in some way. It just feels to me like you are guilty of the same sloppiness and agenda-promoting you are accusing them of. But that's just me.

I know you're sore, I'm poking at peoples important and deeply held belief's... there *is* strange stuff going, I'm a proponent for what it's worth... but this isn't the strange stuff.

I'd hope my contributions to the forum discussions were interesting and useful to people, as some peoples contributions are to me... like Chris pointing out that I had misunderstood a part of this paper... but it makes very little difference to what I said... they didn't control for sound energy between different test states that they wished to compare... and sound is well known for interfering with experimental set ups... particularly those that are very sensitive to sound energy... so deliberately introducing some interference between difference test states is very odd... they should know better... so what's going on...

I know you're sore, I'm poking at peoples important and deeply held belief's... there *is* strange stuff going, I'm a proponent for what it's worth... but this isn't the strange stuff.

I'd hope my contributions to the forum discussions were interesting and useful to people, as some peoples contributions are to me... like Chris pointing out that I had misunderstood a part of this paper... but it makes very little difference to what I said... they didn't control for sound energy between different test states that they wished to compare... and sound is well known for interfering with experimental set ups... particularly those that are very sensitive to sound energy... so deliberately introducing some interference between difference test states is very odd... they should know better... so what's going on...

I've always thought you were an intelligent and interesting poster, Max. My only criticism would be that I wish you would shelve your "theory" as you've given it your best shot and I don't see any movement in the views of the members ?    

Just a suggestion. Would it not be better to contact Dean Radin and tell him your views on these experiments ? If you know something he doesn't, won't he be able to recognise it and amend his methods/protocols ?

I know you're sore, I'm poking at peoples important and deeply held belief's... there *is* strange stuff going, I'm a proponent for what it's worth... but this isn't the strange stuff.

I'd hope my contributions to the forum discussions were interesting and useful to people, as some peoples contributions are to me... like Chris pointing out that I had misunderstood a part of this paper... but it makes very little difference to what I said... they didn't control for sound energy between different test states that they wished to compare... and sound is well known for interfering with experimental set ups... particularly those that are very sensitive to sound energy... so deliberately introducing some interference between difference test states is very odd... they should know better... so what's going on...

Don't want this to go on forever but really needed to say this,,,

I don't give a whit about who believes what I believe. Really,,, doesn't bother me a bit.  I know all these things can't be proven right now, but I'm OK and reasonably confident with where I stand with things.

In terms of your thoughts about the paper: whatever your thoughts are, are OK by me. You did make some comments about your general opinion of Radin's work, and that seems to tell me that you started with a particular an opinion about him or the work he does,, which is always a red flag. But heck, I don't care. OTOH-that doesn't mean I won't point it out. 

FWIW- the reason I point it out isn't for my own need to do so, it's for those who are poking around to find the truth. I want them to know there are other opinions out there. Who, knows, perhaps that's the same reason you participate.

Any negative comments I make (I like to think most of my comments or positive) are either due to my actual knowledge or opinion to the contrary, or occasionally about flawed logic, or else what appears to be significant bias. And it is almost never about being "sore", unless you've said something about my kids or wife. : )

Has any of you ever considered asking Radin himself about this 'flaw'? I mean, we have been playing with the double slit for a while now and as far as I know, we never needed big ass interferometers to do so. Sure, state of the art equipment is always a plus, but will it really change anything? If we take out the New Agey meditator elements, this is not that different from any of the quantum erasers in terms of influence.

Has any of you ever considered asking Radin himself about this 'flaw'? I mean, we have been playing with the double slit for a while now and as far as I know, we never needed big ass interferometers to do so. Sure, state of the art equipment is always a plus, but will it really change anything? If we take out the New Agey meditator elements, this is not that different from any of the quantum erasers in terms of influence.

Yup. True that. Still don't understand what new ground is covered with double slit. But maybe the idea is just to add another experiment to the list, so skeptics will have a harder time poking holes in the findings... 

Silly Dean. Did he really think that would make them stop? 

Don't want this to go on forever but really needed to say this,,,

I don't give a whit about who believes what I believe. Really,,, doesn't bother me a bit. I know all these things can't be proven right now, but I'm OK and reasonably confident with where I stand with things.

In terms of your thoughts about the paper: whatever your thoughts are, are OK by me. You did make some comments about your general opinion of Radin's work, and that seems to tell me that you started with a particular an opinion about him or the work he does,, which is always a red flag. But heck, I don't care. OTOH-that doesn't mean I won't point it out.

FWIW- the reason I point it out isn't for my own need to do so, it's for those who are poking around to find the truth. I want them to know there are other opinions out there. Who, knows, perhaps that's the same reason you participate.

Any negative comments I make (I like to think most of my comments or positive) are either due to my actual knowledge or opinion to the contrary, or occasionally about flawed logic, or else what appears to be significant bias. And it is almost never about being "sore", unless you've said something about my kids or wife. : )

For what its worth, I didn't start out with that opinion of Radin's work many years ago, indeed from a layman's point of view, I believed the significance of his results, as being about the thing he claimed he was studying. I realise now that I didn't have the knowledge to understand other issues that might affect his results that were not mentioned. I'm a total amateur, but as I've learned more over the years I began to question what I was reading a bit more. Much later I began to have serious doubts. It's been difficult to reverse my earlier position on his work, he comes across as a likeable chap, I don't like sticking the boot in. But I know more now, and I can see the holes in his papers. With his electrical engineering experience, I struggle to understand how some obvious issues could be entirely missing from any mention in his papers... like...

...conducting a meditation measurement using battery power, and comparing the results with a control state powered from the mains, and finding a statistically significant difference. But the measuring device is known to be extremely sensitive to tiny changes in power input, and that's not even mentioned in the paper.

...conducting concentration measurements using sound feedback, and comparing the results with measurements conducted without sound feedback, and finding a statistically significant difference. But the measuring device is known to be extremely sensitive to sound energy, and that's not even mentioned in the paper.

Perhaps wrongly, I tend towards the cynical explanation... he gets press coverage for ION's in second rate publications, which brings in revenue for ION's.

There are good open-minded scientists out there, but their work doesn't make headlines, and they don't publish books for public consumption, or appear on TV, yet their results are arguably far more astounding than any of the popular crap that gets shoveled at the general public to confuse and blind them.

I try to introduce people to this other work, whilst pointing out problems elsewhere.

Read it and weep... "..richly harmonic.." feedback noise is turned on for periods of 'concentration'. But this feedback noise is turned off for the 'relax' periods.

They found significant differences between fringe measurements when feedback noise was on, compared to when feedback noise was off.

But they also note that they found no significant statistical difference between measurements of sessions when a subject was present, and identical control sessions when a subject was not present (i.e. room was empty).

They made a number of different environmental measurements inside the room during the testing... but failed to measure sound energy... not surprising as they were deliberately using richly harmonic sound in their experiment, and would have picked it up, and this sound is correlated with their results.

Therefore the most plausible explanation is that sound energy from the headphones can drive the structures and cavities of the laser slit measuring device by resonance which is a well known problem.

Sound energy therefore caused the changes they measured in the fringe recordings of this very sensitive device.

First of all you said you only skim read the paper so I'm now skeptical of your synopsis, and I think it's highly premature to say 'therefore sound caused these changes' - especially as several experiments with different designs found highly significant results beforehand. 

However we all want to get to the truth, how would you feel about contacting the author of the paper with your criticisms and letting us (with his permission) see his response?