The Global Consciousness Project

Not really, to me at least. I think you've introduced an additional idea, but the original point still remains.

Now I know the most common implementations of random-number generators don't use radioactive decay, it's a good starting point in this discussion. Here, if we consider any single atom of a radioactive isotope, there is no way of telling at what instant it might decay. It is as random as random gets. However, take a chunk of that material containing billions upon billions of atoms of the same material, and one can say with fairly high precision how much of it will decay in a given time period.

Here is the crux of the matter.

• One individual atom - unpredictable.
  
• Many, many atoms together = predictable.
  

Now true random-number generators make use of the first characteristic. Computers take advantage of the second characteristic.

Expecting some undefined psi factor to change the behaviour of highly predictable large-scale physical systems such as computers is a completely different matter to positing that it might affect tiny quantum events which by their nature are unpredictable .

Re: decay- If you are just measuring whether an odd or even number of decay events happens per unit time (this is how it works) it is totally unpredictable (O vs E). Take 8 of these 1's and 0's ("bits" caused by odd vs even decay events) and string them together and you have a number that you can use.

Expecting some undefined psi factor to change the behaviour of highly predictable large-scale physical systems such as computers is a completely different matter to positing that it might affect tiny quantum events which by their nature are unpredictable .

If Radin's experiments with the interferometer are to be believed, psi can affect fundamental particles. It doesn't seem a huge stretch of the imagination to cause a bit flip inside a DRAM chip and induce an actual "soft error" in a large-scale system.

If we want to consider even more "macro" PSI effects, distant healing would have to affect atoms, molecules and entire tissues to produce the claimed results. Not to mention poltergeists.

I don't know if there's a precise line that we can draw in terms of effect size, but maybe the folks at GCP have arbitrarily drawn one.

cheers

p.s. = forgot to add...
if the investigations on Ted Serios are to be believed PSI effects can definitely affect large scale systems!

If Radin's experiments with the interferometer are to be believed, psi can affect fundamental particles. It doesn't seem a huge stretch of the imagination to cause a bit flip inside a DRAM chip and induce an actual "soft error" in a large-scale system.

If we want to consider even more "macro" PSI effects, distant healing would have to affect atoms, molecules and entire tissues to produce the claimed results. Not to mention poltergeists.

I don't know if there's a precise line that we can draw in terms of effect size, but maybe the folks at GCP have arbitrarily drawn one.

cheers

And then there's the history of all those effects with telephone answering machines, telephone messages, and radios and TV EVP (electronic Voice Phenomenon). If that stuff is valid, certainly "flipping bits" is no biggie.

Do people think this might be part of the same effect? Sounds like the same thing to me.

The Global Maharishi Effect

The secret of the Global Maharishi Effect is the phenomenon known to Physics as the ‘Field Effect', the effect of coherence and positivity produced from the field of infinite correlation—the self-referral field of least excitation of consciousness—the field of Transcendental Consciousness, which is basic to creation and permeates all life everywhere.

I won't debate the statistics and the effect may very well be real, meditation has shown us quite a few marvelous characteristics before... However, all of the talk about fields in the quoted text reads like New Age mumbo-jumbo to me...The last part of the sentence is the most plausible, although it actually reads like they are describing the Force from Star Wars.

I won't debate the statistics and the effect may very well be real, meditation has shown us quite a few marvelous characteristics before... However, all of the talk about fields in the quoted text reads like New Age mumbo-jumbo to me...The last part of the sentence is the most plausible, although it actually reads like they are describing the Force from Star Wars.

Yeah... it sounds like Deepak Chopra

Do people think this might be part of the same effect? Sounds like the same thing to me.

The Global Maharishi Effect

That's the kind of meditation effort I'd like to see applied to something "stupid" such as an RNG or interferometer... so that it would be clear as day that the effect is there, it's macro and there's no ambiguity or ways of "interpreting" the statistics etc...

By the by, if those results from the article are real I guess the same could be done with negative intentions, in other words... weaponized meditation

I won't debate the statistics and the effect may very well be real, meditation has shown us quite a few marvelous characteristics before... However, all of the talk about fields in the quoted text reads like New Age mumbo-jumbo to me...The last part of the sentence is the most plausible, although it actually reads like they are describing the Force from Star Wars.

I don't get your comment about new age mumbo-jumbo. 

I've got a news flash for you: everything we talk about here is new age mumbo-jumbo!

I don't get your comment about new age mumbo-jumbo. 

I've got a news flash for you: everything we talk about here is new age mumbo-jumbo!

It sounds fancy, but in reality says nothing. It just borrows concepts from other things (science, especially quantum physics, religion, philosophy...) and puts them together in a shish kabob of baseless affirmation.