Blog 21

BLOG 21/-24/:  (OVERVIEW)

                UNITING PSI TO SCIENCE:

                    We all now live in space-time

                         -  And psi completes the proof  

     Psi is the accepted term for ‘psychic’ awareness of all sorts.   And this is the title of an hour-long lecture I delivered on June 1 2017.  To a full house audience (ca. 50),  at the London headquarters of the Society for Psychical Research.  

(cf: <spr.ac.uk> under ‘past events’)

   This talk was illustrated by a series of 40 Powerpoint slides divided into 12 numbered sections.  All of these slides are now reproduced below.   With each  also followed by explanatory comments reproducing what I said on the night.

   For ease of reading and comprehension, I’ve here divided this lecture into 4 parts.  With 4 separate blogs as now listed here :-

    Blog 21/ (Slides1-3): PRE-MODERN SCIENCE – Shows various examples of naïve impressions replaced by scientific knowledge.

    Blog 22/ (Slides 4-6): FROM EINSTEIN TO SPACE-TIME – Though whether Minkowski space-time must do likewise is still unclear.

    Blog 23/  (Slides 7-9): RETHINKING PSI – Shows how the ‘psychic’ mystery is best reconsidered in purely temporal terms. 

    Blog 24/ (Slides 10-12): PRE-CALL AS A LEARNED SKILL – Affords new union of psi to science, or experience to space-time.

     The first of these 4 parts (Slides 1-3) then follows directly here…… 

 

   Science can be considered as “the application of intellect to the facts of nature”.  But that still leaves the true facts of psi as more debatable -  an issue I will be investigating in depth throughout Blog 23/. 

   It’s also important to realise that humanity has always lived in space-time – but that this fact has only become inescapably evident over the past 40 years.

 

   Concerning myself I was always much into what may be termed  ‘mental manipulation’ from an early age.   For example mentally extracting square and cube roots (to 1 decimal place) before the age of 12, spelling long words backwards, etc.  

    So that by age 17 (when I first went to Galway University) I could conclude with good confidence that I was observing just too many coincidences in my daily life.   Although only sometimes: there would be days when I observed many, and then weeks/months on end when I observed none.

   After graduation I was also lucky to work with Canadian mining prospectors for some time.  These are people who investigate anomalies in the terrestrial surface, slight effects which would pass unnoticed by the majority.  Though  possibly pointing towards a viable orebody of minerals buried underneath. 

   Eventually therefore I was able to transfer this ‘art of weak anomalies’ to my ongoing search for the nature and meaning of psi.  As a result of which I now practice direct psi control for ca. 5 hrs. every week. 

   This lecture will also incorporate 3 relevant scientific themes:-

1/ The history of science  is marked by a continuous progression from naïve impressions to more scientific knowledge, Naïve impressions are what our unaided senses tell us, while scientific knowledge is usually (though not always) revealed by experiment.

  5 such historical examples will be considered in this talk.  Plus a 6^th innovative proposal for a new psycho-physical union between psychology and physics.  Or between psi and the reality of space-time.

2/ Words are ‘the summary of thought’ , with proper language usage being a procedure with strong evolutionary advantages.  Good words describe with accuracy and brevity. Whereas wrong words divert thought into confusions – a consequence often apparent throughout science history.

3/ How the scientific enterprise works has been well described by three eminent researchers  - Sir Peter Medawar, Murray Gell-Mann, Thomas Kuhn.  From whom I will quote extensively in PART THREE, when concerned with the challenge of clarifying psi.

   Finally this lecture will also be ‘T-shaped’ in outline.  Ranging widely at first before narrowing down to a more specific focus.

   It may even turn out to be  a ‘Black Swan’ event in N.Taleb’s terms: a surprising occurrence which ‘comes from nowhere’  to effect important change.

 

   Modern science may be said to have started in 1543, when Copernicus proposed  a helio-centric Solar System – with the Sun instead of the Earth at the centre of things.   This was a first falsification of naïve impressions by  scientific knowledge, though here achieved by observation and calculation, rather than by experiment.

   About fifty years later Galileo disproved Aristotle’s conclusion that light bodies fall slower than heavy ones – possibly  by dropping different cannon-balls from Pisa’s Leaning Tower.  (Aristotle had ignored air resistance which greatly slows down feathers in their fall.)

    This was a second  falsification of naïve impressions by scientific knowledge – but now demonstrable by direct experiment.

   Galileo may also have dropped cannon-balls from the masts of moving ships - with the same result as before.  Which impelled him to advance his hugely  foundational Principle of Relativity:-

  “Scientific laws always function unchanged in frameworks of smooth motion”.    (with neither acceleration nor braking throughout)

   For example you might stand on a station platform whose framework is its length, breadth, height.  And, if you were to let an apple fall, it will always point straight downward - i.e. directed towards the centre of the Earth.

  But the same result will be observed if you’re in a different framework of smooth motion – e.g. an InterCity train whizzing past at 100 miles per hour relative to the platform.   And the apple will still fall straight down even in an aeroplane going in the opposite direction.  At 500 mph relative to the static platform - or 600 mph relative to the moving train.

   All of which just goes to show that scientific laws always hold true within moving frameworks of smooth motion.   So that (300 years later) Einstein would spend his early career extending Galileo’s Principle of Relativity,  to incorporate new scientific laws.  Which were unknown and indeed unimaginable in earlier centuries.

   Finally Galileo instituted the principle of “Try it and see”, the assumed invitation behind all scientific reports ever since.  This happened in 1610 when he invited two local theologians to peer into his newly perfected telescope.  To see for themselves that Jupiter had four moons.

   But since Aristotle had stated that Jupiter could have no moons, these two theologians (Cremonini and Libri) declined Galileo’s open invitation to ‘try it  and see’ for themselves. They were happier to remain in that state of ignorance into which they’d long been trained. 

   50 years later the same principle was adopted by England’s newly founded Royal Society with its motto “Nullius in Verba”:  (“do not believe the word of anyone”).   So that in principle any valid report in science must contain instructions sufficient for any doubter to repeat its procedures if so inclined.

    “Try it and see” is therefore a very important scientific maxim, one which I’ll  have occasion to invoke again…..

   Isaac Newton acknowledged that he ‘stood on the shoulders of giants’ , of whom his predecessors Copernicus and Galileo were two.

   In his great Principia Mathematica  of 1687, Newton therefore refined and formalised Galileo’s earlier results.   He produced new laws of motion and acceleration now easily understood in secondary schools.   And – through his Universal Law of Gravity - he substantiated Copernicus with mathematical calculations which clarified how the entire Solar System works.

   This was a third extension of naïve impressions by scientific knowledge, and after which nobody could doubt Copernicus anymore.    

    Newton’s laws work almost perfectly within their intended range.  But they grow inaccurate as velocities increase towards the ultimate light speed which nothing can exceed.  In that region Einstein’s more refined calculations are proven to be more accurate. 

    While Newton’s system also had four main problems which began to be recognised at an early stage:

   1/ As he acknowledged, ‘action at a distance’ remained a mystery: how could the Sun influence the orbit of Earth some 93 million miles away?

    This was a problem later clarified by Einstein’s application of curved space-time.

   2/ Newton also required absolute space wherein you could imagine a surveyor’s flagpole planted somewhere.  And from it being able to measure the length, breadth and height of the entire Universe.

     But we now realise that ‘all things move’ throughout the Universe. So that such a static marker is impossible.  For example Earth (with ourselves onboard) is right now speeding at 1,000 miles per minute round the Sun.  Which is itself moving at half a million miles per hour around the Milky Way.  Which in turn moves even faster towards something called the Great Attractor in deep space.

     3/ Newton further required “absolute time. Which flows of itself equably and without relation to anything external .  

      But you can’t regard anything as flowing ‘without relation’ to something else- i.e. not clarifying past what it flows!  So that if time is regarded as flowing like a river, then where or what are the banks by which it is contained?

     4/ Finally Newton thought that the ‘moment of Now’ must extend throughout the entire Universe.  So that if it’s now 7.15pm here in London, it would also be 7.15 on the Moon, the Sun. and right out to the furthest edge of the furthest galaxy.

     But, as Einstein showed later, our knowledge of Now in different regions depends on how fast we can communicate with them - which is in turn limited  by that ultimate light speed.  That we can only see the sun as it was 8.3 minutes ago is generally realised by most people today. 

   But few comprehend  that ‘Now-Here’ must differ from ‘Now-There’ for even small separations within our everyday experience.   So that there’s a difference of ten nanosecs (10 billionths of 1 second) in ‘Now’ as experienced by two people just 3 metres apart.  

   Such fine temporal discrimination is of course far below what our naïve senses can accomplish - dependent as they are on slow ion diffusions which limit the speed of thought to about 200 miles per hour.  But they’re still within the operational range of the new mobile-phone era in which we now live….

Meantime there’s simply no ‘Universal Now’ as Newton once believed.

   In his Optics (1704) Newton also regarded light as corpuscles – little particles which shoot out as bullets, as for example when a torch is switched on.

   But in 1803 Thomas Young proved that light had wave-like properties.  And since waves require a medium for travel – just as your voice waves require the medium of air to reach your listeners – It was assumed that there must be a medium to carry light between Sun and Earth.

   This supposed medium was termed the Aether.   And it would serve as a striking example of how wrong words can divert scientists into cu-de-sacs of confusion over many years.

    Meantime Michael Faraday (1831) first proved that electric and magnetism were two aspects of the same phenomenon.  Importantly also he was always very careful in his choice of new fact-labels or scientific words.  So he enlisted the help of classicist Sir William Whewell to describe the new phenomena with which he worked.  

   And between them they devised new accurate terms of description like ion, electrode, electrolysis.  All of them so reliable and accurate they’re still in use today.

      Clerk Maxwell (1865) further developed Faraday’s idea of  magnetic force-lines, into the more mathematical concept of electro-magnetic fields.  And – much as with a spark of lightning - he wanted to know the speed at which such fields would propagate through space. 

    To find this speed Maxwell used a well-measured physical constant known as magnetic permeability.  This constant measures how strongly a magnet’s influence can permeate to attract iron filings within the surrounding locality.  He then mathematically manipulated this measurement with a similar constant for electric charge. 

    And to his surprise discovered that the speed of an electro-magnetic wave was equal to the speed of light which had been measured centuries before.   (Though indeed due consideration of a lightning spark might have suggested this equality originally.)

   In any case Maxwell’s greater conclusion was now inescapable: visible light is just our sensory perception of a small slice, from a much greater spectrum of invisible electro-magnetic waves.  So that we now realise there are a great many  others forms of light we simply can’t see – gamma-rays, X-rays, ultraviolet, infra-red, micro-waves, radio waves, etc.

   Such a revolutionary realisation was therefore a fourth case of naïve impressions extended by scientific knowledge, (though this time hardly falsified).

   Those electro-magnetic waves invisible to the human eye were finally proven in 1887, co-discovered by Heinrich Hertz (Germany) and Oliver Lodge (Liverpool).   Around this time also Lodge was conducting early experiments in ‘thought transmission’ for the recently founded SPR.

     And a few years later after a public lecture, Hertz was asked what practical use might come from his newly discovered electro-magnetic waves.   Whereupon he stated that  “They’ve no use at all that I can think of, they just prove Maxwell right”.

    But apparently among the audience was teenager Guigliemo Marconi, who had a more visionary outlook.  And so quickly proceeded to invent early ‘wire-less’ - thereby ushering in the modern electronic age…

   In the same year (1887) however a great problem was reported from America.   There Albert Michelson (aided by Edward Morley) had been conducting a series of ever more accurate experiments to find evidence for that light-conducting aether medium.  But to universal surprise no evidence for this medium could be found.

    To explain this failure, George Fitzgerald from Ireland proposed the novel idea of length contraction.  This meant that Michelson’s measuring rods might have been compressed as they ploughed through the aether – much as a great ship may compress by perhaps a millimetre as it pushes through the sea.  (Though Michelson observed no similar physiological effects, which might have been expected for himself as well)

    Heinrich Lorentz from Holland then worked out the mathematics of dimensional transforms, – while also incorporating the constant speed of light (1895). Transforms involve a change in perspective. As for example when a teenager nowadays takes a ‘selfie’ with smart-phone directly in front of her face - and then produces a very different picture when taken from the side.

   The Lorentz equations also required an imaginary fourth dimension involving the square root of minus-one, at a further right angle to those familiar three dimensions (=measurements) of length, breadth, height.  And in 1905 Henri Poincare from France suggested that this fourth dimension might be equated with real time. 

    But then he rather put his foot in it by stating that such ideas don’t represent reality, being “just mathematical methods, hardly worth the trouble.”  

   So that after Einstein considered the fourth dimension (=measurement) of time more seriously to produce Relativity Theory (RT) in the same year, Poincare never spoke to him again !

   All those pre-Einstein enquirers aimed towards incorporating Maxwell’s new laws of magnetism under Galileo’s Relativity Principle.   But they were still hampered by that false notion of an aether supposedly required as a light-carrying medium. 

    The stage was therefore left to a more youthful Einstein to take a more realistic view of things.