EVIDENCE AND IMPLICATIONS OF MINDMATTER INTERACTIONS!

The belief that mind has "power" over matter can be traced throughout history. The belief is deeply entwined into mythology and the origins of religion, and is central to the concept of spiritual or distant healing. As a result, science regards such beliefs as quaint superstitions at best, and as dangerous anathemas at worst. In modern times, mind-matter interaction has been repeatedly tested in the laboratory, and despite scientific disquiet, the evidence suggests that there may indeed be some sort of genuine physical phenomenon associated with the act of intention. The evidence further suggests that such interactions are probably pervasive, that they occur unconsciously, that the concept of mental "power" is probably misleading, and that our ontological assumptions about "objective reality" may need to be revised

SUPERPOWERS AND THE STUBBORN ILLUSION OF SEPARATION

Since the dawn of humanity, people have investigated the relationship between intention and the physical world through practices like prayer and meditation. Starting a half-century ago, science began to systematically explore these relationships in the laboratory. After briefly reviewing the history of this scientific exploration, I will discuss two recent experiments. Both were conducted to explore the nature of the mind's eye and its interaction with physical systems distant in space or time. In one, an eyetracking system was used to test whether seers could actually "see" future events. In another, meditators and non-meditators were asked to use their mind's eye to "see" a beam of photons in a light-tight optical apparatus. Both experiments provided intriguing glimpses of the role of the human mind in weaving the fabric of reality. I will also discuss an experiment that examined the effect of highly focused intention applied toward food by measuring the food’s influence on people who consumed it. Finally, I will touch on the predicatable stages of acceptance of new ideas

ENVIRONMENTAL MODULATION AND STATISTICAL EQUILIBRIUM IN MIND-MATTER INTERACTION

Mind-matter interactions observed in laboratory experiments typically manifest as minute statistical flucruations from chance expectation. Meta-analyses suggest that these small flucruations reflect genuine, direct interactions between mind and matter, but lack of predictability of the effect has made systematic study of the phenomenon difficult. Two general factors that may contribute to erratic laboratory outcomes are (a) unavoidable environmental fluctuations and (b) a physical principle that tends to counterbalance mind-matter effecrs in time and space. Environment is used in the holistic sense, including cosmic, global, local, and personal variables. The physical principle is envisioned as a tendency for perturbations introduced into a system to be statistically balanced by opposing perturbations so as to maintain an overall condition of equilibrium. A longitudinal experiment with the experimenter as subject was designed to explore the possible influences of these twO factors in mind-matter interaction. The results found strong indicators of environmental modulation, including a successful demonstration that a neural network could learn to predict mind-matter interaction performance based upon eight environmental variables. Evidence for a time-and space-like equilibrium principle was also observed in the data

POSSIBLE INFLUENCE OF THE GEOMAGNETIC FIELD ON SPORTS PERFORMANCE

If human behavior and performance are affected by minute changes in the earth's geomagnetic field, as suggested by a growing body of evidence, then one might also expect to see such influences reflected in skilled physical performance, such as sports. To explore this possibility, scores from a mixed-gender, candlepin competitive bowling league were correlated with daily planetary geomagnetic flux. Results indicated that geomagnetic fluctuations the day before bowling accounted for a significant percentage (40%) of the variance in men's bowling scores. The same relationship was not independently significant for women's scores, but the correlation was opposite to men's scores

TOWARDS A COMPLEX SYSTEMS MODEL OF PSI PERFORMANCE

If psi is like any other human abiliry, and widely disrribured in rhe popularion, rhan psi performance may be modulated by many of the same facrors that affect other forms of human performance. To test rhis notion, 105 people participated in a series of four psi tests. Participants represented a broad range of age, belief. experience and personality type; data of 96 participants was adequate for further analysis. A rotal of 149 variables were tracked per participant, including psi performance, psychological, sociological, meteorological, and solar-geophysical facrors. The first test relied upon background ionizing radiation as the physical target, the second and third tests used electronic noise, and the fourth test involved a riming task. A single score was used to summarize each individual's psi performance in the four tests. An artificial neural network was trained on the data of 72 participants to see if psi performance could be predicted based on eight variables representing an aggregation of 24 environmental, sociological and psychological factors. The network successfully learned to predict the performance of the remaining 24 people (correlation between prediction and actual performance was r 0.47, p ; 0.01), suggesting that psi performance in the laboratory, and probably in life, is influenced by some of the same environmental factors that influence other forms of human behavior

ENVIRONMENTAL MODULATION AND STATISTICAL EQUILIBRIUM IN MIND-MATTER INTERACTION

Mind-matter interactions observed in laboratory experiments typically manifest as minute statistical flucruations from chance expectation. Meta-analyses suggest that these small flucruations reflect genuine, direct interactions between mind and matter, but lack of predictability of the effect has made systematic study of the phenomenon difficult. Two general factors that may contribute to erratic laboratory outcomes are (a) unavoidable environmental fluctuations and (b) a physical principle that tends to counterbalance mind-matter effecrs in time and space. Environment is used in the holistic sense, including cosmic, global, local, and personal variables. The physical principle is envisioned as a tendency for perturbations introduced into a system to be statistically balanced by opposing perturbations so as to maintain an overall condition of equilibrium. A longitudinal experiment with the experimenter as subject was designed to explore the possible influences of these twO factors in mind-matter interaction. The results found strong indicators of environmental modulation, including a successful demonstration that a neural network could learn to predict mind-matter interaction performance based upon eight environmental variables. Evidence for a time-and space-like equilibrium principle was also observed in the data

POSSIBLE INFLUENCE OF THE GEOMAGNETIC FIELD ON SPORTS PERFORMANCE

If human behavior and performance are affected by minute changes in the earth's geomagnetic field, as suggested by a growing body of evidence, then one might also expect to see such influences reflected in skilled physical performance, such as sports. To explore this possibility, scores from a mixed-gender, candlepin competitive bowling league were correlated with daily planetary geomagnetic flux. Results indicated that geomagnetic fluctuations the day before bowling accounted for a significant percentage (40%) of the variance in men's bowling scores. The same relationship was not independently significant for women's scores, but the correlation was opposite to men's scores