Exploring the Limits of Materialism in Understanding Consciousness

Just how much evidence for psi phenomena is there today, when we put together the data from all the studies? What theory of reality could account for such phenomena? In this episode we have the baffling results of the scientific study of psi phenomena to get our head around. Broadly speaking psi can be broken down into four categories: telepathy, precognition and clairvoyance, and mind-matter interaction. The mere mention of these words immediately conjures images of magicians, charlatans and soothsayers duping a susceptible public; so combine that with the fact that nothing of these experiments and results have ever been properly covered in the scientific press, except by sceptics to dismiss them as physically impossible, as they would defy our current conception of the laws of physics: and the consequence is that scientifically educated people like us may have had absolutely no idea that there was more than 100 years of serious scientific peer-reviewed study on these effects from credible institutions like Princeton University and Stanford Research Institute, with debate and disagreement like any other field of science. Still, you can understand why professional scientists that are interested do this research out of the public eye, and the difficulty of other main stream scientists opening up to the results; as not only would it mean opening up to an alternative understanding of the laws of physics and mind, but also to be accused of believing pseudo-science. So I ask listeners that you sit through this presentation of the evidence patiently and just stay open to the possibility, as let’s face it the testimonial evidence for these anomalies is overwhelming. So who better to speak to about this baffling data, than one of the world’s leading psi researchers for over 30 years, psychologist Dean Radin. Dean got his degree in Engineering with Physics at the University of Massachusetts, and his PHD in psychology from the University of Illinois. He’s the head scientist at The Institute of Noetic Sciences and has worked in R&D for AT&T and GTE, as well as holding positions at Princeton University and SRI international. He has written many books on these topics for those who want delve deeper but the ones we’ll concentrate on today are ‘The Conscious Universe’, ‘Entangled Minds’ and ‘Real Magic’. 00:00 Intro 07:35 4 types of PSI experiments: Telepathy, mind-matter interaction, Precognition and Clairvoyance 10:30 Typical scientific response: delusion, illusion, mental illness, ignorance of the scientifically possible, and often that’s true 11:30 The Ganzfeld telepathy experiments: 5000 experiments with a 25% chance, result shift to 30% (6 sigma - a billion to one chance) 23:00 These phenomena may be bubbling up from the unconscious, so best to avoid conscious reporting methods 32:14 Mind-matter interaction: quantum random number generator experiments (4.5 Sigma result) 40:20 Dean’s ‘non-local connection/ observer effect’ theory for how psi works 44:80 Evidence for quantum coherence in the brain (See episode on ‘Quantum Biology’) 51:45 Robert Jahn, Princeton University Dean of Engineering, founder of PEAR Labs 56:30 A shift in openness to PSI 59:30 The Stargate remote viewing program at SRI: Dean’s role 01:07:00 Sceptic Ray Hyman: the strongest evidence for psi comes from Dean Radin and Jessica Utts 01:15:00 What’s being studied at IONS, that Edgar Mitchell founded following his mystical experience 01:35:00 Journals with editorial prejudice and psi research friendly publications References: Dean Radin 'The Conscious Universe' Dean Radin 'Entangled minds' Telepathy Gansfeld meta analysis of 29 studies (1992-2008) Precognition experiments meta analysis of 90 studies (-2011) Mind matter experiments eta analysis of 216 studies (1959-2000) Stargate Remote viewing program 1974-1996 Documentary ‘Third Eye Spies’ Evidence for quantum entanglement in the brain