Cellular Memory in Mindshock: Transplanting memories?. Documentary aired on Discovery Channel

Julie Beischel. Mediumship Under The Microscope: Science And The Afterlife

Noetic science on facebook and twitter

Here are some links to noetic science related organizations and people:

-Society for the Scientific Exploration's twitter and facebook.

-Institute of Noetic Sciences' facebook.

-Dean Radin's twitter.

-Marilyn Schlitz's twitter.

"The Next Scientific Revolution," with Marilyn Schlitz

Science and the taboo of PSI with noetic science researcher Dean Radin

Russell Targ - Practical Applications of Psychic Abilities

Russell Targ is an American physicist and author, an ESP researcher, and pioneer in the earliest development of the laser. At the Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s and 1980s, Targ and his colleague Harold E. Puthoff co-founded a 23-year, $25-million program of research into psychic abilities and their operational use for the U.S. intelligence community, including the CIA, Defence Intelligence Agency and Army Intelligence. These abilities are referred to collectively as "remote viewing.

The Lost Symbol author Dan Brown comments about noetic sciences

Entangled Minds: A noetic science talk by researcher and professional noetic scientist Dean Radin

Is precognition incompatible with free will?

Let us to define precognition as the psi perception that involves the acquisition of future information that cannot be deduced from presently available and normally acquired sense-based information.

This definition entails many things, but for our purposes let us to mention only two:

-The perception is done by "paranormal" means, not by the usual or normal ones.

-The future information already exists, and it's only accesible by precognition.

But if it's true (i.e. the future information already exist), then how could free will to exist?

Suppose the future information is that Barak Obama will retire, by his own will, from politics in august of 2010. The person with precognition actually "see" Obama retiring, and all the specific details surrounding it (for example, the news on CNN, the hour of the event, etc.)

It seems to imply that all of these events are already determined in advance; they're simply unknown by normal people who lack precognition skills.

But metaphysically, the event in question (and all the related circunstances) will exist in advance. If it's true, then we could argue that free will is an illusion based on ignorance of the (already existing but not accesible by most people) future information.

My opinion is that the future information (e.g. Obama's retire in the example) actually doesn't exist as actual and determined reality. It only exists as a possibility, the probability of which is projected on the future by our minds.

Precognition would allow to grasp a probable causal chain (deriving from the current states of affairs) resulting in the event in question (e.g. Obama retiring), but the causal chain is not fully deterministic, because free will is not part of that chain and the will of the intervining persons (Obama) could freely change.

But, given that the will is influenced by many factors, and those factors could be anticipated or known (by normal and paranormal means), you could know (with some probability) that a certain event will happen.

For example, I can ancitipate that if the lakers win the NBA championship this year, the lakers fans will celebrate and be happy. It doens't mean that free will doesn't exist, only that given a known patterns of human behaviour, you can predict certain human behaviour under specific circunstances.

If it's correct, precognotion would be only a more sophisticated and refined skill to predict, based on known patterns (known both via normal senses and paranormal perception) what's likely to occur in the future.

But the future as such doesn't exist in the metaphysical sense apparently required by the concept of precognition.

Henry Stapp's paper on quantum mechanics and personal survival

Quantun physicist Henry Stapp wrote a paper on the relation between quantum mechanics and survival of consciousness.

Stapp defends the view that quantum mechanics is not incompatible with the possibility of survival.

He doesn't say that survival exists. He simply argues that if it exists (what's an empirical question), it is not incompatible with quantum mechanics.

Dean Radin: a noetic science video on Intentional Chocolate

Noetic Sciences, illusionism, delusions and frauds,

The history of psychical research includes some precedent of frauds and unintentional delusions.

By this reason, magicians have played a role in psychical research, both as debunkers and as qualified experts that offer suggestions to better the experimental design when testing psychics.

It's well known that magicians can replicate almost every kind of paranornal phenomena. And magicians like the great illusionist David Copperfield can do things as far better and beyond the skills of real psychics or mediums.

Just watch these videos by Copperfield, and you can understand what I mean:






For the purposes of noetic sciences in general and psychical research in particular, what's of interest is that psi (or paranormal) phenomena might be replicated by experienced magicians.

For this reason, it is wise, useful and necessary to know the relevant methods and tricks of professional magicians when designing experiments to test psychics and mediums.

There is an interesting paper by George Hansen about frauds and delusions in psychical research and how to avoid them.

Perfecting the experimental designs when testing psychics and mediums is always a wise and scientifically correct idea.

Rupert Sheldrake and the Extended Mind lecture

We have been brought up to believe that the mind is located inside the head. But there are good reasons for thinking that this view is too limited. Recent experimental results show that people can influence others at a distance just by looking at them, even if they look from behind and if all sensory clues are eliminated. And people's intentions can be detected by animals from miles away. The commonest kind of non-local interaction mental influence occurs in connection with telephone calls, where most people have had the experience of thinking of someone shortly before they ring. Controlled, randomized tests on telephone telepathy have given highly significant positive results. Research techniques have now been automated and experiments on telepathy are now being conducted through the internet and cell phones, enabling widespread participation.

In this conference, Rupert Sheldrake presents some of his lastest findings.

Opening post.

Some friends suggested to me to begin a blog in English.

After some consideration, I decided to try it.

I want this blog to be a place to exchange information and ideas about matters like noetic sciences, parapsychology, afterlife studies and philosophy.

For the moment, I'll allow comments by all the readers, including anonymous; but my experience on the internet has taught me that trolls and other hostile persons are unavoidable, so it's very likely that eventually I'll allow comments only under moderation.