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Volume 17: Number 2: Article 1
Information and Uncertainty in Remote Perception Research
Brenda J. Dunne & Robert G. Jahn , Princeton Engineering Anomalies
Research, Princeton University, Princeton NJ 08544-5263
This article has four purposes: 1) to present for the first time in
archival form all results of some 25 years of remote perception research
at this laboratory; 2) to describe all of the analytical scoring methods
developed over the course of this program to quantify the amount of
anomalous information acquired in the experiments; 3) to display a remarkable
anti-correlation between the objective specificity of those methods
and the anomalous yield of the experiments; and 4) to discuss the phenomenological
and pragmatic implications of this complementarity. The formal database
comprises 653 experimental trials performed over several phases of investigation.
The scoring methods involve various arrays of descriptor queries that
can be addressed to both the physical targets and the percipients' description
thereof, the responses to which provide the basis for numerical evaluation
and statistical assessment of the degree of anomalous information acquired.
Twenty-four such recipes have been employed, with queries posed in binary,
ternary, quaternary, and ten-level distributive formats. Thus treated,
the database yields a composite z-score against chance of 5.418 (p
= 3 × 10-8, one-tailed).
Numerous subsidiary analyses agree that these overall results are not
significantly affected by any of the secondary protocol parameters tested,
or by variations in descriptor effectiveness, possible participant response
biases, target distance from the percipient, or time interval between
perception effort and agent target visitation. However, over the course
of the program there has been a striking diminution of the anomalous
yield that appears to be associated with the participants' growing attention
to, and dependence upon, the progressively more detailed descriptor
formats and with the corresponding reduction in the content of the accompanying
free-response transcripts. The possibility that increased emphasis on
objective quantification of the phenomenon somehow may have inhibited
its inherently subjective expression is explored in several contexts,
ranging from contemporary signal processing technologies to ancient
divination traditions. An intrinsic complementarity is suggested between
the analytical and intuitive aspects of the remote perception process
that, like its more familiar counterpart in quantum science, brings
with it an inescapable uncertainty that limits the extent to which such
anomalous effects can be simultaneously produced and evaluated.
Keywords: remote perception, remote viewing, anomalous information
acquisition, consciousness-related anomalies, uncertainty, complementarity,
PEAR, engineering anomalies, analytical judging
words: HIV, AIDS, HIV test, poverty, Africa, virus isolation
FULL TEXT:
Information and Uncertainty in Remote Perception Research
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