Dean Radin, Quantum Consciousness Experiments |545|

[Alex]

Dean Radin, Quantum Consciousness Experiments |545|
by Alex Tsakiris | Mar 22 | Consciousness Science
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Dr. Dean Radin has shattered the quantum consciousness link question, but where will it lead?

 

[David Bailey]

That was a superb interview, which covered so much ground. In fact, I am currently only half way through, so I may enlarge this comment after I have listened to the whole interview.

I do hope Dean will join the forum briefly to talk about his interview.

I have one niggling doubt about his experiments in which people control the behaviour of double-slit experiments (or similar) using their minds. I agree that this is very likely happening by the usual process of observing a QM system, but since PK effects seem to be able to affect just about anything (spoons, falling balls, electronic apparatus, etc), they could be disturbing the apparatus used to detect this effect, rather than explicitly operating by observing the entangled particles.

In other words, his experiments clearly demonstrate (yet again) that PK effects are real, but it is just possible that they work in a mysterious way that is not tied to QM.

To be fair, I have asked Dean this question some time ago by email, and have his reply, but I consider emails are private.

David

 

[Carl Olsen]

I found it curious how Dr. Radin considers superpsi to be a possible explanation for apparent survival of consciousness. Contrast this view with that of Jeffrey Mishlove, who argued in his Bigelow contest-winning entry that while no one type of evidence can be considered dispositive, the different types when taken collectively form an overwhelming case for survival – a viewpoint I agree with. One problem with superpsi as a possible explanation is why it would go to such extraordinary lengths to create such a misconception. For example, it would have to account for physical and mental mediums, nde’s shared death experiences, apparitions, etc. in such a way as to provide a consistent pattern indicative of survival. Such trickery implies a conscious entity to implement it, ironically implying an extremely well-developed consciousness independent of a body, which would surely be a kind of proof of concept for survival itself. It could thus be argued that superpsi ultimately tends to disprove itself as a reasonable alternative to survival.

 

[Jack Ward]

Fantastic interview. Two in a row!
My main thoughts:
1. Radin is magic.
2. I love how he pushed back on the vaccine skepticism with the same concerns I have- is this causation? As I point out there's a tendency for people to run with politics first and not the science. You may be right, but let's do the work. I'm not convinced.
3. If there's one thing that frustrates me is the long lead-ins to the shows lately. I don't need the lily gilded, just get into the discussion. My main concern is Alex guiding our thoughts on the interviews before we've ever heard them. I guess I grew up with the CBC where we have interviews, and that's it. I don't want to know about what I should know about what I'm going to know. I just want to get to it.
:)
J

 

[Kim]

Remarkably absorbing interview, Alex! I've watched Radin's interviews w/ two other podcasts & they weren't nearly as animated. I had one of those autochthonous experiences the other day about the only souvenir I brought back from my visit to Paris, France, which was a pair of bookends of elephants. So it was a pleasant synchronicity to see Radin's elephant bookends on the shelf. Yesterday, I was reminded I hadn't read much more of Thinking & Destiny by H. Percival, who says ppl are composed of a Triune Self, a Thinker, a Knower, & a Feeling/Desire aspect. Damned if Michael Cremo in "What is a Human Being?" didn't say he viewed ppl as having consciousness, a mind, & a material body!

That was a superb interview, which covered so much ground. In fact, I am currently only half way through, so I may enlarge this comment after I have listened to the whole interview.

I do hope Dean will join the forum briefly to talk about his interview.

I have one niggling doubt about his experiments in which people control the behaviour of double-slit experiments (or similar) using their minds. I agree that this is very likely happening by the usual process of observing a QM system, but since PK effects seem to be able to affect just about anything (spoons, falling balls, electronic apparatus, etc), they could be disturbing the apparatus used to detect this effect, rather than explicitly operating by observing the entangled particles.

In other words, his experiments clearly demonstrate (yet again) that PK effects are real, but it is just possible that they work in a mysterious way that is not tied to QM.

To be fair, I have asked Dean this question some time ago by email, and have his reply, but I consider emails are private.

David

So how do you see his anecdote about Swami Veda's using his "insides" to control the light? Is this similar at all in YHO to Alex's story of the saint who responded when questioned about her service to this world, said, "World? What world?"

 

[Robbedigital]

I found it curious how Dr. Radin considers superpsi to be a possible explanation for apparent survival of consciousness. Contrast this view with that of Jeffrey Mishlove, who argued in his Bigelow contest-winning entry that while no one type of evidence can be considered dispositive, the different types when taken collectively form an overwhelming case for survival – a viewpoint I agree with. One problem with superpsi as a possible explanation is why it would go to such extraordinary lengths to create such a misconception. For example, it would have to account for physical and mental mediums, nde’s shared death experiences, apparitions, etc. in such a way as to provide a consistent pattern indicative of survival. Such trickery implies a conscious entity to implement it, ironically implying an extremely well-developed consciousness independent of a body, which would surely be a kind of proof of concept for survival itself. It could thus be argued that superpsi ultimately tends to disprove itself as a reasonable alternative to survival.

If you shut off the television, and you see that the satellite box feed is still active, would you say the satellite feed “survived” the shutting off of the television?

(Edit/addendum)
I see no reason why we should refer to both of these as "consciousness" as if there not distinctly different things:
1. Our human attention having an affect on an external physical material.
2. Our higher self having an experience after our physical body is dead.

 

[J Randall Murphy]

What I like about Radin is that he gets out there and does the experiments that he thinks will provide evidence for his hypotheses. The other thing I like is that his attitude takes critical thinking to a depth that most people don't dive to. It's very challenging. I've wondered now and then if because he knows this, he wishes he'd get more consideration when looking for funding. After all, quantum physicists have been milking that cow for years to the tune of billions of dollars, and his investigations are no less important.

That being said, I would caution those who want to interpret Radin's work as evidence for afterlives against mapping their own biases onto his work. I could be wrong, but Radin himself appears to have recognized this as well, and to his credit, has applied it over the years to his own assumptions. With respect to some of the show's content, I would say that the concept of materialism allows for a lot more wiggle room than was suggested. It's not really as binary as it was made to sound.

The reason is because there is no consensus among philosophers as to what exactly constitutes materialism. Some see it synonymous with physicalism, in which case, all of Radin's experiments at the quantum level are material, and therefore, whatever they they provide evidence for, are by extension, also material.

When he got into his comments on mRNA, there was some messy logic going on involving an allusion to utilitarianism, and what sounded to me like a bias in favor of continuing to use the general public as research subjects, but I'd need to have a longer conversation with him about that before knowing how far he'd go in that direction.

Given that he seems to apply so much significance to his own small statistical anomalies, one would think that given at least one study that has utilized multiple vaccine injury databases and concluded that the mRNA vaccines are statistically much more prone to causing serious injury and death, that he'd be willing to take that evidence much more seriously — but he seemed to be happier to deflect it. I wonder if any of his funding is coming from big pharma or its funders?

 

[Robbedigital]

Dean: "the other part, of course, is 'non-local in time' and there's evidence that that is also possible, but it makes peoples brains explode, and I don't wanna go there right now."
Alex: (Laughs)

(Me)Um, No, Dean. That's just level 3. Go there.

Also Dean: "if consciousness is fundamental, then it should be able to do something with these quantum systems"

Are we talking about "attention". Is that all we mean when we say consciousness? because we already have a word for that: It's "Attention."

 

[Pachakuti]

I used to admire Dean Radin's approach to research. Now I'm not so sure, at least when it comes to his avowed enthusiasm for CRISPR gene editing. He's far from being alone amongst scientists in referring to the phenomena that underlie natural processes as 'mechanisms' without giving it a second thought. The same fallacy occurs in just about all western scientific literature and is - I believe - no small contributor to the mess we find ourselves in today. Dr. Radin's claim to know 'all about how mRNA works' is a case in point. Perhaps RNA and DNA are not just aggregations of cogs in some molecular machine? Perhaps seemingly intangible factors, such as the double-helical geometry of the DNA molecule, actually have important functions that scientific modelling derived from simplistic mechanistic thinking can never accommodate, or realise?

 

[J Randall Murphy]

I used to admire Dean Radin's approach to research. Now I'm not so sure, at least when it comes to his avowed enthusiasm for CRISPR gene editing. He's far from being alone amongst scientists in referring to the phenomena that underlie natural processes as 'mechanisms' without giving it a second thought. The same fallacy occurs in just about all western scientific literature and is - I believe - no small contributor to the mess we find ourselves in today. Dr. Radin's claim to know 'all about how mRNA works' is a case in point. Perhaps RNA and DNA are not just aggregations of cogs in some molecular machine? Perhaps seemingly intangible factors, such as the double-helical geometry of the DNA molecule, actually have important functions that scientific modelling derived from simplistic mechanistic thinking can never accommodate, or realise?

Although I would guess that Radin doesn't claim to know "everything" about how mRNA works, I think you make a fair point. Consciousness isn't simply the "mechanisms" — the cogs and gears on a molecular level. However it may well still be dependent on the arrangement of those parts, and that arrangement may indeed have something to do with the mechanism's design, just like an electromagnet isn't simply materials, but certain materials arranged in certain ways.

This may be the reason that no matter how powerful a computer is, so long as it's based on microchips rather than a biological system like our brain, they will never be conscious. I realize that this rubs those who want to believe consciousness is non-dependent on brain function the wrong way, but all evidence indicates that conscious is indeed an emergent phenomenon brought about by brain function. I would suggest that Radin has also arrived at this place, but doesn't like to go there. Instead, he tends to switch back and forth between science and philosophy — never quite hitting the bullseye.

 

[Alex]

I found it curious how Dr. Radin considers superpsi to be a possible explanation for apparent survival of consciousness. Contrast this view with that of Jeffrey Mishlove, who argued in his Bigelow contest-winning entry that while no one type of evidence can be considered dispositive, the different types when taken collectively form an overwhelming case for survival – a viewpoint I agree with. One problem with superpsi as a possible explanation is why it would go to such extraordinary lengths to create such a misconception. For example, it would have to account for physical and mental mediums, nde’s shared death experiences, apparitions, etc. in such a way as to provide a consistent pattern indicative of survival. Such trickery implies a conscious entity to implement it, ironically implying an extremely well-developed consciousness independent of a body, which would surely be a kind of proof of concept for survival itself. It could thus be argued that superpsi ultimately tends to disprove itself as a reasonable alternative to survival.

well said.

so what are we to make of Radin's "curious" position? why can't he follow the data?

 

[Alex]

I used to admire Dean Radin's approach to research. Now I'm not so sure

That's my take away as well. theme seems to be making some obvious logical/scientific blunders.
- the superpsi survival thing is just silly... but then he does a double-down by citing the latest phony nde research... how does he not spot this is being fake: https://www.skeptiko-forum.com/thre...help-the-grieving-513.4730/page-3#post-161091
- his comments about the dod epidemiological database were really shaky. and he again doubles down by saying that it was probably a good idea for big brother to respond to the controversy by removing the information from public view... clueless. after the interview he emailed me a link supporting his position. I think he was a little embarrassed when I pointed out that the link was from his longtime, dogmatically psi-skeptical adversary steven novella.
- he also didn't handle the moral imperative question (i.e. it does evil matter question) very well. he's well spoken on the relationship between science and philosophy so I was really surprised he whiffed on this one. it's not that psi experiments have proven a moral imperative, it's that they falsified the long-standing claim that morals can never be more than a social construct.

 

[north]

all evidence indicates that conscious is indeed an emergent phenomenon brought about by brain function

this is equivalent to claims by skeptics that there is no evidence for PSI. It basically involves ignoring any evidence that contradicts the claims.

 

[Pachakuti]

Although I would guess that Radin doesn't claim to know "everything" about how mRNA works, I think you make a fair point. Consciousness isn't simply the "mechanisms" — the cogs and gears on a molecular level. However it may well still be dependent on the arrangement of those parts, and that arrangement may indeed have something to do with the mechanism's design, just like an electromagnet isn't simply materials, but certain materials arranged in certain ways.

This may be the reason that no matter how powerful a computer is, so long as it's based on microchips rather than a biological system like our brain, they will never be conscious. I realize that this rubs those who want to believe consciousness is non-dependent on brain function the wrong way, but all evidence indicates that conscious is indeed an emergent phenomenon brought about by brain function. I would suggest that Radin has also arrived at this place, but doesn't like to go there. Instead, he tends to switch back and forth between science and philosophy — never quite hitting the bullseye.

Well, I might have overstated what I took to be what he meant, but that was the impression he conveyed when he mentioned mRNA. I suppose I could have been triggered by what he'd said, it certainly spurred me into writing something. Does all the evidence really tell us that consciousness is just an emergent phenomenon brought about by brain function? How has the trail of causality been proven? Then there's what is meant by consciousness. There's a big difference, for example, between sentient consciousness and awareness of one's own consciousness.

 

[Robbedigital]

I realize that this rubs those who want to believe consciousness is non-dependent on brain function the wrong way, but all evidence indicates that conscious is indeed an emergent phenomenon brought about by brain function

Humans' attempt to quantify their perceived detection of consciousness while somehow inferring it as something other than simple human "attention" would definitely qualify as a phenonmenon brought about by brain. But conversely, until we can measure IT, we can't say how IT is brought about.

this is equivalent to claims by skeptics that there is no evidence for PSI. It basically involves ignoring any evidence that contradicts the claims.

PSI = frequency/signal we can't YET measure. Therefore there is no evidence for PSI.
"I proved an effect exists for which we currently have no explanation" is not proof that an actual effect exists in the physical realm.

Just because I can't measure the force exerted when I apply my attention to a experiment, doesn't mean it's my "consciousness" doing it.

Somebody tell me what consciousness is without referring to "attention" or "universal interconnection", because those are physical and demonstrable physically, and therefore different than the "consciousness" we're claiming to attempt to measure.

 

[J Randall Murphy]

this is equivalent to claims by skeptics that there is no evidence for PSI. It basically involves ignoring any evidence that contradicts the claims.

I would dispute that. I don't ignore PSI phenomena. I believe that many people have genuine experiences. Just show me one who is having one of those experiences in real time who doesn't also have a working brain. Then consider all the evidence for how a working brain can create completely lifelike experiences for dreamers, or for people who have tried the God helmet. Even if we assume that someone's personality can somehow be duplicated into an afterverse, it must still be running on some sort of afterverse version of a brain. There's no escaping it.

 

[J Randall Murphy]

Humans' attempt to quantify their perceived detection of consciousness while somehow inferring it as something other than simple human "attention" would definitely qualify as a phenonmenon brought about by brain. But conversely, until we can measure IT, we can't say how IT is brought about.

I suppose that depends on how you interpret the phrase "how IT is brought about". When it comes down to it, on a fundamental level we don't know how anything is brought about. We simply have to accept that is is brought about, and then establish the relationships between whatever IT is, and everything else.

Again, I defer to the electromagnet analogy. We can say that the electromagnetic field is "brought about" by the electromagnet's construction and operation. Similarly we can say that consciousness is "brought about" by the brain's construction and operation — and we have a few billion examples to prove it, with more on the way every day, and we have a pretty good idea how those were "brought about" too.

 

[Robbedigital]

Similarly we can say that consciousness is "brought about" by the brain's construction and operation

No we can't. Until we can measure consciousness, we can't even claim that it's brought about at all.
Sure we can say that whatever it is we're conceiving as "consciousness" is brought about by the brain, but that's not a confirmation of consciousness.

Just because I give a name to the space outside of the universe doesn't mean it exists.

 

[Michael Larkin]

I found it curious how Dr. Radin considers superpsi to be a possible explanation for apparent survival of consciousness. Contrast this view with that of Jeffrey Mishlove, who argued in his Bigelow contest-winning entry that while no one type of evidence can be considered dispositive, the different types when taken collectively form an overwhelming case for survival – a viewpoint I agree with. One problem with superpsi as a possible explanation is why it would go to such extraordinary lengths to create such a misconception. For example, it would have to account for physical and mental mediums, nde’s shared death experiences, apparitions, etc. in such a way as to provide a consistent pattern indicative of survival. Such trickery implies a conscious entity to implement it, ironically implying an extremely well-developed consciousness independent of a body, which would surely be a kind of proof of concept for survival itself. It could thus be argued that superpsi ultimately tends to disprove itself as a reasonable alternative to survival.

For what it's worth, I favour the superpsi explanation for psi phenomena. I think it fits in well with Tom Campbell's Big Toe model of the universe (and he does admit it's only a model), which I find rather persuasive. Everything that anyone's ever been, done and said exists in the memory database of the universe ("Akashic record") and can be accessed under suitable conditions, be those intentional or accidental.

When we die, we die. Or at least, our avatars do. We as individuated units of consciousness (iuoc or"souls") never die. Living people can connect with memories of avatars of previously existing people as they once were when alive, or if still alive, their present experiences. This can account for reincarnation memories, mediumship, precognition and so forth quite adequately, imho. The database is continually being updated in real time, which accounts for synchronicities and so forth.

The thing that grows and evolves is the iuoc (Bernardo Kastrup's "dissociated" unit of universal consciousness). Life is like a game simulation offering opportunities to learn. When an avatar dies, it returns to its primordial and evolving state, and "reincarnation" happens when it gets re-instantiated to carry on playing the game in a further attempt to advance its own evolution. Both universal consciousness and iuocs can access the database, the first to aid in its "data processing", as sometimes can the second, which accounts for many intuitive and paranormal experiences.

In my view, something like the model of a "game" simulation theory offers a more cohesive and less seemingly disparate set of explanations for psi phenomena. But YMMV.

 

[J Randall Murphy]

Well, I might have overstated what I took to be what he meant, but that was the impression he conveyed when he mentioned mRNA. I suppose I could have been triggered by what he'd said, it certainly spurred me into writing something. Does all the evidence really tell us that consciousness is just an emergent phenomenon brought about by brain function? How has the trail of causality been proven? Then there's what is meant by consciousness. There's a big difference, for example, between sentient consciousness and awareness of one's own consciousness.

I came here after a long presence over at The Paracast where we have thread on this subject longer than most books. To answer the question regarding proof, we first need to establish what we mean by the word "proof". Essentially, it's simply evidence that's sufficient to justify belief in a claim. Some people require different kinds and different quantities of evidence than others, so "proof" tends to be a lot more subjective than most people think.

That's why I prefer to use the word "true" in the context of the philosophical position based on correspondence theory. Truth is then that which is the case with respect to a given claim. By looking at problems that way, we are then put in the position of finding ways to determine what the case is from an objective perspective, which is what I always attempt to do. Applying this process to the question of consciousness, brain function, and the question of afterlives, the resulting objective truth becomes one where they are impossible — at least the way they are usually interpreted, which is as a continuity of personhood following the death of the body.