In the mid-1990s, for example, no less an arch-skeptic than the late astronomer Carl Sagan rendered his lifelong opinion that all psi effects were impossible. But in one of his last books, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, he wrote, "At the time of writing there are three claims in the ESP field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study: (1) that by thought alone humans can (barely) affect random number generators in computers; (2) that people under mild sensory deprivation can receive thoughts or images "projected" at them; and (3) that young children sometimes report the details of a previous life, which upon checking turned out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation."
If scientists eventually agree that a sixth sense exists, how might this change society? On one hand, it may change nothing; we may learn that genuine psi abilities are rare and only weakly predictive, and thus inconsequential for most practical purposes.
On the other hand, it's possible that the study of the sixth sense will revolutionize our understanding of causality and have radically new applications. For example, in an article co-titled 'Exploring an Ourtageous Hypothesis,' psychologist William Braud, Ph.D., professor and research director at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and co-director of the Institute's William James Center for Consciousness Studies, discusses the concept of "retroactive intentional influence" as applied to healing. He poses the idea that in cases where serious illnesses disappear virtually overnight, perhaps a healer went back in time to jumpstart the healing process.
Braud is well aware of the mind-bending nature of this hypothesis, but it is not purely fantastical. In his article, he reviews several hundred experiments examining a wide range of retrocausal phenomena, from mental influence of random numbers generated by electronic circuits, to guessing picture targets selected in the future, to studies examining the "feeling of being stared at," to presentiment experiments. He concludes that this sizable but not well-known body of carefully controlled research indicates that some form of retroactive intentional influence is indeed possible, and may have important consequences for healing.
A less radical application might be for early warning systems. Imagine that on a future aircraft all the members of the flight crew are connected to an onboard computer system. The system is designed to continuously monitor heart rate, electrical activity in the skin, and blood flow. Before the crew comes aboard, each person is calibrated to see how he or she responds before, during and after different kinds of emotional and calm events. Each person's idiosyncratic responses are used to create a person-unique emotional "response template," which is fed into the computer.
While the plane is in the air, the computer monitors each crew member's body to assess their emotional level. If the computer detects that all crew members are about to have an emotional response (and the aircraft is otherwise operating normally), then the computer could alert the pilot. Sometimes even a few seconds of advance warning in an aircraft can save the lives of everyone on board.
Very likely, some intuitive hunches do indicate the presence of a sixth sense. But for whom? Probably everyone, to a degree. But just as some people have poor vision, it is also quite likely that some people are effectively "psi-blind." I suspect that in the future, with a little assistance from specialized technologies, the same way a hearing aid can improve poor hearing, it may become possible to boost our weak sixth sense.
Where's the Science in Psi?
Dean Radin asks, "Do our experiments prove without question that the sixth sense exists?" He then answers, "Not yet," correctly recognizing that we need further successful experiments, by independent investigators, to prove that such a sixth sense is real.
But even that's not so simple. The independent investigators must do more than duplicate Radin's findings. They must do so using different apparatus, measurements and randomizing procedures than he did to avoid replicating any errors he may have made inadvertently, otherwise they're just perpetuating faulty findings.
I can already spot some potential errors in his methods. For example, Radin's claim that people in his presentiment experiments unconsciously anticipated emotional pictures—based on his observation of changes in their skin resistance—violates some basic principles of cause and effect in science. That's because the case for presentiment rests on comparing changes in physiological states, and different methods of calculating such changes can yield wildly different results.
For example, many years ago, a student was doing research to show that blinded rats are better than sighted rats at transferring their learning to a new task. The trouble was, a previous researcher had found just the opposite effect. The difference between the two studies? How they measured change. The earlier researcher had calculated the simple difference between the number of errors the rats made on the first task and the number of errors they made on the second task; the student, meanwhile, had measured the changes in terms of percentages. This seemingly innocuous difference led to completely opposite findings! When we used the same measuring technique on both studies, they yielded uniform results.
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