Would the Existence of Psi Be a Really Cool Thing? If so, why?

Last April I attended the Toward a Science of Consciousness conference in Tucson where I was fortunate to hear many great presentations on consciousness, from such philosophers and scientists as  David Chalmers, Daniel Dennett, Stuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose, and many others.

There was a particularly fascinating presentation by Julia Mossbridge on a meta-analysis of presentiment experiments.  She and her co-authors analyzed a large number of experiments while testing the hypothesis of presentiment in various participants.  That is, they measured and found a physiological effect in test subjects that anticipated results for which test subjects could not have predicted.  It's similar to precognition effects in psi, except in this case the focus was on physiological responses such as electrodermal activity, pupil dilation, and heart rate.  The meta-analysis was based on 26 studies published between 1978 and 2010.  Long story short, Mossbridge and her co-authors found that there was indeed an anomalous anticipatory effect, with the odds against the result being pure chance less than 2.7 < 10.^-12  

One quick point: It's my sense that a growing percent of the audience at this conference is growing sympathetic to the evidence supporting psi.  At the conference’s closing, Stuart Hameroff, one of the co-organizers of the conference, predicted that within a few years, psi will reach mainstream acceptance.  This prediction was met by a fair amount of applause among members of the audience.

Nevertheless, after Mossbridge presented her findings, during the question and answer period that followed, Susan Blackmore (a well-known psi skeptic) made a little effort to pour some cold water on the results.  There wasn't much she could say except that her familiar argument that she couldn't replicate a ganzfeld psi effect way back when.  (She seems to argue that her inability to get significant results means we should disregard all other results for ganzfeld experiments.)

She prefaced her comments with the words "It would be great if this were true" and that's been turning around in my head since the conference.  I assume that Blackmore is referring not just to presentiment but all of psi, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and telekinesis.  And I wondered, did Blackmore really think it would be wonderful it those things were true?  Would it really be wonderful or a really cool thing if the psi evidence is confirmed.  And if so, why?

I suspect that Blackmore prefaced her comments with these words to suggest that psi advocates might be biased toward accepting their findings because that's what they want to find.  Perhaps she believes that because she takes the opposing position that she is less likely to possess some emotional attachment that is skewing her ability to look at the data objectively.  This is something I've noticed before.  Sean Carroll makes a similar point in this debate on whether our consciousness survives the death of our body.  His point that our attitude that we might wish for life to go on after death may likely prevent us from looking at the evidence objectively.

If we leave out the question of survivability (which obviously one would wish for, but the evidence is more controversial), would it really be the case it would be wonderful if psi were true?  If so, why?

I can't deny that I do want the evidence to be true, but at the same time, I don't think that that prevents me from being sufficiently sober toward the data.  After all, we're all human and we're all subject to cognitive biases.  But presumably well designed experiments should overcome that.  And no one in the audience at the Tucson conference suggested otherwise.  So bottom line --- I don't think such comments contribute much in the presence of a well-designed meta-analysis of a diverse group of studies.

Nevertheless, why is psi appealing for me?  I think for me I am drawn toward a worldview that suggests something interesting that underlies our material world.  Perhaps I find the notion that we are interconnected in ways beyond the physical world with one another (and our world) ....what?....enchanting?  Could this open the door to perhaps a more miraculous way of looking at our world?  Or open the way of a more profound sense of meaning, beyond what would be possible if the foundations of our reality were nothing more than subatomic particles?

Comments anyone?

Whatever, I think these are exciting results.  I think we will be seeing more such results.  And this could mean something exciting unfolding in our world.

My two cents, anyway.

UPDATE:  By the way, there's something I meant to add. While comments such as "this would be really wonderful" appears to suggest "too good to be true" (and therefore invites skepticism) I think another response is warranted.  After all, if there really is some reason to think that it's a good thing, that should motivate to take a closer look.  Perform more experiments.  Be more open minded.  Not dismiss out of hand (as skeptics tend to do).  If it's really the case that psi means something very wonderful or cool for our world, that should justify more (not fewer) looks at the data (while remaining as rigorous and objective as possible, of course).

Maybe the Hard Problem of Consciousness Means We Should Examine the Psi Data

David Chalmers is one of the most influential philosophers to challenge how we think about consciousness.  Here he is in a fascinating TED Talk explaining his ideas.  If you're unfamiliar with Chalmers, I strongly suggest taking the time to hear it.  He's an unusually clear and engaging speaker, and his articulation of the 'Hard Problem of Consciousness' is very good.

I'd like to highlight a few key points that he makes in this talk.  He begins by noting that "there's nothing we know more directly...but at the same time it's the most mysterious phenomenon in the universe."  He adds that consciousness is also extremely important- it is what gives value and meaning to everything we have.  But all our scientific understanding has not provided us with a satisfactory answer to such questions as 'What is consciousness?' and 'Why are we conscious?"

He goes on to note that there are problems with all of the reductionistic and physicalist explanations of consciousness.  Neuroscience has given us abundant information about the correlations between the processes of the brain and our awareness, but no true explanations of the cause of our subjective experience. Explanations of emergence also fall short.

At about the 8:00 mark, Chalmers says "Consciousness is a kind of anomaly." In other words, consciousness just doesn't seem to fit with our best scientific understanding, grounded in the laws of physics.  He suggests that in order to make progress, we need to consider radical ideas (maybe several radical ideals).  One radical idea he offers is that consciousness may be in some sense fundamental, like mass or time.  That is, it's not something that simply arises with the right combination of particles.  In some sense it may be a basic constituent of our reality.  A second idea he offers is that "consciousness might universal." In other words everything, even rocks or thermostats, is, at least at a rudimentary level, conscious.

It's here that I would like to jump in and suggest a crazy idea that to me isn't really so crazy.  Chalmers's bold claim that "consciousness is a kind of anomaly" has an interesting implication: are there any data that confirm the anomalous nature of consciousness apart from our own experience?  After all, if we're serious about wanting to integrate consciousness into our scientific understanding, it should be obvious that we should inquire as to exactly how it is anomalous.  To do that we need to perform careful, laboratory controlled experiments designed to test how consciousness deviates with respect to the laws of physics.  Chalmers's arguments are interesting and influential, but I think it will be difficult to bring about a radical understanding of consciousness without strong empirical foundation that demonstrates consciousness anomalies.

But wait!  We already have such a literature.  It's called psi.  And there has been a good deal of research and published studies that document significant effects for a number of categories of psi.  Dean Radin has posted a helpful website with links to much of this research.

I spoke briefly to Chalmers at the recent Science of Consciousness Conference in Tuscon.  He didn't appear that interested in pursuing psi at the moment, which may not exactly be consistent with the approaches he is favoring.  However, his co-organizer of the conference, Stuart Hameroff (and co-author with Roger Penrose on a theory of consciousness involving quantum computing within the brain) is indeed very open to this prospect.  As the conference was drawing to a close, Hameroff predicted that psi will soon be embraced by scientists and philosophers studying consciousness.

For me, the 'hard problem of consciousness' really does require that we open our minds a bit toward new ways of thinking about consciousness.  And further, given that we have no theory of consciousness truly grounded in the laws of physics as we understand them, there is no justification to ignore data that surprises us or appears not to fit with our notions about our world.  Indeed, such results might suggest we're on the right track.

Is Nothing Truly Alive?

About a month ago, an essay appeared in the New York Times entitled, Why Nothing Is Truly Alive. Of course, it's a provocative title, so I decided to check it out.

The main argument by Ferris Jabr, an editor at Scientific American, is that scientists have largely been unsuccessful with coming up with a good precise, universally accepted definition of life.  And he adds,

To compensate, modern textbooks point to characteristics that supposedly distinguish the living from the inanimate, the most important of which are organization, growth, reproduction and evolution. But there are numerous exceptions: both living things that lack some of the ostensibly distinctive features of life and inanimate things that have properties of the living.

He also discusses how things like crystals and digital programs that everyone agrees is not alive, can be seen to have life-like characteristics.

Jabr goes on to argue that life is really only a construction in the mind.  And therefore nothing is really 'alive.'

It's certainly a provocative argument.  And it's certainly interesting how 'life' cannot seem to be captured in any precise, objective definition.  Food for philosophical musing, and all that.

There is, however, this thing called subjective experience, and Jabr doesn't consider its relevance in his piece.  And that seems to be a pretty big piece missing.  Without our subjective experience, we might well consider the possibility that what are called living things are not substantially different from the non-living.  Of course, if we didn't have subjective experience, we wouldn't be considering anything.

My point, is that while we might not be able to define clearly and precisely what life is, that doesn't mean we don't experience something called life.  That is, life is (obviously) a very meaningful concept in our experience.  We know what it means to live or not.  In fact, we really do know a great deal more about this than virtually any scientific concept that Jabr likely thinks we know tons about.  We know we are alive.  And while Thomas Nagel has convinced many of us that we may not know a lot about the subjective experience of other creatures, we do know they possess some kind of subjective experience.

And it's not just that we know we have life, we know that it's the most important thing we have.

It's a pretty big difference then, I think, when a scientist or philosopher discusses the nature of things while feeling free to leave out our subjective experience, than when he does.   Or when there is a presumption that things that can't be defined precisely are assumed not to exist.  I imagine there are a lot of things we experience, like love, joy, compassion, that are difficult to define with the rigor and precision of a mathematical formula.

This is the problem that scientists (and some philosophers) get into by marginalizing the importance of our experience.  They don't just get things wrong.  They miss what is perhaps the most important.  After all, without our experience, what do we truly have?  What do we truly value?

Mainstream Media Debunks ESP with a Study that Doesn't Have Anything to Do with ESP

Imagine you are taking a quiz on the latest on scientific results or edge philosophical thinking, and you were asked the following multiple-choice question.

Recent scientific experiments provides evidence for which of the following:

      A)   Countless parallel universes.

      B)   Artificially intelligent robots are on the verge of sentience.

      C)   The world as we know it is actually a simulation (like in The Matrix).

      D)   Mild forms of telepathy between minds.

Recently there have been various articles posted on A, B, and C (and especially A).  While such articles in the mainstream press don’t provide much in the way of concrete evidence, they often give sympathetic views of such speculations.  Nothing wrong with being open minded.  And even if we’re a long way from real evidence on the table, the ideas are interesting and provocative, and likely to attract readers.  Nothing much wrong with that either.

But there is evidence on D.  You can find some papers published in refereed journals here.  Skeptic Richard Wiseman has even admitted that by the conventional standards, some forms of telepathy could be accepted as real..  (However, Wiseman doesn’t believe that such phenomenon should be held to merely conventional standards.) So how does the mainstream press handle that one?

David Metcalfe and Dean Radin have recently posted an interesting recent case on their blogs.  They reference a recent study conducted at the University of Melbourne examining people’s ability to process certain types of perceptions that occurred below their threshold of immediate awareness.  For example, the reactions of participants who were asked questions about pictures when certain details in the background were changed.  The authors of the paper speculated that the results could give some insight into people who believe they are experiencing a sixth sense.

However, as Metcalfe and Radin note, the authors did not attempt to test anything like anomalous transfer of information (like telepathy).  They did not cite any of that literature.  Whatever its merits, the study does not tell us anything about the extant literature on such examples of psi as ganzfeld, card guessing, or dream telepathy.

Yet this seems to be cited all over the place as (yet another) demonstration that ESP is pure bunk.  Here is an example in  National Geographic by Susan Brink.  She even posts a picture of Dr. Rhine of Duke University who famously conducted ESP card experiments, as if the study at University of Melbourne had something to do with Rhine.  George Dvorsky at io9 does the same thing with headline that says: "Breaking: ESP still bullshit, say scientists."   Here’s a video at Discovery News, again pushing the conclusion that this study means claims of ESP is bunk.

As one of the commenters at io9 put it, citing this study as evidence against ESP "amounts to saying there are no UFOs because some can be ascribed to aircraft lights."

You can see here how this ripples across multiple websites.  It’s as if everyone’s just cutting and pasting each other without bothering much to read the article or think about it too much.

It’s so interesting.  There appears to be a lot of hostility across the web for claims for telepathy, as well as ignorance of the research.  In much of mainstream media, the bar for matters of psi appear to be absurdly high.  But for the other topics, such as multiple universes, not so much.

What gives?  What’s the answer here?

Does Artificial Intelligence Mean the End is Near?

            

            Will artificial intelligence mean the end of humanity someday?  That’s the rather speculative argument in Matt Miller's Washington Post column last month.  Miller suggests that indeed many of our brightest technological gurus are arguing that computer intelligence is on the cusp of surpassing our own.  He takes his main case from Ray Kurzweil, the best known promoter of the Singularity, when computers are powerful enough to blend in with our own and forever change our nature. Lately a number of columns have sprouted, that suggest that the truly eventful, if not terrifying, technological change in our time will be the shift when computers become truly intelligent.    Blogger Kevin Drum echoed similar ideas similar ideas just the other day.

Kurzweil, the most famous and well-known technological seer embraces Turing’s argument that while we cannot be sure that computer’s will one day be sentient, the question will fade in importance once the power of computers enable them to perform any task we can, including creating art and novels.   Miller, rather early in his column poses the question:  “What happens when we share the planet with self-aware, self-improving machines that evolve beyond our ability to control or understand?  Are we creating machines that are destined to destroy us?"

Well, let’s slow down and pause on the vision of Terminators offing humanity.  Asking what happens with machines become self-aware is kind of  like asking what happens when we eventually invent a time machine where we can go back in time and enable white supremacists to give Hitler the bomb.   Why aren’t we worried about that?  Well, while it might work as a plot for science fiction, there is nothing we know from physics that suggests that’s remotely possible.  And similarly, there is nothing in physics that suggests that computers will one day soon be sentient.

            I doubt that these authors (and even Kurzweil) believe that their current desktop computers are sentient.  Yet these use fundamentally the same technologies as those in Alan Turing’s day.  They are much faster and hold much more data, to be sure.  And of course there is much more interconnectivity between computers today, ranging from your desktop to your cellphone to the webservers that create the internet.  When you ask Siri on your iphone for directions to a nearby coffeeshop, it can even seem like an intelligent entity is giving you directions.  But the Apple engineers who designed Siri do not argue that Siri is sentient in the least.  Not even a little sentient. 

            The only way computers will someday experience true sentience is if a radical new technology is developed and implemented that is currently nowhere on the books.  That is, no one truly has any idea how consciousness emerges from matter.  This is what philosophers of mind call the Hard Problem of consciousness.  Nothing in the laws of physics as we know them today suggests how vast, complex collections of non-conscious particles can somehow become conscious.  Computers are becoming more powerful tools.  One day soon, we might have sophisticated robots that seem intelligent.  However, they will not be any more truly sentient than Siri. 

            Computers will continue to advance and become more powerful tools that chance our world in profound ways.  This is an important trend that does justify much careful thought.  But computers will not be writing plays that rival Shakespeare because, among many reasons, they do not possess emotion.  And that’s because they do not and cannot experience anything.

UPDATE: Well, robots may not become sentient, but they are advancing.  In South Korea, they will soon have their own themepark!!  Check it out!

            

The Burning Question of our Time

When will we find the answer?

Chinese Medicine, Pseudoscience, and the Demarcation Problem

A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times posted something of a debate concerning Chinese medicine in its Stone philosophy series.  At issue was whether Chinese medicine, with it's references to "qi" and use of acupuncture, can be taken seriously as science.  And both columns took the opportunity to discuss the demarcation problem in philosophy, which is concerned with distinguishing between science and pseudoscience.  The first was a column by Stephen Asma who offered a rather cautious, neutral take on Chinese medicine.  He testified that his experience with acupuncture suggested that it was effective, but he also doubted that a theory based on the force called qi, which no one has observed, could be made into a rigorous scientific theory.  Asma ended his essay speculating that many people take a pragmatic approach in health matters, following some methods that seemed to work but where the science was uncertain, and that might not be all bad.

Authors Massimo Pigliucci and Martin Boudry responded to this in their column The Dangers of Pseudoscience.  They sharply criticize Asma's relatively balanced take as well as his argument that the demarcation problem is rather murky.  They have a good deal to say about the danger of using alternative medicines or sham treatments: "Most importantly, pseudo-medical treatments often do not work, or are even positively harmful. If you take folk herbal “remedies,” for instance, while your body is fighting a serious infection, you may suffer severe, even fatal, consequences."

Unfortunately, Pigliucci and Boudry do not consider the cost of ignoring the possible benefits of alternative methods such as acupuncture might have over more conventional medicines.  After all, acupuncture is far cheaper and considerably less likely to result in complications or side effects.

More revealing perhaps is that to make their case that acupuncture has dubious benefits, they cite a recent study that appears to demonstrate that needles applied at random places are just as effective as acupuncture.  However, in the study's conclusion, the authors acknowledge "The study is limited by the number of patients lost to follow-up. We also cannot exclude the possibility that a more intensive treatment regimen may be more effective."  The fact that the authors needed to include a caveat on their findings suggests that it perhaps is not the strongest piece of evidence to make a good case.   On the other hand, a simple google search will reveal meta-studies (such as this one)  that demonstrate acupuncture is more effective than sham treatments with statistical significance.

In other words, the evidence suggests that acupuncture as an effective treatment has not been falsified, at least for some areas of treatment such as back pain.  This does not prove that there really is a system of meridians carrying qi energy, as Chinese medicine argues.  But at the moment it looks like something is happening that our current scientific understanding cannot account for. 

In their eagerness to dismiss even the possibility that acupuncture works, Pigliucci and Boudry reveal a bias that's arguably common among many contemporary scientists and philosophers.  In the process they overlook the possibility that something outside the more orthodox view seems to be working.  What would Karl Popper say to that?

UPDATE:  The Economist recently has an article that looks at the replication problem for many fields, especially medical research.  The article, Trouble in the Lab, provides important context in the science versus pseudoscience debate.  Some of the numbers are genuinely shocking.  For example

A few years ago scientists at Amgen, an American drug company, tried to replicate 53 studies that they considered landmarks in the basic science of cancer, often co-operating closely with the original researchers to ensure that their experimental technique matched the one used first time round. According to a piece they wrote last year in Nature, a leading scientific journal, they were able to reproduce the original results in just six. Months earlier Florian Prinz and his colleagues at Bayer HealthCare, a German pharmaceutical giant, reported in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, a sister journal, that they had successfully reproduced the published results in just a quarter of 67 seminal studies.

The essay goes on to give other examples of failures to replicate and discusses some of the reasons why. It's important context to remember whenever someone is throwing around arguments about the rigorous superiority of orthodox Western medicine over the alternatives.