Psi & Computation

                                                                   

10/02/17 10:14 pm EST

  Note: I've begun restoring posts from Killeans Row until there is time to find a new home for the site. This was 1st of a series originally posted on 1/16/2015 and represents work ongoing.



This discussion of psi is going to jump in at a fairly advanced level . If your familiar with the literature than your likely aware that certain forms of psi passed the historical threshold for evidence based  certifiability some time ago ; if your not than you may be in the wrong class. Check your schedule.

The burden of proof for any physical phenomenology is usually met via observation. Whether or not there exists a strong theoretical foundation in place for guiding experimentation is largely dependent upon the temporal development of technologies available for testing increasingly sophisticated ideas that build on what came before. We are at a rather unique crossroads for testing psi phenomena in that technology has made posing questions regarding esp , precognition and the like undifferentiable from  problems in areas involving computation, engineering , physics  and in my own particular neck of these woods prediction , analysis and signal processing. That is to say that these "problems" resemble many other things that constitute fundamental research  in areas like quantum computation as well.

 
I am not a physicist. My own work involves analytic methods for signal detection in data when signals are poorly characterized and/or swamped by noise . In many cases this has required knowing the physics of the processes involved - the physics of the problem may be very well characterized but the means of data collection may be less than optimal or complicated by the presence of lots of noise in the form of things like...dust.

As a starting point I'd like to point out that once you accept the evidence for psi the consideration of models to test becomes paramount. The standard model of physics that represents our most up to date knowledge from the infinitesimal measure of the Planck length on up to cosmological scales is a fairly accommodating structure. The important thing is that we start somewhere that gives us the opportunity to avoid silly things like violating physical laws of energy conservation ,information and causality at the outset.

It's easier to do that now than it was in the heydays of quantum physics and relativity. There were brilliant minds accelerating the development of the science with brilliant mathematics but at the time theories would produce lots of things that seemed nonsensical. Those particular solutions to the equations were ignored for a time as bothersome artifacts. In due time evidence for the reality of things like antimatter and black holes would drive theorists into some very strange waters. But even they wouldn't have seen strings and M-Theory coming. Proper branes were conspicuous in their absence.

So where does all this leave us ?  Does the standard model Universe have what it takes to produce psi ? Obviously yes if you accept the evidence for psi . But that needs to be narrowed. Can purely classical physics give us everything we need or do we require relativistic frames and quantized fields to explain psi ? This is where things get really interesting. In one framework we have phenomenologies that describe causal anomalies . In another we have...engineering challenges !

In this sense throwing down the gauntlet requires a map. Our statement here  merely serves notice of intent.Don't feel frustrated if you find it interesting but want more background. There will be plenty of citation and annotation , links and media as we go. If your feeling the impulse to jump in with objections already feel free to do so but remember - this is the cover and not the book. The book is still being written.

With the discontinuation of military based research in areas of psi that were useful to intelligence gathering active and ongoing technical discussions involving these phenomena are few and far between. Hopefully in the future we'll have other researchers putting in a word or two regarding their own work and where they think things might be going.