From the article:
(my highlight)
" Under the Perceptual Training Systems and Tools banner, extrasensory perception has a new name in the modern era: “sensemaking.” In official Defense Department literature
sensemaking is defined as “a motivated continuous effort to understand connections (which can be among people, places, and events) in order to anticipate their trajectories and act effectively.”"
It appears from the article that the military believes they are training soldiers to use their senses and "intuition" to anticipate actions. This is not at all "extrasensory"; It is teaching them to use their unconscious mental processing and act on the intuitions that processing creates.
Also from the article:
"Commander Joseph Cohn, a program manager at the naval office, told the New York Times, “These reports from the field often detailed a ‘sixth sense’ or ‘Spidey sense’ that alerted them to an impending attack or I.E.D., or that allowed them to respond to a novel situation without consciously analyzing the situation.”"
The soldier feels as if they are using a sixth sense, they get a "feeling" and act on it, and in some cases this has proven to save lives. This is not a description of psi, it is a description of how the brain works to process multiple streams of information unconsciously and then plops the result into awareness so the individual can act on it. It
feels like the idea comes out of thin air, because the consciousness can not access exactly what sensory factors lead to the conclusion of what is going to happen.
This is analogous to the solution to a problem suddenly appearing in consciousness (Eureka!), or to the "mystical" origin of creative impulses which generate art and literature. These predictions, solutions and inspirations arise from the brain, but the consciousness does not have access to the underlying processes, only to the results.
I commend the military for recognizing the importance of unconscious processing and its relationship to intuition, and for attempting to train soldiers to use their brains more effectively and to trust their intuitions in stressful conditions.
Of course authors like Annie Jacobsen, believers in psi, and possible even members of the pentagon staff will want to misinterpret this natural phenomenon as "extrasensory" or as evidence of psi.
Remember, intuition of this kind is not infallible, but of course the number of instances where a soldier "feels something", and acts, only to find nothing was there is not reported. Only the "few" "occasional" amazing positive results are reported and leave a lasting impression.
Sound familiar?
