I just got back from the first part of Rupert Sheldrake's lecture at California Lutheran University today. (His second part is on science and spirituality, so it probably won't have as many things relevant to this forum, but I'll post an update if there is). I unfortunately didn't take notes, so I'll just point out a few items of interest. There was a video being taken of it, so hopefully I can get my hands on a copy. For those of you unfamiliar with him, his website is www.sheldrake.org.
He started out with a summary of his hypothesis of morphic fields. He compared them to magnetic fields and gravity, saying that just as a magnet has an area of influence that exceeds the boundaries of the magnet its self, the mind may have a similar area of influence. He said that the objections of skeptics about morphic fields being false because they don't become weaker over distance were unfounded because the fields may work in a way similar to quantum entanglement and its "spooky action at a distance."
Next Sheldrake talked about his psychic staring experiments. He showed an example of the blindfolds and clickers used in them and talked about how a large number of trials had been performed, and almost all of them showed positive results, even ones done by skeptics, with the exception of a few done by the extremely skeptical in which they were participants, whom he suggested weren't focusing their staring. He talked about how he thinks vision is a two way process, with the image entering the eye as well as the eye projecting that image out to whatever is being stared at. He said that this idea is a very old one, and dates back to Plato, and that until relatively recently this was the commonly held notion. He mentioned that young children think of vision this way until they become older and learn the "correct" way of thinking about it, and that studies show that quite a few modern day adults still think of vision in this way. He said that the British SAS teaches its members to not stare at someone's back when they're sneaking up behind someone to kill him or her, and that investigators and surveillance experts also warn that staring can lead to them being discovered.
Another topic Sheldrake presented was his telephone telepathy experiments. He said that people who knew each other may have some sort of a bond that allowed them to know who is calling when the phone rings if someone they know is calling them. He showed a clip from a BBC show where he replicates one of his experiments with the Nolan Sisters, a band popular in the 80's (he said that the producers wanted him to do it with celebrities so that people would be more interested in it). He had one sister go to a hotel room where she was videotaped, and had to guess who was calling whenever the phone rang. One of the other four sisters was selected to call by rolling a die. Three trials were show, with 2 correct and 1 incorrect guesses. The procedure for the guesser was to state the name of who she thought it was when the phone rang, then to say the name again into the phone when she answered it. Here I noticed that once the guesser said who she thought it was only after answering the phone, and not before. Sheldrake said that the experiment had results that were significantly above chance.
Next Sheldrake shared his views about animals and morphic fields, saying that animals who live in groups, such as wolf packs, may communicate by telepathy, and that they are held together by morphic fields. He said that the phenomenon of dogs that know when their owners are coming home may be a form of telepathy. His experiments involved videotaping dogs to see if they would wait near the door when their owners were told to come home by the experimenter. Sheldrake said that the results of this experiment were also significant.
Another animal telepathy experiment he performed was with a parrot named Nkisi who has a large vocabulary. Its owner said that the parrot seemed to be able to know what she was thinking, and that sometimes it would wake her up by talking about what she was dreaming about (the parrot sleeps in the same room she does). Sheldrake performed an experiment to test this by having the owner go to a separate room and look at pictures of things that were in the parrot's vocabulary for 2 minutes while a camera recorded what the parrot said during that time. A clip of this experiment was shown with a split screen, showing both the owner and the parrot. For each of the 2 minute trials done in the video, the parts of that trial where the parrot said something about the picture were shown. Again he reported significant results.
One theme in this lecture was that scientists need to be more open minded, and that the reason there has been so little research into the areas he's studying is that subject like telepathy are a taboo in the scientific community since they are regarded as superstition and don't agree with the materialistic paradigm.
After the lecture there was a question and answer segment.
One person asked Sheldrake whether he had tried his staring experiments with blind people. He said that he hadn't done that, but he has heard that some blind people are able to tell if they're being stared at.
I asked him a few questions regarding the parrot experiment he presented to us. First I asked whether he kept track of everything the parrot said during the trials, even if it wasn't related to the picture being used. He said that he did, and that those words were included in the analysis. He did say that one trial shown in the clip was not included because the picture and the parrot's reply were too open to interpretation. The picture was of a guy in a car sticking his head out the window to speak with someone standing next to it. The parrot said several things about sticking heads out. (One thing I did notice about the pictures is that they were all photographs, often with several things in them, meaning that there were a larger number of things that the parrot could say that were related to them). Next I asked whether he videotaped the parrot when no pictures were being thought about by its owner, to find out its usual daily patter, for use as a control. He said that he didn't do that because the parrot would vary what it said on a daily basis, for example, if the owner said she went to the doctor's office, the parrot would be saying things related to doctors and medicine all day. My final question was whether the parrot's owner was just talking in her sleep when the parrot woke her up by talking about her dreams, rather than the parrot telepathically reading them. Sheldrake said that he didn't know, and that in order for that claim to be scientific they'd need to record her and the parrot while she was sleeping.
The lecture was certainly interesting, although I remain rather skeptical. I apologize for any roughness in this post, as I don't have time to edit it into something a bit more readable. Also, since this is based only on memory (a few hours old, but still memory nonetheless) there may be a few things that I reported incorrectly, but I'm pretty sure I have most of it accurate.
He started out with a summary of his hypothesis of morphic fields. He compared them to magnetic fields and gravity, saying that just as a magnet has an area of influence that exceeds the boundaries of the magnet its self, the mind may have a similar area of influence. He said that the objections of skeptics about morphic fields being false because they don't become weaker over distance were unfounded because the fields may work in a way similar to quantum entanglement and its "spooky action at a distance."
Next Sheldrake talked about his psychic staring experiments. He showed an example of the blindfolds and clickers used in them and talked about how a large number of trials had been performed, and almost all of them showed positive results, even ones done by skeptics, with the exception of a few done by the extremely skeptical in which they were participants, whom he suggested weren't focusing their staring. He talked about how he thinks vision is a two way process, with the image entering the eye as well as the eye projecting that image out to whatever is being stared at. He said that this idea is a very old one, and dates back to Plato, and that until relatively recently this was the commonly held notion. He mentioned that young children think of vision this way until they become older and learn the "correct" way of thinking about it, and that studies show that quite a few modern day adults still think of vision in this way. He said that the British SAS teaches its members to not stare at someone's back when they're sneaking up behind someone to kill him or her, and that investigators and surveillance experts also warn that staring can lead to them being discovered.
Another topic Sheldrake presented was his telephone telepathy experiments. He said that people who knew each other may have some sort of a bond that allowed them to know who is calling when the phone rings if someone they know is calling them. He showed a clip from a BBC show where he replicates one of his experiments with the Nolan Sisters, a band popular in the 80's (he said that the producers wanted him to do it with celebrities so that people would be more interested in it). He had one sister go to a hotel room where she was videotaped, and had to guess who was calling whenever the phone rang. One of the other four sisters was selected to call by rolling a die. Three trials were show, with 2 correct and 1 incorrect guesses. The procedure for the guesser was to state the name of who she thought it was when the phone rang, then to say the name again into the phone when she answered it. Here I noticed that once the guesser said who she thought it was only after answering the phone, and not before. Sheldrake said that the experiment had results that were significantly above chance.
Next Sheldrake shared his views about animals and morphic fields, saying that animals who live in groups, such as wolf packs, may communicate by telepathy, and that they are held together by morphic fields. He said that the phenomenon of dogs that know when their owners are coming home may be a form of telepathy. His experiments involved videotaping dogs to see if they would wait near the door when their owners were told to come home by the experimenter. Sheldrake said that the results of this experiment were also significant.
Another animal telepathy experiment he performed was with a parrot named Nkisi who has a large vocabulary. Its owner said that the parrot seemed to be able to know what she was thinking, and that sometimes it would wake her up by talking about what she was dreaming about (the parrot sleeps in the same room she does). Sheldrake performed an experiment to test this by having the owner go to a separate room and look at pictures of things that were in the parrot's vocabulary for 2 minutes while a camera recorded what the parrot said during that time. A clip of this experiment was shown with a split screen, showing both the owner and the parrot. For each of the 2 minute trials done in the video, the parts of that trial where the parrot said something about the picture were shown. Again he reported significant results.
One theme in this lecture was that scientists need to be more open minded, and that the reason there has been so little research into the areas he's studying is that subject like telepathy are a taboo in the scientific community since they are regarded as superstition and don't agree with the materialistic paradigm.
After the lecture there was a question and answer segment.
One person asked Sheldrake whether he had tried his staring experiments with blind people. He said that he hadn't done that, but he has heard that some blind people are able to tell if they're being stared at.
I asked him a few questions regarding the parrot experiment he presented to us. First I asked whether he kept track of everything the parrot said during the trials, even if it wasn't related to the picture being used. He said that he did, and that those words were included in the analysis. He did say that one trial shown in the clip was not included because the picture and the parrot's reply were too open to interpretation. The picture was of a guy in a car sticking his head out the window to speak with someone standing next to it. The parrot said several things about sticking heads out. (One thing I did notice about the pictures is that they were all photographs, often with several things in them, meaning that there were a larger number of things that the parrot could say that were related to them). Next I asked whether he videotaped the parrot when no pictures were being thought about by its owner, to find out its usual daily patter, for use as a control. He said that he didn't do that because the parrot would vary what it said on a daily basis, for example, if the owner said she went to the doctor's office, the parrot would be saying things related to doctors and medicine all day. My final question was whether the parrot's owner was just talking in her sleep when the parrot woke her up by talking about her dreams, rather than the parrot telepathically reading them. Sheldrake said that he didn't know, and that in order for that claim to be scientific they'd need to record her and the parrot while she was sleeping.
The lecture was certainly interesting, although I remain rather skeptical. I apologize for any roughness in this post, as I don't have time to edit it into something a bit more readable. Also, since this is based only on memory (a few hours old, but still memory nonetheless) there may be a few things that I reported incorrectly, but I'm pretty sure I have most of it accurate.
Personally I think we should make up our minds in 2004 without following ancient doctrines, our educated guesses today on spirituality are as valid, possibly better. (Nor do I mean a New Age hodge podge either - it's ancient too)