5. The Implications of Psi

 If psi phenomena exist, they likely have major implications for our understanding of the role of mind in the physical universe, of the nature of the interaction between the mental and physical realms (if these in fact are separate realms), and of the very nature of time and space.  

This chapter is devoted to an examination of the various theories that have been proposed to explain psi phenomena.  Some attempts have been made to explain psi phenomena in terms of the classical Newtonian physics that implicitly underlie the metaphysical mindset of the majority of the “orthodox” scientific community (with the exception of the physicists themselves, of course).  In general, these attempts have not met with success.  Other attempted theories involve extensions of our current views of space and time and quantum mechanics.  A third genre of theories proposes the existence of a collective unconscious or collective mind. We will consider each of these theoretical genres in turn.

No one theory has gained general acceptance within the parapsychological community.  As K. Ramakrishna Rao, a past President of the Parapsychological Association, has pointed out, the lack of any agreed-upon theory of psi is one reason for the general skepticism of the scientific establishment regarding the existence of parapsychological phenomena (Rao, 1977).  Indeed, some skeptics, such as Antony Flew (1989), have explicitly cited the lack of such a theory as their reason for rejecting the evidence for psi. The lack of a viable theory has hindered the acceptance of hypotheses in other areas of science as well.  For instance, Alfred Wegener’s ideas regarding continental drift were rejected for decades by the scientific community of geologists, despite an impressive array of geophysical evidence supporting them.  It was not until the theory of plate tectonics had been developed and the vast amount of physical evidence for sea-floor spreading had accumulated that Wegener’s theory was finally accepted by the majority of geologists (see Morris, 1983, for a more detailed discussion of this controversy).

Thus, a powerful theory may be what is needed if the science of parapsychology is to gain general acceptance by the scientific community.  Of course, the very elusiveness of psi phenomena makes it very difficult to test and refine such a theory.  So long as psi effects manifest themselves so capriciously in experimental situations, it will be hard to construct a well-verified theory of psi.

Characteristics of a Good Scientific Theory.

One of the commonly accepted criteria for classifying a theory as scientific (or in some circles as meaningful at all) is that the theory should make specific predictions about the outcomes of experiments or other types of scientific observations.  In other words, the theory must be capable of being proven wrong should the predictions prove erroneous.  This is the criterion of “falsifiability” propounded by the philosopher Karl Popper (1959).  Theories that do not yield any predictions regarding possible scientific observations are held to be unfalsifiable and are generally rejected as being unscientific.  A large number of “crackpot” theories have been proposed to explain psi phenomena.  These theories have invoked new fields or particles, such as “psi fields,” “psi-info waves,” “psychical fields,” “omnipotent consciousness fields,”   ”i-ther” (an intelligent form of the ether once though to be the medium for carrying electromagnetic waves) and “bioplasma” (to name but a few proposed constructs), in order to explain ESP or PK.  The authors of these theories have typically offered no reliable means of detecting or measuring their hypothetical fields, particles or energies, nor do they specify the properties of these entities in a sufficiently exact way that testable predictions can be derived from their theories.  Thus, these theories do not qualify as scientific (or even as meaningful) under Popper’s falsifiability criterion, and they will therefore not be further considered in this chapter.

Before dismissing all such theories entirely, however, it should be noted that not all scientists and philosophers of science insist on strict adherence to the falsifiability criterion.  For instance, physicist David Bohm and F. David Peat have argued that insistence on immediate falsifiability may stifle creative thought and innovation and discourage the creative playing with ideas that may eventually give rise to falsifiable theories (Bohm & Peat, 1987).  In this context, they cite Democritus’ postulation of the existence of atoms, which stood as an untestable idea for millennia before giving rise to modern theories of the atom.   

Two theories that make exactly the same predictions are said to be “operationally equivalent” and are often considered to be merely different verbal or mathematical formulations of the same theory.  (Of course, it may be a bit chauvinistic on our part to regard two theories as identical simply because they make the same predictions regarding our possible experiences.  Just because we with our limited senses and powers of investigation can’t distinguish between two theories does not necessarily mean that some privileged observer may not be able to distinguish between them. For instance, the hypothesis that reincarnation occurs but that one carries no trace of one’s previous personality or memory of one’s previous lives may be operationally equivalent for us to the hypothesis that no soul exists and that consciousness is totally extinguished at death, but to some intelligent alien capable of perceiving disembodied souls, the two hypotheses may be not at all equivalent.)

In instances in which two theories appear to be operationally equivalent, the theory that is more conservative in terms of postulating new entities and processes is usually held to be preferred over any less conservative rival.  This injunction “not to multiply entities beyond necessity” is commonly known as Ockham’s Razor (after the fourteenth century philosopher William of Ockham). Thus, if a medium becomes apparently possessed by the spirit of someone’s dead uncle and proceeds to relate accurately details of that uncle’s life, it is more conservative to assume that the medium used his or her powers of telepathy (or even better yet from the conservative point of view, fraud) to obtain this information than to postulate the existence of disembodied spirits.  This “super-ESP” hypothesis is preferred to the discarnate spirit hypothesis by most parapsychologists on the basis of Ockham’s Razor (which is ironically the same principle invoked by the skeptics to support their preference of the fraud/error/delusion hypothesis over the ESP hypothesis).

In some instances, hypotheses that at first glance appear to be unfalsifiable, and hence metaphysical rather than scientific in nature, can be rendered falsifiable through the use of an “operational definition.”  Consider the question of “consciousness” in animal and computers.  Are, for instance, dogs to be regarded as conscious?  Amoebae?  How about computers?  Or thermostats? The famous neurophysiologist W. Grey Walter constructed mechanical “tortoises,” which ambulated about his house randomly until they ran low on power, at which point they would proceed to the nearest electrical socket to recharge themselves. Were Walter’s tortoises conscious?  Did they feel a passion for communion with electrical sockets or a sense of anxiety and depression when their power became low?  As discussed in Chapter 1, in order to resolve one of these questions, the mathematician Alan Turing (1950, 1964) proposed to define a computer as conscious if it could successfully imitate a human being to the extent that a person communicating through a teletype terminal could not discriminate between the computer’s remarks and those of the human being. Turing’s “imitation game” provided a means whereby the apparently metaphysical hypothesis of consciousness in computers could be given an operational definition and become subject to scientific test.

Alternate forms of rationality.  A small minority of parapsychologists have on occasion called for a reexamination of the appropriateness of the traditional methods of science for the investigation of psi phenomena.  In some cases, they have called for the abandonment of such methods in favor of alternate forms of rationality.  Harman (1993), for instance, questions the ontological assumption of the separation of the observer from what is observed that he sees as underlying the modern scientific method. He calls for the adoption of “other ways of knowing,” such as intuition and mysticism, that are based on the assumption of an underlying “oneness” between the knower and the known.  Tart (1972) observed that different states of consciousness (such as dreaming, marijuana intoxication, and religious ecstasy) are characterized by different forms of information processing and cognition, and he called for the development of “state specific sciences,” each to be based on the form of rationality characteristic of a particular state of consciousness.  In making such suggestions, both Tart and Harman reflect a recent trend among historians, sociologists and philosophers of science to question whether there is one demonstrably correct form of rationality (see Dolby, 1979; Feyerbend, 1981; Collins & Pinch,1982; and Woolgar, 1988, for examples of this trend).  

The takeover of large parts of the academic establishment by “social constructionists” and “epistemological relativists” who deny that there is any preferred mode of knowing and who treat all theories of the world, including modern science and its pseudoscientific brethren such as flat Earth theory and fundamentalist Creationism, as “socially constructed realities” and as on an equal footing has been described in much detail by Paul Gross and Norman Leavitt in their book Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrel with Science (Gross & Leavitt, 1994).  This movement, however, took a huge blow in the chin and was largely discredited when Allan Sokal, a professor of physics at New York University, deliberately wrote a paper entitled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" that consisted of entirely meaningless gobbledygook and submitted it for publication to the “academic” journal Social Text, a publishing vehicle for social constructionists.  Amazingly (although not to Sokal’s personal astonishment), it was accepted and published as Sokal (1996).  Along with many other nonsensical assertions in the article, Sokal contended that the psychoanalytic speculations of the radical French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan have been confirmed by recent work in quantum field theory.  The publication of Sokal’s article was a blow from which the radical social constructivist movement has yet to recover.   

Traditional scientific methods have enjoyed a history of success in the prediction and control of nature. They have led to a convergence of thought that is unprecedented (with the possible exception of the occasional “pseudoconsensus” achieved through the ruthless exercise of religious or other authority).  Mystical insight and religious inspiration have rarely led to consensus about the nature or number of gods or the purpose of the universe.  Neither have the variant thought processes of the intoxicated or the schizophrenic led to a consistent alternative picture of realty. Of course, it may be argued that consistency is the hobgoblin of the unimaginative and that reality may not correspond to the consensus of the majority of scientists. It is also true that certain central issues have proven themselves relatively impervious to scientific investigation. Science has, for instance, no good explanation of why certain types of brain activity should be associated with or give rise to conscious experience. Neither is it able to offer an explanation of why the universe should have been created with its particular set of properties (it can only elucidate what those properties are). Thus, alternate forms of rationality may have their place and may even be necessary to address questions that are (at least at present) not answerable by science. However, if parapsychologists were to depart from traditional scientific methodology and adopt some form of alternative rationality, it is not clear that they would any longer be practicing science in any conventional sense of the term. It is clear that such action would result in the rejection of parapsychology as an unscientific enterprise by scientific establishment. This rejection would be legitimate under any standard use of the word “scientific.”

Having laid the “metatheoretic” background, we will now examine some of the theories that have been proposed to account for ESP and PK.  Theories that are primarily directed to the problem of the relationship of the mind to the physical brain—and to the possible survival of the mind (or some portions thereof) of the death of the physical body—will be addressed later in the book.

Spacetime Theories

Several theorists have invoked “warps” in spacetime or even extra dimensions of spacetime in order to explain psi.  It is for instance difficult to explain apparent cases of telepathy between two people who are separated by thousands of miles on the basis of the exchange of any known physical signal over such distances.  If it could be assumed that the people are really in much closer proximity than they seem to be due to the presence of a warp in spacetime or to a spacetime “wormhole” directly connecting them, then such long-range psi may not seem quite so problematic. Similarly, highly curved spacetimes may offer a means a getting a signal from a future event into the present, which might help to explain precognition.

“Spacewarp” Theories.  Schmeidler (1972) proposed that the universe may contain an extra dimension in addition to the familiar four dimensions of space and time that might permit the “topological folding” of spacetime to occur. As a result of such folding, two regions that appear to be widely separated in space and time might actually be very close to one another in the higher-dimensional spacetime, much as two points on a towel that are normally far apart may be adjacent once the towel is folded.

The noted physicist John Wheeler (1962), a vehement skeptic regarding psi phenomena, has proposed that at a microscopic level, quantum effects may act to produce a spacetime structure containing “wormholes” or “bridges.”  (The handle on a coffee cup might be thought of as a wormhole or bridge in the surface of the cup.)  Wheeler proposed that such wormholes might connect pairs of oppositely charged particles such as electrons and positrons, and his proposed spacetime structure is sometimes referred to as the “quantum foam.” As Parker (1991) points out, however, Wheeler’s quantum foam theory is not accepted by most contemporary physicists.  Several other scientists have speculated that such wormholes may exist on a macroscopic scale and that in some cases rotating black holes may generate wormhole tunnels to other regions of our own spacetime or even to a different universe that exists outside of the spacetime regions to which we have access.  

Wormhole theories of psi have been proposed by Schmeidler’s one-time mentor, the noted psychologist Gardner Murphy (1964) as well as by Toben and Wolf (1982), although these theories are not spelled out in much mathematical detail.  Morris (1990) points out that any attempt to travel through a wormhole or to send a signal through one will result in frustration, as the traveler or signal will emerge from the wormhole within the event horizon of another black hole, from which no escape is possible.  Morris does note that there may exist a type of wormhole, called a Schwarzschild wormhole with the property that, if one were to travel through a Schwarzschild wormhole, one might be able to avoid emerging inside a black hole.  It is, however, extremely doubtful that Schwarzschild wormholes exist. Another loophole may be provided by J. L. Friedman’s observations that naked singularities may exist (Friedman, 1991).  A naked singularity is essentially a black hole that does not have an event horizon, so that escape would be possible from it (that is, it is an oxymoronic nonblack black hole).

In 1949, the famous mathematician Kurt Gödel (1949a, 1949b) demonstrated that Einstein’s theory of general relativity allows the existence of universes containing closed time lines.  The notion of a closed time line is perhaps best explained by a spatial analogy.  If a person were to begin walking due east and continue until she has circumnavigated the globe (obviously some water skiing would come into play), she would eventually return to her starting position, but from a westerly direction.  Similarly, in a closed time line, if one were to travel far enough into the future, one would eventually return to the present moment (via the past).

One could readily imagine the perplexing experience of a transsexual traveler traversing a closed time line in a large spacecraft.  He meets a woman who seems strangely familiar, who reminds him of his mother, but is obviously much younger.  Being of an Oedipal nature and well-vaccinated to boot, he engages in a one-night stand, during which (unbeknownst to him) he impregnates her.  Two years later he watches three consecutive transsexuals being brutally pummeled by their ex-lovers on a sleazy holovision show hosted by someone called Jerry Springer, IV, who is evidently also the mayor of Cincinnati.  He realizes at that point that he has been living a lie and that he is a woman trapped in a man’s body.  He has the newest, most advanced form of transsexual operation, which renders him a fertile woman.  Taking advantage of a rebate offer, he has them throw in a rejuvenation procedure at the same time.  A few years later, “he,” now she, meets a man at a bar who eerily reminds her of her younger self.  Being narcissistic as well as well-vaccinated, she engages in a one-night stand, during which (unbeknownst to him) he impregnates her.  Months later, she gives birth to a little boy. The birth is traumatic and she develops a white streak in her hair as a result.  As she sits in the recovery room, she catches a glance at herself in the mirror.  She recognizes her new look and realizes that she is her own mother.  She has just given birth to herself.   

If time were to be closed for the universe as a whole, everything would recur over and over again, the ultimate form of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s (1969) “eternal return.”  The universe might collapse to a black hole and bounce back in a repeat of the Big Bang.  We would all live the same lives over and over again on each iteration of the process.  The Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece in fact believed in such a doctrine of eternal cyclic recurrence, which they termed palingenesia.

Several theorists have suggested ways in which anomalous spacetime regions might allow a physical particle to traverse a closed time line and arrive at its own “past.”  The physicist Frank Tipler (1974) has proposed that a time machine could be constructed by rotating an extremely long cylindrical mass at an extraordinarily high speed, but observes that such a time machine would unfortunately collapse along its axis due to its own gravitational self-attraction before it could be put into service.  Herbert (1988) has observed that a very rapidly rotating Kerr black hole would contain a naked ring singularity that would make travel from the Kerr hole to any location in spacetime (including one’s own past) possible.  Morris and Thorne (1988) and Morris, Thorne and Yurtsever (1988) have suggested that a time machine might be produced by taking one of the two mouths of a wormhole, moving it rapidly back and forth and then returning it to the vicinity of the second mouth of the wormhole. After this process, travel through the wormhole would enable one to reach the past.  More recently, J. Richard Gott of Princeton University has proposed that closed time loops may be created when two cosmic strings hurtle past each other at a high velocity.  A rocket ship looping around both strings could arrive at its own past. Of course, the very existence of cosmic strings remains speculation at this point. Also, Gerard t’Hooft of the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Utrecht has pointed out that, if there were enough mass in the universe to construct a time machine along Gott’s lines, the universe would necessarily have to be closed (that is, would eventually collapse back upon itself due to its gravitational self-attraction). He further points out that any closed universe would necessarily collapse to a size smaller than any closed time path under Gott’s model, making the existence of a Gott time machine impossible.  Furthermore, physicist Stephen Hawking has argued that any closed time line would destroy itself by generating a feedback loop leading to the build-up of an infinite amount of energy, destroying any time machine that might be created.  Gott proposed a variant version of his theory involving a rapidly shrinking “loop” type of cosmic string, but the equations have proven difficult to solve for this case.  See Lemonich (1991), Peterson (1994) and Travis (1992) for a discussion of the controversies surrounding Gott time machines.

If closed time lines exist, it might be possible to account for precognition in terms of a signal being emitted from the precognized event and arriving at the past by traveling along a portion of a closed time line.  

“Spacewarp” theories of psi face several difficulties.  The first is the possibility of logical paradoxes.  If I could read the winning lottery numbers in today’s paper and send them in a message to my past self via a closed time loop, I could potentially make a huge killing.  But this would entail the existence of two present moments, one in which I did not know the score and remained poor and one in which I was sent the lottery numbers and became rich.  One way around this paradox would be to deny the existence of the moments in which I did not win the lottery, perhaps postulating that the message would somehow obliterate those moments so that it would be that they never existed.  Another possibility would be to assert that the arrival of the message from my future, created two new “branches” in time, in one of which I don’t know tomorrow’s winning numbers and in one of which I do.  Branching time models are discussed in more detail latter in this chapter.  It is not clear that all closed-time loops must create logical paradoxes.  For instance, in the above story in which the man became his whole family tree, no paradox necessarily occurred.

The huge curvatures of spacetime that would be required to explain psi phenomena occurring over the typically cosmically small space-time separations involved in spontaneous and experimentally-produced psi effects would undoubtedly involve the presence of very large gravitational fields under any standard interpretation of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. For the “spacewarp” explanation to be useful, it would probably be necessary to assume, say, that the participants in a case of telepathy were in closer proximity to a rotating black hole than they were to each other.  In such a case, the gravitational tidal forces of the black hole would in all likelihood reduce a person to a molecular gas long before it conferred any paranormal powers upon him.

Similarly, the closed time lines generated in rotating universes under Gödel’s model are gigantic in size (Halpern, 1992).  Also, it is doubtful that a precognitive message could remain intact throughout the universe’s collapse in the “Big Crunch” and reemergence in a “Big Bang” or even via passage through a black hole.  However, in a well-publicized incident in 2004, famed black hole theorists Steven Hawking and Kip Thorne lost a bet to the Thorne’s Caltech colleague John Preskill, conceding that information is indeed preserved within a black hole (Rogers, 2004).  Thus, at least one barrier to information transmission through a black hole has been removed.   

Another problem is that no “spacewarp” theory of psi has been formalized and developed in such a way as to give rise to anything approaching exact predictions regarding observed psi phenomena (or indeed to any prediction not readily derived from far more accessible variables, such as psychological factors).  Nor has any method been proposed to measure the psi-inducing spacewarp.  Thus, at the present time, there is no true spacewarp theory of psi.  There are only suggestions by various authors that it might be possible to construct such a theory using such concepts as wormholes, closed time lines and extra dimensions of spacetime.  Until such a formalized, testable theory is constructed, the concept that psi phenomena may involve “spacewarps” remains only an intriguing speculation.

Multidimensional Spacetime Models. Several parapsychologists have proposed spacetime models with additional dimensions beyond the usual four in order to explain psi phenomena. The postulation of additional dimensions is one way to avoid the large gravitational fields required to produce wormholes and large curvatures of spacetime in standard interpretations of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.  Schmeidler’s postulation of an extra dimension of spacetime in order to permit “topological folding” to occur is essentially a theory of this type. The postulation of extra dimensions of spacetime may no longer be the radical move it once was, as physicists nowadays think nothing of toying with as many as 11 spacetime dimensions in “supersymmetric” theories of gravity.  However, most of these dimensions are thought to be curved so severely that they become microscopic circles that are not noticeable at a macroscopic level; thus such dimensions do not provide a means of conveying a psi signal over macroscopic distances.

Hart (1956, 1965) proposed that the material universe is a cross-section of a five dimensional manifold.  Smythies (1994, 2000, 2003) postulates the existence of three spatial dimensions and three additional spatial dimension to account for each conscious observer’s phenomenal space (space of mental imagery), resulting in 3n + 3 spatial dimensions altogether, where n is the number of conscious observers.  However, as Chari (1977) noted long ago, in both Hart’s and Smythies’ models the “extra” dimensions have not been sufficiently formalized (i.e., no noncircular method of measuring them has been proposed) to enable scientific predictions to be drawn from them, so these theories must be regarded as untestable (and hence not scientific) in their present state of development. 

Two versions of what is essentially the same multidimensional theory of spacetime have been proposed apparently independently by the team of Russell Targ, Hal Puthoff and Ed May (1979), and by physicist Elizabeth Rauscher (Rauscher 1979, 1983a, 1983b; Ramon & Rauscher, 1980).  Targ, Puthoff and May state that they developed their model in collaboration with Gerald Feinberg. (Feinberg is a physicist well known for his postulation of tachyons, particles that move at a speed faster than light, as will be discussed in more detail below.)  Both theories posit eight dimensions of space and time, although Rauscher proposed an alternative model employing six dimensions. In their latest collaborations, Rauscher and Targ (2001, 2002) propose an eight-dimensional model.  Essentially what they propose is that events that seem to be widely separated in space and time may in fact be quite close together in the higher dimensional space. 

Some background may be in order here.  If two spacetime locations (events) are separated by distances of dx1, dx2, and dx3 in the three spatial dimensions, the spatial distance separating the events is √ (dx₁² + dx₂² + dx₃²).  If c is the speed of time and dt is the length of a time interval, then the distance that can be covered by a photon (particle of light) in dt is c * dt.   In Einstein’s theory of relativity, the spatial separation and time interval between two events are dependent on the observer’s state of motion.  However, one quantity that is independent of the observer’s state of motion is the spacetime metric, given by the equation:

ds²  = dx₁² + dx₂² + dx₃² - c² dt²                                                  (5.1)

The spacetime metric is thus equal to the square of the spatial distance between two events minus the square of distance that can be traveled by a photon in the time interval between the two events.  If the spacetime interval is negative, then the spatial distance between the two events is less than the distance that can be traveled by a photon in the time interval separating the two events.  In this case, the events are said to be “timelike separated” and it is possible to send a causal signal (e.g., physical particle) from the early to the later events (all known causal signals travel at the speed of light or slower in conventional theories of physics).  If the spacetime metric is positive, then the spatial distance separating the events is greater than the distance that can be traveled by a causal signal whose speed is less than or equal to the speed of light.  In this case, two events are said to be “spacelike separated.”  No conventional causal signal can travel from one event to the other if the events are spacelike separated.  It is thus impossible for one of the events to be the “cause” of the other. 

What Targ, Rauscher and their coauthors (TRMPR) propose is that ordinary four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime may simply be the real part (in the mathematical sense of real numbers) of an eight-dimensional complex Minkowski spacetime (in the sense of having complex numbers as coordinates rather than real numbers).  In this model, each spatial coordinate x_k would be replaced by a complex coordinate x_k + x_k’i, where i is the “imaginary” square root of -1.  Similarly the time coordinate t would be replaced by the complex coordinate t + t’i.  Equation (5.1) would be replaced by the following equation:

ds²  = dx₁² + dx’₁² + dx₂² + dx’₂² + dx₃² + dx’₃² - c² (dt² + dt’²)              (5.2)                                 

TRMPR explain long-distance ESP on the basis that, by a suitable adjustment of the imaginary coordinates, the spacetime metric ds² can be made to be negative between any two events and thus the events become timelike separated in the spacetime with complex coordinates. (Recall that in the ordinary theory of relativity, casual signals cannot be exchanged between spacelike separated events, although they can be exchanged between events with timelike separation.)  Because they are timelike separated in this higher dimensional space, the two events would have zero spatial separation in some reference frame, although they would be separated by a longer “time” interval (when measured as the square root of dt² + dt’²) than they were in ordinary spacetime.  

There is thus a price to pay for reducing the spatial separation to zero.  Similarly, in terms of precognition, through a suitable adjustment of the imaginary coordinates, the spacetime metric ds² can be made to be positive so that the two events are spacelike separated in the higher dimensional space.  Thus, due to the relativity of simultaneity in Einstein’s special theory of relativity, the events will be simultaneous for some observer, so that there is no time interval separating them for such an observer.  It should be noted that despite TRMPR’s assertion that the spatial distance between two events can be reduced to zero for some observer in the higher dimensional system, this is accomplished at the price of increasing the time separation.  Similarly, reducing the time interval to zero between two events comes at the price of increasing the spatial separation between them.  The spatial and temporal intervals between two events that are separated in normal four-dimensional spacetime cannot both be reduced to zero in eight-dimensional spacetime.  Thus, two events that are separated in normal four-dimensional spacetime cannot be “brought together” in TRMPR’s eight-dimensional spacetime.  In fact, in a mathematical sense, the spacetime separation between two events can only be increased in TRMPR’s model.  

This problem could be avoided by, say, the introduction of a fourth spatial dimension x4 and one extra time dimension t2 (in addition to the “usual” time dimension t1) whose coordinates are pure imaginary numbers.  The spatial and temporal separation would then be purely imaginary numbers of the form dx4 i and dt2 i, where i is equal to √(-1).  The equation for the spacetime interval would then become: 

 ds²  = dx₁² + dx₂² + dx₃² - dx₄² - c² (dt1² - dt2²)                                (5.3)                                    

Now by adjusting the values of dx4 and dt2, the spatial and temporal distances between any two events could be adjusted to zero at the same time and thus the events could be “brought together” in the higher dimensional spacetime.

As TRMPR propose no means of measuring an object’s coordinates on their new dimensions, they are free to adjust these coordinates as they please to make things come out right. As the theory seems to be capable of explaining anything, it should be regarded as unfalsifiable and not worthy of consideration as a serious scientific theory.  (The same remarks apply to Equation 5.3, which I have just presented, as I have not suggested any means of measuring the separations between two events on the fourth spatial and second time dimensions.)  Walker (1981) has also noted that, assuming the inverse square law for gravitation is to be extended to the eight-dimensional space proposed by TRMPR, then the effects of these extra dimensions on planetary trajectories should have been long ago observed.    

One writer who has expressed a virtually mystical enthusiasm for the possibility that the mysteries of the mind and psi might be explained in terms of higher dimensional space is the mathematician and sometimes science fiction writer Rudy Rucker. In his book The Fourth Dimension (Rucker, 1984), he reviews the history of the use of higher-dimensional models to explain psi phenomena and mystical experiences.  He notes that the seventeenth century philosopher Henry More postulated that spirits are four-dimensional beings.  He also cites J. C. F. Zöllner’s experiments with the medium Henry Slade, who was supposedly able to tie a knot in a closed loop of string by transporting it to a higher dimensional realm (Zöllner, 1901).  Zöllner further proposed that a miraculous object such as interlocking rings composed of different types of wood would provide evidence of the existence of a higher dimensional reality.  It will be recalled that John Beloff has also contended that such a “permanent paranormal object” might provide convincing evidence of the reality of psi phenomena, if not of higher dimensional realms (Beloff, 1984).

Rucker himself takes an almost mystical view of higher dimensional geometries. He seconds Ouspensky’s suggestion that dreams may afford a glimpse into our four-dimensional nature (see Ouspensky, 1912/1970, 1931/1971).  Rucker suggests that seemingly separate individual persons may simply be parts of a higher unity, much as five seemingly independent circles on a two-dimensional plane may be the cross-sections of the fingers of a single three-dimensional hand.

Models of Time.  There are quite a few spontaneous cases on record that seem to indicate that one can foresee an unpleasant event in the future and then perform some action to avoid that event.  Thus, it seems that one might be able to change the future.  This raises interesting philosophical and scientific questions about the nature of time.  Louisa Rhine (1955) published a collection of such cases, and we will consider two of her cases here to give the reader a better sense of nature of such experiences. The first case is taken from her book Hidden Channels of the Mind:

In Washington State a young woman was so upset by a terrifying dream one night that she had to wake her husband and tell him about it. She had dreamed that a large ornamental chandelier which hung over their baby’s bed in the next room had fallen into the crib and crushed their baby to death. In the dream she could see herself and her husband standing amid the wreckage. The clock on the baby’s dresser said 4:35. In the distance she could hear the rain on the windowpane and the wind blowing outside.

But her husband just laughed at her. He said it was a silly dream, to forget it and go back to sleep; and in a matter of moments he did just that himself. But she could not sleep.

Finally, still frightened, she got out of bed and went to the baby’s room, got her and brought her back. On the way she stopped to look out the window, and saw a full moon, the weather calm and unlike the dream. Then, though feeling a little foolish, she got back into bed with the baby.

About two hours later they were wakened by a resounding crash. She jumped up, followed by her husband, and ran to the nursery. There, where the baby would have been lying, was the chandelier in the crib. They looked at each other and then at the clock. It stood at 4:35. Still a little skeptical they listened—to the sound of the rain on the windowpane and wind howling outside. (Rhine, 1961, pp. 198-199).

In another case in Rhine’s collection, a streetcar operator braked as he approached a one-way exit in order to avoid an accident that he had dreamed about that morning.  At that moment, a truck containing the very same people who had been injured in the dream shot out into the street, having gone the wrong way through the one-way exit.

In both of these cases, it would seem that two different futures were involved.  In the first (precognized) future, a negative event took place.  In the second future, the one that actually occurred, the negative event was avoided.

Multidimensional time models. In order to account for such cases of precognition followed by intervention to prevent the precognized event from occurring, J. W. Dunne (1938) proposed the existence of additional dimensions of time.  Dunne invoked a second time dimension (Time 2) to “clock” a person’s progress on the first, ordinary dimension of time (Time 1).  Thus, in Dunne’s theory a person is conceived of as “moving” along the Time 1 dimension and occupying later and later moments on that dimension as Time 2 elapses.

Suppose for instance that a man named Harry has a vivid dream of being killed when the giant Snoopy balloon collapses during the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Suppose, that on the basis of this dream, he cancels his annual visit to his cherished parade and goes to Fire Island instead. As his wife roasts up the turkey, he turns on the T.V. only to witness the horrible destruction as the beloved Snoopy character descends on the assembled multitude.  We could conceptualize this situation under Dunne’s theory as follows.  The future, as it existed at the moment (in Time 2) before Harry went to bed contained the event of Harry’s demise in the great Snoopy massacre, but the future after Harry made the decision to go to Fire Island (at a later moment in Time 2) did not contain his imminent death. Harry precognized the future as it existed before he took his evasive action.

There are several problems with Dunne’s theory. One major problem is that, in order to clock an observer’s progress on the second time dimension, Dunne felt compelled to invoke a third time dimension.  To clock his progress in Time 3, Dunne invented Time 4.  In fact, continuing in this manner, Dunne was forced to postulate the existence of an infinite number of time dimensions.  This is what is known as the problem of an “infinite regress,” which is usually as a sign that something is severely wrong with a theory.  This infinite regress seemed to bother just about everyone but Dunne, who was happy to talk about “the observer at infinity.”  This regress is probably a result of Dunne’s failure to employ the notion of a “timeless array” of events in spacetime rather than his dynamic model involving the “motion” of an observer along a time axis.

Some later theorists, such as C. D. Broad (1953, 1978) and D. F. Lawden (1982), tried to save Dunne’s theory by constructing models that involved “only” two time dimensions.  All these models, however, share one basic and fundamental flaw. What is to prevent someone in the past from precognizing something that we are doing now and performing an act that would pop us all out of existence?  Or perhaps we have all just been popped into existence by such an act.  If the latter is the case, we remember having lived for years, but these memories are illusory (at least in respect to our history in the second time dimension).  We have really only existed for a few seconds (of Time 2) and may be popped out of existence in a few more moments if someone in the past has a visionary experience.  It would be at least somewhat discomforting to think that our existence could be so ephemeral. One way out of this quandary might be to attempt to construct a model in which only observers at some specified coordinates in Time 1 and Time 2 would be allowed to alter the future.  This would be equivalent to defining a unique moment in time as “the present” and only allowing observers in the present to alter the future.  Unfortunately, as we shall see later, Einstein’s theory of relativity implies that there is no unique set of events called the present that is the same for all observers.  Rather, the set of events that one experiences as being simultaneous with oneself varies depending on one’s state of motion.  Unless the problems arising from this “relativity of simultaneity” could be overcome, it would seem impossible to rescue Dunne’s theory by appealing to a unique present.  

The philosopher C. W. K. Mundle (1964) points out that when Dunne speaks of precognizing “probable futures,” he is essentially abandoning his own model, which assumes that a single future exists at any given moment (of Time 2).  Thus, Dunne may himself have been striving for a model something like the branching time models to be described below.

Branching time models. In branching time models, it is assumed that at the “present” moment many possible futures exist.  For instance, in the case of the baby and the chandelier, in one possible future (the one that was precognized) the baby was killed by the falling chandelier, whereas in a second possible future (the one that actually occurred) the baby escaped injury.

In the classical, Newtonian view of the universe that prevailed until early in this century, it would be unthinkable that two different alternative futures could both be possible.  Under the Newtonian worldview, the universe was seen as governed by laws that preordained the state of the future.  This deterministic outlook of classical physics led the famous mathematician and cosmologist Pierre Simon Laplace to propose that a Divine Calculator who knew the position and velocity of every particle in the universe could deduce the entire history and future of the universe down to the last detail.

The development of the modern theory of quantum mechanics has overthrown this deterministic outlook.  Under modern theories of physics, given the present state of the universe, many different futures are possible.  An atom of radioactive material may or may not decay during a given time period.  It is impossible in principle to predict whether it will or not. Under quantum theory, different futures may have different probabilities assigned to them. For instance, it may be more likely that the above-mentioned radioactive decay will occur during the next half-hour than that it will not.

In the well-known paradox of Schrödinger’s cat, it is assumed that a cat is confined in a closed chamber that contains a cyanide capsule that will be broken if a Geiger counter registers a radioactive decay.  After a period of time, the box is opened.  Two states of the world (cat alive and cat dead) are possible, and both are compatible with the laws of physics.  (Some physicists would claim, prior to human observation, the cat is half-dead and half-alive.)   As we shall see later, the observational theories in parapsychology propose that the cat, if it may be regarded as a “psi source,” may exercise its “free will” and choose (i.e., force to occur) that state of the universe that it finds most appealing (presumably the “cat alive” state in the case on a nonsuicidal cat).  Thus, in the case of the falling chandelier, both the “baby dead” and “baby alive” futures may be compatible with the laws of physics.  Which future occurs may depend on indeterminate quantum events in the mother’s brain; if her brain enters a favorable quantum state (through precognition?), she will act to avert the disaster.

While most scientists hold that only one of the possible alternative quantum futures is actually realized, the physicist Hugh Everett (1957) has proposed that all the possible futures are actualized, albeit in alternate universes.  Everett’s theory has become known as the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics. 

The branching time model is easily capable of accommodating cases of precognition followed by intervention. One could assume, say, that in our “chandelier” case the mother foresaw the most probable future, that her baby would be killed, but was able to act in such a way as to ensure the occurrence of a less probable future.

Sondow (1984) has attempted to use a “branching time” model to explain the phenomenon of precognitive attrition (the decline in the accuracy of precognition or in the frequency of successful precognitions as the time interval between the precognitive experience and the confirming or target event increases).  Sondow provides some evidence for the phenomenon in the form of a decline in the number of her own spontaneous precognitive dreams (as recorded in a dream diary) as the interval separating the dream from the confirming event increases.  (The extent to which Sondow’s evidence and the evidence provided by other investigators supports the hypothesis of precognitive attrition will be discussed later in this chapter.)  Sondow attributes the decline in frequency (but not accuracy) of her precognitive dreams to the fact that, due to the continual branching of time lines, a greater number of alternative futures compete with the actually realized future when the time interval concerned is long than when it is short.  Sondow predicts no fall-off in precognitive accuracy with time if a single decision is used to generate a target in a precognition experiment (as the single decision will result in a single branching in time).  One might expect, however, that the probability that the probability of a target being generated would be highly correlated with (or by definition equivalent to) the number of time branches on which it occurs.  (Due to the fact that countless other quantum decisions are being made, the target will appear on many time branches rather than just one.)  Thus, one might expect the number of “true” precognition hits to be correlated simply with the probability of the target (rather than with the number of decision used to generate it) on the branching time model.

Targ and Harary (1984) report a brief and informal attempt to test the branching time model experimentally.  In a precognitive remote viewing experiment, one of six objects was randomly selected to have a 50% probability of being the target, with the remaining targets having a 10% chance of being the target.  The authors theorized that, when the 0.5 probability object was not eventually chosen as the target, it should, because of its high salience (due to its presence as target on the most probable time line), interfere with the perception of the actual target (Targ and Harary hypothesized that the most probable future will be the one most often precognized).  Because the perception of the low probability target was still accurate, even though a higher probability alternative future existed, Targ and Harary concluded that “nonactualized futures apparently do not greatly affect a viewer’s precognitive descriptions of impending events” (Targ & Harary, 1984, p.115).  However, the high probability target was selected on the basis of a die shaken but not observed prior to the remote viewing trial.  Under some interpretations of quantum mechanics (including the observational theories to be discussed later in this chapter), the state of the die is indeterminate prior to the act of observation.  Thus, it could be argued that all the targets were equally probable at the time of the remote viewing trial and therefore that no test of the alternative future hypothesis was provided by the experiment.  Also, it could be argued that this 12-trial experiment was too brief and too informal to provide such a test in any event, and that some test of the difference in “true psi hitting rates” between the high and low probability conditions needs to be provided.  Just to observe that precognition can operate in the face of a more probable alternative future is insufficient (Targ and Harary report no statistical test to demonstrate that precognition was operating in their experiment in any event).

Other branching time models have been proposed by Dobbs (1965) and Hasted (1981).  Dobbs proposes that possible futures (or “propensities”) may contact an observer’s brain through the emission of “psitrons” (particles of imaginary mass that travel backward in time), producing a precognitive experience.  Hasted proposes that paranormal metal-bending effects are brought about through “surfaces of action” that represent boundaries between alternative universes (although the standard interpretation of Everett’s “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics is that alternative universe are separated in a higher-dimensional mathematical space called Hilbert space, rather than being adjacent in ordinary spacetime).  Because both Dobbs’ psitron model and Hasted’s “force surface” theory involve the propagation of signals or fields through spacetime, they will discussed later in this chapter, along with other proposed explanations of psi in terms of physical or quasiphysical signals.

Stokes (1983) used Everett’s many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics to challenge the evidence for pure clairvoyance (direct extrasensory perception of a physical object, without involvement of telepathy).  A traditional clairvoyance experiment in which a subject successfully guesses a deck of ESP cards place faced down on a table is subject to a counterexplanation in terms of precognitive telepathy, in that the subject may be contacting the future mental state of the person who eventually inspects the targets rather than apprehending the cards directly.  It is often thought that successful experiments in which a subject guesses a hidden set of targets (perhaps existing only in a computer’s memory) and in which no one ever inspects the target sequence (the computer only prints out the final score for instance) constitutes good evidence for pure clairvoyance.  But, under a branching time model, a person might be able through precognitive telepathy to inspect the scores in several alternative futures and emit the guess sequence that occurred in a future with a high score (as information about the guess sequence would exist in the subject’s future memory in that alternative future).

The linear time model. It is also possible to account for such cases with a model postulating only one time dimension and one future, should one prefer such a pedestrian and colorless approach.  One could for instance simply state that the mother accurately foresaw that the chandelier was going to fall.  Her premonition of her baby’s death was simply an error, as that death never occurred. The mother’s unconscious mind was merely dramatizing to her the consequences of not moving the baby out from under the chandelier.

One parapsychological theorist to recently propose a linear time model is Jon Taylor (1995, 1998, 2000).  Taylor subscribes to a “block universe” model in which there is only one future, corresponding to the events that actually happen.  (Such a block universe model is also inherent in the spacetime manifold of Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity, as will be discussed in more detail below).  Thus, in Taylor’s view, it is impossible to “change the future” through an act of intervention, insofar as the future contains events that will happen, not those that might happen.  He proposes that extrasensory contacts only take place between living brains in similar emotional states, which create a “resonance” between the two brains.  He asserts that people can only precognize events that they do not intend to influence, as any attempt to change or alter the future would destroy the resonance that formed the basis of the interaction between the brains of the person’s present and future selves.

Taylor (1995) asserts that this view of precognition is compatible with “free will,” as the person only precognizes those events that he or she does not chose to prevent through an act of intervention.  Taylor hypothesizes that the absence of precognitive feedback, or resonance, between the present self and future events that the subject does intend to influence or prevent provides the basis for nonspecific intuitive experiences that “something is wrong.”   This lack of resonance is subconsciously noticed as a sense of foreboding and thus enables the subject to make decisions based on intuitive feelings.  Taylor postulates that psi phenomena are due to the creation of quantum fields in human brains that are emanated both in space and time.  Psi-mediated information transfer occurs when similar thoughts in one’s present and future selves give rise to a resonance between the quantum field of the present and future brains.  Intuitive psi experiences occur when there is a lack of resonance between the present and future selves (thus implying that some sort of expectancy, such as that one will live through tomorrow’s subway ride, will not be fulfilled).  Taylor predicts that there is no such thing as clairvoyance, in view of the dissimilarity of the quantum fields associated with brains and those associated with objects, and that telepathy and precognition should only be able to occur over limited space-time separations.  Here Taylor may be underestimating the nonlocal nature of quantum fields, as discussed in Chapter 2 and elsewhere in this book.  Also, the existing evidence for information transfer followed by intervention to prevent the precognized event, such as the dream of the falling chandelier discussed above, would seem to constitute strong evidence against Taylor’s theory that intervention can only occur with intuitive experiences.  

The Skeptical Model.  Under this view, there is no such thing as ESP. The mother probably subliminally perceived some dust falling from the unstable chandelier support as she was about to go to bed and then dreamed about the probable consequences.

“Time Flow” and the Psychological Experience of “Becoming.”  The preceding discussion leads us directly into another unsolved fundamental mystery of the universe that ranks right up there with the problem of the relation between conscious experience and material events in terms of its apparent intractability to human analysis.  We seem to find ourselves located at a particular instance in time called the present (or for those philosophers who prefer a thin “slab” of time, the specious present).  The “present” and our consciousnesses seem to be traveling along the time dimension in the direction of the future at a seeming “speed” (to borrow a discredited concept from J. W. Dunne’s multidimensional time model) of one second per second.  Another, perhaps relativistic, way to put it is that time seems to be “flowing” from the future through the present moment and into the past.  Once an event has receded into the past, it is lost to us forever.  To borrow a phrase from Omar Kayyam, “the moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all your piety nor wit, shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it.”  We may, if we are lucky, visit the future by being carried there by the “stream of time” but barring the stress of a freefall skydive into a rotating black hole, we cannot revisit the past

Yet modern theories of physics, at least those that incorporate variants of Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity, have no place for a set of events that are uniquely distinguished as the present moment or for the phenomenon of time flow.  In fact, relativity theory does away even with the concept of the “present” as we intuitively understand it; there is no unique set of events (or cross-section of spacetime) that be unambiguously identified as belong to the present or the “now.”  

One of the lesser known paradoxical results of Einstein’s special theory of relativity is that observers in motion relative to one another will disagree on which sets of events (locations in spacetime) should be taken as being simultaneous with one another (i.e. assigned the same time coordinate).  A result of this “relativity of simultaneity” is that two observers in motion relative to each other will disagree on what sets of events (i.e., cross-section of spacetime) should be taken to be the “present.”  It is even possible that two observers will differ as to what they perceive the temporal order of events to be.  In one reference frame, an event X may precede an event Y, whereas in a second reference frame Y is seen to precede X.  In the absence of signals traveling faster than light, such a reversal of time coordinates will be achieved only between events that are “spacelike” connected (i.e., no signal moving at light speed or slower can travel between the two events).  Thus, if events A and B are “timelike separated” and one observer sees A as being the cause of B, a second observer will also perceive that B is later than A and that the causal chain extends from A forward in time to B.  This prohibition against “backward causation” (i.e., an effect preceding its cause in some reference frame) only holds so long as no causal signal may travel faster than light and thus (as we shall see shortly) backward in time in some reference frame.

To illustrate, the relativity of simultaneity, consider Einstein’s famous train example.  Suppose an observer O is at rest with respect to the Earth (let’s give the pre-Copernican motionless flat Earth theory its due, just for the sake of this example).  Further suppose that O is standing at a railroad track and is being passed by the train.  At the moment she is adjacent to the exact center of the train, lightning strikes both ends of the train.  As the speed of light is a constant (and is the same in all reference frames) the light flashes from the two lightning bolts will reach her eyes (or recording equipment) at the same instant.  She will therefore judge them to be simultaneous, as they have both traveled the same distance (half the length of the train) at the same speed (the speed of light is a consequence of the laws of physics and is the same in all reference frames).

Consider however the situation of a second observer O’, who is sitting on top of the train and at the middle of the train.  As the speed of light is finite and as he is moving in the direction of the lightning bolt at the front of the train, the light from that bolt will have to travel a shorter distance to reach him (from the perspective of the observer on the ground), and therefore the light from that bolt will have to travel a shorter distance to reach him than the light from the bolt at the rear of the train.  But, in his reference frame, both bolts have traveled the same distance, namely half the length of the train.  As the speed of light is a constant in his reference frame, he deduces that the bolt at the front of the train must have happened earlier than the bolt at the rear of the train.  Thus, observers O and O’ differ in their judgments regarding the temporal order of the two lightning bolts.

An even more cognitively disturbing example of the relativity of simultaneity involves the case of a woman, possible on a very high dose of steroids and quite likely to win the decathlon in the next Olympics, who is running at nearly the speed of light while carrying a very long javelin toward a barn with a front and back doors.  From the point of view of the farmer standing beside the barn, the pole has shrunk in length due to the Lorentz-Fitzgerald length contraction.  (Another strange consequence of Einstein’s theory of relativity is that stationary observers perceive that the length of objects in motion shrink along the direction of the motion.)  Thus, even though the javelin was longer than the barn just before the woman began her run, because the javelin has shrunk in length (from the farmer’s perspective) due to the woman’s high speed, the farmer is able to open the front door and allow the woman to enter the barn and to close the door behind her.  Thus for a brief time the woman and javelin are contained in the closed off barn.  A very short time after the front door closes, the farmer’s daughter opens the rear door of the barn and is startled to see a very quick woman carrying a javelin come flying out of the barn.

Consider, however, the situation from the standpoint of the Olympian hopeful.  As she is running, in her reference frame the barn is in motion relative to her; thus, its length has shrunk so that it is now much shorter than her javelin.  Not being one to shy away from a collision and possibly owning a spare javelin or two, she continues her rush at the barn and to her amazement is able to pass through it without mishap.  Due to the relativity of simultaneity, she sees her javelin sticking out of both doors of the incredibly shrunken barn at the same time.  In her reference frame, due to the relativity of simultaneity, she sees the farmer’s daughter open the rear door before the farmer closes the front door, so that both doors are open at the same time. 

Because observers in motion with respect to one another will in general disagree about which set of events (spacetime locations) constitute the “present moment,” it is impossible to speak about the absolute existence of a three-dimensional space at a single moment in time (a notion that formed one of the fundamental underpinnings of classical, Newtonian physics).  Different observers will select different “slices” of events as being simultaneous with one another, depending on their state of motion.  Thus, rather than proposing a model involving the existence of a three-dimensional space at a particular time, relativity theorists work with a four-dimensional continuum involving three spatial dimensions and one time dimension.  However, observers in motion relative to one another will not in general agree on the assignments of the spatial and temporal coordinates of events.  If an observer is in motion relative to me, she may see events in my future as having occurred in her past or events in my past as occurring in her future.  Thus in some sense, in relative theory, the future “already exists” and the past “still exists” (in the sense that both the future and the past may be in the present for some observer in motion relative to me but whom I regard as being part of my “now”).

Lawrence LeShan (1969) noted the compatibility of this view of physical reality with such psi phenomena as precognition and “retroactive” psychokinesis (the mental influence of events that have already occurred).  This view is, however, somewhat at odds with the worldview of quantum mechanics, in which the future is not determined and many alterative futures are possible.  Some writers, such as Randall (1998) have argued against theories of the “block universe” type, in which the future is viewed as in some way already existing and thus predetermined, in favor of a model based on quantum indeterminism.  In Randall’s view, models of the latter type are more compatible with philosophies based on “freedom of will.”  (However, one can argue that the “will” may be free to act, but that its actions will be guided by desires and values that are themselves determined.  Thus, the concept of “free will” and a block universe model of reality need not be fundamentally incompatible.)

What modern physics cannot explain, any more than it can at present explain the existence of conscious experience, is the psychological experience of “time flow” and “becoming.”  In fact, the experience of “time flow” may be as fundamental a mystery as the existence of conscious experience itself.  Indeed, as “time flow” is a subjective experience, it quite likely dependent in some unfathomable manner on consciousness.  The two mysteries may thus be somehow intertwined.   

Our experience of time is dynamic and anisotropic.  We are apparently somehow being propelled forward in time.  Alternatively, we experience time flowing past us.  Yet the concept of “time flow” has no place in theories of physics.  As we have just seen, in Einstein’s theory of relativity, all past, present and future events are viewed as a timeless array of points in four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime.   And, as pointed out above, no single cross-section of spacetime can be uniquely defined as the present for all observers.

Neither can theories of physics, for the most part, distinguish the directions of the future from that of the past.  Most physical processes are (theoretically at least) reversible.  An electron and a positron (the antimatter counterpart of the electron) may collide and annihilate one another, producing two photons.  However, it is also possible for two photons to collide, producing an electron-positron pair, and this process appears to be the same as the first process, but reversed in time.

A ball being thrown upward in the air loses velocity due to gravity.  A film of this process, if reversed, would show a falling ball picking up velocity due to gravitational attraction, a process that may occur in the forward direction of time.  The film of a more complicated process, such as a swimmer diving into a pool of water, would appear to represent an impossible sequence of events when run backward (i.e., the swimmer being mysteriously propelled out of the water, instantly drying and landing on the diving board).  Actually, even the reversed film of the dive does not represent an impossible sequence of events, only a very improbable one (it requires a collections of water molecules all to suddenly converge on the swimmer’s body in just the right manner that, through the collective force, the swimmer is propelled vertically out of the water, among other improbable coincidences).  

Similarly, if the door between a hot and a cold room is opened, heat will tend to flow from the warmer room into the cooler room, so that the rooms will become more equal in temperature as time goes on.  The reverse process, wherein one of two equally warms rooms suddenly grows hotter and the other suddenly grows colder (in the absence of any external energy sources) is not impossible, but only very improbable (as it would require most of the faster-moving gas molecules to go randomly into one of the rooms and most of the slower moving gas particles to go into the other, a very unlikely event).  Isolated physical systems will thus tend to evolve from more highly ordered states to more disordered states.  In physics, this is known as the “law” of entropy increase.

While some physical processes, such as the growth of a flower from a seed appear to involve the creation rather than the destruction of order, it should be remembered that terrestrial life forms are not isolated physical systems, but obtain their energy from external sources (e.g., the sun and decomposing organic matter) and thus the law of entropy increase does not apply to them. 

Some philosophers, such as Adolf Grünbaum (1964) have argued that time is inherently anisotropic (behaves differently in the past and future directions) and that the future direction of time may be identified as the direction in which the entropy (disorder) of most “branch systems” (isolated physical systems) increases.  Many other philosophers have been skeptical of this proposal, seeing entropy increase as an artifact of the highly improbable initial state of the universe.  

Closely related to the entropy increase criterion for the direction of “time’s arrow” is the observation that, in general, wavefronts diverge from their source rather than converge upon them.  For instance, a sphere of light may expand from a point light source or a series of concentric ripples may spread out from the point of impact of our irreversible diver into the swimming pool.  Although the differential equations governing the production of such wave allow solutions corresponding to waves converging to a point (i.e., a sink rather than a source), such contracting waves are never seen to occur, perhaps again because of their improbability.  Later in this chapter, we shall see that several parapsychologists have postulated that such converging waves moving backward in time (usually referred to as “advanced waves”) may provide a means of explaining such phenomena as precognition.

The expansion of the universe is also sometimes taken as a criterion for defining the direction of the future.  Given two states of the universe S1 and S2, S1 is taken to be a later state than S2 if and only if the universe is in a more expanded state in S1  than in S2.  However, the expansion of the universe may be an “accidental” consequence of the initial conditions at the time of the Big Bang.  Also, if the universe should proved to be “closed” and to eventually contract back into a “Big Crunch,” then the expansion criterion will prove to be an unreliable arrow in the later phases of the universe’s history.  (As the time of this writing, existing measurements suggest that betters on the Big Crunch should take long odds and that the universe will most likely keep expanding into a “heat death.”  However, given the fact that physicists’ ideas regarding the nature and quantity of dark matter and dark energy in the universe have been changing rapidly in the past five years, this outcome may not be as certain as it now appears to be.)

A fourth possible “arrow of time” is provided by the decay modes of a physical particle named the neutral K meson (K0).  The K0 particle has a decay mode that is curiously irreversible.  The decay modes of most particles are time reversible.   For instance, a neutron may decay into a proton, an electron and a neutrino.  The reverse process, in which a proton, an electron and a neutrino of the right energy converge together to form a neutron, while extremely unlikely, is permitted to occur.  The K0 meson undergoes a decay mode into three particles, which is also time reversible.  However, it is also subject to a very rare two-particle decay mode, and this process is not time reversible.  Thus, it may be possible to use the decay of the K0 meson as a means of defining the future direction of time, although it might produce a sense of uneasiness to use such an anomalous and rare event as the two-particle decay of the K0 meson to define such a fundamental concept as the direction of time.

Another criterion to differentiate the future from the past is the quantum mechanical criterion proposed by Denbigh (1981).  As discussed earlier, in the theory of quantum mechanics, microscopic events (and, through the amplification of their effects, macroscopic events) are not determined prior to an act of measurement or observation.  Thus, the position of a photon is not defined until an attempt to measure it (such as capturing it on a piece of film).

Similarly, in a quantum mechanical random event generator of the type used in modern parapsychological experiments, the random number or other display feature to be generated (which is often based on the time of a radioactive decay) is not determined by the laws of physics and is free to take on any (permissible) value prior to the act of observation.  Thus, the random number to be generated or the position at which the photon will impact the film are indeterminate prior to the act of measurement, and determined thereafter.  The process by which these events are determined is often referred to as “the collapse of the state vector.”  Thus, quantum events, and by implication all events, might be partitioned into two categories - those that have been determined (the observed past) and those that have yet to be observed (which, depending on which interpretation of quantum mechanics one prefers, may include events in the yet-to-be-observed “past,” the present and the future).  This would allow specification of the future and the past relative to any point in time.  However, it does not provide a noncircular definition of the (absolute) present, insofar as what is “now” and “what is yet to be determined” may depend on the observer’s location along the time line.  However, quantum mechanics may provide a physical basis for the sense of “time flow” and “becoming.”  Perhaps the process of becoming is inherently related to or perhaps identical with the collapse of the state vector.  If so, conscious minds may a fundamental role in the generation of “time flow.”   The existence of conscious experience and the subjective experience of time flow, two fundamental mysteries that modern theories of physics have yet to explain, may be intimately related if not identical.  (In this context, it should be noted that the experience of “time flow” and its incompatibility with the essentially deterministic Minkowski spacetime of Einstein’s theory of relativity, may be related to physicists’ current difficulties in relating quantum theory to Einstein’s theory in general and constructing a quantum theory of gravity in particular.)  

According to the “observational theories” in parapsychology, such as those proposed by Schmidt (1975a, 1975b, 1984) and Walker (1975, 1984), as well as some mainstream interpretations of quantum mechanics, quantum events are not determined prior to their observation by a conscious observer.  Thus, a series of random numbers generated by a quantum process is in an indeterminate state prior to inspection.  (This interpretation differs from that of many physicists, who would consider the numbers to be determined at the point where they are irreversibly registered on a macrophysical apparatus such as a punch tape or a computer memory store.)  According to the observational theorists in parapsychology, a sequence of random numbers may be generated, stored in computer memory, and then later displayed to a subject, who may at this later time influence which numbers have been produced through retroactive psychokinesis.  Thus, the generation of these numbers, which would have occurred in the past according to most orthodox accounts of time, would fall into the present (at the time of the PK experiment), if one uses the quantum collapse criterion to distinguish the past from the future. 

Under the observational theories’ interpretation, the quantum mechanical criterion for distinguishing the events that fall into the “future” from those that fall into the “past” might lead to a model of time similar to that implicit in some Native American languages (such as Wintu and Hopi) studied by Lee (1938) and Whorf (1956).  These Indian languages assign tenses to verbs according to whether the events to be described are “manifested” (the outcome is known to the speaker) or “unmanifested” (the outcome is unknown or, in observational theory terms, the event is unobserved, at least from the speaker’s standpoint), rather than according to whether the events are in the past, present or future in the Western (or from Wintu’s and Hopi’s point of view, Eastern) sense of those terms.  Thus, the unmanifested tense might be used to describe the outcome of a battle fought three days ago, if the outcome is unknown because the raiding party has not yet returned to the village.  The observational theory, in its Wintu and Hopi versions, might provide a somewhat solipsistic criterion for demarcating the future from the past, but this division in not likely to result in a clean “slice” of events, as the future would have to include many events that are regarded as belonging to the past based on other criteria.  Nonetheless, the criterion does have the attractive feature of potentially uniting the subjective experience of time flow or “becoming” with the more “objective” (or should one say “subjective?”) notion of the collapse of the quantum mechanical state vector through observation.

The subjective experience of time forms the basis for some theories of precognition.  For instance, Edge (1982) proposes that one’s sense of time becomes “baffled” in sensory deprivation experiments, allowing precognition to occur.  Similarly, Saltmarsh (1934, 1938) suggested that the psychological present is not an instant of time, but encompasses the very recent past as well as the immediate future.  He suggests that this “spread” of the subjective present may involve longer time intervals in unconscious regions of the mind, thus allowing precognition to occur.   

LeShan (1969, 1976) suggests that, in mystical states involving the experience of unity with all things, one may see the past, present and future as one (“all things are now”), much the same as in the Minkowski spacetime of special relativity.  LeShan asserts that this perception of timelessness, in which all things are perceived as one, would be an especially psi-conducive state, and the self-other boundary as well as spacetime separations would no longer exist, at least psychologically.  

As we have seen, the psychological experience of time cannot be explained by orthodox theories of physics.  As best such theories can point a trembling finger in the direction of the future (through the decay of the K0 particle and the widespread existence of waves that diverge from, rather than converge to, point sources).

Thus, the psychological experience of time may be one of the fundamental bedrocks of existence, yet is inexplicable on the basis of current theories of physics.  Some writers have suggested that a profound alteration in the experience of time flow or of spacetime itself may temporarily allow such events as precognition and psychokinesis to occur.  The subjective experiences of the “now” and of “time flow” may point to the mind as a fundamental component of the universe.  The observational theories, with their suggestion that the mind governs the collapse of the quantum mechanical state vector, even hint that the mind may be a primary agent in causing the future (the indeterminate) to become the past (the determinate).  Thus, implicit in the observational theories is the image of the mind as a cosmic “time tractor” plowing indeterminate probability waves into actualized events.  

Perhaps the absolute present may be defined simply (albeit circularly) as that instant in time at which a conscious observer subjectively feels himself or herself to be.

Signal Theories

Several attempts have been made to explain psi phenomena in terms of the exchange of some type of physical signal. Some theories assume that ordinary physical particles carry the psi message. Such particles are typically conceived of as “traveling forward in time.” To explain cases of precognition, some theorists have resorted to more exotic particles that travel backward in time.  We will consider each in turn.

Theories Employing Signals “Traveling Forward in Time”

Particle Theories.   Several theorists have proposed that the transfer of information in cases of ESP is accomplished through the exchange of some signal already known to contemporary physicists, such as electromagnetic radiation and neutrinos.   

Electromagnetic Radiation.  One of the earliest proponents of an “electromagnetic” theory of psi was Joseph Glanvill, a contemporary of Newton, who proposed that telepathic exchanges were caused by the vibrations of the “ether” (see Jaki, 1969).  More modern proponents of electromagnetic theories of psi include Kazhinsky (1962), Becker (1990, 1992), MacLellan (1997), and Vasilescu and Vasilescu (1996, 2001).  Taylor (1975) proposed an electromagnetic explanation of paranormal metal-bending, although he later retracted it (Taylor, 1980).  

Vasilescu and Vasilescu (1996) propose that there exists a “ubiquitous telepathic wave” consisting of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of approximately 46.2 meters.  They found ESP effects to be facilitated when they amplified radiation of this wavelength 220 times.  However, an effect was found even when a Faraday cage barrier, which should screen out electromagnetic radiation, was interposed between the sender and percipient.  Some problems with their experiments include the fact that the investigators, who were not blind as to the experimental condition or their hypothesis, served as subjects.  Also, the next trial was signaled by the sender calling our or stamping his foot, which allows for the possibility of sensory cues regarding the target.   

Severe difficulties confront any attempt to explain psi phenomena on the basis of electromagnetic waves.  These difficulties include the apparent ability of psi signals to penetrate barriers normally impervious to electromagnetic radiation, the apparent failure of psi phenomena to obey the usual the usual inverse-square law governing the falloff in electromagnetic effects with distance, the feeble strength of the electromagnetic signals emanating from the brain compared to the power that would be required to send a telepathic signal or perform a psychokinetic feat over any reasonable distance, and the lack of any plausible neurological mechanism whereby such a signal could be encoded, generated, received, and decoded.  Each of these difficulties will be discussed in turn.

 Barrier Experiments.  Successful telepathy experiments have been reported in which the subjects were electromagnetically shielded from one another by Faraday cages and other types of barriers, ruling out the exchange of most electromagnetic signals (e.g., Vasiliev, 1976; Targ & Puthoff,1977; Ullman & Krippner, 1969). Some theorists, including Michael Persinger (1979) and I. M. Kogan (1968), have proposed that psi signals are carried by extremely low frequency electromagnetic radiation, also known as ELF waves.  ELF waves would be able to penetrate some of the electromagnetic barriers used in these experiments.   ELF wave theories are discussed in a separate section below.

Distance Independence.  If ESP and PK effects are due to electromagnetic waves transmitted between the subject and the target person or object, it would be expected that psi success would decrease with increasing distance between the subject and target (as the intensity of electromagnetic information emitted from a point source is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the point).  The small electrical power of the brain (discussed in the next section) combined with the inverse square law for electromagnetic radiation, would seem to imply that psi effects could not occur over large distances if they are due to electromagnetic radiation.  However, successful remote viewing experiments have been conducted with the percipient (viewer) in Detroit and the agent (sender) in Italy (Schlitz and Gruber, 1980, 1981), and a successful dream telepathy experiment with the agent in Edinburgh and the percipient (dreamer) in London (Markwick & Beloff, 1983).  A series of successful PK experiments, with distances ranging from 10 miles to 1,100 miles separating the PK agent from the target apparatus has been reported by Tedder and his associates (Tedder & Monty, 1981; Tedder & Braud, 1981; Tedder and Bloor, 1982).  Nelson, Dunne, Dobyns and Jahn (1996) and Jahn And Dunne (2005) report that the size of the PK and remote viewing effects obtained by the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) team were independent of the spacetime separations between the subjects and the target.  Many more examples could be cited.  

The apparent lack of dependence of psi effects on spatial and temporal separations is evidence not only against electromagnetic theories of psi, but against all theories of psi based on known or currently postulated physical signals.  Indeed, the lack of dependence of psi on spacetime separation was one of the factors that led J. B. Rhine, the founder of experimental parapsychology, to proclaim that psi phenomena indicate that the mind has a nonphysical component.  Thus, psi phenomena have long been regarded as evidence against physicalist theories of mind.  As a physicalistic metaphysics underlies current “orthodox” scientific theories, this may explain why the debate over the existence of psi has been so heated and why the evidence for psi phenomena is so strongly rejected by the scientific establishment.  In this regard, one might recall the comments of Anthony Freeman, the Editor of the Journal of Consciousness Studies, who recently noted that “orthodox science is orthodox religion’s true heir” (Freeman, 2005, p. 6).

In a review of literature conducted four decades ago, Osis (1965) did find a slight decline in the strength of ESP effects with distance, although this effect was much weaker than would be expected under the inverse-square law governing electromagnetic radiation and most other types of physical signals.  However, the experiments analyzed by Osis were run under dissimilar circumstances and the subjects were not in general blind as to distance; thus, any distance effect might be attributable to psychological expectancies.

The existence of long-range psi effects and the failure of psi effects to obey an inverse-square law pose grave difficulties for any electromagnetic theory of psi (assuming all psi effects will be subsumed under one theory or mechanism).  So too does the phenomenon of precognition.  If the ultimate explanation of precognition involves signals traveling backward in time (as discussed below), then the normal forward-traveling (‘’retarded”) electromagnetic waves will not suffice (although theories involving “advanced” electromagnetic waves, which travel backward in time, have been constructed).

Power Problems.  The electromagnetic theory of psi was originally inspired by Hans Berger’s detection of electrical currents emanating from the brain through the use of the electroencephalograph (which was invented by Berger), as well as by the invention of the radio.   However, Berger (1940) thought that changes in the electrical potential of the brain were too small to account for telepathy over reasonable distances and so was led to postulate some sort of hitherto undetected “psychical energies” as the carrier of telepathic message.

In fact, several parapsychologists (e.g., Dobbs, 1967; Millar, 1975; Vasiliev, 1976: Bigu, 1979) have performed calculations of the power of the electromagnetic radiated by the human brain.   These estimates have varied widely, from a millionth (Millar) to a quintillionth (Dobbs) of a watt.  However, even electromagnetic radiation at the high end of this range would appear to be far too weak to account for reported ESP or PK effects. 

Encoding and Decoding Problems.  Proponents of electromagnetic theories of psi have proposed no plausible mechanisms whereby such signals could be encoded, generated, transmitted, received, and/or decoded.  Large areas of physical musculature and cerebral cortex are devoted to the production of sound waves to carry messages in speech.  So too, the detection of sound and light waves requires the existence of elaborate external  receptors (the eyes and ears) and the involvement of large areas of the cerebral cortex.  As Vasiliev (1976) points out, the fibers and fluids surrounding the brain possess greater electromagnetic conductivity than do the nerve tissues themselves.  It is implausible that the brain would have evolved in such a manner if it is to serve as a direct and sensitive detector of electromagnetic radiation.  In any event, the analysis of information and pattern detection that would be required in order to receive and decode an electromagnetically-encoded telepathic message would presumably require an organ at least approximating in complexity that of the human eye or ear.  The generation of electromagnetic telepathic signals, besides surpassing the brain’s electrical power capacity, as noted above, would also undoubtedly require the existence of a specialized organ (whose location inside the brain would be most unstrategic).  

ELF Wave Theories.    Thus, insurmountable difficulties seem to confront any attempt to explain psi phenomena on the basis of electromagnetic radiation at typical wavelengths.  Some (but not all) or these objections can be overcome if it assumed that the radiation involved is of extremely long wavelength (or equivalently, extremely low frequency).  Some theorists, most notably Kogan (1968) and Persinger (1979), have hypothesized that psi signals are carried by such extremely low frequency radiation (ELF waves).   Such radiation has a frequency of less than 3 kHz (3000 cycles per second).  Persinger notes that many periodic biological processes occur with frequencies in the ELF range, such as the heart rhythm (less than 4 Hz, or four cycles per second), brain waves (less than 30 Hz), and muscular rhythms (1 Hz to 1 kHz).  He also observes that geological and meteorological processes produce standing waves in the earth-ionosphere cavity with a frequency of 7-8 Hz, which Persinger notes corresponds to the alpha rhythm of the brain, which has been found to be a psi-conducive state (see Honorton, 1977, for instance).  Persinger proposes that “biogenic-environmental interactions” could occur through a “resonance-like” mechanism, in cases in which the frequencies of the geological/meteorological waves and biological cycles are similar.

Persinger essentially proposes two theories of telepathy.  In the first, the agent (i.e., sender of the psi message) would impose an ELF wave on a geophysical system, which would carry the psi message to the recipient.  In the second theory, the brains of the agent and percipient would resonate with an existing physical wave, producing a similar state in both (such as a depressed mood in the percipient and an act of suicide by the agent).  Persinger’s second theory is thus a theory to explain “pseudopsi” events rather than the “real” psi that might occur in an experiment with randomly determined targets.  Stevens (2005) discusses evidence that geomagnetic fields may directly influence the REGs used in psi experiments, which may be responsible for observed correlations between psi success and geomagnetic activity. 

Targ, Puthoff and May (1979) note that one of the attractive features of the ELF wave hypothesis is the slower than inverse-square-law attenuation expected on the basis of earth-ionosphere guide mode trapping as well as source-percipient distances lying within the induction field range as opposed to the radiation filed range.  Not all physicists take such an optimistic view of the ability of ELF waves to carry telepathic messages over long distances.  Walker (1981), for instance, cites successful intercontinental remote viewing experiments as evidence against the ELF wave hypothesis.  

ELF waves are also attractive because of their ability to penetrate electromagnetic shields, such as the Faraday cages used in several successful psi experiments.  Some barriers should prove impervious even to ELF waves, however.  For instance, Targ and Harary (1984) report a successful remote viewing experiment in which the percipient was located in an immersed submarine, which they feel constitutes evidence against the ELF wave hypothesis.  Unfortunately, they do not describe this experiment in full, and their conclusion appears to be based on only two successful trials (with a “hit” probability of 1/6).

Puthoff and Targ (1979) point out that the information channel capacity of ELF waves is very low (they estimate it to be between .005 and .1 bits per second).  As a way out of this difficulty, Persinger (1979) suggests that a subject may be exposed to the signal for a long time before the total message is received, as which point it emerges into the percipient’s consciousness fully formed.  He also suggests that a percipient may learn subtle codings through experience, facilitating ESP communication between family members and friends.  As he acknowledges, the amount of time required for an agent to encode a message (around 100 minutes for 60 bits of information) may be a telling blow against the ELF wave theory.  Persinger concludes that the information transmission rate is too slow for the “real psi” version of the ELF wave theory to be viable (due to short-term memory demands on the percipient), although the “pseudopsi” version may still be tenable.  (Interestingly enough, however, he notes that the ELF wave information rate compares favorably with the information transmission rate in many psi experiments.)

In addition to the above objections, the problems of accounting for the encoding and decoding of any intricate psi message and accounting for precognition confront the ELF wave theory as surely as they do the general electromagnetic theory.

Electrostatic Fields.  According to Lucas and Maresca (1976), the Russian parapsychologists Victor Adamenko and Edward Naumov proposed that certain PK phenomena, such as the attraction and repulsion of small objects by the Russian psychic Nina Kulagina, were caused by electrostatic fields (such as the field that holds a balloon to one’s sweater after the two objects have been rubbed against each other, transferring electrons, which causes the balloon and sweater to have opposite (attracting) charges.  Kulagina’s effects would then be attributable to the normal attraction and repulsion between objects bearing opposite and like electrical charges, respectively.   Indeed, in many of the films of Kulagina’s phenomena, the effects (including for instance her propelling a small cylinder across a table, much as one would push a peanut with one’s nose in a peanut race, but with a slight gap between the finger and the cylinder) do appear that they could be due to such electrostatic attraction and repulsion.  However, Admenko and Naumov also claim that there is an unknown factor that allows such phenomena to occur that cannot be explained on the basis of electrostatic effects alone.

The Neutrino Theory.  Hammond (1952) and Ruderfer (1968, 1974, 1980) have proposed neutrinos as the possible carrier of psi information.  Neutrinos have the desirable feature of traveling at near-light speed (neutrinos are now thought to possess mass, which would prohibit them from actually attaining light speed).  They also have the attractive feature that they can sail right through most barriers such as Faraday cages due to their weak interaction with matter.  Solar neutrinos in fact can and do sail right through the Earth.  However, this virtue is at one and the same time the chief drawback to any neutrino theory of psi.  The vast majority of neutrinos would also happily sail right through one’s brain without interacting with it in any way.  Thus, a person would be unable to receive any psi message sent by neutrinos. Walker (1981) points out that the strength of neutrinos’ interaction with matter is twenty orders of magnitude less than (i.e., ten septillionths as much as) that of electromagnetic radiation.  Because of this weak interaction with matter, in order for an agent to transmit enough neutrinos to ensure that her message was received, her brain would probably have to use up enough energy to power several small cities for months.  Bigu (1979) notes that the human body emits only 8,000 neutrinos per second, which would be far too weak to carry a psi message because of the overwhelming majority of neutrinos will pass right through the human brain without interacting with it in any way. 

Chari (1974) observes that neutrinos could not account for precognition, although elsewhere (Chari, 1977) he notes that Ruderfer has employed tachyons (particles that travel faster than light) for this purpose.  

Also, just as electromagnetic signals, neutrino signals would weaken with distance, as the expanding spherical shells of neutrino radiation emitted would spread out in space and become diluted.  As discussed in connection with the electromagnetic theories of psi, the existing evidence would seem to indicate that psi signals do not weaken appreciably over distance, if at all.  

Furthermore, the problem of explaining the process whereby the psi message is encoded and decoded would seem to be as least as great for the neutrino theory of psi as it is for the electromagnetic theory of psi.  Beloff (1980) has questioned whether any theory of psi based on physical signals can overcome the encoding and decoding problem, given that the same mental state may be given entirely different neurological encodings in two different brains; hence, he concludes that psi must be nonphysical.  However, Beloff’s postulated different neural encodings of the same ideas and emotions in different brains does not prevent humans from communicating these mental contents via language.  It may not be inconceivable that a “neutrino language” could be acquired at a subconscious (or perhaps more aptly, deeply unconscious) level.

Force Field Theories.  Several parapsychologists have constructed explanations of psychokinesis in terms of various types of force fields.  These types of theories are typically invoked for explain psychokinesis rather than extrasensory perception.

Forwald’s Gravitation Theory.  The Swedish engineer Haakon Forwald (1969) explained psychokinetic placement effects on dice (i.e., influencing the direction of the die’s movement rather than which side of the die comes up) on the basis of gravitational forces.  Forwald asserted that gravity has no limited velocity of propagation and thus apparently adhered to the old action-at-a-distance concept of gravitation that so troubled Isaac Newton.  While physicists have yet to construct a satisfactory theory incorporating both quantum mechanics and gravitation, the consensus at present is that gravitational effects are mediated by (yet to be observed) particles called gravitons and even more hypothetical particles called gravitinos and that the speed of these particles (and hence gravitational influence) is limited by the speed of light.  It would in any event be difficult to distinguish superluminal from subliminal signals speeds in a typical dice PK experiment.

Forward proposed an empirically-based mathematical law relating the strength of placement PK effects on the thickness of the metal coating on the dice used in his experiments as well as the number of nucleons (protons and neutrons) in the nuclei of the atoms comprising the coating material, which he takes as evidence of his gravitationally-based model.  Forwald’s theory has not given rise to a sustained research program, and is largely forgotten by today’s parapsychological theorists and experimentalists.

Hasted’s Surface of Action Theory.  The physicist John Hasted proposed a “surface of action” theory to explain the phenomena observed in his own experiments on paranormal metal-bending of the kind popularized by the psychic Uri Geller (Hasted, 1977a, 1977b, 1981, Hasted & Robinson, 1979, 1980).  Hasted based his theory on signals detected in strain gauges placed in metal specimens.  He found that synchronous signals most often occurred when the strain gauges were situated on a line extending radially outward from the subject; however, he presents no statistical analyses to rule out the possibility that these patterns of synchronous signals could have arisen by chance.  Also, Stokes (1982b) has criticized Hasted’s research as lacking significant safeguards against fraud.

Based on signals obtained from a sensor attached to a subject’s forearm, Hasted (1981) concluded that the surface of action is slowly propagated outward from the subject and often consists of a vertical plane containing the axis defined by the subject’s arm.  He estimated the speed of movement of the surface of action to be between 1 cm/sec and 100 cm/sec.  He hypothesized that the surface of action may be curved upon occasion and that obtained twists and spirals in metal specimens are due to the rotation of the surface of action about an axis in its own plane.

Hasted explains the permanent softening of metal specimens by the subject’s acting as a Maxwellian demon (a mythical being capable of sorting high energy from low energy particles and thus producing a violation of the second “law” of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy or “disorder” of an isolated physical system will increase over time).  Hasted hypothesizes that paranormally produced strains in metal specimens are caused by vacancies produced by the teleportation of matter (which he asserted was due to quantum-mechanical tunneling).  Most radically, he hypothesizes that paranormal metal bending is accomplished by the transportation of observers into a parallel universe in which the metal is bent and that the surface of action constitutes the boundary between the two universes.  This is a very unusual interpretation of Hugh Everett’s “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which quantum decisions split the universe into two or more parallel universes, so that each possible outcome of the quantum mechanical process is represented in at least one of the alternate universes.  However, in Everett’s “many worlds” theory, the alternate universes are thought to diverge in a higher-dimensional abstract space called Hilbert space and thus cannot be adjacent in normal three-dimensional space as is assumed in Hasted’s account.  Hasted’s account is also in conflict with the observational theories in parapsychology (to be discussed in more detail later in this chapter).  These theories assert that the observer of the outcome of a quantum mechanical process may elect to enter one of the more desirable alternative futures, not that an observer may be transported from the present universe into an already existing alternative universe.  Elsewhere, Hasted (1979) asserts that teleportation may be explained by assuming that an object may make the transition to an alternative universe at different time than its container, but this is also at variance with Everett’s theory.

The “Moving Beam” Theory.  Based on an analysis of the location, direction, and magnitude of movements of objects relative to a presumed poltergeist agent, Roll, Burdick and Joines (1973) suggest that the movements could have been due to three rotating beams of force emanating from different portions of the agent’s body.  Their “moving beam” theory is a type of force-field theory, although they do not hazard a guess as to the type of force involved or as to how the field is generated.  As arbitrary models can rather easily be constructed to “retrodict” observed patterns of movement, their model needs to be confirmed with new poltergeist agents.  The freedom to adjust the number, size and orientation of the moving beams leads one to suspect that the theory may be untestable (i.e., capable of retrodiction but not prediction) if such freedom is not somehow relinquished.

Quasi-signal Theories.  Many theorists have proposed that some new and hitherto undetected particle or field is the carrier of psi information or is responsible for psychokinetic effects.  The list of such “quasi-signals” in a long one.  The proposed carriers have included psi fields (Wasserman), psychical waves (Berger), psychical fields (Lawden), biogravity (Dubrov), bioplasma (Inyushin and Sergeyev), orgone energy (Reich), and “levity” (a force opposed to gravitation presumed to underlie levitation).  Unfortunately, the proponents of such theories have generally not provided any reliable means of detecting of measuring their hypothetical particles, fields, energies or forces.  They also do not specify the properties of their theoretical entities in a sufficiently exact way that testable predictions might result from their theories.  Thus, not only do they provide no evidence that these previously unknown particles, fields, energies or forces exist, but their theories are unfalsifiable (or, in some cases, highly falsified).

When the proposed medium represents an extension of accepted scientific constructs, very often the extension is inappropriate.  For instance, with respect to Inyushin and Sergeyev’s proposed bioplasma, Wortz et. al. (1979) point out that a classical plasma cannot exist at temperature and pressure conditions consistent with the maintenance of life.  In general, such quasi-signal theories are of no help in explaining psi in that they are often untestable and merely replace one mysterious phenomena (psi) whose existence is debatable with another, even more mysterious phenomenon (the quasi-signal), whose existence is even more debatable.

Resonance Theories.  Some theorists have proposed that psi effects constitute some sort of “resonance” phenomena similar to that which occurs when one tuning fork is struck and transmits sound waves to a second tuning fork of similar construction, which then starts to vibrate also.  (Note that the resonance in this case is mediated by a signal, in this case the sound wave.  Many resonance theories can be construed simply as theories involve signals and/or interacting fields.  What sets resonance theories apart as a special case of signal/field theories is that resonance theorists propose that the psi exchange is facilitated by similarities between the “sending” and “receiving” systems.)  Some theorists have proposed that similar minds (i.e., minds containing shared experiences, thoughts, etc.) may resonate with one another, resulting in the transmission of thoughts, perceptions and emotions from one mind to the other.  

For instance, Marshall (1960) has asserted that there exists an “eidopoic influence” in highly organized material that is capable of rendering faint signals detectable at remote locations by the resonating system, regardless of the spatiotemporal separation involved.   Marshall contends that, through this “eidopoic influence,” similar structures of sufficient complexity, such as human brains, may resonate with one another, thus resulting in a telepathic exchange of information from one mind to another.  Similarly, Hans Berger (1940) postulated that selective telepathic sensitivity to the thoughts of particular people (e.g., close friends and relatives) is due to a form of resonance mediated by “psychical waves.”

In this context, it should be noted that Soal and Bateman (1954) attempted to facilitate telepathy in a card-guessing experiment by providing the percipient (receiver) with a detailed picture of the agent (sender) and the agent’s room.  Such material should increase the similarity of (at least the current) contents of the percipent’s and agent’s mind.  However, this experiment failed to yield any significant evidence of psi.  Rao (1977) contends that pure clairvoyance experiments provide evidence against Berger’s and Marshall’s resonance theories, as it is hard to see such dissimilar structures as an ESP card and a human brain could resonate with one another.  However, one may counter Rao’s argument with the observation that the evidence for pure clairvoyance (direct extrasensory perception of an object) can usually, if not always, be explained away in terms of precognitive telepathy.  

As previously noted, Jon Taylor (1995, 1998, 2000) has also proposed a theory in which psi effects are caused by a resonance between two brains in similar states and denies the existence of pure clairvoyance, attributing the evidence for clairvoyance to trans-temporal telepathy.

As will be discussed in more detail below, Adrian Dobbs (1965) proposed a theory in which precognition is mediated by “psitrons,” hypothetical particles that travel back