Ming the Mechanic:
Global Consciousness Project
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 Global Consciousness Project2005-02-15 15:39
19 comments
picture by Flemming Funch

The Global Consciousness Project is getting some press recently.
DEEP in the basement of a dusty university library in Edinburgh lies a small black box, roughly the size of two cigarette packets side by side, that churns out random numbers in an endless stream.

At first glance it is an unremarkable piece of equipment. Encased in metal, it contains at its heart a microchip no more complex than the ones found in modern pocket calculators.

But, according to a growing band of top scientists, this box has quite extraordinary powers. It is, they claim, the 'eye' of a machine that appears capable of peering into the future and predicting major world events.

The machine apparently sensed the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre four hours before they happened - but in the fevered mood of conspiracy theories of the time, the claims were swiftly knocked back by sceptics. But last December, it also appeared to forewarn of the Asian tsunami just before the deep sea earthquake that precipitated the epic tragedy.

Now, even the doubters are acknowledging that here is a small box with apparently inexplicable powers.

'It's Earth-shattering stuff,' says Dr Roger Nelson, emeritus researcher at Princeton University in the United States, who is heading the research project behind the 'black box' phenomenon.

'We're very early on in the process of trying to figure out what's going on here. At the moment we're stabbing in the dark.' Dr Nelson's investigations, called the Global Consciousness Project, were originally hosted by Princeton University and are centred on one of the most extraordinary experiments of all time. Its aim is to detect whether all of humanity shares a single subconscious mind that we can all tap into without realising.

It is simply a random number generator. It generates a lot of random ones and zeros. And a bunch of separate devices in different places do the same thing. And the thing is that the results are influenced by big global events. The numbers suddenly become less random and more coherent. And one can easily calculate how much they deviate from what they were "supposed" to be. And how unlikely that would be to be pure coincidence. And the fun thing is also that the results show a little before the actual events happen.

That isn't terribly strange, if we assume that everything is connected, and exists in the same unified quantum field. But it makes many scientists very nervous. Apparently they're becoming more comfortable with the idea, as the can't really get around the results, however much they try.

It isn't really worth much in predicting the future. All it shows is that something big is going on, or is going to happen shortly, which will be important to many people. But it gives no clue as to what it is going to be. So, mainly it probably serves to make consciousness something that science can't ignore. Which is a valuable aim in itself.


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19 comments

15 Feb 2005 @ 15:46 by jstarrs : Thing I don't get is...
...that if time can run backwards, then you'd have the effect before the cause!!!!  

15 Feb 2005 @ 15:53 by ming : Cause
Well, kind of indicates that it isn't that simple, eh? The cause and the effect must be inextricably connected. It is probably the time thing that screws us up, as we try to insist that the things that happen earlier cause the later stuff. Where really it is probably more that they're part of the same thing.  

15 Feb 2005 @ 15:55 by swanny : The Point
I was wonderin about this the other day
What is the point of knowing about "global"
events if you can't "do" anything about them.
But then had the realization... well thats not really
"new" or the point but like Mount St. Helens back in the 80s
at least you can tell or suggest to people and such
that they might want to perhaps take a bit of a holiday.
Yet its also interesting to note that "animals" and such
would already seem to be tapping into this global
consciousness because apparently they or a lot of them
got out of the tsunamis way. Which just goes to show
something. Are we "regressing" hee hee or quasi... something  

15 Feb 2005 @ 16:02 by ming : The Force
I guess it is just like "there's a disturbance in the force". Doesn't have much practical use unless one also knows what it is about.

Of course, deviations from the randomness of zeros and ones - there really isn't much potential for information content in that. Just a proof of concept that randomness isn't necessarily random, and that stuff is connected. But just that in itself is major stuff in our world.  

15 Feb 2005 @ 16:13 by swanny : Subtle Energy
Yes the "force" and subtle energies
I suppose it is our human tendancy to want to
"apply" them somehow yet would we really "know"
what we're doing in the global sense....
If everything is connected then everything "effects" and "affects"
everything else to some degrees yet it leads back to perhaps
ethical questions and such and are we fit or deserving of such.
Like "who's" driving or is that an outmoded concept....
is there sort of "pilots and copilots" flying this thing or
well perhaps to many questions.
Participate, contribute and enjoy the now perhaps...  

16 Feb 2005 @ 12:52 by freo7 : Who's Driving this thing?
A question I ALWAYS ask especially in dream interpretation.

And I always ask it when observing what USA media let's us know
about world events as or after they happen. A good way to
get a handle on who's driving this thing is to be qware of what
the information you are getting ABOUT this thing is calculated
to make you feel and then do. If you notice there is a direction
the information would have you jump then you at least know where
the driver/motivator wants YOU TO GO.

IN FORM ATION AGE  

16 Feb 2005 @ 15:12 by mole @128.206.170.249 : Are the Eggs true random # generators?
If these boxes generate random numbers then how is it possible to calculate deviation from an expected result? Randomness seems to imply lack of pattern.  

16 Feb 2005 @ 16:56 by ming : Randomness
Randomness is kind of a silly thing. I don't really believe in it. So I take it to mean that they've made a number generator that is sufficiently removed from any obviously deterministic influence. I.e. it isn't just a predictable formula with results that looks random. It isn't based on the computer time or anything else with a predictable pattern. I don't know what they're actually using then. Some kind of sub-atomic phenomenon or something.

Of course the whole point is that randomness isn't random. Nothing in the universe exists in complete separation from everything else. But, rather, we might remove all the simplistic, local influences so that the result depends on something really big and complex, like the state of the universe, or at least a reasonably sizable chunk of the part we're interested in.  

17 Feb 2005 @ 00:18 by Ge Zi @24.126.199.23 : predicted randomity
one way to see a derivation from the norm:
a completely random number generator would be expected to generate the numbers so that each would have the same probablility of occuring. so if you plot the number of times a number occured against the number you would get a flat line. Now if you notice that suddenly the smaller number are more frequent that would mean either there is a disturbance in the force - - - or the random number generator is bad.  

17 Feb 2005 @ 01:39 by Quirkeboy @209.92.185.199 : Chess and life
Well.. Im always the sceptic.. so I would say I would need to know how many "random" numbers they are pulling from... and how many global events have NOT been predicted. This could be related to peoples tendency to find meaning in random information.. like seeing faces in the cracks of your ceiling. Obviously we are creatures who learn by finding patterns.. and are in the habit.
I was thinking about randomness and chess the other day.. why do we play chess? Because theres the illusion of unlimited options.. where to move your pieces. But .. why dont we play tic-tac-toe anymore as adults.. because the game is finite.. and you can learn to have the correct response to ANY move. Because in chess you have a finite number of pieces, squares and moves.. you really have a finite number of choices.. and a computer could be programed to have the apropriate response in any situation.
And we are the same in life, I think.. the game starts and there seems to only limited options.. you cant move your rook in the beginning.. and a baby has only limited information to draw from to make decisions.. but then the game goes on.. and you seem to have endless possiblities.. but you still have a past of cause and effect that can be tracked back to birth. Its not truly random at all.. and as the game nears the end.. you have less and less choices.. the deterministic nature of life shows its ugly head... then you die.
Also.. just like in Tic tac toe.. where the person who starts first can always win if played perfectly.. perhaps some of us are born winners or losers.. with limited options our whole life??
Just a theory.. thanks for listening..  

17 Feb 2005 @ 14:43 by ming : Randomness
Yeah, to show anything scientifically, they'd of course have to include any major global events that have not been predicted. I haven't looked at the details.

And, you're right, the more interesting aspects of life are the complex areas where there seems to be unlimited options. We don't really like if things are pre-determined. But there should be plenty of room for that, as life seems pretty damn complex as it is.  

17 Feb 2005 @ 20:24 by Ge Zi @24.126.199.23 : freedom to choose
Very disturbing thought on the oh so valuable freedom of choise - a world not pre-determined:
If you really KNOW, I mean really! - then there is no choice. There is one course of action that is the right one - and that's it.
So - freedom of choise for all of us who are still stuck in the dark.  

2 Mar 2006 @ 08:00 by taranga @80.168.199.34 : Evolution
May be it is a part of the whole evolution of higher conciousness - us insensitive humans who have lost contact with natural rythms get gradually eliminated by various natural disasters, till eventually the only survivors are more sensitive and in tune with the universe. Sadly their gene stock will be polluted by all those generals, politicians and excessively wealthy idiots in their bunkers.  

3 Mar 2006 @ 08:33 by johnnyboy @64.136.26.235 : random stupidity
maybe it's just spittin out numbers and people are reading what they want out of it?  

1 Dec 2006 @ 15:10 by fakky @204.113.50.83 : maybe......
for the most part there seems to be a connection with these random numbers.
but what are the numbers? please, someone check and post.  

25 Dec 2006 @ 06:05 by undersiege @65.7.79.112 : Reply to Quirkeboy
DANG!!!
You are a pessimist!  

12 Jan 2007 @ 07:08 by Matt @71.71.10.16 : this stuff
When I was at university we built several "random" number generators. They all delivered sets of supposedly random patterns but in the long run patterns could be seen in them. Our professor gave us several points that I will share what I remember of here.

Variations in power supply can cause even a digital system to behave differently.

Limitations of hardware and software(if used) can affect the scale of your "randomness."

Variations in the magnetic field around your device can affect output.

**Sometimes, no matter how hard you try and how thorough you have been there will be outside influences of unknown origin.**

When dealing with computer chips, developers have discovered that if they go much further that quantum physics will be the limit of miniturisation. I read an article on a signal traveling faster than light, so that in effect over the short distances that they were transmitting the signal it was arriving just before the transmission started. Some time back Heitmann and Nimtz and others did research using microwaves traveling through a wave chamber to transmit mozart at faster than light speeds. There has been a lot of scrambling of the scientific community to discredit this but I saw the original video and the signal did behave odly. Well guess what, electrons traveling inside of a microchip often are pulsing at microwave frequencies.

How in the heck does all this relate? Well I don't think it violates causality, but maybe that is because I grew up watching the original Dr. Who series I don't know. Why would the information that a major event was happening, skipping through some unknown part of space at greater than light speeds and ending up being recieved by a complex machine which then somehow changed it's output be so unsettling?

I remember when I was a teen living in the upstairs of my uncles house hearing strange noises coming from under the eaves of the house. My cousin and I went digging and found a toaster oven. The unplugged toaster oven proceeded to cackle at us and then produce mumbling noises. Now that was scary at first. But later my uncle who was a physicist at university figured out that the old lady down the street that had an incredibly powerful citizen's band radio base and a huge antena on her roof was transmitting such a powerful signal that the heater coils of the toaster oven (which happened to be the right length to act as an antena and also were resing in certain places on the mica heat sheild which was probably causing it to act as a crystal radio. Surprise! It wasn't scary anymore. Wierd, but not scary. Things are scary when either 1. they can hurt you and there's not much you can do to stop them. or 2. you don't understand them and they seem threatening. Some "black box" that can seemingly predict at least major events in the future seeming scary because it affronts our current beliefs about the universe? Why shouldn't we be thinking I wonder if some other sort of reciever could be built that would produce more coherent output that could be interpreted or perhaps, should we create a neuronet matrix that crunches the numbers and compares them with events and reinforces some conections and weakens others until it can set off an alarm so that at least we can get a heads up as soon as the numbers change if not "hey there's going to be something big happening in the lower hemisphere somewhere between blah and blah, lets make a few phone calls.

Now if the thing goes non random and times and nothing happens and there are lots of major events that are not predicted then possibly we could try to look and see if there are differences in these events and see if it is only tuning into specific things. like maybe lots of lives lost or major power grid interuption or whether cnn decided to send a reporter or not :p Just a thought.

Anyway, I mean, people have been doing the same thing for ages, and the brain is just a big bio/chemical/electric computer. Could some of these people maybe be tuning into the same effect?

Stuff for thought.

Fuzzy  

12 Jan 2007 @ 16:47 by ming : Antennas
I guess it is kind of an impossible problem to produce really random numbers in the first place. I mean, it will always depend on something, either some kind of input or some math formula. So, the best we can accomplish is to pick some input and some formulas that seem unrelated to what we need the random numbers for. But it would be quite natural if there were patterns.

And if there are patterns in what should be random, it doesn't have to be anything terribly mystical. Something is obviously in tune with something else, like the toaster. (great story!) It shouldn't be an overly huge mental jump to assume that there could be phenomena attuned to major world events. I mean, they don't happen in a vacuum, so all sorts of things are related to what happens. So, not too crazy idea that maybe one can have some kind of receiver that picks mass consciousness events, and filters out other stuff.

And, yes, when one figures out how it works, it isn't something scarey, but something natural and logical.  

1 May 2016 @ 10:54 by Dayanara @188.143.232.32 : KnOUmuQNICRuHUiU
What lienratibg knowledge. Give me liberty or give me death.  

Other stories in
2009-11-01 16:35: Seven questions that keep physicists up at night
2008-10-14 20:33: Where are the podcars?
2008-07-05 00:08: Self-Organized Criticality
2008-05-16 13:34: The Universe as God
2008-01-11 19:00: Richard Dawkins comes to call
2007-12-02 21:10: An E8 theory of everything
2007-09-27 00:46: Parallel universes are a bit more real
2007-07-05 23:40: What happened before the big bang
2007-06-27 00:58: Naïve realism
2007-05-26 02:26: Mars cave


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