Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
Scientific Study of Consciousness-Related Physical Phenomena
Engineering and Consciousness
The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research program was
established at Princeton University in 1979 by
Robert G. Jahn, Dean
of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, to pursue
rigorous scientific study of the interaction of human consciousness
with sensitive physical devices, systems, and processes common to
contemporary engineering practice. Since that time, an
interdisciplinary staff of engineers, physicists, psychologists,
and humanists has been conducting a comprehensive agenda of
experiments and developing complementary theoretical models to
enable better understanding of the role of consciousness in the
establishment of physical reality.
I. Human/Machine Anomalies
The most substantial portion of the PEAR program examines anomalies
arising in human/machine interactions.
In these experiments human
operators attempt, solely by volition, to influence the behavior of
a variety of mechanical, electronic, optical, acoustical, and fluid
devices
to conform to pre-stated intentions. In unattended
calibrations these sophisticated machines all produce strictly
random outputs, yet the experimental results display increases in
information content that can only be attributed to the influence of
the human operators.
Over the laboratory's history, thousands of
such experiments, involving many millions of trials, have been
performed by over a hundred operators. The observed effects are
usually quite small, of the order of a few parts in ten thousand,
but they are statistically repeatable and appear to be
operator specific in their details.
In contrast, the results of given
operators on widely different machines tend to be similar in
character and scale.
Pairs of operators with shared intentions are
found to induce further anomalous characteristics in the outputs.
The devices also respond to group activities of larger numbers of
people, even when they are unaware of the machine's presence.
These human/machine anomalies can be demonstrated with the operators
located thousands of miles from the laboratory,
exerting their efforts hours before or after the actual operation of the
devices. Elaborate analytical methods have been developed to
extract as much understanding from these results as possible, and
to guarantee their integrity against any experimental or data
processing flaws.
II. Remote Perception
In another class of studies, the ability of human participants to
acquire information about spatially and temporally
remote geographical targets,
otherwise inaccessible by any known sensory
means, has been thoroughly demonstrated over several hundred
carefully conducted experiments. The protocol requires one
participant, the "agent", to be stationed at a randomly selected
location at a given time, and there to observe and record
impressions of the details and ambience of the scene.
A second
participant, the "percipient", located far from the scene and with
no prior information about it, tries to sense its composition and
character and to report these in a similar format to the agent's
description.
Even casual comparison of the agent and percipient
narratives produced in this body of experiments reveals striking
correspondences in both their general and specific aspects,
indicative of some anomalous channel of information acquisition,
well beyond any chance expectation. Incisive analytical techniques
have been developed and applied to these data to establish more
precisely the quantity and quality of objective and subjective
information acquired and to guide the design of more effective
experiments. Beyond confirming the validity of this anomalous mode
of human information acquisition, these analyses demonstrate that
this capacity of human consciousness is also largely independent of
the distance between the percipient and the target, and similarly
independent of the time between the specification of the target and
the perception effort.
III. Theoretical Models
All scientific research requires generic and specific theoretical
models for constructive dialogue with the empirical data. The
stark inconsistencies of the human/machine and remote perception
results with established physical and psychological theories place
extraordinary demands on the development of competent new models to
represent these processes. In particular, the primary importance
of operator intention, the operator-specific aspects, the absence
of traditional learning patterns, and the lack of explicit space
and time dependence clearly indicate that no direct application or
minor alteration of existing physical or psychological frameworks
will suffice. Rather, nothing less than a generously
expanded model of reality,
one that allows consciousness a proactive
role in the establishment of its experience of the physical world,
will be required.
Such a model has been proposed and developed
under the major premise that the basic processes by which consciousness
exchanges information with its environment, orders that
information, and interprets it, also enable it to bias
probabilistic systems and thereby to avail itself of some control
over its reality. This model regards many of the concepts of
observational quantum mechanics, most importantly the principles of
complementarity and wave mechanical resonance, as fundamental
characteristics of consciousness, rather than as intrinsic features
of an objective physical environment. In this view, the
"anomalous" phenomena observed in the PEAR experiments become quite
normal expectations of bonded human/machine and human/human
systems, and the door is opened for all manner of creative
consciousness/environnment interactions.
Extended Activities
From this well established program of research, a number of related
activities radiate outward into other locales and disciplines:
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The PEAR laboratory is one component in an interdisciplinary
research and educational enterprise at Princeton University,
termed the Human Information Processing (HIP) Group. This
program brings together faculty, staff, and students in
engineering, computer science, psychology, and philosophy for
collaborative study of the role of human cognition,
perception, and creativity in a number of contemporary
human/machine technologies. A popular undergraduate course is
team-taught by the HIP group, who also supervise student
projects on relevant topics.
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The PEAR staff coordinates the International Consciousness
Research Laboratories (ICRL), a consortium of distinguished
research scholars from several nations and disciplines, who
share active commitments to better understanding of the role
of consciousness in their respective fields of anthropology,
archaeology, biology, engineering, physics, psychiatry,
psychology, and the humanities. This group conducts a number
of collaborative projects and convenes semi-annually to
exchange research progress.
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With the assistance of the ICRL group, PEAR facilitates an
Academy of Consciousness Studies to stimulate consciousness
research and education across a larger multi-disciplinary
family of interested scholars around the world. The first
Academy convocation, a two-week summer workshop held in 1994
on the Princeton University campus, brought together some
thirty-five outstanding scientists, physicians, educators, and
practitioners from nine countries for an intense program of
presentations, discussions, and planning sessions. These
participants are now extending research, teaching, and
application of the concepts developed at the workshop into
their own fields and institutions.
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Several members of the PEAR staff serve as officers of the
Society of Scientific Exploration
(SSE) , a unique
international and interdisciplinary professional organization
devoted to open but critical discussion and publication of
research in many areas of frontier science not
adequately covered by more conventional scientific
organizations. SSE holds annual international meetings in the
U.S., bi-annual meetings in Europe, and a variety of topical
symposia. It also publishes the archival Journal of
Scientific Exploration, a reservoir of documentation for much
of the contemporary scholarly research on
consciousness-related anomalies.
Implications and Applications
This composite array of internal and external PEAR activities is
motivated by three overarching goals:
Basic Science
Accommodation of the observed anomalies within a functional
scientific framework will require the explicit inclusion of
consciousness as an active agent in the establishment of
physical reality. This expansion of the scientific paradigm
demands more courageous theoretical structures than exist at
present, guided by more comprehensive empirical data than is
now available, acquired via more cooperative interdisciplinary
collaborations than are currently practiced. PEAR has
enduring roles to play in all three aspects of this search.
Technological Applications
Despite the small scale of the observed consciousness-related
anomalies, they could be functionally devastating to many
types of contemporary information processing systems,
especially those relying on random reference signals. Such
concern could apply to aircraft cockpits and ICBM silos; to
surgical facilities and trauma response equipment; to
environmental and disaster control technology; or to any other
technical scenarios where the emotions of human operators may
intensify their interactions with the controlling devices and
processes. Indeed, the extraordinarily sophisticated
equipment that generates much of the fundamental data on which
modern science is based cannot be excluded from this potential
vulnerability. Protection against such consciousness-related
interference could become essential to the design and
operation of many future information acquisition and
processing systems. On the positive side, since these same
research results provide important technical evidence of the
precious process of human creativity, they offer the promising
possibility of a new genre of human/machine systems that will
enable more creative performance in all manner of applications
from medicine to management, from manufacturing to
communications, from education to recreation.
Cultural Implications
Beyond its scientific impact and its technological
applications, clear evidence of an active role of
consciousness in the establishment of reality holds sweeping
implications for our view of ourselves, our relationship to
others, and to the cosmos in which we exist. These, in turn,
must inevitably impact our values, our priorities, our sense
of responsibility, and our style of life. Integration of
these changes across the society can lead to a substantially
superior cultural ethic, wherein the long-estranged siblings
of science and spirit, of analysis and aesthetics, of
intellect and intuition, and of many other subjective and
objective aspects of human experience will be productively
reunited.
PEAR Staff
Bob is a Professor of Aerospace Sciences and Dean Emeritus of the
School of Engineering and Applied Science, who has taught and
published extensively in advanced space propulsion systems, plasma
dynamics, fluid mechanics, quantum mechanics, and engineering
anomalies.
Brenda J. Dunne, Laboratory Manager
Brenda is formally trained as a developmental psychologist but
regards herself as a generalist whose principal task is the
integration of the multiple scholarly vectors that bear on PEAR's
various activities.
Roger D. Nelson, Operations Coordinator
Roger is an experimental psychologist who oversees the design of
PEAR's experimental protocols and controls, and aids in statistical
modeling and data interpretation.
His home page contains
recent examples
of PEAR research, as well as links to related sites.
G. Johnston Bradish, Technical Facilitator
John is an electrical engineer who is responsible for the design,
construction, and maintanance of PEAR's experimental technology.
York H. Dobyns, Analytical Coordinator
York is a theoretical physicist who designs and implements PEAR's
data processing and analytical strategies, and contributes to the
development of its theoretical models.
Michael Ibison, Visiting Scholar
Michael, a visiting mathematical physicist from England, aids in
the design of PEAR's experiments, data interpretation, and
theoretical models, while exploring his own specific research
interests.
Laurie Gamble, Administrative Assistant
Laurie maintains the organizational framework that permits PEAR's
many activities to function in a systematic fashion.
Literature
Many archival
publications
and technical reports describing PEAR's
experimental and theoretical studies are available on request. In
addition, the book Margins of Reality (Harcourt Brace, 1988), now
published in several languages, summarizes the research results and
interprets them in a multidisciplinary context that allows
exploration of their wider cultural implications. (This may be
ordered directly from the publisher at 465 South Lincoln Dr., Troy,
MO 63379, or by phone at 1-800-543-1918.)
To request publications, or for further information about any
PEAR programs, please contact:
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
C-131, Engineering Quadrangle
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544
(609) 258-5950 (phone),(609) 258-1993 (fax)
pearlab@princeton.edu
(email)
PEAR also has a Home Page on the World Wide Web at URL:
http://www.princeton.edu/~rdnelson/pear.html
Sponsors
The internal and external programs of the PEAR laboratory have been
supported by a number of visionary and generous persons and
organizations, among them: The Fetzer Institute, The McDonnell
Foundation, The Ohrstrom Foundation, Laurance Rockefeller, and
Donald Webster, along with various other philanthropic agencies and
individuals. We welcome the interest and participation of any
persons or organizations that share our convictions about the
importance of this work and its potential public benefits.
"Not once in the dim past, but continuously
by conscious mind is the miracle of the Creation
wrought"
Arthur Eddington
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