Is there a Scientific Basis for Believing in Remote Viewing?

[Murky]

It ain't over till the fat lady sings.

 

[Polycrates]

Check out the abstract for the follow-up paper (which he cited while it was still in submission):


Possible disruption of remote viewing by complex weak magnetic fields around the stimulus site and the possibility of accessing real phase space: a pilot study.
Percept Mot Skills. 2002 Dec;95(3 Pt 1):989-98.

In 2002 Persinger, Roll, Tiller, Koren, and Cook considered whether there are physical processes by which recondite information exists within the space and time of objects or events. The stimuli that compose this information might be directly detected within the whole brain without being processed by the typical sensory modalities. We tested the artist Ingo Swann who can reliably draw and describe randomly selected photographs sealed in envelopes in another room. In the present experiment the photographs were immersed continuously in repeated presentations (5 times per sec.) of one of two types of computer-generated complex magnetic field patterns whose intensities were less than 20 nT over most of the area. WINDOWS-generated but not DOS-generated patterns were associated with a marked decrease in Mr. Swann's accuracy. Whereas the DOS software generated exactly the same pattern, WINDOWS software phase-modulated the actual wave form resulting in an infinite bandwidth and complexity. We suggest that information obtained by processes attributed to "paranormal" phenomena have physical correlates that can be masked by weak, infinitely variable magnetic fields.

 

[Murky]

Yes, I've been looking to the follow up studies too. While I remain unconvinced, I am open to the possibility that there could be something very weird in physics that allows remote viewing. When we dismiss things as being too weird for study then some other country decides to pursue it and get tangible results from it we'll find ourselves at a disadvantage.

India successful in using remote viewing techniques and satellite technologies for counterintelligence and strategic intelligence

Spoiler :

RAW India's equivalent of CIA has advanced quite a bit in recent days. Sources close to New Delhi report that RAW is using advanced satellite technologies and remote viewing techniques to look into foreign intelligence activities within India. Remote viewing is the paranormal activities with psychics that can sense into the future and unknown. CIA in America has used remote viewing for many years. Many times remote viewing has worked very well for the CIA and the Russian intelligence.

Recent days India has seen a massive amount Pakistan's ISI agents arrested all over the country. The situation has gone so bad for Pakistan and Al-Queda that they are looking for reasons what is really happening. Taking clue from CIA, RAW Indian counterpart started remote viewing techniques many years back. They also tried to correlate the remote viewing readings with high tech feedbacks like satellite sensing and imaging. This is being further validated with the agents' report in the field. The net results for RAW and CBI (Central Bureau of Intelligence - equivalent of FBI) are astounding.

Sources say India has locked in close surveillance over most of foreign agencies within the country. RAW has recently expanded the efforts for strategic intelligence. This include spying over Pakistan, China and the Western nations.

The reason for the success is attributable to traditional Indian cultural richness in spirituality and paranormal activities.

The remote viewing activities are nothing new for India. Indians traditionally have been doing it for thousands of years. But now India is doing it for a reason.

Satellite technologies are also helping understand movement of Pakistan's ISI supported militants in South Asia. Sources close to RAW say Pakistan's ISI is more active in Bangladesh and North East India than Kashmir these days. In the field, the agents are confirming these information.

According to some remote viewers, Bangladesh has recently seen enormous amount of violence related to election. Pakistan's main goal is not Kashmir at this time. It is to hijack Bangladesh again and start a covert front on the east of India.

Remote viewing if applied in a wrong way can cause catastrophe and total embarrassment. An ideal example would be the WMD information in Iraq. Seventy-three thousand pages of secret documents have recently been declassified in the United States. The information unveiled the activity of two special groups that worked with extrasensory individuals. The CIA had to acknowledge that it used remote viewers and other individuals possessing paranormal abilities for intelligence purposes.

According to Pravda.Ru CIA's remote viewers initiated quest for WMD in Iraq. Obviously they were wrong at least based on what we know today.

CIA's remote viewing activities has been not all that failure.

"Psychic spy" Joseph McMoneagle also known as "remote viewing agent #001" was shown a spot on the map of the USSR, where the mysterious secret object was supposedly located, as CIA agents thought. McMoneagle put his finger on the map and described the image that he saw in his mind:

"It is a congregation of low stone and concrete buildings. A huge underground warehouse filled with lethal weapons, not only missiles. There are other square and round items there. I see a very high column of smoke, bearing some semblance to a huge lifting crane, rising above the area (it was most likely the smoke of a nuclear blast). The people inhabiting that place are sick. Their hair is receding, their bones are putrefying. They deliver sick children, and they are still obsessed with some idea."

It was quite an eloquent description for secret agents to understand, what kind of an object was located in Semipalatinsk (which is now a town in the republic of Kazakhstan). Then CIA Director Richard Helms moved the paranormal espionage from the category "Research" to the category "Practice." Joseph McMoneagle's success as a remote viewer increased the funding of such unusual activities, not to mention the improved moral aspect. The US authorities spent about $2 million a year on a rather small group of 20 extrasensory individuals in the 1990s.
Other achievements of American psychic agents include: factories making weapons of mass destruction in third world countries, including Iraq (it is not ruled out that the information about WMD in Iraq sprang from remote viewers.) Extrasensory intelligence officers also developed certain recommendations to recruit CIA agents and rendered some other services too.

India's achievement in remote viewing and use of advanced technologies is remarkable in recent days. According to some international experts what really worked for India is not just remote viewing but the availability of the field agents who could confirm the clues from the remote viewers.

 

[warpus]

Anything's possible, even if it sounds as ridiculous as this. That's why it's important to use science to figure out what the phenomenon is, if it exists, and to formulate a scientific theory.

instead of you know, jumping to conclusion that it's gods or ghosts or angels or a 5th dimension or whatever.

 

[Leoreth]

Nope, someone else did.

Seeing what has come of it, I apologize for introducing this word into the debate. I should've known better

 

[Polycrates]

Yes, I've been looking to the follow up studies too. While I remain unconvinced, I am open to the possibility that there could be something very weird in physics that allows remote viewing. When we dismiss things as being too weird for study then some other country decides to pursue it and get tangible results from it we'll find ourselves at a disadvantage.

Here's the thing though: there's no plausible mechanism by which this remote viewing could work (or not that I've seen), that doesn't call for a drastic rewrite of the laws of physics.
The magnetic field thing: plausible. Maybe we have organs that have a sensory response to magnetic fields (high polarity or something), and maybe we have enough of them at different locations in the body that the variations could give some sort of directional information. Maybe a person with a particular genetic profile and/or particular training could train themselves to get a vaguely accurate sense of these magnetic fields and integrate them into their normal sensory apparatus. And maybe they could detect magnetic fields so subtle that they could, for example, detect which cup has an object under it in a cup game, or even determine its rough size/shape or something because its field could vary by mass. See how that's plausible? Unlikely, and maybe the laws of physics as currently understood would need a bit of a massage, but there's potentially a mechanism.

Remote viewing of the sort described, however, appears to rely on the magical properties of ink. How is a picture in an envelope supposed to have a picture specific magnetic field? Is it special ink? And yet that's never discussed. Ink is going to have negligible mass, and its defining property is the response to visible spectrum electromagnetic radiation, which really has nothing at all to do with this kind of magnetism (especially when there's no visible light on the picture!). There's no real clarity here either - is it supposed to be an x-ray vision-like phenomenon or an "eyes outside your head" sort of phenomenon? You can't test it until you know what the hell it's supposed to be, and the problem is that every discussion of these sorts of things involves this sort of incongruity in the mumbo-jumbo.

But the first question is still: is there a real effect that we could look for a potential explanatory mechanism for? And that's really easy to do. Again, going back to Ghostbusters, get a whole set of those cards with clear, well-differentiated symbols on them. The remote viewer would already be familiar with the symbols and how to describe them so there's no room for ambiguity - I'd actually give them a sheet with all the symbols on it, and ask them to select one from that. Have the cards all covered with a peel-off film or something to obscure the front side of the card to the person giving the test. Have them held up one-by-one and get the remote viewer to say what symbol is on the card. Then pass the card to a third person out of sight, who can peel off the backing and score whether the psychic is correct or not - purely yes or no. Don't ever tell the person in the study whether they were correct or not. Do this with a bunch of people who are supposedly psychic and a bunch of non-psychic controls (and don't tell the test-givers which is which). With enough replicates, you should be able to see: is there a statistically-significant increase in correct guesses above the baseline for random chance for the psychics, and above the baseline of correct guesses by the non-psychic controls. That's an easy experiment that could be done with a minimum of fuss and equipment, and would clearly show whether the psychics give results above and beyond normal people - or alternatively whether people in general have a latent ability and can get correct results above what would be expected by guessing at random.
If not, then there's clearly nothing there to waste our time on, is there?
Given that it's so easy and cheap to do, and given that, if true, it's the sort of groundbreaking finding with enough experimental rigour that it would be publishable in a high-impact journal - the lack of any such similar study that I've seen (and the article in the OP certainly doesn't reference any) raises huge questions.

 

[Murky]

Good points. If you don't mind sparing the time, there's still the training manual and the YouTube video with the researcher explaining how it worked.

To be convinced of it, I would have to see it done in person. I think a good test would be a to have a 3rd party go to several different locations, take photos then seal the photos inside envelopes. You (not knowing what the pictures are) take the envelopes to the remote viewer(s) to find out if they can determine what's in the pictures without opening the envelopes. This way there should be no possibility of cues coming from the person delivering the sealed envelops.

As for there being a mechanism for it, that's a job for people studying the physics of it to work out. I just want to know if there is something to remote viewing. I would like to understand why seemingly intelligent people devoted so much time and energy to it.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Murky, I know you'll be fed up with me pushing Derren Brown on you

But it's so related! And it's just the first 10 minutes of it that deal with remote viewing, so it isn't that time consuming.


Link to video.

Just know that I keep nagging you about this because I too find it fascinating stuff. And it relates to whatever experiment you have in mind to test this, because I would have thought the environment Derren creates there would be a very good one with the person drawing pictures in another room. The only explanation I can think of is Derren implanting suggestions beforehand.

About your scientific experiment, you want to take as much chance out of the equation as possible. I'd suggest one photo at a time with one prominent feature. Multiple photos would increase the chance of the viewer getting one accidentally right. The same goes for the description the viewer gives on the photo. It has to focus on one thing. Not a whole lot of random words which can be reasoned to relate to the photo taken. One specific description. And repeat that process for every picture separately. You also don't want the viewer to claim to have been influenced by the other pictures, so it would be like this:

Photo is taken and put in an envelope by person 1
Envelope is handed over to person 2 who doesn't know what's in it.
Person 2 shows the viewer the photo without person 1 present.
Viewer describes the photo.
Repeat.

 

[Murky]

@Ziggy,

Thanks for the clip. Being able to convincingly fake psychic ability is a skill in itself. It does seem to rely on people being susceptible or "open" to the experience rather than being skeptical. If Darren Brown took his tricks to a skeptics conference he would probably be quickly spotted as a fake because people there wouldn't just accept that it's true without evidence.

Your experiment sounds reasonable too. The difficulty is finding a remote viewer willing to take part in it.

 

[BasketCase]

Oh, man, can't remember. Perhaps?
Does my age show that much, that you know I have used a dial-up modem, and that I actually know what a BBS is, and have used it?

Heheheh. Good guess, wasn't it? See, I'm thinking you might be the very same guy who posted the "Santa Claus is mathematically impossible" proof on that BBS back in the 90's!

 

[Andvare]

Heheheh. Good guess, wasn't it? See, I'm thinking you might be the very same guy who posted the "Santa Claus is mathematically impossible" proof on that BBS back in the 90's!

Could be.
I did post it on some BBS, though it must probably have been mid-late 90s, as I wasn't all that into physics before.

 

[BasketCase]

Ya ever run across a poster by the last name of Fallgatter? He and I used to butt heads all the time in political arguments. If you've met him, you've probably met me.....

 

[Andvare]

Small world...

Or should that be "small world for nerds"?

 

[amadeus]

????

No, those are just the links in my signature. I meant that no one has ESP.

 

[innonimatu]

Easy

Dinosaurs are extinct.

Nah, dinosaurs have just evolved to being invisible. Mr. Ingo Swann can use his special occipital lobes to see them. They're the ones telling him about remote stuff.

EDIT: I logged in and I don't have institutional access to the journal, it seems.

Good, it means that your university isn't wasting money subscribing to garbage! And good thing you have the patience to debunk this stuff in detail, I just get too angry to do it.

There's still lots of things physics has not figured out yet.

Magnetic fields have been figured out a century ago. H. G. Wells might get away with fiction involving magnetic fields in "The Invisible Man", but now no half-decent fiction author would dare use those in a plot about extraordinary new abilities!

Still, that's over a decade of developing the program. Wouldn't someone have canceled the project sooner if there had not be any return on the investment?

What, those responsible admitting that it was all a waste of money? Those doing the "research" killing their cash cow and trying to find another one with their amazing credentials of having worked for years on pseudo-science? The only way these silly projects get cancelled is when those responsible get fired or die!

 

[Murky]

Nah, dinosaurs have just evolved to being invisible. Mr. Ingo Swann can use his special occipital lobes to see them. They're the ones telling him about remote stuff.

One thing remote reviewers typically don't claim is the ability to see what is not there.

Good, it means that your university isn't wasting money subscribing to garbage! And good thing you have the patience to debunk this stuff in detail, I just get too angry to do it.

I'm certainly not twisting anyone's arm here. If they have a shared interest then what's the harm in examining it?

Magnetic fields have been figured out a century ago. H. G. Wells might get away with fiction involving magnetic fields in "The Invisible Man", but now no half-decent fiction author would dare use those in a plot about extraordinary new abilities!

We have a good understanding of how Magnetism works, but do we fully understand what magnetism is? I'm not talking about it's properties or effects. What is it exactly? I'm not looking for some wiki look up answer here.

What, those responsible admitting that it was all a waste of money? Those doing the "research" killing their cash cow and trying to find another one with their amazing credentials of having worked for years on pseudo-science? The only way these silly projects get cancelled is when those responsible get fired or die!

It could also be that they truly believed that it worked and gave them usable intelligence.

 

[innonimatu]

We have a good understanding of how Magnetism works, but do we fully understand what magnetism is? I'm not talking about it's properties or effects. What is it exactly? I'm not looking for some wiki look up answer here.

Sadly I'm not the man to explain it, that's stuff for an electronics engineer or someone else in that field. Or a physician, if you can find one who wouldn't be too bored by the subject. I'll just say that if we didn't understand it modern electronics would not be possible at all. James Clark Maxwell laid out the foundations for its use back in 19th century and that created big expectations about electromagnetism, the "new big thing" as it was. Victorian era fiction writers used it for years for plot devices, as later authors would use space travel or atomic energy. And just as with space travel and atomic energy what was impossible to do with it was fairly easy to rule out knowing a body of theory set up along a couple of decades. What was possible.. well, we can always think of new uses, but we should verify those against the theory. In this case we have a good understanding of the creation, detection and attenuation of electromagnetic waves. And even were humans able to sense weak waves, they would certainly not going to detect non-existent waves from some hidden remote object: I haven't read that piece of fiction you quoted in the first post, but I'm absolutely certain that "distant stinluli (pictures or places) beyond his normal
senses", namely pictures sealed in an envelope, are not spontaneously generating electromagnetic waves detectable by anything, be it brain or machine!

It could also be that they truly believed that it worked and gave them usable intelligence.

Granted, I was being too cynical: there are misguided scientists who just believe in insane things and just won't let go. Some even call it "the Nobel disease", from several Nobel Prize winners, very good scientists, who went on to meddle into different fields with crazy (and wrong) ideas, making total asses of themselves.
And there are a few ones who turn out to have been right to go against the mainstream and take years, decades even, to be recognized as being right. But this one.. pure bunk!

 

[Andvare]

Understanding how something works on a macro scale, is something completely different than understanding how it works on a subatomic level.

Understanding something on a macro scale is kinda like knowing how to drive. You know how to use the car's purpose, but you might not know anything about the engine.
Just like you could easily use magnetism in engineering without a deeper knowledge of it.
However, to tune your car, to make it run faster, you need to know the deeper function of the car, and not just what pedal is the gas.

Fortunately, we have a very good idea of how magnetism works "under the hood".
To make it short, it's depending on the "spin" of the electrons.

(And, innonimatu, it's a physicist, a physician is something with different focus )

BTW, Hollywood, and indeed a lot of media, usually have no idea on what magnetism is. In the mind of most writers, it seems that all metals are magnetic.

 

[Hygro]

Wish Gothmog was here.

It's certainly possible. People know things they aren't supposed to know. It happens all the time and it's just not directed in a way that's particularly testable or influential beyond some people just being more "lucky". I don't see why it's impossible for remote viewing to exist, given what I've seen and experienced in life.