CIRTS

1
(No Transcript)
2
CIRTS

• Consciousness Induced Restoration of Time Symmetry

Presentiment as a challenge to our view of time
Dick Bierman, University of Amsterdam, University
for Humanistics
3
A theory for psi phenomena

• All Psi phenomena are time anomalies
• Empirical support for time symmetry
• Physics can accommodate psi
• Elusiveness explained

4
All psi phenomena are time anomalies

• Dunnes dream of disaster (1927)

Two weeks later in news
4000 killed
4000 killed
5
All psi phenomena are time anomalies

• In reality 40000 were killed.

• So Dunne did not dream about the disaster but
  about the feedback in the newspaper.

6
All psi phenomena are time anomalies

• Psychokinesis
• From random to structured
• Thermodynamics with time running backward

7
Empirical Evidence

• No Anecdotes
• False memories
• Sensory errors

• Laboratory work
• Presentiment and other time- reversed paradigms.

8
Presentiment
a feeling about an event in the future
9
or, a vague sense of impending doom
10
In experiments we dont use a collapsing chair
but the International Affective Picture System
Images
11
Main Stream Animal fear study
6850 msec
Skin Conductance
response
anticipation
time
Globisch, J., Hamm, A.O., Estevez, F., and Ehman,
A. (1999). Psychophysiology, 36, pp. 66-75.
12
In one experiment there are many random
exposures
13
Averaged over 38 subjects
14
Results re-analysis raw data
stimulus
15
Individual differences
16
Erotic Presentiment effect at time -4
seconds. Td 2.89 df 39 p lt 0.01
Bierman Scholte, 2002
17
Convergent evidence time-anomalies

• Dependent variables
• Skin conductance
• Bold (fMRI)
• Evoked Potential (EEG)
• CNV (EEG)
• InterBeatInterval (ECG)
• Eye movement
• Pupil Dilation
• Eye Blinks

• Stimuli
• Emo/Neu Pictures
• (Un)pleasant Sounds
• (win or loose) Slot machine
• Other paradigms
• Retro Priming
• Retro Habituation
• Retro Learning
• Retro Psychokinesis

18
Does a coherent brain show more presentiment?

• A meditation study

19
Design

• 8 Experienced meditators
• 2 sessions Med and NonMed
• 8 Matched controls
• 1 session C
• 64 random pictures (neutral, erotic, violent)
• 16 seconds interval, 2 seconds exposure
• All meditators trained
• Replication of fmri study Bierman Scholte (2002)

20
Analysis procedure

• Find interesting regions by comparing bold
  RESPONSES between
• Med lt-gtNonMed (direct effect of meditation)
• NonMedlt-gt C (long term effects of meditation)
• Compare for those regions the signals BEFORE the
  emotional with the signals BEFORE the neutral

21
Results Spatial

• 36 regions show significant different responses
  (picture shows contrast for meditators while
  meditating vs non-meditating)

Most regions are associated with attentional
proceses
22
Results temporal (all regions)
23
Number of anticipatory peaks
24
Physics can accommodate psi

• Most physical formalisms are time-symmetric
  (Newtonian, EM)
• The solution Sf(-t) is never observed
• Wheeler Feynman (1945) attribute this to cosmos
  being out of equilibrium (no multi-particle
  coherent absorbing systems)

25
Physics can accommodate psi

• Assumption that brain-producing-consciousness
  is a multi-particle coherent absorber
• Restores Time-symmetry
• Weighted by a coherence measure

26
(No Transcript)
27
Elusiveness explained
Grandfather paradox is formally identical to
precognition-action paradox
28
Elusiveness explained

• Nature doesnt allow paradoxes
• See also Hawkings chronology protection
• Psi information should never become so strong
  that it can be used to change the source of it.
  (Just like the time traveler should not act in
  such a way as to change his/her own source)

29
Take Home

• For the philosophers Is time-symmetry a
  violation of causality (does time travel imply
  violations of causality?)
• For the scientists Never tell someone that there
  are no theories of psi or that physics tells us
  that psi is impossible.

Theoretical Background Bierman, D.J. (2008).
CIRTS, Consciousness Induced Restoration of
Time-symmetry, a new theoretical framework
(submitted). http//.
30
Thanks to

• You, for listening
• All the subjects in our experiments
• Stephen Whitmarsh (UvA, Radboud UN)
• Eva Lobach (UvA, UvH)
• Jenneke van Ditzhuyzen (UvA)
• And many more colleagues and students from the
  University of Amsterdam, Utrecht University and
  University for Humanistics
• Mail d.j.bierman_at_uva.nl