Coherent Consciousness and Reduced Randomness

The interaction of consciousness and physical systems is most often
discussed in theoretical terms, usually with reference to the epistemological
and ontological challenges of quantum theory. Less well known
is a growing literature reporting experiments that examine the mindmatter
relationship empirically. Here we describe data from a global
network of physical random number generators that shows unexpected
structure apparently associated with major world events. Arbitrary
samples from the continuous, four-year data archive meet rigorous criteria
for randomness, but pre-specied samples corresponding to events
of broad regional or global importance show signicant departures of
distribution parameters from expectation. These deviations also correlate
with a quantitative index of daily news intensity. Focused analyses
of data recorded on September 11, 2001, show departures from
random expectation in several statistics. Contextual analyses indicate
that these cannot be attributed to identiable physical interactions and
may be attributable to some unidentied interaction associated with
human consciousness.
1. INTRODUCTION
Quantum indeterminate electronic random number generators (RNG)
are designed to produce random sequences with near maximal entropy
[1, 2]. Yet under certain circumstances such devices have shown surprising
departures from theoretical expectations. There are controversial
but substantial claims that measurable deviations of statistical
distribution parameters may be correlated, for unknown reasons, with
conditions of importance to humans [3, 4]. To address this putative
correlation in a rigorous way, a long-term, international collaboration
was instituted to collect standardized data continuously from a globally
distributed array of RNGs [5]. First deployed in August 1998, the
network uses independent physical random sources designed for serial
computer interfacing [6] and employs secure data-collection and networking
software. Data from the remote devices are collected through
the Internet and stored in an archival database. The geographic locations
of the 50 host sites comprising the network as of late 2002 are
shown in Fig. 1. The data archive, continuously updated, is freely accessible
through the Internet and can be investigated for correlations
with data from many disciplines: earth sciences, meteorology, astronomy,
economics, and other metrics of natural or human activity.
In addition to making the database available to the scientic
community, the collaboration maintains ongoing experiments to test
the conjecture that deviations in the random data may correlate in
some way with human activity. The primary experiment measures
deviations in the variance of the network output during brief, predesignated
examination periods corresponding to collective human
events of major importance. After nearly four years of operation, we
find that, whereas the data overall meet standard criteria for randomness
and device stability [6], the data corresponding to the specied
periods tend to exhibit anomalous deviations from expectation.

from, “Correlations of Continuous Random Data With Major World Events”
R. D. Nelson,a D. I. Radin,b R. Shoup,c P. A. Banceld
-Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Princeton University
-Institute of Noetic Sciences
-Boundary Institute
Received 18 July 2002; revised 4 October 2002