Michael Prescott's Blog

Killing me SOFT-ly, part two

Continuing with my Reader's Digest look at James E. Beichler's To Die For, which presents his single (operational) field theory, or SOFT ...

Having argued that our universe is five-dimensional and that mind and consciousness (or, as he likes to put it, MIND and CONSCIOUSNESS) exist in the fifth dimension, Beichler looks at what would happen after death in such a scenario. Essentially, the four-dimensional aspects of a sentient being would fall apart, but the fifth-dimensional aspects (mind and consciousness), being separate or at least separable from the material world, would persist.

Some excerpts:

The LIFE complexity or field is irreparably damaged when a living being dies. In the terms of SOFT, the field density pattern of LIFE in the fifth dimension loses coherence, which means that the field structure collapses ...

MIND cannot just dissipate away because it is organized by CONSCIOUSNESS, while CONSCIOUSNESS lends to MIND the coherence that it originally received through LIFE and the chemical reactions in the material body. CONSCIOUSNESS automatically takes over and supplies coherence to the MIND when the material chemical coherence, otherwise supplied by the body before death, ceases. Quite literally, MIND and CONSCIOUSNESS reinforce each other and thereby maintain an internal pattern of stability within the five-dimensional single field ... MIND and CONSCIOUSNESS were only connected to the four-dimensional material world by LIFE, so they need not remain connected to the four-dimensional material world after death ...

After death, the mind is cut off from the input of the five physical senses. This sudden cut-off can lead to disorientation. In some cases, the deceased person (or a person having a near-death experience) will find himself in a black void, which he may find terrifying. Some negative or "hellish" NDEs are of this type. The void, according to Beichler, is a reflection of the fact that the mind has not yet come to terms with its new condition. It is still looking for input through the familiar sensory channels, which no longer operate.

Normally, the mind does make the necessary adjustments. As Beichler explains:

The MIND still expects mental input and will accept input from any source available ... The MIND searches for new sources of memory and these can only come from the CONSCIOUSNESS after death via its five-dimensional conductivity in the single field ...

The mind's success in obtaining new inputs depends on its level of development.

The greater the complexity of CONSCIOUSNESS is, the greater the sensitivity of CONSCIOUSNESS to detecting the whims and fancy of the rest of the universe. This level of complexity first developed during the life of the living person, so how a person lived his or her LIFE, the quality of his or her LIFE, determines the state of being of what survives at death ...

If the person had achieved a higher level of CONSCIOUSNESS, such as enlightenment, then the MIND would already have memories of a five-dimensional experience and would then merge with less difficulty into its new state of being ... However, if the MIND had no memories or even the slightest idea of its five-dimensional existence during life, such that the person had only attained the lowest minimal level of CONSCIOUSNESS before death, the surviving MIND might not accept its new reality and continue expecting input from the Brain and the four-dimensional world. Under these circumstances, the MIND might be 'stuck' in its four-dimensional reality even though is materially cut-off from that reality and not realize that the body is dead. Or the MIND might not accept the death of its host body and experience a total blackness or 'nothingness'. At a slightly higher level of CONSCIOUSNESS, the MIND, not yet realizing its new state of reality, could look to its own internal memories and go through a past-life review, like a body cannibalizing its body fat when no food or nourishment is available. In some cases, the MIND could get stuck in its own memories thinking that they are material reality and suffer through having to endlessly repeat all of its past memories ...

Assuming that the mind does grasp its new context and begins to operate accordingly, it will start to function efficiently in fifth-dimensional space.

The MIND would begin to accept input from the CONSCIOUSNESS and form new memories, a reversal of its learning methods while living. The sixth sense would become permanently active as the primary and only real source of input for the MIND. The MIND would have a sense of entering the 'light', which is just a four-dimensional interpretation of realizing or becoming aware of contact in and with the single field, which is completely filled with electromagnetic waves of every imaginable frequency and wavelength ... The MIND would interpret its conscious contact with all the different frequencies of electromagnetic waves, both visible and invisible when the body lived, as a brilliant 'white' light, beyond anything seen or known during LIFE ...

Many NDErs experience a lifetime of memories in just a few moments while dead. This fact implies that they are not within the normal space-time continuum and are not experiencing time as it flows within that continuum ... With a momentary death, the lack of sensory input from our normal world of four-dimensional sources induces a never before experienced state of quiet and peace in which MIND and CONSCIOUSNESS can function as a single structural unit independent of life and body ...

Of course, since the person in question is not the first person ever to die, there are others who have already been through all this. These others are at home in fifth-dimensional space and can serve as guides to the new arrival.

It would be logical to assume that loved ones who have already died would have undergone a similar process of realizing their own connectivity of thought and CONSCIOUSNESS with the fifth dimension and their own MIND/CONSCIOUSNESS structures have survived within the single field, so they would appear to come out of the light when contact is made by the newly 'arrived' MIND/CONSCIOUSNESS complex. The surviving MIND/CONSCIOUSNESS complex of the NDEr would literally pick out memories within its own MIND pattern with which it was already familiar, such as family members, loved ones or friends and this would in a sense 'call up' the external MIND/CONSCIOUSNESS complexes of those loved ones ...

Near-death experiencers often find themselves profoundly changed by what they've gone through. Beichler argues that the change comes about because of exposure to (or entry into) "the light," which is the mind's way of conceptualizing its experience of five-dimensional reality, in which everyone and everything is connected.

After the NDE the experiencer would judge and make choices against the more complete and truer view of the whole five dimensions of the universe ...

In a sense our individual lives and LIFEs would be shared with others since we are all part of the same single field. Doing any type of harm to another living being would alter that being's internal pattern of MIND that would be communicated back to the individual causing harm by the five-dimensional connection between the two ...

Within this five-dimensional model, love can now be defined as an intimate and purposeful or directed five-dimensional connection with another being or beings ...

The pattern imprinted into the MIND and CONSCIOUSNESS of each person forms the special intimate pattern matching connection that is love ...

Teaching and practicing love and compassion as a precept during LIFE would help a person recognize and accept the 'white light' upon death ...

'Hate' must consist of an internal scrambling of one's own MIND and CONSCIOUSNESS patterns so they would no longer 'align' with the patterns of the person or persons toward whom the 'hate' is directed ...

The person could theoretically create his or her own hell based on their hatred, their scrambled interpretation of the universe and their discontinuity with the single field ...

As evidence, Beichler points to the statements of some NDErs whose experiences appear to have been particularly profound.*

Cherie Sutherland reports Michael's interpretation of his NDE during a surfing accident that alludes directly to this aspect of the phenomenon. "I was looking around and I sort of got this feeling, it's hard to explain, as though I was part of it all. I felt as though I was part of everything around me. I just felt as if everything was in me and I was in everything." Without knowing it, Michael was describing the mutual connectivity that he shares with other material objects in the universe as sympathetic patterns in the single field ...

Olaf described the 'location' of his NDE as a "universe without boundaries," a phrase which certainly would not seem to fit our four-dimensional reality ...

[quoting an NDEr:] "Now, there is a real problem for me as I'm trying to tell you this, because all the words I know are three-dimensional. As I was going through this, I kept thinking, well, when I was taking geometry, they always told me there were only three dimensions, and I always accepted that. But they were wrong. There are more. And of course, our world -- the one we're living in now -- is three-dimensional, but the next one definitely isn't. And that's why it's so hard to tell you this. I have to describe it to you in words that are three-dimensional. That's as close as I can get to it, but it's not really adequate. I can't really give you a complete picture."

The reference to "a universe without boundaries" reminds me of the well-known channeled book, The Unobstructed Universe, by Stewart Edward White. This is one of the more technical books purporting to explain the afterlife, and if I recall correctly, some of its content matches up pretty well with SOFT.

In addition to NDEs, there is a similar phenomenon which Beichler dubs Near-Death-Like Experiences, or NDLEs. In these cases, a person undergoes some of the stages of an NDE without actually being near death. Certain meditative techniques can bring about an NDLE. So can a frightening situation in which the person fully expects to die, even though death is not actually imminent. (A famous example is a collection of NDLEs reported by mountain climbers who fell a great distance but were saved from death by handing in soft snow.)

When the MIND is completely convinced that death is imminent, it can elicit a defense mechanism by which it spontaneously enters a low level NDLE. The MIND starts to shut LIFE down in preparation for what it believes will be an inevitable death ... This chemical process can spontaneously initiate a chemical cascade in the Brain resulting in an abridged form of an NDE ...

Beichler says that paranormal phenomena in general can be easily viewed in terms of SOFT, whether the percipient has an NDE, an NDLE, or some other experience. For instance, take remote viewing. The person sits in a room and describes a location that may be hundreds of miles away. How is this possible? If the mind is limited to four-dimensional spacetime, it seems inexplicable. Burt if the mind occupies a fifth dimension, then it need not be bound by the restrictions of our 4D world. It can range across space (and time). An analogy would be to a Flatland universe in which the inhabitants were aware of only two dimensions of space. If one of the Flatlanders could rise up out of the sheet of paper he lived on and view it from above, he would be able to see all the way to the edges of the paper. He would appear to have a godlike perspective, unbound by physical constraints. But actually he would still be operating in the physical world, only it would be a world of three dimensions (in space), rather than two.

The remote viewer, according to SOFT, is similar to the elevated Flatlander. He is able to see our 4D world from a 5D perspective. The results may seem miraculous or at least anomalous, but they are anomalous only within a 4D context.

NDErs (and mediums, and psychics) often talk about "vibrations" (a term that comes up frequently in The Unobstructed Universe, by the way). Beichler prefers to think in terms of resonances.

The SOFT view of death is further supported by reports that experiencers sense or feel love material effects of the NDE at the cellular level, many times as vibrations. These are not true vibrations in the material sense, but are instead identified as physical field resonances as described by SOFT ...

When energy changes occur in the cell they affect the five-dimensional extensions of the individual elementary particles that constitute the cell by increasing or decreasing their extension into the fifth dimension. These changes entangle within the five-dimensional single field to determine the overall field density variation pattern which is LIFE itself. However, these changes are actually variations in the field density of the single field as a complete continuous whole. As such, these cells act like antennas to pick up changes of field density from other sources in the five-dimensional single field environment of LIFE, MIND and CONSCIOUSNESS ...

What, then, can we expect our existence to be like in this fifth dimension, and what is the point of it all?

The surviving MIND/CONSCIOUSNESS complex is essentially freed from its material bondage in the four-dimensional 'sheet' that is our material world and continues to exist as a free entity in the five-dimensional single field ...

The single field fills the entire universe, so the 'spirit' exists in the same complete universe that the living being occupied, only it is a far more complete universe that the 'spirit' occupies ...

Just as increasing knowledge of the world and a new memories openly resulted in the evolution of CONSCIOUSNESS out of the raw 'stuff' of the MIND, we can assume that increasing knowledge and understanding of the greater five-dimensional universe should precipitate a new and even higher-level complexity corresponding to a sixth dimension of space ...

The very fact to that individual CONSCIOUSNESS is so heavily entwined with the rest of the universe, should alone imply some type of conscious choice in the evolution of LIFE, MIND and CONSCIOUSNESS as well is what lies beyond ...

The existence of a single conscious being in the universe must render the universe itself conscious ...

The goal or purpose of self-realization, the primary property of consciousness, is both imminent in every point of space-time and transcendent beyond the mere collection of all the points in space-time, from the perspective of the universe itself ...

If there is good and evil in the universe, then what is good is that which helps the universe gain true knowledge of itself and that which is evil would be anything that disrupts the search for true knowledge as well as the development, support and dissemination of harmful false knowledge.

Anything that blocks other human beings and sentient beings in their own personal quest for true knowledge is wrong if not outright evil ...

Death also opens the door to the next step in the development of CONSCIOUSNESS. The next step in evolution could not be as effective as possible while the MIND and CONSCIOUSNESS are hampered by their connection to the material world by LIFE ...

If this is true, should we be in a hurry to die? Beichler cautions against this conclusion.

Every person should live as long as possible so that they can learn as much as possible to develop their CONSCIOUSNESS and thereby prepare for what happens to them upon death. Since the 'purpose' of every living being is to seek, learn and disseminate true knowledge, ending the LIFE of oneself or another sentient being amounts to artificially and wrongfully ending a line of unique knowledge and experience in the universe. Taking another person's or sentient being's LIFE is a crime against the universe ...

He also deals with the issue of grieving. He points out that while the deceased person remains in existence, his absence is felt by those left behind, who no longer have contact with him through the physical senses. Often, a grieving person will receive psychic impressions from the deceased (after-death communications), but these may actually exacerbate the person's confusion and pain.

The living person's MIND is still receiving subtle" from the surviving CONSCIOUSNESS of the dead partner via the sixth sense, but receives no corresponding chemical signals via the normal five senses. This mismatching of input signals to the MIND, coming from two different 'directions', causes a 'dissonance' in the MIND from the eyes and inner ear.

Rather than obsessing on the deceased, it is best to think of him as having gone away on a journey. He will not return, but we will join him when the time is right. In the meantime, our mission of raising our own consciousness here in four-dimensional spacetime continues, with the incentive that a higher level of consciousness (which means not only knowledge but also compassion, love, and a sense of oneness with all things) will ease our transition to the next world.

The above is a painfully brief summary of a far more detailed presentation. Is Beichler on to something? I don't know. I can't assess his theory on a technical level. But SOFT does offer certain advantages over competing approaches. For one thing, it resolves the old question of mind-body dualism by positing that the mind is a fifth-dimensional extension of the material body. It also solves the related problem of interactionism, inasmuch as the mind is no less physical than the body.

Moreover, it addresses the issue of methodological naturalism, which is so important to science. Methodological naturalism holds that science should always seek a non-supernatural explanation for any phenomenon. The rationale behind this method is that if we grant that a supernatural explanation is adequate, then we will probably stop looking for a natural explanation. For instance, if we decide that smallpox is a curse sent by the devil, then we may feel we don't need to look any further - and we will never learn that smallpox is caused by a virus, which can be combated with antiviral medicines. Or if we believe thunder is the roaring of the gods, we may not look deeper into the phenomenon and discover that its origin is electrical discharges in the atmosphere.

Methodological naturalism has been so crucial to science that scientists are unlikely to give it up. This is one reason -  maybe the chief reason - why mainstream science chooses to ignore or ridicule paranormal phenomena. The stigma of superstition is simply too great to overcome. But if some natural, physical explanation were provided for such phenomena, some of the resistance offered by the scientific community might melt away. Beichler's SOFT may offer such an approach.

----

*Art, these are for you!

Killing me SOFT-ly, part one

In his new book To Die For: The Physical Reality of Conscious Survival, James E. Beichler advances a theory of the physical universe that makes room for the survival of human personality after death. Building on the work of Oskar Klein and Theodor Kaluza in the 1920s, he suggests that we inhabit a universe of five dimensions -- the three physical dimensions we perceive with our senses, the fourth dimension of time, and a fifth dimension that can be apprehended only through intuition or a sixth sense. This fifth dimension is also physical, but non-material, in the same way that a field is physical even though it is not made of matter. Our physical senses are not subtle enough to perceive this fifth dimension, but our mind can perceive it at times.

In such a universe, the survival of mind and consciousness after death would be predictable, though the specific form that such survival might take would vary from person to person, depending on the state of that person's consciousness at the time of death.

Beichler spends more than 100 pages of his book elaborating on this idea; I can only provide a few excerpts and summaries. Not being a physicist or a mathematician, I'm in no position to evaluate his theory, but it is certainly provocative. Those who want more detail are urged to read the book.

In a chapter titled "The SOFT Life," Beichler introduces what he calls

the 'single (operational) field theory' or SOFT. According to this theory, the single continuous field fills or coexists with all of five-dimensional space-time while our material four-dimensional world is just a 'sheet' consisting of a very dense portion of the field within the five-dimensional single field. Yet the 'sheet' is completely continuous with the single field, not something separate. The quantum is defined by the 'effective width' of the 'sheet' in the fifth direction, which is extremely small. This single field is the precursor to all other physical fields. It yields matter, gravity, electricity, magnetism and the other natural fields within our relativistic four-dimensional continuum ...

Our normal five senses work within the four-dimensional continuum in which our material world exists, but we have an innate sixth sense whose existence is not recognized by most people. This sixth sense works completely within the fifth dimension. It can be shown that life, mind and consciousness are specific five-dimensional field structures, rendering our perceptions of the fifth dimension completely para-normal ...

The point-by-point extension from four dimensions into and along the fifth direction must be extremely small to guarantee that we do not 'normally' sense or otherwise detect the fifth dimension.... We can rule out doubt both infinitesimally small ... as well as infinite extensions or 'sheet' widths in the fifth direction. These cases lead to anomalies, physical impossibilities and/or logical paradoxes.

The fifth direction is macroscopically extended. So, while the overall extension in the fifth direction can be extremely large and still remained closed, there is no such restriction on the thickness of the 'sheet' that constitutes our four-dimensional space-time. We cannot perceive the fifth direction in any manner that resembles our perceptions of the other common dimensions because the 'sheet' is so thin in the fifth direction, not because our overall extension in the fifth direction is so small. Only the 'effective width' or 'thickness' of the 'sheet' itself need be microscopically small, not the complete extension ...

Beichler maintains that SOFT can reconcile quantum physics with Einstein's relativity theory, and thus represents an important advance over the status quo. He further argues that chemical activity in four-dimensional space-time has a direct effect on the fifth dimension, leaving traces or signatures there.

Quantum theory only describes physics 'inside' the sheet and is therefore 'incomplete' as Einstein argued in the 1930s. Otherwise, all particles follow the physical restrictions noted in the special theory of relativity with regard to the fifth dimension. When particles move at some speed relative to the 'sheet' they undergo Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction along the direction that they are moving through three-dimensional space. This change squeezes the particle's five-dimensional 'effective volume' forcing the interior of the particle 'up' further along the fifth direction, increasing the particle's five-dimensional aspect (five-dimensional height) as a function of the increasing kinetic energy of the particle or object. As a particle slows down, its aspect or height in the fifth dimension decreases ... This mechanical like movement, 'up' and 'down' in the fifth direction, impresses or imprints fluctuations in the single field density just 'outside' of the 'sheet'. This imprint would be the trace or energy signature of the physical event in the single field ...

All chemical reactions of the same type would leave the same energy traces imprinted in the single field.

These single field density changes are 'felt' or 'sensed' by other particles and objects due to the connections of all material particles afforded by the single continuous field. The variations and changes in the single field are essentially 'communicated' throughout the whole field. That 'communication' is not restricted by our normal physical laws, which apply only within the 'sheet'. This 'communication' process forms the basis of what scientists commonly called quantum entanglement ...

An equilibrium reaction, which is ongoing and relatively stable, will produce a distinctive and continuous trace or signature. Such signatures achieve relative permanence in the fifth dimension. As these equilibrium reactions become more elaborate, the resulting signatures become more complex.

It would be possible for several different equilibrium reactions to combine their 'efforts' for a common 'cause' and form a connected or interlinked (quantum entangled) interaction ... The entanglement pattern of this chemical configuration is of greater consequence and far more interesting for this ensemble then the patterns of other simple chemical reaction[s]. The special entanglement of these equilibrium reactions renders the pattern completely stable relative to the outside environment in a manner similar to a very complex standing wave ...

The overall reaction or structure does not need to rely on the three-dimensional conditions or the environment for its internal stability although it may need to take energy from its environment at times ... The resulting density variations are imprinted in the five-dimensional single field to form a single complex yet stable entangled pattern ...

LIFE... comes into being when a specific mixture of different chemical reactions evolves into an organism by forming a special complex entanglement of different equilibrium reactions. This entanglement corresponds to a mathematical complexity that represents a self-sustaining single field density pattern in the five-dimensional extension of the reacting substances that form the material living organism ...

So LIFE is a physical (five-dimensional) but non-material (non-four-dimensional) field structure with a real physical existence ...

After life comes mind, which also has a fifth-dimensional signature, and is tied less directly to four-dimensional space-time.

The Brain has a strictly four-dimensional existence. However, the development of the Brain coincides with the emergence of an even more refined complex pattern of field density variations. This new pattern is imprinted on the LIFE pattern. Since it is a refined field imprint pattern on the LIFE pattern, the emergence of this new five-dimensional extension of the Brain could be described as a secondary complexity yielding a secondary attractor. This new secondary complexity is MIND ...

At some point, the MIND pattern may realize that there are points in space and time beyond its immediate perception - past and future, or distant locations. This sets the stage for the emergence of consciousness, which exists in the fifth dimension and is only indirectly connected to four-dimensional space-time (through the intermediary of the MIND pattern).

[MIND learns] that physical objects outside of the local range of its senses continue to exist even when they are not directly sensed. ... [Later] MIND becomes aware of its own local position in time as opposed to the temporal non-locality of the past and future. The memories stored in MIND at this juncture, which led to an awareness of both spatial and temporal non-locality, precipitate the formation of a new and subtler five-dimensional single field density pattern within the five-dimensional MIND pattern. This new field density pattern emerges as an imprint over the MIND pattern. In other words, when MIND cognizes or realizes the non-locality of space and time, a third complexity emerges which we call CONSCIOUSNESS....

CONSCIOUSNESS is a completely five-dimensional entity, whose connection to four-dimensional space-time is mediated by MIND, so it has the ability to directly sense its five-dimensional environment and the totality of the universe, without the mediation of the four-dimensional Brain. This new sense amounts to what we commonly call intuition and PSI, the basis of our sixth sense ...

Paranormal phenomena can be easily explained within this model as an entanglement between different CONSCIOUSNESSes (ESP) or between a CONSCIOUSNESS and a material object (Psychokinesis)....

Our CONSCIOUSNESS is in constant contact with the single field at all times, but we are not normally aware of this contact, which is subliminal and clouded by our five normal senses ...

Enlightenment occurs when a person develops a waking or conscious awareness of his or her five-dimensional connection with the rest of the universe ...

[The enlightened] are taught to let go of the 'self' which is considered an illusion from the point of view of a higher consciousness and reality, which would be an apt description of a five-dimensional viewpoint of our four-dimensional material 'self' ...

Beichler then discusses the possible role of microtubules in consciousness -- a long and rather technical section, the upshot of which is that "each and every axon is thus a small electromagnetic bio-transmitter and/or receiver ... The magnetic fields of the [microtubules] are the encoding device for storing and retrieving our memories [in the fifth dimension]. When all of the individual [microtubules] charge and discharge, they leave a magnetic signature or trace pattern within the overall MIND pattern in the fifth dimension. Each and every thought that we have and sensation that we feel is thus imprinted as a special magnetic pattern in the five-dimensional single field."

From here, Beichler proceeds to a discussion of life after death or, as he prefers to call it, the survival of  "the MIND/CONSCIOUSNESS structure or complex." We will look at this next time.

Fussin' and fusion

A couple of years ago I read up on cold fusion and decided there might actually be something to it, despite the vigorous attempts of the scientific community to debunk it.

Now there's a new report of possible confirmatory findings.

Researchers at a US Navy laboratory have unveiled what they say is "significant" evidence of cold fusion, a potential energy source that has many skeptics in the scientific community.

The scientists on Monday described what they called the first clear visual evidence that low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), or cold fusion devices can produce neutrons, subatomic particles that scientists say are indicative of nuclear reactions.

"Our finding is very significant," said analytical chemist Pamela Mosier-Boss of the US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego, California.

"To our knowledge, this is the first scientific report of the production of highly energetic neutrons from a LENR device," added the study's co-author in a statement.

The study's results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The article goes on to snark:

The city is also the site of an infamous presentation on cold fusion 20 years ago by Martin Fleishmann [sic] and Stanley Pons that sent shockwaves across the world.

Despite their claim to cold fusion discovery, the Fleishmann-Pons study soon fell into discredit after other researchers were unable to reproduce the results.

Get that? The "infamous" presentation. Keep in mind that the main paper that discredited Fleischmann and Pons was the one produced by MIT - and serious questions have been raised about the scientific integrity of this paper:

Take, for starters, the Energy Resources Advisory Board (ERAB) panel appointed during the [George H.W.] Bush administration to look into the cold fusion claims made by Pons and Fleischmann. That panel leaned heavily on an experiment done at MIT that found the field unworthy of financial support. Since then, however, Dr. Eugene Mallove, the chief science writer at MIT at the time, has come forward to denounce the MIT study, citing irregularities in the way MIT's results were presented.

Mallove contends MIT's researchers did generate excess heat in their cold fusion experiment, and then fudged that finding in their final report. As evidence, Mallove has produced a copy of the original heat-measurement graph used in the MIT experiment, which showed slight heat production above the expected level. That graph did not appear in the final MIT report. In its place, the MIT team published an "adjusted" graph that showed no production of excess heat.

Mallove resigned in protest and demanded an investigation.

In addressing Mallove's complaint, MIT did not dispute that the original graph had been altered. Instead, one of the 15 authors of the MIT report was permitted to take the unusual step of changing the description of the experiment's purpose *after* the paper describing it was published.

According to an appendix added to the report as a result of the investigation into Mallove's charges, the experiment was redefined to have been a search for a sudden onset of released energy, rather than to determine if unaccounted-for heat was being generated in cold fusion cells. No such claim was made at the time the report was originally published and presented to Congress. Mallove contends MIT's handling of the matter was fatally flawed. "In science, we don't usually allow anyone to redefine the purpose of an experiment to match the results," he says.

On the basis of questionable research like this, Drs. Fleischmann and Pons became "infamous."

I concede that the two chemists probably should not have rushed to make their findings public. Had they waited and gone through the normal peer review process, their claims might have met with less resistance. On the other hand, the peer review process could have ended up suppressing their experiment altogether. So it's a close call.

Whether there's any practical value to cold fusion, I don't know, but since the Fleischmann-Pons results have been replicated in other laboratories, it's pretty clear that something is going on.

The Brothers Boringmyassov

Continuing my Russian period, and having finished War and Peace, I've started reading The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. I knew, of course, that Dostoevsky differs greatly from Tolstoy. Many years ago I read Crime and Punishment and Notes from Underground and one of his other novels -- I forget which one, maybe The Idiot. I've also read part of The Devils, which I didn't finish.

But frankly, I'd forgotten what a chore it can be to read this guy.

For the most part, I did not find Tolstoy's War and Peace to be a chore. There were some slow sections, especially in the latter part of the book, and I did think the ending was a bit anticlimactic, but overall I found it a fascinating and absorbing novel. Now I'm 250 pages into Karamazov, and I'm remembering how much I dislike Dostoevsky.

For one thing, he could have used an editor. He goes on at great length about things that strike me as trivial or meaningless. The whole book is cluttered up with prolix and pointless monologues, like this one delivered by a scatterbrained mother:

I myself keep forgiving her, because she's such a clever little girl. You wouldn't believe how clever she is! Just now she told me that you were her childhood friend, "the closest childhood friend I ever had," as she put it -- just imagine that, the closest -- and what about me? Where do I come in? She feels very strongly about this and remembers many things very clearly. She says things that again and again take me completely by surprise. Recently, for instance, about a pine tree -- we had a pine tree in our garden when she was very little. Well, possibly that pine is still there, so there's no need to talk about it in the past tense, for pines are not people -- they don't change so quickly. "Mother," she said, "I remember so clearly now that pine I've been pining for." You understand, "pine" and "to pine" -- although actually she said it somewhat differently -- I'm a bit confused. The word "pine" by itself is just a silly word, but she said something extremely original, something that I can't seem to repeat. Besides, I've forgotten exactly what she said.

Ummm ... what the hell?!

Now imagine 900 pages of this. Where is Reader's Digest when you need them?

I realize that Dostoevsky was fascinated by the subconscious, and that his interest in this subject put him well ahead of his time. These monologues no doubt are intended to shed light on the characters' subconscious in some way. Nevertheless, a little of this kind of thing goes a long way. And Dostoevsky is never satisfied with just a little.

Beyond the proliferation of empty verbiage, the book is profoundly depressing. Almost every character is either insane or teetering on the brink of insanity. For while I held out hope that the the book's nominal hero, Alexei, would prove more or less normal - until he impulsively decided to marry a girl named Lise, who is characterized by a tendency to burst into gales of hysterical laughter for no reason.

Furthermore, I find nearly all the characters unappealing and dislikable. Some of them, like the elder Karamazov, are plainly meant to be despised; he is drawn as a drunken, lecherous buffoon. Others are probably meant to engage our sympathies to some extent, but for the most part - with the exception of the kindly monk Zosima - they strike me as unattractive, even repulsive, or simply incomprehensible. Fittingly, they are set against a landscape of despair and alienation, living in squalor, and making stupid, empty, hurtful gestures at every opportunity.

Basically, the novel plunges us into a world of madness, depravity, and ugliness. And did I mention it's 900 pages long? Yikes. War and Peace is 50% longer, but its characters are mostly psychologically healthy, albeit flawed, and Tolstoy's outlook on life is largely positive, noble, uplifting, even -- at times -- radiant. I doubt that anyone has ever used those adjectives to describe Dostoevsky. His world is the literary equivalent of Edvard Munch's famous painting, The Scream.

Anyway, I will soldier on the little further. The famous Grand Inquisitor scene is coming up, and since this is perhaps the most widely praised thing Dostoevsky ever wrote, I feel obliged to read it. Whether or not I will go on to finish the novel remains to be seen. After all, Anna Karenina is waiting in the wings, and I would like to get back to Tolstoy's world.

Shell game

Wanna see a video of a turtle humping a sneaker?

Of course you do.

Sadly, the clip ends before the turtle smokes a cigarette.

Warren piece

I enjoy David Warren's incisive and sardonic social critiques, even if he is sometimes too pessimistic for my taste. (When it comes to the long-term future of our society, I am no optimist, but Warren can be downright lugubrious.) Warren is an unapologetic conservative and religionist who is profoundly unimpressed by the rising tide of secularism, materialism, and narcissism. He's the sort of fearless curmudgeon who can opine that there is more empirical evidence for the miracle at Lourdes than there is for macroevolution by means of natural selection - as he did in an essay on Darwin that undoubtedly raised many hackles.

And then there's his piece on global warming which came out just the other day. Warren is a skeptic of manmade global warming, as am I. But that's not really the interesting part of his essay. What's interesting is his take on modern science itself:

The various systems of peer-review -- which emerged with a vengeance after the Second World War, and have continued to mutate into something that would have sunk almost every major scientific advance in previous history -- have themselves become deeply corrupted. What was intended at first as an administrative mechanism to reduce the amount of sheer flakery in scientific journals has become a policing system to enforce scientific orthodoxy.

And the problem with that is, there can be no such thing as scientific orthodoxy. Free empirical enquiry includes testing the premises as well as the results; and for skeptics, a perpetual open season on both.

Nor was science traditionally the monopoly of a credentialed class. Once again, it must be stressed that major advances in all the sciences have as often come from rank amateurs as from seasoned professionals.

Nor is it surprising that this should be so, for the ability to see questions whole, to apply logic and even common sense dispassionately, is hardly restricted to those who are coagulated into the specialized details of a subject.

That's good stuff.

Near death

Here's an interesting case involving a near-death experience, which was recommended in comments by Markus Hesse. The link Markus supplied no longer works, and I don't think the paper is still available online.

Published in the Journal of Near-Death Studies, 25(2), Winter 2006, the paper is titled "A Prospectively Studied Near-Death Experience with Corroborated Out-of-Body Perceptions and Unexplained Healing." The authors are Penny Sartori, Paul Badham, and Peter Fenwick.

Penny Sartori, the lead author and lead investigator, works as a nurse in an intensive care center. As the article explains,

She attempted to verify the out-of-body component of the NDE by placing hidden symbols on top of each patient’s cardiac monitor, attached to the wall beside the bed and above head height....  She also recorded arterial blood sample results taken during the period of unconsciousness when the NDE was assumed to have occurred and any drugs administered. This was to explore the suggestions that NDEs are due to anoxia, hypoxia, hypercarbia, or drug administration.

The first  thing to note is that the patient in this case, a sixty-year-old male, did not see the hidden symbol.  As he reported to Sartori:

No, I’ll be honest with you, Pen, I didn’t look. I didn’t twist my head back that way; I was just looking at my side. I could see you and the doctor and two to three others around me.

Even so, the NDE has its unusual features - which we'll get to in a moment.

The experience took place after the man, recovering from sepsis following cancer surgery, passed out in the intensive care unit. 

... the nurse noted that the patient’s respiratory rate had increased markedly and his oxygen blood saturation levels had dropped to 70 to 86 percent, from its previous normal level of 96 percent and above. The senior author (P.S.) then manually ventilated the patient with 100 percent oxygen provided by means of an Ambu bag, and the drop in oxygen level was rectified. Although his oxygenation remained stable above 94 percent, the patient’s blood pressure then dropped to 85/50 millimeters of mercury, his skin became very clammy, and his condition deteriorated rapidly. There was a brief episode of supraventricular tachycardia that reverted spontaneously without any medication.... By the time he was put into bed he was deeply unconscious, his eyes were closed, and he was not responding to verbal command or deep painful stimuli.

He did not show any signs of alertness for thirty minutes, and did not regain full consciousness for three hours.

Once fully conscious, the medical team rounding on the ward approached his bedside and he excitedly tried to communicate something to the doctors. He was unable to speak, as he was still connected to the ventilator. The physiotherapist provided him with a letter board, on which he spelled out: ‘‘I died and I watched it all from above.’’ This was witnessed by the doctors and nurses who were present on the ward rounds.

Some skeptics hypothesize that people make up NDEs for publicity purposes or simply to call attention to themselves. This undoubtedly happens sometimes; in fact, Kenneth Ring's book Mindsight includes a case of this sort. But in this particular case, it seems most unlikely that the patient, having just recovered from a major trauma, would have been interested in making up a story. Clearly he believed he had experienced something extraordinary and was desperate to communicate what he had seen.

It's also important to note that the patient, at the time, was unaware of Sartori's interest in NDEs. In fact, Sartori was not even present when the patient wrote his message on the letter board. Only later did she reveal her research project to him and ask for his participation. In short, the idea of NDEs had not been suggested to him by Sartori, and he was not merely telling her what she wanted to hear.

In many respects, his NDE was rather typical.

All I can remember is looking up in the air and I was floating in a bright pink room. I couldn’t see anything; I was just going up and there was no pain at all. I looked up the second time and I could see my father and my mother-in-law standing alongside a gentleman with long, black hair, which needed to be combed. I saw my father – definitely – and I saw this chap. I don’t know who he was, maybe Jesus, but this chap had long, black, scruffy hair that needed combing. The only thing nice about him was his eyes were drawing you to him; the eyes were piercing; it was his eyes. When I went to look at my father, it was drawing with his eyes as well, as if I could see them both [at] the same time. And I had no pain at all. There was talking between me and my father; not words but communicating other ways – don’t ask me what, but we were actually talking. I was talking to my father … not through words through my mouth, but through my mind.

Telepathic communication is a very common feature of NDEs, as is the presence of a spiritual figure taken to possibly be Jesus. Later the patient elaborated on this point.

I could say it was Jesus, I could say it was God, but who am I to know that? He didn’t speak to me saying it was Jesus, but I know [the other man] was my father.… My father was there.

We could speculate that the Jesus figure was the patient's higher self. Whatever its significance, such spiritual figures - often iconic - are common in NDEs, and are sometimes linked to the "being of light" reported by some NDErs (but not this one).

The patient reported:

I went up. … It was so painless; there was no pain.… I was so happy.… I was enjoying myself. But looking back, I could see other patients as well below me. That’s what I couldn’t figure out: I could see everybody. I was happy, no pain at all, until I felt somebody going to my eye.

The person "going to [his] eye" was an anesthetist who was checking his pupils for reactivity. The patient reported this person saying, ‘‘There’s life in the eye.’’

Actually this is not what the anesthetist said. Instead he reported that the pupils were reactive but were of unequal size. Still, the patient's version of the statement captures its essential meaning. In another part of his testimony, the patient says he does not remember hearing anything distinctly in the ward; "I heard voices down below but couldn’t make out what they were saying." Is it possiblen that he did not actually hear the doctor's voice but instead got a read on his thoughts?

The patient accurately described what was happening in the room at a time when he was deeply unconscious. He saw "the blonde lady therapist boss" hiding "behind the curtains" and looking out nervously - a correct description of the woman's actions. He saw Sartori place something like "a long, pink lollipop" into his mouth. This was a swab that she used to moisten his mouth. It had been used on the patient before, and he could have remembered the color and general appearance, but how did he know it was used on him when he was unconscious?

Throughout this time, much of his attention was directed toward the spirit figures he was interacting with. Oddly, he describes at least two of these as being visible only from the waist up, like figures in a medium shot on TV.

In a rather typical development for an NDE, one of these people - the Jesus-like figure - told the patient's father and mother-in-law, ‘‘He’s got to go back; he’s not ready yet.’’

Eventually, I felt myself coming slowly back into my body. I went in my body on the bed and I was in terrible pain; the pain was worse then than it had ever been before.

During the NDE he had felt no pain, only a sense of peace. He told Sartori, "Pen, if that’s death, it’s wonderful, there’s no pain at all."

One odd feature of the experience is the presence of the patient's mother-in-law, a woman he had never met in life, because she died before he met his wife. He recognized her from photos but had no personal connection with her. "Why couldn’t my mother have been there?" the patient asked plaintively in the course of his interview. Those who say that NDEs are mere wish fulfillment will have to address the fact that, in this and other cases,  the patient does not always see what he wants to see.

As for why the mother-in-law was there, one might speculate that she wanted her daughter to know she still existed after death. Or possibly the patient and his mother-in-law are connected in some way that transcends the details of this particular lifetime. (Some people say we are tied in with other souls in a sort of ongoing "group soul.")

Asked how high up he was when he floated over the room, the patient - a carpenter accustomed to working on tall buildings - estimated that he was higher than the ceiling. In fact, "there was no ceiling at all. That’s what I mean, it was just a room … what I thought was a room. It could have been a square tunnel going up towards my father, but no barrier stopping me going up, no ceiling; it was a complete clear entrance."

Looking down, he felt he was as high as the roof of "a three-story, two-story building. About that, looking down. A big house height – I could see my body and I could see what was going on."

Earlier in his treatment, the patient had been given morphine, which caused hallucinations. However, he had been off the morphine for "a few days prior to his NDE," according to the research paper. Even so, Sartori asked him to compare the NDE to his morphine-induced hallucinations.

It's as if [the NDE] happened yesterday; I’ll never forget it. Not like the hallucinations.... Every time I pressed that button [for morphine], the hallucinations would start. The room would spin around, the walls would move, and I’d see stupid things that weren’t there.... I knew they weren’t real; they were a bit like, like, dreamlike, but worse.

Sartori asked if the hallucinations were similar to the NDE.

Oh, no. They were very different. That near-death experience was real; there’s no doubt in my mind. The hallucinations, well, they weren’t real; it was like a bad dream gone wrong. Stupid things were happening, you know? No, they were both very different experiences.

Asked what he's learned from the experience, the patient replied, "Well … no fear about death." This reaction is also quite typical in NDEs.

As mentioned above, Sartori was able to check the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the patient's bloodstream while the man was unconscious. She reports that the oxygen level was normal, but the carbon dioxide was elevated. This rules out anoxia as a cause of the experience, but does not rule out hypercarbia (excess carbon dioxide). As the paper notes,

Effects of high levels of carbon dioxide (hypercarbia) may include some features similar to components of NDEs, includ[ing] feelings of ineffability, a sense of bodily detachment, telepathic communication with a religious figure, perception of a bright light, memories from the past, and feelings of cosmic importance. Other effects of hypercarbia include seeing animated objects, compulsion to solve mathematical problems, the perception of geometric figures or patterns such as stained glass, and frightening perceptions of ‘‘shapeless and objectless horror.’’

The patient reported some, but not all, of these symptoms. Hypercarbia seems to produce a dreamlike experience, while the patient insisted that his experience was not a dream.

So far the case is interesting but not very unusual. There is, however, one very noteworthy element: a preexisting, long-term medical condition largely cleared up immediately after the NDE. As a result of "cerebral palsy with a right spastic hemiparesis," the patient's hand had been fixed in a clawlike, closed position for his entire life.  This condition "was documented in the patient’s medical admission notes" and confirmed by his sister.

The medical and physiotherapy notes were checked to see if extensive physiotherapy had been performed on his hand [while he was in intensive care]; it had not. However, it was documented in the physiotherapy notes that there was increased muscle tone in his contracted hand prior to discharge. This was discussed with the physiotherapist, who explained that the hand should not be able to open without an operation to release the tendons that had been in a contracted position for 60 years. No such operation had been performed. It remains unexplained how it is possible for the patient to be able now to open and use his previously contracted hand.

The patient told Sartori:

... when I came back down I could open my hand. This hand has always been strong [left] but this hand [right] used to be like this [fist clenched and contracted under]. All my life, for 60 years, my arm has always been like this; I could never open it. My father used to say, ‘‘The monkey is in the cage.’’ Now I can open it.... Even my sister was surprised about my hand. I’ve got cerebral palsy and my hand used to be like this [clenched and twisted underneath]; now I can open it. It feels a bit tight, but I do open it.... No, I’ve never been able to open it like that, Penny. Never; only a little bit.... I can do everything with it, all the cooking.

There were other improvements also:

They told me that my kidneys weren’t working properly, and now they’re working perfect, so I don’t know what that was. Also, I know I lost a lot of weight. My ankles used to get very swollen and now they’re like a two-year-old’s; they’re thin....

They told my sister that I didn’t have to have the kidney treatment because it was all working … Also, what I noticed since I came home, I used to turn my foot in; I can’t understand this, but I don’t do that anymore. I’m walking straight as a die, don’t know why; I’ve got taller – not taller, but I walk straighter.

Remembering the case of George Chapman, we might speculate that the patient's spiritual body, while separated from his physical body, was repaired in some fashion. Then when the spiritual body was reunited with his physical form, the repairs took hold in the physical body, as well.

In any event, the case is interesting in several respects: the patient's immediate report of an NDE as soon as he could communicate (and even before he could speak); the report of mental telepathy in the NDE; the accurate observations of behavior in the hospital room while the patient was deeply unconscious; the blood-gas levels measured during the event; the patient's loss of any fear of death; and of course the apparent spontaneous healing of several longstanding medical conditions.

It's just too bad he didn't see the hidden symbol. But I guess we can't have everything.

How free are we?

This may start out looking like a post about investing, but actually it's about free will.

As readers know, I stuck to my buy-and-hold investing strategy too long. Ideally I would have sold in 2007 when the market was at or near its top. I didn't. As a result, I lost a lot of money that I had made (or thought I'd made) over the last fifteen years.

Since then, I've started asking myself why I didn't sell sooner. Several people advised me to do so. There is even a fairly simple timing system that would have gotten me out of the market at about the right time. But I ignored the advice and didn't look at timing systems. I stuck with buy-and-hold until the market was down more than 50%.

It's easy to say I should have done this or that, but in thinking about it, I'm not so sure I could have done anything much different from what I did. After all, my investment decisions were not made in a vacuum. They were the result of at least three factors:

a. My history and experiences as an investor, which told me that I had done very well with buy-and-hold for a decade and a half.

b. My theoretical knowledge and belief system, which assured me that buy-and-hold beats all timing strategies over a long enough time period.

c. My temperament, which was (and is) averse to aggressive trading and sudden changes in my game plan.

Given a, b, and c, I probably could not have departed from my buy-and-hold strategy in 2007 or even in 2008. It was too deeply ingrained in me. It took a severe shock - the utter collapse of the market in the last six weeks - to knock me out of my complacency. In the absence of such a shock, I don't think I would have - or could have - changed.

Which of course raises the question: How free am I? How much free will do I really exercise, if my choices are so severely constrained by prior experience, theoretical belief, and personal temperament?

I don't doubt that I have some degree of free will. It's a logical contradiction to say we have no free will at all, inasmuch as all of our beliefs would then be predetermined, including our belief that we have no free will. And if our beliefs are predetermined (and therefore arbitrary), we have no reason to take them seriously. So by the very act of asserting that we have no free will, we are implicitly assuming that we do have at least enough free will to make up our own minds about it.

But there's a difference between having some free will and having unlimited free will. It seems to me that the constraints on our will are pretty onerous, and that many of the actions we take are dictated more by habit and routine, or by circumstances, than by conscious choice.

Tolstoy comes to the same conclusion in War and Peace. In the occasional historical essays that interrupt the novel, he argues that Napoleon and the other "great men" of that age were not puppet masters but puppets themselves - men moved by the tide of events, rather than controlling the tide. Tolstoy sees the Napoleonic Wars as the inevitable result of a confluence of an almost infinite number of factors, not least of which was the willingness of Napoleon's men to fight; had they refused to fight, the "great man" could have done nothing. Though Napoleon flattered himself by believing that he was in charge, he actually was at the mercy of blind historical forces beyond his - or anyone's - control.

To take a more recent example, let's look at the Iraq War. Rather than seeing the invasion of Iraq as a personal decision taken by a president and imposed almost singlehandedly, we might be wiser to see it as an inevitable outgrowth of the emotions ignited on 9/11. Given the fear of another terrorist attack, the widespread belief that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction, and the desire to lash out against the Arab world, it may have been inevitable that Iraq would find itself in our crosshairs, no matter who was serving as U.S. president. We like to imagine that different leadership would have had different consequences, but perhaps we are overestimating the role of free will and underestimating the power of circumstances and events, which take on a life of their own.

Or to give a personal example: As a teenager I became enamored of the philosophy of Ayn Rand. When I look back, I see Rand's philosophy as shallow and mostly false, and I've sometimes wondered how I could have fallen for it. Yet given my limited experience of life up to that point, my intellectual leanings at the time, and my psychology at that age, I may have had little, if any, choice in coming under Rand's spell. Free will may not have been much of a factor. I was strongly predisposed to like what I saw in Rand, just as, more recently, I was strongly predisposed to follow my buy-and-hold strategy. Volition had precious little to do with it in either case.

How many of the things we do in our lives, either as individuals or as a society, are shaped and molded by outside forces and prior events, allowing us little or no control over our own behavior? Hamlet said there's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will. Maybe it's divinity ... or maybe it's just circumstances.

Whatever it is, we may not be as free as we like to think. And this possibility has both positive and negative implications. The negative implication is that we are not nearly as much in control of our lives as we try to believe. The positive implication is that we need not beat ourselves up for our past mistakes, under the illusion that we could have done things differently. If we had no choice in the matter, then there is nothing to feel sorry about.

Paradoxically, then, our relative lack of freedom gives us a different kind of freedom - the freedom to let bygones be bygones ... to turn our backs on the past and let it go.

Dumb and dumber

I probably don't focus enough on the fraudulent side of the paranormal, so here's a reminder that not all psychics are what they claim to be.

From the Associated Press, via Yahoo News:

A New York man is suing a New Jersey psychic, claiming she defrauded him of nearly $250,000 he paid her to craft a golden statue that was supposed to ward off negativity. Charles Silveira, 38, of Seaford, Long Island, claims he never received the statue.

On Monday, he filed suit in New Jersey Superior Court in Morristown seeking to recover the money from 32-year-old Ava Miller of Mendham. Silveira also wants Miller removed from a $700,000 home he bought for her last year.

The lawsuit claims that Silveira met Miller online in 2007, and that he made several large cash payments to her over a period of several months.

Great. So this guy meets a purported psychic online, and before long has bought her a $700,000 house and "made several large cash payments," including a cool quarter mil for a mystical golden statue that she never even bothered to make.

That's some smart money management right there.

HT: Ace of Spades.

Laughing all the way to the poorhouse

In a season of very bad economic news, this eight-minute excerpt from The Daily Show made me laugh out loud.

Hat tip: Andrew Tobias.