Select Your Intention

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Frequently Asked Questions

What do the lines on the screen mean?
The graph shows the cumulative deviation from the mean of the data randomly generated by the Psyleron REG-1 - the data that you are trying to influence. It charts the random fluctuations, and within those fluctuations, it charts the influence of your intention.

The parabola that opens to the right is the 95% probability envelope. Without the influence of consciousness, the random walk should stay within those boundaries 95% of the time.

What is the baseline effort?
The baseline effort is an experimental trial where an operator is present, but has no stated intention. This is often mistaken for a calibration trial, but we do calibration trials completely separate from the operator influence on the machine. When you run baseline trials you can think of your intention as "no-intention."

How do I know how I'm doing?
Keep in mind that in the random variation in any particular run, the "noise" of the random walk is much greater than the effect of your intention. We can’t draw any conclusions on the basis of just a few runs, it is the combined databases that have shown the effect to be statistically significant. Even a relatively strong positive effect in a series can be difficult to see in any individual run, so don't become discouraged if it doesn't seem to be conforming to your stated intention.

While you watch the data in your runs, you may wonder what is a real pattern and what is just chance. Looking at the data at that scale, it is very difficult to make that distinction. It may be that the best measure of your success is an internal measure. Take the opportunity instead to watch yourself watching the data emerging. Do you notice your own reactions to it? Do you notice a resonance with it when its going in your stated direction? The desire to pull it, or push it, or belief or disbelief in yourself or the result?

To better understand your statistical contribution to the overall data, and see the cumulative results for all of your runs, make sure to record the experimental data at the end of each run and report it back to us here.

Do you have any suggestions for strategies to use?
First time operators are generally left to their own devices to discover what feels right for them. Since there has been little research into correlations between positive intentional results and any particular mental state, strategy, or tactic, advice on this topic is anecdotal. However, these anecdotal suggestions do seem to converge on a few recommendations. Adam Curry sums up some of these while talking about his own experience with REGs.

Additionally, some experiments have shown that certain environments, established emotional connections, or highly emotional times can have positive correlations with effect size or direction. Emotionally "bonded" mixed gender pairs had strong effects in the direction of their intention. Also, within different experimental protocols (importantly, no stated intention), highly emotional responses as well as emotionally "resonant" group environments (such as ceremonies, rituals, or other "harmonizing" group experiences) have been shown to influence the variance of the output of these devices, but how to compare those experiments and this one is not clear.

Perhaps the best advice is to listen to yourself and find your own zone of influence. That aside, if you're doing the experiment in a group, you may want to make it mixed gender and friendly. If you're alone watching the videos, you may want to recall that you're not really alone. Many other operators are out there, influencing these runs just as you are... You may want to try to establish a resonant emotional bond with your fellow (though distant) operators!

What is an REG?
REG stands for Random Event Generator (also known as a random number generator). It is a device that has a long history of successful use in the scientific study of consciousness-related phenomena. Combined with experimental and information processing protocols, it makes statistical calculations of mind-influence effects very straightforward.

As an electronic device it can be easily interfaced with computers, for software applications and data collection.

It is useful to think of the REG as an electronic coin flipper. Just as a flipped coin will land in a random heads or tails position, so will the REG produce a random binary outcome—although instead of heads or tails, it produces a 1 or a 0. Each 1 or 0 represents a quantum event (measured quantum tunneling) by the REG; hence Random Event Generator. Unlike a coin flipper, however, the REG is not affected by normal external physical forces: by the laws of quantum mechanics, its data are fundamentally random.

This true randomness eliminates the concern that experimental outcomes might be influenced by physical forces, in the way dice can be. Their binary nature allows users to deal with known statistical distributions, and to measure any "anomalous" change in the distribution with simple statistical techniques. Results from trials can be generated very quickly and seen in real-time with computers, then stored and graphed in many different ways.

For the Select Your Intention experiment, the data was generated at a rate of 200 bits per trial, one trial every 0.2 seconds, over a period of 20 seconds.

How does an REG work?
The Psyleron REG-1, the device used in the Select Your Intention experiment, measures quantum events. According to modern physics, it is fundamentally impossible to predict the outcome of quantum events, even with knowledge of past outcomes. While the REG-1 does output non-quantum 1s and 0s, these are representations of quantum events, extrapolated by quantum tunneling into binary outcomes. So when the output of an REG-1 running in a calibration setting is examined statistically, these binary events are seen to behave in perfectly random ways, with an equal ratio of 1s to 0s. In other words, the REG is a reliable scientific tool.

The mind, however, is apparently able to affect the outcome of the Random Event Generator. As rigorously demonstrated by twenty-eight years of PEAR lab studies, when a person or persons attempt to influence the REG to produce more 1s or 0s, by "willpower" alone they may be able to achieve such an effect. A statistically significant increase in 1s or 0s is observed, generally according to their intent.

The mechanism by which this works is still unknown, though it has been the subject of much speculation. Some contend that quantum mechanics can explain the phenomenon; others that a more complicated and less understood process is occurring. In any case, what's at issue is nothing less than the nature of reality, and the role of consciousness within it.

More experimental and theoretical information can be found in the PEAR research section of the Psyleron website, as well as the website of the PEAR lab.

Is the REG-1 the same device used by the PEAR Laboratory?
The original PEAR lab REG was made in the late 70s, and many subsequent models of the PEAR REG were used to accumulate the PEAR databases. The Psyleron REG-1 is an improved version of the PEAR devices. While both are Random Event Generators, the REG-1 is built with modern technology, such as the USB interface and SMT components. It is also smaller, and much less expensive. Each REG-1 is calibrated according to the same stringent tests used at the PEAR lab. The Psyleron REG-1 is the only PEAR-certified Random Event Generator currently available commercially.

Is the REG-1 suitable for scientific research?
Yes. The REG-1 used in the Select Your Intention experiment was rigorously tested and calibrated before the experiment. If you have any particular research questions, please feel free to contact Psyleron for both free and paid consulting services on consciousness-related research and REG use.

How was the REG calibrated?
The REG was run continuously for approximately 16 hours. At the end of this period, the collected data was processed in the standard PEAR calibration testing suite to assess its ability to run REG experiments. The device passed the test for mean (µ) and standard deviation (s) at the bit and trial level, as well as basic tests for the chi-squared of trial bin populations, skew, and kurtosis, it was deemed to be an acceptable REG device for the purpose of running formal and exploratory mind-influence experiments.

What are Mean, P-Values, and Z-Scores?
These are standard statistical metrics used in scientific research. They relate experimental results to those expected by chance, and the magnitude of this deviation (if any). Specifically, mean is the sum of all the values in a set of data, divided by the number of values in the data set. Z-score relates the "distance" an experimental outcome falls from the mean, in standard deviations. The P-score is a minus logarithm of the P-value, which represents the probability of achieving the "quality of match" in the data at random.

In the context of REG research, Mean indicates the consciousness-induced deviation from the expected Mean scenario (i.e., without an operator present), and the related z-score measures this in standard deviations. P-score represents the correlation between experimental outcome and the operator's conscious intent (as gauged against the likelihood of the results occurring by chance).

How can I be sure that consciousness is the agent, and not some other factor, such as electromagnetic interference, or temperature fluctuations?
This was one of the primary initial concerns of the PEAR researchers, as it remains a concern of anyone using sensitive measurement equipment. No conventional physical force was found to have any association with the devices. The hermetic shielding and quantum nature of the Psyleron REG-1 makes its randomness essentially beyond subject to any physical influence likely to be encountered in a field setting. Testing and calibration guard against lingering bias.

The fact that a calibrated device, with no operator present, produces data without anomalous mean shifts, suggests the operator is responsible for the anomalies. In addition, many experimental designs implement a tri-polor protocol, where what is being measured is essentially the difference between trials when the only experimental variable that is changing is some aspect of the operator's mental state—separations between High and Low going efforts, for example. No known physical forces—including the physical presence of the operator—would affect the REG in sudden ways that correlate to the operator's intent.

Finally, in the Select Your Intention experiment, we are conducting an experiment that is both remote and retrocausal. The intentions are stated by the operator a great distance from the device that generated the data and many weeks after the data was recorded. That prior remote and retrocausal experiments have demonstrated an effect defies conventional physical modelling, and suggests that other unknown mechanisms are responsible for how the operator's consciousness is influencing the outcome.

What difference does it make if someone can influence an REG-1?
Currently, prevailing scientific theories cannot account for the mind's influence on physical systems. An enormous body of evidence nevertheless demonstrates that it is a real phenomenon. Therefore, the mind-REG effect has enormous implications for our scientific theories—it shows us that they need to be updated to accommodate this persistent anomaly.

The presence of these effects also makes a difference for standards of scientific proof. If intention alters the outcome of statistical systems, much more research is needed to fully understand the degree to which this effect can influence other research areas that use statistical measures. Perhaps a method or statistical protocol can be devised to further shield experimental results from the intention-related effects. It may be that standards of statistical significance need to be re-evaluated, or subjective parameters may need to be included in other statistical sciences. Much more research is needed in order to answer these questions.

These effects also make a difference for technology. New possibilities to harness the power of intention are created. Finally, there are also realms of personal meaningfulness to be experienced by users. These naturally differ from person to person, but most users report a deep fascination with seeing the influence of their thoughts and emotions on the material world.

I'm curious about the retrocausal effects, what data is there on these effects?
A subset of the PEAR lab data was devoted to investigations into a-temporal and remote effects. The effect sizes observed in these experiments were comparable with the effect sizes seen in their local synchronized experiments and displayed many similar characteristics. Of note is the observation that the off-time remote experiments had a larger effect size than the on-time remote experiments. This is the protocol emulated by the Select Your Intention experiment, with the variation that the time lag between data generation and operator intention in the PEAR experiments was limited to a maximum of two weeks, whereas the Select Your Intention experiment has a much longer delay - greater than four weeks.

However, we do not believe this will cause a problem, as other researchers into retrocausal effects using physical random devices, such as Helmut Schmidt, have conducted successful experiments with much longer delays between the time of data generation and operator intention.

Retrocausality is not only a topic within REG and psi research, but it is also a topic in current physics as it has been proposed as an explanation for a number of problems in quantum theory.

Are there possible confounds?
Select Your Intention is an interpretation of laboratory protocols for a wide DVD distribution, and to that extent, there are some limitations to what is possible to implement as far as operator sampling, the amount of data generated, variation in subjective operator conditions, and other environmental variables.

As an illustration of one way that this experiment is limited, we note that in laboratory experiments, the operators are interested volunteers who have direct communication with the experimenter and any questions they may have can be readily answered. For the purposes of the DVD experiment, a balance needed to be struck between a full explanation of experimental protocols, and the attention span of the operators. Explanations and introductions were thus limited in time and depth. For the DVD experiment, we cannot assume that operators are fully informed or even interested. Neither can we assume that the experimental environment across the operator pool is consistent and without distractions. There are many variables that can be held constant in a laboratory experiment that cannot be controlled in Select Your Intention because of the nature of this DVD implementation.

In addition, this experiment is more difficult to repeat. This becomes important because in our review of the data, we will treat the entire operator pool as an undifferentiated source of influence - much like a single operator. In this case, the "Wholphin #7 multi-operator." Experiments at the PEAR lab collected data from many different operators. For Select Your Intention to create comparable data sets (comparable operator conditions), this experiment would benefit from subsequent iterations with similar DVD viewing audiences. Due to the "real-world" nature of this experiment, that may or may not prove possible.

Although this experiment may be more limited than much prior experimentation due to its unusual protocols and the inclusion of more unknowns, it was designed in consultation with active researchers, and is rigorously defined and controlled within the restrictions of both its premise and available resources. We believe the experiment sufficiently designed to explore the basic hypothesis: that a large, asynchronous video-viewing audience (albeit vaguely defined) can have an influence on REG devices in a remote retrocausal fashion. However, because of these various limitations, Select Your Intention does not exemplify - and should not be directly compared to - the highly controlled experimentation conducted by the PEAR lab.

When will we know the results from the Select Your Intention experiment?
We are allowing two months for the operators to influence the entire data set. Since the DVDs are scheduled to be available to subscribers and other operators on November 19th, we intend to begin looking at the data after January 19th 2009. We will prepare the report as soon after that date as we are able. If you would like to recieve notification when that report is avialable, please check the relevant box and give us your email address in the user reporting section.

What other ways (besides distribution to Wholphin subscribers and through retail) are these DVDs being used?
We are in the process of setting up screenings with large audiences, and distribution to other (non-Wholphin) organizations. On these DVDs, a different data set will be used than the one that was distributed with Wholphin #7, so the data that goes out on those DVDs will also be unobserved and undetermined.

The data generated for the live presentations will also have been generated and recorded weeks prior to screening, so the retro-causal and distance factors will remain constant, but one variable will change. The opportunity to generate data during live presenstions of the REG results, will give us a glimpse of synchronous intentional influence by large operator groups. Although the live audience data set will be very small, it may provide a useful counterpoint to the asynchronous intentional influence generated by the home-viewing audience of Wholphin #7 operators.

Is this viral marketing for LOST?
Very funny! No, not at all. I don't think they need this kind of marketing. What I'd like to see happen is for shows like LOST (or What the Bleep, or The Secret) to turn some of their profits to benefit the real science that creates the backbone for their speculations, be they fictional, inspirational, or anecdotal. I think the reason so many shows like that have had success recently is because research like this is going on, and has been going on, marginalized by mainstream science, for decades. Perhaps we are at a tipping point where these kind of rigorous scientific experiments on mind-matter interactions can gain some traction in the halls of the scientific establishment. Certainly it would be good to get some funding behind this work! Donations welcome!

Is there more information about these types of experiments?
There is a wealth of information on these topics available from the PEAR lab at its archived site at www.princeton.edu/~pear.

You can join the Psyleron mailing list, to keep appraised of Psyleron's activities in research and development, and notifications about forthcoming REG products.