Ronald Bryan - Consciousness and Quantum-Mechanical Wavefunctions (29 Pgs)

7/29/2019 Ronald Bryan - Consciousness and Quantum-Mechanical Wavefunctions (29 Pgs)

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Consciousness and Quantum-Mechanical Wavefunctions

Ronald Bryan

Department of PhysicsTexas A&M University

College Station, Texas 77843, USA

[email protected]

July 24, 2004

Abstract Comparing the continuity of an e ve (electronneutrino)

world line and a human consciousness, I show that the analogy can beextended to wavelike behavior, as when an electron undergoesdiffraction and a human consciousness appears to be bilocal. Ihypothesize that human consciousness and human wavelike behaviorare but two aspects of the same thing, which I call the conscioushuman wavefunction. Since reports by Robert Monroe and researchdirected by Robert Jahn, Brenda Dunne etal. suggest mental action ata distance, I propose an experiment in which a person attempts to flipthe spin of an electron by directing his or her conscious wave-functionto the electron's wavefunction. I hypothesize that the two wave-functions interact, possibly through the exchange of qi, or perhaps aquantum of a conjectured M-field. The electron could be the valenceelectron of a barium ion confined in a Paul trap in a 50-gauss magnetic

field. Flipping the electron's spin would require less than 10 6

eV.The ion could be seen directly in the trap by shining 455 10 9 meterlaser light on it, causing it to emit blue-violet fluorescent light. If theelectron's spin were flipped, then the fluorescence would cease. Asecond flip could restore the fluorescence. A person who could flipthe spin near the apparatus might also be able to flip the spin fromacross the street, or from across the country. He or she could send amessage in Morse Code by having the ion fluoresce for suitable shortand long intervals (dots and dashes). This experiment could beperformed in a well-equipped atomic physics lab.

keywords: quantum physics, wavefunction, mind-matter interactionreprint requests: contact author at university addressrunning title: conscious wavefunction


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Introduction

At a recent meeting where some two dozen grantees of the LifebridgeFoundation were gathered for a weekend at the Wainwright House in Rye,NY, one participant spoke of his first case as a young lawyer. Both he and hisclient went to jail! After he was released, he and his wife began visiting

prisons and speaking to groups of incarcerated men. He would explain withlarge flip charts that no matter how much they had suffered, either throughtheir own actions or those of others, their identities were intact. Theycouldn't be destroyed, even if they were killed! Meanwhile his wife, anaroma therapist, would use a diffuser to vaporize essential oils to enhancemental alertness and calmness, and play baroque music to increase learningand retention. In this way the lawyer and his wife made the meeting room aspecial place for the prisoners, if only for the moment. Meanwhile theprisoners could muse on the fact that, if their identities were intact, thenthey could build on them and begin to recover their lives. (Groom, 2000)

As a theoretical nuclear physicist, I was struck by the similaritybetween an identity that cannot be destroyed and the world-line of an

electron. In case the reader is not familiar with a world-line, let medescribe one. Consider a single electron at rest in space. Its world line issimply a straight vertical line, showing that the electron does not move inspace but does move forward in time. See Fig.1.

space

time

electron

0

1

2

3

4

5

Fig.1. World-line of an electron fixed at a point in space but moving forwardin time. The electron's positions are indicated by dots at particular space-time points 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Now suppose that the electron is moving to the right. Then its world

line looks like the slanted line in Fig.2.


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space

time

electron

54

3

2

1

0

Fig.2. World-line of an electron moving forward in time and to the right inspace. The electron's positions at space-time points 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are

indicated by dots._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Similarly, the world-line of a person moving to the right would looklike the slanted line in Fig.3.

space

time

person

Fig.3. World-line of a person moving forward in time and to the right inspace. Particular space-time points not indicated._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Now suppose that the electron in Fig.2 absorbs a photon and recoils to theleft. This process is diagrammed in Fig.4.


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space

time

electron

photone

electron

Fig.4. Right-moving electron absorbing left-moving photon and recoiling tothe left. The strength of the interaction is governed by the electron'selectric charge e._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

If the electron absorbs a photon, it still continues to be an electron. It

simply moves in a different direction.

Similarly, if a human identity or consciousness absorbs, say, apsychological blow, then it still continues to be a human identity orconsciousness, just oriented a little differently. Landing in jail might besuch a blow.

Now let us consider two electrons. In Fig.5 they portray like chargesrepel each other. Electron A emits a photon and recoils to the right. Thenelectron B absorbs this photon and recoils to the left. Each electron has thesame charge (e), and the photon conveys the repelling (Coulomb) force.Emitted photons that miss electron B simply return to electron A.


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time

space

electron B

photone

electron B

electron A

electron A

Fig.5. Like charges repel each other. Electron A emits a photon which isabsorbed by electron B. In so doing, the electrons push apart.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _This process is somewhat like person A's standing on ice and

throwing a heavy medicine ball to person B who is also standing on ice.Person A recoils to the right as she throws the ball, person B to the left ashe catches it. Thus they move apart just as though they had pushed on eachother, only the force is carried by the medicine ball.

In a psychological analogy, Fig.5 might depict person A's hurling aninsult that person B receives. B's identity or consciousness is not destroyed,

but does suffer the blow. A is not immune either; her identity orconsciousness is likewise disturbed by the transfer.

Next consider the elementary-particle process sketched in Fig.6.Here an electron absorbs a positively charged W boson and turns into aneutrino. A neutrino, being a Dirac particle, is like an electron, differingmainly in that it has no electric charge and can travel extraordinarydistances in matter before interacting with it. A W boson is like a photonexcept that it has an electric charge and is quite heavy. The neutrino (moreprecisely, the electron-neutrino) can turn back into an electron by emittingthe charged W boson. Regardless of whether the particle is an electron or a


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neutrino, its world-line is continuous. That is, it can never be destroyed(footnote 1).

space

time

electron-neutrino

W

electron

+

Fig.6. Feynman diagram of electron absorbing a W+ boson, thereby turninginto a neutrino._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

This transformation in Fig.6 of an electron into a neutrino has apsychological analog in the traditional Christian story in which Saulexperiences a blinding vision on his way to Damascus, changing hischaracter to such an extent that he is thereafter known as Paul (Holy Bible,

Acts 9: 3). The reader can no doubt think of a contemporary example, suchas the experience of astronaut Edgar Mitchell in the Apollo 14 mission onhis way back to Earth, where the 360view of the stars inspired in him atranscendent vision of the connectedness of all creation on Earth and in theuniverse, and helped motivate him to found the Institute of Noetic Sciences(Mitchell, 1996).

Wavefunctions and Human Identities

The correspondence between electrons and human consciousnessesor identities is even closer than I have described. When theoreticalphysicists speak of an electron, they really have a quantum-mechanical

wavepacket in mind, not a tiny ball-bearing or b-b. In Fig.7, I have sketchedthe wavefunction or wave packet of an electron moving to the right with a

velocity v. On the vertical axis I have plotted the amplitude of the wave,


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denoted (psi). The amplitude is something like a water wave, except

that it doesn't stand for height. Rather, the distance-squared (2) of the

wave above (or below) the dotted zeroline equals the relative probability offinding the electron at that point. In Fig.7, for example, the electron is

most likely to be found at the center of the packet, under the letter p inpacket.

wave packet

space

v0

Fig.7. Wavefunction or wave packet of an electron moving to the right withvelocity v._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

This wave packet can take on various other shapes. If it is sentthrough a double slit, for example, then it turns into an array of packets.

Two outgoing packets are shown in Fig.8.

double slit

incoming

wavepacket

outgoingwavepackets

Fig.8. Wavepacket passing through double slit and undergoing diffraction.Two of the many outgoing wavepackets are sketched._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


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The human identity or consciousness can sometimes split up too, justlike the electron's wavepacket. In her book, ESP: A Personal Memoir, thefamous English psychic Rosalind Heywood recalls,

One hot night my husband [a British diplomat] was peacefully sleeping whileI wriggled, restless and wide awake, at his side in the great carved bed. At lastthe excessive peace became unbearable. I can't stand it, I thought, I shall

wake him up . . . .Before I could carry out this egoistic idea I did something very odd I split

in two. One Me in its pink nightie continued to toss self-centredly against theembroidered pillows, but another, clad in a long, very white, hooded garment,was now standing, calm, immobile and impersonally outward-looking, at the footof the bed. This White Me seemed just as actual as Pink Me and I was equallyconscious in both places at the same time. I vividly remember myself as WhiteMe looking down and observing the carved end of the bed in front of me andalso thinking what a silly fool Pink Me looked, tossing in that petulant wayagainst the pillows. You're behaving disgracefully, said White Me to Pink Mewith cold contempt. Don't be so selfish, you know he's dog tired.

Pink Me was a totally self-regarding little animal . . . . and she cared

not at all whether her unfortunate husband was tired or not. I shall do what Ilike, she retorted furiously, and you can't stop me, you pious white prig! Shewas particularly furious because she knew very well that White Me was thestronger and could stop her.

A moment or two later I felt no transition White Me was once moreimprisoned with Pink Me in one body, and there they have dwelt as oil andwater every since. (Heywood, 1964).

As for the electron, although its wavefunction might be divided intotwo (or more) packets as in Fig.8, it still stands for just one electron. If thepackets impinge on a photographic film, for instance, only one packet willactivate a grain of silver. In fact, no matter how fragmented the electron's

wavefunction gets, it still represents just one electron. It is one of the

mysteries of quantum mechanics why all of the electron's energy andmomentum are deposited on just one spot upon colliding with the photo-graphic emulsion. But the wavefunction represents one electron, and oneelectron is what you get.

Similarly, even though a human consciousness might be separated intomany parts, it still represents just one identity. If Rosalind Heywood weresuddenly threatened in her extended state, I have little doubt that herdivided consciousness would instantly coalesce to focus on the disturbance.

Another interesting thing about wavefunctions is that they canrepresent two or more mutually exclusive physical states at the same time.In fact, this is usually the case! For example, consider the intrinsic

spinning motion of an electron. Being a Dirac particle, the electron hasintrinsic angular momentum s always of magnitude 1

2h, where h is Planck's

constant divided by 2. This angular momentum is analogous to thespinning motion of a ball. If the ball is spinning counter-clockwise when

viewed from above, then we say that it has spin up because the axis aboutwhich it is spinning is vertical, and by a right-handed convention we say thatit is pointing up. If it is spinning clockwise, then we say that it has spindown. Of course usually the electron's axis of spin points neither up nor


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down, but in some other direction. However another of the curiosities ofquantum mechanics is that this spinning motion in an arbitrary direction

can nevertheless be represented as a wavefunction consisting of twoterms, one standing for spin up and the other for spin down. That is,

= + a b ,

where represents spin up and represents spin down; a and b are

just (complex) constants, chosen so that a b2 2 1+ = . With appropriatechoices of a and b you can point the spin in any direction you like.

Now let us direct an electron toward a highly divergent field betweena pair of magnets, constructed so that if the electron's spin is pointing up,then the electron is pulled upward, and if the electron's spin is pointingdown, then the electron is pulled downward. This is illustrated in Fig. 9.

S

Nelectron'sspin up

S

Nelectron'sspin down

Fig.9. The magnetic field between the illustrated North and South magneticpoles is highly divergent, causing an electron with spin up to be pulledupward, and an electron with spin down to be pulled downward. Thisapparatus is called a Stern-Gerlach device, after Stern and Gerlach who firstdemonstrated it._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The interesting thing is that if the electron's spin is pointing neitherup nor down but oriented in some other direction, then nevertheless the


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Stern-Gerlach apparatus will only deflect the electron up or down and notsomewhere in between. It is as if the electron, when confronted with themagnets, must choose to either be spinning up or spinning down.

Mathematically speaking, it must either choose to keep the a part of its

wavefunction, or the b part. The probability that the electron will be

deflected upward is a 2, and deflected downward is b 2.

Analogous to the electron's wavefunction representing two physicallyincompatible states, the human identity can entertain two states that arephysically incompatible as well, such as, say, when a person approaching a

voting booth hasn't decided whether to vote Republican or Democrat. Let'sgive the person a wavefunction:

person Democrat Republican= +a b .

For example, if a 2 0 30= . and b 2 0 70= . , then, prior to voting, the person hasa30% likelihood to vote Democratic and a 70% likelihood to vote Republican.Upon reaching for a voting lever, he or she then decides which lever to pull,

and his or her wavefunction collapses to either a Democrat or b Republican .

The wavefunctions of electrons resemble human identities orconsciousnesses in even more ways. Theoretically, it is possible to preparetwo electrons, say A and B, in such a way that the sum of their spin angularmomenta equals zero, even though individually they still have spin angular

momentum s = 12h apiece. Their combined state of zero spin is described by

the (unnormalized) wavefunction

= A B A B, , ,

where A B , denotes electron A with its spin pointing up and electron B

with its spin pointing down, and A B , denotes electron A with its spin

pointing down and electron B with its spin pointing up.

Now within this wavefunction, the terms A B , and A B , arephysically incompatible: physically, electron A's spin can't be pointing bothup and down at the same time; neither can B's. However, it is possible, infact common, forwavefunctions to contain physically incompatible terms, as

we have already seen in the case of a single electron's spin. Thewavefunction is like two blueprints, only one of which is followed when the

electrons' wavefunctions are forced to reduce to material electrons.Let us suppose that electrons A and B proceed in opposite directions

until they are a light-year apart. Suddenly electron A reaches a detector(say, a Stern-Gerlach device) and must decide whether to choose spin up orspin down. Suppose it chooses spin up. Then according to most physicists'interpretation of quantum mechanics, this choice cancels the second termin wavefunction , so that electron B's spin must instantly point down. It isas if the electrons were conscious of each other (footnote 2).


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Although such interdependence has not been measured for electronsat distances of light-years, it has been measured for pairs ofphotons inlaboratories over short distances, and also over several miles. [Gisin (2001)and references cited therein.] Indications are that, upon measurement of

A's spin, B's spin is indeed determined instantly, or at least after an intervalof time several orders of magnitude less than light would require to carrythe message.

In the case of human twins, a similar awareness has been reported.One twin in California filed suit against Pan American for pain that shesuffered at the instant when her twin sister died in a plane crash in theCanary Islands. [This case has been studied as part of a Law SchoolPreparation Program offered by the University of Nevada at Las Vegas(1998)].

M.B.'s twin sister, M.F., was one of the 583 people killed in the planedisaster at Tenerife in the Canary Islands on March 27, 1977. Consequently,M.B. sued Pan American World Airlines, not for the wrongful death of her sister,but for her own injuries, which she sustained because of the "extrasensory

empathy" which is common among identical twins. At the moment of thecollision, M.B., sitting at her home in Fremont, California, suffered burningsensations in her chest and stomach and a feeling of being split. On February 21,1980, Federal Court Judge R.W. ruled against M.B., explaining that legally shehad to be physically present at the accident to collect damages.

Incidentally, the fact that electrons A and B are apparently in instantcommunication with each other is a famous aspect of quantum mechanics

which Einstein called "Spooky action at a distance. He called theexperiment spooky because after electron A chooses to point spin up,quantum mechanics says that electron B must immediately point spin downin less time than a light signal could travel from A to B. This violates afundamental principle of Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity, not to

mention his General Relativity theory, which says that information cannottravel faster than the speed of light.

Now, in the case of the human twins, an ordinary light (or radio) signalcould have reached M.B. in just 0 05. sec after the crash, so there is no way totell if Special or General Relativity was violated when she first felt thealleged pains. However NASA is considering a mission to send men and/or

women to Mars, and even when Earth and Mars are closest, it still takeslight over 4minutes to travel from one planet to the other. Thus it might bepossible to test if something happening to one of the astronauts can beperceived by a related person on Earth in less than the 4minutes. Theparticipants could use synchronized clocks to record the time.

Wavefunctions and consciousness

In the three analogies described in the previous section, a humanconsciousness behaved like an electron's wavefunction. Is it possible thatthe human consciousness is a wavefunction in its own right, not justanalogous to the wavefunction of an electron? I will consider that possibilityin this Section.


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Also, is it possible that an electron's wavefunction isconscious, notjust analogous to a human consciousness? Let us reconsider the threeexamples. 1.In the case of the electron's wavepacket transformed intomany wavepackets by the double slit, quantum mechanics cannot tell us in

which packet the electron will materialize. Perhaps the decision is made atthe level of the electron, rather than the level of the experimentalist. 2.Inthe case of the electron's entering the Stern-Gerlach apparatus, quantummechanics cannot tell us whether the electron will be deflected upward ordownward. Again, perhaps the decision is made at the level of the electron.3.Finally, in the case of the two entangled electrons, quantum mechanicscannot tell us how the second electron knows in which direction its spinshould point after the first electron's spin is detected. Perhaps theelectrons share a consciousness.

There is no provision for consciousness in present-day quantummechanics, so I will speculate that in addition to the wavefunction dictated

by quantum mechanics, the electron also exhibits an elementaryconsciousness. I will call this generalized wavefunction the conscious

electron wavefunction (footnotes 3, 4).If the electron's wavefunction embodies some kind of elementary

consciousness, then so should the wavefunctions of the other elementaryDirac particles: the mu and the tau (both identical to the electron, onlymuch heavier), the three massless neutrinos (the one which is paired withthe electron, and two others paired with the mu and the tau, respectively),and the six kinds of quarks: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom. [Fora non-technical presentation of the elementary particles, see my essay(Bryan, 2000). For examples of technical models set in higher dimensionalspace-time, see Bryan (1986, 1998)]. The wavefunctions of protons andneutrons should also be conscious at an elementary level, as they are

composed of the wavefunctions of three quarks each (two ups and a downfor the proton, one up and two downs for the neutron). Likewise atomicnuclei should have a limited consciousness, as they are made up of protonsand neutrons.

Going up the chain, we should find that atoms made of electrons andnuclei also have conscious wavefunctions, as should molecules such asamino acids and DNA. Living cells. made up of the foregoing, ought also tohave conscious wavefunctions. This brings to mind the consciousness unitscited by Jane Roberts in the Appendix of her book, The Seth Material.

. . . . One of the reasons why [these conscious units] have not been discoveredis precisely because they are so cleverly camouflaged within all structures.Being just beyond the range of matter, having a structure but a nonphysical one,and being of a pulsating nature, they can expand or contract. They cancompletely envelop, for example, a small cell, or retreat to the nucleus within.They combine qualities of a unit and a field, in other words. (Roberts, 1970).

Just beyond the range of physical matter and having a structure but anonphysical one sound a lot like wavefunctions.

Farther up the chain are living organs which likewise should haveconsciousness as part of their (by now enormously complex) wavefunctions.Is there any evidence of consciousness at this level? Recent major organ


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transplants seem to say Yes. Consider the following heart-transplant case,reported by Pearsall, Schwartz, and Russek (2000) in a recent issue of theJournal of Near-Death Studies.

The donor was a 16-month-old boy [Jerry] who drowned in a bathtub. Therecipient was a 7-month-old boy [Carter] diagnosed with tetralogy of Fallot, asyndrome involving a hole in the ventricular septum, displacement of the aorta,

pulmonary stenosis, and thickening of the right ventricle. The donor's mother,a physician, reported:

The first thing is that I could more than hear Jerry's heart. I could feel itin me. When Carter first saw me, he ran to me and pushed his nose againstme and rubbed and rubbed it. It was just exactly what we did with Jerry.Jerry and Carter's heart are 5 years old now, but Carter's eyes were Jerry'seyes. When he hugged me, I could feel my son. I mean I could feel him, notjust symbolically. He was there. I felt his energy.

I'm a doctor. I'm trained to be a keen observer and have always been anatural born skeptic. But this was real. I know people will say that I need tobelieve my son's spirit is alive, and perhaps I do. But I felt it. My husbandand my father felt it. And I swear to you, and you can ask my mother, Carter

said the same baby-talk words that Jerry said. Carter is 6, but he was talkingJerry's baby talk and playing with my nose just like Jerry did.

We stayed with the [recipient family] that night. In the middle of thenight, Carter came in and asked to sleep with my husband and me. Hecuddled up between us exactly like Jerry did, and we began to cry. Cartertold us not to cry because Jerry said everything was okay. My husband and I,our parents, and those who really knew Jerry have no doubt. Our son's heartcontains much of our son and beats in Carter's chest. On some level, our sonis still alive.

The recipient's mother reported:

I saw Carter go to her [the donor's mother]. He never does that. He isvery, very shy, but he went to her just like he used to run to me when he was

a baby. When he whispered It's okay, Mama, I broke down. He called herMother, or maybe it was Jerry's heart talking. And one more thing that gotto us. We found out talking to Jerry's mom that Jerry had mild cerebralpalsy, mostly on his left side. Carter has stiffness and some shaking on thatsame side. He never did as a baby and it only showed up after the transplant.The doctors say it's probably something to do with his medical condition, butI really think there's more to it.

One more thing I'd like you to know about. When we went to churchtogether, Carter had never met Jerry's father. We came late and Jerry's dadwas sitting with a group of people in the middle of the congregation. Carterlet go of my hand and ran right to that man. He climbed on his lap, huggedhim, and said Daddy. We were flabbergasted. How could he have known

him? Why did he call him Dad? He never did things like that. He wouldnever let go of my hand in church and never run to a stranger. When I askedhim why he did it, he said he didn't. He said Jerry did and he went withhim.

Pearsall, Schwartz, and Russek report nine other heart-transplantcases in their article which are just as compelling. It appears that with eachdonor's heart comes a consciousness which reflects his or her whole


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personality, and which becomes entwined with the consciousness of therecipient.

If the heart has a consciousness, and of course the brain has aconsciousness, then perhaps the other organs have consciousnesses too.

This suggests that there is an overallconsciousness which coordinates these

sub-consciousnesses. Furthermore, as the heart, brain, and the other organsalso have wavefunctions (as they must, being composed of elementaryparticles), perhaps there is an overall wavefunction which organizes thesesub-wavefunctions. I conjecture that the overall consciousness and theoverall wavefunction are different aspects of a single entity, call it theconscious human wavefunction. This conscious wavefunction might be theseat of human consciousness (footnote 5).

As with any wavefunction, this conscious wavefunction can sometimesbe quite flighty. Wavefunctions are more like a collection of ideas orblueprints, just one of which is to be followed as when, say, a particle isforced to materialize. In the case of the human wavefunction, the humanconsciousness would seem to choose which blueprint to follow.

There is considerable anecdotal evidence that the conscious humanwavefunction or consciousness can sometimes partially leave the living body.For example, Robert Monroe, a pioneer in the study of consciousness, beganto have episodes where his conscious awareness would leave his body andfocus somewhere else. At first he was frightened by these so-called out-of-

body (OoB) experiences, but in time came to realize they were not a sign ofmental illness but rather of an aspect of normal human consciousness notusually recognized in Western circles. I quote his account of one of his earlyout-of-body experiences which he reported in his first book, Journeys out ofthe Body (Monroe, 1971, p. 46).

9/10/1958 Again I floated upward, with the intent of visiting Dr. Bradshaw

and his wife. Realizing that Dr. Bradshaw was ill in bed with a cold, I thought Iwould visit him in the bedroom, which was a room I had not seen in his houseand if I could describe it later, could thus document my visit. Again came theturning in air, the dive into the tunnel, and this time the sensation of goinguphill. (Dr. and Mrs. Bradshaw live in a house some five miles from my office, upa hill.) I was over trees and there was a light sky above. . . . After a while, theuphill travel became difficult, and I had the feeling that the energy was leaving,and I felt I wouldn't make it.

With this thought, an amazing thing happened. It felt precisely as if someonehad placed a hand under each arm and lifted me. I felt a surge of lifting power,and I rushed quickly up the hill. Then I came upon Dr. and Mrs. Bradshaw.They were outside the house, and for a moment I was confused, as I hadreached them before I got to the house. I didn't understand this because Dr.Bradshaw was supposed to be in bed. Dr. Bradshaw was dressed in a lightovercoat and hat, his wife in a dark coat and all dark clothes. They were comingtoward me, so I stopped. They seemed in good spirits, and walked past meunseeing, in the direction of a smaller building, like a garage, Brad[shaw] trailingbehind as they walked.

I floated around in front of them, waving, trying to get their attentionwithout result. Then without turning his head, I thought I heard Dr. Bradshawsay to me, Well, I see you don't need help any more. Thinking I had madecontact, I dove back into the ground(?), and returned to the office, rotated into


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the body and opened my eyes. Everything was just as I had left it. The vibrationwas still present, but I felt I had enough for one day.

Important aftermath: We phoned Dr. and Mrs. Bradshaw that evening. Imade no statement other than to ask where they were between four and fivethat afternoon. (My wife, upon hearing of the visit, said flatly it was not possible,could not be so because Dr. Bradshaw was home in bed sick.) With Mrs.

Bradshaw on the phone, I asked the simple question. She stated that roughly atfour twenty-five they were walking out of the house toward the garage. She wasgoing to the post office, and Dr. Bradshaw had decided that perhaps some freshair might help him, and had dressed and gone along. She knew the time byback-checking from the time they arrived at the post office, which was twentyminutes to five. It takes roughly fifteen minutes to drive to the post office fromtheir house. I had come back from my trip to them at approximately fourtwenty-seven. I asked what they were wearing. Mrs. Bradshaw stated that shewas wearing black slacks, and a red sweater which was covered with a black carcoat. Dr. Bradshaw was wearing a light hat and a light-colored topcoat.However, neither saw me in any way or was aware of my presence.Dr.Bradshaw had no memory of saying anything to me. The great point is that Ihad expected to find him in bed, and didn't.

The coincidences involved were too much. It was not important to provethis to anyone else. Only to me. It proves to me truly for the first time thatthere might well be more to this than normal science and psychology andpsychiatry allowmore than an aberration, trauma, or hallucination and Ineeded some form of proof more than anyone else, I am sure. It was a simpleincident, but unforgettable.

The fact that Monroe saw Dr. Bradshaw walking outside his housewhen he was supposed to be in bed, and at about the time that Bradshaw washeading for his garage, suggest that out of body, he really did see Dr.Bradshaw. Furthermore, Monroe saw Mrs. Bradshaw walking with Dr.Bradshaw, also verified.

The Bradshaws did not see Monroe when he was observing them, eventhough he tried to attract their attention, so if Monroe had a conscious

wavefunction which did go there, then it wasn't observed. Indeed, that wasusually his experience. However he reports that on one occasion, his OoBpresence was observed, if only dimly.

10/10/1962 Night. I have found another clue to the how do you look whenyou're not physical question. In the early evening, around seven-thirty, Idecided to try to visit R. W. in her apartment some eight miles distant. I wassure she would be awake (non-physically, of course.) I had no difficulty, andfound myself immediately in a living room. There was what I thought to be R. W.sitting in a chair near a bright light. I moved toward her, but she didn't seem topay any attention to me. Then I was sure she saw me, but she seemedfrightened. I backed away, then started to speak, but something pulled me backto the physical, and I found myself in my bedroom, in the physical, thevibrations fading. The reason for recall was that my arm was asleep and tinglingfrom lack of circulation. I was lying on it the wrong way.

There was a most unusual aftermath. The next day R. W. asked me what Iwas doing the night before. I asked her why, and she stated, I was sitting inthe living room after supper, reading the paper. Something made me look up,


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and there on the other side of the room was something hanging and waving inthe air.

I asked her what it looked like.

It was like a filmy piece of gray chiffon, she said. I could see the wall andchair behind it, and it started to come toward me. I was frightened, and Ithought it might be you, so I said, Bob, is that you? But it just hung there in

mid-air, waving slightly. I then asked again if it was you, and if so, please gohome and don't bother me. Then it backed away and faded out quickly.

She asked if it was really me, and I said I thought it might be.

Well, next time, say something so I'll be sure it's you, she answered.Then I won't be so scared.

I assured her I would. At least I'm not a very bright-hued ghost, and I don'thave human shape sometimes. (Monroe, 1971, p. 171)

This would seem to indicate that Monroe had a conscious wavefunctionwhich was indeed present in R. W.'s apartment and which had created amaterial representation of itself with whatever it could find at the site. Atthe same time, apparently part of his conscious wavefunction remained with

his body because it informed him that his physical arm was tingling.

By the time that he wrote his first book (Monroe 1971), Monroe coulddocument 589 out-of-body experiences that he had had over a period oftwelve years. A successful radio executive and producer in the 1940s and1950s, he went on to found The Monroe Institute to help thousands ofothers learn that they too are more than their physical bodies.

Countless other reports of out-of-body experiences have beenpublished since Monroe's first book. For example, Bruce Moen and WilliamBuhlman have written about their OoB experiences (Moen, 1997, 1998,1999), (Buhlman, 1996). Also near-death experiences have been reportedextensively, as in books by Moody, Sabom, and Ring, where the subjectsusually go OoB as part of the experience (Moody, 1975), (Sabom, 1982),(Ring, 1980).

A most important outcome of this research is that the humanconsciousness seems to have the capability to direct its wavefunctionwhereit wants it to go. For example, when Monroe said, I want to visitDr.Bradshaw, his consciousness or wavefunction went directly toDr.Bradshaw, who happened to be on the path leading to his garage eventhough Monroe had expected to find Bradshaw in his bedroom. Also whenMonroe wanted to visit R. W., his consciousness went right to her. (Monroefound it difficult to try to go to a distant geographical location. He said thathe had much better luck when he specified that he wanted to go to a

particular person.)

Early on Monroe discovered that he could also move his secondbody just a little away from his physical body. For example, Monroe tells inhis book how he could lie in bed and extend his second-body arms above hisphysical arms, perhaps to touch the ceiling. He could also push his second-

body arms through the ceiling to feel the plaster, the wood pieces, perhapsa nail. I would interpret his second-body arms to be part of his conscious

wavefunction.


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Monroe could do more with his second body than just feel plaster. Onat least one occasion he left a mark with his second body hands. I quotefrom his book (Monroe 1971, p. 55) where he paid another visit to R.W.,this time when she was vacationing.

8/15/63 Afternoon. . . R.W., a business woman whom I know quite well . .

. has been away this week on her vacation up on the New Jersey coast. I do notknow exactly where she is vacationing other than that. . . This afternoon, I . .decided . . to make a strong effort to visit R.W. wherever she was. . . I laydown in the bedroom about three in the afternoon, went into a relaxationpattern, felt the warmth (high order vibrations), then thought heavily of thedesire to go to R.W.

There was the familiar sensation of movement through a light blue blurredarea, then I was in what seemed to be a kitchen. R.W. was seated in a chair tothe right. She had a glass in her hand. She was looking to my left, where twogirls (about seventeen or eighteen, one blond and one brunette) also weresitting, each with glasses in their hands, drinking something. The three ofthem were in conversation, but I could not hear what they were saying.

I first approached the two girls, directly in front of them, but I could not

attract their attention. I then turned to R.W., and I asked if she knew I wasthere.

Oh yes, I know you are here, she replied (mentally, or with thatsuperconscious communication, as she was still in oral conversation with thetwo girls).

I asked if she was sure that she would remember that I had been there.

Oh, I will definitely remember, the reply came.

I said that this time I was going to make sure that she remembered.

I will remember, I'm sure I will, R.W. said, still in oral conversationsimultaneously.

I stated that I had to be sure she would remember, so I was going to pinchher.

Oh, you don't need to do that, I'll remember, R.W. said hastily.

I said that I had to be sure, so I reached over and tried to pinch her, gently, Ithought. I pinched her in the side, just above the hips and below the rib cage.She let out a good loud Ow, and I backed up, because I was somewhatsurprised. I really hadn't expected to be able actually to pinch her. Satisfiedthat I had made some impression, at the least, I turned and left, thought of thephysical, and was back almost immediately.

Important aftermath: It is Tuesday after the Saturday of the experiment.R.W. returned to work yesterday, and I asked her what she had been doingSaturday afternoon between three and four. . . . Here is what she reportedtoday: On Saturday between three and four was the only time there was not acrowd of people in the beach cottage where she was staying. For the first time,

she was alone with her niece (dark-haired, about eighteen) and the niece'sfriend (about the same age, blond). They were in the kitchen-dining area of thecottage from about three-fifteen to four, and she was having a drink, and thegirls were having Cokes. . .

I asked R.W. if she remembered anything else, and she said no. I questionedher more closely, but she could not remember anything more. Finally, inimpatience, I asked her if she remembered the pinch. A look of completeastonishment crossed her face.


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Was that you? She stared at me for a moment, then went to the privacy ofmy office, turned, and lifted (just slightly!) the edge of her sweater where itjoined her skirt on her left side. There were two brown and blue marks at theexactly the spot where I had pinched her.

I was sitting there, talking to the girls, R. W. said, when all of a sudden Ifelt this terrible pinch. I must have jumped a foot. I thought my brother-in-law

had come back and sneaked up behind me. I turned around, but there was noone there. I never had any idea it was you! It hurt!

I apologized for pinching so hard, and she obtained from me a promise thatif I tried any such thing again, I would try something other than a pinch thathard.

So Monroe reported that not only could he feel plaster with hissecond body. but on occasion he could even leave a physical impression.

There is further evidence that the human consciousness can affectmatter, this time data carefully amassed by Robert Jahn, Brenda Dunne,Roger Nelson and their collaborators over a period of 12 years at thePrinceton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) laboratory at Princeton

University (Jahn and Dunne, 1987), (Jahn et al., 1997). They looked to seeif some 91 anonymous, unpaid volunteers with no special abilities could, bymental intent alone, alter a noisy diode's output which was being amplifiedand clipped to produce a randomly alternating series of positive andnegative pulses. These were converted to 1s and 0s in sets usually of 200numbers each; a typical set might look like 0 1 0 0 1 1 0, , , , , , , and so on forthe total of 2001s and 0s. On the average, there should be 1001s and 100 0sin each set. In 839 800, sets, volunteers tried to increase the number of 1s,and in 836 650, sets. they tried to increase the number of 0s. Although they

were only able to change about1 number in 10 000, , when taken over the totalnumber of1s and 0s, namely335 290 000, , , the possibility that this difference

occurred by chance alone is less than 1 in 14 000, (Jahn et al., 1997)(footnotes 6, 7, 8).

Others have also documented the abilities of certain subjects tomentally affect physical systems. For example, Targ and Puthoff (1977)report that the artist Ingo Swann was able to alter the cycling rate of ahighly shielded magnetometer in a laboratory at Stanford University. AlsoRadin (1997) recounts how ten volunteers were able to alter the output of amatrix of random-number generators that he had constructed with the helpof collaborators at Contel Technology Center (later merged with GTE).

Now, the electromagnetic fields generated by the physical body areextremely weak and not likely to propagate far enough to affect the

electronics of a RNG or other device. Furthermore Jahn & Dunne, andothers have reported that the distance of the volunteer from the RNG orother device does not appear to play a role. Wavefunctions, on the otherhand, can leap large distances, as when collapsing after entanglement. Asmentioned earlier, they are more like an idea than physical reality.

Therefore in the case of the RNG, say, I speculate that the volunteers'conscious wavefunctions, not their electromagnetic fields, interacted withthe device. This is sketched in Fig.10.


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RNG

1 changed to 0

RNG

Fig.10. Conjectured conscious human wavefunction interacting with anelectronic Random Number Generator to alter a single digit._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

It is remarkable that the PEAR volunteers could by mental intent alonechange the output of a microelectronic noise generator, if only once per

10 000, opportunities. I estimate that altering a single digit might have calledfor an amount of energy ~ V A s10 10 106 6 6 ( )( )( ) = =10 618 J eV plus or minus acouple orders of magnitude.

It is even more remarkable that Robert Monroe could direct hisconsciousness to R.W. in another state and leave a mark on her body. Iestimate that pinching her required his exerting a force of the order of0 2. lb acting over a distance of at least1mm . This equals an amount of energy

W = = ( )( )Fd N m1 10 3 = = 10 6 103 15J eV !This ability for some humans to mentally affect living or non-living

systems at a distance suggests a physics experiment. If unpaid volunteerscould once in about10 000, tries direct ~ eV6 to alter an electronic signal,

and if Monroe could, at least once, direct ~ eV6 1015 to pinch a person, thencould a person flip the spin of an electron every time if this only required

directing ~ . eV0 6 10 6 ? This is the amount of energy required to reversethe spin of an electron in a 50-gauss magnetic field.

An Experiment

If one wants to flip the spin of an electron, then one needs to knowwhere the electron is and which way its spin is pointing. To see where it is,

the electron can be a spherically symmetric quantum wavefunctionenclosing a 138Ba++ ion. The 138Ba++ ion has closed shells like a Xenon atom.

The combined 138Ba+ ion is confined in a Paul trap in a volume of ~ cm1 3 at a

pressure of about10 10 torr . (A Paul trap consists of four parallel short metalrods, each about2cm long, defining the edges of a mathematical box of0 5 0 5. cm . cm square cross-section. The bars are divided in thirds, with theend sections kept about 20VDC higher that the middle sections. This keeps


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the Ba+away from the ends. Then 1MHz, 1000V AC voltage keeps the ionfrom escaping out the sides.) If we bathe the ion in a magnetic field andilluminate it with light from a tunable dye-laser, then when the laser istuned to the right frequency, the ion will light up. In this state of laser-

induced fluorescence (LIF), the ion will emit about108 blue-violet

photons/sec; the human eye can accept about104 of these photons/sec, sothe ion should be visible.

Technically, when the ion is fluorescing, laser light of wavelength

19

455 10= m and left circular polarization + excites the electron from

the 6 12

12s mj, = state to the 6 32

32p mj, = state. The excited electron returns

to its original state emitting another photon of wavelength 1. This cycle is

repeated about108 times/sec. See Fig.11.

Ba+

1 2

3/2

1/2

1/2

3/2

1/2

1/2

6p3/2

6s1/2

Fig.11. Relevant energy spectrum of the valence electron of Ba+ immersedin magnetic field. Laser-induced fluorescence is indicated for laser beams of

wavelength 1 and 2. Data taken from Moore (1958). The dotted

horizontal line is not an energy-level in the 6 32p multiplet._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

While this excitation and de-excitation is going on, the valenceelectron's spin remains fixed in direction. Nothing disturbs it, not

occasional collisions with the 106 or so oxygen and nitrogen moleculesremaining in the trap, nor even a slammed door. (However a radio-

frequency oscillator tuned to 150 106 Hz would flip the spin,)


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I conjecture that the observer can also flip the spin of the valenceelectron by directing a portion of his or her conscious wavefunction to theelectron, as sketched in Fig.12.

B B

flips to

Fig.12. Volunteer directing a portion of his or her conjectured consciouswavefunction to flip the spin of a valence electron surrounding the filled

electronic shells of a Ba++ion; the ion is bathed in a magnetic field B ._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

But could a volunteer focus his or her conscious wavefunction down to

the sizeof a Ba+ ion? The ion's diameter is about 10 9 meter! Here, I willcite the work of Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater, a couple who weretrained in India in the late 19th century to look at atoms using their innersenses (Besant & Leadbeater, 1908, 1919, 1951). They surveyed nearly the

whole periodic table, drawing highly complex pictures of these atoms'structures. It is interesting that they saw atoms of twice and three timeshydrogen's mass. Today we recognize these atoms as deuterium and tritium.

The fact that Leadbeater and Besant reported a mass-3 atom by 1919, some

years before it was discovered with the mass spectrograph, lends credenceto their reports. Stephen Phillips has written two interesting books onLeadbeater and Besant's work, calling their ability to focus on single atomsmicro-psi vision (Phillips, 1980, 1999). A more concise review of theirexperiences appeared in this journal (Phillips, 1995).

The well-known remote viewer Joseph McMoneagle also seems tohave seen the motion of single atoms or molecules. He has this to say abouthis out-of-body experiences (McMoneagle, 1993):

1. You arrive at the target just as if you had gone there physically.

2. You know that your consciousness is totally at the target location and where

you left your physical body is somewhere else.3. You see objects and people at the target location, just as if you were seeingthem with physical eyes. Both animate as well as inanimate elements are seenwith such pristine clarity that you can actually discriminate molecularmovement within them. For example, looking at a table is like looking at anenergy field in the shape of a table, with billions of component parts orelements contained within the energy field moving or interacting with eachother.


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energy where no level exists, namely, the energy indicated by the dashedline in the 6 3

2p spectrum in Fig.11.

To be certain that the electron's spin has been flipped, one can shinelaser light of very slightly longer wavelength 2 and right circular

polarization

tuned to excite the electron, now in the 6 12 12s mj, = level,to the 6 3

2

32p mj, = level. This is illustrated in Fig.11. If the person

succeeds in flipping the electron's spin again, then LIF will cease and theion will once again disappear from view.

It is worth mentioning that shining laser light on the ion at afrequency slightly below the peak frequency of the s p1

23

2 transition also

slows the ion down, helping to keep it in the trap and within the laser-beam. This is termed Doppler cooling.

We need to make sure that the impressed magnetic field B is strong

enough to spread the levels of the 6 32p excited states sufficiently far apartthat their natural widths don't overlap. These natural widths are about

15 106 Hz wide, and the laser beam has a width of only about 106 Hz , so

separating the 6 32

p levels by100 106 Hz should be sufficient. It can be shown

that the shift in the energy of the valence electron in a level of total, orbital,and spin angular momentum j,l and s , and z-component of total angular

momentum mj is

Ee B

mgm Ej jlsmj

= h

2,

where g is the Land g-factor. For the electron in any p32 state, g =4

3, sobetween two adjacent levels the difference in energy

Ee B

m=

4

3 2

h

= 2 h .

Thus if we want the 6 32

p levels to be separated by an energy equivalent to a

frequency = 100 106 Hz, then the impressed magnetic fieldB m e= =3 54 / gauss.

The Land g-factor g = 2 for the 6 12

s levels, so with this same field,

these ground-state levels will be split by 150 106 Hz. This is equivalent to thepreviously quoted energy E= 0 6 10 6. eV , the energy difference between theelectron with spin up and spin down when it is in the ground state.

Summary and Outlook

Noting a parallel between the indestructibility of the electron and thehuman identity, I observe that human consciousness can exhibit many of thefeatures of the electron's wavefunction, such as diffraction and double-


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valuedness. Thus I speculate that a human consciousness isa wavefunction.At the same time, the electron's wavefunction appears to exhibit some of thefeatures of an elementary consciousness, so I speculate that the electron isalso governed by a conscious wavefunction.

Robert Monroe has reported that human intent can sometimes act at a

distance to leave a mark on a person, and Robert Jahn, Brenda Dunne andtheir collaborators have found that untrained volunteers can affect the outputof an electronic random-number generator. Therefore I suggest anexperiment in which a volunteer attempts to flip the spin of an electron in a

weak magnetic field, a feat which probably requires far less energy thanrequired for the Jahn & Dunne experiments. For practical purposes, thetarget electron could be the single valence electron whose wavefunction

encloses the filled electronic shells of a 138Ba++ ion confined in a Paul trap.

To see the single ion, one can cause it to fluoresce by shining 455 10 9

meter (blue-violet) light on it. If the person succeeds in flipping theelectron's spin, then the ion ceases to fluoresce. This experiment involves a

modest amount of equipment and could be replicated in a well equippedatomic physics lab.

If a person can flip the spin of an electron in the lab, then reports byJahn & Dunne, Monroe and others indicate that he or she might also be ableto flip the spin from across the street or from across the continent. This

would mean that the link between human and electron could not bemediated by electromagnetic or gravitational fields, as these fall off as theinverse square of the distance. Howeverwavefunctionsare highly mobile(witness the occasional instant collapse of a wavefunction over a largedistance), so I speculate that the human might be able to consciously directa portion of his or her wavefunction to the electron, however distant it may

be, where it would interact with the electron through the exchange of aboson. Alternately, the human conscious wavefunction might not need toextend very far beyond the human frame, but instead might direct quanta ofa conjectured M- field, morphic field, or perhaps qi to the electron to flipits spin. In this context, the fields resembles the gluon field of QuantumChromodynamics in that they can extend to the target electron withoutlosing intensity.

Further studies of such a human-electron interaction might enablescientists to replace the human end of the link with purely electroniccircuitry. This reminds me of the late eighteenth century experiments of

Volta, who discovered that the muscles of a frog's leg could be activated byelectric current. Later, of course, we learned that electricity could excite

inanimate devices as well.

If a person were able to turn on and off the laser-induced fluorescence(LIF) of an ion at will, then he or she could send a message. The sequence(on, off, on, off, on, off, oooon, off, oooon, off, oooon, off, on, off, on, off, on,off) would correspond to , or SOS in International MorseCode. This message could be read by anyone watching the ion. The personcould send any text he or she desired, such as the Preamble of theConstitution. If the person could control the LIF of an ion nearby, then he or


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she might be able to control it from across the country. Studies indicatethat mountains and Faraday cages should be no impediment, so the personought to be able to signal a submarine deep underwater (Targ, 1977), (Jahn,1997). If the signal indeed reaches the receiver instantly, then human-directed LIF could be used to communicate immediately with spacecraftlight-hours or light-days away.

Persons who have lost the ability to control their limbs or speechcould, in principle, use LIF to speak, to turn the pages of the book, or tonavigate with the help of appropriate electro-mechanical devices. If theconjectured human conscious wavefunction survives physical death, then itmight also be able to turn LIF on and off to communicate with living persons.

Learning tapes put out by The Monroe Institute indicate that thevolunteer attempting to control an apparatus at a distance will have a muchbetter chance if he or she first of all believes that he or she cando it.Entering into a meditative state with no cares or external distractions is

very helpful. The meditator might also imagine that he or she is extendingan energy bar into a long tube that reaches over to the object with

which he or she wants to interact. In this meditative state, he or she mightask for insight on how to perform the task, in this case to flip the spin(Monroe, 2000).

We will also study the effect that additional people in the lab mightexert on the experiment. In particular, we will see if visitors who arenegative regarding the experiment will cause operators to fail who havepreviously been successful in flipping the electron's spin. Since theoperator-plus-electron is a much simpler PK system than has been studiedin the past, we may be successful in finding ways to suppress any negativeconscious input.

A front-rank atomic experimentalist colleague has agreed to do theexperiment outlined in the previous Section if funding can be obtained.

Acknowledgments

First of all, I want to thank Bill Groom for giving me the idea of theparallel between the electron and the human identity. I would also like tothank Jensine Andresen for a conversation on quantum mechanics andconsciousness, and Brenda Dunne for helping me to understand thestatistics underlying the PEAR lab findings. I especially want to thank DavidChurch and Hans Schuessler for carefully explaining to me how theorientation of the spin of a valence electron can be experimentally

measured. I profited from in-depth discussions with experimentalcolleagues Robert Kenefick and Nelson Duller. Thanks are also due BrianStagner for helpful suggestions on subject-machine protocol, and to KeliLindelien for essential insight on adapting Robert Monroe's tapedinstructions to flipping the electron's spin. I also want to thank RobertDunstan for a discussion on the human autonomic nervous system, Jane

Wolferts for an interesting biographical anecdote, and Philip Hemmer andWalter Daugherity for information on current research in monomolecular


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transistors. I want to thank Swejen Salter and Maggie and Jules Harsch-Fischbach for insight and strong support in this research. Finally I want tothank Michael Manson, Andreas Mershin, Keli Lindelien and Mary LindBryan for their careful reading of the manuscript. This research wassupported in part by the Lifebridge Foundation of New York, NY.

Footnotes

1. W particles are quanta of the electroweak field, which also includes the

(neutral) Z0 and the photon. This quartet of fields is massless until the W

and the Z0 acquire mass from the Higgs boson through spontaneoussymmetry breaking. Similarly, the electron and its neutrino form a doubletsatisfying the Dirac equation. Both are massless until they acquire mass,again through spontaneous symmetry breaking. In many high-energycalculations, the mass of the electron can be neglected because it is so small.

2. This two-electron phenomenon is David Bohm's version of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment (Bohm, 1951).

3. I suspect that if consciousness is indeed an aspect of a quantummechanical wavefunction, then it will be expressed in a higher-dimensionalrepresentation of the wavefunction. See my paper on eight-dimensionalDirac particles (Bryan, 1998), where the internal quantum numbers ofthese particles emerge as the footprints of the higher-dimensionalcomponent of the wavefunction.

4. In this context, wavefunction seems like a poor choice of words todescribe the phenomenon. Instead of electron wavefunction, it might bemore meaningful to refer to it as the electron's waveform, since the waveexists whether or not we choose to parameterize it with a mathematicalfunction.

5. Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne have used a quantum wavefunction topicture the interaction of the human consciousness with its environment(Jahn & Dunne, 1986, 1987).

6. The Princeton group also investigated whether volunteers could alter thepaths of small balls cascading down a peg board, and found similar resultsalthough on a smaller data base. They also tested volunteers' ability toremote-view, i.e., using just their minds, describe details of the locale

where a scout was standing. Taken all together, Jahn et al. (1997) reportthat the probability that all of these results occurred by chance alone was of

the order of10 13 .

7. Edwin C. May, Jessica M. Utts and S. James P. Spottiswoode (1995) haveargued that the PEAR volunteers did not alter the random distribution of 1sand 0s in the sets; rather they altered the random distribution of the runstart times, where a run might consist of 50 , 100, or 1000 sets.

8. However these results were not replicated (Jahn, 2000), when the PEARgroup in coordination with groups at Freiburg and Giessen, Germany,repeated the PEAR experiments (Jahn, 1997).


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9. To account for the spectrum of elementary Dirac particles (the sixleptons and the six quarks of three colors each), I have constructed

wavefunctions in eight dimensions (the four of ordinary space and time plusfour higher) (Bryan, 1986, 1998). I assume that the four extra dimensionsare flat (not curled up as in string theories), so there is plenty of room for a

wavefunction to propagate outside ordinary space and time. If the M-fieldthat I propose also lives in higher dimensions as well as the four lower, thenit can rise above obstructions in ordinary space, such as Faraday cages orthe ocean, and travel unhindered to the absorber, such as the electron inthe experiment that I propose.


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Ronald Bryan - Consciousness and Quantum-Mechanical Wavefunctions (29 Pgs)