This document provides an introduction to the subject of retropsychokinesis, a historical review of the evidence from previous experiments, and an overview of the on-line retropsychokinesis experiments underway at this site. This is an adaptation and elaboration, by John Walker, of the original proposal for Web-based retropsychokinesis experiments by Matthew R. Watkins. Text from the original proposal appears in dark brown; new material describing the current implementation of the experiments is set in black. Some minor editing of text quoted from the proposal has been done to better describe the present state of the experiments.
Two weeks later you open the envelope to find a piece of paper with "28" printed neatly in the centre. Your mind swims with possible explanations, including the possibility that it was merely a coincidence. But a few days later, the stranger reappears with another envelope, you choose another number, and the sequence of events repeats. How many times would this have to occur before you accepted that something VERY STRANGE INDEED was going on?
However, the "retrocausal" or reverse-time nature of RPK is such that problems of this nature can generally be overcome. The proposed experiment(s) would, in fact, bypass most of the usual obstacles which occur in parapsychological research. These include attracting and motivating appropriate subjects, the limitations on the number of subjects which can be tested in any reasonable length of time, the elimination of all possible fraud, and the difficulties subjects face in performing in unfamiliar laboratory settings or in the presence of sceptical observers. The difficulties in publicising and gaining acceptance for the results obtained has perhaps been the most significant obstacle. Experiments which yield significant results have generally been accepted by the "believers" and rejected by the sceptics as insufficiently well-regulated (a claim which is often justified, but which can never be overcome in the existing research format). However, this too could change, as we shall see.
Schmidt and others have spent many years repeating the experiments, refining the techniques, and gathering valuable data, despite the general lack of public awareness and academic acceptance which they have received. Various acausal models of reality, and appropriate modifications of quantum theory have been suggested in order to account for the phenomenon, yet many fundamental questions regarding the nature of time, consciousness and causality remain largely unanswered.
The visual feedback programs are written in Java and run locally on the subject's computer as "applets" within the RPK experiment Web page. This allows the feedback programs to provide smooth animation regardless of the speed of the subject's Internet connection. The feedback programs exploit the object oriented features of the Java language to allow implementation of other forms of feedback without extensive programming. Developers are encouraged to create new feedback programs and make them available on this or other sites.
If significant results are obtained by one or more subjects in these experiments, it is essential that other independent investigators verify the validity of the experiments running at this site and independently repeat the experiments themselves. All of the software components used in the experiments have been placed in the public domain and may be downloaded, by anybody, with complete source code, from this site. Other sites which conduct their own experiments using these programs are also encouraged to establish their own hardware-based random number generators, using a variety of technologies, to preclude potential defects in our HotBits generator as a source of error.
Our experience with the Internet suggests that a huge number of
potential subjects could quite easily be reached in a relatively short
time. The fact that they will be free to perform in their own
environment, rather than in a (possibly distracting) laboratory, may
make a significant difference. Furthermore, the almost unlimited
numbers of people who could potentially participate in the experiment
simultaneously, without the need for careful supervision, should speed
the research process up considerably. Dr. Schmidt has cautioned us,
however, that the key to getting results in these experiments may be
the effort we make to "maintain some semblance of personal contact
between subject and experimenter". Also, Charles Tart, the well-known
U.C. Davis consciousness researcher has suggested that "there is an
important experimenter effect in all psi research; some people have
the "magic touch" and regularly get results, others don't and we have
little idea as to why."
Our making everything needed to
conduct these experiments freely available on the Web will permit
a variety of researchers to perform these standardised experiments
on subjects of their own choosing, at this site or on Web sites
of their own.
Many peripheral issues are also worthy of consideration. For example,
there is the reliability of experimental data in particularly
sensitive areas of subatomic physics (largely based on subtle
statistical assumptions, and therefore possibly subject to PK or RPK
influences). Perhaps more controversially one might want to
contemplate the supposedly "random" nature of the genetic mutations
which are axiomatic in the Darwinian model of biological evolution.
Perhaps most profoundly, the very idea of "similar" measurable events,
which constitutes the starting point of all theories of probability
and statistics (keeping in mind that all descriptions of the physical
universe are inherently statistical), and the (related) ubiquity of
certain statistical distributions in the physical world, particularly
the Gaussian
(or normal) distribution, may need serious re-evaluation.
For if the phenomenon is real, it suggests that such distributions can
effectively be warped through the exertion of poorly understood
psychic faculties. This then suggests that the perception of the
physical universe as proceeding according to statistically regular
(i.e. "normal", in the truest sense) patterns may be be linked to
some ongoing, collective, and/or self-reinforcing psychic projection
or interaction.
Finally, the purported results can be very simply adapted to demonstrate what can only be
interpreted as an instantaneous transmission of information. This
violates the
speed-of-light limit set by Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and
is related to the
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox and the concept of quantum
nonlocality. This in itself, we believe, is sufficiently
important to justify the experiments.
Philosophical Implications
The existence of this effect (if in fact it does exist) raises some
very deep questions concerning the nature of time, the relationship
between consciousness and objective material reality, the concept of
causality, and the concept of randomness. The much misunderstood
"multiple (or parallel) universes" interpretation of quantum
mechanical phenomena has been suggested as part of a model which
encompasses the RPK phenomenon. This in itself raises many important
questions. The idea of "will" is certainly related, as this is the
best existing description of that which the subject uses in order to
exert an influence. The will's influence has been discussed in some
details by the emminent parapsychologist J. Beloff in
an article on teleology vs. mechanism.
Afterword
The scenario described at the beginning of this document, involving
strangers with envelopes, numbers printed on pieces of paper, etc. was
only intended as a metaphor. However, we aim to determine if equivalently
"impossible" things can happen, using the slightly less "physical" medium of the Web.
But it should be pointed out that if RPK really
exists (and the best existing database
suggests that the odds are in the order of 1 in 630 thousand million that
the experimental evidence is the result of chance), then such a stunt
could theoretically be carried out. The number in the envelope
would be the "compression" of a large block of unobserved random numbers,
calculated and printed via computer, and sealed in the envelope without
being observed. After a number was chosen, the "stranger" would
"unravel" it according to a certain algorithm, and set up a series of
RPK trials with talented subjects who would in effect be "encoding"
subtle biases into the original block of random data. This seemingly
"retrocausal" action should result in the printed number "having been"
the number which you (at a later time) selected.