Boeing researchers don’t just spend their days designing killer drones and networked tanks. They also investigate unexplained powers of the mind, sometimes. Especially if those times are the late ’60s.
This study, New Correlation Between a Human Subject and a Quantum Mechanical Random Number Generator, conducted in 1967, “tentatively conclude[s]” that people can basically will particular numbers to appear.
According to the Boeing-ites, there “exists a weak but significant correlation” between the experiment’s “statistical processes” (that would be the generation of random numbers, “connected to four lamps and four corresponding pushbuttons”) and “the experimenter who initiates the processes” (“the human subjects, asked to press the buttons… with the objective in mind of obtaining a high number of coincidences”).
And that’s only one of the projects funded with, of course, your tax money.
The mind is an incredibly powerful tool in that it can find meaning in everyday occurences. I’ll give you a few examples.
1) A few days ago I saw an old college professor on the subway. I had a “crush” on her back then. The next stop, the doors open and a young pretty woman in a CRUSH orange soda t-shirt boards.
2) Vacationing at a lake resort, my companion was at the shore while i was in the hotel room. The cleaning lady comes by and i offered her $$$ for a tryst (hey, a long-time fantasy i’ve always wanted to try). She takes the money but says she’ll be back in five minutes. She doesn’t show up so I gave myself a hand job. I start getting dressed and the cleaning lady shows up. I tell her forget it and to just keep the money. I go down to the lake shore and my companion is laughing and telling me of something had just caught a fish. Huh, what? “Look!”, she says… it’s a WEASEL running along the shore!
3) My imagination was running overtime about a 777 (Jesus) encounter. I’m walking on the sidewalk when all of a sudden I see a child crippled in a wheelchair. I’m humbled and throw away my silly story. Seven paces later a woman in a 7UP t-shirt walks past me.
4) In one of my first tiny enlightenments I realised the reality of things. I’m walking in the lower east side of Manhattan. I get a realization where somehow i understand the nature of things. I look over to my right and a billboard says “Now You Know”. I think I’m going crazy so I step over to the side near a park to drink some soda. I tilt my head up to take a swig and I notice a huge bird on a tree branch looking down on me. It’s a red-tailed hawk. WHAT?!?
It’s nutty. I just laugh it off. So many *meaningful* coincidences. It definately feels like there is something out there. I shrug my shoulders. Just funny and just for me because everybody just thinks I’m crazy.
#1, my recommendation is that you stay off drugs.
“777 (Jesus) encounter” ???
You saw Jesus on a Boeing 777?
Where does the article say that this was “funded with [my] tax dollars”.
And it WAS 40 years ago, during the Summer of Love. Maybe all that acid enhanced the mind’s ability to control quantum numbers.
There appear to be quantum components to the human brain.
I’ll leave it at that.
I get thsi weird thing where I dont look at my watch for hours and when I do the time says 22:22
or I wont have my watch on me, I’ll get into the car and the illuminated clock lights up when I start the ignition and it says 22:22
This has happened for years. What is it with 22:22
#5 – venom monger – For that matte, maybe there are quantum components to every-damn-thing. Not sure how knowing that would benefit us, but see http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=252 for an experiment using “Electrogaiagrams” (wotta concept) to predict big events.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio…
So, if I concentrate really really really hard, I’ll be able to guess the winning numbers for next week’s lottery?
So, if I concentrate really really really hard, I’ll be able to guess the winning numbers for next week’s lottery?
Guess? No. I think that would violate the principles that prevent information from traveling faster than light, or going backward in time.
However, there’s nothing that prevents you from controlling the future, if you can figure out how. So, you can’t guess what the numbers will be, but you may be able to (in your particular universe) be able to influence them toward being your winning numbers.
My computer always dies when I think about it too much. Seems like I read somewhere about a study where they tried to influence computers with thought.
Computers are evil.
Seriously though, when your brain functions, it creates tiny electrical pulses that are measurable. Computers use tiny electrical pulses to “think.” Maybe an extremely small energy field exists around your brain that can occasionally affect a computer. Who knows?
#10, one time i ran my metrocard through at the subway turnstile and just at the last split second as it started to turn through I noticed that the LED readout said the card had expired. I had forgottened that it expired. Another time I punched in the wrong number on a numberlock door knob and opened the door but then just realized I had put in the wrong code. Who knows? Weird things happen. It’s possible at least on the quantum level as has been proven in such experiments as the double-slit experiment. I can’t tell how many times I run into people that is beyond coincidence. There’s some link between hard thinking/strong feelings that affects the space around us and attracts what we are thinking. It happens a lot with women. I’ll talk to someone and then out of the blue I’ll see them pop up later somewhere. I’ll give you an example. During jury duty one time one of the female jurors took a liking to me. Then the next day i was in the park and we ran into eachother. Then two days later i was in the bookstore and she pops up and we chat. A couple weeks later I’m walking around 11pm, stop at a crosslight and i look over to my left and she’s right there with shopping bags!!! I say hello and i walk her to her apartment since i was heading in that direction (mind you i didn’t know where she lived). I could give you a hundred examples. It’s just plain weird and spooky sometimes.
The study and the idea of using mind control to influence numbers is entirely nonsense of course. There are electical fields all over the universe and just as those don’t influence your dreams your dreams/thoughts don’t influence them.
If you think otherwise, take the James Randi Million Dollar challenge.
0. Sounds like someone could make an easy $1Mil.
IF they were to submit to the James Randi Educational Foundation One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge.
“… offer a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event.”
http://www.randi.org/research/index.html
1. Now I want you to itemize every thing and every thought and every event you ever come in contact with or experienced on any one day. I would think your list would be in the thousands of items. You can now imagine that there are going to be at least two of these events that have some very interesting connections. Now multiply this by every day of your life and you’re sure to come across something mind-boggling. All the other possible tens of thousands of daily non-interesting parallels, you disregard. The human brain is designed only to key in on recognizable patterns.
It’s like the old trick where in a classroom of 20 kids there will be a surprising number of pairs of kids who have birthdays on the same day. How can this be when there are 365 days to choose from?
What would be far more interesting, is if you could predict the Crush example in advance. After the fact is no biggie. It’s like me asking “what are the chances of me having 2 brothers!?” after the fact. What you are really asking is, “what are the chances of me being simply amazed by some combination of things… anything.” Especially where you get to decide how the connection can be meaningful. Then it doesn’t seem so extraordinary.
6. What you fail to mention are all the times you looked at the clock and absolutely nothing of interest was showing. So nothing that your conscious does not even record the fact that you are looking at the clock. Eventually, your number is going to show. A number that you are hyper-keyed up on. One that may even attract your attention due to its unique LED pattern. And you’ll swear that it was one of the rare times you looked at the clock.
RBG
If Boeing doesn’t knock off the woo-woo Twilight Zone bullshit, I swear, I’m gonna stop sending ’em my tax money!