izi
11-07-2011, 01:33 AM
Some fun stuff about telepathy:
http://www.noetic.org/noetic/issue-twelve-july/fringe-ology/
Excerpt:
In 2001, British physicist Brian Josephson was asked by the Royal Mail, Britain’s postal service, to write a short essay commemorating a new series of Nobel Prize–themed stamps. He could have just written the standard thing, extolling the virtues of science and urging kids into the field. But what he delivered, and the Royal Mail published, deviated more than a few degrees from standard. “Quantum theory is now being fruitfully combined with theories of information and computation,” Josephson writes. “These developments may lead to an explanation of processes still not understood within conventional science such as telepathy, an area where Britain is at the forefront of research.”
The mention of telepathy, invoking the paranormal, caused a furor. And in response, some of Josephson’s fellow physicists railed to the press, accusing Josephson of having “hoodwinked” the Royal Mail into printing falsehoods.
Josephson, a Nobel Prize winner, is an avowed believer in telepathy. Claims of psi-ability have been with us for millennia. The Greek historian Herodotus reported that, in 550 BC, the Oracle at Delphi predicted precisely when the king of Lydia would be boiling a lamb and a tortoise in a brass cauldron. Hardly as valuable as predicting, say, the winner of the Super Bowl. Still, the Oracle got gold and silver for her trouble.
Today, in the modern West, psychics can also earn their share of filthy lucre. But the mainstream view of psi is contentious, to say the least, and Josephson’s full-bodied embrace of psi is surprising – not least because he could easily have continued down the less nettlesome path he had forged for himself. As a graduate student, Josephson had correctly predicted that a phenomenon called “quantum tunneling” was more powerful than previously thought. His research led to Josephson Junctions, in which two layers of superconducting material sandwich a (very) thin layer of nonconducting material. This construction allowed electron pairs to “tunnel” from one side to the other, leading to a vast array of practical applications, such as microchips and MRI machines. In short, Josephson’s discovery is among the most important technological leaps of the past half-century. But because of his interest in psi, some now portrayed him as a figure of disrepute. He had gone “off the rails,” they claimed in the wake of his offensive sentence, his intellect somehow damaged by his long-running study of telepathy.
“It is utter rubbish,” David Deutsch, a quantum physics expert at Oxford University, told the Observer newspaper. “Telepathy simply does not exist.”
BBC Radio invited Josephson to defend his position against two skeptics – the key one being American James Randi. A former stage magician, Randi has been debunking all things paranormal for roughly forty years. And given the opportunity to confront Josephson, he attacked. The magician accused the physicist of invoking the “refuge of scoundrels” in referring to quantum mechanics and further claimed there was “no firm evidence” for telepathy a reputable scientist would accept. But there is a problem here. Because the evidence submitted for psi is vast, and so competently assembled, some more fair-minded skeptics have been forced to concede important ground. “I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven,” said psychologist and skeptic Richard Wiseman, in a January 2008 edition of the Daily Mail.
An email discussing the radio program which I am still trying to locate:
From Michael Roll
mike@mroll.freeserve.co.uk
11-25-2
Jeff, I have now done further homework regarding the BBC Radio 4 'Today' Programme that went out on 2nd October 2001. It featured the Cambridge University Nobel Laureate for Physics Prof. B.D. Josephson after he had linked so-called paranormal phenomena with the scientific discipline of subatomic physics.
A representative from the programme has just phoned me back. Randi was on the programme but not live. They played a clip of Randi saying that those who link paranormal phenomena with subatomic physics are "scoundrels". Josephson destroyed Randi's arguments on the programme but I was in error if I gave the impression Randi was destroyed in live debate. We have that still to look forward to. So far to my knowledge this has just not taken place in the UK.
Michael
http://www.noetic.org/noetic/issue-twelve-july/fringe-ology/
Excerpt:
In 2001, British physicist Brian Josephson was asked by the Royal Mail, Britain’s postal service, to write a short essay commemorating a new series of Nobel Prize–themed stamps. He could have just written the standard thing, extolling the virtues of science and urging kids into the field. But what he delivered, and the Royal Mail published, deviated more than a few degrees from standard. “Quantum theory is now being fruitfully combined with theories of information and computation,” Josephson writes. “These developments may lead to an explanation of processes still not understood within conventional science such as telepathy, an area where Britain is at the forefront of research.”
The mention of telepathy, invoking the paranormal, caused a furor. And in response, some of Josephson’s fellow physicists railed to the press, accusing Josephson of having “hoodwinked” the Royal Mail into printing falsehoods.
Josephson, a Nobel Prize winner, is an avowed believer in telepathy. Claims of psi-ability have been with us for millennia. The Greek historian Herodotus reported that, in 550 BC, the Oracle at Delphi predicted precisely when the king of Lydia would be boiling a lamb and a tortoise in a brass cauldron. Hardly as valuable as predicting, say, the winner of the Super Bowl. Still, the Oracle got gold and silver for her trouble.
Today, in the modern West, psychics can also earn their share of filthy lucre. But the mainstream view of psi is contentious, to say the least, and Josephson’s full-bodied embrace of psi is surprising – not least because he could easily have continued down the less nettlesome path he had forged for himself. As a graduate student, Josephson had correctly predicted that a phenomenon called “quantum tunneling” was more powerful than previously thought. His research led to Josephson Junctions, in which two layers of superconducting material sandwich a (very) thin layer of nonconducting material. This construction allowed electron pairs to “tunnel” from one side to the other, leading to a vast array of practical applications, such as microchips and MRI machines. In short, Josephson’s discovery is among the most important technological leaps of the past half-century. But because of his interest in psi, some now portrayed him as a figure of disrepute. He had gone “off the rails,” they claimed in the wake of his offensive sentence, his intellect somehow damaged by his long-running study of telepathy.
“It is utter rubbish,” David Deutsch, a quantum physics expert at Oxford University, told the Observer newspaper. “Telepathy simply does not exist.”
BBC Radio invited Josephson to defend his position against two skeptics – the key one being American James Randi. A former stage magician, Randi has been debunking all things paranormal for roughly forty years. And given the opportunity to confront Josephson, he attacked. The magician accused the physicist of invoking the “refuge of scoundrels” in referring to quantum mechanics and further claimed there was “no firm evidence” for telepathy a reputable scientist would accept. But there is a problem here. Because the evidence submitted for psi is vast, and so competently assembled, some more fair-minded skeptics have been forced to concede important ground. “I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven,” said psychologist and skeptic Richard Wiseman, in a January 2008 edition of the Daily Mail.
An email discussing the radio program which I am still trying to locate:
From Michael Roll
mike@mroll.freeserve.co.uk
11-25-2
Jeff, I have now done further homework regarding the BBC Radio 4 'Today' Programme that went out on 2nd October 2001. It featured the Cambridge University Nobel Laureate for Physics Prof. B.D. Josephson after he had linked so-called paranormal phenomena with the scientific discipline of subatomic physics.
A representative from the programme has just phoned me back. Randi was on the programme but not live. They played a clip of Randi saying that those who link paranormal phenomena with subatomic physics are "scoundrels". Josephson destroyed Randi's arguments on the programme but I was in error if I gave the impression Randi was destroyed in live debate. We have that still to look forward to. So far to my knowledge this has just not taken place in the UK.
Michael