*************************************************** ABSTRACTED FROM:

Margins of Reality Robert G. Jahn and Brenda J. Dunne Harcourt Brace & Co, 1987

An original paper Information, Consciousness, and HealthRobert G. Jahn, Alternative Therapies, May 1996, p 32 f provides a synopsis of the book.

Physical, biological, and medical science have tended to trade in three conceptual currencies; matter, energy, and most recently, information. Einstein's identification of the transmutability of matter into energy has impelled much of 20th century physics. A somewhat subtler equavalence of energy and information has been established. The author sees a need to include subjective as well as objective information as a scientific currency. Notes the demonstrated capacity of consciousness to alter both subjective and objective elements of information. The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program was established in 1979 for the ssole purpose of rigorous scientific study of the interaction of human consciousness with random physical processes. Three types of research have been persued: anomalous human/machine interactions, remote perception, and theoretical modeling of consciousness.

Based on some 50 million experimental trials, it has been found that anomalous coorelations of machine outputs with prestated operator intensions are clearly evident. Co-operator results are characteristic of the pair. Co-operators of the same sex are less effective than male/female pairs. Bonded male/female pairs produce the highest scores. No learning or experience benefits are observed. The effects are independ of distance between the operator and machine. Subjective reports from most successful operators speak of a sense of resonance or bond with the machine. Human/machine experiments similar to these have been conducted at many other labs, with results similar to the PEAR lab.

In the remote perception experiments, the "agent" is physically present at a scene at a target location, and immerses himself into the scene. The "percipient", far away, attempts to percieve details of the scene. Several hundred remote perception experiments have been performed, with results similar to those of human/machine results, including participant -specific effects, and independent of distance.

The theoretical model of consciousness was developed by analogy with the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.

IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH
Without question, the most magnificient of all information processing systems, and communication and response systems, is the human physiology. If, as has been demonstrated, consciousness can bring some degree of order into a simple random strings of onesand zeros emerging from a computer, why is it unreasonable to suspect that it can evolk similar or subtler efects on the human physiology? A successsful strategy for anomalies involvs some bluring of identities between operator and machine, or between percipient and agent. This is also the recipe for any form of love, and Love will be the fourth currency in the scientific exchequer.

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