Could the sheep-goat effect be the manifestation of attentional-phase dependent mind-matter modulation?

Abstract

The sheep-goat effect of psi cannot be explained without considering mind of specific states. This work speculates mind-matter interaction, as was inferred by many including Erwin Schrödinger, for entertaining an analytically flavored “phenomenological” interpretation of the sheep-goat effect. A fundamental construct of this theory is the operation of mind-matter events in a spatial-temporal-attentional domain, which relaxes to the spatial-temporal domain wherein purely objective events are registered, when the effect of attention vanishes. Attention is quantitated as a nonuniformly interspaced discrete index that depends solely on the number of viable neurons that function in a coherent state for a purpose of the mind. A spatial-attentional “information” domain is assumed to be operable by hinging it with the spatial-temporal “energy” domain along the spatial dimension to form a so-called vivo-dynamic complex. Operations of an event function with respect to the attentional dimension are assigned to assimilate those with respect to the temporal dimension. Domain operators are introduced to specify the domain of temporal or attentional attribution as needed to assess an event and identify the outcome of domain-coupling on the registration of an event. Time-dependent Schrodinger’s equation is then, imperatively, treated as a lower-dimensional case of a higher-dimensional mind-matter-event equation elaborated in the spatial-temporal-attentional complex. The resulted mind-matter-event function defined in the vivo-dynamic complex relaxes to an objective-event function in the spatial-temporal domain at either zeroing of the attention or vanishing of the first-order derivative of the function with respect to the attentional index. The mind-matter-event equation leads to simple traveling-wave-type solutions that are formed by combining the temporal presentation and attentional perception. The auto or cross interaction of the mind-matter event functions then creates “information-energy” coupling terms presumed to be amenable to instrument probing in the spatial-temporal domain as is the objective-event term. The domain-coupling when modulated by the phase difference between the temporal and attentional dimensions is seen to enhance or inhibit the deviation of the event registration in the spatial-temporal domain from its baseline probability. The outcome is thus akin to the sheep-goat effect. The phase-dependency of the event-coupling also elicits why it may be difficult to replicate psi. Such a theoretical manipulation offers novel insights to phenomena that manifest mind-matter interaction.