Self-Organization of Temporal Structures — A Possible Solution for the Intervention Problem

Abstract

The paper presents an experiment that is a conceptual replication of two earlier experiments which demonstrate entanglement correlations between a quantum physical random process and certain psychological variables of human observers. In the present study button‐pushes were used as psychological variables. The button‐pushes were performed by the subject with his or her left or right hand in order to “control” (according to the instruction) a random process that could be observed on a display. Each button‐push started the next random event which, however, in reality, was independent of the button‐pushes. The study consists of three independent sets of data (n = 386) that were gained with almost fee same apparatus in three different experimental situations. The first data set serves as reference. It was an automatic control‐run without subjects. The second set was produced mainly by subjects who asked for taking part in a para‐psychological experiment and who visited the “Parapsychological Counseling Office” in Freiburg especially for this purpose. Most of them were highly motivated persons who wanted to test their “psi ability”. In this case the number of runs could be selected by the subjects before the experimental session. The third set of data (of the same size) was collected during two public exhibitions (at Basel and at Freiburg) where the visitors had the opportunity to participate in a “PK experiment”. In this case the number of trials and runs was fixed in advance, but the duration of the experiment was dependent of the speed of button‐pushes. The results corroborate the previous studies. The specific way how the subjects pushed the buttons is highly significantly correlated with the independent random process. This correlation shows up for the momentarily generated random events as well as for the previous and the later runs during the experimental session. In a strict sense, only the correlations with the future random events can be interpreted as non‐local correlations. The structure of the data, however, allows the conclusion, that all observed correlations can be considered as entanglement‐correlations. The number of entanglement‐correlations was significantly higher for the highly motivated group (data set 2) than for the unselected group of the exhibition participants (data set 3). The latter, however, where not completely unsuccessful: A subgroup who showed “innovative” behavior also showed significant entanglement‐correlations. It could further be shown, that the structure of the matrix of entanglement‐correlations is not stable in time and changes if the experiment is repeated. In comparison with previous correlation‐experiments, no decline of the effect size was observed. These results are in agreement with the predictions of the “Weak Quantum Theory (WQT)” and the “Model of Pragmatic Information (MPI)”. These models interpret the measured correlations as entanglement‐correlations within a self‐organizing, organizationally closed, psycho‐physical system that exist during a certain time‐interval (as long as the system is active). The entanglement‐correlations cannot be considered as a causal influence (in the sense of a PK‐Influence) and thus are called “micro‐synchronicity”. After a short introduction (1.), the question is discussed how non‐local correlations can be created in psycho‐physical systems (2.). In chapter (3.) the description of the experimental setting is given and the apparatus (4.) and randomness test of the random event generator (5.) are described. Additionally, an overview of the structure of the data is given (6.) and the analysis methods are described (7.). In chapter (8.) the experimental hypotheses are formulated and the results are reported (9.). After the discussion of the results (10.) the conclusions (11).) of the study are presented.