Two columns ago I wrote about a study conducted in Toronto by Dr. Freedman and colleagues in which people were able to change the output of a random event generator by mental will alone (the column is here) (Dr. Freedman's paper is here). This work follows on decades of previous studies that demonstrated similar events that should not, by all the laws of physics, be happening. That recent study was of interest because it demonstrated that the strange outcome was associated with alterations in brain function, specifically frontal lobe activity.
How can we extend the scope of the credible without falling into the bottomless pit of credulity? Those suffering from mental illness sometimes make spooky assumptions and claims that they can influence things, animals and people. So do spiritualists, magicians, charlatan, grifters ... and fantasy novelists. While speculative fiction is a delightful place to visit, when we forsake empiricism, disaster follows. Gamblers who believe they can predict or control the cards learn the hard way that in the end, the house wins. And yet ... and yet ... when Physics has made it respectable to talk about temporal anomalies and entanglement, it's seductive to wonder if indeed "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” The Ghostbuster movies excepted, we haven't devised a box in which to keep spooks, whether they are the traditional Marley's Ghost variety or the increasingly weird stuff thought to be going on inside atoms. Perhaps the current questioning of other elements of Physics for which there is no empirical evidence -- Dark Matter, for example -- may lead to a fresh paradigm that brings the worlds of physics and magic closer together. Oddly, perhaps Ockham's Razer may be the tool to cut through through to a understanding of how the universe and the insides of our heads work, because right now, the complex arguments about both inner and outer reality are beginning to look a bit like the debates about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
How can we extend the scope of the credible without falling into the bottomless pit of credulity? Those suffering from mental illness sometimes make spooky assumptions and claims that they can influence things, animals and people. So do spiritualists, magicians, charlatan, grifters ... and fantasy novelists. While speculative fiction is a delightful place to visit, when we forsake empiricism, disaster follows. Gamblers who believe they can predict or control the cards learn the hard way that in the end, the house wins. And yet ... and yet ... when Physics has made it respectable to talk about temporal anomalies and entanglement, it's seductive to wonder if indeed "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” The Ghostbuster movies excepted, we haven't devised a box in which to keep spooks, whether they are the traditional Marley's Ghost variety or the increasingly weird stuff thought to be going on inside atoms. Perhaps the current questioning of other elements of Physics for which there is no empirical evidence -- Dark Matter, for example -- may lead to a fresh paradigm that brings the worlds of physics and magic closer together. Oddly, perhaps Ockham's Razer may be the tool to cut through through to a understanding of how the universe and the insides of our heads work, because right now, the complex arguments about both inner and outer reality are beginning to look a bit like the debates about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.