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The capricious, actively evasive, unsustainable nature of psi: a summary and hypotheses

Journal of Parapsychology, The, Spring, 2003 by J.E. Kennedy

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Although these ideas are interesting and should be tested, I personally doubt that they will turn out to explain the unsustainable nature of psi. This expectation is based on my experience with psi (Kennedy, 2000) and the likelihood that psi is not as anthropocentric as assumed with these ideas. At the same time, I think the idea that genetic and gender factors are significant in the polarization of psi beliefs is almost certainly true.

A Mechanistic Property of Nature

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Eisenbud (1963/1992b) proposed that the declines and lack of usefully repeatable results in psi research reflect a fundamental, insurmountable property of nature. He suggested that psi has a role in and is constrained by the basic laws of probability. Beloff (1994) proposed ideas with similar conclusions. However, these speculations focus on the actively evasive phase and offer no explanation or insights for the reliable phase of psi or for the transition between reliable and evasive psi.

Lucadou (1988, 2001, 2002) proposed that usefully reliable psi is not possible based on a general systems theory model that includes the meaning of the psi event as a critical factor. This model attempts to combine physical and psychological aspects into one overall system that has boundaries and limitations determined by the meaning or "pragmatic information" of the situation. Experimental outcomes change as this meaning changes.

The model predicts that psi effects can occur in situations that are novel for those involved, but the effects will vanish or change if useful or confirming information is involved. Lucadou (2001) suggested that psi researchers should make sufficient changes when replicating studies to maintain novelty and that the ideal situation would be to keep the experimenters and participants unaware of the previous outcomes for a line of research. The model appears to preclude practical application of psi. At a minimum, this model is a stimulating effort to deal with the perplexing properties of psi.

However, it appears to me that the reliable phase of psi sometimes involves successful confirmation or useful information that conflicts with the basic predictions of this model. Also, human meaning has a pivotal role in this model. Here too, I think it is likely that psi is not as anthropocentric as assumed in this model. However, the key concepts and terms in the model ("pragmatic information," "organizationally closed system," etc.) cannot be quantified at present and are sufficiently ambiguous and complex that the model can probably be adapted to a wide range of outcomes.

It may be useful to note that researchers can develop similar hypotheses based on inferences from previous empirical findings without the need for the esoteric jargon and equations from systems theory. In fact, with the current state of knowledge, it is not clear that the jargon and equations contribute value beyond simple predictions based on consistency with the experience from previous research.

The capricious, actively evasive, unsustainable nature of psi: a summary and hypotheses

Journal of Parapsychology, The, Spring, 2003 by J.E. Kennedy

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