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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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With this approach, the first empirical question is whether psi has any function in addition to inducing a sense of mystery and wonder. This requires more than a superficial listing of some cases in which psi appeared to save someone from harm. If there are many psi cases that induce wonder without a practical benefit and a comparatively small number that have a practical benefit as well as induce wonder, it is likely that the practical benefit is incidental to the main function of the experience. More sustained patterns of consistent experiences converging on a specific outcome would seem to be needed.

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Another empirical strategy is to try to identify patterns or rules about when efforts to apply psi are successful and when the evasive phase starts. Most previous explorations along these lines have been limited by focusing on mechanistic principles from quantum physics. The concept of a higher consciousness offers more flexibility for developing testable models.

For example, psi could promote or create diversity for evolution. Psi would not directly guide evolution as various writers have suggested (reviewed in Stokes, 1997), rather psi would influence or enhance the random processes generating the diversity that underlies natural selection. This diversity could apply to human consciousness as well as to traditional biological diversity. Psi would be a creative principle that acts briefly at transition points to generate new states but would not maintain those states or produce sustained effects. The traditional forces of competition and natural selection would determine which states survived. The sense of mystery and wonder resulting from psi could be a side effect or special case of the enhanced diversity.

CONCLUSION

Psi effects are unsustainable. They are sometimes impressive and reliable, but then become actively evasive. One of the most testable models for this property is that psi effects occur against a background of supporting and opposing motivation and psi influence due to the extreme polarization of attitudes toward psi in the population. A more likely explanation is that some type of higher consciousness influences or guides the occurrence of psi. Psi effects induce a sense of mystery and wonder, which may be the primary function of psi. However, other functions are possible and need to be investigated.

(1.) Susan Blackmore, a parapsychologist who became increasingly skeptical, described the "worst kind of pseudskepticism":

There are some membets of the skeptics' groups who dearly believe they know the right answer prior to inquiry. They appear not to be interested in weighing alternatives, investigating strange claims, or trying out psychic experiences or altered states for themselves (heaven forbidl), but only in promoting their own particular belief structure and cohesion... I have to say it--most of these people are men. Indeed, I have not met a single woman of this type. (Blackmore, 1994, p. 235)

REFERENCES

ALCOCK, J. (2001). Science vs. pseudoscience, nonscience, and nonsense: Twenty-five years of CSICOP. Skeptical Inquirer, 25, 50-54.

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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