R. Miller writes:
The arguments here seem to assume a consensus experience, i.e. "Can't we
all just agree on this set of evidence?" What if reality experienced by
one in a closed room is fundamentally different that when experienced as a
dyad, triad, or mob? No one (to my knowledge) has been able to refute the
Schmidt <<retro-pk>> experiments, and there's serious research that
suggests prayer *works* (subsequent events "occur* commensurate with
consensus desires expressed in prayer). And, the evidence cited by the
author of the book "The Wisdom of Crowds" seems to suggest that more than
simple statistics is at play. So, in our infamous (but interesting!)
gedanken experiments should we consider whether there is an individual
observing something vs a group observation?
More to the point, can reality "differ" based upon the number of people
<<linking>> in the experience?
We discuss some pretty weird ideas on this list, including thought
experiments which may not ever be physically possible. I think that it is
crucially important that, as far as possible, only the one weird idea be
discussed at a time: suppose there are 10^100 copies of you all running in
lockstep, *but* that every other fact about the universe is in accordance
with generally accepted scientific theory. So although it's not impossible
that minds can somehow act as a group, that is something in need of *real*
experimental evidence. Stacking a controversial theory on a weird idea
balancing on an impossible situation is asking for trouble!
--Stathis Papaioannou
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