Can Quantum Physics Explain Paranormal Phenomena?

[Ghost]

I am fascinated by quantum physics but, I can't do the math to save my life. I teach psychology for Grambling State University. I am putting together a research grant with the NSF for a Social Science experiment. The work I am doing now is in the paranormal - or better put, prediction of paranormal activity based upon hard science data collection. I'm here to connect with quantum physicists at the college/university level to discuss this phenomena with a skeptical but open mind. Einstein called it Spooky Science for a reason. If something can be in two or more places at the exact same time, I think the word paranormal fits like a glove for quantum physics and psychology.

So that's me. Nice to meet everyone. Thanks

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Welcome to PF!

 

[Ghost]

Welcome to PF!

Thanks. Glad I found this forum.

 

[ZapperZ]

If something can be in two or more places at the exact same time, I think the word paranormal fits like a glove for quantum physics and psychology.

You should be very careful in making such non-existent connection between two very different phenomena.

Zz.

 

[Ghost]

Why? To my knowledge, nothing can be in two places at the same time. That is not normal. Para means beyond. Paranormal is beyond normal. Being in two places at the exact same time is beyond normal. I feel I'm accurate in this assessment regardless if they are vastly different fields. Thank you for the comment.

 

[ZapperZ]

Why? To my knowledge, nothing can be in two places at the same time. That is not normal. Para means beyond. Paranormal is beyond normal. Being in two places at the exact same time is beyond normal. I feel I'm accurate in this assessment regardless if they are vastly different fields. Thank you for the comment.

I'm not going to discuss this here because this is the forum where you introduce yourself.

But you are doing what Deepak Chopra is doing - confusing an interpretation of QM as being QM itself! You are using ONE interpretation of the mathematics of quantum superposition. This has different interpretation in different pictures! What does not change is the mathematics! Without understanding the mathematics, you are relying on someone else's review of the movie and confusing it as "fact".

Zz.

 

[Nugatory]

Einstein called it Spooky Science for a reason. If something can be in two or more places at the exact same time, I think the word paranormal fits like a glove for quantum physics and psychology.

Unfortunately you are misunderstanding:
- What Einstein said. Do you have a source for that "spooky science" quote? Einstein is more often quoted as saying "spooky action at a distance", a much more specific issue that cannot be easily tied into any paranormal phenomena.
- What quantum mechanics says. "Being in two places at the exact same time" is a misdescription that you will hear only when the author is making a valiant but unsuccessful effort to come up with a math-free explanation that is not hopelessly misleading. It cannot be used as a basis for further development.

 

[Ghost]

I'm not going to discuss this here because this is the forum where you introduce yourself.

But you are doing what Deepak Chopra is doing - confusing an interpretation of QM as being QM itself! You are using ONE interpretation of the mathematics of quantum superposition. This has different interpretation in different pictures! What does not change is the mathematics! Without understanding the mathematics, you are relying on someone else's review of the movie and confusing it as "fact".

Zz.

Actually, I'm here to learn more about it. The concepts I have come from several professors I have talked with over the years, one with the national Science Federation. He is currently helping me write a grant for further study. I thought I could come here and ask questions, learn and widen my comprehension of the subject material.

 

[jedishrfu]

Many people have tried to use the scientific method to investigate paranormal activity but to no avail. We all think no one has done it before and so we’ll be the ones to do it right. In the 1970s I joined a group of folks in Saratoga NY that met monthly at the local library to discuss using scientific methods to investigate the paranormal.

The first speaker was an interesting guy who talked about dowsing and how he could locate things with his dowsing stick. It soon became clear that the only ones with science training in the room of fifty folks was me and a couple of other people and that’s it. The rest were there because "We like to study psychic stuff “scientifically” and prove to the world that it’s real". From there the meetings, while interesting, just went downhill fast. Lots of investigations were like tourists visiting a place but no real science being done.

It was a lot like the ghost hunter shows on tv where there are strategic ahh’s and then they shift to a commercial break. Nothing is ever proven or shown to be paranormal.

Recently, though there was an interesting TV show that would investigate video feeds showing some bizarre happening and then they’d show what you couldn’t see in the grainy blurry video. One example showed cars mysteriously being flipped in the air while waiting for a stop light. Folks viewing it speculated gusts of wind, magnetic phenomena,... it turned out there was a downed power line laying across the roadway and a street sweeper truck had snagged it and pulled it taut. As that happened the wire passed under the vehicles and flipped them. You couldn’t see the wire but you could see the street sweeper and others standing by unaffected by any gusts of wind.

In another case, a museum piece mysteriously pivoted around after hours. It was later discovered that the base of the piece was slightly rounded and vibrations from heavy traffic on a nearby highway was jiggling the piece.

In another case, a policeman was chasing a car into a dead end and in the dusty spinout he lost the car momentarily and then saw its taillight racing away on the other side of a chain link fence. The show speculated on how the car got through the fence, was it ghostly car, did it jump the 8ft fence...? Experts were called into analyze the video. The truth came at the end show when the officer explained that the chain link fence was poorly attached to the fence posts meaning if a car hit it low it could go under it and the fence would quickly fall back into place.

I also remember hearing about zombies and voodoo practices. A researcher interviewed a voodoo priest about zombies and the priest said he’d use this magic powder, blow it in their faces and they’d die and become zombies when dug up. It turns out that the powder had fugu fish toxin in it. This toxin was known to cause total paralysis and death. However if moderated somewhat, it could instead incapacitate a person making them appear to be dead.

In one case, a doctor had declared this person dead and several months later saw them at the hospital again for a broken arm. The patient explained that he was the zombie of this priest and that after the priest died he was freed from his power. The researcher concluded it was a combination of the fugu powder and a kind of hypnosis that made the person believe they were now a zombie slave because who wouldn’t believe that after being buried and then dug and told your now my zombie slave. Total trauma and mind control.

In another story, a person working in a lab felt a ghostly presence touching the back of his neck every so often which freaked him out. While machining a part, he placed it in a vice and noticed it was vibrating for no apparent reason. He tracked down the vibration to a ceiling fan that was installed a few weeks earlier that was emitting a low frequency vibration and concluded that it was the cause of his ghostly touch verified by turning it on and off.

Lastly, our university profs were asked to investigate a local haunted house in upstate NY. It was a small house situated about a mile from the local TV station antenna farm and near railroad tracks. The haunting was described as unexplained rattling in the walls, the piano would play random music and snow never accumulated around the house apron.

It turned out the the house was built on a gravel bed that was connected to the nearby train tracks via an underground seam. The walls had insulation that was hanging but not nailed at the bottom as is the convention hence it rattled if the train went by. The piano played because the piano brake was broken and so the strings weren’t being dampened. The snow always melted on the concrete house apron because it absorbed some of the microwave radiation front the nearby antenna farm.

While you might ascribe paranormal phenomena to ghosts, when it is a real and measurable phenomena it is created by a real cause that you haven’t found or can’t discern from the evidence given.

There are many more stories like this including ones that appear to be incredible coincidences but upon further investigation had some hidden connections that you weren’t told about or didn’t notice.

Perhaps your grant could focus on the psychology of why people tend to see ghosts instead of the true cause of the anomaly.

 

[ZeGato]

How about UFOs