Evo said:
The Institute of Noetic Sciences is on Qwackwatch's List of questionable organizations, the lack of peer review is a biggie.
Yes, of course, what they are researching is not inside the scientific mainstream.
What's interesting here is that so many people have been reporting the same
simple phenomenon. As we're still searching for the ultimate truth, we have no choice but to be open minded. Not too open minded until our brains fall out as some people say, no!, our open mind still adheres to the same
scientific method that made some "extraordinary" claims become scientific facts.
The truth can mix with the myth, and there is a logical possibility that the truth itself is no less inexplicable. Just because a claim sounds unbelievable, that doesn't mean it's not true or based on some truth, especially if a phenomenon is reported by
so many unrelated people.
The scientific method begins by
assuming the ignorance and by taking every logical possibility into consideration. There is a safe path to the truth, and if we don't begin by assuming the ignorance we drift away from this path. This is the mistake that many people make, we tend to assume the knowledge.
We're willing to accept experimental errors that can come with positive results, and also we have to accept the possibility of experimental errors that can come with negative results. This phenomenon certainly hasn't been tested under the same conditions under which it was originally reported. The staring that people have been reporting happens when someone is
excited/fascinated/intrigued by something, it's internally motivated (
active staring). The staring that the experimenters have been testing happens only in their experiments and in the movies (
passive staring). They were testing this phenomenon as if it's a conscious ability that someone can easily demonestrate on demand, and this sounds too good to be true.
All they did in these experiments is replicate the physical stare, there was no excitement/curiosity as in the case with the natural staring that happens in everyday life. You can't force yourself to think about something because you will end up
thinking about thinking about something. In the experiments, the starers/senders (mostly were the experimenters) were trying hard to concentrate on the targets/starees, and the more they try to concentrate the more they drift away from the original conditions. The reported starers were thinking of the starees, and the starers in all these experiments were
thinking about staring at the targets. As
passive staring can become
active, this could explain the positive results in some of the experiments.
The experimenters can test this phenomenon under whatever rigorous controlled settings that would satisfy the scientific community, but they must ensure that they're testing what is supposed to be tested, as we're not sure about that (we assumed the ignorance) this phenomenon must be tested exactly as it's supposed to happen naturally. The starers/senders mustn't be aware of the actual purpose of the test, they should be tricked into staring at the targets by somehow stimulating their internal motivation that would make them naturally stare. To eliminate the possibility of false responses, inexperienced starees/receivers needn't be aware of the actual purpose of the test if their
psychophysiological variables are to be measured and/or their behavior is to be monitored.
As we're testing something related to the brain, and the experimenters also have brains that can affect the results (in case they get excited and stare or think about the targets by themselves), they should take that into consideration.
Instead of getting one sender to stare at many targets (as the experimenters did), they should get one target that would make people stare, and get as much starers/senders as possible. Also they should take into consideration that whatever happens in the starer's/sender's brain has a variable intensity. They can make many people stare at the target at the same time to ensure whatever the hidden conditions under which this phenomenon is supposed to happen, whatever the intensity of whatever happens in the senders brains, and whatever the actual hypothesis is (assuming the ignorance).
There can be many different techniques that can be used to ensure the active staring, for example, children can be easily excited to stare at, for example, an animal.
As I'm one of the people who have experienced this phenomenon in its most profound form I'm sure there will be undeniable and reproducible positive results when this
active staring is properly tested, not
test something else and then claim it's a myth. All people are delusional on a simple phenomenon!... I don't think so.
More documents related to this mysterious phenomenon:
Sheldrake, R. (2005). The Sense of Being Stared At Part 1: Is it Real or Illusory?
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 12, 10-31.
http://www.sheldrake.org/papers/Staring/JCSpaper1.pdf
Sheldrake, R. (2005). The Sense of Being Stared At Part 2: Its Implications for Theories of Vision Journal of Consciousness Studies, 12, No. 6, 2005, pp. 32–49
http://www.sheldrake.org/papers/Staring/JCSpaper2.pdf
Schmidt, S. (2005). Comments on Sheldrake's 'The Sense of Being Stared At'. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 12, 105-108.
http://www.uniklinik-freiburg.de/iuk/live/forschung/publikationen/Comment_Shreldrake_staring_JCS_2005.pdf
The Non-Visual Detection of Staring - Response to Commentators Journal of Consciousness Studies, 12, No. 6, 2005, pp. 117–26
http://www.sheldrake.org/papers/Staring/JCSpaper3.pdf
The reticular activating system is a diffuse regions in the brainstem primarily involved in consciousness and sleep/wake cycles. Where do you get the idea it is involved in any sort of filtering of stimuli related to world views? Beyond that, I've re-read your statement several times and can't figure out what you meant to say. I think you have an incomplete sentence there.
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