String Theory, Universal
Mind, and the Paranormal *
Brian D. Josephson
Department of Physics, University of Cambridge
Cavendish Laboratory, Madingley Rd, Cambridge CB3 0HE, U.K.
ABSTRACT A model consistent with string theory is proposed for so-called
paranormal phenomena such as extra-sensory perception (ESP). Our mathematical skills are assumed
to derive from a special 'mental vacuum state', whose origin is explained on
the basis of anthropic and biological arguments, taking into account the need
for the informational processes associated with such a state to be of a life-supporting
character. ESP is then explained in terms of shared 'thought bubbles' generated
by the participants out of the mental vacuum state. The paper concludes
with a critique of arguments sometimes made claiming to 'rule out' the possible
existence of paranormal phenomena.
Keywords: ESP, string theory, anthropic principle, thought bubble, universal
mind, mental state
* To appear in the Proceedings of the 2nd. European Samueli
Symposium, Freiburg, October 2003
1. Introduction
Critics of claims of the paranormal, e.g. Deutsch (2001) ,
have declared extrasensory perception (ESP) or other paranormal phenomena to
be 'nonsense' . Such absolutist positions give little weight to the experimental
evidence (Radin 1997) in support of the reality of such
processes, and seem naive given the range of imaginative proposals concerning
the nature of reality currently being put forward for serious consideration by
conventional physicists. One important advance has been the superseding
of the so-called Standard Model as a fundamental theory of nature by string theory
( http://superstringtheory.com ),
where the Standard Model features merely as a subset of the set of permitted
possibilities. As Carr ( 2001 , 2003 )
(whose approach is centred on the alternative Randall-Sundrum picture) has suggested,
such a change in perspective opens up new possibilities in science, including
the possibility of accommodating paranormal phenomena within physics. In
the following a number of concepts are combined, each in essence consistent with
accepted ideas, resulting in a qualitative explanation for ESP, with the promise
of an eventual clear cut basis for understanding paranormal phenomena in general.
2. A separate mental reality
A key assumption we make is one which, while it has no clear connections with
experimental physics, does make contact with a position that was advocated by
mathematicians such as Gödel ( Davis and Hersh 1981 , Penrose
1994 ). This is the idea that some aspects of mentality involve a realm
of reality largely, but not completely, disconnected from the phenomena manifested
in conventional physics. The idea of a disconnected realm does have precedents,
for example in the way two of the fundamental forces (the strong and weak forces)
play no role in large areas of physics and chemistry, whilst in other contexts
they have a very important part to play. Next note that string theory,
involving as it does spaces having more dimensions than the usual three, and
also a non-unique vacuum state (and according to Susskind ( 2003a , b ),
a very large number of such states), is consistent with there being such a 'separate
realm', in a way that the Standard Model, with its unique vacuum state contained
within a limited number of spatial dimensions, did not.
The point in regard to mathematical thinking, which motivates our model, is the
following. Consider first of all what the brain does in visual perception. Here
the primary information from the visual receptors goes through various levels
of processing until it ends up as a high-level representation of the content
of the visual field. It is not unreasonable to identify mathematics as
a similar process, except that higher levels of abstraction are involved in this
case. With the visual case, the mechanics are straightforward: the visual
field typically contains for example edges, for which abstraction a dedicated
neural system has evolved, related to our ability to perceive edges. It
is hard to see why we should have such ready access to higher mathematical abstractions
having little connection with experience ( Penrose 1994 ). One
resolution of the problem would be for mathematical concepts to be in some way 'in
the physics', rather than being emergent properties of brains. In case
it is felt that such a drastic solution is not necessary to explain our ready
access to mathematical ideas, and that neural networks can provide an adequate
explanation, a stronger argument for the existence of some kind of Platonic realm
can be made on the basis of the aesthetic aspect of music ( Josephson
and Carpenter 1996 ).
So far, in shifting the locus of mathematical thinking (and music?) to another
realm, we have only replaced one mystery by another. But why should such
a realm exist at all? The explanation we provide is of a biological character,
taking account of the fact that information processing is an essential component
of biological functioning, but with only very specific informational processes
having a life-supportive character. While it is commonly taken that the
informational processes involved are mediated by ordinary physical means, it
is not a logical necessity that this should be the case. Some informational
processes in an organism are specialised to the nature and circumstances of the
organism concerned, but some have a more abstract and universal character, and
so could be mediated by a quite different system with which individual organisms
would interact.
Next we observe that a form of proto-life, defined as fluctuation patterns surviving
longer than typical patterns do, can be hypothesised as occurring at the Planck
scale, evolution of such life being expected to involve evolution of the accompanying
informational systems also. We get to the proposed model by supposing that
the ordinary physical component and the informational component can evolve separately.
and that the informational component can even survive the creation and destruction
of individual universes, remaining as an ever-present background with which new
universes, Planck scale fluctuations and more developed life forms can all beneficially
interact. Assuming an indefinitely extended time scale, the most persistent
part of the informational background can evolve indefinitely, so that its dynamics
might come to include features corresponding to mathematical concepts and operations
as well.
This idea can be fruitfully connected with anthropic ideas, particularly taking
the point of view of Susskind ( 2003a , b ),
who explains the way our universe seems to be mysteriously fine tuned to develop
in such a way that life is possible in terms of it being only one of a vast number
of coexisting universes, a small proportion of which have such a property, one
of which we find ourselves occupying. Our speculations can be seen as the
application of a similar idea to the informational aspect of life.
While Susskind treats life as a passive occupant of whatever universe can permit
it to develop, our proposals see life in a more general light, able to shape
its environment in a partnership with it, in a manner analogous to the proposals
of Lovelock (1995) (the Gaia hypothesis, for which there
is now considerable supportive evidence), to the effect that life may be able
to interact cooperatively with its environment, discovering how to operate upon
it to its best advantage.
3. A model for ESP
We need to add another piece of detail to our model. In order that it can
model individual thought, we suppose that individual life forms can perturb the
background state so as to create a localised 'thought bubble', tied to the individual
concerned. This suggests that the vacuum state involved is close to a phase
transition, so that an appropriate perturbation can create a domain with a different
kind of order to that of the vacuum.
Assuming the validity of the scenario that has been described, the picture proposed
can be adapted to account for the phenomena we set out to explain, namely telepathy
or ESP. In the first, the grounds for the existence of such a process can
be taken to be the advantages that might be conferred in certain situations if
two life forms could in some way share their mental states (there could also
be accompanying disadvantages, the significance of which will become clear later). It
is natural to postulate, in this case, that a shared 'mental bubble', whose contents
are available to both life-forms, is involved. We assume, as would need
to be assumed generally in the model, that the state of this bubble plays the
role of information that is meaningful in the context and, by virtue of this,
usable by the connected systems.
The physics involved in the 'sharing' that has to be assumed in the above can
be clarified by means of an analogy based on the Mössbauer effect, which
is a phenomenon involving the decay of radioactive nuclei embedded in a crystal
( Mössbauer 1961 ). In a certain fraction
of cases, depending on parameters such as the decay energy and the temperature,
the recoil from such a decaying nucleus is in effect transmitted to the crystal
as a whole rather than generating activity in the vicinity of the decay. These 'no
local recoil' processes involve a certain subset of all possible final states
of the system, for which, as quantum mechanics allows, the state of the lattice
vibrational system (phonons) is unchanged by the decay. This somewhat esoteric
possibility suggests a mechanism, dependent on analogous constraints upon the
possible states of the thought bubble, that could fit our requirement of a system
state being shared by two individuals as in the ESP situation.
4. Countering the critics
The problem any such analysis has to face is that of explaining how it is that,
if such a mechanism for ESP or other paranormal processes exists, these processes
manifest themselves only in very specific ways, and in ways that are not readily
controllable. This should not be seen as an insuperable objection, since
other phenomena (e.g. those involving the weather), have similar features. The
point to bear in mind is that in the biological realm the phenomena that manifest
are governed not only by what is physically possible, but also by which of those
physically permitted possibilities are likely to be of overall benefit to the
organism concerned. In the ESP context, an undifferentiated sensitivity
to the thoughts of all other people, as would result from the uncontrolled sharing
of thought bubbles, would tend to be disadvantageous rather than of benefit,
leading to the individual being overwhelmed by thoughts of others. Most
of these would be merely distracting, and interfere with constructive activity. The
right way to think about ESP is therefore to see it as a slowly developing phenomenon
for a given individual, and one which may not develop at all if conditions are
unfavourable. We see from this analysis that the frequently made counter-argument
to the existence of ESP, that if it were possible it would have such a survival
value that we would all evolve to be very good at it, is based on a misleading
concept of what would be involved.
A related problem is the one raised by Weinberg (1993) ,
who asks what possible physical signal could move distant objects and yet have
no effect on scientific instruments? Such a question ignores the possibility
that there might be a threshold for psychokinetic effects. A similar argument
would lead one to be equally sceptical of claims that the heat of the sun can
induce chemical reactions (i.e. burning) in a piece of paper, analogously something
that happens only under special circumstances (e.g. using a magnifying glass
to focus the sun's rays on to a spot on the paper), the amount of burning under
normal conditions being negligible.
The moral to draw would seem to be that one should not be too ready to dismiss
paranormal phenomena on the basis of apparently plausible arguments; as 't
Hooft (2001) has said in a slightly different context, plausible arguments
come with their own 'small print', viz. assertions to the effect that assumptions
that seem reasonable to their authors may be violated in the real world.
5. Concluding comments
This work was motivated primarily by the perception that the arguments commonly
made against the possible existence of paranormal phenomena are not well-founded,
suggesting a need to discover how they might be accommodated within conventional
science. Proposals with this aim have been made previously, based upon
Bohm's causal interpretation of quantum mechanics ( Josephson
and Pallikari-Viras 1991 , Valentini 1991 ), but
the fact that the causal interpretation of quantum mechanics has not developed
in ways relevant to current scientific concerns suggests it may be more fruitful
to look elsewhere for ideas. The present paper is the outcome of such an
investigation. Clearly, it is at best a sketch of a theory, since the arguments
are of a very qualitative character, but this qualitative sketch brings to light
a number of specific issues whose resolution may provide the basis for a more
complete account of the phenomena.
6. Supplementary remarks (added after submission of paper for Proceedings)
Susskind's arguments suggest that reality may be much more complex than has normally
been assumed. Further changes in fundamental science (which may include
consideration of the influence of life) may be required to address this complexity. Since
our proposals (such as thought bubbles emerging from some kind of background)
do not involve the precise details of string theory, they may survive any such
changes that fundamental science may undergo.
7. Acknowledgements
The author is indebted to Dr. Fotini Pallikari for many illuminating discussions
concerning the nature and mechanisms of ESP. No funding from counter-innovative
sources was involved with the preparation of this paper.
Note on categories for this paper: I believe that this paper would be most appropriately
listed in gr-qc or hep-th, but the automatic system transferred the initial posting
from hep-th to physics, subsequently blocking attempts to crosspost to either
of the above lists. Requests to the archive for this situation to be remedied
have, to date, met with no response. Comments people may have on this state of
affairs could be directed to the moderators (for details see http://arXiv.org/uploads),
or to members of the advisory board (see http://arXiv.org/ad-board.html for a
list).
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