The Global Consciousness Project by Roger Nelson

From MerlianNews.com

Consciousness
The Global Consciousness Project by Roger Nelson
By Roger Nelson
Roger Nelson, Ph.D., was Coordinator of Research at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) laboratory, Princeton University from 1980 to 2002, and has directed the Global Consciousness Project (GCP), since its inception in 1997. Broad interests in psychology, physics, philosophy, and the arts have generated opportunities to collaborate with creative interdisciplinary teams at PEAR and elsewhere, developing technologies and experimental applications to study consciousness and intention in the context of anomalous information transfer and interactions with physical systems. Speculative interpretations suggest that we may be looking at some form of consciousness field.
May 17, 2006 - 11:50:00 AM

Published with kind permission from The Global Consciousness Project and Roger Nelson.

Personal experience is supported by a growing number of good experiments which show that consciousness and intention have subtle but important effects in the world. We know that groups of people sometimes experience a special resonance of feelings and ideas, and recent scientific evidence indicates that effects of coherent group consciousness can be detected with appropriate instruments. The Global Consciousness Project (GCP) is an international collaboration of researchers extending this research to global dimensions via the Internet.

The project uses technology and methods designed to record effects of events that stimulate us to integrate as a world-wide consciousness. Examples include the funeral ceremonies of Princess Diana, the first hour of NATO bombing in Yugoslavia, and a few minutes around midnight on any New Years Eve. We predicted that the turn of the Millennium would have measurable effects on our interconnected, global human consciousness. The results show a strong "spike" for the Y2K moment in several different types of analysis.

The GCP works with a synchronized network of electronic devices which record data at dozens of sites around the world and report it via the Internet to central computers. The heart of the system is the server named "noosphere," after Teilhard de Chardin's idea of a global intelligence. Here, all the data are gathered, processed, and archived. Sophisticated programs create and maintain a growing database generated continuously at a rate of one trial per second at each of the nodes in the network.

Analytical software and integrative algorithms are designed to assess the scientific question whether there is any evidence for a "global consciousness" that can affect our instruments. Displays of the data take various forms, and show current activity as well as a complete historical record beginning in August 1998. Regularly updated tables of statistical information as well as simple and easily understood graphical summaries of several kinds are available. For example, we can show a graph of the cumulative departure of data sequences from their expected values, as a composite across all the GCP sites around the world for the past hour or the past day -- or during a defined "Global Event".

The Global Consciousness Project is an ongoing, long-term experiment, and the results from the instances that have been analyzed thus far show considerable evidence of a correlation between particular events and the data from our network of random event generators. A summary for nearly four years (to April, 2005) shows a highly significant result. It is tempting to draw the conclusion that a true global consciousness is creating the anomalous effects.

Indeed, the probability that we are seeing just chance fluctuation is less than one in a million. We believe the data are correct and definitely show anomalous departures from expectation, but we can't claim to have proven the existence of a global consciousness. We must consider alternative interpretations such as anomalous effects created by the intentions and expectations of the people involved in the project. But thoughtful examination of the accumulated evidence shows something very remarkable, and the most parsimonious and elegant interpretation is that a global consciousness is at work.

Roger Nelson for the Global Consciousness Project ©

For more information, visit The Global Consciousness Project

Source: ( http://noosphere.princeton.edu/abstract.html )

Additional Bio Information For Author, Roger Nelson

In 1993, building on years of laboratory experiments, Roger began using random event generator (REG) technology in the field to register correlations of data with special states of group consciousness. This work led naturally to the GCP, which is designed to register indications of a coalescing global consciousness responding to major world events such as 9/11, the beginning of a war, or New Year’s Eve. As of the end of 2005, the results for a series of over 200 formal tests during seven years of continuous running indicate a small but significant correlation with major events. Rigorous analysis show trends and patterns in data that should be random, and the patterns are related to events of importance to humans, including both disasters and celebrations. We believe the GCP data and analyses provide clear evidence for meaningful interactions of consciousness with the physical world.

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