and now for something completely different...
Steve Schear
schear at lvcm.com
Tue Oct 2 17:56:48 PDT 2001
Princeton University has for a while been host to a number of computerized
studies of random number generators. The Princeton Engineering Anomalies
Research Lab (PEAR) is one. Another of them is the Global Consciousness
Project (GCP), whose data is available on the web at
http://noosphere.princeton.edu/ .
The GCP has a network of 40 random number generators (called eggs) around
the world, creating numbers at the rate of 200 per second each. During
events of global import, the project has noticed statistically significant
variations from complete randomness in the numbers generated. The most
intense global event measured by this system was the recent World Trade
Center attack. It was not just a reported event. For the first time in
history, a globally connected population watched on TV as 6000 people were
killed in real time. This produced a correspondingly intense activity in
the GCP network.
The site contains detailed statistical analysis of the data (as well as the
raw data itself), and is worth a look.
Here is a quote from the narrative that accompanies it:
"When we ask why the disaster in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania
should appear to be responsible for a strong signal in our world-wide
network of instruments designed to generate random noise, there is no
obvious answer. When we look carefully and discover that the eggs might
reflect our shock and dismay even before our minds and hearts express it,
we confront a still deeper mystery.
This network, which we designed as a metaphoric EEG for the planet,
responded as if it were measuring brain waves on a planetary scale. We do
not know if there is such a thing as a global consciousness, but if there
is, it was moved by the events of September 11, 2001. We do not know how,
but it appears that the coherence and intensity of our common reaction
created a sustained pulse of order in the random flow of numbers from our
instruments. These patterns where there should be none look like
reflections of our concentrated focus, as the riveting events drew us from
our individual concerns and melded us into an extraordinary coherence.
Maybe we became, briefly, a global consciousness."
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