Introduction
Over the years, a number of labs have undertaken research into extrasensory perception (ESP). Generally, most of these studies are concerned with collecting information that allows for a statistical analysis of the experiment. After all these experiments, most reasonable individuals are willing to accept that ESP exists in some form. That is, it is possible for humans to acquire information independent of the five senses of sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. This immediately raises the question of what form this information takes because, normally, people do not have consistent, clear ESP episodes. Generally, the information is distorted, symbolic or partial. This problem is generally known as the filter problem. In this paper, this problem will be divided into two parts. The first part will consider the filter problem as the result of survival pressures. This approach assumes only that man has developed over time and that there was a significant period of human history predating cultural takeoff. The second part will focus on how the conclusions of part one can be used in an examination of some basic forms of ESP and how these considerations could be addressed.
Part 1
If one is willing to accept the existence of a human subconscious and that this subconscious can provide extrasensory information to the consciousness, then the question of why this information is generally distorted is worth addressing. After all, it is difficult to see how a source of information that provides only blurred or simply wrong information could have much survival value. Of course, such a statement needs some justification in that it presupposes (1) the subconscious exists, (2) the function of the subconscious is to provide useful information, (3) this information is distorted in the sense that there is some truth value in the information (here, the coherence theory of truth is indicated in that the information is posited to be of such a nature that what it describes is in fact a state of affairs in the external world), (4) there is a tentative explanation of this distortion that is logically coherent and based in part on empirical evidence. Each of these points must be addressed before a final tying together of all the various elements is possible. Along the way, some reasonable assumptions will be necessary. These assumptions are considered reasonable because they either impinge on philosophic problems which have to date remain unsolved (the mind body problem) or, empirical evidence makes a good case for the assumption taken.
The conception of the subconscious has gone through a number of transformations over time. From the philosophic world, Schopenhauer's will and Nietzsche's will to power could be taken as precursors to the current theories of psychology. However, with the advancement of medical technology, it has become possible to combine the insights of philosophy and psychology with those of neurobiology. While such a combination leaves open the ultimate question of the mind/body problem, there seems no reason not to advance reasonable conclusions based on the totality of evidence.
In his recent book, The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard Cytowic recounts his investigations into the rare condition known as synesthesia. This condition, which expresses itself as a crossing of the senses (ex. a taste will provoke a visual association which is seen by the synesthesic in the external world and these associations are fairly constant over time in that the same taste will provoke the same visual). In the process of studying synesthesia, Cytowic used a variety of techniques ranging from patient interviews to measuring brain metabolism. After collecting his data, Cytowic concluded that synesthesia was caused by a slight break down in the perceptual processing of his patients. Because of this, a synesthesic experiences the world a perceptual step (or two) lower than the average person. That is, the raw perceptions and associations are closer to the synesthesic's consciousness and as a result, they experience perceptions in the form they take before they (usually) rise all the way to consciousness. Of course, to report synesthesia in this fashion leaves open the question of where these perceptions were before they arrived in the consciousness. This is an area Cytowic concentrated on. Since the processing of perception before it reached consciousness would be impossible to map using patient interviews (because they could consciously trace their experiences back only so far), Cytowic decided to measure the metabolic rate of various brain areas and using this information draw some reasonable conclusions. In short, Cytowic's conclusions are as follows: (1) Synesthesia is a normal brain function in everyone but that its workings reach conscious awareness in only a few people. (2) Synesthesia takes place at a level of brain activity below the cortex and is associated with the limbic system. (3) The lower levels of the brain are associated with emotions and preconscious processing of information. (4) This preconscious material plays a larger role in decision making activity than consciously aware material and we are therefore, by implication, far more emotional than rational beings. Cytowic sums up his findings thus, "What we think of as voluntary behavior, set in motion by free will, is really instigated by another part of ourselves. Part(s) of us are inaccessible to self-awareness, the latter being only the tip of the iceberg of who and what we really are."
While basing his conclusions on his own empirical efforts, Cytowic seems to ignore the question of connection and continuity of his subject. If the information processing that takes place in the preconscious stage was to remain totally out of reach of all conscious inquiry, there seems little reason to believe the information would show up at all. After all, Cytowic bases his research on current scientific paradigms and such paradigms posit that the majority of subsystems existing in biological systems can be traced back to some statement of evolutionary/survival need of the organism having the subsystem. If this evolutionary justification is allowed, then there is probably a reasonable thesis that can be advanced as to what that justification might be.
Taking evolutionary justification as a beginning point, the question becomes, "What use is distorted information?". After all, it would seem that evolution would favor clearly presented and clearly formatted information. However, this statement assumes that clearness has a higher evolutionary (and therefore survival) value. This would seem to be a questionable assumption. Given that cognition requires time, and under natural conditions where survival is at stake, time is the one thing most organisms don't have. Examination of the attacking patterns of most predators demonstrate time and again that the element of surprise is always in the attacker's favor. Because of this, most predators favor a combination of stealth combined with a short, quick burst to take down and kill their prey. Obviously, it is to the predator's interest to catch its prey off guard and thus limit the prey's possible options and the time allowed for deciding on those options. Allowing man's development in a natural environment would almost entail that such an environment was populated by predators that would view man as another meal (this would also apply to fellow human beings who may have seen cannibalism as acceptable). If one is willing to accept these assumptions (all of which are at least consistent with there being a period in man's history before cultural take-off) then a simple case can be made that partial, distorted, and unclear information may have actually favored survival. For example, there is little reason to believe that an individual needs to completely process information as to the exact nature and form of most threats as found in the natural world. A lion, bear or pack of wild dogs can all be avoided if the individual sensing their presence does so in time to simply flee. That is, full information is not really necessary because the survival pattern will repeat and be successful for a broad range of external threats.
Here, an interesting point vis-à-vis the imagination comes up. Imagination could be thought of as a system whereby future circumstances are anticipated and different responses can be played out in the safe space of one's mind's eye. Normally, the imagination is thought of as something that happens in spare moments when one can sit back and play out various roles. However, it can be speculated that the imagination's origin can be traced to flashes of mental images that combined with split second emotional reaction to environmental dangers. This could have been important because the combination of flight or fight response combined with strong imagination would have resulted in flight more often than simple curiosity (which would have resulted in a close, and probably fatal, investigation of the threat). Such an approach to imagination seems reasonable and it also provides for the possibility of tying Cytowic's work into some of the ideas expressed by Freud.
According to Cytowic, synesthesia operates at what he calls the intermediate level. That is, associations are partly invariant and partly contextual. Dr. Cytowic bases his conclusion on empirical data in which he endeavors to see if synesthesic's associations were direct one to one, totally random or somewhere in between. His conclusion settled on the last alternative. Interestingly enough, the idea that an image may have several meanings compressed into it was also examined by Freud.
Freud's first comprehensive treatment of condensation was presented in his The Interpretation of Dreams. In his work, Freud makes his case that most images in dreams are composites in which the subconscious compresses several individuals or situations into one. Through psychoanalysis, it is possible (according to Freud) to pull out the different elements making up an image. Such work is undertaken to retrace the various components of the individual's mental life. From the view of this paper, this idea is important because it allows that the subconscious (which according to Freud is responsible for condensation) has an imagination that operates outside the awareness of our normal consciousness. Looking back to Cytowic, we see that he makes a very similar claim where he states that synesthesia is a cognitive function that occurs in everyone but only a person with synesthesia is aware of it. That is, the actual process of image formation takes place under our normal levels of awareness and this formation is largely driven by the emotions. Now, in the case of synesthesia, the awareness of the individual is subject to intention in the same fashion of anyone in normal waking consciousness. However, Freud's work deals with the dream state and with the exception of special states (such as lucid dreaming) intentionality generally is a lessor consideration. That is, dreams represent a state in which the subconscious is freer to build up images, but these images are not subject to the dreamer's desire for specific information. As such, Freud's work could be taken as an early expression of the idea of emotions combining with imagination within the subconscious.
To return to the assumption made at the beginning of this paper, we can claim that the existence of the subconscious is a reasonable belief based on empirical data. From here, we can bind the various distortions of information originating in the subconscious to the expedient needs of survival. That is, in a threatening situation (as found in early man), full and complete information was not necessary when dealing with external dangers. A simple combination of a small range of stimuli (such as a twig cracking, a rustling of underbrush, or even a slight but unidentifiable scent) and imagination (whereby the twig is translated into a stalking animal and the slight odor into an enemy) would shift the odds of survival to favor anyone having such a combination. Also, there is no reason to believe that over time, this type of reaction would not become a fairly standard reaction to the world. That is, current man's habit of jumping to conclusions may have less to do with cultural values and more to do with how the mind goes about structuring information about the external world. Accepting Cytowic's work carries with it the conclusion that much of this structuring (along with the emotional reactions embedded in the structuring) takes place subconsciously. Given these considerations, then the question of how the filter problem can be addressed takes on a clearer aspect.
Part 2
Can the concepts of part one be applied in the context of the paranormal? It would seem that any attempt to employ paranormal senses would entail a type of distortion examined in part1. Justification for this can be seen by simply looking at the usual results of ESP experiments (in particular those dealing with clairvoyance or its distant relative remote viewing). It is rare that full and complete information on the target is obtained and the information that is given about the subject is often overlaid with distorted (or plainly incorrect) data. So, examining the paranormal using the concepts of part1 may be useful. If so, how might such an application be approached?
The begin with, some reduction of the subject is necessary. As a subject heading, the paranormal can include everything from lab experiments in telepathy and clairvoyance to difficult to replicate phenomena such as UFOs and ghosts. In order to reduce the subject to a few utilitarian categories, the schema given by Ingo Swann in his Everybody's Guide To Natural ESP is useful. According to Swann, ESP (and by extension, other paranormal phenomena) can be grouped into three broad categories which are determined by the nature of the target. First, there is hard-wired ESP, which involves perceiving objective physical facts that can be immediately proven. For example, if someone were to describe a target hidden from view, it is possible to simply go to the target and score their description. The next category is semisoft-wired ESP. This involves perceiving nonsensory information leading to physical facts. Such information is potentially provable by physical results. An example would be receiving new information about an invention. Verification would require building the invention to see if it works. The last category is soft-wired ESP. This would involve receiving information of a philosophical or visionary nature. Such information is often provable by increases in knowledge and meaning of the intangible. Examples of this last type of ESP would be reading the akashic records or perhaps some forms of past life information retrieval. Of course, such a three part classification should allow for some cross over between regions and it is possible for a single sentence to contain information that would fit into all three categories. However, as a general classification system, Swann's approach allows for some progress.
If we set aside the last two categories of Swann's system (because the verification for hard-wired ESP is easier) we can ask what forms information coming from the ESP facility would take. Given the reports of subjects participating in remote viewing experiments, the incoming data reported is usually in quick flashes. These flashes can take a wide variety of forms. Simple colors, textures, and other basic sensories such as sounds and smells are often given. These descriptions often develop into shapes which can be drawn out to further represent the target. According to Swann, one of the problems a remote viewing subject quickly encounters is that of keeping these simple images from developing into full-blown pictures. That is, due to the early activation of the imagination, whatever signal is directly related to the target (and carrying accurate information) is distorted by noise originating somewhere in the subject's subconscious. In the fashion outlines in part 1, the subconscious seizes the incoming information and immediately tries to define what the signal represents. Further, it is possible to claim that the emotions are also immediately called into play as the subconscious attempts to decide what the target is in a effort to decide (as quickly as possible ) what to do. From the point of view of the subconscious (assuming such a point of view were possible), it is doing exactly what it was designed to do. It takes the smallest possible data from the environment and, as quickly as possible, decides what the target is and what (if anything) to do about it. From the point of view of the clairvoyant or remote viewer, this entire operation creates a very difficult distortion problem which must be solved if consistent and reliable results are to be obtained. This raises the question of how such a problem is to be approached.
If we create a simple schematic diagram of the conscious mind and its relationship to the unconscious, we could use lines to represent the divides between the conscious, aware mind (normal waking conscious) and the subconscious. Thus:
Conscious
``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
++++++++++++++++++++++
--------------------------------------------------------
Unconsciousness
Now, we can take the three Lines to have the following meanings:
----------- = Unconscious process, beneath conscious thought
+++++++ = Signals crossing the threshold of consciousness and unconsciousness
```````````` = Level at which the imagination orders the incoming signals
From the perceptive of the subject attempting to describe a distant target, the problem can be described (using the diagram) as simply finding a way of presenting the information before it is structured by the imagination. That is, if it is possible, how can the incoming signals be detected and recorded or reported before they are processed and formed by the imagination. This is an important point because information that is not structured, has little meaning. For example the letters AEEHTICWTH would hold little meaning for anyone. Further, such information will normally not be remembered. However, if the letter are arranged into THE WHITE CAT, they not only make sense but are easily remembered. Put another way, the task becomes one of first finding the incoming signal and then arranging it in such a way that the arrangement makes sense without engaging the imagination.
In order to accomplish this task, a number of techniques have been developed. Many of these techniques were drawn from the psychology of art and the science of perception. Here two examples will suffice to demonstrate how to approach the problem.
During the early days of remote viewing experiments (these experiments are described in The Mind Race), tape recorders were given to the subject (who was to describe a distant target). Once a target was selected (targets were of the hard-wired variety), the subject would describe his/her impressions into the tape recorder. When he joined the experiments, Swann suggested that subjects be given paper and pencil with which to draw their impressions. Swann reasoned that since ESP impressions often come through as visual images, it would be easier for the subjects to simply draw whatever they saw instead of translating their impressions into words. Soon, Swann noticed that often a subject would draw odd scribbles on the paper before actually beginning the description process. Looking into these scribbles, Swann discovered that they contained information about the target sight. He determined that with training, a person could learn to use these small autonomic scribbles to begin the process of information acquisition. Swann called these "doodles" ideograms (a term found in works dealing with art). An ideogram can be used as a method to determine a target's gestalt. For example, a lake, river or ocean could be said to have a gestalt of water. A building, airplane, or machine would all have a man-made gestalt. Interestingly, one function of gestalts is that of reducing an organism's tension level in that a gestalt allows for the placing of a perception into a group. Such a group will already have associated emotions and action paths associated with it. If a gestalt is viewed thus, it can serve a dual function of by-passing the structuring operations of the imagination and at the same time, lowering the emotional activity (due to lessened tension) thus allowing for further clear signals.
The other approach developed by Swann is that of structuring the incoming signal in such a way that each datum is recorded fairly independent of others. In other words, the signal rising up from the subconscious is captured and recorded into an artificial structure. Thus, the normal imagination-structuring of the region immediately above the threshold of the unconscious is undercut and an artificial structuring mechanism is installed. The advantage of such a structure is two fold. First, the individual data are separated making it difficult for the imagination to take over and begin constructing conclusions based on incomplete data. Second, such a structure provides for constant repetition and with such repetition, learning. Using a structured form of self-reporting allows the subject to retrace his or her footsteps all the way through their work and detect which signals are correct and which are not. In time, this process allows for an increase in information obtained and the correctness of that information.
It should be noted that Swann's methods were intended for the type of targets described earlier as hard-wired. This is not to say that other types of targets could not be approached using the same structuring idea. However, a task involving describing a remote physical object (ex. a tree) may be fundamentally different from describing a target that is an abstract construction (ex. a number or a person's thoughts). This would indicate that the targets classed as semi-soft and especially soft would require a different structure and therefore method of description. However, the basic problem of signal detection, signal strength, noise from the imagination and clarity will be very similar if not essentially the same.
Bibliography
Arnheim Rudolf, Entropy And Art, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1971
Cytowic Richard, The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Warner Books, New York, 1995
Freud Sigmund, The Interpretation of Dreams, Avon, New York, 1965
Jahn Robert and Dunne Brenda, Margins Of Reality, Harvest Books, New York, 1987
Kaufmann Walter, Discovering the Mind, in three volumes, Transaction, New Brunswick, 1993
McMoneagle Joseph, Mind Trek, Hampton Roads, 1993
Schopenhauer Authur, The World As Will And Representation, in two volumes, Dover, New York, 1958
Swann Ingo, Everybody's Guide To Natural ESP, Jeremy P. Tarcher, Los Angeles, 1991
Targ Russell and Harary Keith, The Mind Race, Villard, New York,1984
Charles Daniel is a long-time student of the martial arts, and has developed a special interest in the training of "extended senses" more characteristic of the "old, traditional" martial arts. He additionally indicates that his interests lean toward the practical application of intuition and any systems used to develop it or any of its various forms.
His current rank in martial arts is hachidan in Bujinkan Ninpo from Massa K. Hatsumi. He has also studied Aikido and Kashima Shinto ryu under Yoshi Sugita.
He has published four books dealing with various aspects of the martial arts:
NINJUTSU NAHKAMPF (in German). Bad Hamburg, Germany:H. Velte, Sport-Buch Verlag; Postfach 2464, D-6380, Bad Hamburg, Germany, 1984.
TRADITIONAL NINJA WEAPONS. Unique Publications, 4201 Vanowen Place, Burbank, CA., 91505, 1985.
NINPO TAIJUTSU. Unique Publications, 4201 Vanowen Place, Burbank, CA., 91505, 1986.
JAPANESE SWORDSMANSHIP. Unique Publications, 4201 Vanowen Place, Burbank, CA., 91506, 1989.887 Embassy Ct.
Atlanta, Georgia 30324
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