Many of us have exhorted equipment in our lives. Who didn’t persuade a computer on strike to make money, who didn’t ask a smartphone to work faster?
The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab (PEAR) is renowned for conducting experiments proving that our minds can affect the operation of electronic devices.
Researchers at the laboratory, which closed in 2007 after 30 years of operation, tested the possibility of the influence of the power of the operator's thought on the operation of random event generators (SCS). GSS gives either 1 or 0. Similar to virtual "heads or tails" guessing, they give two possible options in a random order.
Participants in the experiment were asked to send the power of thought to the generator in order to make it produce either more than 1 or more than 0.
The results of one operator, for example, showed a tendency to do his will, which had a probability of coincidence of 1 in 250,000. According to the laboratory, the overall result of the experiments showed a probability of coincidence of 1 in 1 trillion.
In a 1982 article, PEAR founder Robert Jahn said of the testing of psychic phenomena: "Experimental results are rarely reproducible in a strictly scientific sense, but abnormal readings far exceed predicted results and exhibit a number of common phenomena."
Stanley Jeffers, professor emeritus of physics at the University of York, Canada, in an article published in The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, stated that he considers the PEAR methodology unreasonable:
“I have conducted several joint experiments in this area. A characteristic feature of the methodology of experiments in which I participated is that after each experiment in which the participant tried to consciously influence the result, another experiment was immediately carried out, when the participant was instructed not to pay attention to the equipment.
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Thus, our criterion for reliability was obtained by comparing two types of experiments. This methodology is not applied by the PEAR group, which only occasionally conducts a calibration test of the degree of randomness of their design. We claim that our methodology is more scientifically sound, although PEAR Dobins disputes our claim."
Another interesting finding from the experiments carried out by the PEAR group is that pairs of participants with the same intentions, especially if there was an emotional connection between them, were better able to influence the HSS.
Participants in the experiment who were in an elevated or artistic setting performed better than those in an everyday environment such as a business meeting or scientific conference.