Neo
10-22-2005, 01:51 AM
This is a copy of a review I am posting on amazon:
My initial concerns involved the experiments Laszlo cited as evidence of the interconnected nature of consciousness. Those experiments have never been replicated and have been thoroughly refuted by educated scientists. The experiments involving image transference, water memory, and the effects of prayer have all been shown to have employed faulty methodology and questionable procedures. In one case one of the leading researchers later disavowed his own results. Another experiment involved using the mind to affect the output of a random chance generator. The device would produce one outcome or another each with a 50% probability of occurring. As you go along you accumulate "hits" and "misses." At times you will have more hits than misses, and other times you will have more misses. However over time they will average out to 50% hits and 50% misses. By stopping the experiment when you are ahead on hits you skew the resulting average. I'm not suggesting that this explains everything. I'm just demonstrating that it is extremely easy to manipulate the data either intentionally or unintentionally to obtain the desired result.
Since these experiments are flawed does that prove phenomena like ESP do not exist? Of course not. What it means is that further research is needed. What I am interested in is the guarding against the desire to want something to be true or to want it not to be true. Scientists get a lot of flack for being "close-minded" when in reality they are the most open-minded of individuals in that they are willing to change their beliefs in the presence of proper evidence with repeatable results. Most believers in paranormal phenomena, on the other hand, will staunchly defend their beliefs despite any evidence to the contrary. A lot of that comes from not understanding the way science works. I believe the middle ground is the healthiest place to be. This is where you acknowledge the possibility that phenomena like ESP could exist, but at the same time you do not rush to accept an experiment which supports it without thoroughly examining it with a critical eye. For every thing you read in support of fringe phenomena, you should spend equal time reading the work of a skeptic. A true scientist doesn't believe anything with 100% of their being. Though they may be 99.9% certain of something, there is always the possibility they could be wrong. Science doesn't seek to "prove" anything in the strictest sense of the word, rather they seek to support models which accurately predict and describe the world around us. When a model is no longer useful it should be discarded for something more in line with observation.
Having said all that the physics behind Laszlo's discussions is sound. The entanglement of quanta is a well known and reproducable phenomenon which has no real explanation given forth by mainstream science. Most physicists ascribe to what is known as the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of quantum physics, which is less of an interpretation as it is a "don't ask, don't tell policy." They view the correlations in strictly mathematical terms by looking at the statistics while ignoring the philosophical implications of it. Quantum physics is an enormously powerful tool for calculating and predicting the behavior of matter and energy at a subatomic level, but many scientists take a step back when you ask them what is this really telling us about the nature of reality? In truth there are some extremely bizarre things that happen at the quantum level. For a real mind-job try googling "quantum time-erasing." It goes by a different name which escapes me at the moment but it's basically a variation of the famous double-slit experiment in which what happens in the experiment is determined by what you do after the fact.
One other thing that bugged me about this book - on page 120 Laszlo puts his name right next to that of Newton and Einstein, as if he is the next greatest thing to grace the world of physics. Few ideas in this book are truly his, rather they are a conglomeration of ideas and theories put forth by several different individuals. I feel he's trying to take a little too much credit for the ideas presented here.
What Laszlo says about the universe possibly being a hologram is a valid idea. There have been more than one article in Scientific American regarding this. While it remains to be seen whether or not the interconnectedness of the universe can truly be applied to areas like quantum biology or image transference, the theory in and of itself is compelling and explained brilliantly by Laszlo.
Anyone interested in a scientific basis for what the soul could be and how it manifests should read this book. The preservation of self requires the preservation of information, and the vacuum potential provides a way to accomplish this.
My initial concerns involved the experiments Laszlo cited as evidence of the interconnected nature of consciousness. Those experiments have never been replicated and have been thoroughly refuted by educated scientists. The experiments involving image transference, water memory, and the effects of prayer have all been shown to have employed faulty methodology and questionable procedures. In one case one of the leading researchers later disavowed his own results. Another experiment involved using the mind to affect the output of a random chance generator. The device would produce one outcome or another each with a 50% probability of occurring. As you go along you accumulate "hits" and "misses." At times you will have more hits than misses, and other times you will have more misses. However over time they will average out to 50% hits and 50% misses. By stopping the experiment when you are ahead on hits you skew the resulting average. I'm not suggesting that this explains everything. I'm just demonstrating that it is extremely easy to manipulate the data either intentionally or unintentionally to obtain the desired result.
Since these experiments are flawed does that prove phenomena like ESP do not exist? Of course not. What it means is that further research is needed. What I am interested in is the guarding against the desire to want something to be true or to want it not to be true. Scientists get a lot of flack for being "close-minded" when in reality they are the most open-minded of individuals in that they are willing to change their beliefs in the presence of proper evidence with repeatable results. Most believers in paranormal phenomena, on the other hand, will staunchly defend their beliefs despite any evidence to the contrary. A lot of that comes from not understanding the way science works. I believe the middle ground is the healthiest place to be. This is where you acknowledge the possibility that phenomena like ESP could exist, but at the same time you do not rush to accept an experiment which supports it without thoroughly examining it with a critical eye. For every thing you read in support of fringe phenomena, you should spend equal time reading the work of a skeptic. A true scientist doesn't believe anything with 100% of their being. Though they may be 99.9% certain of something, there is always the possibility they could be wrong. Science doesn't seek to "prove" anything in the strictest sense of the word, rather they seek to support models which accurately predict and describe the world around us. When a model is no longer useful it should be discarded for something more in line with observation.
Having said all that the physics behind Laszlo's discussions is sound. The entanglement of quanta is a well known and reproducable phenomenon which has no real explanation given forth by mainstream science. Most physicists ascribe to what is known as the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of quantum physics, which is less of an interpretation as it is a "don't ask, don't tell policy." They view the correlations in strictly mathematical terms by looking at the statistics while ignoring the philosophical implications of it. Quantum physics is an enormously powerful tool for calculating and predicting the behavior of matter and energy at a subatomic level, but many scientists take a step back when you ask them what is this really telling us about the nature of reality? In truth there are some extremely bizarre things that happen at the quantum level. For a real mind-job try googling "quantum time-erasing." It goes by a different name which escapes me at the moment but it's basically a variation of the famous double-slit experiment in which what happens in the experiment is determined by what you do after the fact.
One other thing that bugged me about this book - on page 120 Laszlo puts his name right next to that of Newton and Einstein, as if he is the next greatest thing to grace the world of physics. Few ideas in this book are truly his, rather they are a conglomeration of ideas and theories put forth by several different individuals. I feel he's trying to take a little too much credit for the ideas presented here.
What Laszlo says about the universe possibly being a hologram is a valid idea. There have been more than one article in Scientific American regarding this. While it remains to be seen whether or not the interconnectedness of the universe can truly be applied to areas like quantum biology or image transference, the theory in and of itself is compelling and explained brilliantly by Laszlo.
Anyone interested in a scientific basis for what the soul could be and how it manifests should read this book. The preservation of self requires the preservation of information, and the vacuum potential provides a way to accomplish this.