Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!sri-unix!Laws@SRI-AI.ARPA From: Laws@SRI-AI.ARPA Newsgroups: net.ai Subject: Dreams: A Far-Out Suggestion Message-ID: <1228@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Mon, 21-May-84 14:39:51 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.1228 Posted: Mon May 21 14:39:51 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 1-Jun-84 04:50:42 EDT Lines: 39 From: Ken Laws The May issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal contained an article on "Sixth Generation Computers" by Richard Grigonis (of the Children's Television Workshop). I can't tell how serious Mr. Grigonis is about faster-than- light communication and computation in negative time; he documents the physics of these possibilities as though he were both dead serious and well informed. He also discusses the possibility of communicating with computers via brain waves, and it this material that has spurred the following bit of speculation. There seems to be growing evidence that telepathy works, at least for some people some of the time. The mechanism is not understood, but then neither are the mechanisms for memory, unconscious thought, dreams, and other cognitive phenomena. Mr. Grigonis suggests that low-frequency electromagnetic waves may be at work, and provides the following support: Low frequencies are attenuated very slowly, although their energy does spread out in space (or space/time); the attenuation of a 5 Hz signal at 10,000 kilometers is only 5%. A 5 Hz signal of 10^-6 watt per square centimeter at your cranium would generate a field of 10^-24 watt per square centimeter at the far side of the earth; this is well within the detection capabilities of current radio telescopes. Further, alpha waves of 7.8 and 14.1 cycles per second and beta waves of 20.3 cycles per second are capable of constructive interference to establish standing waves throughout the earth. Now suppose that the human brain, or a network of such brains distributed in space (and time), contained sufficient antenna circuitry to pick up "influences" from the global "thought field" in a manner similar to the decoding of synthetic aperture radar signals. Might this not explain ESP, dreams, "racial memory", unconscious insight, and other phenomena? We broadcast to the world the nature of our current concerns, others try to translate this into terms meaningful to their lives, resonances are established, and occasionally we are able to pick up answers to our original concerns. The human species as a single conscious organism! Alas, I don't believe a word of it. -- Ken Laws