Do you sometimes have the feeling of "I knew it would be you!" when a friend called and you just thought of him or her some seconds ago? Would you like to help some extraordinary (fun) science come into life? Me, too.
Hello humans,
some years ago I watched Rupert Sheldrake the first time. I had his book in my shelf - guess I brought it back from the flee market - and there I forgot about it. When I cleaned my library it fell into my hands and I thought "Huh... maybe I should read it." And I did. After reading it I looked him up on the Internet and got fascinated by his talks and research.
…Ever since he got my attention and I love listening to him.
One of his topics: the "Morphogenetic field".
I do not care so much if what he says really is based on solid evidence, though it for sure is very significant for him as he wants to be a respected scientist. Well, my respect he has!
He got me so inspired that I deeply felt I want to do something with what he researched himself and motivated others to do also.
....So, one morning I woke up and it was like: Woahhhhh!! I have a great idea! I want to make an App which supports Ruperts work, but a little different from what he did already in the UK. But before going into action I thought it is better to ask him if I am allowed to use "Telephone Telepathy" for my purposes.
Can you tell who is calling?
"In this test there are three participants, who can use either mobile phones or landlines. In each test, one of these people is the receiver, and the other two are potential callers. The test involves 6 trials, and for each trial, the caller is selected at random. The receiver then guesses which of the other two people is the caller, before being connected to him or her. The entire test lasts less than 15 minutes and is free." (Source: https://www.sheldrake.org/participate/telephone-telepathy-test)
I wrote him an email. And we started to correspond. You can read it down below.
So, what is this all about?
- I want the steem crowd to be interested and gather people for the project, build up connections
- I am looking for programmers
- I want to train my skills in knowing who is gonna call - more than by chance
- I hope others want to do that, too
- I want Rupert Sheldrakes ideas and notions to become more popular
- Fun
To understand the concept, please read and get interested in Rupert Sheldrakes research in Telepathy including phones. Then you have an idea what my App is about.
It's name is "RESONATE!"
Underneath are the rough stepps which I discussed with Rupert. But before I want to reveal that none of my points so far had gone into action. I discussed the whole thing with @rainer.kormann and we realized that we do not have the skills in programming that App.
So today I decided that I would like to ask the steem crowd for support. .... or maybe to just give this into this space and see what will come out of it. I don't know, depends on what you people say.
I don’t have the money to pay a programmer. But I really would like to see the app coming alive! If you feel excited in the same way I am, give answer, give energy on this.
Function and design of the telephone telepathy-App “Resonate!”
Rainer and I wrote a rough concept. Here is the content:
Due to our research it is not possible to have an influence on the software of a mobile telephone which can suppress the caller-ID, so that our first idea to implement an interface between the incoming call and the App must go.
Instead we decided that it could be done this way:
- The user downloads the (free) App with the intention to ask three other people to join the experiment.
- After the download is completed the user gets a greeting and is ready to receive the incoming signal from the chosen people
- He relates – after his partners signed in - then No. 1,2 and 3 to those whom he has chosen (requiring a tight relationship like to a sister, a good friend or a colleague – the same as in Ruperts experiment)
- The other participants are passive ones as long as they want to be an active part of the experiment themselves and ask their own people to be their partner in the experiment (which certainly will be the case).
- The signal itself should be an appearing symbol on the users telephone screen connected with a little sound (for example a soft and nice „poing!“).
- The user then is asked to choose from whom he got the “poing!”, person No. 1, 2 or 3.
- In any case, wrong or right, he gets the result immediately with an optical recognition. For example: „right“ gets a happy face and „wrong“ gets a neutral face. We have to consider whether an additional sound is a good or bad idea or which design we will pick at least.
- The user then can choose if he wants to check into his results as a whole or wants to know about other experiments or wants to ignore the invitation at all.
- After one week the App asks the user if he wants to have a look at his weekly results in total. How much is he within or above the average number of fluke. It needs a nice and appealing design for the results.
- For long term users there should be a monthly summit of their results and of course a yearly summit.
- Right now we think about limiting the time windows in which the partners can send their “poing!” to the receiver. To exclude habitual behavior and to get better data. It is so far an open question whether this can be technically done and will still motivate the participants to take part in the experiment.
- The App itself should be designed as a pro-active tool, which gives offers once in a while and helps the user to get his benefit and fun out of it. We imagine it would be nice to have the App as an always available tool whenever there is time and space for a little resonance-training. It can be used for pausing and concentrating on our inner capacity to get in touch with the field, resp. other things than planing the next steps, thinking over problems, or distracting oneself with consumption of information. We are convinced that this training will do good for the users confidence and further curiosity in this particular field of science.
- For further testing of the users potential of resonating there could be an offer of other self-experiments which do not include other participants but can be done by the users own. If someone is eager to play, we can imagine experiments like “which number will the dice show next?”, “which sound out of five will be played next?”, “Which color of a card will be displayed next?” and so on. This other experiments will cost each user little money, like 99 Cents. So the App "Resonate" could stay for free.
Valuable data & cheating
We talked about cheating. I suppose, after thinking about this issue and reading on Ruperts website, the experiments environment is not controllable, therefore it is not clean if it comes to his intention to collect valuable data.
But nevertheless it would be nice to offer the resonate!-App and seek a way how it can be worked out.
Thinking about cheating in using the resonate!-App would reduce the fun down to zero. Why should anyone cheat other than to betray him or herself? As far as we can imagine this would be the case when someone just wants to show off. But then the results for this person are worthless and he or she might not go on to use the App any longer.
Public awareness
Whether we can use the idea to support Rupert Sheldrakes scientific research and data-pool, it still is nice to have. It would support the awareness about this whole theme and produce some rumor about it, as we think. We love the thought of promoting the subject “morphogenetic field theory” and get it more into the public view.
Here is part of my correspondence with Rupert Sheldrake :
Dear Rupert,
I thank you, too.
As for your questions considering our summary No. 3, 5 and 7, you find the answers attached.
For the rest of your comments I put my questions, thoughts and comments right underneath. For an easier way of reading I picked green as a color of writing.
Best wishes to you and a nice day!
Erika
——————
Am 21.03.14 00:17 schrieb "Rupert Sheldrake" unter xxxxxxx>:
Dear Erika,
Thanks for this. Yes, I too have attempted to develop an app which suppresses the caller ID and asks people to guess who is calling before they answer the phone. I looked into this 2 or 3 years ago and it was not possible to have apps that work on incoming calls, and it seems the situation is still the same from your research.
I’m not sure exactly what you have in mind in your summary. In point 3 do all the partners have to sign in and be on a line connected to the app throughout the test? And in step 5, I don’t understand signal appears on the screen. Is this after one of the callers has been asked to call him? And in step 7 do they actually speak to each other or is this simply guessing who has tried to contact him?
For 12, I think it’s important to emphasis, as you do, that the purpose of taking part in this experiment, or using the app, is to train sensitivity.
In 13, experiments of this kind, which are essentially precognitive experiments, are very similar to ones on Dean Radin’s Psi arcade website. The only trouble with them is that they usually give results very close to the chance level and people might quickly get discouraged.
--> that’s a bummer. Is this the case also with your own audio-test on your website? Thank you for this information, we will have a look into this. We want to avoid that people become frustrated. So we will think about this some more time. Is there a special target group or participants (in age) on Deans project? Because I like to think that young people might be better in it (from the age of say eight and up to teenagers).
If people are using your app to train themselves there is no point in their cheating. And I agree with you it would reduce the fun to zero.If people can indeed train themselves to become more sensitive, then they could take part in more rigorously controlled experiments. In the long run, it might even be possible to set up telepathy competitions in which high scoring people could be tested under controlled conditions, and those who are best at it could take part in national finals on television.
--> Yes, this is a great idea (!) to give the participants the outlook of a more rigorously controlled experiment if the way we promote it is appealing to them and not for the sake of spectacle or in a way of this typical awkward media screaming attitude (which you would not prefer yourself, I guess?). Those high skilled people should feel comfortable about it. I wouldn’t suggest ordinary television but instead using Internet channels and asking a skilled cameraman to film the experiments with a good equipment to spread it around the globe via Internet and all the possible networks and independent channels which are in place right now. Any other established TV channel or format which I know here in Germany would take over and make something out of it we cannot control. Even the ones which are watchable, I assume. I don’t know if I am a little paranoid here but as I worked round about seventeen years within the media branch (as a PR-consultant and editor) I am having my prejudgments and experiences. Financing this is a whole other topic – but I don’t want to crack my head about it right now.
Eventually there could even be telepathy Olympics.
--> First we had the same thought. But after thinking more about it we became a little skeptical. Well, let me brainstorm about it: ...aren’t sure if it is favoring the topic if we are initiating competition or emphasizing it. The competition character itself leads ever so often to a kind of national proud and “us versus them” thinking and behavior. ... like it better if we can concentrate resp. create a more connecting element than a separating one.
One possible scenario: say, there were people from different countries which “compete” (not openly) with one another and the most skillful people were invited for further experiments. After each of them passed the experiments the results show significant or insignificant differences between them. Though they might all have increased their abilities during the process.
....My question would be: what is the connecting element in this? Is it the ability itself which got more trained and refined? Probably so. But what if the participants do not compete with one another but work together – and the intention is set beforehand that the experiments are not for competition but include cooperation? Is there an experiment you have in mind or already done where two or more people are getting better telepathy results in working together?
For me, I like the idea to hide the nationality of the participants to the public (not the data base), so the focus stays on the individual and the skill itself. ... Another interesting aspect though would be to set up two groups: one group which is in the competition mode, another one which is expecting cooperation. I think this would make a difference but of course I would like to have an evidence. And a surprise if I am wrong:-)
All this of course would depend on the ability of people to train themselves to get better, and as well as doing the test repeatedly, it might be good to work with people who have intuition training programs who could help people improve their intuition or ability to resonant. At the same time, your app (or my own tests) could give a direct quantitative measure of how well people are doing in the intuition training and which methods are working best.
--> yes, that sounds good and sensible! The more training is involved the better. That is why we want to have different experiments with different designs and content because peoples taste differ and we want to have as much participants as we possibly can motivate. This also gives a greater variety of results and the chance to compare them.
I’m all in favour of your objectives and I hope the test works. The only way to find out is to try it. We have found it is difficult to motivate people to take part but that maybe because we have framed it as a scientific test, whereas you are framing it as a training app which is being done to benefit the participants and for fun.
--> I am delighted that you are seeing it this way. I am always in favor of interdisciplinary work and that people who aren’t matching at all in their profession should do something together. Art and science do for example very well in many parts. But I think the most important ability to bring with is to stay open minded and curios. This is of course very difficult because the expectations up front are mostly the ones which do not allow a widely open result but a preferred one. In my own answers and thoughts this is clear also but I am training myself to put in more space for the unexpected. For motivating the people: we don’t know if our method works better. But as you say: it is worth a try.
Best wishes
Rupert*
On 18 Mar 2014, at 17:48, Erika Reglin-Hormann wrote:
Re: Participation in Telephone Telepathy experiment
Dear Rupert,
sorry, it took some more time to come back to you. Attached you find a rough concept and we hope this will explain what you
asked for. We really want to realize our idea and hope we can work with you in one or another way.
If you have so far some comments and further questions: please feel free! If you are interested in the further progress, as we
are squeezing in time here and there for the development, let us know and we will send you updates.
Best wishes
Erika Reglin-Hormann
Am 06.03.14 14:56 schrieb "Rupert Sheldrake" unter xxxxxxxxx>:
Dear Erika,
Thank you for your email. In general I am all in favour of promoting telepathy tests and am glad that the test itself will be
free. Could you explain a little more about the money making aspect of your website, and how it relates to the test? Please
also explain a bit more about how you envisage the test itself working.
Best wishes
Rupert Sheldrake
Here's a good post from @tarquinmaine about Sheldrake - worth reading: https://steemit.com/life/@tarquinmaine/morphic-resonance-rupert-sheldrake-and-meeting-the-maestro-himself-at-a-psychedelic-conference-of-course#@tarquinmaine/re-erhgermany-re-tarquinmaine-morphic-resonance-rupert-sheldrake-and-meeting-the-maestro-himself-at-a-psychedelic-conference-of-course-20170928t155829197z
Phew... that was a lot to edit. Did something wrong in the end. But I must stopp. My fingers hurt.
I would be delighted to get some feedback from you. Thank you and a wonderfull evening!