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[microsound] Fwd: Princeton Global Consciousness Project



Here are the three links to the Princeton GCP 
project. The director of the GCP, Roger Nelson, thinks the idea of a 
Global Consciousness is "really an aesthetic speculation". Even so, he goes on 
to say that there is "strong evidence of anomalous structure in what should be 
random data..." 

 

1) Info about the Project:  http://noosphere.princeton.edu/planning_doc.html

 

"Until very recently, taking the kind of 
global real-time measurements necessary to evaluate objectively what
Jung called
the Collective Unconsciousness, and Teilhard de Chardin described as the 
Noosphere -- a sheath of 
intelligence for the Earth -- was not a real possibility. Two events, however, 
have changed this picture. The first is the development of a reliable 
measurement technology using Random Event Generators (REGs) linked to
computers,
together with soft- and hardware necessary to do very large and complex 
multivariate analyses on desktop machines. The second is the rise of the 
Internet, itself a kind of global consciousness network, albeit one linked very 
much to the physical world of electronics. For the first time, the objective 
measurement infrastructure necessary to undertake an evaluation of
consciousness
on a global scale is broadly accessible. This proposal describes such
an effort,
the Global Consciousness Project (GCP)".  (excerpted from the 
website)



2) ***Real time display (Java 
applet needed to view display and listen to 
sounds from the REGs. 
http://noosphere.princeton.edu/bsktobsrv/nishith/basketobserver.html

 

 

3) Excerpt from Roger Nelson, 
director of the GCP     http://noosphere.princeton.edu/terror.html




"I want to acknowledge that I like the notion of Global 
Consciousness, but that this idea is really an aesthetic speculation. I don't 
think we have real grounds to claim that the statistics and graphs representing 
the data prove the existence of a global consciousness. On the other
hand, we do
have strong evidence of anomalous structure in what should be random data, and 
clear correlations of these unexplained departures from expectation with 
well-defined events that are of special importance to people. The
events share a
common feature, namely, that they engage our attention, and draw us into a 
common focus". 


"This is a report of what we see in the data recorded on 
September 11, 2001 and the surrounding period. It is the best
description we can
give of measurements and effects that are essentially mysterious. We
do not know
how the correlations that arise between electronic random event generators and 
human concerns come to be, and yet, the results of our analyses over the past 
three years repeatedly indicate such correlations. We cannot explain the 
presence of stark patterns in data that should be random, nor do we
have any way
of divining their ultimate meaning, yet there appears to be an
important message
here. When we ask why the disaster in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania 
should appear to be responsible for a strong signal in our world-wide
network of
instruments designed to generate random noise, there is no obvious answer. When 
we look carefully and discover that the eggs might reflect our shock and dismay 
even before our minds and hearts express it, we confront a still
deeper mystery.
This network, which we designed as a metaphoric EEG for the planet,
responded as
if it were measuring reactions on a planetary scale. We do not know if there is 
such a thing as a global consciousness, but if there is, it was moved by the 
events of September 11, 2001. It appears that the coherence and
intensity of our
common reaction created a sustained pulse of order in the random flow
of numbers
from our instruments. These patterns where there should be none look like 
reflections of our concentrated focus, as the riveting events drew us from our 
individual concerns and melded us into an extraordinary coherence. Maybe we 
became, briefly, a global consciousness" (excerpted. See link above for the 
complete document).

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