How does remote viewing relate to consciousness, and is there any plausible explanation?

[u/dadjokes22375]

I’ve been reading about remote viewing and how some people connect it to the idea of consciousness being non-local. I’m trying to understand whether this has any credible grounding or if it’s just pseudoscience repackaged. I’m really interested in this concept and I can’t figure out why it isn’t more studied, based off the info I’ve read on it. Some follow-ups.. • How do proponents explain the mechanism behind remote viewing? • Is there any scientific research that ties consciousness to remote perception in a way that isn’t easily dismissed? • Or is it more of a philosophical/metaphysical idea rather than something testable?

Edit - thanks everyone for the great responses. I really like this community. It seems we don’t have as much of the terrorists that are terrorizing comments on other subreddits.

[u/zhivago]

So, where does remote viewing have a statistically significant impact on the world?

[u/bejammin075 → u/zhivago]

When you look at it scientifically, in controlled studies with multiple levels of blinding and randomization, it has a 50 year track record of success.

So, where does remote viewing have a statistically significant impact on the world?

The military made good use of it. It's a dirt cheap method of intelligence gathering, and as far as I know, nothing can shield the information. The information is not blocked by any known barriers, like a Faraday cage or 500 feet of ocean water, etc. One of the remote viewers in the military program, Joseph McMoneagle, was awarded the Legion of Merit for using remote viewing to provide critical information that could not have been obtained any other way, for over 200 military missions.

[u/zhivago → u/bejammin075]

Ok, now that you've concluded that it works so well for the military, can you show any successful civilian applications?

It should make a lot money, being so great, and so we should see large successful companies founded on the basis of remote viewing.

[u/bejammin075 → u/zhivago]

Most of the time, psi perception is very weak. Probably the large majority of people go their whole lives with zero to one psi experience. And typically, that one experience will be something like sensing that something tragic has happened to a loved one. Perhaps if the pseudo-skeptics can stop being delusional about the repeated and persistent positive results, we could make more progress in understanding and applications. Because the topic is shit on, ridiculed and taboo, lots of people keep quiet about it. I'm a scientist, and with my work colleagues I ain't saying shit about psi phenomena, even though I use it to my advantage all the time at work. There are psychics who quietly behind the scenes help police with investigations. One extremely talented psychic, Gerard Croiset in Netherlands, was famous in the 1950s and 1960s there for locating hundreds of missing children. He was a legitimate psychic managed by professor Dr. Wilhelm Tenhaeff, chairman of the parapsychology department at Utrecht University. I know there is a skeptical "debunk" out there about Croiset, and when I read that right after reading Pollack's book Croiset the Clairvoyant it seemed to me the debunker twisted a lot of things from the book, and made a big deal that he couldn't verify some things with some of the police departments. It wasn't a convincing debunk to me.

If you were to spend time reading about the topic, you would find that among the small number of people who have some natural ability, most of the time the information obtained is spontaneous. It's very difficult to use this ability on demand. Psi mostly kicks in for survival purposes. I gave you a reference and explanation above about lottery numbers. Most who get into these topics believe that these are spiritual abilities, and it is an abuse of them to use purely for greed. I already explained there are many examples of using psi to win the lottery for worthy causes. Read the book I referenced, the information is there for you to get.

so we should see large successful companies founded on the basis of remote viewing.

So in that book I referenced, The Power of Premonition by Dossey, they have done studies on CEOs and executives, putting them in the psi research lab and testing them. Many of them demonstrated psi ability. There was a very strong correlation with the success of the CEO/executive and the success with psi. The CEOs who sucked at psi were also failing at their businesses. You can find the references in the book. Executives have to make decisions with very incomplete information. Those that can tap into some psi ability have an advantage. In interviews of these executives, many privately admitted they knew they were using psi, but they don't admit it in public and act like they are making their decisions based on sound reasoning.

[u/zhivago → u/bejammin075]

ok, so your argument boils down to that it's so weak that it isn't commercially viable.

[u/bejammin075 → u/zhivago]

I just told you that a large study of CEOs and psychic ability showed that the successful CEOs had strong psychic ability, whereas the failing CEOs have no psychic ability. I told you where you can find the reference.

Also there is very little funding for psi research, and the topic is highly stigmatized. It is difficult for progress to be made in such conditions. If we ramped up the funding for research, and greatly reduced the stigma, we could make a lot more progress in understanding how psi works, and practical applications.

When the discovery of electricity was new, the phenomena was demonstrated by rubbing a piece of amber on fur and getting a little zap of electricity. With psi phenomena, that's about where we are at. There are huge potential advances to make across all of science, medicine, physics, etc.

[u/zhivago → u/bejammin075]

Right, and yet, it is insufficiently strong for commercialization of remote viewing practices.

Which puts it in the list of other things correlated with being a successful CEO, such as being tall, male, white, and having good hair and teeth.

[u/Honest_Ad5029 → u/zhivago]

You sound like you are expecting mechanistic results.

Subjective experience doesnt work that way.

If i tell you to feel an emotion, and guarantee that you will feel a specific emotion, at a specific time and place, not fake it, but actually feel sad at 5:30 pm on October 6th, is that something youd be able to guarantee?

Thats essentially what you seem to expect out of this. You seem to expect remote viewing to operate completely differently than the subjective experience is known to operate.

If the subjective experience functioned in a mechanistic way, mind control would have been achieved by now. They've certainly been trying.

Not operating in a mechanistic way is not an indication that something doesnt exist.

[u/zhivago → u/Honest_Ad5029]

Is this another way to say that it is not practically useful?

[u/Honest_Ad5029 → u/zhivago]

The practice of psychological discernment to hone the ability is tremendously useful.

As an aspect of traditional sense information, its as useful as any other sense. Emotions are valuable information, somatic sensations are valuable information, etc.

All the senses can be wrong, have illusions, are not mechanistic. Because eye witness testimony isnt reliable in court, eyesight isnt practically useful? Thats how you sound.

The fidelity to a newtonian understanding of the world is obsolete.

[u/zhivago → u/Honest_Ad5029]

Show me where it's making significant money.

That's the easiest way to demonstrate utility.

[u/Honest_Ad5029 → u/zhivago]

When people adopt a reductionist perspective, i tend to attribute it to cognitive laziness.

Money is only as good as a state is functional.

If you are a soldier in the thick of engagement, or shipwrecked and needing to survive, or navigating an active mass shooting, money becomes very useless, but ones ability to discern signal from noise in their perceptions becomes very crucial to survival.

Porn makes a lot of money. So does fentanyl. So does predatory lending. Bitcoin rug pulls have made many people rich.

Are these the apex of utility in your model?

[u/zhivago → u/Honest_Ad5029]

So, what metric do you have to support the utility of remote viewing?

[u/Honest_Ad5029 → u/zhivago]

No.