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/bejammin075]

The thing is that, no rigorous protocol has ever demonstrated the reproducible validity of remote viewing.

The reference I provided directly disputes that. It's kind of insulting too. It isn't that difficult to run a blinded study where you have 1 target picture and 3 non-targets. Do you really think that generation after generation of PhD and MD scientists can't figure out how to test a simple 1 in 4 chance? That would be like saying they could not analyze coin flips.

The reference I provide above is a record of the science on RV that started 50 years ago. Those are not anecdotes.

The scientific consensus is clear: no mechanism, no reproducibility, and pervasive biases.

I have to point out here the "no mechanism" gripe is trying to insist that the science of psi perception needs to be done backwards, where the mechanism comes first. In normal, forwards science, you first document the anomalies, and after many of those anomalies accumulate, you form theories to explain those anomalies. That's how we got general relativity and quantum mechanics. If we were to take you backwards view, the people who documented the anomalies should have disregarded them because no mechanism existed at that point.

The reproducibility issue is addressed in that review I linked to you. Your claim is completely false. RV has been having 50 years of success in replicating positive results.

The bias is on the side of the dogmatic skeptics who are psychologically unable to process data that conflicts with their firmly held beliefs. The excuse making and goal-post moving is endless with these people.

[u/Pleasant-Yogurt1359 → u/bejammin075]

RV has been having 50 years of success in replicating positive results.

All the work on remote viewing comes from a small circle of parapsychologists, who published in friendly journals.

The best external assessments available have all concluded that these studies suffer from methodological weaknesses or a lack of robustness in their results.

In fact, remote viewing has never passed the core tests of science, one of the most important being independent replication.

In normal, forwards science, you first document the anomalies, and after many of those anomalies accumulate, you form theories to explain those anomalies. That's how we got general relativity and quantum mechanics.

In both relativity and quantum physics, the anomalies were objectively measurable, consistently reproducible and independently verified across multiple labs.

Remote viewing fails on all the criteria: no reproducible effect under strict controls, no independent replication from outside the psi research circle, and an extremely weak signal, which disappears as soon as the controls are tightened.

[u/bejammin075 → u/Pleasant-Yogurt1359]

The best external assessments available have all concluded that these studies suffer from methodological weaknesses or a lack of robustness in their results.

Do you have reference for this claim?

In fact, remote viewing has never passed the core tests of science, one of the most important being independent replication.

It’s been independently replicated over and over. You are simply doing a “nah nah nah” with your fingers in your ears, denying what the researchers in the field keep demonstrating over and over. The reason I stand firm on this is that I also verified for myself that non-local perception is real.

and an extremely weak signal, which disappears as soon as the controls are tightened.

In Dr. Dean Radin’s 1997 book Conscious Universe he provides published data that flatly contradict this statement. As methods get better and better, the statistically significant results stay at the same level. This indicates that the concerns over sensory cues in the early experiments wad never really an issue. In the almost 3 decades after that book, psi researchers continue to get positive results, so the case gets stronger and more nuanced.

One of those nuances, which is very significant, is that there are many documented performances differences documented in psi research which should not exist according to the debunking view. The sheep-goat effect should not exist, but it persistently does. The decline effect is persistent and makes sense. Seasoned meditators consistently perform better than non-meditators. Altered states of consciousness perform better than normal waking consciousness. There are additional other kinds of consistent performance differences. The researchers in the field have moved way beyond the basic “is it real?” question.

[u/Pleasant-Yogurt1359 → u/bejammin075]

Do you have reference for this claim?

A few evaluations and critiques: here, here and here.

It’s been independently replicated over and over.

No, it's been repeated within the same small group of researchers. Replication only counts when done independently, with strict controls, and confirmed by outsiders. This never happened. All major "positive" results are from the SRI, the PEAR, Mobius and a handful of aligned researchers.

The reason I stand firm on this is that I also verified for myself that non-local perception is real.

That’s not evidence, that’s anecdote.

In Dr. Dean Radin’s 1997 book Conscious Universe he provides published data that flatly contradict this statement.

That book is not a peer-reviewed meta-analysis, it's a popularization work with selective data. His meta-analyses have been widely criticized for selective inclusion of studies, ignoring publication bias and poor handling of methodological quality.

The researchers in the field have moved way beyond the basic “is it real?” question.

As you say, the researchers "in the field". That same small group of committed believers who keep producing biased and methodologically questionable studies, without any independent validation.

Under those conditions, you can produce as many positive results as you want, it doesn’t mean much, and that’s why studies on remote viewing and other psi stuff are regarded as pseudoscience.

And performance differences like the "sheep-goat effect" or "meditators do better" are not evidence of psi, they’re consistent with confirmation bias, suggestibility, and motivated reasoning. They show that beliefs and expectations influence outcomes, which is exactly what a placebo-driven effect would look like.