binds all of us together?
Do thoughts manifest themselves
in physical reality?
What happens to this force during a global event like 9/11 or a presidential election?
You will be surprised!
I have often talked with people about their beliefs on this. Recently I was talking to Kim Lamson about the Electric Sheep Project and moreover another project that has been running for years that has sought to scientifically measure this seemingly unmeasurable reality. Kim was kind enough to do a guest write-up on the project.
The Global Consciousness Project (GCP), initiated by scientists based in Princeton, N.J. in the late 1990’s, offers objectively gathered, mathematically measurable evidence of the “global community mind” having energy reflecting or extending beyond itself. Through clearly evidenced correlations in data it potentially gives credence to theories that the power of the mind, sans physical action, can translate to physical manifestation both within and without itself. Through multiple random number generators (a.k.a. "eggs") placed in geographically separated locations around the world, the GCP's computer bank measures correlations of these numbers and when they deviate from their typical continuous data stream of random output. The GCP “dot” on the upper right of the carpetux home page shows in its color (running from blue to red) when computers are least, middling, and most jiving in their numerical randomness or ordering.
This study has determined through scientifically objective method that world-wide impactful events experienced by us on this earth independently coincide with a mathematically correlated ordering amidst the otherwise random ordering. A global community mind is created by many individuals having experiences of events simultaneously thus creating a group mind of sorts. Among the many, two of the more marked examples of strong correlations activating among this world-wide bank of computers with specific human events are 9.11 and, more recently, in data from the night Barack Obama became president elect of the United States. Both of these events made for a keened global community mind of strong thought and emotion. The web page for the GCP can be found by clicking their dot on the carpetux web page or through clicking http://noosphere.princeton.edu.
The GCP is moving in many interesting directions of inquiry and demonstration with their developing database. By arranging the tempo and tones gathered from their mathematical equivalents in number vibrations, we are able to listen to a form of music of the earth sphere (as compared to music of the plural spheres of space). A similar concept may come to be applied aligning visually evolving Electric Sheep (elsewhere referred to on the CarpeTux site) with this data, creating a dance of ongoing transforming images pulled from times of highest GCP correlation.
There is much information on this project of scientific and aesthetic interest as well as linkings to further data and information; the science behind all of this as detailed by the scientists involved; how to interpret data; possible meanings; interesting creative applications; background; and theories being considered. Having quite limited scientific and mathematical training or comprehension myself, the data provided by scientists and statisticians is very intriguing. Through statistics and technical interpretations a dynamic relationship between the community or global mind and a physically charged echoing of this in mathematically measurable manifestation is clearly evidenced.
Through recorded time, teachers, spiritual leaders, and mystics of various religions, denominations, philosophical orientations, and culturally structured ways of life have carried a belief our human energies powered through thought and emotion can have physically manifested affect. This has generally been considered to be something that could not be unequivocally determined in an observable way by those who tend toward doubting or those who generally respected such ideas as acceptable personal beliefs for others but were still skeptical of such an idea for themselves.
Folklore such as “self-fulfilling prophecy” and “mind over matter” (interpreted very differently from the sometimes connotative meaning of willpower) allude to the power of the mind carrying into physical fulfillment. This general concept of the power of the mind is possibly connected, aligned with, or supported by the GCP data. Further examples of this are the Hermetic saying, “As above, So below”; Jung’s archetypal mind; yogic control of sensory and physical functioning as well as their acting as conduits of peace and spiritual wisdom; segments of Michael Talbot’s theories contained in his book The Holographic Universe; clustered prayers of monks and nuns in monasteries and convents; Christian leader Emmet Fox’s teachings in the 1940’s on scientific prayer including his writing of “…the Great Law…what we sow in thought we reap in experience"; groups of people intentionally directing their prayers with an attitude of exercising disciplined positive thinking with faith consciousness and applying these prayers with full and conscious intention; studies on the affect of prayers on sickness by strangers geographically separated from and unknown to the one being prayed for; studies on potential outward affects of group meditation toward a common conscious intention; Biblical sayings emphasized by some Christian leaders such as Philippians 4:8 “What you think upon grows,” Isaiah 30:15 “In quietness and confidence shall be your strength,” Proverbs 23:7 “For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”; discoveries in quantum physics of geographically splitting identical twin-type quarks and the change in their behavior according to whether they are observed or not; and the recent discovery by astronomers that what has been thought to be empty space out there actually contains very subtle forms of plasma thereby connecting everything in possibly the same manner as all within the ocean are connected by its water.* All of these thoughts support an essential oneness most often considered in spiritual terms, where any one element is connected and in responsively affected relationship with all other elements contained within the whole, through mind, and the GCP study which now seems to possibly be heading toward this becoming knowable in objectively testable ways.
While prior studies can be interpreted as possibly having more subjective results, study results potentially growing from the GCP project are markedly less arguable. The GCP takes a large step by being readily interpretable as an objectively observable scientific study. Possible conceptual meanings and other possibly intriguing tie-ins are more fully and logically approached by the GCP on their very interesting “Implications” page (accessed through the home page “What Is the Nature of Global Consciousness: Global Correlations in Random Data” then scrolling down to the scientific and aesthetic categories and clicking on “Implications” under the “Aesthetic View” listing). Roger Nelson, Ph.D., Director of the GCP, after writing of Bohm’s work on quantum physics, speculates in this section, “Most simply put, I think consciousness is a source of active information, and that the objects of attention for consciousness can be sinks that attract and hence actualize the information.” Very interesting theory and speculation on possible meanings of this data are written of in this section.
Though not yet sorted into any specifically clear interpretation, what is being taken beyond theory into being discernibly and measurably proven is the presence of "cumulative mind" having relationship with an outer connected realm not directly perceivable to our standard human senses. If we find these concepts valid to consider, through studies such as this or through personal beliefs, we are offered a choice. We could then recognize there is energetic power in what we entertain in our minds and in our intentions, that this power of mind may be activated through a focused aligning of thoughts and emotion, that this may come to be empirically proven, and that we might then be especially thoughtful of what we choose to do with this awareness in order for it to be agreeable to highest intent and purpose. If we do believe these concepts to be valid and look toward applying this individually or in community we could then choose to direct our thinking in creative and constructive directions. Going beyond this, we might recognize how all parts can join together with awareness to affect our whole in a conscious rather than unconscious way.
This study brings to the fore, within the field of science, questions on the relationship between mind and manifestation; whether there might be a subtly manifesting dynamic exoskeleton of world community mind-form and whether this might carry varying vibrational intensity; our understanding of isolated physical forms versus all being part of one same whole and, further yet, if this might be among the perceived breathing and non-breathing and whether all might be breathing in one breath. Regardless of what direct meanings may come to rise from the Global Consciousness Project data, this project has interesting information to discover throughout.
“To sense that behind anything that can be experienced, there is something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness.”
The Global Consciousness Project 
