Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World

This book, published over 20 years ago, still stands almost alone in the field of scientists trying to understand the physical mechanisms behind consciousness, and how it shapes our world. What sets this book apart? For one, it's written by scientists / engineers, at Princeton, none the less. So, the main arguments and writing style won't grate on the hard-nosed science types. The first third of the book is essentially a review of existing ideas about the role of quantum mechanics in consciousness (or vice versa?), drawing heavily from the works of the early pioneers in the field. The middle portion of the book is a detailed explanation of experimental results on mind-machine connection. So, it's not just vague statements; agree with the data and experiments or not, they're presented in a format that's at least amenable to analysis. The last portion of the book is the most risk, where the authors opens speculate about what all of this could mean, and dare to extend the scope of science, and even propose theories which could well turn out to be wrong. Coming from the very intellectually conservative field of academic science, it's a breath of fresh air (even if it's not quite right). This book predates the other works in quantum-mind types of connections, such as Penrose, by almost a decade. That said, it's certainly not a book for everyone. It's somewhat technical, but only to the extent that's necessary to be clear about the experiments. And, it's somewhat speculative, which is of course necessary to advance these sorts of ideas, which are far from being proven or generally acceptable.

I don't think a reasonable person could seriously attack the methodology of these experiments, which makes their findings somewhat shocking. My only qualm with the book was that the final section wherein they proposed a theoretical model to explain the anomalous behavior they'd observed was disappointingly weak. While this shouldn't reflect badly on the validity of their experiments, one can hardly help making the illogical leap that casts doubt on their findings in retrospect. Despite the flaws in their theoretical model, the book is still hugely important simply because it provides a basis for easily repeatable experiments which - if their results are indeed replicated - could radically alter the emerging sciences related to the mind and it's behavior.

I think Ben Finn's review is spot-on, but I'd like to add a few things.Section I of the book deals with a review of many paranormal topics and inquiry (scientific and otherwise) into their origins. The best thing I took from this section is that the authors were acutely aware of the criticism that has been made of such research, and were determined to exercise caution in designing their experiments.The PK research --- that demonstrating the ability of human intent to influence a probable outcome --- seems to have been designed very carefully to address anticipated criticism. It's difficult to read through this section of the book and not come away believing that something has been proven. And whatever that "something" might be, it is distinctively weird: it's one thing to obtain operator-specific profiles of statistical influence over some random process, but downright bizarre that they were able to obtain similar results using a *pseudorandom* source. This research, detailed in section II of the book, is what makes this work really shine --- it's the strength of this section that really earned the four stars I gave it. This section is *worth* it, and does much to convince a skeptic (like me).Section III deals with remote perception, and a system the authors devised to quantify the results of such experiments. The sample sizes and the data here are necessarily more sparse, but are still quite engaging. The anecdotal evidence at the end of the section made for some enjoyable reading, though stories of experiments where the subject completely missed the target seem conspicuously absent.Sections IV proposes a theoretical framework for the anomolies demonstrated by the experiments, and comes off as quite silly. Sweeping metaphors are taken from the realm of quantum mechanics, to a level of detail that isn't remotely supported by the research. One does need to theorize *something* after such experimentation, but attempting to build a rich framework from a few targeted experiments is more than is necessary, and certainly more than is warranted. Furthermore, the authors' model attributes conciousness even to simple devices such as the "Random Event Generator" or a bunch of foam balls bouncing off pegs --- a truly embarrassing stretch, in my opinion. (For some much better theoretical ideas, I'd suggest a book called "The Physics of Consciousness" by Evan Harris Walker.)Section V rambles in the authors' usual heavy prose about implications and applicability, and, unfortunately, builds upon section IV. If there was anything interesting in this section, I'm afraid it slipped past me.My rating of 4 stars is for some genuine, solid research in section II and, to a lesser extent, section III. As a skeptic, the results of these experiments will compel me to dig deeper; barring outright fraud, the results cannot be dismissed as mere chance. It's too startling to rate it any lower, even if the closing sections of the book are rather goofy.If you're already convin

The core of the book is a detailed description of the key experiments which the Princeton group has performed and which offers some of the first well documented and scientifically rigourous evidence for the reality of psychic phenomena. Indescribably thrilling to read how the authors and co-workers set out to show that there could be even a small effect (on average 1 in 10,000 trials may be 'unusual'). The descriptions of the statisical analysis lends credibility to the results. The discursive padding is interesting, but maybe a trifle too speculative. In general, though, a riveting read.

This is a beautifully written book about the interaction of mind and matter. It is science with a heart. Those of you who would like more information about the lab from which this came should check out their award-winning web site: http://www.princeton.edu/~rdnelson/pear.html