Anomalous Entropic Effects in Physical Systems Associated with Collective Consciousness
📄 Original study ↗📌 Appears in:
Plain English Summary
Picture a worldwide network of electronic coin-flippers running nonstop for twenty-plus years, producing six trillion random bits. That's the Global Consciousness Project, and this paper deep-dives its full dataset. Using multiscale entropy (measuring how orderly data is at different scales), the real data proved significantly more structured than scrambled controls. A pattern emerged at 8-to-15-minute intervals — matching human attention rhythms. The truly eyebrow-raising part? The effect showed up even on unremarkable days with no big global events, hinting at something continuous rather than episodic. Important caveats: it appeared in a pay-to-publish journal, and the authors acknowledge many analytical choices that could inflate results.
Abstract
Beginning in 1998, a network of electronic random number generators located around the world has continuously recorded samples of truly random bits. The resulting data were used to explore a hypothesis that predicts the emergence of anomalous structure in randomness correlated with events that attract widespread human attention. A formal experiment testing this hypothesis from 1998 to 2015 found a highly significant deviation from chance expectation. However, the duration of the selected events comprised less than 5% of all data available through 2022, so the present analysis examined the full database to see if emergence of nonrandom structure was limited to those events, or if it was reflective of a persistent, if subtle, relationship between collective mind and matter. Two analytical methods were used to study emergent structure in time-series data: Multiscale entropy and a novel deconvolution technique. Both methods provided evidence consistent with the hypothesis, suggesting that some aspect of collective consciousness appears to be anomalously associated with aspects of the physical world.
Links
Related Papers
Extends
Same Research Program
- New Year's Eve as a Case Study in Experimental Metaphysics: Exploring Global Consciousness in Random Physical Systems — Radin, Dean I (2025)
- Searching for Global Consciousness: A Seventeen Year Exploration — Bancel, Peter A (2017)
- Correlations of Continuous Random Data with Major World Events — Nelson, Roger D (2002)
Cites
- Correlations of Random Binary Sequences with Pre-Stated Operator Intention: A Review of a 12-Year Program — Jahn, Robert G (1997)
- A Double-Slit Diffraction Experiment to Investigate Claims of Consciousness-Related Anomalies — Ibison, Michael (1998)
- The MegaREG Experiment: Replication and Interpretation — Dobyns, Y. H (2004)
- The GCP Event Experiment: Design, Analytical Methods, Results — Bancel, Peter A (2008)
Also by these authors
More in Psychokinesis
Observer Influence on Quantum Interference: Testing the von Neumann-Wigner Consciousness-Collapse Theory
Psychophysical Interactions with Electrical Plasma: Three Exploratory Experiments
Psychophysical Effects on an Interference Pattern in a Double-Slit Optical System: An Exploratory Analysis of Variance
Psychophysical Interactions with a Double-Slit Interference Pattern: Exploratory Evidence of a Causal Influence
Stock Returns and the Mind: An Unlikely Result that Could Change Our Understanding of Consciousness
📋 Cite this paper
Radin, Dean (2023). Anomalous Entropic Effects in Physical Systems Associated with Collective Consciousness. Physics Essays. https://doi.org/10.4006/0836-1398-36.1.77
@article{radin_2023_anomalous,
title = {Anomalous Entropic Effects in Physical Systems Associated with Collective Consciousness},
author = {Radin, Dean},
year = {2023},
journal = {Physics Essays},
doi = {10.4006/0836-1398-36.1.77},
}