Uploaded October 2021 | Updated September 2026, 5 hours ago
Can intention, attention or expectation affect random physical events?
In this episode we’re going to be exploring the subtleties of an odd phenomenon the Experimenter Effect, where the expectations of the scientist doing an experiment appear to affect the results measured. This is hugely important for the right practice of science, and for understanding why some experiments that seem watertight methodologically can only be reproduced by scientists who expect the same results and not by sceptics of the hypothesis.
Who better to discuss this with than a scientist who ran into this while trying to disprove the the influence of consciousness in a physical system, Professor Garret Moddel; Dr. Moddel is Professor of Electrical and Quantum engineering at Colorado University, specialising in Solar cells, metal-insulator technology and geometric diodes, and optoelectronics among other extraordinary technologies. He also runs a separate psi phenomena lab. He is also one of the former presidents of the groundbreaking research organisation the Society of Scientific Exploration.
00:00 New Solar tech: Transforming the wavelength of light (10 to the power 14 Hz!) into a diode.
01:04 The Experimenter effect explained
01:06 The difference between the effect in Psychology and in Physics
01:07 The control experiment and double/triple blind solution
01:09 Unrepeatibility due to statistical spread experiment results. Humans never do the exact same thing each time
13:30 P value: the odds against chance that what you’ve observed is due to the influence you’re testing as opposed to randomness
15:00 The hard sciences do not recognise expectation and intention as an influence in their physical experiments
19:00 RNGs: Helmut Schmitt and atomic decay Random Number Generator experiments
25:00 1000’s of scientists in a data driven, peer reviewed field of science, in underground labs at top universities; totally unacknowledged by the rest of science
26:00 Dean Radin at IONS, Bob Jahn and PEAR Lab at Princeton University
27:30 Garrett didn’t believe it till he read the literature
29:00 Garret’s attempt to disprove psi by taking minds out of the picture and finding the same effect
45:00 Garret’s ‘Edges of Science’ critical thinking course at Colorado University, where students try remote viewing
55:55 Standford Research Institute’s 1970’s-1990’s military psychic spy Remote Viewing experiments
01:03:30 Jessica Utts: The statistical analysis of SRI’s remote viewing research
01:05:30 The Society of Scientific Exploration - taking unexplained phenomena seriously
PART 2
01:08:00 The Observer Effect: simply observing interacts with quantum systems
01:11:00 Wigner Von Neumann and the ‘collapse of the wave function’
01:15:00 Our intention does affect random phenomena, incontrovertibly in the literature (see peer reviewed papers attached, compare to wikipedia)
01:16:30 Shoedinger’s cat, and Schmidt’s undetermined ‘cat state’ recording
10:30:00 Field Consciousness theory: Important world events like 9/11 lead to a deviation from randomness
10:34:00 Experimenter Effect criticism of Field Consciousness results
10:36:00 Garret’s Psibotics Experiments, taking humans out of the equation
10:39:00 The presence of sceptic observers leads to effects in the opposite non-random direction
01:42:00 Colleague Bernie Haisch, their zero-point patent and DARPA funding
01:48:00 Justified scepticism of the zero-point phenomenon?
References:
(please note the reported bias towards criticism over support on the wiki entries; the supporters try constantly to re-edit these entries to represent credible support, only for moderators to edit back. Why the need for such disproportional criticism?)
Schmidt, Helmut. Paper "Collapse of the state vector and psychokinetic effect." Foundations of Physics 12.6 (1982): 565-581. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1982FoPh...12..565S/abstract
The Society for Scientific Exploration scientificexploration.org
Dean Radin at IONS en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Radin
Radin, Dean, et al. paper "Psychophysical interactions with a double-slit interference pattern: Exploratory evidence of a causal influence." Physics Essays 34.1 (2021): 79-88. researchgate.net/publication/350862574_Psychophysical_interactions_with_a_double-slit_interference_pattern_Exploratory_evidence_of_a_causal_influence
Robert Jahn, Dean of Engineering at Princeton and founder of PEAR Labs Princeton en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Jahn
Robert Jahn, Brenda Dunne paper, ”On the quantum mechanics of consciousness, with application to anomalous phenomena." Foundations of Physics 16.8 (1986): 721-772.
Roger Nelson, Director of PEAR Labs Princeton, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_D._Nelson
Bernie Haisch’s and Garret Moddel’s Zero point energy patentpatents.google.com/patent/US20070241470
Garret’s paper on recent Zero-point research mdpi.com/2073-8994/13/3/517/htm
Can intention, attention or expectation affect random physical events?
In this episode we’re going to be exploring the subtleties of an odd phenomenon the Experimenter Effect, where the expectations of the scientist doing an experiment appear to affect the results measured. This is hugely important for the right practice of science, and for understanding why some experiments that seem watertight methodologically can only be reproduced by scientists who expect the same results and not by sceptics of the hypothesis.
Who better to discuss this with than a scientist who ran into this while trying to disprove the the influence of consciousness in a physical system, Professor Garret Moddel; Dr. Moddel is Professor of Electrical and Quantum engineering at Colorado University, specialising in Solar cells, metal-insulator technology and geometric diodes, and optoelectronics among other extraordinary technologies. He also runs a separate psi phenomena lab. He is also one of the former presidents of the groundbreaking research organisation the Society of Scientific Exploration.
00:00 New Solar tech: Transforming the wavelength of light (10 to the power 14 Hz!) into a diode.
01:04 The Experimenter effect explained
01:06 The difference between the effect in Psychology and in Physics
01:07 The control experiment and double/triple blind solution
01:09 Unrepeatibility due to statistical spread experiment results. Humans never do the exact same thing each time
13:30 P value: the odds against chance that what you’ve observed is due to the influence you’re testing as opposed to randomness
15:00 The hard sciences do not recognise expectation and intention as an influence in their physical experiments
19:00 RNGs: Helmut Schmitt and atomic decay Random Number Generator experiments
25:00 1000’s of scientists in a data driven, peer reviewed field of science, in underground labs at top universities; totally unacknowledged by the rest of science
26:00 Dean Radin at IONS, Bob Jahn and PEAR Lab at Princeton University
27:30 Garrett didn’t believe it till he read the literature
29:00 Garret’s attempt to disprove psi by taking minds out of the picture and finding the same effect
45:00 Garret’s ‘Edges of Science’ critical thinking course at Colorado University, where students try remote viewing
55:55 Standford Research Institute’s 1970’s-1990’s military psychic spy Remote Viewing experiments
01:03:30 Jessica Utts: The statistical analysis of SRI’s remote viewing research
01:05:30 The Society of Scientific Exploration - taking unexplained phenomena seriously
PART 2
01:08:00 The Observer Effect: simply observing interacts with quantum systems
01:11:00 Wigner Von Neumann and the ‘collapse of the wave function’
01:15:00 Our intention does affect random phenomena, incontrovertibly in the literature (see peer reviewed papers attached, compare to wikipedia)
01:16:30 Shoedinger’s cat, and Schmidt’s undetermined ‘cat state’ recording
10:30:00 Field Consciousness theory: Important world events like 9/11 lead to a deviation from randomness
10:34:00 Experimenter Effect criticism of Field Consciousness results
10:36:00 Garret’s Psibotics Experiments, taking humans out of the equation
10:39:00 The presence of sceptic observers leads to effects in the opposite non-random direction
01:42:00 Colleague Bernie Haisch, their zero-point patent and DARPA funding
01:48:00 Justified scepticism of the zero-point phenomenon?
References:
(please note the reported bias towards criticism over support on the wiki entries; the supporters try constantly to re-edit these entries to represent credible support, only for moderators to edit back. Why the need for such disproportional criticism?)
Schmidt, Helmut. Paper "Collapse of the state vector and psychokinetic effect." Foundations of Physics 12.6 (1982): 565-581. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1982FoPh...12..565S/abstract
The Society for Scientific Exploration scientificexploration.org
Dean Radin at IONS en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Radin
Radin, Dean, et al. paper "Psychophysical interactions with a double-slit interference pattern: Exploratory evidence of a causal influence." Physics Essays 34.1 (2021): 79-88. researchgate.net/publication/350862574_Psychophysical_interactions_with_a_double-slit_interference_pattern_Exploratory_evidence_of_a_causal_influence
Robert Jahn, Dean of Engineering at Princeton and founder of PEAR Labs Princeton en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Jahn
Robert Jahn, Brenda Dunne paper, ”On the quantum mechanics of consciousness, with application to anomalous phenomena." Foundations of Physics 16.8 (1986): 721-772.
Roger Nelson, Director of PEAR Labs Princeton, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_D._Nelson
Bernie Haisch’s and Garret Moddel’s Zero point energy patentpatents.google.com/patent/US20070241470
Garret’s paper on recent Zero-point research mdpi.com/2073-8994/13/3/517/htm
