The Global Consciousness Project is one of the most significant of current research projects into parapsychology. Based at Princeton, the project researches into the theory that the human consciousness may create an external field which is not detectable via conventional means.
Working on the assumption that while the field of an individual's consciousness is not measurable, the combined field of a large number of people who are experiencing similar thoughts or feelings is measurable, the GCP claims to have produced evidence that such a field exists.
Research
Their research works by examining the output of hardware random number generators located around the world. The current theory holds that events that have a significant human impact affect the randomness of these generators in a statistically significant way.
Roger D. Nelson started by reviewing two decades of experiments from the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab (PEAR) which, allegedly, repeatedly show that random event generators (REG's) can be intentionally influenced to bring about a less random sequence of data - in other words, that human intentionality can reduce natural entropy and create greater coherence within a random series of events.
In an experimental approach to this question, investigators have examined the outputs of electronic noise-based, truly random number generators (RNG) before, during and after highly focused or coherent group events. The group events studied included intense psychotherapy sessions, captivating theater presentations, religious rituals, popular sports competitions, like World Cup Soccer, and high-interest television broadcasts like the Academy Awards (Bierman, 1996; Blasband, 2000; Nelson, 1995, 1997; Nelson et al, 1996, 1998a, 1998b; Radin, 1997; Radin et al, 1996;)
Results of these studies allegedly suggest that mind and matter are entangled in some fundamental way, and in particular that focused mental attention in groups is associated with non-random fluctuations in streams of truly random data.
Criticism
The methodology of the Global Consciousness Project has been questioned. Most of this criticism centers around how the data are selected and interpreted. It is important to recognize that spikes and fluctuations are to be expected in any random distribution of data. Especially troubling is that there is no set time frame for how close a spike has to be to a given event to find a correlation. For example, on September 11, it was alleged that spikes that occurred hours before the attacks were themselves caused by the attacks, bizarrely asserting backwards causality or precognition.
Another problem is that there is no objective criterion for determining whether or not an event is significant. Events are selected after they happen, and then the data are systematically sifted to produce meaningful results. When no event of "significance" happens, the data are ignored, whether or not they may display similar fluctuations. The GCP admits as much in their FAQ, when they say "Moreover, the effect size is so tiny that we almost always require repeated measures, or measures over a long time to detect any anomalies. To see precursors we have to look back across that time from a post facto perspective. Unique point events have little chance of being seen, at least by our current methods."
It has also never been satisfactorally explained through what mechanism random number generators would respond to human thoughts, even theoretically. There are two distinct claims: The claim that there is some sort of global consciousness is being tested by assuming an even more unbelievable (and quite independant) claim that this global consciousness affects random number generators. It is highly suspicious that this particular method is being used to measure the posited "global consciousness," especially since, if one were to attempt to find meaning in a meaningless string of numbers, the data set from random number generators would be exactly the place to start. A more logical approach would be to analyze the information that the random number generators themselves use; they frequently function by applying algorithms to white noise. Of course, no analysis of white noise itself has ever found a correlation or pattern corresponding to meaningful world events.
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