Theory of multiple discovery

[Seldom]

i came upon this a while ago, it's about multiple yet identical discoveries in the fields of science emerging independently, yet at the same time, through different people. different people discovering the same things at the same time, across multiple continents and without collaboration. thinking about it, it seems almost to be an extended level equivalent to what happens sometimes when people take psychedelics together, realizing things simultaneously but without speaking. a basic list of them is on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multiple_discoveries

conceptions of the nature of ideas which for example exist in psychology are just inadequate for explaining how the hell this phenomenon occurs. i know you guys dig the mystical perspective, and i think it has something to offer in understanding what's producing this. how would you explain what's going on here?

Edited July 24, 2011 by humanzee

[ballzac]

There is a simple explanation, and that has to do with the fact that ideas don't form in a vacuum. There is a logical time for a particular idea to form, and it is based on the scientific and societal context in which it forms. Just to take a random example:

In 1993, groups led by Donald S. Bethune at IBM and Sumio Iijima at NEC independently discovered single-wall carbon nanotubes and methods to produce them using transition-metal catalysts.

Would this...Could this have happened a decade earlier? If researchers are working on similar problems, it makes perfect sense that they will discover things at around the same time. With the hundreds of thousands of discoveries being made every year, it's logical that some "multiple discoveries" are going to occur in the same year. Also, the majority of those on the wiki page probably do not fit into your category of completely independent concurrent discoveries. For example, Leibniz and Newton both developed calculus, but they were in constant correspondence by mail. In fact, legend has it that they were both so arrogant that they were dropping hints in their letters to each other thinking that the other was too stupid to get it. In the end, they both complained that the other had stolen their idea.

[nabraxas]

Morphic resonance anyone?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphic_field#Morphic_field

[HeroicDose]

Yeah Rupert Sheldrake has been studying this stuff for a long while now. The hypothesis that an idea would be discovered at the same time because it becomes possible to discover at the same time makes sense but I believe that some of Rupert's ideas revolve around the evolution of ideas or access to ideas in the morphic field, kind of in the sense that when you take a psychedelic you are gaining access to another reality that others cannot, which may explain why some people on psychedelics have the same experience together. I havn't read his book A New Science of Life: Morphic Resonance but, you know, I should.

[ballzac]

I'll just put this out there: It's doubtful that many (if any) of the people actually making these discoveries believe that there is anything at work other than a combination of context and coincidence.

[Seldom]

exactly but they've both arrived at the same description of phenomena independently. was just thinking some people not me say when on hallucinogenics this is a common experience, realising the same things at the same times at certain rare seemingly significant times but without any explicit correspondence between people.the discoveries are further apart in time than in that example but i think the underlying idea is the same. different parts of the universe are racing in the continual elaboration of the new, some are fastest and get to the idea first, then the next etc and next ideas become like a contagion and spread through everyone, and they grow like bacteria on the stuff our mind is made of.

Edited July 25, 2011 by humanzee

[nabraxas]

coincidence or synchronicity?

[The Dude]

chaos / order

[Seldom]

eheheh. i was baked when i wrote that

[devance]

i came upon this a while ago, it's about multiple yet identical discoveries in the fields of science emerging independently, yet at the same time, through different people. different people discovering the same things at the same time, across multiple continents and without collaboration. thinking about it, it seems almost to be an extended level equivalent to what happens sometimes when people take psychedelics together, realizing things simultaneously but without speaking. a basic list of them is on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multiple_discoveries

conceptions of the nature of ideas which for example exist in psychology are just inadequate for explaining how the hell this phenomenon occurs. i know you guys dig the mystical perspective, and i think it has something to offer in understanding what's producing this. how would you explain what's going on here?

 

I think your post is informative and true and will look at the article [ wikipedia in more detail.

[faustus]

yes, even though i don't necessarily buy into it, i think sheldrake's morphic resonance would explain things.

i wish i could elaborate on the actual cocnept, but recently i've actually been experiencing this. i've been working on research on a particular idea which i came up with in about 2008. at the time i was really impressed with myself at how novel the theory was, and up until say about 6 months ago, i thought i was the first person to have actually conducted the study. then, all of a sudden, as i'm writing up, i find all these fucking PhD theses published in 2010 which have essentially stolen MY idea. it just pisses me off, cos the timing of my study and the timing of their thesis means that there would have been no way that any one of us could have possibly known that other people were working on it too (at least on my end).

the idea is still very novel and i think it's still a very innovative way of looking at things, but yeah, it pissed me off, cos it's MY idea and they STOLE it from ME. cunts.

[The Dude]

gotta get in quick to get the credit in this whole shared consciousness thing.

[ThunderIdeal]

hahahaha, dude, an interesting twist on the matter.

[Roopey]

In the movie Waking Life there is a bit in there about this type of stuff. They talk about this experiment that they did on this group of people where they gave them daily crossword puzzles while analyzing their scores. They then secretly started giving half of the group (so they could keep a control group) day old crossword puzzles that millions of people had already answered from papers, like the New York Times, and scores increased by a large percent. So it is like everyone is subconsciously tele-communicating our experiences with one another.

Or even the experiment that took place in Washington DC where group of people got together every day for 100 days to meditate on peace. The results were amazing, the murder capital of the world had a decrease in crime by 25% in those 100 days.

I myself have had an experience that to me is no coincidence. I had had a couple tabs of Dead-head Chemistry and as I do when I trip, I spent a large amount of time in a deep contemplative state, and by the end of the night had come to many realizations about myself. One was about idolization. How I should never idolize another person, because it only stifles my own creativity. The reason for this being that I shouldn't want to achieve the accomplishments of someone else, rather I should want to exceed them! This was profound for me at the time, as this was many years ago now. Around two months later a new Nike ad came out in the States, where I was living at the time, it had this basketball player who was showing off, dunking and what-not, then he said "You shouldn't want to be like me. You should want to be better than me." Now you can explain this as merely a coincidence if you choose, but to me I didn't come up with that idea, it merely presented itself to me while I was in deep meditation. As I'm sure it has presented itself to many other people in many other ways, through dreaming, through self-hypnosis, through drugs, or what-ever technique you choose to bring yourself into altered states of consciousness open yourself to your imagination. These ideas and thoughts we have are not our own, they exist in all of us, bubbling underneath the surface waiting for the day that it shall be brought into the light.

[ballzac]

In the movie Waking Life there is a bit in there about this type of stuff. They talk about this experiment that they did on this group of people where they gave them daily crossword puzzles while analyzing their scores. They then secretly started giving half of the group (so they could keep a control group) day old crossword puzzles that millions of people had already answered from papers, like the New York Times, and scores increased by a large percent. So it is like everyone is subconsciously tele-communicating our experiences with one another.

 

Waking life is a great movie...but it's still just a movie. If this 'study' exists, where is it published? What were the controls? Has it been replicated?

[The Dude]

I doubt the film makers would be referencing a made up study. From memory Rupert Sheldrake has quite a lot of data supporting his morphogenetic field theory, it's just one way to interpret the data, but it fits pretty well and the evidence is pretty compelling.

[The Dude]

I doubt the film makers would be referencing a made up study. From memory Rupert Sheldrake has quite a lot of data supporting his morphogenetic field theory, it's just one way to interpret the data, but it fits pretty well and the evidence is pretty compelling.

[ballzac]

It's less convincing as heresay. It's not like it's represented as a documentary (though that doesn't necessarily make a difference cf. "What the Bleep do we Know"). It's represented as fiction, a cartoon no less. That's not to say that it's not based on something. It could be a reference to a study. That does not mean the results of the study are accurately represented by the film-makers. Or it could be a reference to an urban legend, or a hoax. There is no doubt that if a study like this exists, and the results as interpreted by those who carried out the 'research' are accurately represented in the film, this is not something that is accepted by the scientific community. If one person claims to have discovered some kind of effect (and we don't even know this), those results don't mean a whole lot unless they can be replicated/verified by qualified, independent researchers.

Edited August 1, 2011 by ballzac

[The Dude]

I guess it's time other researchers followed in Sheldrakes work then.

[Roopey]

It's less convincing as heresay. It's not like it's represented as a documentary (though that doesn't necessarily make a difference cf. "What the Bleep do we Know"). It's represented as fiction, a cartoon no less. That's not to say that it's not based on something. It could be a reference to a study. That does not mean the results of the study are accurately represented by the film-makers. Or it could be a reference to an urban legend, or a hoax. There is no doubt that if a study like this exists, and the results as interpreted by those who carried out the 'research' are accurately represented in the film, this is not something that is accepted by the scientific community. If one person claims to have discovered some kind of effect (and we don't even know this), those results don't mean a whole lot unless they can be replicated/verified by qualified, independent researchers.

 

You can never really know anything. Even "science" is merely the most "reasonable" conclusion based on the extremely limited human perspective. Everything is heresay, and you will ultimately choose to believe whatever you want. To me, everything is interconnected, everything is energy, and all we need to do is learn how to feel this energy and tap into these connections in order to truly see the world around us for what it is, a paradox. A place where you can never really know anything, yet you already know everything.

[ballzac]

You can never really know anything. Even "science" is merely the most "reasonable" conclusion based on the extremely limited human perspective. Everything is heresay, and you will ultimately choose to believe whatever you want.

 

I absolutely agree. I personally find a body of evidence built up by independent experts over time more convincing than a reference in a fictional movie to a single study which may or may not have been carried out at some stage.

[faustus]

I guess it's time other researchers followed in Sheldrakes work then.

experiment: two genetically identical rats. rat #1 learns to run thru a maze after x amount of trials.

if sheldrake's theory holds true, then it should take rat #2 fewer trials to master the maze. you'd need to physically separate the rats, and given that rats depend on olfaction as their main sense, you'd need to thoroughly clean the maze between sessions, or alternatively, have two identical mazes constructed and kept at completely different locations.

if some cunt gave me the funds i'd actually love to do that experiment.

[Roopey]

Washington DC Experiment I mentioned.

http://www.alltm.org/pages/crime-arrested.html

Some more info on Sheldrake's crossword experiment.

http://cfpm.org/~majordom/memetics/2000/6425.html

Also, I would like to mention that listening to a group of "experts" and taking their word as gospel is no different than taking the word of "preists" as the word of God. You did not do the experiments, you do not know the biases that the experimenter has, you do not know who paid those experts to release certain findings, you do not know anything other than what you are told. All I'm trying to say is that it is impossible to know anything, and even when you think you do, you don't, because you can't, you can only perceive subjectively. Just as everyone else can never know anything, they can only perceive subjectively. In order to "know" you'd have to be much, much more than human.

[Undergrounder]

Also, I would like to mention that listening to a group of "experts" and taking their word as gospel is no different than taking the word of "preists" as the word of God. You did not do the experiments, you do not know the biases that the experimenter has, you do not know who paid those experts to release certain findings, you do not know anything other than what you are told. All I'm trying to say is that it is impossible to know anything, and even when you think you do, you don't, because you can't, you can only perceive subjectively. Just as everyone else can never know anything, they can only perceive subjectively. In order to "know" you'd have to be much, much more than human.

 

You're missing the point of a published study... the whole point is they write up precisely what they did and how they did it, so that anyone else can try and repeat the study and see if they get the same results. Before a paper is published, it is also reviewed by a panel of different experts in the field, who look for obvious mistakes or biases, and who will refuse to publish it if they think it's flawed.

You can do the experiments yourself, and if you're interested in the field, you probably should. And try it with slightly different variables if you like to try and prove the original study right or wrong. If you can prove the study is flawed, then your experiment will probably get published as well. And then someone else might look again and do another experiment to see why they're different... and so on, and so on, and that's how scientific knowledge is made.

The whole 'subjective experience cannot know truth' argument really has nothing to do with this.

[Roopey]

Look I understand how they want us to view "science" and I understand that keen observation is essential in anything that we do. But my statement does hold pertain to this argument in the sense that the conclusions made through these observations are always inconclusive. The human mind can only perceive what I would imagine is only a small fraction of what is the world around us. Cats can see colors you can't even imagine, and dogs can hear things that you would never be able to. The reality around us consists of much more than we can know. Can we perceive every form of light? X-rays, gamma-rays, and many other forms of light were only recently discovered, not by the naked eye, but through the advance of technology. How many more lay imperceivable to us? Do you see where I'm going with this?

Taking science as the best that we can theorize for the moment is fair enough, but to view what these scientists come up with as fact is just ignorance, disguised as knowledge. Like 90% of science is still just theory, theories mind you which most of the time can never actually proven or dis-proven, because we are unable to perceive the relevant variables.

Socrates and the Oracle of Delphi

"After his service in the war, Socrates devoted himself to his favorite pastime: the pursuit of truth.

His reputation as a philosopher, literally meaning 'a lover of wisdom', soon spread all over Athens and beyond. When told that the Oracle of Delphi had revealed to one of his friends that Socrates was the wisest man in Athens, he responded not by boasting or celebrating, but by trying to prove the Oracle wrong.

So Socrates decided he would try and find out if anyone knew what was truly worthwhile in life, because anyone who knew that would surely be wiser than him. He set about questioning everyone he could find, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer. Instead they all pretended to know something they clearly did not.

Finally he realized the Oracle might be right after all. He was the wisest man in Athens because he alone was prepared to admit his own ignorance rather than pretend to know something he did not."