My best friend was a master at the "come hither" look. He could sit in a bar, stare at a girl in a certain way, and in most instances he would establish a contact that often led to... well, let's just say that it led to "something". I remember once betting him a pint beer that he couldn't get a particular girl to notice him. He went even further.
"Make it a pitcher of Stella Artois," he said, "and I'll have her and her friend at our table in ten minutes."
That seemed to be too good a deal to pass up, because while I didn't think he could do it, the girl's friend was cute and I had no problem playing wingman, so I took the bet. Seven minutes later, I was ordering him a pitcher of beer... and buying a couple of drinks for the girls, who had come over to our table without my friend saying a word to them, or motioning, or anything like that. He just looked at them in that certain way of his, and by doing so he changed the course of events. I could never do it myself - I would almost always look away at the pivotal moment, and even if I didn't look away, I could never quite read the "signs". Indeed, years later I wrote a song about the experience (and other related things).
This is, in its own way, akin to the observer effect - when you observe something, you invariably change it.
The theoretical physics of all of this is far beyond my proverbial "pay grade", so I'm not going to use the word "quantum" here - it's something that's tossed about far too frequently by people who don't understand what it truly represents in all its facets (including me). But we can see the basic principle that observation changes behaviour in the real world, without getting into theoretical physics. The example of my friend in the bar is amusing, but a far more concrete and pervasive example comes from my own work as a documentary filmmaker, and "reality" television, where the first rule of thumb is that as soon as you point a camera at someone, you will almost invariably change their behaviour. People react to being observed.
Many documentary filmmakers tend to look down on "reality" television as some kind of abomination on the grounds that it's not an accurate representation of reality, because such shows are often heavily scripted, and even if they're not, how can you expect someone like Gene Simmons tor Rick Harrison to behave the same way he normally would without a camera crew following him around. But here's the question that needs asking: what is reality, and what is normal? We change our behaviour all of the time, in both big ways and small ways, based on our interactions with others, or based on being observed. All that "reality" television does is create a different reality than the one which might have existed had the cameras not been there, but either reality would have largely been structured according to people dealing with other people in some way. It is an observed reality regardless, just as any "traditional" documentary is based on an observed reality, and the filmmaker's ultimate presentation and interpretation of that reality.
History shows us that you don't even need other people to have an observed reality where behaviour is constantly influenced and changed. All one has to do is read the diaries of Christians throughout the years to see that even the belief that they were being observed by God was enough to significantly influence their actions (indeed, an atheist might posit that the whole idea of God was introduced as a behavior control mechanism, but that's a debate for another day). In essence, a God that observes, and from time to time interacts in some way with humanity, as many people believe happens, is no different than a camera crew and writer working on a "reality" television series. What was Jesus and the crucifixion but the ultimate plot change in the "story"? Indeed, if it all happened now, it would probably look something like this:
Many documentary filmmakers tend to look down on "reality" television as some kind of abomination on the grounds that it's not an accurate representation of reality, because such shows are often heavily scripted, and even if they're not, how can you expect someone like Gene Simmons tor Rick Harrison to behave the same way he normally would without a camera crew following him around. But here's the question that needs asking: what is reality, and what is normal? We change our behaviour all of the time, in both big ways and small ways, based on our interactions with others, or based on being observed. All that "reality" television does is create a different reality than the one which might have existed had the cameras not been there, but either reality would have largely been structured according to people dealing with other people in some way. It is an observed reality regardless, just as any "traditional" documentary is based on an observed reality, and the filmmaker's ultimate presentation and interpretation of that reality.
History shows us that you don't even need other people to have an observed reality where behaviour is constantly influenced and changed. All one has to do is read the diaries of Christians throughout the years to see that even the belief that they were being observed by God was enough to significantly influence their actions (indeed, an atheist might posit that the whole idea of God was introduced as a behavior control mechanism, but that's a debate for another day). In essence, a God that observes, and from time to time interacts in some way with humanity, as many people believe happens, is no different than a camera crew and writer working on a "reality" television series. What was Jesus and the crucifixion but the ultimate plot change in the "story"? Indeed, if it all happened now, it would probably look something like this:
In short, we live in an "observed reality", where our actions are constantly influenced by the awareness of being observed, whether this "awareness" is conscious, or unconscious (it's worth noting that the observers are increasingly artificial in nature, like the pervasive video cameras that we see on almost every street corner in most North American cities these days).
The tricky bit, as my friend knew was the case with women, is whether one can actually control the change induced by the observer effect, and therefore control people's behaviour, as opposed to generating a random effect that just changes their behaviour in unpredictable ways. My friend didn't just want anything to happen when he looked at the girl in the bar - he wanted a particular result. Accordingly, he looked at her in a particular way. If it had been someone like me, who was less adept at "the look", the likelihood of getting the desired result would have been much lower (trust me on this one).
All of which is to say that I think Jacques Vallee was essentially right. Vallee proposed that there is a genuine UFO phenomenon which has been active throughout human history, and which appears in various forms to different cultures. In his opinion, the intelligence behind the phenomenon has been engaged in social manipulation by using deception on the humans with whom they interact. In essence, we have been living in their reality show.
I would go further than Vallee, however, and suggest that all paranormal phenomena are interrelated, and a manifestation of the same non-human intelligence. Thus, ghosts and UFOs, for example, are simply different ways of trying to achieve the same effect. Sometimes this has taken a "world historical" form, as in the appearance of a "cross in the sky" to Constantine the Great at the Battle of Milvian Bridge, or Kenneth Arnold's UFO sighting in 1947, but most of the time it takes the form of little moments in the day-to-day lives of people, some of which might be noticed, but most of which are not, at least not on a conscious level (something like "deja vu" or a string of coincidences falls into the latter category). But somewhere, deep inside all of us (even the atheists), I think there is a feeling that we're being "watched", and an awareness that there is something out there which for whatever reason is influencing us to some degree, and for some unknown reason.
I think this is the "Unified Field Theory" of what we call the "paranormal". Shakespeare said it best: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."
If all of this is true, however, then the question that remains: why would a non-human intelligence would engage in such activities. Are we simply actors, playing a particular role set out for us by the NHI... or are we also the writers and directors, and the NHI is the producer, providing us with the stage so that we can exercise our own creativity in our own way.
It's a question of being controlled versus free will, and it's the central existential question of human history. it's also the fundamental question that anyone interested in the "paranormal" needs to be asking.
Paul Kimball
The tricky bit, as my friend knew was the case with women, is whether one can actually control the change induced by the observer effect, and therefore control people's behaviour, as opposed to generating a random effect that just changes their behaviour in unpredictable ways. My friend didn't just want anything to happen when he looked at the girl in the bar - he wanted a particular result. Accordingly, he looked at her in a particular way. If it had been someone like me, who was less adept at "the look", the likelihood of getting the desired result would have been much lower (trust me on this one).
All of which is to say that I think Jacques Vallee was essentially right. Vallee proposed that there is a genuine UFO phenomenon which has been active throughout human history, and which appears in various forms to different cultures. In his opinion, the intelligence behind the phenomenon has been engaged in social manipulation by using deception on the humans with whom they interact. In essence, we have been living in their reality show.
I would go further than Vallee, however, and suggest that all paranormal phenomena are interrelated, and a manifestation of the same non-human intelligence. Thus, ghosts and UFOs, for example, are simply different ways of trying to achieve the same effect. Sometimes this has taken a "world historical" form, as in the appearance of a "cross in the sky" to Constantine the Great at the Battle of Milvian Bridge, or Kenneth Arnold's UFO sighting in 1947, but most of the time it takes the form of little moments in the day-to-day lives of people, some of which might be noticed, but most of which are not, at least not on a conscious level (something like "deja vu" or a string of coincidences falls into the latter category). But somewhere, deep inside all of us (even the atheists), I think there is a feeling that we're being "watched", and an awareness that there is something out there which for whatever reason is influencing us to some degree, and for some unknown reason.
I think this is the "Unified Field Theory" of what we call the "paranormal". Shakespeare said it best: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."
If all of this is true, however, then the question that remains: why would a non-human intelligence would engage in such activities. Are we simply actors, playing a particular role set out for us by the NHI... or are we also the writers and directors, and the NHI is the producer, providing us with the stage so that we can exercise our own creativity in our own way.
It's a question of being controlled versus free will, and it's the central existential question of human history. it's also the fundamental question that anyone interested in the "paranormal" needs to be asking.
Paul Kimball
