Does Psi Exist and Can We Prove It? Belief and Disbelief in Psychokinesis Research

Psychokinesis research is encountering difficulties in replicating its findings. Centuries before psychokinesis phenomena such as levitation or moving objects were well known. Today anomalous phenomena seem to be reduced to rare and weak effects in stochastic processes. While experimental and analysis methods became more and more professional in the last decades, researchers complain about a loss of effect size and evidence. The “Model of Pragmatic Information” (MPI) by Walter von Lucadou predicts a change or decline of effect size. According to MPI this is necessary because otherwise a paranormal experiment could be used for information transfer which might be an intervention paradox. In elaborating further theoretic implications and consequences of the MPI we show that we finally reach a point where the outcome of a given PK experiment can not be distinguished from random results. Therefore, we should abandon proof-oriented research. All we can find are different degrees of evidence. Another interpretation is that increasing skepticism for itself might be the reason for the erosion of evidence. The author‘s earlier analysis of Fourmilab Retro-PK data with respect to lunar phase yielded a z-value of 3.24 for the full moon interval. A replication yielded a z-value of -2.49 for the same interval. Some evidence is given that this effect overturn (change of sign) depends not only on the predictions of the MPI but on believing and disbelieving in paranormal phenomena. Other parapsychologists noticed that their experimental results often corresponded to their own belief or disbelief in paranormal phenomena. This seems to be more than just a coincidence or the result of single experiences, it might be part of the nature of psychokinesis phenomena itself. Such experiences are the result of interactions between one’s mind with the physical world, analysed by an experimenter. In the classical scientific view the experimenter is a neutral observer of the experiment without any influence on the result. This view has to be corrected. The experimenter has also expectations, fears and hopes in his mind which could influence the outcome of a PK experiment. He also belongs, with respect to MPI, to the psi agents of a PK experiment. More than in any other scientific discipline the result of an experiment depends on the experimenters belief or disbelief in paranormal phenomena. Both, belief and disbelief, are self-referential, they act as self-fulfilling prophecies and tend to create their own evidence which confirms the expectations of the paranormal-believing experimenter like the skeptic experimenter. Beside the parameter of Lucadou’s new experimental paradigm it is necessary to document the experimenter’s belief in paranormal phenomena and to evaluate its effect and its outcome. The best conditions for growing evidence might be to use test subjects and experimenters who do not doubt in the existence of psi. The demand of skeptics to ban parapsychology from the realm of science have to be rejected. It is a science with its own special research conditions.