From: sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti)
Subject: The Sarfatti Papers 1*
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1992 04:33:22 GMT


Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.sci.physics.new-
theories,alt.paranormal,sci.skeptic
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Subject: Re: Physics: The Good, The Bad, and The Bogus
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 22:43:18 GMT

In article <Bzq9Hn.7xx@well.sf.ca.us> sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack
Sarfatti) writes:
>
>"Make my day!" Dirty Harry, Clint Eastwood.
>
>Sarfatti replies to:comments between *...*
>
>Come to think of it, I remember one or two less than complimentary remarks
>about one Jack Sarfatti in there...
>
>*Maybe so, but at one point referring to my assertion that quantum
>connection communication is possible, Gardner writes:
>"I know of no other physicist who thinks it will work. If it does,
Sarfatti
>will become one of the greatest physicists of all time."  Indeed,
Gardner's colleague Marcello Truzzi writes of me: (CAPS are not in the
original Truzzi text)

..."I am a sociologist concerned with the way the scientific community
accepts and rejects new theories and data claims and am also the Director
of the Center for Scientific Anomalies Research. I am particularly familiar
with Dr. Sarfatti's work because I have been researching a piece contracted
for OMNI, a science magazine, on the interface between quantum physicists
(especially those interested in nonlocality and the role of consciousness
in the measurement process) and parapsychology. Dr. Sarfatti's theories
have implications for the "paraphysics" research being conducted at SRI
International, the Mind Science Foundation, the Institute for Advanced
Studies at Austin, and the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
Project. I expect to prominently feature him and his theories in my OMNI
article.

Since I am not a physicist, I cannot fully evaluate Dr. Sarfatti's
theories. But certain features of his approach have impressed me. In
particular, (caps not in original) I ADMIRE THAT HE HAS ALWAYS EMPHASIZED
THE TESTABILITY AND FALSIFIABILITY OF HIS HYPOTHESES AND URGED THEIR
SUBMISSION TO EMPIRICAL TESTS. UNLIKE MANY OTHERS WORKING ON RADICAL
SCIENTIFIC THEORIES, DR. SARFATTI HAS ALWAYS BEEN CLEAR ABOUT WHAT EVIDENCE
WOULD SHOW THAT HIS IDEAS WERE WRONG AND HAS TRIED VERY HARD TO GET
EXPERIMENTALISTS TO CONDUCT THE APPROPRIATE TESTS.

Dr. Sarfatti is very much an individualist, but I have always found him
highly articulate and a warm personality...Obviously he has gone his own
way (CERTAINLY AN ACADEMICALLY UNCONVENTIONAL PATH) in finding support for
HIS WORK ON A THEORY WITH EXTRAORDINARY POTENTIAL FOR SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY. In the process he has attracted the attention of a wide
spectrum of persons both within the science community AND GOVERNMENT.
Clearly, he has taken A LARGE RISK IN PURSUING HIS HIGHLY NOVEL, CREATIVE,
AND CONTROVERSIAL WORK; BUT HE HAS ALWAYS UNDERSTOOD THAT HE IS PLAYING FOR
VERY LARGE STAKES. If he is right .... the rewards would be immense."
     In the interests of complete coverage, Martin Gardiner says p. 188

           For many paraphysicists the EPR paradox suggests that
           quantum information can be transferred instantaneously (or
almost
           so) from any part of the universe to any other, otherwise
           how does one particle 'know' what happens when its twin
           is measured?  (relativity theory is not violated because no
           energy is transferred, only information.)  This is the view
           of paraphysicist Jack Sarfatti, who heads a small San Francisco
           organization called The Physics/Consciousness Research Group,
           initially financed by Werner Erhard of est. (Sarfatti and Erhard
           have since had a violent falling out, and Sarfatti is devoting
           much of his time to attacking Erhard as a native 'fascist.')
           For Sarfatti's far-out views see his article 'The physical roots
           of consciousness' in Jeffrey Mislove's wild book, _The Roots of
           Consciousness_ (published by Random House in a fit of absence of
           mind), and an interview with Sarfatti in _Oui_, March 1979.
           Last year (1978 I believe, crb) Sarfatti applied for a patent
           (disclosure number 071165) on a device he hopes can send faster-
           than-light messages to any part of the universe.

     In the interests of fairness...

>Martin Gardner also wrote:
>
>"Sarfatti is a leading theoretician among U.S. paraphysicists ... he began
>to have 'odd subliminal experiences' ... He found he could practise
>'automatic writing' ...and several of his published scientific papers ...
>were written that way ....Think of the world as an immense, intricate
>puppet show. Everything has a 'string' attached to it, and the strings are
>all held by the Great Puppeteer ... its infinite strings provide a
>connectedness that permits the transfer of information at instantaneous
>speeds through space and time .... There are no instant signals in the
>sense that energy is transferred... It is Sarfatti's persuasion that the
>human mind has natural detectors of deBroglie waves on the quantum
>molecular level. 'The introduction of this kind of direct quantum
>information into waking consciousness often appears as paranormal ..."
>excerpted from Martin Gardner's "Magic and Paraphysics" in Science Good
Bad and Bogus (1981) before the model now on the WELL and before the book
by
>Barrow and Tipler The Anthropic Cosmological Principle.

      He also wrote in response to your press release about Uri Geller
      "Note the clear implication in Sarfatti's release that having his
      doctorate in physics made him specially qualified to rule out
      deception".  The whole tone of the article is skeptical, and some
      of the things you have stated above are actually quoted in the
      article as your own words, the rest are portrayed as your
      ideas, not Gardner's.   I wouldn't say the article is any kind
      of stunning validation.

                              dale bass
--
C. R. Bass                                          crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical,
--MORE--(97%)     Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering
PS Bass is evidently a disinformation agent of the Gardner Illuminati - note
he is not a physicist but an aerospace engineer!
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