Approved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000700830001-9 Journal of the Society for Psychical Research { Vol. 57, No. 822 with may be: What to do ifwe want humanity to stay on its feet? That is for tho who have a hang for morality. * “Experiments with God’ carries as its motto the well known citation from Einstein: ‘God doesn’t play dice’ (1), to which Rietdijk has added ‘with the world’, thereby indicating a tendency in his thinking. A few words from the biographical note the book contains: Rietdijk is a physicist and a mathematician. During and following his long career as a physics teacher, he has published, first, books and journal articles about social and cultural philosophy, and second, articles and conference contributions on theoretical physics. About the first, Rietdijk shows concern about the fate of society in its broadest sense, often expressing rather libertarian and controversial views. (At the end of the sixties he wrote that we should, in the interest of human happiness, s end ten per cent of our GNP on parapsychological research!) vp About his, over a dozen, publications in physics: since 1966 he has written on retro-active effects (in a.o. Philosophy of Science and Foundations of Physics) and on matter-wave interference. I have heard his publications been described as controversial, but technically sound’, In ‘Experiments with God’, Rietdijk bridges the gap between these two aspects of his writing. He certainly succeeds in being controversial, and we shall see A what extent he is technically sound. xperiments with God’ consists itled: ‘ ics’ ‘2. Are there laws in human saat peo chelony’ comes ; t. rs Pn i lec ! new science and religion’. Each part consists of fi oh ork hapten cine receded by an region P sis s of five chapters, each chapter being Part 1 may be compared to Zukav’s well-known “The dancing Wu-li masters’ Rietdijk doesn’t dance however, he sets a brisk pace. So he succeeds in the first twelve-page chapter to give a very clear picture of the Bohr—Einstein controversy, the EPR-paradox, the Bell-inequalities and Aspect’s experiments validating the strange non-local character of quantum mechanics To me Zukav’s dance suddenly seemed to be a sluggish meandering. The second chapter of Part | gives an exposé of relativity theory. Rietdijk gives a note on the existence of the four-dimensional space-time continuum, im Iyin that the future already exists. (Very sensibly he adds a remark on the problem of the free will.) In chapter 3, he gives an account of his proof of the retro-active effect in quantum mechanics, underpinning the above implication. In chapter 4, the non-locality of quantum mechanical systems is viewed from a new angle, showing the significance of the concept of ‘action-distance’ of events m the four-dimensional space-time continuum. The action-distance of non- cally related events is show > ion i deick a “d events is sho n to be zero. Planck’s quantum of action is the At this stage we have all the elements at hand of the idea how distant events may physically (!) interact, other than through the known physical forces such as the gravitational and electromagnetic. Moreover, we are introduced to the possibility that the non-local interactions may take the form of feed-back relations and this allows the formation of patterns of events, otherwise separated in space and time. This formation of patterns through non-local interactio i termed the ‘super-local co-ordinatiAP 5: ¢ 362 proved, ker. Releaser2000108/15 : CIA-RDP January 1991] Noies In chapter 5 Rietdijk localizes his ideas with respect to others. He tackles on the one hand, the proponents of Eastern-intuitive and holistic approaches, exemplified by Capra’s “The Tao of Physics’ and, on the other hand, the positivists who maintain that everything in physics is said by measurement results and the formulas to predict them, foregoing understanding and modei-formation. Both groups are dealt with, fairly but severely. Rietdijk most extensively treats the view of the positivists, including the historical development of a conservative trend and, finally, its self-defeating nature. Rietdijk returns to the Bohr—Einstein controversy and concludes that both were right to a large extent. Both the dependency on the observation (Bohr) and the objective reality (Einstein) can be maintained about quantum phenomena. Retro-active effects allow pattern formation and ‘orchestration’ of events. While he admits that he cannot bring the role of the observer to very much, clarity, Rietdijk hypothesizes that the retro-active effects play the role of,tie ‘hidden variables’ that describe the randomness in quantum mechaniéal events. To what extent this very fundamental randomness is determined by the retro- active effects, Rietdijk cannot say, but “¢ cannot be excluded that God plays dice with the world to an even lesser extent than as implied by the local causal laws of classical physics’! . At the end of chapter 5 Rietdijk puts forward the idea that the ‘orchestration’ of events, as allowed by physics, may connect with aspects of nature usually termed psychical, to integrative forces, tendencies and, purposes. This form of holism, Rietdijk emphasizes, this occurrence of integrating aspects of nature, is nota paradigm, but a phenomenon, that can be revealed by the normal scientific method. There is nothing vague here, like the term ‘complementarity’ for instance, but a real improvement of our world-piciure, which becomes more consistent and better explainable. x, In this way, the gap between rational thought and ‘integral’ or religious thought can be bridged. There is a perspective that this can be achieved without water in the scientific wine’, discovering by scientific means a ‘deeper, lawful consistency’ of events, showing that ‘something we could name Arch-Cause or God does not play dice with the fate of the world and that of mankind’. This is at the end of Part 1, still under the heading ‘the new physics’. My opinion is that this can all be called ‘technically sound’, as Rietdijk care- fully distinguishes fact and inference from hypothesis and speculation, but the latter always as allowed by the facts. There is one exception, and that is the hypothesis of realism, implicit in his proof of retro-active effects, to which I will return later. Part 2 starts with an account of parapsychology. In view of the preceding chapters it is not surprising that Walker’s version of observational theory is adopted as a theoretical approach. Rietdijk sees the tendency for coincidences to occur as most fundamental. In the case of PK the coincidence is between the goal pursued by the agent and the actual outcome. With clairvoyance it is between the impression of the percipient and the actual situation. Super-local pattern formation is put forward as the possible mechanism to achieve this. While Rietdijk acknowledges the special role played by the observer, he really 96-00792RQEDTEOSs0O0 TS! coincidences and he refers to Jung, Schopenhauer, Von 363
«Journal of the Society for Psychical Research Vol. 57, No 822 Approved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-0079 Scholz and Koestler to argue that there are integrative forces working to achieve meaningful coincidences. The integrative forces run from the simple ‘like attracts like’-—hypothesis of Kammerer, to a more teleological version. For many years, Rietdijk has collected meaningful coincidences in his own experience. To facilitate their explanation he puts forward three further hypotheses: The first is introducing a dualistic element, namely that consciousness is just as primary as matter and playing a role in super-local pattern formation. The second is about God as pattern forming agent with the whole universe as a body and human beings possibly playing the role of cells. The third hypothesis is building upon Jung’s collective unconscious, stating that cultures, nations or other smaller or larger groups of human beings may act to some extent as integrated ‘supersouls’. In the following chapters of Part 2, the role of super-local pattern formation is related to parapsychological concepts, like goal-orientedness, the psychical inductor, voodoo, experimenter effects, psi-missing and the cross-correspon- dences described by W. H. Salter. The main thrust is that quantum mechanical randomness propagates into real-life events and this provides room for the ‘orchestration’ of events. The findings of parapsychology support this view. Coincidences can be seen as exemplary to the fact that the integrative forces produce events that show likenesses, often of a meaningful character. Moreover, Rietdijk sees a sense of purpose in all this, at the level of the individual, the group and the universe. When Rietdijk introduces religiosity, morality and the Grand Pattern of events in which we all take part, this reviewer is subject to mixed feelings. Of course, religious experiences and feelings are known to exist widely and morality may be founded as I suggested in the introduction of this review. Nevertheless, moral judgments cannot logically be derived from existential judgments. Here Rietdijk is not clear. His religious notions are of a general Christian nature and bear some similarity to Einstein’s. However, as he tries to convince the reader that scientific and religious world views are part of the same pattern, apparently it becomes difficult to stick to his own ‘No water in the scientific wine’. In the last part of the book Rietdijk gives his view on trends in society and how this relates to his view on religion. Of course, he turns against nihilism, relativism and the like, but nowhere does he become dull. His ideas bear much resemblance to the Enlightenment, but with an underlying religious foundation which implies a continuing ‘creation’ and an increasing degree of integration and organization. He is wise enough to see that the ‘orchestration’ of events may well play a role in less beneficent developments, like, for instance, that of Nazism. Such might be seen as a consequence of operating within the limits of quantum uncertainty and the course of development from primitive to more integrated forms of matter. I have to criticize the book on a few points: Unlike other assumptions made, there is implicit in the proof of the retro-active effect the hypothesis of realism, namely of unobserved quantum mechanically random events. I take issue with this hypothesis. In its place, I have advocated the hypothesis of indefinite reality (2), from which a very different world-view might be developed. Most valuable is the fact that we have an unobvious choice between two alternatives which might be settled by experiment. App?éved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP9 2 -00792R000700830001-9 anuary 1991] Notes 3000700830001 -9 Furthermore, about the Grand Pattern, it might be asked what it has ‘° say about humanity that is different than could be said about the dodo. But that’s mere uneasiness with the result, not an argument against it. More problematic are the introduction of consciousness as a primary concept which is in my opinion unnecessary, and the introduction of morality which 1s sae scluding, I cannot resist to borrow from the book a citation of Giordana Bruno: ‘Si non & vero, & bene trovato.’ That is to say, Rietdijk’s choice 0 hypotheses is not necessarily that of the reader. The book argues or an enlightened form of Christian belief, which is maybe nothing ne ut i i applaudable that the assumptions needed are so clearly distinguished as such. This makes the book a pleasure to read, even while disagreeing with it e arguments, primarily developed from modern physics, are such that they are understandable to the interested lay-person. ; ; site For parapsychologists, the book contains interesting connor s.r ie events, like meaningful coincidences, but also to observationa tb eory, suct the above-mentioned hypothesis of realism. Rietdijk suggests alb his assumptions are experimentally testable. The crucial experiment, determining whether t vere is an omniscient observer looking over our shoulder, still+has to be invented. I hope this book will be translated into English soon and on that occasion an index would be a welcome addition. It will provoke profound discussions an deserves a wider readership. Houtkooper Software Engineering De Maaikom 7 1191 LP Ouderkerk aan den Amstel THE NETHERLANDS NOTES i n languages is always tricky, but in this case playing a negligible tale, I believe. " aaa ieenal citation i ae German: ‘Der liebe Herrgott wiirfelt nicht.’ It might be noted here that, apart from the intended meaning, Einstein also expressed a general sentiment This may be illustrated by words written by Ira Gershwin in 1934: ‘To get into Hebben, en snap 2 sebben! Live clean!’ From ‘It ain’t necessarily so’, from ‘Porgy and Bess’, in: The best of Georg! in. G cll, London, 1976. ; ; 2. See tar remo M. Houtkooper, L. R. Gissurarson and E, Haraldsson: Why the ganziele is conducive to ESP: A study of observational theory and the percipient-order effect. Europea Journal of Parapsychology, 7(nr.2-4), 169-192, (1989). 365