Activities

Under Construction

These are the activities from the book. I intend to add more information to help people doing them, with links and illustrations, in August 2010

Exercises to do in class or with friends from each chapter

1. Defining consciousness

There is no generally recognised definition of consciousness, which is why I have not given one here. See whether you can find your own.

First get into pairs. One person first proposes a definition of consciousness. Then the other finds something wrong with it. Don't be shy or think too long — even the silliest suggestions can be fun to try. So just throw up one idea and wait for it to be knocked down. Then swap over. Do this as quickly as you reasonably can until each of you has had several turns.

Get back together into the group and find out what kinds of objections you all came up with.

Why is defining consciousness so hard when we all think we know what it is?

2. Mary the colour scientist

When Mary comes out of the black and white room will she learn anything new? Will she be surprised at what colours are like? Or does she already know? Acting out the story in class should help you make up your mind.

Get two volunteers to act as Mary, and make a corner of the room as black and white as possible. You might give them a white table cloth, a newspaper, a toy grey rat, a doll to do brain scans on, some black and white diagrams of brains, or dress them in white lab coats - whatever you have to hand. Ask the ‘Mary’s to sink themselves into the role of futuristic colour scientist while you explain what is happening to the rest of the group. The ‘Mary’s know everything a scientist can learn about the brain, the visual system, and colour: Everything.

Now let them out in turn to do their best possible impersonations. ‘Mary-amazed’ acts completely surprised at what she sees, gasping at the delightful colours. ‘Mary-know-it-all’ explains why she is not surprised at all - how she understood everything in advance. Mary-know-it-all is the far harder role, so it may be best to choose someone who is familiar with the arguments for this one. I once tried this at a Tucson conference only to discover afterwards that my volunteer Mary-know-it-all was Michael Beaton, inventor of RoboDennett, an unforgettable performance, especially as he  was representing the side of the argument he disagrees with!.

Afterwards everyone else can ask questions of the Marys, discuss their answers and make up their own minds. Write down your own decision. You may be interested to find that it changes as you learn more about the nature of consciousness.

3. Does consciousness do anything ?

Get into pairs, or small groups, or ask two volunteers to do the exercise in front of the whole class. The task is this: the first person suggests an example of something that consciousness does. They might say, for example, that a conscious decision made them get up this morning, or that consciousness helps them play computer games, or that they could not fall in love without it. The second person then refutes the suggestion as thoroughly as possible.

Proposers should try to come up with a specific example rather than generalities. The refuter must then try to explain the action or decision without requiring consciousness in the explanation. For example, they might use behaviourist arguments, or call on the influence of genes or education.

Note that you do not have to believe your own arguments. Indeed it may be more useful to put forward arguments you do not believe in. So, if you are the proposer and you think that consciousness does nothing, you should still invent some example that other people might think requires consciousness. If you are the refuter you may actually believe consciousness is required for the proposed action, but you must do your best to find a way out. This will sharpen up your beliefs about the causal power of consciousness. Don’t agonise over your arguments. It does not matter if they are wrong, or fanciful. The point is to throw up some ideas to think about.

Finally, discuss what you have learned. Was there any proposal which no one could knock down? Did you find some irrefutable thing that consciousness is required for? Were there patterns in the suggestions people came up with?

Can you now answer the question “What does consciousness do?”? You might like to write down your own answer at this point, or make your own list of things that you think consciousness does. It is likely to change.

4. Cartesian Materialism

Almost no one admits to being a Cartesian materialist, yet the literature about consciousness is full of theatrical metaphors and phrases implying that things are “in” or “out” of consciousness. It is worth trying to sort out what these mean before making up your own mind about the theatre of consciousness. If you are doing this as a class exercise, ask each person to find examples in advance and bring them for discussion.

Theories  Take any theory of consciousness and ask “Does this theory use theatre imagery or metaphors? If so, is a Cartesian theatre involved? Is this theory a form of Cartesian materialism?”

Tell-tale phrases  Look out for theatre imagery, or phrases that imply CM, in any area of psychology. Here are a few examples. In each case ask whether this imagery is helpful, or a sign of problems with the theory concerned.

“There seems to be a presence-chamber in my mind where full consciousness holds court” (Galton 1883 p 203)

“ideas ... pass in rapid succession through the mind.” (James 1890 p 25-6)

“… this may help to pin down the location of awareness in the brain.” (Crick 1994 p 174)

 “… just for that particular moment, it all comes together as a glorious symphony of consciousness” (Greenfield 1995 p 32)

“The range and variety of conscious phenomenology … is everyman’s private theatre.” (Edelman & Tononi, 2000a p 20)

 “all the senses do come together in consciousness – at any particular moment there is just one unified scene.”  Gray 2004 p 37

“visual information that is processed in the dorsal stream does not reach conscious awareness” Milner 2008 p 195

5.  The cutaneous rabbit

The cutaneous rabbit is easy to demonstrate and a good talking point. To get it to work you will need to choose the right tool. This can be a very sharp pencil or a not-too-dangerous knife point – something that has a tiny contact point but is not sharp enough to hurt. Practice the tapping in advance, and ensure that you can deliver the taps with equal force and at equal intervals.

Ideally use a volunteer who has not read about the phenomenon. Ask the volunteer to hold out one bare arm horizontally and to look in the opposite direction. Take your pointed object and, at a steady pace, tap five times at the wrist, three times near the elbow and twice on the upper arm, all at equal intervals.  Now ask what it felt like.

If you got the tapping right, it will feel as though the taps ran quickly up the arm, like a little animal. This suggests the following questions. Why does the illusion occur? How does the brain know where to put the second, third and fourth taps when the tap on the elbow has not yet occurred? When was the volunteer conscious of the third tap? Does Libet’s evidence help us understand the illusion? What would Orwellian and Stalinesque interpretations be? Can you think of a way of avoiding both of them?

6. Filling-in

With some simple experiments you can experience filling-in and explore its limits. In figures 6.4 and 6.6, shut or cover your right eye and fixate the small black dot with your left eye. Hold the picture at arm’s length and then move it gradually towards you until the larger circle disappears. Do you see a gap or a continuation of the background? Is the black line completed across the gap? What happens to the pebbles?

You can also try the effect with real people. It is said that King Charles II, who was a great promoter of science, used to ‘decapitate’ his courtiers this way. To do this in class, ask someone to stand in front while everyone else aims their blind spot at the victim’s head. If you have trouble doing this try the following. Hold up figure 6.4 so that the circle disappears. Now keeping the book at the same distance away from you line up its top edge below the person’s chin with the circle directly below. Now fixate whatever you can see above the black dot and remove the book. Your blind spot should now be on the person’s head. Does the whole head get filled in? If not why not? Does it matter how well you know the person?

You can explore what can and cannot be filled in by using your own pictures. Cut out a small fixation spot and a larger circle or find suitably sized stickers, and stick them on. Alternatively fix them to a computer screen and experiment with moving displays. If you are doing several experiments it is worth putting a patch over your eye rather than trying to keep it shut. With a stop watch you can time how long filling-in takes for different displays.

Can you deliberately prevent filling-in? Can you speed it up by making an effort? Does what you see in the gap ever surprise you? Can you explain the difference between those things that do and do not get filled in?

7. Split Brain Twins

Ask for two volunteers; one to play the role of a disconnected left hemisphere (LH) and the other the right (RH). Ask them to sit close together on a bench or table. You might like to put a sticker on each, labelling them as LH and RH. To reduce confusion we’ll assume for this explanation that LH is female and RH is male.

LH sits on her left hand; her right hand is free to move. RH sits on his right hand; his left hand is free to move. Their two free arms now approximate to those of a normal person. RH cannot speak (although we will assume that he can understand simple verbal instructions). You might like to tape his mouth over, but make sure the tape will not hurt when removed.

Now you can try any of the split brain experiments described in this chapter. Here are just two examples.

1. You will need a large carrier bag or a pillow case containing several small objects (e.g. pen, shoe, book, bottle).

Out of sight of LH, show RH a drawing of one of your objects. Ask him “What can you see?”. Only LH can speak and she did not see the drawing. Press her to answer (if RH tries to give her non-verbal clues this only adds to the fun). Now give RH the bag containing the various objects, ask him to put in his left hand and select the correct object. He should do this easily.

8. The teletransporter

Imagine you want to go to the beautiful city of Capetown for a holiday. You are offered a simple, free, almost instantaneous, and 100 per cent safe, way of getting there and back. All you have to do is step inside the box, press the button, and .....

The box is, of course, Parfit’s teletransporter. In making the journey every cell of your body and brain will be scanned and destroyed, and then replicated exactly as they were before, but in Capetown. Would you press the button?

To create a memorable exercise you might like to use a few chairs or tables to make the box and provide a colourful “Go” button for a volunteer inside to press. Would this volunteer press it? Does everyone else think they should? You can then ask everyone else to answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. Do not allow any ‘Don’t know’s (if people do not want to answer publicly then get them to write down ‘Yes’ or ‘No’). Do not allow students to quibble over safety or any other details – if they do so they have failed to understand the nature of thought experiments. In this one the box is 100% safe and reliable. If they won’t go in, this has to be for some other reason than that it might go wrong.

Now ask for a volunteer who said ‘Yes’ and ask them to explain why. Others can then ask further questions to work out, for example, why this person is not worried about having their body completely destroyed. Next ask for a ‘No’ volunteer and let others ask why she or he will not go. Bear in mind that people’s reasons for not going may involve their deepest beliefs about their soul, spirit, God, or life after death. It is helpful to remember this even while pushing people hard to explain what they mean.

After the discussion find out how many people have changed their minds. In a course on consciousness it is instructive to ask this same question again after a few weeks or months of study, and for this purpose it is helpful for people to keep a record of their answers. They may change.

9a. Getting out of bed on a cold morning

Try William James’s famous meditation (as he called it) and watch what happens when you get out of bed on a cold morning. If you don’t live somewhere cold enough, just choose a morning when you really don't want to get up. Alternatively try getting out of a bath when the water is going cold and you’ve been in there too long.

Watch what happens. What thoughts go through your mind as you struggle to get out? What emotions do you feel? Do you speak to yourself or try to persuade yourself? If so, who or what is struggling against whom or what? What happens in the end? You might like to write a short description as James did (see James 1890 ii p 524-5). Comparing descriptions can make for a lively class discussion. What does this tell you about free will?

9b. Libet’s voluntary act

Libet’s experiment is complex, and the arguments about its interpretation are fierce. It will help you understand them if you practise the role of one of his subjects. Students who have done this are much more likely to think up, for themselves, all the classic objections to Libet’s conclusion.

So, as a class demonstration, ask everyone to hold out their right arm in front of them and then, whenever they feel like it, consciously, deliberately, and of their own free will, flex their fingers or wrist. They should keep doing this for some time - ideally until they have done it 40 times (as in Libet’s experiment) - but since people vary in how frequently they do the action (and some may freely choose not to do it at all) about two minutes is usually enough.

Now ask your subjects whether the action really seemed free or not. What was going through their minds when they ‘decided to act’. Could they have done otherwise? Is this a good model for a ‘spontaneous voluntary act’?

Now you need to time ‘W’; the time at which they decided to act. Stand in front of the group, hold your arm straight out, and use your own hand to represent the rotating light spot (if you have a large audience hold a bright object in your hand to make it more visible). Make sure your hand rotates clockwise from the viewers’ point of view and steadily at roughly one revolution every two seconds (Libet’s spot went a little slower but 1 in 2 works well; practice first). Now ask the audience to do the same flexing task as before but this time they must, after they have acted, shout out the clock position at the moment when they decided to act. You now have a room full of people shouting out different times all at once. The question is, could they easily do this? Most people find they can.

Libet measured three things: the start of the action itself, the start of brain activity leading to the action, and the decision to act. Ask yourself which you expect to come first, or get everyone to put up their hands.

You are now ready to discuss Libet’s experiment and what his results really mean.

10. The rubber hand illusion

This demonstration requires two paint brushes and a dummy hand. The hand can be a life-like rubber model bought specially, as used in the original experiments (Botvinick & Cohen 1998), or a cheap rubber glove filled with water, or blown up and tied like a balloon. There are even claims that it works with objects that look nothing like a hand at all (Ramachandran & Blakeslee 1998). This illusion is one of many that provides insight into our body image (Tsakiris and Haggard 2005, and see Chapter 24).

The demonstration needs a subject and an experimenter and can be done at home or as a class demonstration. The subject sits and rests their arms on a table, with a screen of some sort to conceal one hand. The dummy hand is then placed in full view, either above or to the side of the real hand. The experimenter takes two paint brushes and gently strokes both the subject’s concealed hand and the dummy hand in exactly the same way at exactly the same time. The experimenter should practice this first and then keep doing it, trying to keep the strokes identical, for a few minutes. The subject, who can see only the dummy hand, should soon begin to feel the sensations as though in the dummy, instead of in their own real hand.

11. Are you a synaesthete

If you have a large class, or other group of people that you can easily test, you can ask people whether they ever experience one sense in response to another, or whether they used to do so as a child. Some people can describe vivid memories of seeing coloured music, or experiencing tastes and smells as having a particular shape, even though they can no longer do so. You may find people who claim all sorts of extravagant associations and florid experiences. Here are two simple tests that might help detect whether they are making it up or not.

1. Retesting associations. This test needs to be done over two separate sessions, without telling participants that they will be retested. In the first session read out, slowly, a list of numbers in random order (e.g. 9, 5, 7, 2, 8, 1, 0, 3, 4, 6) and a list of letters (e.g. T, H, D, U, C, P, W, A, G, L). Ask your group to visualise each letter or number and write down what colour they associate with it. Some will immediately know what colour each number is, while others may say they are just making up arbitrary associations. Either way they must write down a colour. Collect their answers and keep them. In a second session (say a week or several weeks later), read out the same letters and numbers but in a different order (e.g. 6, 3, 8, 1, 0, 9, 2, 4, 5, 7: P, C, A, L, T, W, U, H, D, G). Give them back their previous answers and ask them to check (or to check a neighbour’s) and count how many answers are the same. True synaesthetes will answer almost identically every time they are tested.

2. Pop-out shapes. Tell the group that you will show them a pattern in which a simple shape is hidden. When they see the shape they are to shout out “Now”. Emphasise that they must NOT say the name of the shape and give the game away, but must just shout “now”. As soon as you show the pattern (figure 17.6) start timing as many of the shouts as you conveniently can. If you have any synaesthetes in the group they will see the pattern much sooner than everyone else. Even if you have no synaesthetes these figures can help everyone else to imagine what synaesthesia is like.

12. Blind for an hour

This is a simple exercise designed to give a hint of what it is like to be blind. You need to work in pairs and can take it in turns to be blindfolded or to be the guide. You need a good blindfold that does not allow you to peep. It is possible just to wear dark glasses and to keep your eyes closed, but the temptation to open them is too great for most people, so a blindfold is easier.

Take an hour for the exercise and plan what you will do. For example, you might go shopping, or take a walk, or go to a party or visit friends. Try to do as much as you can without help, but be careful to avoid dangerous activities such as cooking. Your guide must take responsibility for crossing roads and other obvious dangers, and should stay close to you all the time.

Afterwards, think about what surprised you. Which things were easier or more difficult than you had expected? What happened in social situations?

If you are blind this exercise is no use to you, but you can be of great help to others. You might teach them to use a long cane, discuss the ways in which you cope without vision, or explain how other people can help or hinder your independence.

For a devastating and insightful description of what it is like to go blind see Hull (1990).

13. No activity for this chapter

14. The Sentience Line

Is a stone conscious? Is a rose bush? Is a tadpole or a sheep? Is a baby? Are you? Where do you draw the line?

Gather together a collection of objects that you think span the range from definitely unconscious to definitely conscious. If you are doing this at home you may have a pet to represent the animals, and house plants or a bunch of flowers for the plant kingdom. Indeed you may be able to see enough examples just sitting in your own kitchen. Lay them out in front of you from the least to the most conscious and take a good look.

If you are doing this in class you will need to be more inventive, but it is well worth having actual objects there to force people into making decisions and to bring their arguments to life. You might ask members of the class to bring in some of the following:

1. A stone or pebble

2. A weed pulled up from the garden, a houseplant, or a piece of fruit

3. A fly, spider, or woodlouse (put them back where you found them).

4. Tadpoles or pet fish.

5. An electronic calculator.

6. A human volunteer.

Ask everyone to draw their own sentience line. Select the two people with the most extreme lines and ask them to defend their decisions against questions from the rest of the class. Does anyone move their line after the discussion?

15.  Zoo choice

In a “Balloon debate” every participant has to convince the others that they should not be thrown out of the balloon for ballast. In this debate the same horrible choice is made between species.

Imagine that just one animal is going to be released from its cage in the zoo, or from cruel conditions in a pharmaceutical laboratory, and returned to the wild. Which species should it be?

Choose several different species and someone to defend each one, or let students pick their own favoured species. Each person is given a set length of time (e.g. 2 or 5 minutes) to make their case. Afterwards the audience votes on which animal is released. If the choice proves easy vote on which should go second and third.

This debate can be held without prior planning. Alternatively, ask students to prepare their case in advance. They might bring photographs, videos or other kinds of evidence. They might learn about the social and communicative skills of their chosen species, or about its intelligence, capacity for insight, memory, sensory systems or pain behaviour. The aim is to explore the nature of animal suffering.

16. The Imitation Game

Without a brilliant machine at your disposal you cannot try out the Turing test, but you can play Turing’s original “imitation game” (Turing 1950), which is fun to do and works well as a demonstration of what the Turing test involves. The main skill for the judges consists of working out what sort of questions to ask; a similar challenge whether the contestants are both people, or a person and a machine.

The organiser must choose a man and a woman to act as contestants. Ideally they should not be known to the class. If this is impossible, at least avoid people who are very well known to everyone. The contestants go into a separate room, or behind a solid opaque screen, where they are secretly labelled X and Y. The rest of the class act as judges and have to ask questions. Their task is to determine which is the woman.

The real woman has to help the judges, while the man pretends to be a woman.

Low-tech version. The judges write questions on pieces of paper. They may address their questions to X, Y, or both. The organiser selects a question and takes it into the next room, gets the answer and then reads it out to the class. For example, the question might be “To X and Y, how long is your hair?”. The organiser gets both X and Y to write answers and reads out “X says ‘my hair is shoulder-length’; Y says ‘I have long brown hair’”. Obviously the man may lie; if he is asked “Are you a man?” he will say “no”, and if asked “What is your ideal partner like?” or “Are you good at reading maps?” he will have to answer as he thinks a woman would. When enough questions have been answered the organiser asks everyone to say whether X or Y was the woman. X and Y then come out and show their labels.

One problem is that the organiser may unwittingly gives away clues about which person is which. Even so, this version works well, even if done with only a screen in the corner of the room. However, if you want a tighter method, and are willing to prepare in advance, try this:

High-tech version. Provide each contestant with a computer and a projector that makes their typed answers visible to the class. The contestants can be hidden, either in another room or behind a screen. It is important that however the answers are projected, they are clearly labelled X and Y. The organiser collects the written questions as before and the contestants type their answers on their computer. At a pinch, one computer can be used and the contestants can take it in turns, but this is slower and can lead to confusion if not well organised. The game can also be played on-line.

The imitation game provides an ideal introduction to discussing the most important aspect of the Turing test; what questions should you ask the machine, and why?

17. The Seventh Sally or How Trurl’s perfection led to no good.

The Seventh Sally is a story from The Cyberiad by the Polish writer and philosopher Stanislaw Lem, reprinted with a commentary in Hofstadter & Dennett (1981). Here is a brief outline.

Trurl, who was well known for his good deeds, wanted to prevent a wicked king from oppressing his poor subjects. So he built an entirely new kingdom for the king. It was full of towns, rivers, mountains and forests. It had armies, citadels, market places, winter palaces, summer villas and magnificent steeds, and he “... threw in the necessary handful of traitors, another of heroes, added a pinch of prophets and seers, and one messiah and one great poet each, after which he bent over and set the works in motion.” There were star-gazing astronomers and noisy children, “And all of this, connected, mounted and ground to precision, fit into a box, and not a very large box, but just the size that could be carried about with ease.” Trurl presented this box to the king, explaining how to work the controls to make proclamations, program wars, or quell rebellions. The king immediately declared a state of emergency, martial law, a curfew and a special levy.

After a year had passed (which was hardly a minute for Trurl and the king) the king magnanimously abolished one death penalty, lightened the levy, and annulled the state of emergency “... whereupon a tumultuous cry of gratitude, like the squeaking of tiny mice lifted by their tails, rose up from the box”. Trurl returned home, proud of having made the king happy while saving his real subjects from appalling tyranny.

To his surprise Trurl’s friend was not pleased, but was horrified that Trurl could have given the brutal despot a whole civilisation to rule over. But it’s only a model, protested Trurl, “... all these processes only take place because I programmed them, and so they aren’t genuine... these births, loves, acts of heroism, and denunciations are nothing but the minuscule capering of electrons in space, precisely arranged by the skill of my nonlinear craft, which—”. His friend would have none of it. The size of the tiny people is immaterial, he said, “And don’t they suffer, don’t they know the burden of labor, don't they die? ... And if I were to look inside your head, I would also see nothing but electrons”. Trurl, he says, has committed a terrible crime. He has not just imitated suffering, as he intended, but has created it.

What do you think? Has Trurl committed a terrible crime?

For a group discussion

This story can provoke heated and insightful disagreements. Ask everyone to read the story in advance and to write down their answer to the question “Has Trurl committed a terrible crime?” “Yes” or “No”. Check that they have done so, or ask for a vote.

Ask for two volunteers who have strong opinions on the question, one to defend Trurl; the other to accuse him. This works best if the participants really believe in their respective roles. Trurl’s defender first presents his case that the tiny people are only an imitation. His accuser then argues for the reality of their pain and suffering. Others can ask questions and then vote. Has anyone changed their mind? If so, why? Is there any way of finding out who is right?

18. No activity for this chapter

19. Incubation

Incubation is the process of putting a problem “on the back burner”, or just allowing a solution to come by itself – if it will. Three steps are required. First you have to do the hard work of struggling with the problem or acquiring the necessary skills. Second you have to drop the struggle and leave the problem to itself, perhaps by engaging in some other activity, or just sleeping on it. In this second stage, any conscious effort is likely to be counterproductive. Third you have to recognise the solution when it appears.

Here are three simple brain-teasers that you can use to practice incubation. If you are working on your own, have a good go at trying to solve them, until you get really frustrated. Then forget all about them and read more of the book, or do something else for half an hour or so. When you come back to the problem you may find that the solution just “pops into your mind”. If you are working in a group, you can start a lecture or discussion with five minutes working on the problems and then return to them at the end. In this case make sure that those people who solve the problems quickly, or who have seen them before, do not give the answers away and spoil the experience for everyone else.

20. Discussing hypnagogia

The exercise in Practice 21 lends itself well to group work. Ask everyone to practice “staying awake while falling asleep” for several days, to keep a pencil and paper by the bed, and to write down anything they experience. It may be impossible to record the experiences immediately when they happen because the most interesting ones happen right on the edge of sleep, but they can be written down, or drawn, in the morning. Ask participants to bring any notes and drawings to the discussion.

Were there common themes? Are the form constants discernible in the descriptions? Is there any pattern to who did and did not have hallucinations? Did anyone experience sleep paralysis or body distortions? Was the experience pleasurable?

21. Telepathy Tests

1.         An impressive demonstration

Stand in front of the group (or ask someone who is good at acting the part of a psychic to do so) and say something like this: “I have the special power of being able to transmit my thoughts to others. I am now going to draw two simple shapes, one inside the other and I want you to pick up my thoughts.” Out of sight of the audience, draw a triangle inside a circle, fold the paper carefully and hide it away in a pocket. “I am sending my thoughts into your mind. Please try to feel my thoughts and draw what you see.” When everyone has done their drawing, show them the original.

Typically, about 25% of the audience will have a direct hit, and others will have come close. Ask them how they think it worked.

The answer is population stereotypes. There are, in fact, rather few simple shapes to choose from; triangles and circles are most popular. If you want to rule out the possibility that telepathy was involved as well, you could think about a hexagon inside a square while the audience are drawing. Other examples to use can be found in Marks (2000 p 311-317).

2.         A poor experiment

Ask for a volunteer to act as sender, ideally someone who claims telepathic ability. Give them a pen and paper and ask them to leave the room and draw “at random” whatever comes to mind. Agree on a time limit, say two minutes, for the drawing. Everyone else must relax quietly and think about the sender. After two minutes they all try to draw what the sender drew. When they have finished, ask the sender to return and reveal the drawing.

This is the basic method used in “thought transference” experiments in the 1890s. You can use it to explore all the methodological issues that modern parapsychology has grappled with.

(a) Sender choice. If the sender chooses the target, hits can occur because the people know each other, or because they both pick up cues from the environment or from the experimenter. Targets must be randomly chosen.

(b) Judging the result. When two drawings look similar it is impossible to judge chance expectation (you can try using drawings you have collected). Solutions include forced-choice methods using cards or preselected sets of objects, and the more complex free-response methods used for ganzfeld and remote viewing.

(c) Sensory leakage. Could anyone have heard or seen the drawing being made? Could they have changed their own drawing after the target was revealed?

(d) Fraud. Could the sender have told friends in advance, or arranged a code for tapping the answer on the floor? Could the experimenter have set the whole thing up?

3. A (reasonably) controlled experiment

Advance preparation: remove the court cards from a pack of playing cards, leaving 40 cards of four suits. Use an RNG to decide the target order (many true and pseudo-RNG programs are available online).  Assign 1- hearts, 2 – spades, 3 – clubs, 4 – diamonds. Make a record of the target order. Arrange the cards in that order with the first card on the top when the pack is face down. Place an unused card on the bottom to conceal the last card. Seal the pack in an opaque envelope. Seal the list in another envelope. Find a suitable room where the sender can work alone. Get two stopwatches. You can use this simple answer sheet.

The experiment: Choose a sender as before. Give her a watch and the sealed pack, and arrange the exact time at which she will turn over the first card. The sender then goes to the appointed room, opens the envelope and places the pack face down on the table. At the prearranged time she turns over the first card and concentrates on it, turning the rest of the cards at 15 second intervals. The whole test will take 10 minutes. Meanwhile, you call out the numbers 1-40 at the correct times and the receivers write down which suit they think the sender is looking at.

When the test is complete, ask the sender to return. Call out the target sequence and ask each person to check their neighbour’s scores. If you have a large enough group (say 20 or more) the best way to show the results is to build up a histogram for all to see. Ask each person in turn to call out how many hits they got, and add their result to the growing picture. At first the results may seem impressive, or strange, but they will tend ever closer to a normal distribution with a mean at 10. If the results deviate from 10 and you wish to test them statistically, use a normal approximation to binomial, or a one sample t-test using 10 as the expected value (see sample histogram).

This method solved most of the problems of test 2, but others remain. Because many receivers guessed at the same target sequence, their scores are not independent and most statistical tests are invalid. This is called the stacking effect and can be avoided by using individual target sequences or by taking only the majority vote from the whole group. Sensory leakage or fraud might still have taken place, and you may discuss whether they could ever be completely ruled out. Also note that the test is not a pure test of telepathy because clairvoyance could be used directly on the cards. This makes it a GESP (General ESP) test.

Other easy psi experiments, with more detailed instructions, can be found in Blackmore and Hart-Davis (1995).

22. Discussing ASCs

People who have had experience of ASCs often enjoy talking about them, whether to share their insights, laugh about their exploits, or explore their fears. This needs a supportive and safe environment and you, as leader of any discussion, must decide whether you can provide it or not. In Europe cannabis has been decriminalised in many countries, and many other recreational drugs are tolerated, but in North America anti-drugs laws are stringent. If you cannot talk freely, restrict the discussion to alcohol, sleep and spontaneous ASCs. You might ask:

Why do you induce ASCs? What do you gain from them?

How can you tell when you have entered an ASC?

Is one person’s ASC (such as being drunk, or stoned) the same as someone else’s?

Another exercise requires advance preparation but avoids problems of prohibition. Ask participants to bring along a short description of an ASC. This can either be someone else’s, for example from a book or website, or their own. They read this out and ask everyone else to guess which ASC is referred to. Discussing how they decided leads naturally to all the other interesting questions about ASCs.

23. Inducing lucid dreams

As a class activity divide the group into three and give everyone a week to try to have a lucid dream. It is best to assign people randomly to the groups, and if you have several good lucid dreamers in the class spread them equally across the groups. Compare the number of lucid dreams achieved in each group and discuss the results (if you have enough data use ANOVA based on the number of lucid dreams per subject. Alternatively, compare two groups using an independent t-test). Even if the groups are too small for statistical analysis the experiences of trying, the frustrations of failing, and the pleasures of successful lucidity will provide plenty of scope for discussion.

The groups are as follows

1. Control group. Use no special technique. People often report having lucid dreams after simply hearing or reading about them, so this group provides a better baseline than people’s previous levels of lucidity. If you have fewer than about 30 participants drop this group and use only 2 and 3.

2. Daytime awareness. Use letters drawn on the hands as in the practice below.

3. Nighttime intention. The idea is to go to sleep thinking about dreams and intending to notice the next time you have one. Before you fall asleep at night, try to remember the dream you had the night before, or any recent dream. Go through your memory noticing odd features, the way things behaved, or anything that is characteristic of your dreams. Tell yourself "Next time I dream this I will realise I’m dreaming."

A more arduous version of this is LaBerge’s MILD (mnemonic induction of lucid dreaming) technique (for more details see LaBerge 1985, LaBerge and Rheingold 1990). Wake yourself with an alarm in the early hours of the morning. If you have been dreaming, mentally rehearse the dream or, better still, get up and write it down. As you go to sleep again, visualise yourself back in the dream but this time you realise it is a dream. Keep rehearsing the dream until you fall asleep.

24. The survival debate

The topic of survival after death is emotionally charged. In this exercise students are asked to put the case against their own prior beliefs.

Some will find this extremely hard and some may refuse to do it. Some will get embarrassed and some will keep saying things like “I don’t really believe this but …”. There is no need to put pressure on anyone to take part, but you may point out that anyone who really understands a difficult issue should be able to explain the arguments on either side equally well. You need to explain the exercise very clearly to everyone at the start. This is a very good exercise in thinking objectively about emotional issues.

The whole exercise should be kept light-hearted if possible. The objective is not to come to an answer about this impossible question, nor even to find out what people think. It is to loosen up everyone’s thinking, to get them to face the arguments against their own beliefs, to laugh at their own inconsistencies, and to consider the validity of other people’s opinions. It can be done with or without prior preparation.

If you have a manageable sized group the exercise can be done with the whole class. Otherwise divide the students into small groups (about 4 to 10). Ideally, ensure that each group contains some people who believe in life after death and some who do not. In each group choose two people to speak; one a believer and the other not. First the non-believer presents the case for believing in life after death (for, say, five minutes maximum). Then the believer presents the case against. You can remind them that everyone else knows they think the opposite; their job is to do the best presentation they can. Everyone else then asks them questions which they have to answer within their assigned role.

In discussion afterwards, explore why this exercise is so difficult for some people, and ask the presenters what they have learned from their task.

25. Positioning the theories

Varela has positioned some of the best-known theories of consciousness on a simple two-dimensional diagram. Before looking at where Varela himself places the theories, try to use his diagram to do this task yourself.

For a class exercise give each student a copy of the empty diagram and ask them to place on it every theory of consciousness they can think of, or you can do the exercise together on the board. This is a useful revision exercise and a good way of drawing together ideas from the whole course. Point out that there are no right answers. Although Varela devised the scheme, he is not necessarily right about where each theory should go. When everyone has filled in as many theories as they can, show them Varela’s version.

How well do they agree? Every discrepancy can be used to discuss the theories and to test students’ understanding of them. In addition you might like to criticise the scheme itself. For example, are there really theories of consciousness for which first-person accounts are not essential? Can you come up with a better scheme?

26. Meditation

Meditation can be done by yourself or in a group. First sit down comfortably. You should have your back straight but be able to relax. If you know how to sit in a meditation position do so. If you wish to try one, make sure the floor is not too hard or use a rug or blanket, and choose a firm cushion to sit on. Cross your legs in the way that is easiest for you and make sure that you can keep your back upright and straight without pain. Otherwise, sit upright in a straight chair with your feet flat on the floor and your hands gently resting on your lap. Look at the floor about two feet in front of you, but don’t concentrate hard on one spot, just let your gaze rest there gently. If it wanders, bring it back to the same place.

Set a timer to ten minutes.

Begin by just watching your breath as it flows in and out. When you are ready begin counting. On each out-breath count “one” silently, and then on the next out-breath “two” and so on. When you get to ten, start again at one, and continue until the timer sounds. That’s all.

Your attitude towards everything that arises should be the same “Let it come, let it be, let it go”. When you realise that you have slipped into a train of thought, just let it go and return to watching your breath and counting. Do not fight the thoughts or try to force them to stop. Just let go. Do the same with sounds or sights or bodily sensations, just let them be. This way they won’t be distracting at all.

Just one session may show you something about your own mind. If you wish to do more, commit yourself to meditating every single day for a week, perhaps first thing in the morning, or twice a day if you think you can manage it. It is better to sit for ten minutes every day without fail, than to try to do more and give up.

27. The headless way

Here are two little tricks to do all together in class, or on your own. Some people can be flipped into an entirely new way of experiencing, but others just say “So what”. So the tricks may, or may not, work for you. Take them slowly and pay attention to your own immediate experience. Don’t rush.

Pointing. Point at the window, and look carefully at what you see there. Note both your finger and the place it points at. Point at the floor, and look carefully at where your finger is pointing. Point at your foot and look carefully at what you see. Point at your tummy, and look carefully at what is there. Point at yourself and look carefully at what you see there.

What did you find there?

Head to head. Find a friend to work with. Place your hands on each others’ shoulders, and look steadily at your friend’s face and head. Now ask yourself – how many heads are there? Don’t think about what you know, or what must be true, but about your own direct experience now. How many heads can you see? What is, in this present experience, on the top of your shoulders?

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