INSTRUMENTAL  TRANSCOMMUNICATION
by Ernst Senkowski

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D-27 CHAOS AND NOISE   

You see everything from outside,
we look through like with Roentgen(X-rays). 

The development of the systems theories is still underway and has not produced a clear terminology as yet. Notwithstanding, the presentation of some coherences may be useful with view to the complexity of the contact field (E-31). 

In A-1 GOEDEL was referred to. WATZLAWICK presents an interpretation that points out the difficulties involved in particular with the way of seeing itself: 

‘No system is able to fully explain or prove itself without having to draw upon notions/terms which it is unable to derive from itself, for which, however, it has to borrow from a more comprehensive system of explanation and proof, thus having to divest itself of its own integrality and provability. However, the same happens to the more comprehensive system in respect of its own consistency and provability, it is undeterminable within its own domain, and the series of an explanation, an explanation of the explanation, etc., continues ad infinitum’ [216].

It is not easy to give definitions of system-theoretical notions. VOLLMER: ‚If by a system S=C/R we understand an orderly pair of constituents C (parts, blocks, components, elements) together with their relations R (reciprocal effects, connections), then the system’s complexity can refer either to the number of C, or to the number and kind of R, or to both, but there exists no generally accepted magnitude of complexity. The most important lesson that gives the theory of complex systems is the demonstration of the phenomena’s dissimilarities that can result from the reciprocal effects between simple components’. (On complexity see: DAVIES, 1987: ‚The cosmic blueprint’.) 

In order to grasp the effect(s) which can be caused by an ‚information’ (data or signals with information potential!), CHARI and E. von WEIZSAECKER have introduced the term ‚pragmatic information’ as a magnitude for a change of a system’s complexity. Its effect depends, a.o., from the system’s complexity, e.g., from the number of its hierarchical levels. The term is holistic and bears teleological and causal traits. There are two ways to present it as a product of other notions. First as ‚unprecedentedness x confirmation’, secondly as ‚autonomy x reliability’, and each of the pairs of terms is complementary in itself. In system-theoretical descriptions of paranormal phenomena, KORNWACHS and W. v. LUCADOU discuss an indeterminacy principle according to which the determined acquisition of the system and its behaviour are complementary. Systems of poor autonomy can be well described on a deterministic, time-invariant basis, they show high reliability and in their majority provide confirmation. Contrary to this, high autonomy is linked with unprecedentedness and high unreliability. In respect of the transiency of the PSI phenomena it is correspondingly said: a precise description of a situation exacts a certain fixing of the system; from a loss of autonomy and an increase of reliability results however a reduction of extraordinary comportment, and vice versa. In any case, the information which an observer acquires from an experiment, must be understood if the experiment shall make sense, but for ‘importance/significance’ no magnitude can be defined. Of interest is the presumption that sufficiently complex systems could dispose of an informatory automatic coupling, without needing a common communication channel. To these would count human brains and highly complex computer systems.  

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FERRERA suggested to describe reality excerpts as informational structures, and to use an expanded graph theory for the formalistic treatment. He defines an ‘informational similarity’, or ‘psychic nearness’ of complex structures (HEIM’s transdistance), which permits to derive essential characteristics of border area phenomena: independency from distance, selectivity and seriality (KAMMERER), as well as synchronicity (DRIESCH, JUNG/PAULI, BRAUDE). On ‘chance’ see: KOESTLER, SCHOLZ. 

‘Set in advance were non-linear, generalized neuronal networks that may be realized also in technical forms. Information transmission within these hierarchically built networks would perform in fractions, and as a modification/change of the network units’ states by pulses. The sender-receiver scheme with simple frequency resonance is absolutely insufficient to explain the reciprocal effects. Distinction has to be made between frequency resonance and structure resonance, which is not characterized by the condition of identity/equality of two numbers, but by the requirement of a similarity of the patterns, independently from space-time distance [217]. Adaptative structure resonance preconditions on the one hand time constance in the networks’ architecture, and on the other hand the possibility for local time changes. On the condition of ‚information catching subsystems’ offering possibilities for selecting relevant information, and featuring limited storage capacities, cyclic processes are imaginable: a special, primarily grasped additional information is given more preference, and ‚similarization’ results as a consequence. So, due to the feedback effect, the system is capable of better adaptation. As regards the graphs, there results a nesting: starting with a rough structure, refinements develop step by step’ [218]; see B-9.7.

DUERR: ‚Pictures of the world are not identical with the world, they rather block the access to it. The entire system of terms/notions of our languages is built upon a structure thought timeless. The world ‚now’ is not substantially identical with the world of the moment that has passed: extrapolation into the future on principle is not feasible in essential parts. Questions on the substance convert into questions on the structure. Natural-scientific thinking becomes problematic where there are strong netting and great complexity. In order not to become blind amidst multifariousness, we should not abstain from looking at the world in an intuitive way, which makes it easier to recognize figures and make valuations. Progress is not equivalent to evolution, but from their engrained character, evolution and time are the same: a development towards higher complexity and awareness’. 

‚Retroaction’ and ‚steering’ form part of the basic notions of cybernetics and control engineering. The ‚dissipative’ complex systems described by PRIGOGINE are retroactive in a non-linear way. They can pass through phase shifts that lead to structures of a higher order [219].

Modern chaos theory (GLEICK, MEIER) is concerned mainly with the genesis of ordered structures. Firstly results that (in a border-line case infinitely) small ariations of the initial conditions of dynamic systems may cause imprevisible, incalculable reactions of the latter; as says a popular example: ‚A wing-beat of a butterfly in one continent may release a cyclone/tornado in an other’. Secondly, observations and computer simulations show that complex systems pass through chaotic phases when going over into new ordered states. The term „attractor“, frequently used in this context, is a simple logogram for certain mathematical structures. Despite of this word’s meaning, it includes no explanatory value in respect of eventual activities behind it. A railway station, to which a great number of people hasten after work closing time, might be called an attractor, since it seems to attract people! 

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Systems theorist LASZLO took these ideas up and developped a subquantum dynamic (SQD) in which the vacuum, the emptiness, the reputed ‚nothingness’, carries everything that exists.  

It appears that the ‚noise’ has outstanding importance, in particular in connection with (I)TC. Several rather generally formulated quotations of older date confirm the experiences we have made, and are confirmed by these (see also YORK in D-29). MUSES: 

‚In the sense of information, no pure noise exists. Noise transforms into information. The claim that it were impossible to pick up/draw information from noise is nothing else than a further reductional silliness’. 

W.I. THOMPSON: ‚Noise and disorder appear as a necessary background for a creative progress of the universe’ (‚The Fall into Time’). 

G. BATESON: ‚The creation of new forms is impossible without a background of noise and without a free potential of chance and disorder in the expectation of a selection by the ordering intervention of creative action. Everything that is not information, not redundancy, not form, and not restriction/limitation, is noise, the only possible source for new patterns’.

At the sensitivity limits of electronical and optical systems, correctly dosed additional noise is able to improve the reception of faintest signals by ‚stochastic resonance’. This kind of sensitivity increase could also play a part in biosystems. (For literature see G-41, supplement.) 

Vacuum physics furnish several indications more. ECCLES, 1994/MARGENAU (see C-15) and LASZLO show that the brain, as a chaotic system, is sensitive to most minimal influences, and able to receive information from the subquantum level. Similar structures, whose characteristics open them for triggering from the transareas/-spheres, could be apt for ITC. AARON/EINSTEIN recommended reflected rhythmical noise, whose efficiency – in dependence on motivation, expectation, creativity, and selection – remains to be demonstrated (see F-37.12). 

When instrumental transcontacts started, additional noise occurred frequently. Remains unclarified to what extent paranormal abilities of the experimenters take part in it.

Italian neurologist CAZZAMALLI (who, by the way, in 1954, introduced the notion ‚psychobiophysics’) reported already between 1923 and 1925 that several of his patients caused audible noises in broadcast receivers while inside a Faraday cage. TISCHNER deemed the results to have no evidential value. But, in view of the radiation of short-wave (SW) signals out of the heads of KIYOTA and YAMASHITA, as well as of the suppression of the receiving of ultra short-wave (USW) broadcasting through HOMES (C-15, Ill. 32), and in particular of the receiving of TV with the simultaneous commencement of strong noise signals (C-15, Ill. 32*), these results could be rehabilitated. 

To the notion ‚stochastic resonance’, a special position has to be attached. According to J.J. COLLINS et al. („Nature“, vol. 376 of July 20^th, 1995, p. 236) is  

„stochastic resonance (SR) a phenomenon wherein the response of a non-linear system to a weak periodic input signal is optimized by the presence of a particular, non-zero level of noise. SR has been proposed as a means for improving signal detection in a wide variety of systems. ... Here we show that the ability of a summing network of excitable units to detect a range of weak (sub-threshold) signals (either periodic or aperiodic) can be optimized by a fixed level of noise irrespective of the nature of the input signal. We also show that this noise does not significally degrade the ability of the network to detect supra-threshold signals.“ According to this there exists the possibility that the proper noise of a large network’s components is capable of increasing the sensitivity for weak input signals. ... „This suggests a fundamental role (of SR) for neuronal noise in sensory systems.“

In transcommunication, too, stochastic resonance could play a role. On the one hand, ‚noise’ exists permanently in the brain, and in electronic equipment arrangements. On the other hand, the rather frequently observed appearance of VOT and direct voices in instrumentally supported contacts is relatively often accompanied by an additional ‚noise’, which can be interpreted as a kind of ‚carrier’. In some cases, it is clearly audible that this ‚carrier’ signal is switched on by an impulse, and then switched off again. So, noise does not on principle prevent the recognizability of weak signals by ‚masking’, under suitable conditions it may rather make subliminal signals perceivable at all.

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