‘“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” Arthur C. Clarke, Clarke’s third law,’ she said suddenly.
Jones did a double take. She had suddenly realized that whilst Ed might accept her bogus interest in RECAP at face value, Connie Pike was not the tiniest bit taken in by her. She knew Jones thought the whole thing was hocus-pocus. She damned well knew.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jones.
Connie smiled and shrugged. Unfazed. Jones glanced towards Ed who looked puzzled.
‘I really would like you to tell me about the REG,’ she told Connie. After all there wasn’t much point in making the effort to come to the lab and meet the team if she didn’t try to at least appear open-minded.
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ said Jones.
Connie Pike stared at her for a few seconds, almost as if considering whether or not she was worth the bother, Jones thought. Then Connie nodded, and placed one hand on the REG, a rectangular box about a foot high and deep and eighteen inches across.
‘This machine repeatedly generates at random numbers one and zero,’ she told Jones. ‘As I’m sure you know very well, the laws of physics dictate that these numbers, over a sufficient period of time, will be produced equally. We, however, are in the process of proving that under certain circumstances random events can alter the results.’
‘Events or people’s minds?’ asked Jones.
Connie smiled.
‘Both,’ she said. ‘Our experiments with meditation seem to prove that the machine’s sequence can be affected by the power of the human mind. Yet we cannot explain why. Now, you are a scientist and a sceptic...’
Jones opened her mouth to interrupt.
Connie waved a dismissive hand at her.
‘No, you are, and that’s fine. We like sceptics here. Keeps us on our toes, and it’s the only way to spread the word, isn’t it? What’s the point in preaching to the converted?’
Jones nodded her head in meek acceptance. To her surprise, she was beginning to rather enjoy this visit.
‘As I was saying,’ Connie continued. ‘You are a scientist and a sceptic, so let me give you some data. Some indisputable data, we think. To date, forty-seven different operators have generated two hundred and ninety complete REG experimental series, all under strict laboratory-controlled conditions. That’s a total of over two and a half million trials. We make a graph of the results, a cumulative deviation graph.
‘Now, we accept that the laws of physics dictate that over extended periods of time the line of the graph will be level, because pure chance will ultimately produce exactly the same number of zeros and ones, or heads and tails, if you prefer. Right?’
She paused, studying Jones as if to see if she was listening. Jones was concentrating hard.
‘Right,’ she said.
‘OK,’ Connie continued. ‘If at any time you want to study these graphs you are welcome, but in overall terms of a fifty per cent hit rate, i.e. fifty per cent zeros and fifty per cent ones, which is what would be expected if left entirely to chance, our experiments with operators showed an overall deviation of one per cent. In other words, varying between fifty-one per cent zeros, forty-nine per cent ones, and conversely.’
She paused again.
‘Doesn’t sound like much does it?’
Jones shook her head.
‘Statistically the odds on that level of deviation happening by chance are a trillion to one,’ Connie said quietly.
Jones did another double take. She had no idea that this kind of data even existed, and there was something about Connie’s calm and considered approach that left her in little doubt of its accuracy.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked none the less.
Connie nodded.
‘Absolutely. Look, I’m just giving you the results. The data is all here.’
She gestured towards a row of battered filing cabinets.
‘I told you, take a look any time. Help yourself.’
Jones responded thoughtfully.
‘Let’s take it that your results, as they stand, are unimpeachable. But how can you guarantee the integrity of the REG? If it is possible that the machine might at any stage cease to function perfectly, then your entire database loses all scientific value.’
‘We don’t allow that to happen,’ said Connie. ‘A Random Event Generator is based on a source of electronic white noise generated by a random microscopic physical process. That’s how it gets its name. Several other research establishments now have them. Ours utilizes as its random source a commercial microelectronic noise diode unit commonly incorporated in a variety of communications, control, and data-processing equipment circuitry, rendering this noise into an output distribution of binary counts, and entailing extensive fail-safe and calibration components which guarantee its integrity—’
‘Hold on,’ interrupted Jones. ‘You’ve totally lost me.’
It was clear that, beyond the cuddly toys, this project was considerably more hard-nosed than she had expected it to be. It was also a world away from her field of scientific expertise.
‘All right,’ said Connie. ‘Just think of it as a sophisticated electronic coin-flipping machine with loads of built-in safeguards. Instead of heads and tails it flips numbers.’
‘Ah,’ said Jones. ‘Why didn’t you say that in the first place?’
‘I kinda thought I had,’ responded Connie, grinning easily.
‘So, have you recorded any deviation in the results attributable to individual operators?’ Jones continued.
‘Yes, we have discovered operator patterns. We have also found that the effect is on average generally greater if more than one person is using the same mental intention on the same REG. We experimented with co-operating couples, and we have even found that the composition of the pairs is a factor. It is not just a case of two people automatically getting results that are twice as large as one person’s results.
‘Same sex pairs, men or women, tend if anything to produce more negative results, in other words they often influence the REG less than one individual. But opposite sex couples have consistently produced an effect that is indeed approximately twice that of individuals, and, beyond that, emotionally linked pairs — lovers, close family members, spouses — have consistently produced an effect more than four times that of individuals.’
Jones cocked her head to one side, intrigued in spite of herself.
‘So what you are establishing here is not only the power of consciousness, in these instances, and in the most simplistic terms, the possible power of mind over matter, but also how much greater that power is if two minds are linked together and dedicate themselves to one purpose?’
‘Exactly.’ Connie beamed at her.
‘So, leading on from that, how much greater is the effect if a large number of minds are concentrated together in this way?’
‘Ah, the power of global consciousness,’ Connie said quietly. ‘Now that is the most exciting prospect of all.’
Global consciousness. It wasn’t the first time Jones had heard the term, but there was something in Connie Pike’s voice when she spoke of it which made the hairs on the back of Sandy Jones’s neck stand up.
‘We have considerable evidence of the REGs being affected by the mind power of the masses,’ Connie continued. ‘And also by monumental and emotionally charged events.
‘We have recently developed a field version of the REG which we have taken to places where something enormous, something tragic perhaps, or something wonderful, has happened — a natural disaster, a murder, a huge rock concert — and the graph has been significantly affected. But if the event is big enough you don’t have to take the REG anywhere. Live Aid in 1985, which was almost a celebration of global consciousness, resulted in a marked deviation on this REG right here.’