Send Them Peace

The Challenge at SendThemPeace.com has two components.

In presenting these, habits from past work will surface and be relied upon. Without reporting (or plagiarizing) all of W.Edwards Demings life or work, (he and others have reported that quite well), extracting two sentinel questions has a chance of providing value in our Lab at STP.

The first question is: "By what method?"

The second is: "How would you know?" 

If nothing else, vowing a dedication to methods couched in measurement (the answer to the second question), offers the hope and promise that even seemingly insubstantial or immaterial processes can yield desired material effects in our world. Effects such as: Peace. This problem has been further defined in another article, about "Breaking New Ground," and need not be repeated here.

What will be repeated here is our hypothesis at STP :

The Challenge is the proposed method, providing the answer to the first question.

References on this site  to "The STP Lab" are to a virtual lab, where several things will happen :  

• Studies past and present done by others will be presented to offer background and findings perhaps related to the goal at SendThemPeace.
• These will be presented as though each occupied "a Bench" in the STP Lab. At each Bench, ongoing work is discussed and results presented.
• Work done at each "Bench" will receive an Initial Introduction, and Updates.
• The format for Initial Introductions and Updates will be kept consistent, thereby hoping to make things easier for the reader.
• Actual experiments at STP will be presented, and with an effort made to keep such presentation at least quasi-scientific, and as parts of the answer to "How would you know?"
• To more readily navigate to the various "Benches" where investigations are ongoing or summarized if completed, the present page will also serve as a separate Table of Contents (not the same one as that for all articles on this site), an Index of Work (vide infra), guiding the reader through links to various related aticles.

=======================  Index of Work at the STP Lab Benches ===================

       Pausing 20 minutes, at 12:00 noon (GMT) to meet The Challenge.
 

Bench 1 - Initial Introduction  - FLOW

Investigation Category Heading : Stress Management, Life and Project Optimization
Principal Investigator : Mikhail Csikszentmihalyi

Domain : Psychology
Hypothesis Being Tested : A relationship exists between personal skill level and task challenge level. The relationship between the two can be used to define degrees of perceived operator stress, contentment, with possible desired effects on creativity and task optimization. An ideal interaction of the two elements exists and can be defined.

Bench 2 - Initial Introduction - M-Fit

Investigation Category Heading : Mindfulness Meditation training for soldiers
Principal Investigator : Elizabeth A. Stanley, Ph.D, Founder & President of Mind Fitness Training Institute (M-Fit)
Domain : Mindfulness, Mind-Body Fitness, Security, Government, Management 

Hypothesis Being Tested : Teaching military troops (US Marine and Army Infantry) Mindfulness Meditation practice will result in participants being more completely aware of Self, including auto-assessment and control of autonomic system dysregulation or balance, levels of stress, and can render participants more competent and fit for deployment in combat zones, improving awareness and resilience, and more optimally integrated into society on their return from combat, reducing prevalence of post-combat psychosocial disorders. 

Bench 3 - Initial Introduction - HeartMath and Global Coherence Initiative

Investigation Category Heading : HeartMath and Global Coherence - 

1) Heart rate variability biofeedback for stress reduction, using the terms "physiologic coherence and psychophysiologic coherence".
2) "Global Coherence" through many participants in #1

Principal Investigators :   Doc Lew Childre; Rollin McCraty, Ph.D, Howard Martin, Dorothy Rozman, Ph.D, et al. 
Domain : Stress reduction ; Biofeedback ("physiologic and phychophysiologic coherence"); "Personal/ Social/ Global Coherence."

Hypotheses (2) Being Tested : 

1) Heart rate variability measurements can be used over time by an individual, to become more aware of autonomic nervous system corrollaries of stress, and shift from higher to lower states of stress through biofeedback. Effects of biofeedback at this Lab Bench are referred to as "coherence," "heart coherence," "heart-brain-coherence," "physiologic coherence," and "psychophysiologic coherence." 

2) "Our hypothesis is that as enough individuals increase their heart coherence, it leads to increased social coherence. As a critical mass of cultures and nations become more harmoniously aligned, this can eventually lead to increased global coherence and sustainable peace."
"Using our heart's intuitive guidance will become common sense - based on practical intelligence."
"As more of humanity practices heart-based living, It will qualify the 'rite of passage' into the next level of consciousness." - Doc Childre.

Rollin McCraty presents hypothesis 2) as follows in his presentation (at bottom of this page) :

"The Global Coherence Initiative's Hypotheses:

1. Human and animal health, cognitive functions, emotions and behavior are affected by planetary magnetic and energetic fields.
2. The earth's magnetic fields are carriers of biologically relevant information that connect all living systems.
3. Thus, we each affect the global information field.
4. Large numbers of people creating heart-centered states of care, love, and compassion will generate a more coherent field environment that can benefit others and help offset the current planetary-wide discord and incoherence."

STP Bench 3 Update - Data from Drew. An analysis of an emWave2 user's data.

STP Bench 3 Update - a look at HeartMath’s "Achievement" variable when using emWave2.

STP Bench 3 Update - Ripples in the pond - finding one's way back to a Central SCIENTIFIC Observation.

STP Bench 3 Update - Science or Theater?  - what viewing a HeartMath Executive's presentation has to teach us.

STP Bench 3 Update - A recent book from HeartMath : "Heart Intelligence" - a Reader's Notes and Review.

 Bench 4 - Initial Introduction - The STP Memorial Science Library

We found a little bit of extra room here in the SendThemPeace virtual lab. So Bench #4 was designated as a Science Library.

We are hoping that it will serve to shed light as well as heat in the domain of Science that could eventually contribute to obtaining Peace on our planet Earth.

Part of this will be to point towards works that define "what's new." But let us not forget that in Science, true understanding and especially perspective, might arise years after a works publication. Understanding what made a given researcher "tick" as he/ she became passionate about a subject, may also be both "interesting," but especially "useful" for attaining our goal of Peace. 

Often, when scientific work is new, those listening to its enthusiastic presentation don't have a clue about what is being presented. For instance, Newton, frequently lectured to a 100% empty classroom auditorium at Cambridge, since after a while the grapevine had instructed those signing up for his courses: "Don't even bother going."

So the emphasis at lab Bench #4 will be to move out of this aura of "cluelessness" into the light, where many clues may direct us all towards Peace.

And having mentioned Sir Isaac Newton, let's start with this little review of what he has told us about himself through his writings ...

The Newtonian mechanics vs Psi: struggle for Truth - was all his work about "classical physics" (as it came to be called after, and largely because of, Newton)? Or did he dabble a bit in "fringy" kinds of pseudo-science? You may be surprised.

STP Bench 4 Update : "Quantum Activism." Let's now fast forward a few centuries from Newton to our own time. There's that word "quantum" again.

How did we get from Newton to Quantum Physics? That trail we'll pursue later, but for now, read this as an introduction to the topic from Professor Amit Goswami.