Dick J. Bierman (University of Amsterdam, Utrecht University) has been active in the field of parapsychology for over two decades, though he is skeptical about the reality of psi phenomena. At least in the way we understand objective reality, the world of public and shared data. In his recent article, he suggests that in order to accommodate psi phenomena we might have to propose new types of realities, intermediate between the subjective but hardly deniable reality of consciousness and objective physical reality. Thus psi phenomena could have some restricted reality within a group of observers.

After a PhD in experimental physics he became involved in research in Artificial Intelligence more specifically ‘Intelligent’ tutoring systems. This resulted in a focus n individual learning and later learning during altered states of consciousness most notable learning during sleep. Also the importance of affective rather than cognitive processes in individual teaching lead him to interest in non-conscious emotions and their role in (intuitive) decision making. In that context his work on pre-sentiment, the apparent anomalous activation of bodily arousal preceding emotional events, found a natural context. 

More recently he started to try to get an empirical handle on the relation between quantum physics and consciousness. He is currently engaged in experiments that might clarify this relation. The ORCH-OR model by Hameroff-Penrose is indirectly tested by measuring decoherence times of the rhodopsin molecule in the living retina. The Walker-Stapp dualistic model for the collapse of the wave function is tested using a method earlier explored by Abner Shimoni. In contrast to Shimoni’s approach the dependent measure is not a conscious ‘guess’about the state of the observed quantum event but it is the early (non conscious) part of the evoked brain potential.

Further work in psi related areas are his development of true random number generators (now available through a company called ORION) and his active participation in the Global Consciousness project where many of these RNG’s are used.

Publications:

Many publications can be found on Dick Bierman’s website

If you can’t find there what you are looking for please mail Dick Bierman