The symbolic Hieronymous machine

CHAPTER EIGHT

Basic Description:

This strange machine is strange indeed. It is a Hieronymous machine consisting entirely of symbols save for a few moving physical parts needed to rotate the prism, the sensor coil, and the tactile detector. It is typical of many inexplicable but operable devices made up of symbols representing physical objects. These symbols are arranged in the same relationship as the physical

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devices in the original machine. It produces the same result as the non-symbolic machine with about the same degree of reliability and repeatability. Furthermore, it operates with no apparent input of energy as energy is presently understood in the physical sciences. However, it may not operate under any of the presently-known principles of physical or psychological sciences.

The symbolic Hieronymous machine consists of the standard pickup coil or sensor of the non-symbolic machine, the tactile detector plate, a means to rotate a symbolic prism to tune the device, and all other elements of the machine reduced to inked drawings on cardboard connected with symbolic electrical wires made of thread. It is enclosed in a standard electronics parts box. The model for use during experiments also contains an AC power cable and plug, a small transformer, a switch, and a pilot light, none of which are connected to any of the symbolic circuitry inside the box.

The device behaves essentially as the original non-symbolic Hieronymous machine does. Many people have tried it and have gotten results fully equivalent to the results obtained on the non-symbolic Hieronymous machine.

Historical Background:

When John W. Campbell, Jr. began working in 1955-1956 with the original Hieronymous machine described in Chapter Six, he discovered that it ceased to

The Symbolic Hieronymous Machine

work if a vacuum tube burned out - if the filament broke, if the glass or metal envelope broke, or if the tube some­how ceased to function effectively as an electronic device. He also discovered that it wouldn't work if one of the wires came un-soldered or broke.

But he accidentally discovered during an experi­mental run with a volunteer subject that the Hieronymous machine worked perfectly well even though he'd com­pletely forgotten to plug it into the 120-volt AC wall socket. In other words, the Hieronymous machine would operate without any power supply at all!

Campbell wrote, "I can't defend, or even de­scribe, the process by which I arrived at the hunch, 'These things depend upon relationship-as-a-thing-in-itself.'" Campbell then took that hunch as a postulate, did some deductive thinking, and carried out some physical equipment tests. If relationship only was in­volved, then the presence or absence of a power supply in the Hieronymous machine should make no differ­ence because it wouldn't change the relationship of the parts. But a burned-out tube or a broken connection would make a difference; it would alter the relationship of the parts.

He went directly to the purest form of this postu­late. He reasoned that the closer the experiment was to a pure symbol, the less objective reality there would be and the more nearly a perfectly pure relationship would exist. "The letter A scratched in the mud is a symbol; it has precisely the same symbolic properties as a letter A

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made of reinforced concrete and standing forty feet high. The material object structure has zero significance; only the relationship pattern has meaning."

He built a Hieronymous machine leaving out most of the material objects of the system by substituting symbols which maintained the same relationship to one another. Because he was also a realist and felt that the mind-set of "impossible" or "possible" might strongly affect the initial results a subject experienced, he added the totally non-functional but equally totally misleading on-off switch and pilot light. Externally, therefore, the symbolic Hieronymous machine looked completely normal save for the unusual tactile detector which, on the basis of his previous experiments with the non-symbolic Hieronymous machine, he knew that people would accept.

His first subject was his young daughter who'd gotten results with the non-symbolic machine. She got a response with the symbolic machine and reported a "tacky feeling" at two points on the tuning dial. She was able to retune to the same dial readings, plus or minus two percent, on successive tries, even when her view of the dial was blocked and the vernier returned to the zero point before each trial run. After approximately a hun­dred additional subjects had tried it, Campbell confirmed that the percentage ofsubjects who got a reading was the same as with the non-symbolic machine - approximately 80%. Additional data: Children under the age of fifteen got consistently repeatable results while professional re-

The Symbolic Hieronymous Machine

search scientists almost invariably got a clean, 100% no-response record. Convinced mystics got wild responses all over the dial.

Once a subject had gotten a response, Campbell would open the machine and show them what was inside. The most common reaction was, "Why, there's nothing inside!" But nearly 90% of the subjects contin­ued to get responses even when they knew that the inside of the box contained only symbolic components and that the pilot light and "on-off" switch had absolutely no function whatsoever.

Campbell published the full instructions on how to build a symbolic Hieronymous machine along with his results and hypotheses in the February 1957 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.

What was truly astounding was the resounding silence that followed and has been maintained ever since. No research laboratories have followed up on this discov­ery. Perhaps some amateur researchers have carried on, but their results have not seen general publication.

Author's Experience:

When I read the first Hieronymous Machine article in the June 1956 issue of Astounding Science Fic­tion magazine and built a non-symbolic Hieronymous machine, the results I got were interesting because the machine shouldn't have worked. Okay, I thought, the world is full of weird machines that we really don't

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understand yet, and 1 was intimately familiar with a lot of them that went under the general title of rockets. But when I read the February 1957 issue with Campbell's article on the symbolic Hieronymous machine, that was too much for me. Remember, I was educated as a physi­cist and trained in the field as an engineer. The article was obviously a hoax. I immediately set out to prove that it was a hoax by building a symbolic Hieronymous ma­chine myself. I carefully followed the instructions given in Campbell's article.

It didn't work on the first try. I was about to write it off when I decided that there was something wrong with the circuit. There was no provision for a filament heater power supply for the vacuum tube symbol. So I added a symbolic filament inside the symbolic tube and "wired" it symbolically to a symbolic filament battery.

I was then hugely surprised when my symbolic Hieronymous machine worked!

My wife Barbara could get no response from it. But about 80% of my scientific and engineering col­leagues did at White Sands Proving Ground and at the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.

I kept the machine and still have it. I take it out from time to time to try it on a new and unsuspecting subject. I've encountered two fascinating and inexpli­cable problems: (a) every couple of years, I must re-ink the battery symbols because the symbolic batteries ap­pear to go "dead," and (b) I have to re-ink the vacuum tube symbol every ten years to put a "new and fresh" tube

The Symbolic Hieronymous Machine

Figure 8-1: The author's symbolic Hieronymous

machine built in 1956. It still works.

But why does it work in the first place?

in the system. My solid-state versions haven't been in operation long enough to have encountered any failures of the "circuit chips" which, if my computer is any typical example, will exhibit outstanding reliability and long life exemplary of solid-state electronic components in the real world.

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Instructions for Fabrication:

The symbolic Hieronymous machine is easier to construct than one of the full-blown hardware types. However, hardware is required:

1. An aluminum or plastic electronics compo­nent box.

2. A National Velvet Vernier Dial of the sort used in the standard Hieronymous machine.

3. A 4-inch by 5-inch piece of polystyrene or lucite ("Plexiglas") plastic sheet for the tactile detector plate.

4. A pickup coil - this can be wound as several turns of #18 AWG solid wire to make a simple air-core coil.

5. A small triangular-shaped piece of clear plastic to serve as a symbolic prism.

6. Various and sundry mounting and assembly hardware - nuts and bolts, standoffs, insulators, etc.

If you wish to include the pilot light and "on-off' switch, the following additional materials will be needed: a single-pole single-throw toggle switch, a 12-volt power transformer, a 12-volt panel-mounted pilot light and bulb, and an AC line cord and plug, plus mounting hardware.

The symbolic circuitry can be inked onto white cardboard or Crescent No. 201 Illustration Board (or equivalent). The circuit board and the tactile detector's

The Symbolic Hieronymous Machine

coil can be cut out using a sharp modeling knife. Ordi­nary sewing thread may be used to connect the circuit board to the tactile detector coil board.

The precise size and shape of the symbolic com­ponents are not important. The material used in making the symbolic parts is not important. Workable models have been built from cardboard, plastic, vinyl tiles, sheet metal, and a host of other materials. Tiny pocket-sized machines have been built. The actual electronic circuits used don't seem to be important; a multi-staged transis-

Figure 8-2:

Symbolic Hieronymous machine's vacuum tube

amplifier circuit board. Drawing is full-sized for

author's machine, but size isn't important.

Following the drawing accurately from a

symbolic point of view seems to be critical.

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tor amplifier seems to work as well as a single-transistor unit. The precise type of symbolic op-amp circuit is ap­parently irrelevant. The only important factor is the rela­tionship between the components plus the fact that oper­able circuits must be used - if actual physical electronic circuits were built using actual hardware and the circuit diagrams used in the symbolic machine, the physical circuits would indeed work as amplifiers.

I have seen an operable symbolic Hieronymous machine inked on the back of a 2-inch square of bath­room tile with the slick fired-enamel surface of the tile serving as the tactile detector.

Figure 8-3: Symbolic Hieronymous machine's

transistorized amplifier circuit board for the

"modern" solid-state version.

The Symbolic Hieronymous Machine

Figure 8-4: Symbolic Hieronymous machine's

integrated circuit amplifier board for the

latest state-of-the-art version.

So it doesn't seem to matter what you use to make it, how big you make it, or how you put it together just as long as the relationship between the symbolic parts re­mains the same.

Figure 8-6: Inside the author's symbolic Hieronymous machine showing placement of the prism and amplifier board. Transfomer provides 12-volt power for functionless "pilot light" because the device is "bat­tery powered."

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Figure 8-5: Detector coil layout drawing of the

author's symbolic Hieronymous machine. Neither

the number of turns nor the direction seem to be

critical. Dashed line is "ground" symbol.

Operating Instructions:

The operating instructions for the symbolic Hieronymous machine are the same as those for the physical component Hieronymous machine ("the origi­nal Hieronymous machine").

Experiments:

The symbolic Hieronymous machine can be used for a wide variety of experiments.

The Symbolic Hieronymous Machine

Figure 8-6: Inside the author's symbolic

Hieronymous machine showing placement of the

prism and amplifier board. Transformer provides

12-volt power for functionless "pilot light"

because the device is "battery powered."

Some of these experiments can be done with the internal symbolic systems of the machine itself since this form of Hieronymous machine can be quickly and easily modified.

For example, various sorts of symbolic transistor­ized amplifier circuits should be tried ~ common base, common emitter, common collector, PNP, NPN, direct-

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coupled, wide-band, and other sorts of transistor ampli­fier circuits can be inked onto plug-in boards to permit quick change.

Various sorts of operational amplifiers and other integrated circuit diagrams can be tested.

When it comes to testing the machine on human subjects, you may wish to gather data on how many people get responses when a dummy "on-off switch and pilot light are used versus how many get a response when a "self-contained battery powered" version is used.

A very critical experiment needs to be done and verified by a large number of experimenters. Basically, it amounts to this: To what level of simplicity in terms of symbols can the Hieronymous machine be reduced before it doesn't work any more? Can box symbols be used to indicate circuits (the "black box" approach). I have done this myself, but I don't wish to affect the results of experi­ments by indicating the level to which I was able to reduce a Hieronymous machine before it stopped work­ing for me. Remember: My original symbolic Hieronymous machine would not work for me until I had satisfied, in my own electronics-trained mind, that there was a proper battery symbol for the symbolic vacuum tube filament. I "knew" that a vacuum tube wouldn't work without a heated filament. That obviously affected my ability to get a response. But, on the other hand, I had built the machine. The absence of the filament battery and filament symbol should not have had any effect whatsoever on anyone operating the machine who did

The Symbolic Hieronymous Machine

Figure 8-7: The other side of the interior of the

author's symbolic Hieronymous machine showing placement of the spiral coil underneath the plastic detector plate and the connection be­tween the amplifier and the coil boards using symbolic wires made from black thread.

not know what was inside the box! Campbell's original symbolic Hieronymous machine without a vacuum tube filament and battery worked fine for him and for the people that were his subjects.

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What If It Doesn't Work?

As originally pointed out by Campbell, profes­sional research scientists in physics and chemistry had an almost perfect zero score in getting any response from the symbolic Hieronymous machine, even when they didn't know what was inside it.

If you build a symbolic Hieronymous machine and cannot get it to work for you, you may have fallen victim to this unknown and un-named syndrome. Maybe it just won't work for you, period.

The first test is, of course, to try it on someone else, preferably a child or a person who isn't a profes­sional researcher. In other words, try it on someone who doesn't already "know" in the back of his/her mind that such a device, no matter what's inside the box, can't possibly work and is probably a hoax or a joke.

Be exceedingly careful in running experiments with voluntary subjects lest you provide them with clues or hints as to what you think the response should be, or what results you might like them to get. People will sometimes (more often than not) work very hard to produce the sort of results someone else wants or that they've determined that someone else wants.

If you don't get responses from anyone, or if you want to check to make sure you've built the device prop­erly in the first place, go back and make sure that the relationships between the symbolic parts are secure and as they should be. Check to make sure that your pen

The Symbolic Hieronymous Machine

hasn't skipped and made an incomplete line while draw­ing the circuit diagrams. Check the "polarity" of the symbolic batteries and solid-state devices; you may have inadvertently switched battery polarity so that a PNP or NPN transistor symbol is wired in backwards and there­fore couldn't work if the symbolic circuit were used as a map to construct the "real" physical circuit. Check to make sure that the threads used as symbolic wires are secure and attached; make sure they aren't touching one another and thereby symbolically "shorting out" each other. Change the orientation of the symbolic plastic prism by ninety degrees, test, and if no response is achieved, rotate it another ninety degrees.

In my device, the symbolic battery went "dead" after several years as "real' batteries are wont to do. I got my device working again by re-inking the battery symbol, thereby "recharging" or "replacing" the "dead" symbolic battery.

As a last resort, give the machine to an acquain­tance and ask them to run experiments on other people without your foreknowledge of who, what, and where. The results should be interesting. To what extent were you affecting the performance of the machine, if you had any effect at all. And if so, why?

There is no reason why the symbolic Hieronymous machine shouldn't work for at least some subjects, even if it won't work for you. Data on who can and can't get a response should be kept. It should be correlated with personality and mood data of the subject.

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We're plowing very fresh and very unusual ground here. With the symbolic Hieronymous machine, we really don't yet know what the important parameters are or what measurements are important. Therefore, take as much data as seems to be relevant.

We need some sort of organization or society, perhaps computer networked, that can collect the experi­mental results from amateur investigators and develop a nationwide data base for experiments with thne symbolic Hieronymous machine...and the other amazing mind machines discussed in this book. But you organize it, not me. If I organize it, it will be tainted from the beginning because it may be claimed that I put it together in order to sell this book. You do it; I'll be there to help.

Hypotheses:

Dr. T. Galen Hieronymous, the inventor of the original Hieronymous machine, has developed a hy­pothesis relating to the rationale for his device that in­vokes the concept of "eloptic radiation" as discussed in the previous chapter dealing with the Hieronymous machine.

The symbolic Hieronymous machine pretty well demolishes the "eloptic radiation" hypothesis. No known form of "radiation" and no aspect of the Universe that we currently define as "radiation" could possibly be in-

The Symbolic Hieronymous Machine

voked to explain why symbolic marks and surrogates can cause an apparent physical change in a plastic plate that would be sensed by a human being.

As remarked previously, radiation is a sharply defined class of entity having definite characteristics and relationships with energy, which in turn can be con­verted back and forth as many forms of energy ~ heat, light, etc.

Waves and radiations and particles cannot be invoked in any hypothesis relating to the symbolic Hieronymous machine.

Occam's Razor would quickly trim any hypoth­esis based on extrasensory perception (ESP), "mental radiations," "thought waves," or even suggestibility. If the operation of the Hieronymous machine can indeed be explained by any of these hypothetical causes, it is therefore the first and most powerful of the instruments to be used in parapsychological research. If it does oper­ate because of the subconscious mind, telepathy, or even suggestibility, it is a powerful tool for psychological re­search and should therefore immediately be seized upon and put to work there. But it hasn't. And it's been around long enough for the original patent protection to have expired.

Details of both types of devices have been published in a magazine with more than 100,000 circulation on a worldwide basis. Dr. Hieronymous himself was not the typical inventor who wished to maintain control of all rights to his invention; in connection with the original

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magazine article on the Hieronymous machine, he pub­licly gave permission for investigators to build and inves­tigate it. Therefore, no one can give as an excuse that the machine was (a) obscure because publication, if any, was in private journals that weren't widely circulated, or (b) too tightly controlled by the inventor, a factor that pro­hibited serious investigators from looking into it for fear of legal action on the part of the inventor. None of these two factors are true.

Nor can the operation of either Hieronymous machines be easily fobbed off or explained away as a hoax. It has operated successfully for far too many people. Hieronymous machines of both types have been built and operated by people who have had nothing more to follow and learn from than the printed words and illus­trations in a magazine. Hieronymous machines have been built and operated by high school students in sci­ence fairs as well as high-technology engineers (and a few physical scientists).

It is patently apparent that we are here dealing with a totally new and formerly unsuspected aspect of the Universe.

I do not know what it is, and I cannot describe it to you.

But I can make some WAGs (Wildly Assumed Guesses) concerning it because one must have some­where to start. I will probably be proven wrong. But in

The Symbolic Hieronymous Machine

displacing my WAG, someone will have to come up with a hypothesis, and it should be a testable hypothesis. My guess is based upon data.

With both Hieronymous machines, I submit that we are dealing with devices that are definitely not physical science devices.

The physical power of pure symbols can be physi­cally demonstrated and was in the previous chapter.

The Hieronymous machine is capable of being built and operated on a purely symbolic basis. Therefore, it is not a physical sciences device.

We are working on the level of pure symbolism. A symbol is what it is because it is defined as being that symbol which is further defined by us as having certain powers. This fact, demonstrable by the Hieronymous machine, makes the behavior of symbolic systems such as this device completely capable of apparently violating one of the basic laws of the physical sciences which states that any object in the Universe must have the same characteristics for any two observers.

That this principle doesn't apply to everything in the Universe should come as no great surprise to those researchers involved in the life sciences where it is widely accepted that no two given organisms, even those with the same genetic material, need have the same character­istics for any two investigators. But a very large statistical Universe of these organisms can and do operate in pre­dictable manners as a population.

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Conclusions:

I submit that Dr. T. Galen Hieronymous has indeed discovered and put to use a totally new-to-us principle of the real Universe that can and will, in time, be thoroughly tested, defined, and proven as a theory and, eventually, as a new Universal law. Furthermore, 1 submit that practically none of the initial work will be carried out by professional scientists as a professional inquiry because I know very few professional scientists - even those with very open minds ~ who could easily afford to undertake such investigations for fear of peer pressures. It will be done by amateurs such as you and I because there are no professionals in this new "proto-science" yet.

Further conclusion: I don't know what this new Universal thing is, and 1 don't think anyone else knows either. But it's certainly going to be challenging, fun, and exciting to find out what's involved!

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