Psychic Radio: Sound Technologies, Ether Bodies and Spiritual Vibrations
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This paper examines the impact of psychical research on the development of wireless technology as well as the influence of wireless on scientific interpretations of psychic phenomena. The invention of wireless was originally based on the notion that an invisible yet material ether permeated the universe, and this theory was employed to explain sensory perception as well as the transmission of thoughts as brain waves. Wireless thus inspired a radio model of consciousness, which exploded the limits of the body and encouraged scientists to conceive of the soul as material yet invisible vibrations. The theological implications of the ether appealed to Victorian scientists as it fulfilled the religious impulse described by Freud as an “oceanic” feeling of interconnectedness, which the modern world seemed to threaten. The concept of “continuity,” for example, seemed to compensate for the alienation of modern life by providing a reassuring image of the universe as profoundly interconnected, interrelated and interdependent. By tracing the connections between the study of perception, technology and psychical research this paper explores the ways in which the relationships between mind, matter and machinery were historically mediated by a new cultural understanding of vibratory movements.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.015 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".