Recall improves, hidden choices do not
Compatible with learning, memory retrieval or ordinary inference. It may describe a useful cognitive effect without demonstrating concealed-information access.
AkashicNET × N2N · Spiritual science inquiry · 18 October 2026
From contemplation
to a testable question.
Could attending to a person with mettā, or loving-kindness, change the information we retrieve? And would prior knowledge of that person matter? This companion makes a proposed test open to exploration and critique.
HYPOTHESIS · DRAFT v0.1Public explainer of a protocol candidate. Not preregistered or independently approved. No experiment or recruitment has begun.
The question
Person knowledge, mettā and information.
The motivating hypothesis is that contemplation associated with a person might yield informative insights when that person is already represented in the contemplator’s memory. MultidimensionalCUT provides an integrative framework for examining prior knowledge, present experience and future predictions.
The draft separates two possibilities: changes in ordinary recall and inference, and correspondence with information deliberately concealed from the participant. Dossier learning is a practical measure of available person knowledge; it does not demonstrate a particular neural pathway.
The pilot’s bridge assumptionA freshly randomised symbol is associated with a historical person’s dossier. The proposal assumes this new association could be accessible through the hypothesised process, even though the symbol was never part of that person’s lifetime knowledge. Agreement to test this surrogate does not establish that it represents the broader hypothesis faithfully.
A future test of authentic, previously inaccessible historical knowledge would need a separate design and authenticated sources. This pilot’s 25% target null would not automatically apply to it.
Interactive design explorer
Two instructions × two learning conditions.
Choose a condition to see its preparation, instruction and role. The proposed design assigns 24 people to each instruction; each person completes both learning conditions.
Mettā contemplation × Enriched learning
Preparation: Study this person’s dossier for three minutes and complete a retrieval exercise on Day 0. Delayed recognition is checked the next day.
Instruction, summarised: Bring the person to mind with goodwill and compassion, noticing thoughts and images without treating them as messages or facts.
Comparison: This is the focal condition: its trained-person accuracy is compared with the 25% target null and with ordinary reflection after the same learning.
24participants in this arm8planned trials each in this learning condition192planned opportunities in this cell
Choose the question being tested
MT > 25% AND MT > RT
Does the focal condition beat both benchmarks?
The draft requires both one-sided tests to pass at p ≤ 0.025, positive contrasts, completed denominators and clean integrity checks. The first tests correspondence with random targets; the second tests the instruction contrast at participant level. Passing would warrant independent replication, not identify an information source.
Design explainer only. These panels display proposed comparisons, not participant data or simulated findings.
The proposed sequence
One fixed plan. All outcomes retained.
- Prepare and learn. Propose 48 adults, randomly allocated 24/24 to the two instructions. Each encounters eight fixed historical-person dossiers: four receive enriched learning, four a name and neutral cue. The dossier set and answer keys still need completion and review.
- Return the next day. After 24 ± 4 hours, check recognition and give the assigned five-minute instruction. Duration, setting and reminders are matched. Sacred geometry remains part of the webpage’s contemplative context; it is absent from both experimental conditions to avoid adding another variable.
- Make 16 locked choices. Each person cue appears twice, with a fresh concealed assignment each time. All targets are selected before responses. The planned total is 768 opportunities, with 192 in each of MT, MU, RT and RU.
- Measure ordinary cognition separately. Fixed recall and inference questions follow the hidden trials. Confidence, felt connection and free responses are recorded separately from exact target accuracy.
- Stop as planned. Stop at 48 randomised participants or eight weeks after first enrolment, whichever comes first. No replacement of withdrawals or extension based on accuracy. An incomplete sample is descriptive under this candidate.
Blinding & independent scoring
Keep the hidden assignment genuinely hidden.
For each participant–person–trial, an isolated custodian independently selects one of four symbols: circle, triangle, square or plus. Under the intended independence and concealment assumptions, the chance of matching that new assignment is 1/4. The symbols can be familiar; the concealed assignment carries the uncertainty.
| Stage | What is fixed or concealed? |
|---|---|
| Before the response | Commit each target with a fresh secret salt and independently verified timing. Keep truth off the participant’s device and response system. A plain hash of one of four symbols would be guessable. |
| During the trial | Lock free text before showing the four response alternatives. Record one choice or abstention; provide no correctness feedback. Facilitators have no target truth. |
| Before unmasking | Freeze responses, status records and analysis code. Two independent raters review de-identified text while masked to condition and target. Free text is descriptive and cannot rescue an incorrect symbol choice. |
| After the locks | Verify commitments and join keys, then compute exact matches. Two analysts independently reproduce scores and primary conclusions. Record breaches and missing opportunities; leakage blocks a positive interpretation. |
Participants know which instruction they hear, so instruction blinding is incomplete. Expectancy, attention and strategy remain possible explanations for an instruction effect. The target custodian, session staff, raters and analysts have separate access roles in the full draft.
Predictions before results
What would count as a pilot signal?
The candidate requires both MT above 25% and MT above RT, with one-sided p-values ≤ 0.025, positive contrasts, the completed denominator and the integrity and feasibility criteria met. The second comparison randomises whole participants, preserving their repeated trials.
For the first test alone, 61 verified hits out of 192 planned MT opportunities reach the proposed threshold. That count by itself is insufficient: the instruction comparison and all integrity criteria must also pass. This feasibility pilot has limited sensitivity to small effects.
Timeouts, abstentions and invalid receipts remain visible in the planned-opportunity ledger. They contribute no verified success in the conservative primary calculation. Valid-observation results and missing-data bounds accompany it, subject to consent and withdrawal rights.
MT beats chance, but not RT
The draft’s mettā-specific criterion is unmet. Any clean departure from the target null deserves an audit and replication, without choosing a preferred mechanism.
Both primary comparisons pass
A pilot signal for independent replication, if integrity is sound. It does not identify a historical communicator, establish consciousness as fundamental or demonstrate a 7D storage substrate.
A clean, precise null
Can constrain a prospectively specified effect under these conditions. An imprecise null is inconclusive; a symbol-task result does not settle every version of the broader spiritual hypothesis.
Connecting the inquiry to 7D
A physical model needs distinctive predictions.
The capacity explorer defines mathematical encodings. To connect one to consciousness would require a specified substrate, state variables, encoding and readout, dynamics, neural coupling, noise and energy constraints, plus predictions that differ from competing accounts.
If a 7D-source model and another information-access model predict the same outcomes, this experiment cannot distinguish them. Sacred geometry, semantic resemblance and felt connection can inform interpretation, but they do not supply that missing physical measurement.
Before a study could begin
Complete, review and preregister.
The remaining work is concrete: finish the stimulus and instruction appendices; specify necessary conditions and a minimum meaningful effect; obtain independent methods, security and appropriate ethics review; implement and audit the concealed-target system; and freeze the registration, consent and data plan.
This public explainer reuses the existing protocol candidate. It does not launch the study, collect responses or change the draft’s review status.
Protocol Candidate v0.1, 18 October 2026 · source revision 436c600 · AI-assisted public explanation. Reference calculations use synthetic inputs; they are not study results or independent validation. The fixed source link preserves what this page summarises if the working draft later changes.