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Baby Astronaut, No. I don't think so. If we had that we would already be using it. I think its the real stuff, we already do, and don't give it enough credit. It is so natural and obvious, we don't even consider it as special. Take your example of a bunch of people having the same idea at the same time. Someone can write a book, or have an insight they express to others, or a new discovery can be made, or a certain event can happen that makes the world press, and everybody thinks about it. The new thing immediately becomes part of everybodies thinking. If its real, if it fits, if it explains stuff and makes sense, then it immediately and naturally becomes part of everybodies thinking. Conversations at the dinner table, classroom discussions, op ed pieces, Yahoo headlines, all include the new insight, the new real thing that has come to our attention. Everybody (well a big bunch of people) now has this new thing to integrate into their thinking. It might have an aspect that gives some shoemakers an idea, or some neuro scientists, or some snow boarders, or some ad agents on Madison Avenue, or a social worker. Someone will draw an analogy to their field of work, or an analogy to something they have been thinking about, and WA LA, 6 people come up with the same idea, at the same time. At this point, everybody else says, "well duh, why didn't I think of that." And the next day "well everybody knows that." I think this is how ideas about the real world work. The true things, the facts, don't belong to any one person, they belong to anybody that notices. And nobody thinks in a vacuum, they have new insights as they learn stuff, but most are not brand new, they are built off the shared insights of other people that came before them, and those that are in their world now. Other people have had the same insight. Drawn the same analogy. Seen the same possibility. And once you have an insight, you cannot easily "unhave" it. It gets incorporated into your thinking, and stays there, as long as it works, and remains true. Interesting however, that certain insights can only be had by people that have had a certain set of prerequisite insights. That have read a certain book, or studied the insights of people in a particular field, or sect, or group. Very interesting. Shakes one of the tenents of my worldview "that truth is accessible to everyone." Might have to reevaluate that one. Seems that certain insights might not look like truth to someone who has not had the prerequisite insights. Someone who has not been schooled in that field. Thoughts, not everybody can have with the same ease, would be very hard to share automatically. The kind of instant communication possible, between people that know each other, and that have the same background of insights, would not be available, outside that group. Regards, TAR

Jillswift, I had not considered that my line of thought was based more on redefining telepathy than on discussing whether telepathy was logical or not. You just pointed it out to me. I think the arguments and facts and logic, that have been brought up in this thread, make it rather clear, that the physical transfer of a thought in my head, transmitted over some yet to be discovered physical medium, or some aspect of a currently understood medium, and received, intact, in your head, is not possible. Such a coherent signal could be intercepted and decoded by anyone, and there is no evidence that such a signal could exist. It has been looked for and not only has it not been found, but it makes no sense that it would be there. However, I am asking permission to explore the reasons why we do know what other people are thinking. How we accomplish this feat, without an interceptable signal between us. It is not magic. There is an explanation and a mechanism. There has to be, it cannot be happening by magic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia So perhaps this discussion in my mind, or the wiggle room I am suggesting, is centered around what a thought is, in the first place. Qualia, or a quale, by their/its very nature, are/is a, private, non-transferrable experiences/experience. If a thought in my head is considered as such, then there is not any way it can "get out", much less be transmitted and reexperienced in its exactitude in another person. I can put myself in your shoes, but I can't have your qualia. I have to have my qualia of what I imagine your qualia is. And this translation is going to be incomplete. Your thought is a JillSwift thought, and a TAR cannot have this quale. I have to piece together all sorts of TAR quale to build a representation of the JillSwift qualia you are experiencing. Its an analogy, built on analogies. TAR to JillSwift, translations. I cannot have your thought, but the question is, can I have a reasonable facimile thereof. Can some functional attributes of JillSwift qualia be reconstructed in TAR's brain, out of TAR quale, and be close enough, for government work? If so, then we can communicate without using the airwaves. I have a local image of JillSwift, built out of TAR quale that I can talk to, and imagine immediately, I can imagine what my image of you would think if you read this or that, and what your response might be. I could be completely wrong, or partially right, it depends on how complete and functionally accurate my analogy of you, is. In anycase, I don't have your qualia, and there is no way I could. And the analogy of JillSwift qualia built out of TAR qualia in TAR's head is no where near the actual qualia that JillSwift is experiencing. Just might have an occasional analogue. Regards, TAR

Jillswift, I thought we had already agreed that telepathy as characterized in the OP was illogical. We agreed that magical, unreal things are not logical. People can not sense other peoples thoughts by magic, without a mechanism. My drift, was to ask if we have accounted for ALL the mechanisms by which we communicate. I know this is goal post moving, but I thought it was consensual. I made a mistake. Sorry. Regards, TAR

Edtharan, But we evolved the ability to share memes. Although instant mind to mind communication at a distance is illogical, since there is no mechanism to transmit a thought, carry the thought and receive the thought, and there is no way for me to transmit this exact series of characters [hide]k&jjn3hd059[/hide] to anyone elses mind, without using the senses, I don't know if that covers what many people are talking about, when they use the term telepathy. "Apparent communication, without using the senses" leaves some wiggle room, that does not require a fool proof, exact communication mechanism. Functional telepathy is achieved, I would argue, when a thought that is in my head, also is in your head. Sort of prearranged communication. If you become aware of a thought, and I become aware of a thought, and it is a very similar thought, could that be considered "communication"? When a wolf pack hunts its prey, there is a certain strategy that is understood amoungst the pack. When we watch the hunt, there is apparent communication without the use of the senses. Reflexes and actions, instinctual behavior, is built in, prearranged by evolution, and on top of that, the members of the pack have learned their roles by watching others, and take up the role that is pertinent at the moment. They are not communicating with walkie talkies, there is no magical power giving them instant communication. It's built in communication, allowing certain complex behavior to be understood wolf to wolf. Why would we not have some variations on this same facility? Regards, TAR

I watched the video with no sound, and was trying to pay attention to everything, that all the people were doing, I noticed the bear on the replay but I had completely missed the lettering across the screen informing me that I was supposed to be counting the passes of the white team. I wasn't even doing the test, and I passed/failed. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergednor did I notice on the first play of the video that there were two "teams". Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedJillswift, I am a bit slow. Just got your Shiny joke.

And important, to parsing the definition's application, is that it does not limit our love to people, but to entities. Therefore someone that hates themselves, has taken a particular perspective at that moment, where some aspect of his/her identity is hated. "I hate my job", "I hate when I do that", "I hate this feeling", "I hate thinking about it". Here the hate is toward a particular entity, some aspect of your life that you wish to eliminate. What you are doing, or feeling or thinking. Sometimes the entity is internal to your skin, sometimes it is an imagined entity, an entity which you are putting yourself in the shoes of. Interesting to note at this point is that Maslow built his heirachy based on exemplary individuals. Successful individuals whose feeling of belonging was focused upward on the heirachy. And hence it could be argued that their focus on entities that also existed outside their skin, was aligned with their success. Thus the heirachy is both an explaination and a guide. Side note. Acceptance of fact is up in the pinnacle triangle. This establishes the extreem importance of science as an entity which one can love. Facts that other people have arrived at, that are true and real. Identifying with the process and the people gives you a perspective, an entity to belong to, that trancends that which is inside your skin. Regards, TAR

Grandpa, You are right. The corrollary doesn't work. That sort of weakens the initial definition. Huh. Not so true as I thought. Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedGrandpa, Well wait, it might still work. Indifference is possibly half way on the continuum between love and hate. Sort of in the area were you could go one way or the other with it. Or you like some aspects of something, and dislike others, and you wind up feeling (or thinking) that you could take it or leave it. I love peanut butter cups, I hate raw octopus, and I'm sort of indifferent to brussel sprouts (some are sweet and tasty, some are bitter and unsavory but I don't either not eat them or seek to eat them.) You have your loves and hates, your likes and dislikes, and then the middle ground, the indifferent stuff. This morning, looking up "drives" and "needs" I ran across our old friend Maslow and his heirarchy of needs. I had learned about this back when I was going to school, and done a lot of thinking around it and based on it, sort of well integrated into my thinking, but I noticed something interesting about it today. Love/Belonging is sitting there right in the middle of the whole equation. Your identity, your self, who you are, to yourself, and to others, is sitting there, right in the middle of the heirarchy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs Take a look, at the hierachy again, humoring me, and my definition. Keep in mind just an evolved primate, the brain mechanisms, the basic equipment all healty humans have. Just give yourself the part of the brain that rewards and punishes itself, the part of the brain that can imagine others being rewarded and punished, and a mechanism and place in the brain to store/remember good and bad stuff and a mechanism for choosing (to promote/demote or accept/ignore). Look the heirachy over. And give me a second opinion on my definition. (better, same or worse score allowed.) Regards, TAR

Bascule, OK, I'll pull my head out of my fMRI. There is no evidence of any mechanism that would provide for direct brain to brain communication. We work based on real stuff. And the way we think is based on real stimuli coming in. And us processing it, to form our perspective, to form our consciousness and our thoughts. I completely agree that telepathy is illogical. But it is the definition that makes it so. And it points out a weakness IMO in both the thinking of the people that believe in telepathy and the people that know it can not be so. In the following manner. Functionally, we know a whole lot about what other people are thinking, by virtue of the fact that we each are the same collection of stuff, put together in the same arrangement, by our common evolution. The built in functionality repeats itself in your mind and my mind. We both are touched by the sight of a dog mothering a kitten, for the same reasons. The same combination of simple brain mechanisms are firing away in both cases. We both know basically the kinds of things the other is thinking and feeling. We can read each other's mind. Direct communication. With no transfer of energy required. No sender and receiver. Just two minds, experiencing stimuli, and noticing by looking at the smile on the other's face, that we both are getting the same thoughts and feelings from the situation. The barrier constructed during the test of telepathy, takes away the ability to read the other person by all those other ways, body language, pheromones, eye movement, body heat, facial expressions, head tilt and other subtle, subconsciouly noticed clues. The reciever is not allowed to experience the exact situation the other is in. Long distance telepathy is explained by the common knowledge and known focal points. You know Aunt Martha might call because something is happening in the world that would make Aunt Martha WANT to call you and you know she knows you are home and probably have finished dinner. You can even know what the conversation will be about. No magic is involved, but people have a million ways to figure out, consciously and unconciously, what might be going on in another's mind. Believers in telepathy are wrong to think that magical mechanisms are at work. Disbelievers in telepathy are wrong to think we have to understand all the mechanisms, before instant communication can be considered real. Both the believers and the disbelievers are exactly right. There is just a difference on how instant communication is understood. And each group, believes the other isn't getting it. I posted the singing sun link, to point out, that not being a sun, or a planet, we don't know if or how suns and planets think, or what exactly that would mean. They do not have our brains, we do not have their arrangement. But the sun is singing on a time scale we are not familiar with, that we don't normally pay attention to. Doesn't mean we haven't been listening, since the beginning on some level we have not sorted out and understood yet. Regards, TAR

Edtharan, If your definition of Telepathy reads "direct communication between brains in an impossible way". Then no tests need be performed. The definition predetermines the outcome. But I am a bit confused by you saying that "no effect" has been found, and talking about "we would see it happening" if it was. When people experienced in fMRI, and knowledgeable of the areas of the brain responsible for and associated with various brain functions and the corresponding kinds of thoughts that are associated with activation in certain patterns, see a particular pattern of activation, in response to certain stimuli, they can say "that person is pleased, or making a negative judgement, or remembering a similar experience." They are "reading" that persons mind. They couldn't make these determinations if they didn't have the ability themselves, in their own brain to be pleased, or make a negative judgement, or remember experiences. And if you showed the same pattern of areas of the brain lighting up to someone not familiar with areas of the brain, and their functions, they might conclude "gee, that's neat." And think the researcher was using some form of impossible magic to think he/she could read the subject's thoughts. Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedOK Mr. Mindreader Reseacher. Let me see you read that subject's mind without looking at the fMRI! Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedhttp://solar-center.stanford.edu/singing/

Mr. Skeptic, Well then how about this correlary. Hate is when you exclude someone from your feeling of self. I have not read any Douglas Hofstadter, but I do believe I am thinking along his lines. Guess we all are. He sounds (from Wiki) to be a very interesting guy. Very bright, and very accomplished. Sounds like he has already explored the avenues I'm trying to go down. Makes me feel sort of good though, that my thoughts seem to fit well with his (from the little I have read.) As if, perhaps I am looking at it, as it really is. As for the love/hate and self referencial mechanisms, I think it works. We have the experience of successful, rewarding, good stuff, and painful bad stuff, all internalized. The bad stuff is parked away in an area we don't pay too much attention to, and the good stuff is readily focused upon. Sort of what we choose to remember, and what we choose to forget. We make our analogies to the good stuff that builds, and fits and creates, feels good, and we find truth and beauty there. We make our analogies to the bad stuff that tears down, is out of place, destroys, is painful and we find falseness and uglyness there. And this internal brain arrangement is reflected in the things we create and the way we view them, and the way they "loop back" and effect us. Our Cathedrals and Dungeons. Our Olympics and our World Wars. Our Universities and our homes for the insane. Our factories, and our garbage dumps. Interesting to me is the role of perspective, the choice of point of view, that reverses the roles of the people on the field wearing blue and gold, and the ones in red and white. Competitive sports seem to let us play out the battle with a minimum of harm, and shared good on another level (health, teamwork, good sportsmanship, etc.) Yet the winning and losing is there, the good and the bad feelings are real. I identify with my team, and they are good, I include them in my feeling of self, I love them, feel bad when they lose, and good when they win. They play for their fans and their fans cheer for them. A self referencial loop, on a number of levels. But my Yankees are hated in Boston, and embody all that is evil as far as Red Sox fans are concerned. Interesting. Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged"Hate is when you exclude someone from your feeling of self." Correcting myself. It should have been, "Hate is when you exclude another entity from your feeling of self.

Forufes, Couple angles here. If telepathy is defined by someone as a magical, impossible, method of communication, then it is not logical. If telepathy is defined by someone as communication between people in ways that are not apparent, then it could be logical. Take "brainwaves" for instance. What do we mean by brainwaves? Electromagnetic waves? On what frequencies? Over what time period. If information is embedded in the infrared pattern that our bodies are emitting, and another body can sense the pattern, and the brain in that body can interpret the message and be aware thereby, of something about the state of the first brain, could that be considered as "direct" communication? Or, what if communication between two brains is acheived by removing or modulating a signal that is normally present and constant. Our equipment wouldn't pick up a signal that was absent. Or might not be tuned to the constant frequency. Our equipment may be looking for an amplitude modulation, when the modulation is in the frequency, or vice a versa. And in anycase, our equipment is operating out of context, looking for a change in a particular one thing, when many things might be changing in ways that another brain can put together, subconciously and become conscious of when the pattern is repeated or unique. Another aspect to consider, in the tests of telepathy, is that in the test, barriers are constructed that might accidentally confound the mechanism. And the information to be passed is usually perceptually based symbolic, specific information, like color and shape. Requiring the receiver to experience the thought of this color and shape, which would require the same set of rods and cones to be stimulated in the same complex manner, which is obviously, not going to happen. Regards, TAR

JillSwift, I don't disagree with what you are saying. But my definition was softer, and I think more realistic, than considering that to love someone you become that person, or to love your garden, you become your garden. It was intented to reveal, the "chosen identity" nature of love. I love the Yankee's, or I love reading, or I love my country, or I love humanity, or I love my wife. Means something when I say it. I cannot for instance actually love all of humanity, I don't even know most of them, and there is a bunch I don't even know about. But I can consider how I am related to the primordial scum from which life on Earth, and how different life forms exist, some to my benefit and some to my detriment, and side with the ones the most like me, the human ones, when it would come to a decision between the life of a rat, and the life of human. I can be thankful of the sacrifices and efforts of other humans, in creating and maintaining the civilization, and technology I enjoy. I can identify with humans, and include all of them in my feeling of self, if I want to. I am not claiming they ARE part of me, just exploring the actual meaning of the word love, when I use it, in relation to humanity. For "I love my wife" there are additional connections, sharing a bed, and a house and 27 some years of experience, children, houses, memories, finances etc. I consider her a big part of me. I would feel incomplete would she no longer be in my life. I include her, in my feeling of self. I know I am not her, and she is not me. I wasn't trying to define anything magic or impossible. I was trying to give a real definition, that explained the word, based on what is actually scientifically happening in your brain, when we use the word. Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedMr. Skeptic, Thanks for the mirror neuron link. Interesting stuff. Here is one, gives some nice insight on the difficulties of separating signal and noise from fMRIs and how double dipping often makes the result of such studies seem stronger than they might be. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106235924 Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedMr. Skeptic, Wouldn't you think empathy and mirror neurons and such are related to ones feeling of self? Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedI guess what I am trying to stay away from is a separtion of the idea of self, from all the things that create the feeling in the first place. There isn't actually a soul, separate from the body and the brain and the heart. One's soul, oneself is created from the existence of the body, brain and heart. You are you. Regards, TAR

JillSwift, Well yes, I suppose you are right. I wasn't suggesting an identity loss, however, more of an identity expansion. It is difficult to think of yourself objectively. I mean, certainly you can watch a movie of yourself, and think "jeez I didn't think I looked like that to other people, my hair is parted on the wrong side?, and look at my posture!" But you can't have a thought of yourself that isn't happening inside your person. What I was trying to consider is how the brain works, stimuli comes in, and somehow once in, the brain can imagine that it's OUTSIDE? Whatever you as JillSwift, might be seeing, standing next to me, is an image in YOUR brain, an interpretation of the stimuli, constructed out of chemicals and neuron activity and arrangements. You have learned what the world is like, from your perspective. We could agree on what we are seeing cause we use the same language and we are seeing the same objects that we both have learned were called trees and clouds and such. But there is a JillSwift in my scene, and a TAR in your scene. You don't see JillSwift's eyes, and I don't see TAR's. You can achieve an "objective" view of yourself, by considering yourself in my shoes, and imagining what I am seeing. But this imagining is still occurring in your'e brain. You have JillSwift's brain's internalized scene, and a second perspective you take from that small area of your brain Rebbeca Saxe showed us, that allows you to put yourself in someone else shoes. There hence is a real way, that what you see, is actually part of you. The shape, the form, the color, all the characteristics of the things you see and hear, and smell and touch, are reconstructed in an analog fashion, in your brain, by your brain. And with reference to that second perspective, you can also have, as part of you, in your brain, a picture of what it is that TAR is picturing. The separation, the identity is not clear cut. Your perspective, and your brain are undoubtably yours. My perspective and my brain and the pictures therein are undoubtably mine. The feeling of self could easily be defined as ending at the outside of your skin. That your body, heart and mind are you... and then there is everything else. But that "everything else", all the sights and sounds and smells and feelings, memories and thoughts and thoughts of memories, that you consider to be outside of you, where all internalized and noticed, within your skin, by you. They are a part of you. As easy as it is to define yourself as that which is inside your skin, it is easy to say that you contain all that you have experienced. And what of that that you have experienced, you consider part of yourself, is pretty much a matter of choice of the perspective you wish to take. What matters to you, what you pay attention to, who you want to please, what you want to protect, what you want to enjoy, which entities you are including in your feeling of self, which entities you love. Regards, TAR

iNow, What aspect are you considering now? (to get us back on track) Regards, TAR

iNow, Well the Abrahamic religions are just an example of how Moses and Jesus and Mohammed utilized the mechanisms present in all their followers. Guided them. Told the story, everybody already knew, in a way that would make them all kindred minds, working together, sharing, looking out for each other, under the same rules, laws and common judge. In each religion, the principle is the same. Just the names change, the story and the characters change. But the principle is the same. Basic human/primate brain mechanisms, arranged to be rewarded by belief in a story. Since "the Enlightenment" another story is being written. Sort of a concensus secular story, built on facts that everybody has access to. No special membership required. But still its basic human brain mechanisms, arranged to be rewarded by belief in a story. I have learned a lot from this thread about the science, the facts, the mechanisms that have been hijacked to form religions, and the belief in dieties. They are applicable to all areas of human endeavor, they are applicable to all my personal thoughts and emotions. Its good to have the knowledge and the insights into my own mind, my own emotions, my own prejudice and hatred. It gives me insight into the beliefs and feelings and intentions of others. Truth is a good thing, and easily shared. It's pleasing to me to imagine it pleasing others. I'm sorry I keep going tangential on you, it's sort of my way of saying "thanks for the insight" and trying to reciprocate. Regards, TAR

JillSwift, Well I like it, but I have eight years of fitting stuff into my definition, so I have sort of confirmational bias, but consider this. When, to an outsider, a person sacrifices something to another (the beloved), it seems that the sacrificer is the loser, and should feel bad, and the receiver is the winner and should feel good. But in operation the beloved is part of the lover. The pleasure of the beloved is pleasure to the loved. I feel good when I make someone else feel good. I feel good when someone I consider kindred is successful. Who feels better when a gift is given? The giver or the receiver? Both feel good, no matter which feels better. Unless the gift stinks, or is inappropriate. But often it is said that "it is the thought that counts." To know someone is thinking of you, feels good, and it is a reciprical kind of thing. But I like the "feeling of self" idea, in this reciprical context. Consider the use of the word our or the word my. Possession. Including that entity to which you refer, in your feeling of self. My body, my brain, my worldview, my wife, my family,my hobby, my house, my work, my company, my town, my classmates, my coworkers, my friends, my college, my party, my religion, my country, my culture, my race, my species, my world, my solar system, my universe. Those entities which you love, you consider yours. You include them in your feeling of self. Doesn't mean they have to love you back. In some cases they do in the same way. In some cases not. But the idea is the same. This is where I saw the scientific underpinings of my definition, yesterday. That the same brain mechanisms are being used in all cases. The frontal area behind and above your eyes is rewarding you with chemicals. Making you feel good, when you have something else, other than you in mind. Regards, TAR

iNow, I think I was thinking that. But I might have been trying to phrase it a little differently. That is that our natural, inherited, mechanisms are very simple, basic animal type mechanisms, pleasure and pain, things to strive to maintain, and things to avoid. Find food, water and shelter, avoid being eaten, avoid danger, mate, have pups, protect them, mimick the elders and the successful, and teach your pups how to survive. And pass on the genes that made it work. Fish do it, trees do it(sans the mimicking and teaching), wolves do it. All forms of life have adapted to their surroundings in a way that allowed them to be successful(live) avoid failure (death) and survive to pass on their successful pattern, to the next generation. The genes, the simple chemical mechanisms, in our brain, making us feel good when we see the form of the opposite sex and smell their pheremons, bad when we are separated from them. The sustainance and wamth of our mother, the protection from prey and intruders that would use our resources of our father. These are the neural mechanisms we have in common with other primates. They would dictate grouping into a family and perhaps an extended family troop. But no more. These basic simple mechanisms would have to be hijacked/used (by us) to form religions, empires, cultures and civilizations. Each of us is aware we are alive, we have the neural mechanisms to recognize kin, to know mother and father, to feel pleasure and pain, to thereby distinquish between good and bad, strive to maintain and promote the good, and avoid and eliminate the bad. These mechanisms have to be hijacked/used (by us) to form the concept of all that is good (God) and all that is evil (devil.) Regards, TAR

Martin, Thank you. You've hit all the points I'm having touble with. Not that I have been able to put my hand together, but all the cards are at least on the table. I am going to have to think a few things though. Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedMartin, I can't get my head around the diagram you prefer. I guess that is the Hubble formula one. I like the special relativity one better. The infinite universe, starting from a finite density and I would suppose, volume, just doesn't sit right with me. I try and imagine it and it, and I just can't make it add up. On the other hand, if you allow for an edge, even if we can't see it yet, or ever, it is somehow more imaginable. And then if you put most of what we can observe, way at the edge of our observable universe, too far and redshifted to get a good resolution picture of, with our current tools, it seems to make good logical Euclidean sense, with some relativity time slowing and forshortening thrown in to see how things should add up. Regards TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedMartin, Can you help me with the angular distance thing? I'm considering a sphere of stuff (even though its just a bunch of hot dense hydrogen, hasn't gone nuclear yet) 48 million lys from our (stuff that will be the Milkyway) region of space, in the year 380,000 (time of last scattering), that measures 1 degree in diameter, (would cover that portion of our sky). Now we can't see it yet in the year 380,000 cause the universe just went transparent. It's first light won't reach us, for 13.73billion years, cause the space between us is expanding very rapidly. When the image of that region of space reaches us now, for the first time, will it cover exactly a one degree in diameter area of our sky? (maybe I should not consider a 3 dimensional sphere, but a disc facing us to form a circle, slightly concave, so all points on the disc were the same distance from us at the year 380,000) Regards, TAR

Mr Skeptic, Whether intellectual based, phermonially based, or partial, it's still including another entity in your feeling of self. Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedInfact Agape, is in a way, including the bad stuff you have in the dorsal area of your brain, in your feeling of self. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged(love thine enemy as thy self)

Came up with a definition of love about 8 years ago. Based on some philosopical thoughts about consciousness, and general musings, and I just looked at it again, from a scientific brain mechanism point of view and think it might be right. "Love is when you include another entity in your feeling of self." What do you think? Regards, TAR

??? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergediNow, Thought I sort of summed it up nicely. What are you after? Regards, TAR

iNow, Here is an interesting one. http://www.medicineonline.com/news/12/4472/Brain-Scans-Get-at-Roots-of-Prejudice.html I'll probably seem like old tangential TAR again. But there is a method to my madness. This goes back to "putting yourself in the other's shoes" When you recognize kin, you see yourself in them and them in you. When you don't recognize someone of the same species as kin, part of your pack, possible competitors for resources, or deadly enemies, you put them in the bad dorsal area, in with the bad painful stuff, in the enemy category. You are not interested in pleasing them, you are interested in eliminating them or avoiding them. Fight or flight. Members of a group, are kin, and those outside the group are evil things. Family, friends, your high school's team, your company, your county, your religion, your political party, people that speak your language or engage in your culture, are people who you think of as you think of yourself. People whose shoes you can walk in, who you can imagine how they think. Kin. Others might not have your best interests in mind, and you think of them in the dorsal area. Regards, TAR P.S. Likely to bring you pleasure, and who you want to please, as opposed to those who might have other things in mind, other than you. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedP.P.S. The Biblical Religions, Jewish, Christian and Muslim hijack/utilize these mechanism, and make all the believers kin. The holy father, the leader of the pack, who will punish those who go against the pack. And all the members of the family are children of God. Believers and non-believers, the strongest theme in the Koran. And if I might add, just to be objective, the way some secular humanists, who can't quite see how religious people can believe what they believe, can't see how they can think what they think, can't put themselves in their shoes, see them as an impediment to human unity, and stick them in the dorsal area.

Forufes, I think I am catching your drift on the "definition" part of this. If one parses the definition literally it says, if you deprive two individuals of any sensory information about the other, random symbolic information, cannot be transferred magically from one mind to another. On this score, the tests of telepathy have shown no magic. Anyone claiming to have such magic ability, can readily be disproven. Anyone able to determine something about what the other is thinking, by picking up a subtle cue of some sort, can be thwarted by depriving him of the sense he used to pick up the clue. No magic. However. Happens all the time. Posada(the catcher) "knows" when runners are on the move how Jeter(the shortstop) is going to break, and where and when to throw the ball, because they have been together, playing baseball for a long time. As a scientist, I would say nothing magical occurred. But apparent communication from one mind to the other, and back again, was occuring without using sensory perception. They knew what the other was going to do, before they did it. There was no visible sign, no audible signal that the camera or the fans could see or, nobody but Jeter and Posada knew the break and the throw were about to happen. Now certainly the situation was visible to all, so sensory perceptions were in use. And most probably a small body lean, or a subconciously picked up attitude, or a few inches closer to second than Jeter would normally stand in that situation, and an extra foot lead that the runner was taking, tipped Posada off as to what was on Jeter's mind, and that he was about to break, and Jeter knew Posada would throw. No magic. But communication. When two people know each other, and they are not in the same location. They can know what the other person is thinking without using magic. They know the mode of operation of the other. They know how the other thinks, their likes and dislikes. They know the situation. Apparent communication without using sensory perception in this situation is not surprising or unbelievable or magic. The keys, as you said, are already in our hand, it's just so obvious and normal, that any communication we have, that doesn't use overt sight and sound, we don't consider as magic. Regards, TAR

iNow, We are born with the apparatus that at some point develops into, or is hijacked by religion. I was asking, in the same way that children's ability to put themselves into someone elses shoes develops in the 3-5 range. Is there a age at which children exhibit thoughts or ruminations about god? Is there a time when children take on imaginary friends? Is there a time when a conscience develops? As the inate ability to assign agency to the moving grass, to avoid being eaten, developed in our species way back, and this mechanism might be hijacked or adapted for imagining persons to talk to and keep you company, and please you, so other mechanisms, selected for throughout our evolution, are put into use in all the things we do, as humans. Each mechanism that is used for religious thought, probably has other current day uses as well. I was trying to look at each thing we do as permutations of the simple understandable reward mechanism, interacting with the ability to put yourself in another's shoes, and build our species up from rudimentary brain functions, to the complex brain functions and social interactions we exhibit, today. As a child gains body recognition, body control, memory, lessons, language, symbols, other's shoes, values, rules, imaginary friends, authority figures, thoughts of the infinite, awareness of mortality, ways of thinking, and roles to play in a certain order as the brain developes and patterns are reinforced, this order might be analogous to the order in which the underlying required mechanisms were selected for, in our species. Even if the order is wrong, the fact remains that we couldn't do it, if evolution had not selected for the underlying mechanism. To this end, the simpler the underlying mechanism is, the easier it is to comprehend the subsequent development of the functions derived from them. Regards, TAR

iNow, Well yes, it does address what I am asking. At what age do you figure children entertain "religious" thoughts? Regards, TAR