Telepathy is not illogical...

[Baby Astronaut]

In order for a person to have functional telepathy, i.e. receive brain signals and encounter others with the same brain function, theirs would have to be mutated into a receiver.

 

However I doubt telepaths would make claims of any telepathic "powers". The reasons are simple.

 

First...anyone making claims of telepathy would be acting on ego.

 

Thus wouldn't a telepath be above the need for such motivations, as they'd know everyone's most secret failures and doubts? Would you feel the need to impress or gain acceptance/praise from those who 24/7 show an inner lack of confidence and emotional baggage?

 

Not to mention.....they might have a clear idea how people would generally react to knowing about their powers, since mind reading would likely reveal it. And if the reaction is bad for their continued survival, you can bet not many would flaunt their powers.

[tar]

Thread,

 

Another aspect to human perception that we might want to inspect, is the importance of convention. What I mean, in reference to telepathy, is that there might be certain "abilities" that we have, that have been downplayed, purposefully, throughout our individual lives, and society's history, to enhance our social success, and our "sanity".

 

When we walk, inadvertantly, in on someone dressing, we avert our eyes, turn around, close the door, and apologize.

 

Perhaps, if there IS some real way that minds have, to communicate with each other, we have learned to avert our whatever, when appropriate. And it may be appropriate, to engage in such aversion, most of the time. After all, we know when not to listen to certain conversations, and we know when not to speak. If there is a real mechanism, that allows for communication between humans that is not audible or visible, it could well operate within some similar parameters as talking and signaling, in that mutual consent and common language have to be present.

 

In communicating with speech, the one's mouth has to be opened and the other's ears.

The sound waves have to be modulated in the right manner to form a language, words, that have an agreed upon, common meaning. Same with signals, the signs have to be made by the one, and properly interpreted by the other.

 

When I was very young, I'm told I would talk jibberish to my older sister, which was perfectly understandable to her, and merely jibberish to everybody else. For instance, even later, at the age of 4, my word for "shovel" was "yadee" ('cause I had trouble pronouncing "sh".) (maybe a word I carried over from my earlier vocabulary.)

 

Point being, that talking, though scientifically proven to be an actual form of human thought transferrence, only works when somebody is putting a thought into words, and somebody else is listening who understands the language. "Telepathy" if it exists as a real thing, could be subject to analogous barriers to communication that speech is subject to. The speaker can be silent, fibbing, whispering, shouting, talking jibberish, talking nonsense, misleading, relaying misinformation, joking, not being able to find the right words, talking in an unknown language, using specialized terminology or shorthand, to far away, muffled, or drowned out by other sounds. The listener could be deaf, not paying attention, listening to something else, unaware that they are being addressed, unknowledgable of the language being used, not familiar with the subject matter, not aware of the depth of meaning behind a word or reference, or simply not interested in hearing what the other has to say.

 

And perhaps we have learned to discount certain perceptions as figments of our imagination, that don't conform with societal norms.

 

Just a thought.

 

Regards, TAR

[Mag]

this is why with EEG and MEG scans they need to shave your head and put the sensorstight against the skin.

 

I haven't read the whole thread, so I don't know if anyone has corrected this or not.

But you can do an EEG without shaving the person's head. A gel is used to help the signal.

 

anyway, carry on.

[forufes]

body language, especially facial expressions, are most of the time done or "transmitted" without the person transmitting them notices..

 

they are also precieved or usually without the person precieving them notices, without him being aware that he is reading such language, and that such expressions are affecting him..

 

you look at the face of a guy who's speaking to you, and you just KNOW he's lying, you look to another, and you know he's telling the truth..those can be manupilated of course but that's not the point.

how do you know it's body language and facial expressions? because you can't tell when with the same guy on msn or reading his mail.

 

voice tones can be embedded with such information as well, information which is transmitted and received, and which is using a medium we sometime know, and sometimes don't.

 

telepathy can be the same, to one degree or another.

 

an english teacher once told us that the body transmits electromagnetic waves based on one's emotions.. how dogs know an earthquake is coming, is the same way they know a human who is facing them with no fear, and one who is scared shitless, albeit their appearances are the same..

 

others say dogs can "smell" fear.

 

bottom line, they know, one way or another, the medium isn't confirmed yet, but that's no reason to say it doesn't exist.

 

making telepathy not illogical.

 

some twins get sick at the same time even when they're in different continents..

 

you can feel someone is watching you even though you can't sense him in a normal way.

 

mothers intuition..

 

etc..

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

you can feel someone is watching you even though you can't sense him in a normal way.

How often do you think someone watches you and you don't feel anything?

 

Think about sitting in a crowded restaurant. At any given time someone is going to be looking at you, but do you feel it? And when you do feel it, there's going to be someone looking at you...

[forufes]

that could be "noise" occuring to the same medium your minds eye is operating on..

 

also, the feeling of being watched isn't necessarily linked to eyes being put on you, but rather an associated emotion that accompanies heavy surveillance, hence the feeling of "being watched"

[iNow]

that could be "noise" occuring to the same medium your minds eye is operating on..

 

also, the feeling of being watched isn't necessarily linked to eyes being put on you, but rather an associated emotion that accompanies heavy surveillance, hence the feeling of "being watched"

 

Or, much more likely... we over-remember the positive hits, and under-remember the negative ones. When we turn and see someone looking at us, it is much more perceptually salient than all of the thousands of other times when we turn and nobody is looking at us at all.

[bascule]

forufes, you need to propose a mechanism. Otherwise everything you say is meaningless. For example:

 

body language, especially facial expressions, are most of the time done or "transmitted" without the person transmitting them notices..

 

This is conveyed as electromagnetic radiation.

 

voice tones can be embedded with such information as well, information which is transmitted and received, and which is using a medium we sometime know, and sometimes don't.

 

We always know the medium by which sound is transmitted. The medium of sound is longitudinal waves in vibrating matter.

 

telepathy can be the same, to one degree or another.

 

Telepathy could be the same, if you proposed a mechanism. I believe earlier electromagnetic radiation was proposed as a mechanism.

 

If so, what sense organ receives these electromagnetic waves? We have one sense organ that can detect electromagnetic waves: the eyes. However, the eyes only operate on the wavelengths of visible light, which doesn't work very well for transmitting information through opaque objects like the Earth.

 

Humans could potentially be telepathic with the help of technology to provide the relevant "organs" for transmitting and receiving electromagnetic radiation.

[Mr Skeptic]

forufes, you need to propose a mechanism. Otherwise everything you say is meaningless.

 

Why is a known mechanism necessary? If he were able to consistently note when he was being observed (say in a room with a one way mirror), no mechanism is needed. Someone wanting to say how it works, on the other hand, would need a mechanism.

[bascule]

If he were able to consistently note when he was being observed (say in a room with a one way mirror)

 

The condition of your statement is that telepathy would have to be demonstrated under controlled conditions. Given that it hasn't, I think you've answered your own question.

[DrP]

Did anyone catch Derren Brown last week? (re. all birds moving as one, and sub conscious brain sync-ing) - He hypnotised a guy in a cafe using syncronisation and mirroring techniques (supposedly used by spys abroud in the war according to him - I don't actually know). It didn't work on the first woman, but a bloke came in and sat opposite him on another table. DB mirrored his movements body twitches and sips of coffe for about 15 mins untill he had the guy "in Sync" as he called it. THEN - he started instegating the movements and took the lead by doing things like reaching for the drink first and the target guy started to follow his every move. DB then started yawning and stretching and slouching and the guy started doing the same untill he dropped off - which is when DB jumped up, ran over and put hypnotic suggestions in his head to go and steal a tv from the shop down the road - which the guy attemped to do when he finnished his coffee. Very impressive - if a bit scary.

[forufes]

@ bascule:

as Mr. Skeptic said, i would define the mechanism ifi knew it, but think of it as electromagnetic waves for people in 1000AD, the mechanism (medium) was there all along and going and coming,but wasn't acknowledged yet, if you say 1000ad people knew what light was, then they didn't know what UV and IR is, a bee keeper knew his bees can go a long way and come back without getting lost, but didn't know how, same with bird hunters or keepers, actually, they might have even had an explanation, which was overwritten with the discovery of electromagnetic waves, which by turn might be overwritten by something else.

 

you said:

We always know the medium by which sound is transmitted. The medium of sound is longitudinal waves in vibrating matter.

and i agree..

but such waves are two dimensional, the same with how light waves were once thought to be, before being found to be actually two waves perpendicular to each other (or something like that:D) my point is, a new dimension was found, was discovered, which carried something that was always there, always in effect, but not acknowledged..

 

saying the human voice can be fully measured or "captured" by the longitudinal waves medium is like claiming that a camera can fully capture the beauty of a pretty meadow..the camera might capture the relevant spectrum of the electromagnetic waves reflecting from the meadow which makes it pretty, but there's still the smell of the flowers, the feeling of the air, the warmth of the sun, same with the human voice, except that we haven't yet named the "sun's warmth, the air's current, and the flowers' scent"..we don't know what they correlate to..

 

i think one of them can be telepathy..

 

the brain's activity can be captured as electrical pulses, but i think there's more to it than that, something our brains are sensetive enough to feel(emit and receive), but our "tools" aren't...yet.

 

something like resonance, just on a very different layer and concept than the known one.

 

 

but yeah, i know i'm clumsy in my posts , make them long and i feel i'm repeating myself, make them short and i feel some crucial things have been omitted..so any other pointers in presentation are welcome..

[Mr Skeptic]

...something our brains are sensetive enough to feel(emit and receive), but our "tools" aren't...yet.

 

something like resonance, just on a very different layer and concept than the known one.

 

Well yes, but you need either evidence or a mechanism (ideally both). Anyhow, our tools are far more sensitive to every known stimulus than our clumsy biological selves. How could our brain possibly detect anything our tools cannot?

[bascule]

i would define the mechanism ifi knew it, but think of it as electromagnetic waves for people in 1000AD, the mechanism (medium) was there all along and going and coming,but wasn't acknowledged yet

 

But this isn't 1000AD. We have a comprehensive, scientific understanding of how the natural world operates thanks to physics.

 

Are you suggesting that "telepathy", which can't be demonstrated under controlled conditions, uses something outside of present knowledge of physics?

 

saying the human voice can be fully measured or "captured" by the longitudinal waves medium is like claiming that a camera can fully capture the beauty of a pretty meadow..

 

You do realize longitudinal waves are what our ears receive, right? Are you suggesting to fully "capture" the human voice we use a sense organ other than our ears?

 

the camera might capture the relevant spectrum of the electromagnetic waves reflecting from the meadow which makes it pretty, but there's still the smell of the flowers, the feeling of the air, the warmth of the sun, same with the human voice, except that we haven't yet named the "sun's warmth, the air's current, and the flowers' scent"..we don't know what they correlate to..

 

i think one of them can be telepathy..

 

Okay, so you're saying the human voice has as-yet-unspecified additional properties which can only be explained by "telepathy". I don't know what to tell you, especially since you can't even name what it is you don't think can be explained.

 

We hear with our ears. End of story.

 

It sounds like you're conjecturing something which imparts emotion. Can people not be moved by a recording of a voice as they can by the real deal? Certainly no recording will ever match the fidelity of the source, but that doesn't mean recordings of peoples voices can't move people to tears.

[forufes]

Well yes, but you need either evidence or a mechanism (ideally both). Anyhow, our tools are far more sensitive to every known stimulus than our clumsy biological selves. How could our brain possibly detect anything our tools cannot?

ok, evidence and a mechanism...although i think my first examples were kinda evidence, but i'll try to give better ones.

as for the mechanism, i'll propose one, because i'm not claiming telepathy exists (though i think it should), but rather support the OP, of why it shouldn't be such a far fetched idea..

 

as for tools' sensitivity versus our biological, i was under the impression it was the other way around, no machine or device will reach the accuracy and efficiency of a live organ, never, i somehow imagine it how the tools are digital(go by 0s and 1s) and our biological senses are analog(?), so they are bound to be way more accurate, exactly like raster (digital) images and vector (biological) images..

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But this isn't 1000AD. We have a comprehensive, scientific understanding of how the natural world operates thanks to physics.

what about things that will be discovered in 3000AD?

where's the comprehensive understanding then?

 

Are you suggesting that "telepathy", which can't be demonstrated under controlled conditions, uses something outside of present knowledge of physics?

i guess so, yeah..

 

 

You do realize longitudinal waves are what our ears receive, right? Are you suggesting to fully "capture" the human voice we use a sense organ other than our ears?

no man, i don't know if you're doing this on purpose or not..

what i'm trying to make YOU realize is that longitudinal waves might not be the only things our ears hear, they're one layer, sure, but there could be other layers too, ones which get lost when for example you record the voice.

 

and so, to "fully" capture the human voice, nothing can be used best other than our ears.

 

Okay, so you're saying the human voice has as-yet-unspecified additional properties which can only be explained by "telepathy". I don't know what to tell you, especially since you can't even name what it is you don't think can be explained.

in the same way the human voice might have some yet unspecified additional properties, so can other organs and biological processes, like the brain and thinking, saying all there is to brain activity is electric pulses IMHO is like saying all there is to an artist's work are strokes of a brush..(bait)

 

We hear with our ears. End of story.

no we don't.

for example the following underlined sound, did you hear it with your ear?

 

 

(jk:-p)

It sounds like you're conjecturing something which imparts emotion. Can people not be moved by a recording of a voice as they can by the real deal? Certainly no recording will ever match the fidelity of the source, but that doesn't mean recordings of peoples voices can't move people to tears.

will they be moved by the two sounds to the same degree?

 

will the difference depend solely on sound fidelity?

[Mr Skeptic]

as for tools' sensitivity versus our biological, i was under the impression it was the other way around, no machine or device will reach the accuracy and efficiency of a live organ, never, i somehow imagine it how the tools are digital(go by 0s and 1s) and our biological senses are analog(?), so they are bound to be way more accurate, exactly like raster (digital) images and vector (biological) images..

 

Eh? Impressions are not evidence. Can your sophisticated brain, for example, beat a crude stick with markings on it for measuring distance? Was there a particular thing you think the brain can sense better than our tools?

 

What of our tools sometimes being digital? All that means is that it measures with 1's and 0's, but why would that be a problem? And if it were, wouldn't it also be a problem for our own senses, since they are also digital? Or do nerves transmit analogue signals (hint: nerves cannot partially fire)?

[Edtharan]

@ bascule:

as Mr. Skeptic said, i would define the mechanism ifi knew it, but think of it as electromagnetic waves for people in 1000AD, the mechanism (medium) was there all along and going and coming,but wasn't acknowledged yet, if you say 1000ad people knew what light was, then they didn't know what UV and IR is, a bee keeper knew his bees can go a long way and come back without getting lost, but didn't know how, same with bird hunters or keepers, actually, they might have even had an explanation, which was overwritten with the discovery of electromagnetic waves, which by turn might be overwritten by something else.

In ancient Greece, although they got the mechanism wrong (but almost right), they still were able to propose a mechanics for light and how we see with it.

 

So, if they were able to propose a mechanism for light that was almost right hundreds of years before 0ad, then it still should be possible for you to propose a mechanism of how telepathy works now (if it does).

 

The phenomena of extra sensory perceptions has been investigated for more than 1000 years (it was called different things at different times), but in all that time no one has managed to reliable perform telepathy. no one has managed to propose a plauseabel mechancism for it.

 

There are phenomena that have only been discovered much more recently (within the last 100 years) that have a much more subtle effect than any telepathy (moving atoms less than the diameter of the atom) that we have discovered, proposed many mechanism and found the correct mechanism of how it works.

 

There has, over the years been more effort searching for telepathy than some of these newer phenomena, and yet, no evidence has been acquired that it really exists.

 

If you looked for a set of keys for over 2,000 years, and didn't find ANY evidence that they ever existed, and found lots of evidence that says they never existed, would you still think they exist?

 

Well replace "keys" with "telepathy" and you get the point we are making.

 

If telepathy existed, then evolution would have exploited it and it would be as common as sight or hearing. This is evidence that Telepathy does not exist.

 

We can detect the formation of thoughts, almost to the point were we can know (in a general way) what you are thinking of. We have never detected anything that has given evidence that telepathy exists, even with these sensitive machines. This is further evidence that telepathy does not exist as we should ahve detected such an event in the brains of people undergoing Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

 

There has been many tests done by many people to prove telepathy, but when the situation is controller to avoid the examiners unconsciously tipping off the subjects, or in other ways to avoid any other forms of contamination, no effect is found. These subjects have been people who claim that they can perform telepathy at will and under these circumstances, and yet, they show no evidence of it at all. This if further evidence that telepathy does not exist (that is, the very people who claim to be able to perform telepathy can not do it).

 

This is the results of over 2,000 years of investigation, and we can detect subtly effects (eg: the frame dragging cased by the Earth's rotation) that have not even been thought of before 100 years ago (less in the case of frame dragging).

 

So how long will you look for your keys (sorry: telepathy), before realising that they don't exist.

[forufes]

Eh? Impressions are not evidence. Can your sophisticated brain, for example, beat a crude stick with markings on it for measuring distance? Was there a particular thing you think the brain can sense better than our tools?

 

What of our tools sometimes being digital? All that means is that it measures with 1's and 0's, but why would that be a problem? And if it were, wouldn't it also be a problem for our own senses, since they are also digital? Or do nerves transmit analogue signals (hint: nerves cannot partially fire)?

 

 

wow, you're right, that way using your brain would be less accurate..although i was thinking more along the lines of eyes vs cameras, skin vs pressure sensors, ears vs voice recorders, biological balance vs mechanical balance, and so on.. more of a direct reading of a biological organ and a machine, where both give off readings of the same unit.. but yeah many of our tools which are augmentations of our senses are well, better, like binoculars and hearing aids and the such, so i guess you were right, shedding the light on the other side of the coin..

[Mr Skeptic]

wow, you're right, that way using your brain would be less accurate..although i was thinking more along the lines of eyes vs cameras, skin vs pressure sensors, ears vs voice recorders, biological balance vs mechanical balance, and so on.. more of a direct reading of a biological organ and a machine, where both give off readings of the same unit.. but yeah many of our tools which are augmentations of our senses are well, better, like binoculars and hearing aids and the such, so i guess you were right, shedding the light on the other side of the coin..

 

Again though, before you go claiming that our sensory organs are more sensitive than our tools, you need to compare the minimums (pressure, decibel, color difference, resolution, light levels, frequency range, ...) that our senses need to function, compared to our tools. You can't just go claiming that our senses our better without actually looking if that is true. For example, we cannot see light above ultraviolet or below infrared, same for high and low sounds, electric fields, magnetic fields, neutron flux, neutrino flux, radiation levels, ... These our tools can see and our senses cannot, so clearly our tools are more sensitive to them. As for, eg, sound levels, why do we use unidirectional microphones and speakers to eavesdrop on people if our ears are so much better?

[Klaynos]

Our bodies are pretty rubbish sensors, and we understand the sensors VERY well.

 

The reason for building detectors is because ours are rubbish, take light if I see something that looks red it might be orange photons being reflected or a mix that happens to set of the receptors in my eyes to form orange. Our eyes are also hideously non-linear, a simple example of this is use your mobile phone in the dark and then use it in bright sunlight, the apparent brightness is completely different, the actual brightness has not changed.

[bascule]

no man, i don't know if you're doing this on purpose or not..

 

I am doing this on purpose. Science has done a remarkably good job of explaining the universe, and I trust its explanations.

 

what i'm trying to make YOU realize is that longitudinal waves might not be the only things our ears hear

 

Likewise, I'm trying to make you realize that there's not a good reason to suspect our ears are anything but sensors for longitudinal waves.

 

they're one layer, sure, but there could be other layers too, ones which get lost when for example you record the voice.

 

There's lots of things that "could be", like unicorns, and leprichauns, and vampires! I don't spend a lot of time thinking about things that "could be" unless I have a legitimate reason to think they exist.

 

in the same way the human voice might have some yet unspecified additional properties, so can other organs and biological processes, like the brain and thinking, saying all there is to brain activity is electric pulses IMHO is like saying all there is to an artist's work are strokes of a brush..

 

There's a hell of a lot more to brain activity than just "electric pulses", but in the end the brain is just a classical physical system made out of matter and energy.

[forufes]

In ancient Greece, although they got the mechanism wrong (but almost right), they still were able to propose a mechanics for light and how we see with it.

i can imagine a guy from 3000ad saying the same thing, just replace "Greece" with "scienceforums"(keep "ancient")...replace "light" with "telepathy"...

 

i might have not made this clear but, i don't believe telepathy in the (mind telephone) sense exists, but i believe humans send and receive information to each others' brains directly, that was my idea of telepathy, the mechanism can be as simple as getting a feeling because of influence from someone else, for example, mother intuition.

 

if i got you all wounded up thinking i can look a guy in the eye and make him hear "i'm gonna kill you" without moving my lips or speaking from my stomach, then it's my bad.

 

not that once the general (my) idea of telepathy is discovered on how to work(if it does), the mind phone thingy would still bear the same improbability..hey, people a 500 years ago would condemn you as crazy if you said people could possibly maybe with a small tiny fraction of chance might fly some day..

 

So, if they were able to propose a mechanism for light that was almost right hundreds of years before 0ad, then it still should be possible for you to propose a mechanism of how telepathy works now (if it does).

what about thousands of years before 0ad, could anyone propose a mechanism for how light works? did that stop it from being discovered now? stop being arrogant:-)

 

my proposed mechanism for how my idea of telepathy might work:

peer action, peer detection

meaning, the more "someone" is doing something, the more "he" can detect that same thing easily, consciousness is required in the someone. of course he'll have to be conscious of the thing he does, but he doesn't have to be conscious of detecting a similar one afterward, actually, usually it is done unintentionally..

 

the "someone" is the brain or us, the "thing" is thinking.

 

a simple parallel example is a car mechanic or race track coach, they can know a moving car's model and its specifications from wheels to class and speed and a lot of other unimaginable details without actually seeing it, including any modifications or problems in the engine or almost anything else..

 

they don't necessarily train themselves to match the sound of a car to it's specs, but it comes from doing it casually for many times..

 

same with guns and gunshots, caliber and distance, the gun used and the setting it was shot from, and so on can be determined by experienced snipers and soldiers with real war experience..

 

i think it's simply experience..

 

that covers the repetition factor, then comes the unconsciousness factor..

 

most of the time, the car mechanic or sniper can tell you the information without telling you what exactly in the noise tipped him off to the certain property he guessed..

 

a closer example is one i gave before, many times a person can determine that the one who is talking to him is lying, without telling you exactly how he knew. one can say the medium for such deducting process is known; it was body language and facial expressions, but the person in question may have never heard of either, let alone learn a systematic method based on them to reach his conclusion that the other guy was lying..

 

thinking, or brain functions in general, leave small tiny traces, for the sake of argument, we'll suppose they're on the atomic level (or any other level undiscovered or hard to explored).. these small fluctuations left in the trail of a thought, in it's wake, are most likely (if not surely) to be picked up, or sensed, by one which go in the same trail... the trail of thinking.

 

so when one brain thinks it leaves small details, or causes small fluctuations..which get picked up by another entity doing the exact (or almost exact) procedure, a brain, thinking.

 

i realize my theory has many holes, so feel free to start poking!

The phenomena of extra sensory perceptions has been investigated for more than 1000 years (it was called different things at different times), but in all that time no one has managed to reliable perform telepathy. no one has managed to propose a plauseabel mechancism for it.

something like your example of Greece and light.

 

There are phenomena that have only been discovered much more recently (within the last 100 years) that have a much more subtle effect than any telepathy (moving atoms less than the diameter of the atom) that we have discovered, proposed many mechanism and found the correct mechanism of how it works.

so there's a certain amount of time, which if a theory doesn't offer evidence, it gets scratched?

There has, over the years been more effort searching for telepathy than some of these newer phenomena, and yet, no evidence has been acquired that it really exists.

so maybe telepathy will be discovered when we stop looking for it so hard?

 

If you looked for a set of keys for over 2,000 years, and didn't find ANY evidence that they ever existed, and found lots of evidence that says they never existed, would you still think they exist?

how can there be evidence that something "never existed"?

 

If telepathy existed, then evolution would have exploited it and it would be as common as sight or hearing. This is evidence that Telepathy does not exist.

replace telepathy with UV.

We can detect the formation of thoughts, almost to the point were we can know (in a general way) what you are thinking of. We have never detected anything that has given evidence that telepathy exists, even with these sensitive machines. This is further evidence that telepathy does not exist as we should ahve detected such an event in the brains of people undergoing Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

this is what i meant by arrogance, and i really mean no offence, but you're implying we're at the peak of science, that 3000ad will bear the same discoveries as the one we're already with.

 

and remember, a negative can't be proven.

 

and ("telepathy" doesn't exist) is a negative statement. you may replace telepathy with anything you want, as long as it isn't the statement itself.

 

ever heard of the celestial toaster?

 

can you prove to me that there isn't a toaster orbiting the sun somewhere? have you looked in every qubic inch in our solar system?

 

also: absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

 

the OP is about why telepathy isn't that crazy of an idea. not whether it exists or not.

 

 

There has been many tests done by many people to prove telepathy, but when the situation is controller to avoid the examiners unconsciously tipping off the subjects, or in other ways to avoid any other forms of contamination, no effect is found. These subjects have been people who claim that they can perform telepathy at will and under these circumstances, and yet, they show no evidence of it at all. This if further evidence that telepathy does not exist (that is, the very people who claim to be able to perform telepathy can not do it).

that isn't proof that telepathy doesn't exist, what's between brackets is more correct.

this is progress..

 

This is the results of over 2,000 years of investigation, and we can detect subtly effects (eg: the frame dragging cased by the Earth's rotation) that have not even been thought of before 100 years ago (less in the case of frame dragging).

and yet you are so eager to jump and say the future can't show telepathy exists?

 

So how long will you look for your keys (sorry: telepathy), before realising that they don't exist.

i believe your keys are in your hand, you just need to retake a look in places you covered before..

if telepathy exists, it has always existed.

the definition seems to be a problem.

 

and as i said, you can never realize something doesn't exist.

 

oh and btw, there's something the japanese call "killer intent", which their warriors and assassins can sense from others who are moving in for a kill..it has survived old myth to the modern day, it's something like just by initiating an action to kill somebody, you get detected by them.

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Again though, before you go claiming that our sensory organs are more sensitive than our tools, you need to compare the minimums (pressure, decibel, color difference, resolution, light levels, frequency range, ...) that our senses need to function, compared to our tools. You can't just go claiming that our senses our better without actually looking if that is true. For example, we cannot see light above ultraviolet or below infrared, same for high and low sounds, electric fields, magnetic fields, neutron flux, neutrino flux, radiation levels, ... These our tools can see and our senses cannot, so clearly our tools are more sensitive to them. As for, eg, sound levels, why do we use unidirectional microphones and speakers to eavesdrop on people if our ears are so much better?

 

then i think the word i was looking for is: efficiency.

add weight, size, power consumption, maintenance, durability, usability and others to the factors you mentioned, formulate a band score. biological organs would win hands down.

no?

[tar]

Forufes,

 

apparent communication from one mind to another without using sensory perceptions

 

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.

apparent communication from one mind to another without using sensory perceptions

 

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

[padren]

i might have not made this clear but, i don't believe telepathy in the (mind telephone) sense exists, but i believe humans send and receive information to each others' brains directly, that was my idea of telepathy, the mechanism can be as simple as getting a feeling because of influence from someone else, for example, mother intuition.

But is that logical? Is there any rational basis for this "instant send and receive" mechanism? There is no evidence for such other than anecdotal evidence with a massive, massive sampling bias.

 

not that once the general (my) idea of telepathy is discovered on how to work(if it does), the mind phone thingy would still bear the same improbability..hey, people a 500 years ago would condemn you as crazy if you said people could possibly maybe with a small tiny fraction of chance might fly some day..

 

 

what about thousands of years before 0ad, could anyone propose a mechanism for how light works? did that stop it from being discovered now? stop being arrogant:-)

There is a difference. If people simply proposed the idea that people may fly someday that's one thing. If they had no basis for that claim, that claim would have no place and it would not stunt the development of flight. If anything, it would help advance the invention of flight.

 

With no clear understanding of what flight requires and just a simple "belief" it is possible people could try all manner of things from pixie dust to eating a diet entirely consistent of dragonflies.

 

Flight was invented (first) with the lighter than air machine and was based on a hypothesis - not some random assertion. The heavier than air machine was based on other theories and the like - again not pulled out of the ethers.

 

So far all you've done is assert that because some of our current technologies would be unbelievable in the past, that things we don't believe are possible now may be in the future. It's worth making the distinction however that you are claiming a phenomenon exists now and is not understood (like your light example) and not talking about new future technologies.

The thing about light is the theory that light travels at a certain speed is all well and good, but without certain tools it's very hard to test. Just because it is right doesn't mean people should have jumped on it in ancient Greece, as they'd have had to take it on faith and that style of thinking would hurt the advancement of knowledge far more than getting lucky on one guess would help.

 

my proposed mechanism for how my idea of telepathy might work:

peer action, peer detection

meaning, the more "someone" is doing something, the more "he" can detect that same thing easily, consciousness is required in the someone. of course he'll have to be conscious of the thing he does, but he doesn't have to be conscious of detecting a similar one afterward, actually, usually it is done unintentionally..

 

the "someone" is the brain or us, the "thing" is thinking.

What you propose is not a mechanism, but an effect. You are claiming when someone "thinks" someone else can "pick up on it" subconsciously. What mechanism do you propose causes this effect?

 

a simple parallel example is a car mechanic or race track coach, they can know a moving car's model and its specifications from wheels to class and speed and a lot of other unimaginable details without actually seeing it, including any modifications or problems in the engine or almost anything else..

 

they don't necessarily train themselves to match the sound of a car to it's specs, but it comes from doing it casually for many times..

 

same with guns and gunshots, caliber and distance, the gun used and the setting it was shot from, and so on can be determined by experienced snipers and soldiers with real war experience..

 

i think it's simply experience..

That is already pretty well established I think - we deal with a lot of information subconsciously (repetition and the subconscious factors are really one I think), right down to whether or not we think someone is "shifty" and lying to us... we process a lot of information without realizing it that raises as a gut feeling into our conscious mind. That is not instant of course, and based entirely on the rate at which stimuli impacts our senses and they are processed by our minds.

 

 

 

thinking, or brain functions in general, leave small tiny traces, for the sake of argument, we'll suppose they're on the atomic level (or any other level undiscovered or hard to explored).. these small fluctuations left in the trail of a thought, in it's wake, are most likely (if not surely) to be picked up, or sensed, by one which go in the same trail... the trail of thinking.

 

so when one brain thinks it leaves small details, or causes small fluctuations..which get picked up by another entity doing the exact (or almost exact) procedure, a brain, thinking.

 

i realize my theory has many holes, so feel free to start poking!

 

something like your example of Greece and light.

Why would thinking create a 'trail' and in what medium would this exist? Does it 'radiate out' from the thinker or hang in the air where they stood at the moment they thought it? Does it float on the breeze?

Do you understand how weak that theory is - you already reduce it to 'the atomic level' because you know nothing has detected any such thing in any easy to measure scale... what exact manipulation of the 'atoms' do you think occurs as a result of thought? How can the complexity of data of a thought be embedded in atoms? How can it then be picked up? Where does the energy to manipulate these atoms occur?

 

What mechanism in the brain is sensitive to this atomic level reading of information, and how does it travel to the target brain? You say "instantly" but atoms cannot be manipulated instantly.

 

Do you understand that we are investigating a simple phenomena that can be explained by either "sampling bias" or "super complex subatomic imprinting and instant relaying and deciphering of data" that just happened to evolve without offering a survival advantage somehow? You also invoke some pretty strange "constants" in terms of being thought related - if a person intends to kill you, and you pick up the thought, why can't you pick up that a mine is almost underfoot ready to kill you? Or a predator drone in a fully autonomous mode?

 

You invoke "thought" and "consciousness" as absolute terms that sounds more like philosophy or theology than science.

 

so there's a certain amount of time, which if a theory doesn't offer evidence, it gets scratched?

 

so maybe telepathy will be discovered when we stop looking for it so hard?

If it's a theory you make predictions and test the results. So far no predictions (ie, blind tests on telepathy in the lab) have panned out at all. Telepathy could be discovered in the future just like anything could be - maybe it exists cuz we are all living in some "matrix" reality and don't know it.

However, it gets shelved (not scratched) when you run experimental predictions that don't pan out, and you run out of ideas on how else to test for it. If it's relegated to a completely untestable theory (like the flying spaghetti monster, theories on whether consciousness survives death, etc) then it could at best join the ranks of philosophy and all that, but it's not useful to science until someone comes up with a better way to test for it that actually does produce results.

 

how can there be evidence that something "never existed"?

Lets test the theory that a 5.1 Mega Ton nuclear bomb went off July 1st, 1776 in the heart of New York City. There is a lot of evidence this bomb detonation never existed. It's not conclusive, but pretty compelling.

this is what i meant by arrogance, and i really mean no offence, but you're implying we're at the peak of science, that 3000ad will bear the same discoveries as the one we're already with.

To note that we actually have a pretty good understanding of how thoughts are formed in the brain is not to say we are at the peak of science. All it's saying is - it's not a magical black box that could contain magical subatomic manipulations. At least, our understanding of the wiring of the brain explains thought more easily in a manner that does not include subatomic thought trails.

and remember, a negative can't be proven.

But we use negative claims to survive. I don't know that robots aren't coming to kill me and I can't know that for sure, but I'd run out of food if I spent all my money on Old Glory insurance.

 

When you want to point out that a "negative claim can't be proven" ask yourself if the "positive" claim you are making can be proven. If you have a theory that includes the basis of why it can't be tested (at least with current technology and techniques) you are proposing a theory that can't be proven in the positive form either.

 

To denounce counter claims as "unprovable negative claims" doesn't make your unprovable claim any more provable. You are free of course to have an untestable and unprovable theory - it just happens to be useless to anyone else and is lost in a sea of millions of unprovable theories many of which conflict your own theory.

 

Your theory becomes valueless in that case.

and ("telepathy" doesn't exist) is a negative statement. you may replace telepathy with anything you want, as long as it isn't the statement itself.

 

ever heard of the celestial toaster?

 

can you prove to me that there isn't a toaster orbiting the sun somewhere? have you looked in every qubic inch in our solar system?

 

also: absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

 

the OP is about why telepathy isn't that crazy of an idea. not whether it exists or not.

Are you suggesting that it is not crazy, because it's no more crazy than a celestial toaster?

that isn't proof that telepathy doesn't exist, what's between brackets is more correct.

this is progress..

How long would you investigate whether a nuke went off in 1776 New York? You can't say you can prove it didn't, but how long do you dig before the complete lack of evidence plus all the evidence that business as usual occurred that day gives you the impression that you should not bother with the matter any further?

oh and btw, there's something the japanese call "killer intent", which their warriors and assassins can sense from others who are moving in for a kill..it has survived old myth to the modern day, it's something like just by initiating an action to kill somebody, you get detected by them.

...which can easily be explained by a combination of sample bias and convergent effect.

1) Consider how many people didn't see the assassin coming. Far more than picked up on the "killer intent" for sure.

2) If you are constantly aware of your surroundings, you can become intensely uncomfortable that something is wrong when it is even if you can't put your finger on it. As for convergence, believing in the "killer intent" myth would aid survival if someone felt they could pay 'enough attention' to pick up on it - being more aware and sensitive to gut feelings meant being more aware of your surroundings.

3) How many people "thought" they felt that and yet no one ever appeared in the shadows to kill them? Is that written off to someone far away having the "killer intent" or acknowledged as a strike against the theory? It is far more logical to write this off as a psychological phenomena than theorize it's part of some mystical ability.

 

 

Honestly I don't understand your dedication to this theory: It's untestable, every theory seems to become more convoluted so as to explain why it hasn't been detected with instruments yet - all to explain something that is more easily explained with a sampling bias and selective memory.

 

I also don't fault you for believing what you want to believe - everyone has that right. What I don't get is why you can't seem to understand how capricious your theory is, and why you think it's arrogant to say that in all likelihood it does not exist. There is no more of a case for telepathy than there is for unicorns or a race of blue people living under the Shasta Mountain.

I could make a case for the blue people under Shasta and come up with all kinds of metaphysical reasons (ahem, excuses) for why we can't detect them but all that would be is one giant contrivance with absolutely no compelling value. Science does not work that way.

[Edtharan]

@forufes

 

So let me know if I have this right. Youa re proposing a completely new form of telepathy. One that does not resemble the effect od causes of the traditional belief of telepathy.

 

You are saying that people can sense things about other people without sensing anything bout them. This doesn't make any sense, so let me know if I have it wrong as I really think I do.

 

a simple parallel example is a car mechanic or race track coach, they can know a moving car's model and its specifications from wheels to class and speed and a lot of other unimaginable details without actually seeing it, including any modifications or problems in the engine or almost anything else..

In this case, these engineers have had year of experience of the cars, and know in advance what most modifications the cars will have. So ther eis no real analogy between any form of telepathy and this.

 

If I were to study how people behave in certain situations, and then place someone who I ahve done a detailed psychological analysis (including asking them what they would do in that situation), and then place them in that situation. Is it telepathy if I correctly predict what they would do?

 

No. Not at all. It is just knowledge gained before the event through normal sensory channels (sight, hearing, etc).

 

i think it's simply experience..

This, I think completely sums up what you have described as "telepathy". You describe it that if someone has detailed experience and extensive knowledge of the subject in that situation, they cna correctly predict what they are going to do.

 

This is not telepathy, this is just modelling.

 

If this is your requirement for telepathy, then computers can perform telepathy because they can predict, through experience with people, their reactions in certain situations.

 

But, you said that consciousness is needed for telepathy. Would you consider a computer as being conscious? I wouldn't (well not yet ).

 

So, either you have to say that computer are conscious, consciousness is not needed, or your definition of telepathy is not actual telepathy. In any of those choices it is bad for your claims.

 

most of the time, the car mechanic or sniper can tell you the information without telling you what exactly in the noise tipped him off to the certain property he guessed..

 

a closer example is one i gave before, many times a person can determine that the one who is talking to him is lying, without telling you exactly how he knew. one can say the medium for such deducting process is known; it was body language and facial expressions, but the person in question may have never heard of either, let alone learn a systematic method based on them to reach his conclusion that the other guy was lying..

So what you are saying here, is that if the person that performs these actions and correctly predicts the behaviour, but does not know how they did it, despite there being a valid explanation (which can be confirmed by careful examination of what actually occurred), and despite this confirmation is considered telepathy on the basis that they simply didn't know how they did it.

 

So you can only perform telepathy if you are ignorant of how your own brain works. that if you don't think about how you think.

 

If telepathy existed, then evolution would have exploited it and it would be as common as sight or hearing. This is evidence that Telepathy does not exist.

 

replace telepathy with UV.

Oh, you mean like Bees and insects being able to see in UV. Yes. UV light exists, it is advantageous for animals who use it, and evolution exploited it. this is exactly what I said.

 

However, seeing in UV light, for most animals, is not much of an advantage as there is no information that is useful to them that can be conveyed through UV that isn't already conveyed through normal Visible light.

 

This counter argument of yours actually prove my point. If there is a sense that is an advantage to an animal, then evolution will ahve exploited it. If there is no advantage for an animal, then it won't be selected for by evolution.

 

So, any form of telepathy would be extremely advantageous for a social animal. There are thousands of different species that are social animals. Why then, as your example of UV proved, when an ability is advantageous for a species, does it not get exploited by evolution. Not even once!

 

Yes, as I said. If it existed in humans, then the advantage of it would be so great that we would all be very good telepaths by now. As we aren't ther eis only two conclusions:

 

1) Telepathy exists, but is completely incapable of sending any information what so ever (which would not actually make it telepathy now would it).

 

2) Telepathy does not exist.

 

how can there be evidence that something "never existed"?

Actually there can be. If that something would leave a residue, and no residue is found, then it can be shown to never have existed.

 

For example. I can prove that a Nuclear Explosion never existed 3 days ago where I live. Simply because if it had existed then there would be a massive amount of damage and radiation form it. As there is none, I can conclude that it never existed.

 

So there can be evidence against something existence. In the case of Telepathy, if it existed, then evolution will ahve exploited it (this is the residue). As evolution has not exploited it, then this counts as evidence that it does not exist.

 

However, it does not prevent it from existing in the future. But if it is created in the future, it still will not make it exist now or in the past.

 

Thus I can say now, that telepathy does not exist (and has not existed in the past). This is very different from what you talk about when you say that in the future that they can prove the existence of telepathy as this "proof" you are talking about is a retroactive proof that it exists now (according to us) and in the past.

 

Telepathy could be created by a future (and not too distant future - 20 years from now give or take a decade) technology. The basis of it exists now.

 

There have been experiments where a scientist at Redding university (the heard of the cybernetic department) implanted a chip into his arm that detected the neurological signals as he attempted to move his arm. These were then interpreted by a computer and transmitted over the internet to a robotic arm on the other side of the world and cause the robot arm to move.

 

Further experiments had another chip placed in his wife's arm and signals sent when his hand was touched to her chip and then she felt the touch on his hand.

 

This is technological "telepathy", and is very different from your proposition (and from traditional telepathy too).

 

They also ahve the ability now to directly stimulate individual neurons, and also detect the activation of individual neurons. they can essentially now read and write information directly to individual neurons.

 

If you couple the experiments from Redding university with this newer technologies, then you can easily conceive of a chip that can be implanted into your brain that reads and writes information directly to neurons in your brain in such a way as to emulate traditional telepathy. Brain imaging and analysis needs to be improved to the point where they can detect the states of individual neurons and the connections between them (not as far off as you might think).

 

This kind of telepathy I can accept (mobile phones are a first tentative step in that direction), but if you are proposing a method of two brains communicating directly without aid, then there is no evidence that this occurs, and as such an ability wou7ld be a huge advantage, if we have it at all, then evolution would have exploited it to the point where it was easily observable (we would ahve evidence long ago of this and the mechanics it worked by).

 

As this evidence does not exist (even though it has been extensively looked for), and if telepathy did exist this evidence should be easily gathered, I can say that this counts as proof that it does not exist due to the absence of the residual.

 

this is what i meant by arrogance, and i really mean no offence, but you're implying we're at the peak of science, that 3000ad will bear the same discoveries as the one we're already with.

Not at all. That is a strawman of what I was saying. I am saying that science is advaned enough NOW that we can detect events and effects far smaller than would exist if telepathy existed. If telepathy exists, then it must have a measurable effect on the recipient's brain. If it did not, then it would have no effect of the recipients brain and could therefore be said not to exist.

 

As science can measure the scale of effect that telepathy would need to ahve on the recipients brain, and we don't detect this effect, then we can say that the effect (telepathy) does not exist, or has so small an effect on the recipients brain that it does not change it in any way (which amount to the same thing).

 

We are not at the pinnacle of science. I never said that and you are putting word in my mouth in a vain attempt to try and prove something that has well and truly been proven to not exist (due to the absence of detected effect - and as it is supposed to ahve an effect, then we should be able to detect it, right).

 

and remember, a negative can't be proven.

The situation is completely different here. We are not trying to prove/disprove an explanation, but to prove/disprove the existence of an effect. Simply put, if an effect has to have a certain magnitude, and no effect of that magnitude or even much smaller magnitude: down to the point of small clusters of neurons. We can also study the clusters of neurons directly in the lab, and still we don't' find any effect. So should we conclude that the effect is of a smaller magnitude than individual neurons. But we can study the make up of individual neurons and see any effect within them, and we still do not find the effect. So may be it is an effect on molecules, but we can study the effect on molecules and we still do not find any effect. So may be it is at the scale of atoms. But we can study individual atoms too and we find no effect. So may be it is sub atomic. But we can study the effects on sub atomic particles too and we still find not telepathy effect.

 

Under stand now. We have the ability to detect things at all these scales, an no effect that could account for telepathy has ever been detected.

 

So, either the effect is so small it has no effect, or it doesn't exist.

 

It is proof of non existence by disproof.

 

If it is impossible for something to exist, then there is no way it does exist.

 

ever heard of the celestial toaster?

 

can you prove to me that there isn't a toaster orbiting the sun somewhere? have you looked in every qubic inch in our solar system?

 

also: absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

Yep, it is supposed to be a teapot, but a toaster is good enough.

 

the problem here is that we aren't looking for something that is undetectable. If it was undetectable then it would not be possible for it to work. Any telepathy HAS to have an effect on the receiver's brain, otherwise how would the receiver be able to receive that information? therefore there HAS to be some effect we can detect if Telepathy, in any form exists. There has never been any such effect detected, so we can say for sure that no such effect has occurred.

 

If it has never occurred, then it never existed. Simple really.

 

If we take the teapot/toaster example. If is was necessary for the existence of that object that is had to leave a shadow on the Earth that could be seen daily, and no such shadow had ever been detected, even when it was necessary for the existence of that object for there to be a shadow there, then we can say for certain that there is no such object as the necessary requirements of its existence has never been detected.

 

The difference between the Toaster and telepathy is that the toaster does not ahve any necessities for its existence that we can detect (other than being able to see it when we get close to it - or have a big enough telescope), and Telepathy does have such necessities (the effect it would have on the brain).

 

i believe your keys are in your hand, you just need to retake a look in places you covered before..

if telepathy exists, it has always existed.

the definition seems to be a problem.

If telepathy has always existed, then the big question is still there: Why hasn't evolution exploited it (like it has UV light).

 

If telepathy has always, and does, exist, then it would ahve a measurable effect on the brain.

 

Our detector have been sensitive enough (for around a decade) to detect any such effects of sufficient magnitude necessary for the effects of telepathy. No such effect has been found so we can conclude that the prerequisite effects for the existence of telepathy have not been found despite people looking for them with devices more than capable of detecting these effects, which means that telepathy can not exist.

 

Going back to the teapot/toaster example. If I said that there was a teapot orbiting between 200 and 1000 kilometres above the Earth, and we had telescopes powerful enough to detect that Teapot, and we made a survey of 100% of that area and found no teapot, is it not logical to say that the teapot does not exist?

 

Science has reached a point where it is more than capable of detecting any effect of sufficient magnitude that it would reveal telepathy, and there have been people that have searched for this extensively using these machines. No effect has been found.