Mental Telepathy
Old Dream
I've always been interested in the paranormal even though I'm not spiritual. I imagined the wonders of telepathy and precognition and extrasensory perception. I read the work of JD Rhine at Duke University and thought the issue was being approached scientifically. A breakthrough was just around the corner.
This article explores that.
https://aeon.co/essays/for-over-a-century-telepathy-has-been-just-around-the-corner
Turns out not to be so.
The paranormal seems to be what happens when people become atheists but can't quite let go of the religious world view. There may not be a god but surely there are other dimensions to reality than what our physical senses reveal.
I tried mental telepathy when I was young. I'd do the classic - "put fingers to temple and squint hard in concentration" Nothing ever happened. I had no idea what I expected to happen. I was hoping for a message from the girl I had a crush on I guess:-)
Mental telepathy basically means you get ideas in your head that come from another person. This closely relates to the idea that god pokes ideas into your head via dreams or voices.
And I've had quite a few experiences that I could link to telepathy. One time I was riding with friends and we passed something - I made a comment - the person beside me made the same comment - completely in unison as if we'd rehearsed it - we looked at each other in surprise and carried on. ooo eee ooo ?
Once I had a half hour commute by bike across a busy city to get from my bedroom to my studio. At the time I had no time pressure at all. I was printing in the studio until 3 or 4am each day and would wake up around 11am. I'd set a plan - I'll head to the studio at 2. 2pm would come and I'd keep on with my programming and then at 2:15 I'd feel an urgency to get out the door.
Along the way - Howard (who I'd been wondering about but lost contact) beeped at me from his truck. He and I were traveling on perpendicular streets. The timing had to be quite precise for us to meet. I wondered - was that meeting associated with my having an urgent desire to get out and go?
Once I was riding through the mountains and ran out of water on a hot day. I was far from the next town and looking down to a river far below. Am standing their pondering whether to leave my bike and all it's gear to clamber down for water. A car stops. A guy gets out and says "want some water?"
I've even had voices in my head. Once when I was living in the woods 20 miles from town I was sitting in the morning sun enjoying my coffee watching my cats play I clearly heard a voice "Martin - if you stay here for 5 years, you'll never get out" I looked around, startled - it was that clear. And within 6 months I'd moved to Vancouver.
So - I'm way open to the idea of mental telepathy. I think it's impossible. It's an artifact of the time when people thought that god was real. A sort of archeological artifact in the way we think.
The idea is that somehow the electrochemical activities of our brains sends out signals like radio that other brains can detect. I can imagine detecting those signals but I can't imagine making sense of it.
I'm aware that my brain is active all the time - it's not like a computer where if there's nothing happening then nothing is going on. The neurons are continuously active. I have tinnitus - I interpret that as the neurons in my audio cortex firing without simulation. When I close my eyes in the dark I see lots of indescribable stuff - my visual cortex firing without stimulation.
Then there is my own experience of thinking. It's way chaotic. I need crutches like speaking and writing (speaking to myself) to express long coherent thoughts.
So - say mental telepathy was possible and you could detect what was happening in all the minds around you. I don't think it would work. People would be fleeing to the mountains to get a little quiet and then the mountains would get crowded ?
What do you think?
I present regular philosophy discussions in a virtual reality called Second Life.
I set a topic and people come as avatars and sit around a virtual table to discuss it.
Each week I write a short essay to set the topic.
I show a selection of them here.