Saturday, September 30, 2006
Is mental telepathy possible?
I remember I used to wish I could communicate with other people telepathically. It sure would have made taking tests easier if I could have plucked the answers right out of teachers' minds. In the days before cell phones, it would have eliminated family battles over who got to use the telephone. And I was convinced that I wanted a fusing of the minds with whoever would be my wife.
Now that I'm older, I'm very glad I was never able to do that. I'm too pathologically private to abide invasion of my thoughts. Still, I have to wonder if it's possible. Back then I conducted numerous experiments, never with any success. One time I was on the phone with my girlfriend, and decided to try projecting a word to her with my mind, hoping the telephone would act as an amplifier. It didn't work. Sometimes I've been thinking of people I haven't seen in years -- old teachers, friends, girls I wish I'd asked out -- and wondered if there was any chance they'd pick up on a random thought and end up thinking about me.
It's all idle play, I grant you, but still it doesn't seem totally out of the question. In the 1970s scientists were seriously studying "paranormal phenomena" including mental telepathy, and though every bit of evidence upon which the research was based ended up being debunked by the end of the decade, the fact that it was a serious scientific matter lends it some credence. Neurology is not my strong suit, and if any neurologists happen upon this blog I'd be delighted to hear from you, but I did read a book on the functions of the brain some five or ten years ago, and I remain interested in the most amazing and complex organ in our bodies. Much of the brain's function is still a mystery, particularly its almost miraculous multiple redundancy; for just as each cell in our body contains a complete description of our body, so each part of the brain seems to contain all of our memories. If only our computer discs were as efficient!
One thing I do know is that whenever we use our brains, particularly in the storing of memory -- that being a rearrangement of molecules in our brains -- we radiate waste heat, just as any machine does. The brain is a powerful electrical device; I read recently that it would power a 50-watt lightbulb. Our brain waves can be measured on EKG machines. Do those waves contain data? If so, could that data be received and decoded by another brain? It doesn't seem too likely; if that were the case, you'd think our brains could also detect and decode radio and television waves, and we wouldn't need radio or television sets -- and the inside of our heads would get awfully noisy! Still, I've heard stories that people with war wounds, who wear metal plates in their heads, have been able to pick up radio. Whether those stories are true or not I don't know, but I do know that a baby-sitter was once caught abusing the children she was supervising because the house security camera picked up what she was doing -- and what the camera was seeing, amazingly, showed up on the neighbor's television screen, even though there was no physical wiring between the camera and the neighbor's TV. So the transmission of data can be accomplished without necessarily requiring the specific wiring we always put into it; of course all of that technology is necessary to guarantee a desired result, but there have been flukes.
Almost certainly we will soon be able to communicate with one another instantaneously at any desired time, because cell phones are becoming more and more compact. People are wearing them in their ears instead of carrying them in their pockets. Eventually they will probably be implanted, first voluntarily and later perhaps at birth. Wireless internet connection will also eventually become implanted, probably just behind the eyes; this itself may lead to the "soul-catcher" described by Dr. Chris Winter, eyetaps which would digitally record everything a person sees and hears, even thinks, throughout life. And this will only be the beginning of a long and unpredictable process that only a science fiction writer would dare imagine.
But all of those things are artificial enhancements and they don't answer the original question: is mental telepathy possible? I would say it depends on one fundamental question: does the brain's radiative energy contain codified information? Unfortunately I don't know whether it does or it doesn't. A radio signal works on a simple principle: a binary code is vectored on a carrier wave. The brain waves could act as a carrier wave, and it seems therefore a simple matter for the brain's information to ride that carrier wave the same way a radio signal does; that is assuming the storage of data in the brain is binary in the way a radio signal is. I do not believe neurologists know yet exactly how information is stored in the brain, and until that question is answered, I would say the question of mental telepathy is open.
Still, the fact that there is absolutely no verified instance of telepathic communication, it does seem most unlikely that it is possible using the brain alone. But someday, with electronic -- or nanotech -- aids, we may someday achieve mental telepathy artificially. In fact I'm nearly certain we will.
But...as private a person as I am...I can patiently wait for that day to come.
Now that I'm older, I'm very glad I was never able to do that. I'm too pathologically private to abide invasion of my thoughts. Still, I have to wonder if it's possible. Back then I conducted numerous experiments, never with any success. One time I was on the phone with my girlfriend, and decided to try projecting a word to her with my mind, hoping the telephone would act as an amplifier. It didn't work. Sometimes I've been thinking of people I haven't seen in years -- old teachers, friends, girls I wish I'd asked out -- and wondered if there was any chance they'd pick up on a random thought and end up thinking about me.
It's all idle play, I grant you, but still it doesn't seem totally out of the question. In the 1970s scientists were seriously studying "paranormal phenomena" including mental telepathy, and though every bit of evidence upon which the research was based ended up being debunked by the end of the decade, the fact that it was a serious scientific matter lends it some credence. Neurology is not my strong suit, and if any neurologists happen upon this blog I'd be delighted to hear from you, but I did read a book on the functions of the brain some five or ten years ago, and I remain interested in the most amazing and complex organ in our bodies. Much of the brain's function is still a mystery, particularly its almost miraculous multiple redundancy; for just as each cell in our body contains a complete description of our body, so each part of the brain seems to contain all of our memories. If only our computer discs were as efficient!
One thing I do know is that whenever we use our brains, particularly in the storing of memory -- that being a rearrangement of molecules in our brains -- we radiate waste heat, just as any machine does. The brain is a powerful electrical device; I read recently that it would power a 50-watt lightbulb. Our brain waves can be measured on EKG machines. Do those waves contain data? If so, could that data be received and decoded by another brain? It doesn't seem too likely; if that were the case, you'd think our brains could also detect and decode radio and television waves, and we wouldn't need radio or television sets -- and the inside of our heads would get awfully noisy! Still, I've heard stories that people with war wounds, who wear metal plates in their heads, have been able to pick up radio. Whether those stories are true or not I don't know, but I do know that a baby-sitter was once caught abusing the children she was supervising because the house security camera picked up what she was doing -- and what the camera was seeing, amazingly, showed up on the neighbor's television screen, even though there was no physical wiring between the camera and the neighbor's TV. So the transmission of data can be accomplished without necessarily requiring the specific wiring we always put into it; of course all of that technology is necessary to guarantee a desired result, but there have been flukes.
Almost certainly we will soon be able to communicate with one another instantaneously at any desired time, because cell phones are becoming more and more compact. People are wearing them in their ears instead of carrying them in their pockets. Eventually they will probably be implanted, first voluntarily and later perhaps at birth. Wireless internet connection will also eventually become implanted, probably just behind the eyes; this itself may lead to the "soul-catcher" described by Dr. Chris Winter, eyetaps which would digitally record everything a person sees and hears, even thinks, throughout life. And this will only be the beginning of a long and unpredictable process that only a science fiction writer would dare imagine.
But all of those things are artificial enhancements and they don't answer the original question: is mental telepathy possible? I would say it depends on one fundamental question: does the brain's radiative energy contain codified information? Unfortunately I don't know whether it does or it doesn't. A radio signal works on a simple principle: a binary code is vectored on a carrier wave. The brain waves could act as a carrier wave, and it seems therefore a simple matter for the brain's information to ride that carrier wave the same way a radio signal does; that is assuming the storage of data in the brain is binary in the way a radio signal is. I do not believe neurologists know yet exactly how information is stored in the brain, and until that question is answered, I would say the question of mental telepathy is open.
Still, the fact that there is absolutely no verified instance of telepathic communication, it does seem most unlikely that it is possible using the brain alone. But someday, with electronic -- or nanotech -- aids, we may someday achieve mental telepathy artificially. In fact I'm nearly certain we will.
But...as private a person as I am...I can patiently wait for that day to come.
