How do you feel about the idea of telepathy existing and...?

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kitesandtrainsandcats
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02 Apr 2021, 6:44 pm

Fnord wrote:

If telepathic humans were to become the norm, the institution of "Thought Police" would also be normal...

Marc Miller wrote:

[...] ]The end result is that occasionally a citizen will sit awake late at night, depressed and angry. Some aspect of society has affected him adversely, and he has been unable to cope with it.

Perhaps he lost his old job and is unhappy with his new one; perhaps he is jealous of a neighbor who is more successful than he is. The thought patterns spell deviance, and roving Thought Police patrols pick them up. Late at night, there is a knock at the door. The citizen knows the Thought Police have arrived; he invites them in. They enter, talk quietly or loudly depending on what their quick diagnosis indicates. After a few minutes, the citizen leaves with the Thought Police. A note is left behind telling where they have gone. Already, the citizen feels slightly better knowing that someone cares.

A few days or weeks later, the citizen returns home, much happier. His new job is exactly what he needs and wants; a perfect outlet for his ambitions. His successful neighbor, he now knows, leads a shallow life without the enjoyment and fulfillment that it should have. The world itself seems brighter and clearer. [...]

Relax, citizen. We are from the Government, and we are here to help you. Everything is going to be fine ... just fine ...

Ah yes, that brings up the age old question of who polices The Police, who watches The Watchers, who controls The Controllers?
And the related question of who sets the ultimate standards and what gives them the authority, and knowledge, to do so?

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aquafelix
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03 Apr 2021, 4:32 am

Fnord wrote:

There is no valid empirical evidence to irrefutably prove the existence of telepathy. Therefore, how one "feels" about telepathy is irrelevant.

Whilst I agree, I think the OP was asking for members to conduct a hypothetical thought experiment. Well, at least that was the way I interpreted the thread.

Last edited by aquafelix on 03 Apr 2021, 4:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

Danusaurus
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03 Apr 2021, 4:38 am

Even if we're ever a concept let alone a possibility..

Wouldn't make a difference.. I'd still want to be accepted and have emotional happiness which I don't anyway so this my view remains neutral.

quite an extreme
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03 Apr 2021, 9:06 am

aquafelix wrote:

Technic1 wrote:

Do you think you could deal with being able to read other people’s thoughts and therefore not ever being alone?

If I had the power to read other people’s thoughts I don't think I'd use it. I don't have much interest in knowing what other people are thinking. Reading another persons thoughts against their will seems to me to be a violation and a terrible thing to do to another person. It would like having a knife or a gun in my pocket that I could never see myself using against a living person. Even if they never knew they were being read, I would know ...

You should be aware that guessing other peoples mind by reading their body language is not just not against any law but a pretty normal thing that nearly all people do. Not even few do even expect of others that those care about it and get them right. The average ability of men for doing this is much worse than that of average women but the ability of women regarding that varies too. Cultural, emotional and racial differences make it more difficulty too. Everybody can improve a lot at this once he or she tries. Just watch people and try to guess why they behave, move or stand the way that they are doing by asking yourself what would cause you to be that way. After a while you'll improve with that and you'll get a lot of their thinking, feeling and even noticing several hidden health problems.
Have you ever seen somebody who was angry? Hey you have been reading his mind then regarding something that is mostly pretty obviously then. But a lot of less obvious stuff does mirror in the body language too. What do you think emoticons are for?

PS: One problem is that many autists are very bad mind readers and very unaware of the feelings of others. NTs have 'mirror neurons' that are neurons in their brains which help them to read other peoples mind and feelings by generating the same emotions. If autists are pissed off or disappointed and looking at NTs then NTs pick up those feelings of them and assume that it's just a current feeling towards them. It's even unconsciously for NTs but can be one of the biggest problems that autists have if they have to deal with NTs.

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Fnord
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03 Apr 2021, 3:36 pm

aquafelix wrote:

Fnord wrote:

There is no valid empirical evidence to irrefutably prove the existence of telepathy. Therefore, how one "feels" about telepathy is irrelevant.

Whilst I agree, I think the OP was asking for members to conduct a hypothetical thought experiment. Well, at least that was the way I interpreted the thread.

Fair enough, I suppose; so let us approach this in a (pseudo-) scientific manner.

Assumptions

• A typical adult human EEG signal is about 10 µV to 100 µV in amplitude when measured at the scalp.
• A typical adult human EEG signal is about 0.1 Hz to 100 Hz in frequency when measured at the scalp.
• Propagation of electro-magnetic radiation (EMR) obeys the inverse-square law.
• Telepathy is allegedly based on ordinary EMR.
• The input impedance of a typical EEG device ranges from 20,000 Ohms to well over 10,000,000 Ohms.

Derivations

100 micro-volts (squared) into 20 kilo-ohms is 200 pico-watts when measured at the scalp.

To put this in perspective, a Bluetooth™ signal ranges from 0.5 to 100 milli-watts -- about five million times the strength of if the field generated by the human brain!

If the human brain cannot detect the a Bluetooth™ signal from a device in your pocket, then it is even less likely to detect a "telepathic" signal even one meter away!

•••

But ... let us imagine it is possible ... it would be like being in an infinitely large area where everybody is talking at the same time. The people physically closest to you would be louder than those further away, with the people in physical contact with you being the loudest. Their thoughts would be impinging upon yours, all of the time, and everywhere you go.

Also, any device generating a signal in the 0.1 Hz to 100 Hz frequency band would also be picked up telepathically -- you would be under constant bombardment by the exceptionally strong ubiquitous 60 Hz power-line signal!

(50 Hz in Europe.)

Tinfoil hats would be in fashion, but anyone wearing a tinfoil hat would be under suspicion -- not as a paranoid schizophrenic, but as someone with shameful thoughts plotting evil against the rest of society!

("He's hiding his thoughts from the rest of us ... he must be up to no good!")

Who would want to live in a society where your ever thought was immediately know by everyone around you, and where you knew exactly what everyone thinks of you?

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Deinonychus

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03 Apr 2021, 3:48 pm

I don't think the question makes any sense without specifying what exactly that imaginary scenario entails, in fine detail. Otherwise each person will just be imagining something completely different when they think about it.

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quite an extreme
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03 Apr 2021, 4:24 pm

^- that's a sample of real life telepathy. :wink:

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03 Apr 2021, 4:47 pm

Spooky...

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Fnord
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04 Apr 2021, 8:23 pm

Further notes on the subject of telepathy, from an article that first appeared as "Zhodani Philosophies, by Brienshqloriashav" in the Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society #23 (1985): pp42-44.

The character speaking is Brienshqloriashav, press attache for the ("bad-guy") Zhodani diplomatic mission to the ("good-guy") Imperium.

Quote:

... It is the possession of psionic abilities which is the root cause of all tension between us. I have dwelt in the Imperium for years, and I believe I have an understanding of Imperials as great as any of my people, yet even I have only begun to understand the depths of the distrust Imperials feel for us. Most of your populace seems to fear psi powers, even though they have brought our society nothing but benefits (and could yours, if you would but embrace them). For example, psionics permit us to advance the science of behavioral psychology far beyond the Imperial efforts. Where your scientists must guess what occurs in a subject's mind, our observers can know. Our doctors can be certain of the precise effects of a particular course of treatment, instead of stumbling about in the dark, as yours do. Since such disorders as greed can be cured, there is no need for a Zhodani to steal. Since our citizens learn to be open and free in their opinions (and to respect and accept those of others), there is no need for a Zhodani to lie. Since most anti-social tendencies can be detected and corrected early, there is almost no violent crime within the Consulate.

The idea that we constantly monitor our citizens' thoughts is ludicrous. Privacy is not an unknown and alien concept to us. A citizen's privacy... his personal life, his dreams, his thoughts... are his own, and no one in the Consulate will violate a citizen's right to privacy without good and compelling reasons. In any case, not all of us have the ability to "read minds" as you phrase it. However, many of us are trained in "reading" subtleties of body language, speech and behavior, but these are talents anyone can learn, with or without psionic abilities (a great number of your own psychiatric and behavioral scientists study and use our techniques, so they can hardly be considered "evil" by your intelligentsia).

Of course, a citizen's right to privacy does have certain limitations. Our Tavrchedl patrols occasionally monitor the general state of certain minds (more or less at random), but this is no more a violation of their privacy than when Imperial police stop and question an Imperial citizen. It is done to detect the beginnings of mental illness, that such illness may be uncovered and treated as early as possible...

Of course, to the telepathic Zhodani, reading and altering the minds of the lower classes ("proles") is done to make them happy, peaceful, and productive citizens for the greater good of the Zhodani Consulate; but to the non-telepathic Imperials, such treatment of ordinary citizens is akin to "Mind-Rape", and is as crude and violent as the methods employed by Big Brother to subdue people like Carter Winston in the novel "1984".

CockneyRebel
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04 Apr 2021, 10:09 pm

I think that Telepathy would be a very helpful tool. It would be great if we can all read each others minds.

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kitesandtrainsandcats
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04 Apr 2021, 10:20 pm

toadsnail wrote:

Otherwise each person will just be imagining something completely different when they think about it.

That could apply to a lot of things in life.
Some of those being the concepts of:
peace
love
equality
happiness
bargains
relaxing
beautiful
comfortable
tasty
easy
convenient
inconvenient
valuable
a good book
good music
heavy
light
simple
complex
loud
quiet

so forth and so on

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04 Apr 2021, 11:23 pm

kitesandtrainsandcats wrote:

toadsnail wrote:

Otherwise each person will just be imagining something completely different when they think about it.

You forgot the big one though: empathy.

But yes, that's true, especially of the word "love". Along with "empathy", I would put it right up there with "unspecified imaginary telepathy".

The other things, though, you can share the direct experience of the object that you're applying the adjective to, so you can at least know, with a reasonable degree of certainty, if someone else's idea of the adjective coincides with yours or not.

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Yakuzamonroe
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05 Apr 2021, 7:23 am

Technic1 wrote:

Yakuzamonroe wrote:

As an existing property of the human mind, it is eternally fascinating and I would love a scientific explanation as to how it is possible(as a guy who poses sci-fi questions to himself on a daily basis).

But, as part of a possible social reality, it would have me freezing in place wearing tin-foil hats to stop people from prying open the tight lid on the daily operations of my mind. I mean, on top of the general anxieties I have about the social reality I'm forced to face on a regular basis, I've crippling episodes that put me in catatonic states in part due to the possibilities of harm I can face if people knew more about my personal life.

Now imagine people who have that one clear window into my thoughts whenever they feel like it.

The implications of violating privacy don't even begin to describe the issues we would face if telepathy were a reality. I'm talking about how it affects order as it is that high-profile individuals in high-powered economics-based careers or in key political positions can have sensitive, esoteric, normally, "need-to-know" information leaked to the public. Not to mention government response to such a phenomenon, leading to those with such abilities likely being detained or forced into internment for public safetly.

All in all, it's wonderful to think about, but an absolute nightmare in practice.

Would there be more or less crime.

That would be dependent upon the new laws that would be imposed on the public after telepathy was discovered.

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