Telepathy: Encyclopedia II - Telepathy - Telepathy and science

Telepathy - Telepathy and science

Telepathy proponents point generally to controversially scientific concepts such as psychology and quantum mechanics, as areas of research that are considered to be deeply based in the scientific method, but have equally problematic and unexplainable links to the exclusively physical description of reality.

Telepathy - Quantum mechanics

In seeking and proposing a scientific explanation, some telepathy proponents have claimed there to be connections between scientific quantum theory as a basis for telepathy. Such modern concepts of telepathy have been attempted to draw both legitimacy and scientific curiosity, by making both general and specific analogies between the "unaccepted unknowns" of religion and parapsychology, and the "accepted unknowns" in the quantum sciences, where the classical and understood concepts of physics (time and space) don't generally apply. The clear example is in quantum mechanics and its inherently theoretical cousin, string theory. Both have radically changed modern concepts regarding the nature of time, space, energy, and matter, and the relationships between each.

In general the concept is that the mind (human or otherwise) is simply evolved physical scaffold for an entity of electrical and quantum impulses. This system, in turn is claimed to have been developed abilities to influencing and receiving "quantum fluctuations" from other minds. In essence, proponents claim that telepathy is not "extrasensory", rather that the brain is the telepathic organ, its connections to other brains are not physical, but psychic, and the very definition of the psychic medium is the localized inertial frame of reference which is affected by the mind.

This new and "scientifically-grounded" concept of telepathy provides the context for further speculations. However, physicists and skeptics state that quantum mechanics does not show classical effects until objects are at sub-nanometer scales, and since the physical components of the mind are all much larger, these quantum effects are considered negligible. Proponents counter that the scientific statements carry two flawed assumptions, namely that the experience of telepathy need be a classical effect, and that the mind is sensitive to only classical effects.

Some physicists, such as Nick Herbert [1], have pondered whether or not quantum mechanics' "non-locality" (or "spooky action at a distance") principle would permit instantaneous communication such as telepathy. Experiments have been conducted (by scientists such as Gao Shen at the Institute of Quantum Physics in Beijing, China) to study whether or not quantum entanglements (connections allowing instantaneous information exchange) demonstrated at the level of electrons can also be verified between human minds. Such experiments usually include monitoring for synchronous EEG patterns between two hypothetically "entangled" minds. [2]

Telepathy - Technologically-assisted telepathy

Some, for example the science-fiction writer Spider Robinson in the book Deathkiller, have envisioned neurological research leading to technologically-assisted telepathy, also called techlepathy. As of 2004, scientists have demonstrated that neuroimaging can be successfully used to recognise distinct thought patterns, and tell, for example, whether experimental monkeys thought about juice or water, and whether a human participant thought about a rotating cube or moving his paralyzed arm. Both implanted electrodes recording neurons' activity and outside electrodes recording electromagnetic activity of the brain can be used.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Telepathy and science", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki