Telepathy

Example of person in a Ganzfeld experiment.

Telepathy (from the Greek τῆλε tēle, «far» and πάθος pathos, 'passion, emotion') It is the transmission of information from one person to another without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. Experiments in favor of telepathy have historically been criticized for lack of proper controls and repeatability. There is no hard evidence that telepathy exists, and the subject is generally regarded by the scientific community as pseudoscience.

The term was first coined in 1882 by Frederic W. H. Myers, founder of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). Telepathy remains the most popular original expression, superseding the original expression thought transfer.

History

Very few references to telepathy have been found in ancient cultures for which there are written records (unlike, for example, precognition, which does appear in many myths). The notion of telepathy and the speculations related to it became common only from the 19th century.

First investigations

It is considered that the first research on telepathy was carried out by the Society for Psychical Research, whose results were published in 1886 in the work Phantasms of the Living ('Ghosts of the Living'). Years earlier, in 1882, Frederick William Henry Myers, one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), introduced, in an article published in Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, the term « telepathy" (inspired by the incipient technological explosion of the time in which electromagnetic telecommunication techniques receive names such as telephone and telegraph), to differentiate it from the false "mind reading". Although much of the initial research consisted of collecting Apart from anecdotal accounts, experiments were also carried out on those who claimed to possess telepathic abilities. However, their experimental protocols were not very strict.

In 1917 Stanford University psychologist John E. Coover conducted a series of telepathy tests involving transmitting and guessing playing cards. The hits were slightly higher than those expected by chance, concluding that the result had been random.

Perhaps the best-known examples of experiments in telepathy were those of Joseph Banks Rhine and his associates at Duke University, who began in 1927 using Karl Zener's distinctive "ESP Playing Cards" (see Zener Cards). These experiments incorporated more rigorous and systematic protocols than the previous ones, selecting what were assumed to be "normal" participants and not those who claimed to have exceptional abilities, and applying new advances in the field of statistics to evaluate the results. These and other experiments were published by Rhine in his well-known book Extra Sensory Perception, which popularized the term.

Another influential book on telepathy in its day was Mental Radio, published in 1930 by Pulitzer Prize winner Upton Sinclair (with a foreword by Albert Einstein). In it, Sinclair describes his wife's apparent ability to sometimes reproduce drawings made by him and others, even when separated by distances of several miles, in seemingly informal experiments reminiscent of those used by vision researchers. remote in later times. In their book, the Sinclairs pointed out that the results could also be explained as more general clairvoyance, and they did some experiments whose results suggested that no emitter was actually needed and some pictures could be reproduced precognitively.

Second half of the 20th century

In the 1960s, many parapsychologists were dissatisfied with J. B. Rhine's forced-choice experiments, due in part to test participants' boredom after many repetitions of monotonous card-guessing and rejection of the suggestion of magicians to add completely blank cards, and partly because of the "decline effect" whereby the accuracy of guessing cards decreased after a certain time for each participant.

Some parapsychologists resorted to the "free response" format of experiments, where the target was not limited to a small predetermined finite set of responses (e.g. Zener charts), but could instead consist of any kind of chart, drawing, photography, film fragment, musical composition, etc.

As a result of surveys of spontaneous psi experiences that concluded that more than half of them occurred in a dream state, researchers Montaque Ullman and Stanley Krippner of Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, undertook a series of experiments to verify telepathy during sleep. A "receiving" participant in a soundproof and electronically shielded room would be monitored while sleeping for encephalographic patterns and rapid eye movements that characterize the sleep state. A "sender" in another room would then attempt to send an image, randomly selected from a set, to the receiver by concentrating on that image during detected sleep states. Near the end of such states, the recipient would be awakened and asked to describe their sleep during that period. The data collected suggested that sometimes the image was somehow incorporated into the recipient's dream content.

Although the results of the sleep telepathy experiments were interesting, carrying them out required a lot of resources (time, effort, personnel). Other researchers looked for cheaper alternatives, such as the so-called ganzfeld experiments. To date there has been no satisfactory experimental protocol designed to distinguish telepathy from other forms of ESP such as clairvoyance.

Scientific Consensus

Telepathy is considered by the vast majority of the scientific community to be a pseudoscience. His critics object to the experiments with positive results, saying that they have not had adequate scientific rigor. On the other hand, the members of the laboratories of the universities and associations where it is studied maintain that these studies have the necessary rigor, and that there are favorable indications to continue with the tests. In addition, there are evolutionary and physical arguments that make the possibility of telepathic phenomena very unlikely.

Controversy

Tests to detect telepathy

A typical experiment proceeds as follows:

1. Two young people are selected, between 20 and 40 years; one of them is accommodated. This person will be the receiver and should not receive any stimulus from his other senses, must be totally relaxed, and think about the issuer, but let his thoughts flow freely.
2. The other individual is the emitter, to which he will be placed in another room close to that of the receiver—you have to stimulate his senses: it is usually made with images accompanied by sounds that are especially suggestive to the human mind. The broadcaster must concentrate everything he can on the other person while both listen, see, touch, smell or taste the same stimuli.
3. Finally the receiver must tell the thoughts that have passed through his mind during the experience. If these thoughts have any relation to what the issuer has been perceived, it may be considered that there may have been a telepathic communication. None of these experiments have reached decisive conclusions.

Telepathy and science

Some proponents of telepathy have used scientific concepts borrowed from psychology and quantum mechanics in somewhat controversial ways to explain actual mechanisms that might make telepathy physically possible. However, as with clairvoyance, telepathy presents similar physical plausibility problems. Although certain areas of psychology and quantum mechanics remain open problems for which there is no generally accepted answer, this does not imply that these problems can provide any promising argument for the physical plausibility of telepathy.

In an experiment carried out by researchers at the University of Manchester, the aim was to measure, through the use of virtual reality, human telepathic abilities. In the experiment, in which 100 volunteers participated, the participants were separated into pairs. The two members of each pair, equipped with a visor and a glove that allows them to move and interact with objects in the virtual world, entered separate rooms. They were then shown a series of objects chosen at random (a telephone, a trumpet, an umbrella...). The first participant was only shown one of the objects and asked to concentrate and interact with it. In the second room, the other participant sees the same object and three more. Then he must point to the object that he believes his partner is trying to telepathically transmit to him. The researchers were especially interested in looking at the extent to which family ties and other relationships affect telepathic abilities. Those responsible for the experiment do not believe that this test serves to demonstrate the existence or non-existence of telepathy, they only intend to "create an experimental method that facilitates scientific research in this area".^{[ citation required]}

Telepathy and Physics

Several of the reasons why many scientists have dismissed the idea of telepathy as a viable phenomenon are difficulties in proposing a physical mechanism of transmission. Given the scale and magnitude of the brain, if telepathic signals exist it seems that they should be based on electromagnetic interaction or more improbably on gravitational interaction. However, the anatomy does not seem to have differentiated areas or organelles capable of consistently producing electromagnetic waves, which could be received and interpreted by specialized anatomical areas in neighboring brains. All these reasons indicate that there is an absence of arguments to think that brains can somehow produce telepathic signals that can be intercepted and interpreted by other brains.

False telepathies

Sometimes people imagine or even make up telepathic transmissions. They believe they possess the telepathic faculty without really being so. In the case of people who suffer from schizophrenia, they can sometimes feel wrong thoughts or sensations related to telepathy.

Telepathy in fiction

Telepathy is a common device in science fiction. A good number of superheroes and supervillains from various science fiction novels etc. use telepathy. A notable example is Alfred Bester's novel, The Demolished Man (1952), where a community of telepaths coexist with the rest of human beings. Notable telepaths include the Jedi and Sith in the Star Wars universe. Telepathic abilities in fiction vary considerably. Some fictional telepaths can only transmit thoughts with other telepaths, or receive thoughts only from specific other people. For example, in Robert A. Heinlein's novel The Hour of the Stars (1956), a pair of twins can communicate telepathically, but only with each other. In A. E. van Vogt's science fiction novel Slan (1940), the mutant hero Jommy Cross can read the minds of ordinary humans, but not other mutants. Sookie Stackhouse, the telepathic waitress in the novel series The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris, can read the minds of humans and other supernatural beings, but not vampires. Some telepaths can read minds only if there is some kind of physical contact, such as the Vulcans in the Star Trek universe, Abe Sapien in the Guillermo del Toro Hellboy films (2004) or Aro, a vampire from the novel New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (2006). The consultant and writer of the Star Trek universe, André Bormanis, has revealed that telepathy in Star Trek is possible thanks to a kind of psionic field; according to Bormanis, the psionic field is the means by which thoughts and feelings can be transmitted through space. Some humanoids can have perceptual access to said medium thanks to a sensory organ located in the brain; Just as the human eye can perceive ranges within the electromagnetic field that the eyes of other species cannot perceive, telepaths can perceive the psionic field. This field is the equivalent of the astral plane or astral dimension in the comics of the Marvel Universe. In the book Eragon , by Christopher Paolini (2003), Eragon can communicate telepathically with his dragon Saphira and many others, though he can block thoughts with psychic barriers. In the Harry Potter series of novels by J. K. Rowling, telepathy is a magical ability known as legilimency, the ability to block thoughts from legilimency spells is known as occlumency. In John Wyndham's novel The Chrysalides (1955), the main character and narrator, David Strorm, is part of a group of nine telepaths, as are the sixty children of The Cuckoos of Midwich (1957) who possess vast psychic powers and can communicate telepathically with one another, even with other distant children scattered across the globe. In the The Guardians novel series by Anthony Horowitz, twins Jamie and Scott Tyler can read and control each other's minds, as well as communicate with each other, so they always know what they're up to. thinking the other

Some writers regard telepathy as one more leap in human evolution. In Tony Vigorito's novel, Just a Couple of Days (2001), telepathy is found in all humans thanks to a virus, which goes undetected due to other human abilities. Therefore, telepathy is a latent ability that can be developed if other types of distractions can be eliminated, such as communication through language.

In many works of fiction, telepathy is combined with other kinds of psychic powers, as in the case of Stephen King's novel The Shining (1977), where the boy Danny Torrance has powers precognitive and mediumship in addition to telepathic abilities. Other fictional telepaths possess mind control abilities, including the ability to implant hallucinatory thoughts, feelings, or visions into the minds of others. Through psychic attacks they can cause pain, paralysis, fainting or even death. They can alter or erase the memory or completely control the mind and body of others, similar to a spirit possession. Examples of this type of telepaths are Charles Xavier, Emma Frost, Jean Grey, Psylocke and, in general, almost all the telepaths in the Marvel universe. Another example is the telepaths of the television series Heroes, like Matt Parkman among others. Also the most powerful telepaths within the fictional world of Babylon 5 can develop these types of abilities, such as Lyta Alexander or Al Bester.

The vigilante La Sombra has the ability to cloud the minds of others, which he uses to hide his presence from others.

The Scanners film series is about a group of people who were born with vast telepathic powers, as well as certain psychokinetic abilities. In the first film of the series, Doctor Paul Ruth (played by Patrick McGoohan) explains that the telepathic phenomenon is not the transference of thought, but the encounter between nervous systems, allowing telepaths (or explorers as defined in the film) access the nervous system (and therefore the thoughts) of others. The most powerful rangers can also control and manipulate the nervous system of others. These abilities can be inhibited by a drug called Ephemerol that disrupts the explorers' brain synapses, blocking their abilities.

Mohiuddin Nawab's Devta (1977), written in Urdu, is based on the character of Farhad Ali Taimur, a telepath involved in the struggle between Good and Evil.

The film Thoughtcrimes by Breck Eisner (2003) narrates the life of the telepath Freya McAllister, from her troubled beginnings to her inclusion in the special unit of the ASN (National Security Agency).

The Canadian television series, The Listener, chronicles the adventures of Toby Logan, a telepathic paramedic.

Robert Silverberg's novel I'm Dying Inside (1972), an introspective novel that tells the story of telepath David Selig, deserves a special mention. He tells us about the problems and troubles that his gift has caused him, but later he feels how he dies inside when he discovers that he is progressively losing his telepathic capacity, that ability that ruined his life but that he fears losing. for giving it a special distinction from others.

Many Pokémon, especially Legendaries, can talk to humans using this method, such as Lugia, Arceus, Mewtwo, Entei, Jirachi, Shaymin, Darkrai, Reshiram, Zekrom, Keldeo, Cobalion, Terrakion, Virizion, Kyurem, Diancie or Xerneas.

In the American television series The Tomorrow People it is argued that there is a new species in human evolution that possesses telekinesis and telepathy, as well as having the ability to teleport.