Sorry I just got amused by the thread title there.... Oh come on! You have to admit that it's funny Well anyway, here is the actual question; after reading the telepath B5 trilogy, it got me thinking, should telepathy ever manifest would this indicate a soul? Or would it be more credible (relatively speaking) that telepathy is just a really hightened sense of EM sensity? So hightened that one individual can pick up on another's brain waves and 'read' their mind?
If telepathy does indicate a sould however, what consequence would it have on our social outlook? Will it vindicate the existance of a God, an after life (mutually exclusive), or mystisism?
Discuss.
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Scientifically, telepathy would probably be a form of subliminal perception of a target's neural activity.
One problem is how will a telepath "focus" on a person. If a person becomes sensitive to electrical activity (such as that in the brain), the person would become sensitivity to ANY electrical activity. Now if this ability had developed earlier before the advent of electricity it might make sense, since there were no artificial use of electricity back then.
So the focusing thing is a problem.
Telepathy as we traditionally know it in sci-fi is more magic than science I believe.
Crown wrote:Sorry I just got amused by the thread title there.... Oh come on! You have to admit that it's funny Well anyway, here is the actual question; after reading the telepath B5 trilogy, it got me thinking, should telepathy ever manifest would this indicate a soul? Or would it be more credible (relatively speaking) that telepathy is just a really hightened sense of EM sensity? So hightened that one individual can pick up on another's brain waves and 'read' their mind?
If telepathy does indicate a sould however, what consequence would it have on our social outlook? Will it vindicate the existance of a God, an after life (mutually exclusive), or mystisism?
Discuss.
In order for telepathy to work, your brain would have to be broadcasting electrical signals of sufficient wavelength to be picked up by a telepath. Also, the surrounding environment would have an effect on the telepath's ability to receive those signals. It'd be very similar to wireless transmitters.
In the case of Babylon 5, it would probably be some sort of magical phenomenon, since telepaths can receive signals across very large distances. This would indicate signals of absolutely huge wavelength, which would probably burn the telepath's face off after reaching him or her.
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Crown wrote:Sorry I just got amused by the thread title there.... Oh come on! You have to admit that it's funny :) Well anyway, here is the actual question; after reading the telepath B5 trilogy, it got me thinking, should telepathy ever manifest would this indicate a soul? Or would it be more credible (relatively speaking) that telepathy is just a really hightened sense of EM sensity? So hightened that one individual can pick up on another's brain waves and 'read' their mind?
If telepathy does indicate a sould however, what consequence would it have on our social outlook? Will it vindicate the existance of a God, an after life (mutually exclusive), or mystisism?
Discuss.
A) Not necessarily. The human brain is an amazingly complex bit of gray goo. The existence of telepathy wouldn't indicate anything so metaphysical as a 'soul'. It would be more credible to say that telepathy would be eithe a bizarre EM phenomena, or strong deductive and observational skills. Though if telepathy were an EM phenomena, one could envision a story where a civilizaiton uses this to it's advantage by building electronics tuned to human frequencies.
Durandal wrote:In the case of Babylon 5, it would probably be some sort of magical phenomenon, since telepaths can receive signals across very large distances. This would indicate signals of absolutely huge wavelength, which would probably burn the telepath's face off after reaching him or her.
So, since sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, does that mean that B5 telepaths have Holonet hypercomm transceivers embedded in their heads?
In order for telepathy to work, your brain would have to be broadcasting electrical signals of sufficient wavelength to be picked up by a telepath. Also, the surrounding environment would have an effect on the telepath's ability to receive those signals. It'd be very similar to wireless transmitters.
In the case of Babylon 5, it would probably be some sort of magical phenomenon, since telepaths can receive signals across very large distances. This would indicate signals of absolutely huge wavelength, which would probably burn the telepath's face off after reaching him or her.
There is a link between hyperspace and telepathy. A good way to think about it would be as the ability for a section of the brain to effect and be effected by subtle things in hyperspace. This would account for the heightened ability of telepaths in hSpace and the ability for some specifically trained telepaths to communicate instantaneously with another lightyears away. The Centauri Emperor's telepaths for instance.
Telepaths have to be very powerful to sense electrical activity in random objects but are better able to hear thoughts, which IS very counter intuitive as most electrical items use more electrical current and have large fields than human brains.
An important question is: If telepathy was real, should an organization like Psi-Corp exist to control them? (In Star Wars, they have the Jedi Order, in Star Trek, they have a lot of treknobabbles)
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Depends on the level of telepathy. If all they can do is figure out what someone is thinking, it's likely they'd just be persecuted and regulated(I'm saying just for a reason), heavily. Why? Massive invasion of privacy, massive risk. A few might be trained as spies by various governments.
Worse still if they could influence other minds(Essentially, broadcast EM back into other's). They could be declared criminals, or worse. Needless to say, the religious right would go nuts.
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Think of a number between one and fifty. It must be a two digit number. Both digits are odd, and they can't be the same number.
think...
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37?
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If you didn't watch that "magic revealed show", 37 is the number that most people will pick. I've tried it and it "usually" works, as expected (I find the other choice is most often 39)
Well anyway, here is the actual question; after reading the telepath B5 trilogy, it got me thinking, should telepathy ever manifest would this indicate a soul? Or would it be more credible (relatively speaking) that telepathy is just a really hightened sense of EM sensity? So hightened that one individual can pick up on another's brain waves and 'read' their mind?
