Telepathy-a science or just falacy

Pattielli

Could you please tell me whay there comes to be such a word ? I mean why people mention the term 'telepathy' ?
I just think that it is like a falacy, not true at all. Because I don't think it can be measured or perhaps am I misunderstanding this socalled-sending messages from one mind to the other- ?

Any replies, instructions are all highly appreciated !
Please help me with this, I thank you very much...

Atrayo

Hello Pattielli,

Well have you ever seen any episodes of "Star Trek:The Next Generation"?

If so, you'll remember the character of Deana Troy, who was the ships counselor. She was the Empath reader for Captain Picard when they used that video screen for chats. In science-fiction empaths also appear in Babylon 5 as psionic mind readers.

Empathy meaning the use of compassion to gauge anothers emotional state of mind. Where in psychic (para-normal) terms they would be called "Empaths". The reason why i bring up empaths is that telepathy is interlocked with empathy. Which is reading a person either by their body (facial) language or peering into their eyes. (which the ancient Egyptians equated the eyes as the mirror to the soul) (for face to face encounters)

It can be considered a daily occurrence likewise if you consider how we coomunicate with infants/toddlers or animals. If your a pet owner of a cat or dog, there have been times without saying a word that your pet understood what you were trying to impart. Same thing goes with mothers and their children which don't have solid language skills yet developed.

There is probably reams of material for and against "telepathy" as a phenomena, it just depends on whom you go to for the information. Same thing can be said of para-pyschology research, which in traditional scientific circles is considered to be psuedo-science. Although i view that para-pyschology is a pre-cursor field of ethereal sciences. (opposite of science based on physical laws of nature)

Nicomachus

Ethereal sciences. heh. Prove it.
*Nico

the number 42

Doesn't vision count as an ordinary channel of sensation? If empathy requires vision (or the other four senses), then it probably can't be said to be "interlocked" with things extrasensory.

However, I once saw a chap perform a Vulcan mind-meld under controlled conditions, a thing I still can't explain...

(Q)

There has been no evidence whatsoever to suggest thoughts can be transferred from one mind to another.

It's not really a fallacy - more along the lines of mere nonsense.

the number 42

(Q): if Star Trek is to believed - and I'm not suggesting for a moment that we should doubt a word - shouldn't you, as an omnidimensional being (or something), be a little more open to the possibility of telepathy? I know I am, and I only exist in two dimensions, or so the personality tests say.

Kidding aside, I think it is healthy to keep an open mind on some of these things. And... hold on... something coming through... Yes - the magic has arrived. It is Entropia telling me that I am a bona fide bonehead, because - guess what? Someone has already beaten us to this thread. Why didn't we sense this before?

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthr...p?t=260&page=1

the number 42

Er... I have just been there and I can now see why we didn't sense the previous thread. Lets just continue with this one. If you have to, read page one of the other thread, but in the name of Uhura, DON'T venture on to page two.

(I know they are going to venture onto page two; forgive me, Lieutenant).

the number 42

I have just been looking at a different thread on mind controlled technology...
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=4945

...where megashaun found an interesting article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3485918.stm

Not exactly telepathy as we know it (Jim), but not light years far from it either.

zoobyshoe

I believe there is something to telepathy based on my own experiences like when you find yourself going into deep thought about someone you haven't thought about in a long while, the phone rings, and it is the person you were thinking about.

Then there are the stories of people who are suddenly possessed by a feeling of alarm concerning a family member, and when they call to check, find that that person has just been taken to the hospital, or there was a fire in their house, or some similar misfortune.

Those things prove nothing, of course, but they are why I am not inclined to close my mind to the possibility.

Janitor

... to remember this..." But I remember when Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell did some experiment during the mission involving the supposed beaming of his thoughts to people on Earth. He claimed some success, statistically speaking, but I never was impressed. He was also into the wild theorizing of Rupert Sheldrake, as I recall.

the number 42

That's the trouble really. Most of the compelling evidence is qualitative (i.e. experiences that seem meaningful) than quantitative i.e. statistical. This means that even hardened sceptics can have experiences that make them suspect something to telepathy, but then they look at the figures...

A couple of reasons for the feeling/figures discrepancy is that 1/ we are not that good a estimating the liklihood of events occuring by chance, and 2/ we tend to notice and remember the times something unusual happens, but not when nothing unusual happens (yes, this second is a statement of the obvious).

Take an example of the first problem: lets suppose there are 23 people reading this thread. What is the liklihood that one of the 23 shares the same birthday as Zoobyshoe? 1 in 100? 2 in 365? Or what? ("Turn to p.11 for the answer", it says here).

Janitor

As I so often do, I will stray from the topic at hand (telepathy) onto a different topic (religion). I know a married woman who says that the very first time she saw the man who is now her husband, God told her: "This is the man you are going to marry." What I have not suggested to her, in the interest of keeping peaceful relations, is that she probably also had that feeling several times before that, with men that she did not wind up marrying. But she conveniently forgets all those false feelings, I imagine, and attributes the one time the feeling turned out to be correct to the Voice of God speaking directly to her.

zoobyshoe

True.

In addition to my own telephone experiences, and the anecdotes about the loved one in danger, there are three historical accounts I know of which are, much too specific to be dismissed as the coincidence remembered among the non-coincidences forgetten.

One is the story of the village simpleton who seemed to be witnessing and reporting on the battle in which Richard III was killed from many miles away. When the news that Richard had been killed and dethroned reached the village, they sent word to the new king about this strange occurance and he had the simpleton brought to his court to meet him. The poor man begged not to go, claiming they would starve him to death there. And in fact, to prevent him from running away, the King had the man locked in a room while he (the king) was off on a trip, and the servants forgot all about him. When the king returned and asked for him, they found him dead of starvation in the locked room.

Another is the story of mystic Emmanuel Swedenbourg becoming anxious and agitated while at the court of the Queen of Sweden, claiming that he sensed his house was being threatened by a fire in another city. People at the court recorded his claims in their diaries. Later it was discovered they were accurate.

A third is the story of Geronimo, the Apache war chief, who was also something of a mystic and shaman. Once while they were camped for the night while eluding the soldiers trying to round them up, Geronimo was suddenly seized by an intuition. He shouted for everyone to saddle up and ride home because the soldiers were there attacking their women and children. Which turned out to be true.

The first two stories are documented, the last is from reports by Geronimo's men years later, after they were captured.

JohnDubYa

RE: "In addition to my own telephone experiences, and the anecdotes about the loved one in danger, there are three historical accounts I know of which are, much too specific to be dismissed as the coincidence remembered among the non-coincidences forgetten."

How many times in history have these premonitions turned out to be not true, and why haven't these instances been recorded in history?

zoobyshoe

I bet that for anyone willing to dig, you could uncover alot of stories of people who claimed to be getting telepathic warnings and such that turned out to be nothing. I have no interest in doing that, because it's obvious it happens all the time.

These three stories struck me as way too specific to be coincidental hits in the midst of many misses.

I'm not trying to convince anyone else with them, just presenting them as what leads me to keep my mind open about telepathy.

Ivan Seeking

Never heard of it.

http://nidsci.org/bios/mitchell.php

His site:
http://www.noetic.org/

JohnDubYa

RE: "These three stories struck me as way too specific to be coincidental hits in the midst of many misses."

Frankly, I don't find them all that profound. The first one especially.