6 ms·

A Forgotten Adventure with a Telepathic Tribe

68 points by atollstat 10y ago

proksoup 10y ago
A lot of information can be conveyed with body language, context and emotion, to the point where it's difficult to distinguish from telepathy. Most especially with folks who've spent a great deal of time together. I'm maybe not the only one who's experienced bits of 'beaming' with a long time friend or partner? Perhaps "I have a pretty good idea of what X is thinking" is softer language than "I'm reading X's mind", but I can see how the experience of telepathy is not greatly distant from something that's normal for many people.
- cowpewter 10y ago
  When I was in high school, my AP Chem class only had a handful of people in it. The chemistry teacher was a pretty awesome laid-back guy, and so in the month of school left after the AP test but before the end of the school year, we pretty much used all our class time to play pinochle. After a few weeks of playing with the same partner, you can pretty much know what they have in their hand just by the way they play.
neom 10y ago
As a note, I've seen the encounter twice now here in Manhattan - it's absolutely fantastic and I can't rave about it enough. They used a lot of cool sound trickery, mostly with a Sennheiser Neumann KU 100 and some well placed parabolics. Unfortunately it's no longer on broadway. http://theencounterbroadway.com/index.php#home-content http://theencounterbroadway.com/index.php#home-content
mmjaa 10y ago
I would love for the species to develop Telepathy. Since I was a child I've dreamed of the day (sci-fi drove me there), and I feel that we inch closer and closer as the Internet grows by day ..
- jobigoud 10y ago
  I think one avenue almost feasible today would be: Electromyography on the larynx > silent speech recognition > transmission of the data through wireless network > speech synthesis > ouput audio to wireless earphone. If you implant both ends you have something indistinguishable from (consensual) telepathy.
  - mmjaa 10y ago
    So just a couple "apt update && apt upgrade"'s away, and we're there ..
- djrogers 10y ago
  > I would love for the species to develop Telepathy. I pray if we do it's opt-in, and not driven by advertising...
  - mmjaa 10y ago
    Yeah, I think actually it really is opt-in, and that may just well be the reason it "doesn't work".
- wthigo 10y ago
  careful what you wish for, everyone has their dark side
  - oelmekki 10y ago
    And an exceptional front light side. I'm always amazed how most people give the best of themselves during casual social encounters. The big effort we do in social interactions is kind of an art, we're not so good in daily life with our close ones, simply because we can't maintain that effort for so long. Telepathy would ruin this, I guess.
    - mmjaa 10y ago
      It depends if there were some sort of control mechanism for just how much telepathy was 'allowed' - like, its not - imho - full mind-reading, but rather "selective understanding" from the target sides' point of view .. I wouldn't want to know everything, just a few things during actual real incidents. Therefore, there still has to be a line between individual choice and social sharing.
SCHiM 10y ago
Let's not forget that speaking/talking is telepathy, right people? Speech crosses all the boxes: -- It's invisible, travels via 'waves' -- The 'waves' I use to speak can cause your brain to show you images -- It can convey emotions, thoughts, images. -- It can be used to persuade others, change the way they think about a subject. -- **tree**. Did it work? Did you see a tree? Of course recognising that speech really does check all the boxes is kind of a let down when you're expecting sci fi voices-in-your-head (wait, that sounds familiar...) telepathy
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Long-distance telepathy if you do it over a phone. I think IMs on smartphones are closest we are to sci-fi long-range telepathic connection from practical standpoint though.
- p1esk 10y ago
  Yes, but the "real" telepathy is when you can picture, in your head, the exact tree I'm picturing in my head, without me doing anything to help you. Sounds pretty sci-fi, until you read about recent brain to brain communication experiments.
  - shostack 10y ago
    I think one needs to only look as far as usage of gifs and emoji and Snapchat/Instagram to see how fast that will be adopted once the I/O devices improve.
  - Terr_ 10y ago
    I don't think that's possible because the first person never really has a complete tree picture to begin with. Instead you have a while bunch of sub-impressions which your brain dynamically invents from old experiences as your attention wanders. Even if you transfer all the input-requirements, the other person's procedural generator will give a different set of outputs to satisfy them.
    - p1esk 10y ago
fallingfrog 10y ago
I can't believe the claim, since telepathy has never been demonstrated- however! I think I have to admit that there isn't any law of physics that says telepathy is impossible, theoretically. It would certainly be possible over short distances if humans had specialized organs for transmitting and receiving electrical signals, like an electric eel does. Since we don't have that organ, the signals a human brain can produce are very weak, which is why they put electrodes right on your scalp and not a few inches away. If telepathy could occur, it would have to be in a very electrically quiet place like the Amazon. It could be that telepathy is real but just never tested in an electrically quiet enough environment. The modern world is shockingly noisy- cell phones, radio towers, the power grid, and wifi hubs all produce constant electrical noise. Even in the Amazon I'd say the probability that this is real is very very low, but hey, who knows.
- Thrillington 10y ago
  If that was true there would be some record from the thousands and thousands of years of written history from before humans harnessed the electron.
  - fallingfrog 10y ago
    That's a good point!
samlittlewood 10y ago
Saw/heard this in London - very well told story.
ivanhoe 10y ago
Our thoughts, as we experience them, are usually in a form of an inner monologue, and very much like talking it's always in some particular language. Based on that I'd suspect, if telepathy was possible, that it would still be very closely bound to the language that you use to verbalize your thoughts.
- gliese1337 10y ago
  Not for everyone. People who "think in language" tend to be more common, but there are "people who think in language" and people who just don't. And people in either camp tend to assume that that's just how everyone is, until they are shown different. But since the "think in language" camp is larger, it is a lot easier to go through life not ever realizing that there are people who are different, to the point that many people even refuse to belief that non-linguistic thinkers exist even when presented with examples, which leads to a great deal of misinformation being spread in discussions of psycholinguistics.
- SAI_Peregrinus 10y ago
  Your thoughts may always be in a language. I tend to have images more than words.

68 points by atollstat 10y ago

A lot of information can be conveyed with body language, context and emotion, to the point where it's difficult to distinguish from telepathy. Most especially with folks who've spent a great deal of time together. I'm maybe not the only one who's experienced bits of 'beaming' with a long time friend or partner? Perhaps "I have a pretty good idea of what X is thinking" is softer language than "I'm reading X's mind", but I can see how the experience of telepathy is not greatly distant from something that's normal for many people.

cowpewter 10y ago
When I was in high school, my AP Chem class only had a handful of people in it. The chemistry teacher was a pretty awesome laid-back guy, and so in the month of school left after the AP test but before the end of the school year, we pretty much used all our class time to play pinochle. After a few weeks of playing with the same partner, you can pretty much know what they have in their hand just by the way they play.

neom 10y ago

As a note, I've seen the encounter twice now here in Manhattan - it's absolutely fantastic and I can't rave about it enough. They used a lot of cool sound trickery, mostly with a Sennheiser Neumann KU 100 and some well placed parabolics. Unfortunately it's no longer on broadway. http://theencounterbroadway.com/index.php#home-content http://theencounterbroadway.com/index.php#home-content

mmjaa 10y ago

I would love for the species to develop Telepathy. Since I was a child I've dreamed of the day (sci-fi drove me there), and I feel that we inch closer and closer as the Internet grows by day ..

jobigoud 10y ago
I think one avenue almost feasible today would be: Electromyography on the larynx > silent speech recognition > transmission of the data through wireless network > speech synthesis > ouput audio to wireless earphone. If you implant both ends you have something indistinguishable from (consensual) telepathy.
- mmjaa 10y ago
  So just a couple "apt update && apt upgrade"'s away, and we're there ..
djrogers 10y ago
> I would love for the species to develop Telepathy. I pray if we do it's opt-in, and not driven by advertising...
- mmjaa 10y ago
  Yeah, I think actually it really is opt-in, and that may just well be the reason it "doesn't work".
wthigo 10y ago
careful what you wish for, everyone has their dark side
- oelmekki 10y ago
  And an exceptional front light side. I'm always amazed how most people give the best of themselves during casual social encounters. The big effort we do in social interactions is kind of an art, we're not so good in daily life with our close ones, simply because we can't maintain that effort for so long. Telepathy would ruin this, I guess.
  - mmjaa 10y ago
    It depends if there were some sort of control mechanism for just how much telepathy was 'allowed' - like, its not - imho - full mind-reading, but rather "selective understanding" from the target sides' point of view .. I wouldn't want to know everything, just a few things during actual real incidents. Therefore, there still has to be a line between individual choice and social sharing.

SCHiM 10y ago

Let's not forget that speaking/talking is telepathy, right people? Speech crosses all the boxes: -- It's invisible, travels via 'waves' -- The 'waves' I use to speak can cause your brain to show you images -- It can convey emotions, thoughts, images. -- It can be used to persuade others, change the way they think about a subject. -- **tree**. Did it work? Did you see a tree? Of course recognising that speech really does check all the boxes is kind of a let down when you're expecting sci fi voices-in-your-head (wait, that sounds familiar...) telepathy

TeMPOraL 10y ago
Long-distance telepathy if you do it over a phone. I think IMs on smartphones are closest we are to sci-fi long-range telepathic connection from practical standpoint though.
p1esk 10y ago
Yes, but the "real" telepathy is when you can picture, in your head, the exact tree I'm picturing in my head, without me doing anything to help you. Sounds pretty sci-fi, until you read about recent brain to brain communication experiments.
- shostack 10y ago
  I think one needs to only look as far as usage of gifs and emoji and Snapchat/Instagram to see how fast that will be adopted once the I/O devices improve.
- Terr_ 10y ago
  I don't think that's possible because the first person never really has a complete tree picture to begin with. Instead you have a while bunch of sub-impressions which your brain dynamically invents from old experiences as your attention wanders. Even if you transfer all the input-requirements, the other person's procedural generator will give a different set of outputs to satisfy them.
  - p1esk 10y ago

fallingfrog 10y ago

I can't believe the claim, since telepathy has never been demonstrated- however! I think I have to admit that there isn't any law of physics that says telepathy is impossible, theoretically. It would certainly be possible over short distances if humans had specialized organs for transmitting and receiving electrical signals, like an electric eel does. Since we don't have that organ, the signals a human brain can produce are very weak, which is why they put electrodes right on your scalp and not a few inches away. If telepathy could occur, it would have to be in a very electrically quiet place like the Amazon. It could be that telepathy is real but just never tested in an electrically quiet enough environment. The modern world is shockingly noisy- cell phones, radio towers, the power grid, and wifi hubs all produce constant electrical noise. Even in the Amazon I'd say the probability that this is real is very very low, but hey, who knows.

Thrillington 10y ago
If that was true there would be some record from the thousands and thousands of years of written history from before humans harnessed the electron.
- fallingfrog 10y ago
  That's a good point!

samlittlewood 10y ago

Saw/heard this in London - very well told story.

ivanhoe 10y ago

Our thoughts, as we experience them, are usually in a form of an inner monologue, and very much like talking it's always in some particular language. Based on that I'd suspect, if telepathy was possible, that it would still be very closely bound to the language that you use to verbalize your thoughts.

gliese1337 10y ago
Not for everyone. People who "think in language" tend to be more common, but there are "people who think in language" and people who just don't. And people in either camp tend to assume that that's just how everyone is, until they are shown different. But since the "think in language" camp is larger, it is a lot easier to go through life not ever realizing that there are people who are different, to the point that many people even refuse to belief that non-linguistic thinkers exist even when presented with examples, which leads to a great deal of misinformation being spread in discussions of psycholinguistics.
SAI_Peregrinus 10y ago
Your thoughts may always be in a language. I tend to have images more than words.