Do you believe telepathy will be possible someday? Explain why or why not.?

Question

Considering we know so little about the brain and it is assumed we currently only use 10% of our brains ability, it doesn't seem too far fetched to me that one day (perhaps generations down the road) as humans evolve telepathy will be possible.

150 years ago if you said sending sound and video through the air and receiving it somewhere else with perfect clarity was possible you would have been considered mad. Yet today we take TV and radio for granted. To me this gives rise to keeping an open mind in terms of sending thought waves as well, but I am not a scientist so I would like to hear from those in the field of science.

silverbir...you bring up a good point, but I think evolution is the answer. 300,000 years ago humans couldn't run a 4 minute mile, were not 6 feet tall on average, etc etc. As humans have evolved, we have gained more and more abilities through genetics and through experience. Saying that the fact we have not been able to do it for the last 300,000 doesn't prove it cannot be learned. Also, in regards to building the receivers, maybe in fact our brains need to be tweaked or have built in components to transmit thought, who knows.

Vincent G, well said...who knows. I don't know how in a crowed stadium my phone knows how to pick up a particular radio wave, so maybe some day we figure out how to pick up complex neurons.

As far as the 10% of our brains, it seems I indeed got that wrong. Perhaps it was that we only understand 10% of the brain, or perhaps that is just fallacy. As I said, I am not a scientist, just curious as to the opinions of those in science.

Answer 1

Why is it assumed we only use only 10% of our brain? Where does this come from?
Years ago, a scientist said that we only had some understanding of how 10% of the brain works, meaning that we had not figured out how the other 90% worked. Not that the other 90% is not working; that we don't know HOW it is working.

Your parallel with TV and radio is inappropriate. TV and radio were invented; the human brain is not changing; except at the extremely slow rate of evolution.

TV and radio work by emitting radio waves, which are electromagnetic radiations similar to visible light, but of a longer wavelenght. Those can be measured, produced, detected.
The brain does not emit anything but local electrical impulses that can be picked only at very close range (i.e. contacting) by sensitive electrodes. And all we have is a jumble of electrical activity as the billions of nerve cells in the brain are all active. Imaging being in a loud crowd -- say at a sporting event -- and trying to pick up the conversation of someone on the other side of the field.
Now, imagine one hundred billion neurons, and deciphering what all that is happening. Remember a brain is also controlling the heart rate, the digestion, several hundred muscles, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching and smelling all at the same time, and you'd want to pick up a small message like "meet me at 5 pm" in that jumble? With what antenna? With what part of your brain? Which is doing what right now, before it evolves into a telepathic receptor?

The real risk with expectations like telepathy is that non-scientists will insist that something is possible despite scientists opinion, and claim that the scientists have a hidden agenda to keep the secret to themselves or something like that. And that is a very dangerous attitude. And you will see lots of people claim that "anything is possible", which is DEAD WRONG. There are lots of impossible things, and the fact that something has not been proven to be impossible does not mean that is is possible.

In the case of telepathy, as in many other phenomenons, the idea should start with a verified event that can be studied. Radio waves were mathematically announced by Maxwell in 1864. Hertz then was able to emit and receive them in 1885. Radio waves prediction were based on a generalisation of visible light.
We don't have any starting point with telepathy, except that of fraudsters and charlatans.

Truth be told, it would be cool if telepathy could exist. But then again, so would a genie in a lamp granting 3 wishes to whoever rubs said lamp. But both of those are complete chimeras. Don't get your hope up.

Answer 2

First, we use 100% of our brains. If you used 30% you would have a serious health problem or even be dead. Telepathy is not exactly a question of belief, but it is necessary for you to define what exactly is telepathy in your understanding. Does Telepathy to you mean transmission of thoughts and feelings? If it is, then it does exist and it is proven to exist. the mechanism is not well understood, but it is known that the people more close to you will be more likely to transmit information. You can do an experiment with a deck of cards. Get a person you love(might be a friend) to shuffle a deck of cards and then look at one at a time and you try to guess exactly which card it is. In the end measure the average of cards shown and of correct guesses. Try not to think about it. Use the method "just do it" when guessing. If the guesses are above 30% then it is a low, but nice indication that some transmission might be occurring. The process in this experiment is about reading the other person subconsciously, it is not that strange when you think about it. It is just a question of reading their approval or disapproval when you hit or miss, your nervous system will then try to optimize the results.

Answer 3

First off, that "10%" widely-quoted statistic is completely wrong...even stupid people use 70-80% of their brain on a daily basis. Really smart critical thinkers even more.

Second...I don't think there will ever be a way for telepathy to come about naturally -- our brains don't have the hardware for it, and there's no evolutionary advantage to being able to do it. However, given the amount of research going into augmenting human systems with engineered hardware, it's not much of a stretch to think that someday somebody will come up with a brain-add-on that will let you transmit and receive "thoughts." Motorola is probably already working on it :)

Answer 4

No, we do not use only 10% of our brain's ability. We use around 10% at a time, but there will be different 10% for other occasions.

Sound and video are completely different, in that we have had to design and build both recievers and transmitters.

Why should it be posible in the future? Why not over the last 300,000 years or so?

Answer 5

I believe some people already have a touch of telepathy as I have experienced and witnessed it on several occasions.

Yes, we know very little about the human brain, but while no one has been able to prove telepathy scientifically, they've not been able to disprove it either.

Answer 6

Actually, we will probably become cyborgs. With medical technology the way it is...replacing joints and bones, as well as organs...I imagine that someday they'll be able to make people mostly into machines. That may not be for thousands of year...but at the rate we're going, it's certainly a possibility. That is if the human race doesn't destroy itself.

Answer 7

Telepathy will be possible, but not in the way that you're thinking. Cell phones are getting smaller. Imagine one that's small enough to be implantable, that'll vibrate your eardrum in a way that no one else can hear, and can translate subvocalization into an audible outgoing stream.

Answer 8

It is a common myth that we only use 10% of our brains. We use all of them. I believe the only way for telepathy to be possible in the future would be through artificial means (i.e. brain chips and transmitters.)

Answer 9

I believe telepathy is possible now. I think people used to be able to use this ability and have lost it. There are people who are telepathic.

Answer 10

I believe some people already have that ability. I don't know if something like that can be taught. Either you have it or you don't. In my case. I don't.