Telepathy

[Willum]

I am re-reading the Foundation Series and a thought has popped into my mind:

Assuming we could read each others minds - how would humanity change?

Would the impossibility of hiding secrets improve or malign people or the planet?

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 19 by DanieltheDragon]

If you don't mind my asking, just what on earth does this have to do with the OP?

However, I am also wondering if you considered the possibility that you were really at those places?

Several years ago, whenever I closed my eyes to go to sleep, I started seeing startling sharp pictures of houses and streets. I was like I was right there. I could count the leaves on the trees in front of the houses. I just wonder. I think we are all omnipresent, though in a very qualified sense. So I am open to the possibility that I was really some place real. I tried to see street numbers and names, to check things out, but never could. I haven't had these visions for a time. Wish they were back. Can't control them.

[Neatras]

I view it as metaphysically possible because modern science has shown us that reality is relational. If so, then this holds for the entire universe. Hence, there must be some instantaneous communication coming to us from parts of the universe millions of light years away from us.

I'm gonna have to ask, have you actually watched the pseudo-science documentary What the Bleep Do We Know!? It parrots the same laymen understanding of extremely complex physical processes and attempts to insist that it validates their bunk claims.

Just because you hear a few words that sound impressive does not mean you have the capacity to correlate human consciousness with quantum entanglement. There is NO evidence to suggest telepathy exists, and I would advise you to listen to a few videos debunking the documentary. Even if you haven't seen the movie in question, the refutations will prove to be incredibly useful in telling you exactly why pseudoscience deserves absolutely no praise.

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 22 by Neatras]

Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not interested in watching that documentary. To start with, I am not a lay person and I am not into pseudo-science. I have an M.S. in clinical psychology and a Ph.D. in theology. My AOS is process metaphysics, as can be found in the writings of major philosophers such as Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, etc. I am speaking exclusively from that perspective.

As to telepathy, I know of some very impressive cases, including one with my wife, who knew the moment my mother died, which was totally unexpected. And, on the basis of process metaphysics, I am definitely open to the possibility that many other valid cases have, can, and will happen.

I also think that it is a mistake to assume all experience is necessarily conscious experience. I find the vast bulk of our experience is subconscious or unconscious, for example. So I am not reading in human consciousness to quantum entanglement.

I to think the basic building blocks of reality, the atoms, so to speak, are drops of subjective experience. Even atoms have tiny minds. However, only highly complex, developed organisms exhibit consciousness. All the rest exhibit purely unconscious experience.

[Neatras]

I to think the basic building blocks of reality, the atoms, so to speak, are drops of subjective experience. Even atoms have tiny minds.

You say you're not into pseudoscience, but I have every reason to think you're being intellectually dishonest if you'll say this in the same post without demonstrating it with evidence. It's so deep into New Age spiritual woo that you will never find a peer reviewed article supporting your case. I can't say anything about philosophy or theology, but then again, that's not what this sub-forum is about. So make your scientific case.

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 24 by Neatras]

That's where you are mistaken. Process theology is a major, respected movement in contemporary Christian thought, which is one of the main reasons why I did my doctorate in process. I and process have nothing to do with New Age woo. For example, Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) is recognized as a major 20th-century philosopher, especially when it comes to the philosophy of science. Two good books here are his "Science and the Modern World" and "Process and Reality." Likewise, Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000) is considered to be one of America's most distinguished philosophers. He taught at Harvard, the University of Chicago, Emory University, and the University of Texas, where he held the chair as Ingram Professor of Philosophy. He was a past president of the Western Division of teh American Philosophical Association, the Metaphysical Society of America, the Southern Society for the Philosophy of Religion, and the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology. Articles on process have appeared in major theological and philosophical journals for years. I would add that panpsychism, which is what we are concerned with here, is a traditional and well-respected position in philosophy. So don't hand me this New-Age-woo line. It is totally off the mark.
You asked for a rationale. OK, her are some important points to bear in mind. Whitehead sought the separation between mind and matter that he found in dualistic philosophers, such as Descartes. The problem is that viewing mind and matter as two separate, independent, conflicting realities prevented one from ever understanding how they interact. In Whitehead, mind and matter are one. Consequently, he defined the building blocks of reality, the actual entities, as momentary unities of subjective experience.

Hartshorne stressed that there no hard-and-fast dividing line between the living and the nonliving, the organic and the inorganic. In addition, I would add that what is the case at the top of the evolutionary scale is also the case at the bottom, though to a significantly lesser extent. We have been so busy extending mechanical principles up the scale, to explain things, that we have forgotten it is equally important to extend psychological principles down the scale, to explain things.

Also, all perceived qualities are qualities of feeling. When I look at a red patch, feeling is clearly given, the mood and intensity of the redness. Hence, unless feeling is genuinely out there, then we have absolutely no knowledge, not an inkling, what is going on out there.

Another important point is that al knowing is analogous knowing. To know, we must generalize from the familiar to the unfamiliar. Now, if there is one thing we are most familiar with, it is human existence. So unless there is some analogy, some genuine likeness between ourselves and all the rest of reality, we haven't got an inkling what is going on. Anthropomorphizing and projection are the solution, not the problem.

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 21 by hoghead1]

This is in reference to how telepathy would function by examining how consciousness works. Monta brought up dreaming and took his anecdotal experiences and tried to extrapolate them on everyone else. Apparently lips don't move in his dreams.

No I don't consider that these are real places I have visited because, I have a hard time sleeping I often lie awake in the dark and imagine things until I sleep stories etc. bits of what I focus my imagination on often show up in my dreams. So I know these are just bits and pieces of thoughts being strung together. The dreams often defy physics and are not always chronological.

[Kenisaw]

I am re-reading the Foundation Series and a thought has popped into my mind:

Assuming we could read each others minds - how would humanity change?

Would the impossibility of hiding secrets improve or malign people or the planet?

I would get slapped a lot more at bars and at my job, I can tell you that much.

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 26 by DanieltheDragon]

Thanks for the info. Still a bit puzzled. You and others are trying to use dreaming to explain how consciousness works, in order to understand telepathy. Right? I'm not sure I follow the logic behind that. But OK.

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 26 by DanieltheDragon]

Thanks for the info. Still a bit puzzled. You and others are trying to use dreaming to explain how consciousness works, in order to understand telepathy. Right? I'm not sure I follow the logic behind that. But OK.

If you go back to the first page we had discussed the use of language with telepathy and whether or not it would be used in leu of mental projection of ideas and concepts through alternative means.

Monta brought up dreaming to support his assertion that language would not linger stating that people don't talk in dreams. Implying that while language is not being used ideas and concepts still transpire and are understood. I countered that this simply isnt true. Hence the discussion of language and lip movements in dreams.

Honestly, I don't care if you follow the logic I was simply replying to Monta. This is all hypothetical anyways.

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 29 by DanieltheDragon]

I certainly think feelings can be expressed without words. That's why we have art, paintings and music. Many feelings we have are almost impossible to describe with words.