# Telepathy and Others - True or False? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 17, 2012, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796 "2012-01-17T15:00:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/21 "2012-01-17T22:03:35Z")
No… let me elaborate…No, under controlled conditions it has never been detected. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/22 "2012-01-17T22:37:47Z")
> [@Sister\_Vigilante](#): > > From what I recall reading, it’s not that the police who respond to these psychics are fools, it’s that they are required to follow up on every lead, no matter how crazy the person is on the phone. That’s how psychics claim they have been assisting the police. > > There is no psychic ability whatsoever. Psychics also make press announcements and contact family members, inserting themselves into the event that way. > [@Eve](#): > > It was Robert Benchley’s assertion that Dreams Go By Opposites: I finally get to use a [Digger quote](http://www.diggercomic.com/?p=4). From panel 2: > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by **Ursula Vernon** > That . . . rock . . . looks nothing like a bunny. Neither does that one. What’re the odds? The comic starts with a talking wombat hallucinating because she hit a pocket of bad air and gets odder from there. ---
**Author:** ![Lizzyerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Lizzyerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizzyerd)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/23 "2012-01-17T22:51:15Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > What does this example have to do with anything? Why would you think that dots on your wrist had anything to do with the other stuff in that story, and why does it have anything to do with being psychic? Said I wasn’t sure about it… just that it was an odd thing that happened. Said to make up my mind for me. So meh 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Lizzyerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Lizzyerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizzyerd)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/24 "2012-01-17T22:53:20Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Stuff like this happens to everybody at some point. It’s not psychic anything. It’s a coincidence, and it only seems interesting because when you _don’t_ see the coincidence, you don’t remember it. Most of your examples aren’t that unusual or remarkable (to the extent I can understand what you’re saying). > > The first plane hit the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m., the second hit at 9:03, and the third plane hit the Pentagon at 9:37, and by 10 one of the WTC towers was collapsing - so it’s very possible you did overhear somebody talking about it. If not, you had a bad feeling for no particular reason and you remember it because something bad actually was happening. I expect that you’ve had “a feeling that something was wrong” lots of times and you don’t remember most of them. NOPE! Not uh, nadda, nothing. Except for those I said already, of course I can’t prove or disprove that so. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/25 "2012-01-17T22:56:47Z")
> [@Lizzyerd](#): > > NOPE! Not uh, nadda, nothing. Except for those I said already, of course I can’t prove or disprove that so. Just because you don’t remember it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. But like I said, it’s also possible that you were feeling bad for no particular reason and you remember it because it turned out that something important was also happening. To offer a third possibility, other people knew what was going on and you picked up on their tension without knowing why they were tense. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/26 "2012-01-17T23:27:21Z")
> [@naita](#): > > How probably is it people will have a number of coincidences happen through their life and remember them? And that statistically some people will have more coincidences than others? **Very** likely. “The laws of probability not only allow for coincidence; they _demand_ it.” See “Confirmation Bias” (in **Standingwave** ’s post above, quoted below). > [@standingwave](#): > > Rather than true or false, how about unproven? _Confirmation bias_ best describes what I think is happening. You remember the times your psychic premonitions turn out to be correct and simply forget the times they don’t. It’s very, very human. > > _Even if someone has sought and interpreted evidence in a neutral manner, they may still remember it selectively to reinforce their expectations. This effect is called “selective recall”, “confirmatory memory” or “access-biased memory”. Psychological theories differ in their predictions about selective recall. Schema theory predicts that information matching prior expectations will be more easily stored and recalled. Some alternative approaches say that surprising information stands out more and so is more memorable. Predictions from both these theories have been confirmed in different experimental contexts, with no theory winning outright._[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation\_bias](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias) I think you’ve nailed it. Here is why: It’s my considered opinion that true human telepathy cannot reliably be said to exist. I base this answer on my telepathic experiences. 🙂 Prior to 1990 I was highly emotionally repressed. While I did love my wife, it was more in the nature of a patriotic/religious commitment than anything the songs might celebrate. In spring 1990 I had a heart attack; the following year, we took in homeless teenagers, feeling like we were being called to help them. The rtesult was vastly destabilizing to my emotional battlements. At the same time, one runaway arrived and ended up in our household who thought he had lost all the things that had provided him emotional stability. We “clicked” – we were both desperate for emotional stability, and each discovered a hole in our life the size and shape of the other. We became each other’s best friend/{older/younger} brother/{father/son} figure, intellectually oriented, emotionally needy, and capable of “switching hats” on need at a moment’s notice. We sought and got a really deep understanding of the other’s personality, his reactions and ways of thinking, talking for hours, grasping each other’s reactions to songs, and so on. And for a few months we could much of the time reliably predict the other’s reaction in real time to the point we were effectively reading each other’s mind. Now in later analysis, I realize that though it occurred often enough to be so described, it was not constantly reliable. Hence, confirmation bias played a big role. And there is little doubt in my mind that we were unconsciously doing “cold readings” on each other. We _wanted_ to think it was happening, so we did. After a while, when we didn’t need it as much, it faded. Because were no longer in each other’s frontal lobes, because we didn’t need to be. So the ability to “read” each other faded back to normal coincidence level. It was real. And it was about as supernatural as my ability to guess Sen. Santorum’s opinion of folk masses. Which is to say, not at all. ==================== > [@Eve](#): > > It was Robert Benchley’s assertion that Dreams Go By Opposites: I hate to make accusations, dear lady, but it seems to me that post was just deaf-elk-ating in the thread. 😛 > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > There’s a thread in another forum in which the poster claimed she prayed really, really hard and then God sent her subtle clues of proof. Therefore God exists. > > That’s not reasoning or logic. It’s confirmation of what you already want to believe by putting order on the randomness of everyday life. It’s exactly what you’re doing as well. > > Humans are innately pattern-makers. They will take any random set of data and try to have it make sense by imposing a story on it. This happens every day to every one in a thousand different ways. Psychics and woo-woo artists depend on this for suckers. But mostly we sucker ourselves. Randomness is too hard and scary for people to cope with. You may well be right here. But it is in my mind a quite different question. If we posit for the sake of argument, for use in _reductio ad absurdam_ proof, a God who insists that prospective believers put their trust in Him by faith and not because they have received monadnock-obvious objective proof, then the behavior described would be in accord with how He is reported as behaving, more or less. The problems of rewarded evil, incurable disease, man’s inhumanity to man, furnish much better evidence against Him than His willingness to grant only subjective (not objective) evidence of His being. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2012, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/27 "2012-01-17T23:55:51Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > The comic starts with a talking wombat hallucinating because she hit a pocket of bad air and gets odder from there. Just goes to show you’ve got to watch out for those talking wombats. And that … rock … over there? That one _does_ look like a bunny! ---
**Author:** ![Shmendrik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shmendrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shmendrik)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/28 "2012-01-18T01:50:09Z")
TV psychics are boring. I’m a Pandora psychic. ---
**Author:** ![nivlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3bc359/32.png) [@nivlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nivlac)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/29 "2012-01-18T07:26:41Z")
To the OP, I was hoping to read some examples from you that are at least interesting, but what you have related are nothing more than occurrences that appeared odd to you. The reality is that they’re just coincidences or confirmation bias at work. So the answer to your question is an emphatic **FALSE**! You don’t have any telepathy powers. Or shall I say you have as much special powers as Sylvia Browne, John Edward, and James Van Praagh, which is none. ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/30 "2012-01-18T08:27:47Z")
I’ve had two interesting experiances. The first one, I was working on a work crew at a folk fest. Suddenly out of the clear blue sky, a high defintion image of my friend came on in my brain. It was like a TV turning on. It was not thinking of her…Anyway, I had the urge to go to the next concert. Asked my group leader…she said yeah I could go. I go to the next concert and sit down in front…Guess who jumps on me about a mintue later? Then one time I was up in Boston hanging out…went to a bookstore…suddenly that high defintion TV turning on in my brain happened…Next day I go down to the post office. I looked up and KNEW my friend had sent me something…and she HAD!!! It wasn’t confirmation bias…meaning I wasn’t thinking of her…it was more like a very high def image of her coming up in my brain…VERY weird, and has freaked me out. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/31 "2012-01-18T08:54:35Z")
> [@Lizzyerd](#): > > I know some police will use psychics for some things, how reliable is that, and how much trust do they put into those people? They don’t actually: [see here](http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/08/police-use-psychics-texas-dead-bodies) Psychics like to claim police use them but it is basically lies. What does happen is that the police receive an alleged “psychic” tipoff. They don’t believe it is a psychic tipoff. However, the police do know that a real witness who doesn’t want to be associated with a crime might phone in a tipoff and pretend they only know the information psychically when actually they know it through being involved or a witness. So the police have to follow up the tipoff to see if it has some substance. Which it basically never does. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/32 "2012-01-18T14:31:46Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > What does this example have to do with anything? Why would you think that dots on your wrist had anything to do with the other stuff in that story, and why does it have anything to do with being psychic? ::sigh:: Holidays. Fire escapes. Diamonds. Wrist. Ergo, psychic. DO I HAVE TO SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU?!?! ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/33 "2012-01-18T15:09:03Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > ::sigh:: Holidays. Fire escapes. Diamonds. Wrist. Ergo, psychic. > > DO I HAVE TO SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU?!?! A chill just went down my spine. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/34 "2012-01-23T18:23:06Z")
> [@Sister\_Vigilante](#): > > … > There is no psychic ability whatsoever. I knew you were going to post that. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/35 "2012-01-23T18:34:07Z")
I once had a weird dream wherein Bob Hope died. Twenty years later he did, in fact, die. Freaked me out. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/36 "2012-01-23T18:38:42Z")
I had a dream someone would post after me in this thread… ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/37 "2012-01-23T18:47:54Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > It was Robert Benchley’s assertion that Dreams Go By Opposites: > > > [@](#): > > > > A woman was the dreamer in this case (though, aren’t we all?). In her dream she was in a greenhouse full of exotic plants, which was on a sort of funicular, running up and down the side of a mountain . . . > > > > In the greenhouse with the woman was a deaf elk which had got in somehow through a hole in the screen. The elk couldn’t hear a word that the woman was saying, so she just went on with her tapestry-weaving, as she had to have the job finished before the greenhouse got to the top of the mountain on its 11 o’clock trip. (That is, 11 o’clock from the foot of East Fourteenth street, where it started.) > > > > Now, the amazing thing about all this was that exactly the opposite thing happened to the woman the very next day. She was not in a funicular greenhouse; she did not see a deaf elk, and she knew nothing about tapestry-weaving. > > > > Laugh that off, Mr. Scientist! With pleasure. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/38 "2012-01-23T18:50:08Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > I had a dream someone would post after me in this thread… But no one did. Eerie! ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/39 "2012-01-23T20:38:49Z")
> [@Shmendrik](#): > > TV psychics are boring. I’m a Pandora psychic. When you open your mind, all the evils of the world rush out ? ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796/40 "2012-01-23T20:57:37Z")
Lizzyerd, if you ask me, the readiness with which most Dopers dismiss “woo” does a disservice to science. I recall the idea that “One man’s magic is another man’s science.” One day what is currently called “woo” will somewhat be called science. I believe science simply has not asked the right questions and done the right kinds of experiments. I find it arrogant to dismiss a phenomenon as non-existant because science does not yet know how to measure it or explain it. If we are at the ultimate of our knowledge, then why do we need further science? I predict that in a hundred years those so readily dismissing what is “woo” today will look foolish in light of the future’s discoveries. I think “I do not know the answer” is a much better answer than, in a haughty pseudointellectual air, declare that all things not currently quantifiable or understood cannot exist, period, case closed. For instance, the radio plays in my mind. I don’t hear it with my ears, I don’t think it’s tooth fillings (I had all my mercury replaced a few years ago) but darn if daily I don’t hear a song in my head and turn on the radio and that song is playing. It happens way too often for chance to be an adequate explanation. Of course I can’t give an adequate explanation, but I’m not accepting that its not happening. Someday someone will be able to explain it in scientific terms. Refusing to accept phenomenon because science currently does not understand it is NO REASON WHATSOEVER to dismiss what appears to our feeble minds as magic. I’m not going to call the millions who claim to have witnessed woo events liars on the grounds science cannot explain it or measure it. To do so would mean there is never any possibility of understanding it. Of course I am not arguing that mere coincidence isn’t sometimes all that is going on, or that confirmation bias doesn’t happen either, and frankly, some of your examples are not very impressive to me. But I do wish to encourage you to keep on asking the questions. That’s how we increase our understanding. People made fun of a lot of the scientists we today respect, and some of their discoveries explained yesterday’s magic in a scientific way, so don’t let them discourage you from your interest in this subject. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-and-others-true-or-false/609796.md?page=3)