# Telepathy - Fact or Fiction? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 17, 2003, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148 "2003-09-17T15:39:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![NightUK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c67d28/32.png) [@NightUK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NightUK)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/1 "2003-09-17T15:39:58Z")
Over the years I’ve heard apparent great scientists/doctors on documentaries discuss Telepathy as just being a form of waves (like radio waves) our brains send out that we havent yet discovered how to track or filter. Is this just Sci-Fi Fiction or a possibility that the children of our future may expand the use of the brain to use such communication methods? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/2 "2003-09-17T15:50:50Z")
So far it seems to be fantasy, or to be kinder, _wishful thinking_ Here’s an interesting quote from[The Sceptic’s Dictionary](http://skepdic.com/esp.html) : > [@](#): > > Much of the belief in ESP is based upon apparently unusual events that seem inexplicable. However, we should not assume that every event in the universe can be explained. Nor should we assume that what is inexplicable requires a paranormal (or supernatural) explanation. Maybe an event can’t be explained because there is nothing to explain. I like the sound of that, much as it would be fun if someone could “read minds”. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/3 "2003-09-17T15:58:31Z")
To date, no reputable study which purports to have found evidence of ESP or any other psychic ability have never been replicated. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/4 "2003-09-17T16:00:37Z")
You’re new here, aren’t you? Ask a question like that here on the Straight Dope, and every single answer is going to be some variation on the theme of “Of course not, don’t be silly”. To elaborate: No controlled experiment ever has given even the slightest bit of support to the possibility of telepathy. There have been experiments which are claimed to demonstrate telepathy, but in every single case, the effect disappeared as soon as reasonable controls were added to the experiment. Certainly, our brains do produce a tiny trace amount of electromagnetic radiation, but the amounts are so miniscule that you need sensitive electronics with electrodes attached directly to the scalp to detect them at all, and even then, you can’t tell much more than whether the person is awake, asleep, or having an epileptic seizure. There’s no evidence that the human brain is able to detect radio waves which are even billions of times stronger, and even if we could detect such emissions (which, I reiterate, we can’t), there’s no reason to believe that we could filter them from background noise, or correctly interpret them. ---
**Author:** ![NightUK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c67d28/32.png) [@NightUK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NightUK)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/5 "2003-09-17T16:05:49Z")
Cheers BMalion, I find the statement that “Maybe an event can’t be explained because there is nothing to explain” very interesting, I’ve always thought everything happens somehow and for some reason, it may be coincidental of course. I like to argue when people say the earth was formed by meteorites or by aliens, etc that maybe the earth never had a starting point. Maybe its always been here, why does something always have to have a point of start? (woops drifted off my thread topid, my brain hurts!!!) 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/6 "2003-09-17T16:12:16Z")
The Earth quite definitely had a starting point. When the universe was first formed nealry 15 billion years ago, the only matter in it were the light elements hydrogen (comprising about 75% of all matter) and helium (about 25%). The heavier elements necessary to making up a planetary body, like Earth, can only be formed in the hearts of supernovae, so our Sun must be at least a second generation star. Cosmologists today believe it is actually a third generation star. All available evidence indicates the sun, the Earth and the rest of the solar system was formed about 4.5 billion years ago. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Unwashed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_great_unwashed/32/4791_2.png) [@The\_Great\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/7 "2003-09-17T16:13:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NightUK \* > \*\*Cheers BMalion, I find the statement that “Maybe an event can’t be explained because there is nothing to explain” very interesting, I’ve always thought everything happens somehow and for some reason, it may be coincidental of course. I like to argue when people say the earth was formed by meteorites or by aliens, etc that maybe the earth never had a starting point. Maybe its always been here, why does something always have to have a point of start? (woops drifted off my thread topid, my brain hurts!!!) > > 😕 \*\* I knew you were going to say that. I think you’re only making things worse for yourself. ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/8 "2003-09-17T17:59:03Z")
as a child i remember watching a sort of ‘beyond 2000’ type of show with this guy wearing a helmet sort of thingy that reads and picks up your brain waves. it can be set to recognise certain brainwave patterns and then transmit instructions to a remote appliance, so in effect you can set it to activate the remote appliance when you think it. has anyone else seen that show? is this a case of bad memory or speculative tv? is it possible? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/9 "2003-09-17T18:16:53Z")
**shijinn** : It’s done in a lab setting, and maybe sometimes by the severely disabled in their own homes, but from all I’ve heard, it’s not very efficient. People won’t be mentally flying aircraft for a long time. Anyway, the basic principle works like this: Electrodes connected to a person’s scalp pick up on brainwaves created by that person and use them as a control impulse for an electromechanical tool, such as a typing aid. Through biofeedback (the method by which people can learn to control their own semi-autonomous systems) and lots of practice, the user gains the ability to control the tool using nothing but his own mind and the provided apparatus. It works, but just barely. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/10 "2003-09-17T18:21:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by shijinn \* > \*\*as a child i remember watching a sort of ‘beyond 2000’ type of show with this guy wearing a helmet sort of thingy that reads and picks up your brain waves. it can be set to recognise certain brainwave patterns and then transmit instructions to a remote appliance, so in effect you can set it to activate the remote appliance when you think it. > > has anyone else seen that show? is this a case of bad memory or speculative tv? is it possible? \*\* I saw a television show in the 80s or maybe early 90s where they showed how a guy could move this little red light up and down or left to right by controlling his brainwaves. He had to wear a bulky (and I believe white) helmet. I think there may have been a military slant to it, but the memory is pretty vague, I do know it was not on one of the crackpot shows. I figure it’s just a matter of time before a brain/computer interface is practical. ---
**Author:** ![Rabid\_Squirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Rabid\_Squirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rabid_Squirrel)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/11 "2003-09-17T22:43:48Z")
Agghhh - forgot the cite, but there was an article in the New Scientist a few months ago about using brainwaves to allow the severly disabled to type. The major problem was the Zen-like concentration required, and that the performance depended on the mood of the user of a day-to-day basis. [New Scientist article on neural controlled robots](http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993967) ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/12 "2003-09-17T23:09:27Z")
To insert the contradiction to the above here, I can reliably read the mind of the man who came into my life as a 17-year-old boy twelve years ago, and he mine, under certain circumstances. And this is not a claim of some supernatural power, or anything of the sort. The impact of our relationship hit us powerfully, and caused us to open our hearts to each other, to the point that we each knew how each other felt and thought and reacted – well enough to make this predictable, including in real time. A portion of this no doubt resulted from reading of facial expression, and much more derived from sharing of feelings after the fact. But the result is that we each can grasp how the other is reacting, what thoughts are going through each other’s mind, before they are spoken or expressed. And so, seeing or hearing a given phenomenon in his presence, I know what he is thinking, and similarly he knows the same of me. If not telepathy, it’s close enough to the classic definition to work until SF comes true. To achieve these results, you must master empathy in order to feel what the other feels, then immerse yourself for extended periods in the feelings and reactions of the other, and under circumstances where total sharing without anything held back is something both are willing to do. Communication by mind power at a distance? Nearly impossible. We managed it once – we were in separate vehicles travelling together, he made a wrong turn, and we both realized that each would be concerned to get us back together, and therefore concentrated on recognizing what the other would do. And it worked – we stopped at the rest area he expected us to, and I recognized that he would make a U-turn and seek after us, expecting us to wait. We “called” each other’s reactions almost perfectly – the rest area was ten miles further than he’d expected; he went two miles further than I pictured him doing before making the U-turn. So, yes, it exists – but is probably not anything that will become common public practice. It’s tough emotional and spiritual work to get there, and works only one-on-one, and then only in very limited conditions. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/13 "2003-09-18T04:30:17Z")
Can I just mention James Randi’s Million Dollar Challenge? It’s not that it’s really necessary to mention it, it’s just that it would disappoint **peter morris’s** assumptions about me if I let thread like this go by without doing so. ---
**Author:** ![badchad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b77776/32.png) [@badchad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badchad)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/14 "2003-09-18T04:46:23Z")
Polycarp: > [@](#): > > Communication by mind power at a distance? Nearly impossible. How about completely impossible? > [@](#): > > We managed it once – we were in separate vehicles travelling together, he made a wrong turn, and we both realized that each would be concerned to get us back together, and therefore concentrated on recognizing what the other would do. And it worked – we stopped at the rest area he expected us to, and I recognized that he would make a U-turn and seek after us, expecting us to wait. We “called” each other’s reactions almost perfectly – the rest area was ten miles further than he’d expected; he went two miles further than I pictured him doing before making the U-turn. Sounds like what most anyone travelling together would do combined with a bit of luck. Considering it only happened once, and noting the human trait for confirmational bias I would suggest that the “long distance communication hypothesis” is neither necessary nor sufficient. ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/15 "2003-09-18T04:50:06Z")
You know, if I had a genuine psychic power, the last thing I’d do was announce it to the world or try to have it proven scientifically. Why set yourself up as a target for the attention of all sorts of undesirable attention? Do you want to spend your time playing lab rat as scientists figure out why you can read minds and others can’t? Do you want desperate people besieging you to find their lost children? Do you want to vanish from the world to become the center of some black ops military project? Do you want to be the cover story of Star and the National Enquirer week after week? Not me. Which is why I’ll never let anyone know that I can predict the future. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/16 "2003-09-18T04:52:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by StarvingButStrong \* > \*\*Which is why I’ll never let anyone know that I can predict the future. \*\* Well, no. It’s because you _can’t_. And neither can anyone else. Not even **Polycarp** …sorry. ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/17 "2003-09-18T05:13:06Z")
I knew you were going to say that. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Kentzel-Griffin)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/18 "2003-09-18T05:28:41Z")
There is nothing to telepathy; it’s all in your mind. ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/19 "2003-09-18T05:34:41Z")
Main Entry: te·lep·a·thy Pronunciation: t&-'le-p&-thE Function: noun Date: 1882 : communication from one mind to another by extrasensory means (thanks for the replies guys). so if i wait a thousand years for that device to be perfected such that it can be used for communication, can i collect that million from randi? i’ll be using a machine yes, but my input will be my thoughts only. that qualifies as extrasensory yes? ---
**Author:** ![Psifireus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Psifireus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Psifireus)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148/20 "2003-09-18T06:09:25Z")
What if I told you I, _personally_, have had a telepathic experience? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telepathy-fact-or-fiction/202148.md?page=2)