# What are some of the possible scientific explanations for psychic powers? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 15, 2009, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-possible-scientific-explanations-for-psychic-powers/489498 "2009-03-15T04:54:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-possible-scientific-explanations-for-psychic-powers/489498/21 "2009-03-15T18:24:43Z")
my favorite “silly-science” theory is that one day the strangeness of quantum physics will be useful. Like electricity, which was once just a strange force as poorly understood then as quantim effects are today. Maybe quantum force-fields would let you pass an “electric current” through space-time. Maybe leave a message in another dimension somewhere, for someone else to pick up later. Maybe exchange thoughts without speaking. Sort of like psychics ---
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-possible-scientific-explanations-for-psychic-powers/489498/22 "2009-03-15T18:45:11Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > Maybe quantum force-fields would let you pass an “electric current” through space-time. Maybe leave a message in another dimension somewhere, for someone else to pick up later. Stephen Hawking posits that the nature of SpaceTime allows particles & energy to travel both forwards _and backwards_ through Time. He even asks the question: “How is it that we can remember the past, but not the future?” It’s possible that predictions of the future are exactly that – picking up random data from an event that’s taken place in the future. Which, of course, invents its own paradox – if I were to dream about, say, a plane crashing in the Hudson River, and that dream were causally related to the future event, that would mean the event has _already happened._ So, how could anyone prevent it?? > [@chappachula](#): > > Maybe exchange thoughts without speaking. Telepathy, in its current limited form, can be construed as an advanced version of [empathy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy#Neurological_basis). ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-possible-scientific-explanations-for-psychic-powers/489498/23 "2009-03-15T20:10:27Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > How about, we turn the discussion into the following: You are a writer of a SF story that features characters capable of what to c.2009AD society looks like what is commonly called “psychic powers”. You do NOT want to attribute these to mystical cosmic powers. Or made-of-whole-cloth oh-please handwaves like midichlorians, for that matter. > > What known or plausibly hypothesized physical-universe phenomena would you apply literary spin to, in order to justify said “powers”? > E.g., your novel has a character that glimpses moments in the future, too often and accurately to be just random déja vu. Some quirk of his attention-span makes it so that he becomes ever more conscious of this information-from-nowhere; early chapters are spent with him seeking medical evaluation and, to his relief, ruling out schizophrenia. What is an internally-consistent explanation that can sound plausibly scientific? CAN there such? Is it possible he is somehow consciously registering information glimpsed through passing transient wormholes, that most everyone else just get subliminally and ignore? Does THAT hold up to critique? You can make up anything you want. The only vaguely plausible-sounding explanation I can think of would be something having to do with elecromagnetic fields. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-possible-scientific-explanations-for-psychic-powers/489498/24 "2009-03-15T22:08:21Z")
This is really a meaningless question. It’s not how science works. You can’t say, “What if this impossible thing happened?” and then do meaningful science on it. If something that was seemingly impossible was proved to be happening, THEN science could begin to try to figure it out. You can throw out hypotheses all you want, which is what this thread is really looking for, but without something testable, it’s pointless, and definitely not science. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-possible-scientific-explanations-for-psychic-powers/489498/25 "2009-03-15T22:17:03Z")
> [@CrazyChop](#): > > Preface: Right now, there are no empirical evidence for psychic power, such as Telekinesis, ESP, mind-reading and the like. But suppose that one day it is established psychic powers are possible, what could be the likely scientific explanation? Or are there already something in the work? IF that one day comes, we will have our hands full. But it hasn’t, so this is nothing more than a stupid, philosphical postulating session. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Four? Four million? None? How could you prove either? It’s like saying, if crows are yellow, what would be the reason? “But crows are black.” “Yes, but if they were yellow, why would that be?” Doesn’t sound any more worthwhile than the hoary koan, “What’s the sound of one hand clapping?” It begs the question. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-possible-scientific-explanations-for-psychic-powers/489498/26 "2009-03-16T02:19:21Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > my favorite “silly-science” theory is that one day the strangeness of quantum physics will be useful. What about tunnel diodes? They’ve been useful for years. ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-possible-scientific-explanations-for-psychic-powers/489498/27 "2009-03-16T13:52:06Z")
> [@CrazyChop](#): > > **Pheromones** : There is this theory in Warhammer 40K that the Ethereal caste of the alien Tau race uses pheromones to manipulate others - is there any room in scientific thought for this? Could one be able to perceive pheromones and hence achieve some form of limited mind reading or empathy read? > > Frankly, I can’t think of anything that could explain telekenesis or remote sensing. Perhaps quantum mechanics have some answer? > > PS. This purely an intellectual exercise. Something like “are psychic-like powers be achievable through science and technology?” The pheromone communication of the ethereal caste of the alien Tau race offers some possibilities - probably the best of those you list. Pheromone communication is well understood in simpler lifeforms such as insects and bacteria, so it’s a well established biochemistry principle that doesn’t require any sci-fi ideas to make it work. More to the point, pheromone communication in humans is not well understood at the current time so significant increases in knowledge here are to be expected. In the wider context of smell, the olfactory family of genes is one of the largest in the human genome and is the focus of much research - the Nobel prize for medicine was awarded in 2004 for this discovery. It is likely that our understanding of human smell, of which pheromone sensing may or may not play a role, is in its infancy. So it is reasonable to posit large gains in knowledge here in the future that could in fact be relevant to human communication pathways. That said, the use of pheromone communication by lower organisms sort of speaks against it ever being important for humans. Even if you imagined some sort of evolutionary miracle that lead to orders of magnitude increase in pheromone production / receptor complexity, it would still be the crudest of tools when compared to human’s visual and verbal methods of communicating. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-of-the-possible-scientific-explanations-for-psychic-powers/489498.md?page=1)