It would just prove that telepathy indeed exists, and is a valid natural phenomenon that we could study.
It would have no bearing on other unrelated supernatural claims.
What paranormal phenomena, if demonstrated to be true, would you consider proof of the supernatural?
I’d say you could demonstrate postcognition the same way you’d demonstrate clairvoyance. Under standard controls, have somebody write down some numbers in a room and then leave the room and take the sheet of numbers with them. The postcognitant (is that the right word?) would then enter the room and “read” the numbers from the history of the room (or whatever it is a postcognitant is supposedly sensing).
I should point out that there is, one notes, a potential for violation of conservation of momentum, and also a potential for faster than light travel, in current physics.
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25331/ Gravitational mass and inertial mass may not be the same thing. In fact, they may be arbitrarily different. Someone warm up the Skylark of Space?
http://news.discovery.com/space/warp-drive-spaceship-engine.html
And, of course, the classic space warp engine. Again, not something near-term, but at least in theory, it could be done.
And don’t forget, just for the heck of it, Mr. Hawking was giving talks about time travel just recently.
(Said link is an article by Mr. Hawking, so I consider it as reputable as arxiv, for this matter.)
You’re making a bit of an assumption here, OP. Given some of the other threads on this forum right now, there are some who would never consider any supernatural explanation for anything under any circumstances, no matter what they personally saw, heard, felt, or experienced. This makes sense, because there’s always a more mundane explanation, no matter how far it reaches, and it makes perfect sense to tend to turn to that first.
As an aside, let me just paraphrase David Hume as to which is more likely: that someone has bona fide comic-book superhuman powers, or that two guys – count 'em, two whole guys! – missed something when checking for surveillance devices?
I mean, sure, all the other stuff about how telepathy doesn’t imply much of anything else. I’m just saying I’d need more than Bruce and Terry patiently explaining that they’re satisfied that you couldn’t peek.
Incidentally,
. . . wouldn’t it be a heck of a lot easier to convince me of your bona fides by aforementionedly casting your thoughts? I mean, I can’t figure out how stage magicians perform various of their “mind-reading” tricks, and so could easily believe I’m once again just missing something with this latest iteration; I’ve never yet experienced a “thought-casting” trick of that sort.
I’m going to assume you willfully ignored this bit from the OP
since you cut it out, and then, in the privacy of my own head, say cruel things.
Not to mention the bit about Bruce & Terry setting up tests, choosing the locations, providing the pads, etc.
You’re pointlessly fighting the hypothetical.
Before anyone gets all excited about E-Sabbath’s links, I’d like to point out that those are all extremely preliminary and extremely speculative. Things like that make it onto the arxiv at least once a week, but hardly ever amount to anything.
Seriously, I was just coming up with a scenario off the top of my head. We may safely assume that the later variations B & T come up with test for that.
Well, no; I glossed over that part because it didn’t seem to add anything. I mean, if I’m already wondering whether Bruce and Terry missed the device that first time, then my concern remains the same when the demonstration gets repeated for 'em in a different location or whatever, blindfold or no.
None of the things you mentioned. To me, positive proof of something that is just paranormal wouldn’t equate to something supernatural (which I define as being beyond nature and the natural world), since things like telepathy and telekinesis are at least possible within the current definitions of how the universe works (at least afaik). Ghosts, however, would be ‘supernatural’, especially as they are currently defined (being able to move through solid objects alone breaks several tenets of physics I believe), so something like that, if there was positive proof (:dubious:) would possibly demonstrate to me that something supernatural existed (though it would depend on just what the proof was, and whether or not it could or would fit into the various physics and cosmology theories).
Extraordinary assertions, however, would require extraordinary proofs.
No…none of those things. If you are a genuine telepath, what that proves is that you have telepathy. There have been a number of breakthroughs lately in the fields of brain wave research…I’ve seen demonstrations of a monkey controlling a robotic arm with just it’s mind, or a man moving a mouse cursor or even a wheel chair by thoughts alone. It’s conceivably possible that someone could be born with the ability to detect surface thoughts, or, perhaps, that another alien species might have this ability somewhere out there in the greater universe. Again, afaik, it breaks no physical laws, does not contradict quantum theory, etc etc, so it’s possible. No God/gods, soul or afterlife required. In an infinite universe anything that is possible is, well, possible…
-XT
Once it is absolutely verified that your brain is capable of sending and receiving thoughts, then it is no longer supernatural or paranormal. It is natural and normal.
I would imagine any rigorous test on anything ‘supernatural’ that produced positive results would ultimately prove it to be natural. Supernatural is basically just another way of saying it doesn’t exist, or that you can’t think of a way to explain it yet.
If ghosts existed, they would have a natural explanation. If god was found to exist, then we’d be looking at how he evolved to be omnipotent. No magic.
Oh, entirely true. But they seemed appropriate. The inertia/gravity one was just this week, so it was fresh in my mind.
Just out of my basic wiggishness, I’ll observe that the OP uses the the term paranormal to describe telepathy, as a concession that, if it’s verified, it’s clearly not supernatural.
Ah, since you’re not using the terms interchangeably, then it might be an idea to define those terms. Wikipedia says that a paranormal thing is outside the range of scientific explanation. Would you not agree? If you do, then clearly telepathy is no longer paranormal in this hypothetical, since you have explained it scientifically.
Suppose physics advaces to the point that it can be proved, based on the internal evidence of how nature works, that our universe is a simulation running in the equivalent of a computer in a higher-order reality. Is that other reality “supernatural” in the sense the OP meant? Is God “God” if he exists but is ultimately just a sort of demiurge, responsible for our existence but not the ultimate foundation of reality?
It might change how we feel about the odds.
And at some point mightn’t the supernatural become explainable?
That makes no sense whatsoever. The only link between the two is the word “impossible”. If someone managed to ingest an entire bottle of Draino without any adverse effects, would you really consider jumping off the Empire State Building because the odds had somehow changed?
If it happens, it’s part of nature.
If it’s part of nature, it’s natural.
There is no such thing as supernatural, because everything that exists is part of nature and therefore natural. It may be something we don’t have a good explanation for, but that happens to many things which we are perfectly happy to accept and work with.
Well, in the scenario from the OP–even if we grant that the hypothetical telepath, after convincing Bruce & Terry, goes on to convince James Randi and a ton of other skeptics–we haven’t explained anything scientifically; we’ve merely established that something exists.