Thoughts are external not internal

deleted in protest to really poor moderation

 

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I would ask whether your consciousness is "internal" or "external".
I guess it depends on your definition of those terms, maybe.

I would say my consciousness is internal.

Your idea of the mind as one of the senses coincides with buddhist teachings in some way, but the senses tuned to the external are only one group of senses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandha

I was pondering about the vast amounts of experience (or even existence, if you will include experience in that category) which occurs "inside" human brains, and I think it is quite large. Perhaps this is what the hindus mean by "maya" , and the buddhists mean by "samsara", not the mind-over matter stuff we hear about a lot. Who knows?

Anyway, I'm not sure i understand what you are saying here.

 

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About halfway through reading your original post, I thought this thread might have potential, but then near the end I got choked up by you talking about intercepting people's brain waves.

I would agree that thoughts precede awareness of them--in other words, we don't really think. We are led to believe we do. In fact, there is no "we." Sure, our brains "think," but our consciousness is only a byproduct of it--not the other way around. Ray Kurzweil had a really good way of explaing this, comparing a president to the consciousness and the brain to the actual decision makers, which are the president's team, essentially. The team makes the decision to go to war. And then the president proclaims he has decided to go to war, and so it's easy for people to think the president is the one deciding and acting, when he is not, or at least is only a small part of the process. Similarly, it's easy to think the consciousness is acting and deciding on something, when it is not. Decisions are made first and the consciousness is made aware later.

If I had personal experience with telepathy, I would probably be more enthusiastic about talking about it with you... but this should really be in pseudoscience, because our science can't yet detect or account for invisible brain waves that people can use for mind to mind communication.

 

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I thought them to you. Did you get them?

 

Did you get that?

If not, then you have your answer.

 

TheoryOfRelativity:

Might not this process be reducible to the fact that we can only think in terms of sense-data? That owing to this, we experience our thoughts in terms of internal correlates to sensation outside? For instance, most of my vocal thoughts personally are within a framework of hearing them internally, but when analyzing specific works, I conjure up images of the letters arranged as words.

None of this, however, need produce thoughts which are "external" to us in a true sense. That is to say, we needn't produce sensory stimulation in the form of actual soundwaves that reach our ears, nor mental photons that strike our eyes.

Francois:

"In fact, there is no "we.""

If no thinker, where is there thought?

"Sure, our brains "think," but our consciousness is only a byproduct of it--not the other way around."

Ever get lost in thought and fell into a daydream? And could not then account for what was about you at the time? If so, does not this imply that the mind's eye must be directed to the physical eye in order to substantiate its experience? And thus it is not the physical eye which creates the mind's eye, so much as the mind's eye which makes the physical eye's data meaningful?

"Decisions are made first and the consciousness is made aware later. "

Evaluation seems to deny this. Pausing to consider one's options then seeking out the best perceived means of achieving one's end, with conscious considerations all throughout, does not imply that "the brain makes the decision first".

 

Indeed I did sweet thing. foot pic on its way

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I have no doubt that your 'frequency' is vastly different to mine Q. We are not alike in any regard.

 

I'm trying to understand how telepathy works. It does, we all do it. Some are aware of doing it, others are not. It can be learned to some degree.

It makes sense if thought waves are like radio waves (in analogy terms only)
in the air. You can't hear them automatically, some can tune into them at various times others cannot. You cannot have two stations on at one time, thus in order to hear someone elses channel you'd have to be able to switch yours momentarily off, thus the difficulty in reproducing this effect on demand or at all.

people who are related possibly have shared frequencies or ones that are closely matched thus telepathy is more likely to oocur between family members.

I once had a very powerful connection to a friend of mine. She lived 10 miles away from me and had no phone so if I wanted to talk to her I could not call her. Thus I would 'send' her a message telepathically to go to a call box and call me. It always worked, thus 100% success ruling out possibility of coincidence. This was a unique situation though.

Why didn't I just have the whole conversation telepathically you ask? Well I'm not that good! I can send basic messages and it is not easy it requires lot of concentration. So not a regular occurrance and even then, the person has to be somewhat alike. Hence no abiloty to chat telepathically. I can read people if as I assume they are unknowingly projecting their thoughts into me.

This is why I am wondering if thoughts originate inside and can be somehow broadcast externally. If the nature of thought waves is that they can be detected with mechanical equipment surely these waves can be 'emitted' somehow?

If thoughts are somehow responsible for generating electrical activity in the brain or are the result of that activity, then that can be emitted or leak?

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3967

This article comments on how a wheelchair can be operated by thought

""Severely disabled people who cannot operate a motorised wheelchair may one day get their independence, thanks to a system that lets them steer a wheelchair using only their thoughts.

Unlike previous thought-communication devices, the system does not use surgical implants. Instead a skullcap peppered with electrodes monitors the electrical activity of its wearer's brain. Early trials using a steerable robot indicate that with just two days training it is as easy to control the robot with the human mind as it is manually.

"It's a very positive step," says Paul Smith, executive director of The Spinal Injuries Association in London. "The psychological benefits it would offer are huge."

Are we creating devices now to simulate what some humans can do naturally, ie pick up electrical signals perhaps emitted or leaked from others brains.

Do not forget that we already the have the equipment in our brains to translate these electrical signals once received into something meaningful which mechanical objects do not yet have in any high degree.

 

please read edit

 

maybe this should be in biology thread mods?

 

No, it should be in pseudoscience where it belongs.

 

It doesn't. All that means is that the process of evaluation happens so slowly and obviously that the time it takes for the brain to think and the time in which the consciousness is made aware of that thinking overlap with each other.
There are several studies that support what I'm saying... but I'm having difficulty finding the right keywords to find them.

lmfao... ToR, does this thread explain why your mouth is always closed in your pictures?

It strikes me as odd that this thread wasn't moved to parapsychology, where mine, which was about the anthropic principle and evolution, was. Ah, well.

 

I am trying to find out the biological explanation for telepathy. I am not here to discuss whether telepathy is possible or not. IT is, that's the end of that.
My mouth is always shut in pictures because I have fangs and yes I do bite grrrrrrrrr

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It sounds a lot like you have personal experience with telepathy. I've heard several stories about it and I sort of think telepathy is possible, but I've never experienced it, so it's not very real to me.

Can you give an example of one of your experiences with telepathy? It might be illuminating.

As for that link you provided, the system relies on the changing eletrical potentials of the surface of the scalp for input, so it can control things like robots or a cursor on a screen. It is measuring a physical thing--not brain waves you alluded to before that work like radio waves. I think psi waves work differently. Like in a different correlative dimension and work at speeds faster than light. Perhaps psi travels through the dimension and enters back into our dimension, but into a different person's brain--it completely circumvents our space/time kind of like folding space in the case of Star Trek, where they go into hyperdrive.

But I think we'll develop telepathy in a simpler way first. Like in that article, it said a person would wear a skull cap chock full of electrodes that connect to a system. Well, what if you could have electrodes implanted into the brain that would wirelessly communicate with other systems through WiFi? Of course you'd better encrypt those messages if you don't want others reading your mind!

 

So certain, without a shred of evidence, based on a vivid imagination.

That's the end of that.

 

It might be based on anecdotal evidence. And come on. She has an IQ of at least 155. I don't think she would start spouting things that weren't true. That wouldn't make sense.

 

I am sure you have a very interesting subject to hash out, and it could easily be talked about in a biology forum, i.e., "does the brain create waves, or impulses, or anything that are detectable in any way other than scanning the brain itself in some manner?" Or psuedoscience, etc.
But not in philosophy. Too many ancillary questions will arise.

 

I agree, philosophy not right forum.

Meanwhile francois

I do have personal experience of telepathy, the majority of the population does. I perhaps have have slightly greater ability in the same way musically gifted have greater natural ability with music. I have demonstrated it many times though mainly when much younger as I was more interested in it back then.

It is not an easy thing to do by demonstration, it is more likely to occur accidentally. The thing is you are not aware you are doing it.

Others thoughts do not appear in your mind as:
'hello, this is Diana Troy, the thoughts you hear are mine not yours'.

They will appear the same way your own thoughts do, pictures and language. If you find yourself wondering 'why am I thinking about this?' and the 'this' has no bearing on what you are doing or otherwise concerned about and it appears to almost overlap your own thoughts, it is possible you have stumbled across someone elses thoughts.

The difference with me is, I can now seperate these invading thoughts from my own. I recognise them.

It is like learning a new language, first it sounds like a jumbled stream, but after training you learn where one word ends and another begins. Telepathy is learning to distinguish between your own thoughts and those of others. Without knowing the difference, you really cannot tell they are not generated origianally by you! Except that you may feel momentarily strange.

If you voiced your 'strange ' thoughts (many don't!) you may be very surprised to find that someone in your close proximity was having those thoughts and they relate directly to their own situation.

Most incidences of telepathy are thus dismissed as coincidence. But for those interested it can be learned but not easily in terms of sending and receiving on demand.

I have to be very careful what I think around my kids, as they often spurt out what I am thinking, however inappropriate. Children have less to think about than adults thus their minds are more likely to have 'blank' spots when they instead are open to others thoughts.

Anyway in a nut shell, yes thoughts are 'out there' or exuded somehow.

Going back to the musical ability analogy, as there are those who are tone deaf it also likely there are those that have significantly decreased ability to be aware of others thoughts.

With regard to specific examples, too many as a natural occurrance.

 

You'd be the first ever to demonstrate it, no one has. You have on the other hand certainly demonstrated a superiority complex many times.

In other words, accidentally=guesswork.

Or, most likely, you have a very vivid imagination, or you might require some medication.

Multiple personalities?

But, they are!

So, you're saying other people can't possibly be imagining something similar to what you're imagining?

Yet, no one has ever demonstrated telepathy one way or an another. Your claim is as empty as your head, less the voices, which can be controlled with medication.

In a nut shell, shall you remain.

Silly bird.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_deaf