WEBVTT - From the Vault: Techno-Telepathy 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:07.960 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:10.920 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.320 The vault door is open. Will you go in? That's right, 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.800 It's it's a perfect day to say, rewatch David Cronenberg 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:21.759 Scanners or listen to this episode on Technotal Epathy in 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.520 which we reference scanners probably way too many times now. 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:27.440 One thing I do want to clarify because people have 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:29.720 been asking about this. Some people are like, hey, why 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:32.960 are you doing reruns lately? Aren't you doing new episodes? 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:35.519 We should be clear. I hope you're getting all of 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.680 the new episodes we're releasing just as many original episodes 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:42.520 as always. That has not changed. Uh. These Saturday Vault 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.519 selections are in addition to our regular lineup, so you 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:47.640 are not missing out on any new stuff to Blow 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:50.360 your Mind content. If you're not getting our new regular 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.440 episodes on Tuesday and Thursday, check your feed or use 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.320 a different way of getting to them. Yeah, and by 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:00.320 all means note the original publication date because you know, 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:03.280 a lot of these topics do involve scientific stories and 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:07.160 scientific findings, but in general, if there's something major that 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:10.959 has changed, we will either not rerun it, or we'll 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:14.280 make sure to clue you into what has occurred, or 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.040 we'll be oblivious and hear about it from you later exactly, 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:19.880 and then we'll just that's just part of the fan conversation. 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:22.160 So it's all good either way. So this episode was 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:26.080 originally called Brain to Brain The Science of Techno Telepathy, 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.680 and it aired on December twenty two, so it's a 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:32.080 couple of years old now, but I think this one 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.080 still holds up. It's still an interesting and developing topic 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:38.880 in neuroscience and neuro technology, and I especially would like 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:42.720 to revisit this idea sometime in the future with reference 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.280 to the ideas of neuro security that we discussed in 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.760 in another episode from a while back. So anyway, I 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:56.520 hope you enjoy the Science of Techno Telepathy. Welcome to 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:07.480 Stuff to blow your mind from housetop works dot com. 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:09.960 I would like to scan all of them in this room, 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:13.680 one at a time. I must remind you that the 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:18.320 scanning experience is usually a painful one, sometimes resulting in nosebleeds, 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:23.600 ear aches, stomach cramps. Wait, wait, joke, You can't just 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:27.200 scan everybody in the room. Well why not? Will did 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.480 you get everyone to sign those consent forms? I figured 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:32.720 they show up for a press conference, they must be 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:34.480 game for a little till episode. But they might have 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.400 pre existing health conditions. I mean, you just warned them 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.120 that they might get cramps and nose bleeds, you know, 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:43.400 mild nosebleeds. I mean, we're not gonna catch anybody on 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:45.519 fire or any What about their mental health? What about 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.160 their privacy, the right, the right of freedom of thought 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.880 and the deliberate communication. Well, that's not what this experiment 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:53.880 is about. And that doesn't even touch on the fact 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:57.080 that you can scan their smartphones and laptops with your mind. 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.120 I mean, that's not quite as bad as peering into 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:04.520 their private thoughts, dreams, and bears. But nobody wants that either. Geez, Robert, 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:07.480 I was really looking forward to this, and I have 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:11.720 to report that you are now being a major buzz kill. Hey, 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:16.519 I'm sorry, I knew you are. I know you are 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:26.040 a bit of migraine forming here. Okay, I'm good. That 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.799 was a close one. Hey, you welcome to stuff to 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:30.720 blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.399 Joe McCormick. And if you haven't guessed already today we're 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:37.840 going to be talking about telepathy scanning, as it's often 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:41.200 called in the literature. Yes, yes, I imagine a number 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:45.600 of you identified our homage there to uh to David 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:49.440 Cronenberg's sci fi classics Scanners. You know, what I found 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:51.920 out just this week is that Scanners has a huge, 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:56.400 uh catalog of sequels I was unaware of. I knew 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.440 there was a Scanners too that's got some corrupt police 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.320 commissioner with an army of Scanners, but there's a Scanners 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:04.440 three that has a scene where a woman makes a 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.440 pigeon blow up with her mind. And then I had 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:10.480 no idea about this until you told me. But there's 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:15.000 a spinoff series called Scanner Cop Scanner Top one and 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:19.920 then Scanner Cop two, which is also sometimes essentially Scanners four, 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:22.320 depending on which a version of the at least you're 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:24.880 looking at. You know. One of the funny things about 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:27.920 the development of the Scanners series, at least as far 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:29.960 as I can tell, I haven't watched all of the movies, 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.479 that the most of the sequels look quite bad. But 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:37.839 there is a sort of slow development or escalation of 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:40.720 the powers that are attributed to Scanners. I can remember 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:45.000 in the first movie, you can read somebody's thoughts, and 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.560 you can also sort of I think, plant implant thoughts 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.640 to a certain extent um, And then of course you 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.479 can cause the resident frequency cascade that makes their head 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:56.960 blow up, right, and I think you can make fire, 0:04:57.160 --> 0:04:59.520 and you can you can well then also there's at 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:02.120 least um I don't want to give too many spoilers, 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:04.279 but it's at least mentioned that you might be able 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.919 to absorb another individual's mind state into your own. Okay, 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:10.599 so that's pretty goadline. It's getting pretty weird even in 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.400 the first movie. But later on you add what would 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.880 conventionally be called telekinesis where you're throwing things around, you 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.680 throw people across the room, So you're just generally developing 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.640 psychic powers. Yeah, it goes into that realm of essentially 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:30.920 magic pan psychic sorcery. But telepathy is something that I 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.159 can understand why that happens, because it's a concept that 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:38.640 I thought. I think it's been interpreted in various ways 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:41.560 that are often quite vague. So as much as I 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.279 hate to go to the dictionary at the beginning of 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.320 a discussion, I do think it's helpful to get a 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:51.440 specified common definition on the table for telepathy, and I 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:53.920 want to go with one included in Miriam Webster, which 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:58.360 it just says communication from one mind to another by 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:01.880 extra sensory means. So I think that's what we're gonna 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:07.000 be talking about today. It's sharing ideas. It's communication without 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:10.200 using any of the senses, because we're using our our 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.640 senses and our our language abilities or vocal abilities right now. Yeah, 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.039 we're engaging in a in in in a communication, in 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:20.280 a communal thought process. Yeah, like right now, a man 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.320 walks into a bar and there's a duck on the bar. 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:24.960 I just put that image into your head. I just 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.000 put that image into everyone's head. I essentially use my 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.320 scanner powers on everyone listening to this podcast. But there 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.440 was a fidelity copying problem there because when I pictured 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:37.760 in my brain, what I pictured was a swan. And 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:40.960 that sort of gets to the basic problem of communication. 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:43.839 One of the reasons we often imagine the idea of 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:46.159 telepathy as we defined it for the purpose of this 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:51.440 episode communication without words or any of the normal sensory means, 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:56.880 is that those normal canonical means of communication are highly flawed, 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.760 like our ability to use them is far from perfect. 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:02.919 Just think how often there's a conflict in your life 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:06.680 because somebody took something that you said or wrote the 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:10.440 wrong way, or because or because you don't know how 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:13.760 to interpret what somebody has said or wrote. If only 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.880 you could truly understand what their intentions and feelings about 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:22.080 the subject really were without everything being garbled through this 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:26.440 language transmission mediator, then then things would seem to be 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:28.800 a lot easier, right, Yeah. I mean there's a study 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.720 that came out earlier this year talking about how there 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:34.280 I think they were mainly looking at, you know, situations 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:38.040 between spouses where individuals have known each other for an 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:41.760 extended period of time. They've they have this this this 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:46.520 long relationship and this collaboration going on, and you would think, oh, well, 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.360 they're they've been they've been together so long, they totally 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:51.800 understand each other. They can totally read each other's intents, 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.640 and they know what the other person wants in values. 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.880 But this particular study found there's kind of the the 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:02.120 opposite in many cases, because you end up having an 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:05.520 idea in your head of what that other individual wants 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:07.760 and needs and it may not actually be accurate, but 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.200 you're no longer feeling it out as much anymore, because 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.320 it's you feel like it's written in stone. Yeah, like 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:18.040 everything you say, because I know you, I'm interpreting through 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:22.200 the lens of what I think about Robert. So even 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:25.600 though all you said was hey can you can you 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:28.600 grab a cup of coffee from the kitchen, I'm thinking, 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:34.280 why is he asking for a Satanic ritual? Yeah? Yeah, 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:36.200 there's just so much that can that can become lost 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.920 and ambiguous and just misinterpreted entirely. Of course, most of 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.559 us are familiar with telepathy from fiction. That's when we 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:46.120 started off with an example from a fictional sci fi 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:50.560 horror movie. Uh and and certainly fiction gives us plenty 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:55.920 of wonderful, rich examples uh and some more thoughtful than others. Yeah. Yeah, 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.679 of course, there's like the shining in the Shining, you know, 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:03.040 the title of The Shining refers to this this uh 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:06.400 sort of telepathic ability, though it seems to extend beyond 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:11.040 just communication. Telepathy is more just like we've mentioned earlier, 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:14.880 the general psychic awareness, being able to sense things that 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.080 are beyond what we can normally see with our see 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:20.640 or here since is, yes, they have a sensory it's 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:22.600 like they have a sensory ability that everyone has, but 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:25.480 there's this amped up to an incredible level, so they're 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:29.240 constantly bombarded with the signals. You can finally hear the 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:32.840 red rum resolve from the background noise. Yeah. Another one 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.480 that comes to my mind is I assume you've seen 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:38.760 The Dark Crystal, right, and do you remember the guelf 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:42.560 Lin dream Fast in that vaguely? That's uh, that's when 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:47.000 Jin and Kira, I believe, the two gelf Liings meet 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:48.640 and the sort of they kind of have this mind 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.320 meld moment where they share visions of their childhood, right, 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.000 they share their memories. It seems like it's been a 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:55.760 while since I've seen the movie, but it is a 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:57.960 great movie. And what I remember is that they just 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:03.079 sort of download their memories directly from one another, so 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:07.319 you can suddenly remember the other one's life. Another one, 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.120 of course, is Box Vulcan mind meld in Star Trek, 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:13.960 and that seems also kind of like the dream Fast 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:16.160 from what I recalled that it's not just like a 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:20.000 single coded message being traded between minds, but it's like 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.640 I've got your consciousness in me now. Yeah? Is that 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.640 is that pretty much? Right? Yeah? I believe. So it's 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.360 it's it's been Hanstin's I've seen any trek with actual 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:31.960 mind melding moments. But yeah, alright, well a few that 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:34.480 came to my mind. Well, first of all, uh, I 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:36.520 was wondering, do you think that the spice orgies and 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:40.600 doone count? There's it's not directly mentioned as I recall that, 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.000 and I could be wrong on this, that there's a 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:47.120 telepathic link, And certainly I think the spice is going 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:50.160 to affect individuals and you know, varying levels. Well, this 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:52.200 is a problem I've read about in some of the 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:56.760 skeptical literature on telepathy is that it's difficult to tell 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:00.840 the difference between different types of extra sense reperception that 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:04.760 people have claimed. So how can you tell the functional 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:09.920 difference between telepathy and precognition, or telepathy and clairvoyance? Yeah, 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:13.160 I mean so I think that comes through in Dune. 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.120 Our trouble here may just be that there's general psychic 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:20.720 hyper awareness. Can you tell the difference between am I 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:23.720 reading your mind or am I standing atop the dune 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:26.840 viewing the great order of the universe? And one of 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:30.280 the things I gain awareness of is what you would 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:34.000 be thinking or saying yes, yeah, A good point. Another 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.319 one that comes to mind, This one's hot on uh 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.600 in my memory since I just watched the whole thing. 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:43.120 But then the Marvel Netflix series Jessica Jones has the 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:49.000 villain Purple Man Zebediah Killgrave and fabulous, uh, fabulous villain 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.560 that uses mind control. What he but what he commands 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:54.680 you to do you want to do. You don't just 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.160 turn into a zombie. They use a nice exploration of 0:11:57.160 --> 0:11:59.480 this to where if he puts an impulse in your mind, 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:02.599 like that the thing you want. So that's not just communication, 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:06.200 that's full online control. Yeah, but it's it kind of 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:08.000 leaks into some of the stuff we're gonna talk later, 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:10.120 and that he kind of it's kind of I get 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:14.080 the impression that kill Grave he's kind of temporarily thinking 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:17.000 with your brain. And so he's thinking with your brain 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:21.160 and giving you, you know, something to to want, something 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:23.640 to believe in that you know or desire that you 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:26.520 normally would not. Well, that blurs a line that will 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:28.680 become important later in this episode when we talked about 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:32.160 scientific studies. Yeah, indeed and uh. And another thing about 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:34.160 kill Grave is that you know it raises the question 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:36.640 that if there's an outside force making you want or 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:40.560 believe something temporarily, and then that a force eventually you know, 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.719 it's it's influence is gone, how does that affect what 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.000 you're going to believe or want in the long term? 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:49.120 You know, like, how does that memory and form? Can 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.760 you remember that you wanted something but recognize that it 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:56.320 was not original to your mind? Yeah? Indeed, so I 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:58.959 thought that was a There was some some excellent explorations 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.400 of that in that particular show um in the vampire 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:06.200 in the vampire novel by John Steckley Vampires where the 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:10.000 s is a dollar sign, which was adapted into John 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.280 Carpenter's movie. But believe me, the book is so Yeah 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.960 that the book is really really frightening and terrifying and 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.800 the just hideous. Yeah. But the vampires in the book 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:24.400 they engage in in mind control that's very similar to 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:27.440 to kill Gray and from the world of Dungeons and Dragons. 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:28.720 I feel like I need to mention just a couple 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.920 of species real quick. There's of course the meld communal 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:36.240 meditation of the fungal my conid species. You know, shambling 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:38.839 fungus people benevolent that live in the under Dark, but yeah, 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.000 they engage in a kind of communal meditation. And then 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.880 also they're the hive mind college colonies of the alipid 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:51.360 mind flares, and there of course just catastrophically evil uh beings, 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:54.439 and they're using all a bit just about every shade 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:58.120 of of psychic power and telepathic power to to work 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:02.280 their evil schemes. The under Duck they strike terror just 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.839 by directly transmitting the pages of the Monster Manual to 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.280 feature them into your brain. Yeah, and and they also 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.760 it's like a whole host of under dark creatures in Dungeon. 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:16.040 Dragons are are weird and twisted and horrible because the 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.720 mind players use their abilities to enslave their species in 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.280 a in an earlier times. So yeah, it seems to 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:25.520 me that in all these different conceptions of telepathy from fiction, 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:28.800 you can basically break them down into two different categories 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:35.000 of communication, linguistic and non linguistic. So even the linguistic version, 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:39.000 of course, is not involving written or spoken words, but 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:44.320 it's silent internal brain to brain communication without the senses 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:47.840 that still somehow seems to be mediated through language, Like 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:52.160 you hear a voice inside your head communicating with you 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.880 through words or some other type of structured coded message. 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:00.760 Then there's non linguistic telepathy, and that's commune mucation that's 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:03.600 not mediated by language. And I think this is more 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.480 difficult to represent in fiction, but it's the kind we 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:10.200 see more often because it's the kind that's even stranger 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:14.280 to to to reality. You know, it's one thing to 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.080 send a message into somebody's brain. You could accomplish almost 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:20.840 the same thing by them just having a tiny earpiece, 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:23.680 you know, and talking into a microphone. But it's a 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:28.480 different thing to download somebody's memories or to uh or 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:33.520 to experience uncoded conceptual thought like the guelf link dream 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:36.040 fast I was talking about. And that second kind, I 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:39.600 think is it may end up introducing some conceptual problems 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:41.680 with the concept of telepathy that we can talk about 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:44.960 more once we look at the science. But so today 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:49.880 we're gonna be talking primarily about technologically enabled brain to 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:55.160 brain communication or technologically enabled telepathy, because we we should 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:57.520 at least give a brief nod to the concept of 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:00.520 paranormal telepathy. I don't think we need to spend a 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:02.520 lot of time on this because I think by and large, 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:06.320 our listeners are are scientific skeptics of one kind or another. Yeah, 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:10.480 I mean, there have been studies into paranormal telepathy, of course, 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.360 and we could go through all all those here today, 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.080 but I think we pretty much decided that this would 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:19.440 this would take time away from the more pressing studies 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:22.840 we're going to discuss regarding technological telepathy. Yes, so we'll 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.120 just say very briefly that the scientific community has not 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.200 been convinced that there's ever been any good evidence of 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:33.000 telepathy from properly controlled studies. Lots of people have claimed 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:35.680 to find evidence of telepathy, but usually when you look 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:38.520 at these studies, they're not double blinded, they're not being 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:40.960 carried out with the kind of strict rigor you expect 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:43.440 if you want to get a scientific result that that 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:47.120 you can feel confidence in. Yeah. So, so, by and large, 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.360 we have not seen any convincing evidence that paranormal telepathy exists. 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:53.880 There doesn't seem to be any known mechanism of action 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:56.400 for that, so we will leave that to the side 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.480 for today. Yeah, because when it comes to brain to 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:03.080 brain communication, we have all of these other wonderful systems 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:05.960 and and equally, I mean even more mind blowing than 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.440 than than brains sending little waves because we're communicating with language. 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.160 We're communicating with all the various expressions and micro expressions 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:18.120 that are that are rippling across this facial communication ray 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:20.560 that we all have. Yeah, it's one of those things 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.560 that's uh, it can seem kind of silly to say 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:26.320 it now, but really just take a second and try 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:30.080 to step back from human experience and feel the weirdness 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:33.440 of language. It's language is totally normal to us because 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:35.159 we use it all the time. But just try to 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:39.360 pretend you're not a creature that uses language, and look 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:43.080 at this from the universe's perspective. What a bizarre thing 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.960 we're doing. We're taking electrical patterns in our brain and 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:50.680 then infecting other people with copies of those patterns by 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:56.919 making waves in the air. It's freaky. So, setting aside 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:00.600 any kind of naturally occurring, you know, brain wave telepathy 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.879 situation going on, we're talking about using technology, using the 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.560 technology that we've created and have access to, to serve 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.760 as a bridge between one mind and the next. So 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:14.520 you might be thinking like, well, wait a minute, how 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.800 could you do this? Let us tell you a story. 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:21.159 So for years now, scientists have been developing lots of 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:25.760 different technologies for brain to computer interfaces, or they're often 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.199 known as b C I S brain computer interfaces. And 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.320 in physical terms, it makes sense that you can do 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:35.720 this because the brain is an electrochemical machine. Things are 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.840 happening inside the brain when you're thinking thoughts, when you're 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:43.640 performing behaviors, whenever your brain is doing something, there's electrical 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:48.480 activity going on inside it that is allowing that activity, 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:52.439 that external activity, or that conscious thought to happen, and 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:55.600 its activities are expressed in ways for this reason, that 0:18:55.640 --> 0:19:00.280 are detectable by machines that are sensitive to electromagnetism. You 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:02.320 have to get outside of this idea that your your 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:04.960 mind is this magical soul or that lives in a 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:08.160 little meat house in your skull um and just start 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:10.800 thinking about the meat house itself as as being the thing, 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:13.080 you know, taking a very uh uh, you know, direct 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:17.440 approach to what what what is going on with our mind? Yeah, 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:21.640 not to not to downgrade the beauty and mysteriousness of consciousness, 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:25.920 which is a wonderfully powerfully strange thing, but when there's 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:29.800 something happening in your brain, there is electricity concurrent with that, 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:32.840 and so if you can figure out how to measure 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:37.280 that electricity, you can somehow represent it as data that's 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:40.440 usable by technology. So what I've just been talking about 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.520 is neuroimaging, various forms of neuroimaging to take what's going 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:48.160 on in the brain and understand that with a computer, 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.040 say okay, there's some electrical spiking in this part of 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:53.280 the brain. Here's here's what's going on with the action 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:57.280 potentials in in this cortical region, and then stimulate that 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:01.240 same region in another individual's brain being. So in a sense, 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:05.000 it's kind of like peeking behind one puppet theater, you know, 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:06.880 out on the street, like a punch and judy thing, right, 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:11.240 seeing what what manner of physical manipulations that puppet that 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:15.560 puppet master is making, and then transmitting or relating those 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:19.760 exact manipulations to a puppet here within a second puppet theater. 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:23.880 So that's a great analogy because it encapsulates both what 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:28.240 you're trying to do and the limitations we have when 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:30.200 we try to do this. And we'll talk more about 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:33.680 the limitations at the end. But notice that that what 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.359 you just said would only really make sense if both 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:40.960 puppet theaters were exactly the same size and had exactly 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:44.720 the same puppets and the same type of puppets, and 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:48.320 then to the exact same method of manipulation, which is 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.879 not necessarily the case for the brain, but maybe you 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:55.040 can get some kind of approximation. You know, your brain 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:57.679 isn't the exact same as somebody else's brain. Your puppet 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:00.960 theater is different, but there are some general all rules 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.400 that operate in both puppet theaters that you can exploit. 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.480 So let's look at some of the technologies here. What 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:10.239 what actual technology would you use if you want to 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:14.800 scan somebody else's brain and see what's happening inside there. Well, 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:17.359 one of the most powerful methods we would have would 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:22.000 be implanted electrodes. You can implant directly into somebody's brain, 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:27.720 cortical microelectrode arrays which are capable of of recording what's 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:30.320 going on in the brain. And also what's known as 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:34.560 intracortical micro stimulation or i c m S, And this 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:39.320 means you can get both input and output with the brain, 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:42.360 so you can read the electrical activity to find out 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:44.880 what's going on, and if you want to stimulate parts 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:47.400 of the brain, you can provide little bits of electric 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:50.160 current through these two light up that part of the brain. 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:54.679 You can also use electro corticography, which is electrodes on 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:57.480 the exposed surface of the brain. If you want to 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:00.960 be really weird at out, google pictures of this. Uh. 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:03.440 But if you don't want to cut your skull open, 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:05.760 and I think most of us would prefer that method. 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:08.200 There there are still other ways you can scan what's 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:10.159 going on in the brain. I think typically they're not 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:12.800 going to be as sensitive, so there's a drawback. The 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:15.760 advantages you don't have to go through brain surgery. The 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:19.119 advantage or the disadvantages you're not gonna get quite as 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:22.120 much precision with the signals you're receiving. But you can 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:25.920 use f m r I, so that's functional magnetic resonance imaging, 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:28.800 So it's like an m r I, except you detect 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:31.760 real time activity in the brain by mapping blood flow 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:36.720 to different parts of the brain. There's magneto encephalography, which 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:40.320 is great. Google pictures of this also. I love telling 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:42.320 people to Google pictures of things. I think I do 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:44.959 that pretty often, but this this one is worth it 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:48.679 because it's a It's a system that detects magnetic field 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:52.280