telepathy

Where science does not hold anymore, other ‘non-scientific’ disciplines try to fill the gap. Many of them fall under the umbrella of parapsychology (also called PSI). Parapsychology is the study (I am careful not to use the word science) of the phenomena that we know about by means other than ‘normal’ sensory perception. Many PSI scholars do not oppose science, but rather claim that the physical world, as we observe it, is only part of the picture. The big picture, they claim, includes events beyond human senses, and therefore beyond science. As such, parapsychology seems like the natural place to start our exploration. Can it provide the alternative realities we seek?

PSI is used as a blanket term for a variety of phenomena such as telepathy, ESP (extrasensory perception) and ghosts. We will group these phenomena into two categories based on their impact on the physical world.

The first category includes phenomena that although inexplicable in scientific terms, have effects which can be measured by direct observation and experimentation. By their very nature, telepathy (mind-to-mind communication), telekinesis (moving object at distance) or future-telling impact the physical world; so although science may not have a theory to explain them, it does have the tools and methodologies to measure their affects. The initial role of science in this case is not to explain, but rather to verify whether the effects of these phenomena are as claimed.

For example, to test the existence of telepathy between identical twins, scientists conducted experiments in which one of the twins was asked to transmit images from a deck of picture-cards to the other twin in a remote location. While the transmitting twin mentally ‘sent’ one picture at a time, the other twin would try to select from an identical pack the card corresponding to the ‘mentally transmitted’ image. Scientists then analyzed the matches between the selections of the two twins to determine if there were more matches than could be explained by chance alone, after eliminating all biasing factors. It didn’t really matter that science could not explain telepathy. The scientific or statistical methodologies provided science with tools to verify whether telepathy between twins existed at all.

The need for adhering to scientific methodology when conducting such experiments was demonstrated when factors unrelated to telepathy distorted early results. For example, initial tests showed a clear match and a strong ‘telepathic’ success. Further analysis, however, proved that identical twins tend to make similar choices, due to their similar process, and therefore it was the fact that the transmitting twin was choosing the cards, rather than telepathy, that caused the high success rate. This was corrected, and later experiments used computers – rather than the transmitting twin – to select the transmitted cards.