Could Science Make Telepathy Possible?
An investigation into how this ‘pseudoscience’ could be achieved by future technologies.
Before we can figure out if future technology could ever provide telepathic ability to human beings, let’s start by defining what telepathy is. Wikipedia says it’s the “vicarious transmission of information from one person to another without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction.” I think this definition is too narrow in that it forces telepathy to be some kind of magical force that cannot possibly exist, ensuring that this term remains forever in the realm of pseudoscience. For our purposes, we ought to consider telepathy to be simply “mind reading” plus a corresponding “mind writing,” which together form a direct communication channel between two people’s minds. If this involves some kind of physical interaction, or if some kind of technology is involved in mitigating this communication, let’s say that counts. Furthermore, so long as this communication is initiated merely by the sender’s conscious thoughts and understood somehow by the receiver, that should count, too. Even if human sensory channels are involved—I send you a message and you hear my voice in your ears—to me, that’s telepathy enough. So the question is, how could two minds directly communicate with one another? Is it possible already? Let’s take a look.
The Microwave Auditory Effect (MAE)
MAE is “the human perception of audible clicks, or even speech, induced by pulsed or modulated radio frequencies,” according to Wikipedia. This effect was first observed from people in frequent and prolonged contact with radar transponders in World War II, as well as in modern times by those at microwave transmitting sites, such as communication towers, satellite antennas and relay links. Subsequent investigations and experiments found that “appropriately pulsed microwave radiation” and “voice modulated microwaves” could be perceived by human subjects at distances up to a few hundred feet. Changes in frequency and pulse could be used to control whether the subject heard “a buzz, clicking, hiss, or knocking” sound. This effect takes place in the cochlea, the part of the human inner ear that contains essential sensory organs for hearing.
However, these microwaves evidently create feelings of disorientation and discomfort among receivers, and the heat generated by such radiation presents a potentially fatal danger to human beings. So, at present, primitive information in the form of sounds and speech can be received by the human ear, but at best it hurts and at worst it might kill you. This effect could, however, potentially contribute to telepathy in practice if there were some kind of medical breakthrough that could make this microwave radiation tolerable to human beings. Perhaps there’s a miracle drug that could nullify these unpleasant side effects, or even improve and amplify reception. Perhaps a gene editing technology like CRISPR could engineer MAE-compatible cochlea into our DNA. If a corresponding technological breakthrough could then yield a means for encoding more sophisticated information into the microwave frequencies, human beings could be like biological antennas.
Intracortical Microstimulation
Another means for receiving a direct input of information that might have more potential is intracortical microstimulation—applying electrical stimuli to targeted areas of the brain in order to convey sensory information that mimics real experience. This was done somewhat successfully in a Duke University experiment in which cortical activity recorded from a rat engaged in a particular behavior could be transmitted to another rat, thereby invoking that same behavior. The researchers additionally propose their use of intracortical microstimulation as a new technique for use in cortical implants, which are a kind of neuroprosthetic that restore sensation through implanted signals in patients with visual, auditory or cognitive brain impairments. This experiment was a very basic proof of concept, but given time for this technology to evolve, it’s conceivable that complex information and experiences could be encoded into electrical signals and pulsed into just the right areas of the brain in order to generate rich, sensory thoughts in the receiver. With a small bit of hardware worn as jewelry or even a microscopic cybernetic implant, human beings might be able to enjoy vicarious experiences transmitted from one another, which sounds very telepathic.
So, we now have technologies built upon the microwave auditory effect and intracortical microstimulation as means for human beings to understand encoded information. But this only covers receiving the information, not sending it. How might that work?
Electroencephalography (EEG)
EEG is a way of measuring and recording electrical activity within the brain, specifically the “voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current within the neurons,” says Wikipedia. You’ve probably seen this before: a patient wearing a cap or mesh net that places a grid of electrodes around the scalp, each one recording electrical activity from different regions of the brain. Such an EEG setup is used to diagnose brain disorders including tumors, brain damage, stroke, sleep disorders and epilepsy, and as a scientific research tool in neurological and psychological disciplines. The output of the brain as collected by EEG is very broad, however: the electrodes are unable to register the minute energy of individual neurons, but instead capture the high-level activity of millions neurons firing together in similar ways. The frequencies at which the energy levels oscillate map to known categories of brain function, indicating whether a subject is awake, anxious, relaxed, drowsy, sleeping, concentrating, distracted, moving, using their hands, or having a seizure or stroke.
This’s pretty neat, but it doesn’t quite get us to the point of encoding a complex thought from the brain into transmittable message. First, the information from EEG is very general, and in its raw form is not very useful; it needs contextual interpretation from a professionally trained intermediary to understand its meaning. Second, there’s not as much consistency in the electrical output as one might hope, as frequency shifts occur depending on the subject’s age, mood, current activity and even whether or not their eyes are open. But this is a good start. A technological breakthrough that can more precisely monitor individual neurons, filter non-essential noise, and interpret and calibrate all this data into human-readable information doesn’t sound all that improbable. If more powerful, microscopic electrodes could be installed permanently into a person’s scalp and artificially intelligent software could be trained to analyze and encode the electrical output of the brain, then all we would need is a microscopic microwave transmitter to send this information to a receiver medically prepared for MAE and voilà—you’ve got telepathy. Or at least, a technological facsimile of it. This certainly doesn’t satisfy the narrow definition that requires messages to be sent and received as a naturally occurring phenomena in the brain.
Neuroimaging
While EEG is an interesting technique for evaluating brain activity, there are other advanced technologies that could also help get closer to the “mind reading” aspect that is inherent in telepathy. The most notable is fMRI—Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, a technique that records changes in blood flow in the brain and spinal cord to build a high-resolution, three-dimensional map of cognitive activity. Scientists and doctors use fMRI to map the origin of signals within the brain as they pertain to specific thoughts and activities, such as talking about a particular subject, moving one’s hands. or looking in different directions. Where a regular MRI maps the structure of the brain, often looking for damaged areas in patients, an fMRI maps the function of the brain (hence the “f” in its name), serving as an important tool in detecting cognitive disfunction. When combined with EEG, it has been a key component of interesting experiments that create an interface between the human brain and computers. One study by Japanese researchers created a robotic hand operated by an AI that was trained to understand brain activity recorded via fMRI. It was able to translate live input from an active fMRI scan into movement of the hand, allowing the operator to play a game of rock, paper, scissors.
This all sounds very promising, but there are some serious limitations at present that prevent fMRI from being able to read minds. First of all, the procedure is very expensive and requires a room full of equipment that a patient has to climb inside. Second, though the high resolution obtained from an fMRI has made it a powerful tool for medical diagnosis, there is still much work to be done decoding and finding meaning in the data. The software that currently reconstructs thoughts from fMRI data shows promise, but is still far from perfect, having to contend with differences in individual subjects and filtering out noise. But if there are sufficient advances in these technologies, it’s not unreasonable that a small piece of hardware with advanced AI-driven software could accurately understand human thoughts. This might allow users to compose messages, share memories and transmit vicarious experiences live to other people. The gateway to the internet would no longer be laptops, tablets and smart phones, but would exist entirely in our minds at all times. Pretty cool.
Conclusions
The technologies explored here have a lot of potential to grow over the coming century in ways that could dramatically change human life. Advanced as some of the might already be, it still feels like we have only scratched the surface in understanding the way our minds work.
