Metacognition and possibly telepathy?

Question

If I'm thinking about what I'm thinking I can think about what you are thinking. Statistically the better I know you, the better I'll be able to guess what you are thinking. Its possible I could know you so well that my guesses would be very accurate. The key word being "guess". By true deffinition, telepathy is not guess work.

Yet by training one to thinking about what they are thinking, to understand their cognitive faculties, and in turn training them to be able to do the same with other people -would that constitute telepathy in some sense?

How do you personally define telepathy?

The answer I am looking for is not how wikipedia defines it or some text book but instead what it means to people individually.

Answer 1

What do you mean? Are you saying we have the capiability to learn telepathy?

My definition of telepathy? A mental conversation (not reading body language) or reading another's mind.

I have never looked into the whole identical twin thing but I imagine it is b/c their genes as so simular that perhaps they just think alike.

My sister and I (not twins) are so close that I tell you exactly how she will react or think to a given situation before she does it.  All we need to do is look at one another to know. I guess that is the closest thing to being trained to think as another.  It is not telepathy, it is normal long term human interaction.

Answer 2

If you've ever had a long term relationship (I'm talking about years here), you'll find that you often times know what your partner is thinking without any physical cues.  It is a familiarity that develops between people who spend enormous amounts of time together with common experiences.  It actually progresses beyond guessing, because you really do know what the other person is thinking.

This type of phenomenon is interpreted by many people as "mind-reading", and some people get so good at interpreting peoples intentions and feelings, that they truly believe that they are reading minds when they are actually interpreting body language or situational reactions.

Telepathy is a different experience altogether.  Some one using telepathy may also seem to know what another person is thinking, just as a couple may seem telepathic in their reactions to one another, but there is more to telepathy.  Telepathy involves the transfer of thoughts, images, or emotions without the benefit of the telepath knowing anything about the person they are reading.  Experiments for telepathy are typically done with 2 parties in isolation trying to send or recieve messages.  Neither knows anything about the other or what they are trying to send.

Telepathy also relates to knowledge over a distance.  For example, some twins will know the exact moment that their sibling is injured even though it is across the continent.  This is not related to the "situational knowledge" that was mentioned before, but is a result of some thing else.

Contrary to what some people believe, it isn't like a radio that can be turned on and off at will.  Sometimes, these things happen in isolation, and, for some people, they happen once in their lives and never again.  The mechanism isn't clear, but the phenomenon is clearly defined.

Telepathy is knowledge of another person's thoughts or feelings without any knowledge of that person's situation.  Oh, and telepathy doesn't have to be exact or specific to be called telepathy.  Thanks for a great question!

Answer 3

Telepathy should be like a radio station transmitting a message and the radio receiving it, it's either doing it or it's not, there's no half-telepathy or training-telepathy.

Edit

It's like saying I don't understand why I can't fly, if I practice jumping in the air and flapping my arms surely little by  little I will achieve it. But humans aren't physically capable of flight and they don't have the organ to transmit and receive thoughts.

I guess telepathy would be useful if you had a disability which prevented you from communicating but regular humans already have many splendid ways to share their thoughts with others.

Answer 4

I've heard a voice call my name out loud before (and no one was there) ...but I don't think I've ever heard any human's thoughts out loud. BUT...I've heard them well enough that I thought they were my own thoughts...and wondered why that came into my head because it wasn't how I felt. Maybe that's telepathy. Maybe we do it a lot more than we realize...thinking those thoughts and ideas are our own. The problem is..if you go around thinking you know other people's thoughts...they might actually be your own thoughts. Hmmmm.

Answer 5

I believe telepathy has a different level of meaning to everyone. I think everyone has the ability to nurture this gift but too many are either not interested, don't buy it or they are to lazy to look into it or don't know where to turn to develop it.

Why bother when you can pick up a cell phone? ( sarcasm). I think developing telepathy would take a lot of time and mastery for it to be truly beneficial for the masses.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to communicate perfectly?

Telepathy to me is defined as the ability to perfectly communicate thoughts and feelings with others(including animals) without the use of words and getsures. No more misinterpretations - way cool.

Imagine what it could do for the deaf,blind and patients who are unable to communicate their problems! I think there would be more accurate diagnosis in the medical field too.

Answer 6

i believe telepathy is the ability to either sense, or to know another's thoughts or feelings. i believe just about anyone CAN do it, but very few actually advance with it. i know a lot of twins can do it, and people who are around each other alot can guess what the other person is thinking, or feeling. what i mean by just about everyone CAN do it is that, well, you know when you go to a funeral, everyone is sad, and it leaves a feeling of grief, and loss? that is kind of telepathy, but it is simple to understand. or, when a room full of people is silent. you automatically know something is wrong. i think any telepathy more advance than that either has to happen on its own, or be pushed where it can advance. i think to possess telepathy, a person would need to be able to, for lack of a better term, open a link. i mean, that they would need to be able to open themselves up a little. they would need to broaden their spectrums to what is possible, and what will happen. i may be wrong about any of this, but in this type of question, nothing is set in stone.

i hope i answered the question sufficiently.

have a wonderful day!

-Angel-