ESP and the Scientific Journal

[Janx]

there's a whole lot of things that could explain ESP.

It could be that the brain acts as a control rig for our essences that float in some quantum space dimension, as such, some times we can peak outside of our control rig

It could be that the brain sometimes picks up interference that happens to reveal information we couldn't directly know through the physical senses

it could be that the 90% of our brain that we don't use, is in fact being used.

I know this much:
magicians can do ESP acts that are convincing. Assuming that it was not actually ESP, we know people can fake it (how is of cource a magicians secret).

People who honestly puport to have psychic abilities do not have access to precise, instant or controllable information. They are often described as "intuitive" which basically means they are subconciously deducing things, effectively guessing really well. But they are not 100% accurate, or even getting "obvious" images.

So, we don't have any documented telepaths who can be reliably tested, thereby proving ESP.

ESP falls into the realm of wierd science. Stuff that somebody's seen, but can't reproduce. Enough people have seen it to believe it, but there's not been solid cases to prove it with the scientific method.

 

[Hammerhead]

it could be that the 90% of our brain that we don't use, is in fact being used.

Yeah, I can't let this is slide. This is incorrect.

10% of brain myth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
snopes.com: Ten Percent of our Brains
Do we really use only 10 percent of our brains?: Scientific American
Discovery Health "Are you really only using 10 percent of your brain?"

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

A resent study showed that the brain is more self adjusting than we thought. The study found that when a person is born blind, the areas of the brain that normally process visual information get used to process auditory and/or touch information. This can happen to a lesser extent to children who go blind after birth. This is a long process and does not happen over night. It is not just loading a new program like the Matrix or Chuck would have you believe.

This could imply that a person whom under goes the correct stimulus when young could reformat parts of their brain to be sensitive to thing others are not.

I remember reading something in this direction, too. (That's nicely vague, isn't it?)

The brain might be, overall, more adaptable then we might thing. For example, it seems that in some way, humans perceive tools that they use as part of the body during use. So, maybe a third cybernetically attached arm fully under brain control is a possibility, to bring up a sci-fi scenario.

Not that this has much to with ESP...

 

[Merkuri]

This could imply that a person whom under goes the correct stimulus when young could reformat parts of their brain to be sensitive to thing others are not.

In the cases you mentioned, the brain was basically putting more power towards processing stimuli it already knew how to process. Getting the brain to process entirely new stimuli is probably a different story. Plus, you'd need some way to get that new stimulus into the brain.

 

[TanisFrey]

it could be that the 90% of our brain that we don't use, is in fact being used.

It is more accurate that we use up 10% of our brains for active thought, the rest is still being uses for automatic functions of the body, like reflexes; breathing (when we don't think about breathing); keeps the heart beating correctly, on time; other issues to deal with gravity; etc...

We don't actively think about motions of walking we just think about where to go the subconscious is thinking about lifting a leg while bending the correct knee while adjusting our weight to maintain our balance on our other leg, then swing the leg forward, maintaining that balance and placing our dangling foot back on the ground........

There is a dozens of individual mussels that the subconscious tell to contract and then release when we do any action. That is where most of our brain power is working, without ourselves needing to actively think about it.

 

[TanisFrey]

In the cases you mentioned, the brain was basically putting more power towards processing stimuli it already knew how to process. Getting the brain to process entirely new stimuli is probably a different story. Plus, you'd need some way to get that new stimulus into the brain.

Up until now the scientists, that study the brain, thought that each area was a decanted processor for one type of data. This could lead into a major shift is how scientists/doctors think of the brain inner workings.

I have also heard some scientists speak of the brain as a series of electrical connections and the each persons brain would have a unique wiring diagram if mapped. Who's to say that someone whom to claim to be Psyche could have a portion of their brain that, if mapped, looks like an organic version of a radio or TV antenna.

 

[Janx]

It is more accurate that we use up 10% of our brains for active thought, the rest is still being uses for automatic functions of the body, like reflexes; breathing (when we don't think about breathing); keeps the heart beating correctly, on time; other issues to deal with gravity; etc...

We don't actively think about motions of walking we just think about where to go the subconscious is thinking about lifting a leg while bending the correct knee while adjusting our weight to maintain our balance on our other leg, then swing the leg forward, maintaining that balance and placing our dangling foot back on the ground........

There is a dozens of individual mussels that the subconscious tell to contract and then release when we do any action. That is where most of our brain power is working, without ourselves needing to actively think about it.

Well, as Hammerhead put in some links disproving the 10% thing (and I'm not emotionally married to the 10% idea anyway, merely postulating that unknown parts may be doing unknown things).

However, if I follow TF, that the majority of brain power is powering autonomic functions, I think that is highley unlikely given comparision to other animals.

My facts are going to be wrong here, but close enough. Most animals have as many organs, joints and functions as humans. Their brains are smaller.

So the brain gear it takes to run a mammal's autonomics is not very big. Certainly not big enough to require a majority of a human brain to do the same functions.

So, its my uninformed theory that there's a maximum size needed for autonomic functions that while it varies from species, since the same common functions can be handled in a much smaller brain, it therefore has no reason to be significantly larger in a human brain to do the same work.

To me, that would logically fit, given how humans have lots of other cognitive ability that other species don't. because we only need a squirrel brain sized chunk of grey matter to run the same autonomics as a squirrel, leaving us buttloads of brain space for other things.

 

[TanisFrey]

Well, as Hammerhead put in some links disproving the 10% thing (and I'm not emotionally married to the 10% idea anyway, merely postulating that unknown parts may be doing unknown things).

However, if I follow TF, that the majority of brain power is powering autonomic functions, I think that is highley unlikely given comparision to other animals.

My facts are going to be wrong here, but close enough. Most animals have as many organs, joints and functions as humans. Their brains are smaller.

So the brain gear it takes to run a mammal's autonomics is not very big. Certainly not big enough to require a majority of a human brain to do the same functions.

So, its my uninformed theory that there's a maximum size needed for autonomic functions that while it varies from species, since the same common functions can be handled in a much smaller brain, it therefore has no reason to be significantly larger in a human brain to do the same work.

To me, that would logically fit, given how humans have lots of other cognitive ability that other species don't. because we only need a squirrel brain sized chunk of grey matter to run the same autonomics as a squirrel, leaving us buttloads of brain space for other things.

My guess is that it may be that larger mussel mass requires stimulus from the brain to get it moving and to control it. Therefore we need a larger brain than a smaller creature. An elephants brain is larger than ours.

Where humans stand out is that our brain mass is larger than our body mass would require for basic functions of life. Lets include getting food and mating like animals as basic function of life for this argument. Animals usually think about the here and now 99% of the time. They very rarely farm or make tools or even build a place to live in. Yes there are exceptions to the last statement but most creatures just try to fit in, while humans shape our surrounding to suit us. Our brains are larger than other creatures of our mass, our conscious minds use that extra area to think in an active instead of a reactive manner.

I am trying not to underestimate how much brain power the brain needs.