True?/Woo?
What if we all woke up tomorrow and, all of a sudden, simply knew what other people were thinking?
What if other people knew exactly what we had on our minds at any given time?
Even if we weren’t in the same room?
This strange thought experiment is an uncomfortable one. Because, if I’m being honest, there are many times when what I say is not at all what I am thinking. Sometimes I sugarcoat the spoken words when the underlying sentiment is difficult to express in a true fashion. Sometimes, rightly or wrongly, I keep my honest feelings and opinions to myself. And sometimes, when I’ve judged the situation too precarious for the whole truth and nothing but the truth…well…I may just change the subject.
If I had to live in a world where everything I was thinking was suddenly laid bare for all to comprehend, and I could simultaneously understand what everyone else was thinking… I actually think that the world as we know it would immediately improve.
Without lies, half-truths, sugar-coatings, obfuscations, sleight of hand, misdirection, and the like, everyone would understand everyone else’ intentions.
So, legal proceedings would be rather quick. As would business meetings. There would no longer be effective advertising. Social engineering wouldn’t happen. Insurance coverage would be more difficult to deny.
The worries, pains, struggles, victories, and concerns of everyone would suddenly be difficult to ignore.
I imagine, in this brave new world, the only way we could deal with the influx of truth would be to become loving and compassionate to ourselves and others. Consistently. Everyday. All the time.
To be totally honest with you, I wouldn’t have considered this line of reasoning with any seriousness without having recently binged the entire first season of The Telepathy Tapes. Yes, that’s the podcast that recently booted Joe Rogan from the top of the Spotify playlist.
While this podcast is not without controversy, and its creator and subjects not without their criticism, I think it holds some valuable ideas to consider.
The basic gist: there exist many non-verbal autistic individuals who can read minds and other equally astounding abilities. Since science recognizes many other abilities, such as rapid language acquisition and mathematical genius as savant skills, then perhaps, telepathy is also a type of savant skill that warrants further study.
Telepathy is, as I’ve alluded to, the ability to pick up and send thoughts from one person to another without the use of language. Brain to brain, so to speak. And while I won’t ruin the episodes for you, I did want to point out that many of the children featured in the podcast talk a great deal about love being of the highest importance. Which tracks with my own informal thought experiment.
More important than telepathy itself is the concept of consciousness. Science has been in a struggle to define this term and to determine it’s origins. If consciousness is generated from the brain, how do we explain Near Death Experiences (NDE’s) where people accurately remember events that took place when they were technically brain dead? If consciousness is fundamental to everything else, then how does it work? Are we in a simulation? Is there separation between conscious beings…and if there is, can they overlap in a shared experience?
To be fair, there is a lot of weird woo out there on this subject.
To be fair, there is a lot of crap available on just about any subject these days.
But if we go way, way back, and pick up the threads of nearly every spiritual tradition, there is something there about love. Whatever the avatar of a given religion, it is as though they had some access to a deeper reality. They experienced the truth of everything all at once, and realized that the only choice that made any sense was love.
What if these kids are having a similar experience? Even if it seems wild and unhinged in the world of scientific research, just remember that handwashing was also once considered an unhinged medical idea. And the scientific notion that the earth orbited the sun. And the theory that ulcers were caused by bacteria rather than stress. The point of science, after all, is to determine the mechanism behind what is observed in nature, and to do that, we must be willing to put our assumptions to the test and keep an open mind about the results.
Regardless of the outcome of experiments with these kids, my takeaway from my own experiment is pretty clear: I can and probably should try to live with loving intention towards myself and others. Even if no one else can sense it. But, after all, maybe they can.
