The British press (and I can only assume the world press as well) has been discussing the results of a recent series of experiments in which seeming “telepathic” communication between human beings over a large distance had been replicated. I have now gone back to the source academic paper to understand in greater detail what the laboratory experiment involved. I am stunned by the implications and, as usual, this really gives the materialist-reductionists a deep problem. Firstly the observation that the experiment was “lab based” is actually incorrect. The amazing fact is that the brain-to-brain transmission was from Thiruvananthapuram in India to Strasbourg in France. My second, much more important observation is that this is NOT a brain-to-brain communication but a mind-to-mind communication. This amazing fact is stated specifically by the authors:
“Indeed, we may use the term mind-to-mind transmission here as opposed to brain-to-brain, because both the origin and the destination of the communication involved the conscious activity of the subjects.”
(Grau C, Ginhoux R, Riera A, Nguyen TL, Chauvat H, et al. (2014) Conscious Brain-to-Brain Communication in Humans Using Non-Invasive Technologies. PLoS ONE 9(8): e105225. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0105225).
“Mind to Mind” means consciousness is communicating with consciousness over vast distances. In effect a thought in one mind (the “emitter” stimulates a “bit value” (encoded as a phosphene) being generated in the brain of the “receiver” and understood to be a binary digit (bit) of 1. If the is a non-production of a phosphene this signifies a binary digit of 0. This means that “digital” information can be transferred from one mind to another across huge distances. In effect this will be at the speed of an electromagnetic wave (aka the speed of light). The philosophical implications of this are huge. As we have discussed many times here a “mind” is immaterial (it has no location or extension in space) and yet here we have yet another “magical” interface whereby an immaterial substance (“mind” or “consciousness”) has a physical effect in the material universe. But how can something non-physical have any form of influence on a physical object? By definition physical and non-physical are completely different “things”.
I suspect that this experiment will carefully be buried as it will focus people into considering the great mystery that is the mind-body interface …. an interface that cannot be explained in any shape or form by our present materialist-reductionist paradigm (as stated by David Chalmers in his “Hard Problem of Consciousness”. This is the stuff that “shakes my tree” and really excites me. I do not need to venture into the areas of “New Age” pseudoscience to make my points. This is REAL SCIENCE being done by REAL SCIENTISTS…… and yet again we have another result of empirical science that leads intelligent, open-minded, individuals to question just how “complete” materialist-reductionism is as an inclusive explanator of the perceived universe.