What do you think of "psychic abilities"? For example, are there any laws of physics that would rule out the possibility of a person being able to psychically put a thought in another person's head?Have you ever had something happen and then realize that you foresaw it happening in a dream? I've had that feeling, very powerfully, half a dozen times in my life. Suspiciously, though, I evidently didn't consider these prophetic dreams important enough to write them down ahead of time. After one of these experiences, I vowed to make a note of my next vivid dream and then wait for the foretold part to happen. That was years ago and I'm still waiting for some emotional experience involving "two jacks" to happen. Maybe it happened and I missed it. I don't believe the laws of physics rule out putting a thought in someone's head. For example, I'm putting thoughts in your head right now. Sometimes a person puts thoughts in another person's head without even saying anything, just by raising an eyebrow. "No, no," you say, "I said psychically, and everyone knows that to be psychic it has to be spookier!" Well, physics doesn't rule out spooky things, except in the sense that anything's less spooky if you understand it. I'd say it's more a question of neurobiology than physics per se. As far as physics is concerned, you could have a natural radio built into your head and read the thoughts of anyone not wearing a tin foil hat. But when the brain surgeon opens up your head, where is this radio antenna to be found? Nowhere as far as I know. One more thought: if our ancestors had vestigial psychic abilities, why didn't evolution cause those to develop more, instead of going to all the effort of giving us vocal cords to talk with? |