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What we do with our self? You would what I was thinking..

Society would have completely different rules to the point I'm not sure we can even imagine what the world would be like.

Men would no longer be able to pretend they're women on the internet.

HAHAHAHAHHA

We wouldn't need the net anymore. If everyone knew what everyone else thinks and feels..there would be no reason for the news..
Would we be at peace?

Originally posted by alltoomany
Would we be at peace? Did we evolve with this ability? Or did it come on us suddenly?

The world would be a terrible place to live. You'd be in bed sleeping, and the Thought Police would show up, and have you breaking rocks until your time was served. Never mind thinking how great someone looked, your thoughts would be out in the open, and if the person you were crushing on had a significant other... Oh boy.

Originally posted by Stoic
The world would be a terrible place to live. You'd be in bed sleeping, and the Thought Police would show up, and have you breaking rocks until your time was served. Never mind thinking how great someone looked, your thoughts would be out in the open, and if the person you were crushing on had a significant other... Oh boy.

Dude, there is no way we would allow a Thought Police to exist if we could read their thoughts.

Originally posted by Mindship
Did we evolve with this ability? Or did it come on us suddenly?

I believe that we did have this ability but something happened over time and we lost most of the ability

I can't remember which philosopher first posed the thought experiment of two beings which knew and experienced all of each other's thoughts, feelings, and memories (Descartes perhaps?) and as a result were only distinguishable in the sense that they inhabited different points of space.

The more I think of this question the more it seems like such a world wouldn't really have individuality, at least not as we know it.

There'd be no need for a thought police, and even if such a thing existed you'd know they were coming for you before they got there.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
I can't remember which philosopher first posed the thought experiment of two beings which knew and experienced all of each other's thoughts, feelings, and memories (Descartes perhaps?) and as a result were only distinguishable in the sense that they inhabited different points of space.

The more I think of this question the more it seems like such a world wouldn't really have individuality, at least not as we know it.

There'd be no need for a thought police, and even if such a thing existed you'd know they were coming for you before they got there.

maybe we would be as One?

Originally posted by alltoomany
maybe we would be as One?
It reminds me of a race of aliens from a story I wrote a few years ago. They'd developed incredibly sophisticated cybernetic telepathy that (via subspace relays) could support instantaneous communication between the entire society.

When one was separated from the network by some humans he barely had an individual personality to speak of and fell into a coma soon after. I think at that point I'd just read Nietzsche so I was big on the idea of herd consciousness.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
It reminds me of a race of aliens from a story I wrote a few years ago. They'd developed incredibly sophisticated cybernetic telepathy that (via subspace relays) could support instantaneous communication between the entire society.

When one was separated from the network by some humans he barely had an individual personality to speak of and fell into a coma soon after. I think at that point I'd just read Nietzsche so I was big on the idea of herd consciousness.

maybe it would take us back to the garden of Eden through knowledge?

It is an interesting notion, the idea of losing individuality through mind-reading. To me it depends in whether or not telepathy allows you to gather information or process information as others would. I think that if you need sheer processing power -you could call it intelligence- it would not be the lost of individuality, but the exacerbation of individuality through hive-like constructs.

We would be bees.

Originally posted by Bentley
It is an interesting notion, the idea of losing individuality through mind-reading. To me it depends in whether or not telepathy allows you to gather information or process information as others would. I think that if you need sheer processing power -you could call it intelligence- it would not be the lost of individuality, but the exacerbation of individuality through hive-like constructs.

We would be bees.

Or Salamander like?

deception played a massive role in our evolution

in a reality where mind reading is possible, neither humans nor civilization as we know it would exist in any form

That depends on the distance of "mind reading".

If it was limited, we'd still be individuals. We could still lie. We'd develop ways to be deceptive including ways to control our thoughts to prevent them from being read. Come-on...doesn't anyone know about Star Wars, here?


lol


An individual still produces unique thoughts, at times. I guarentee that a telepath would have difficulty making sense of my thoughts because they are very messy and in bursts. Some people do not think "cleanly" and I'm not talking about naughty stuff...I'm talking about in ways that would make sense to someone else had they stumbled upon the person. We also think in ways that are unique such as how we associate things together. We subconsciously filter out these associations to put it into forms others understand...but sometimes, those things slip out and we don't filter it properly and we end up not making sense to others but we make sense to ourselves. It's happened to everyone.



Anyway, yes, we'd have ways to still being deceptive such as not thinking about stuff to avoid being invaded.

The idea of unrestricted telepathy is too daunting to fully conceptionalize through todays envirorment. I have often started the conversation with "natural limitations."

In my version telepathy would only be possible between persons who have had close intimate emotional or physical contact with one another.

So family members or a person with whom you have developed a strong emotional bond and a person with who you have had intercourse are persons with whom you would share telepathic bonds.

In this settting I think society would still be very different than what we have but allows for a more controlled imaginary world perspective.

Originally posted by Mindship
Did we evolve with this ability? Or did it come on us suddenly?

could you imagine if it did come on suddenly??? wow

This all depends of the exact nature of this scenario but assuming the complete and total exposure and awareness of mental activity:

What I would imagine is that with the whole and exact public exposure of personal identity, the variance (as well as the scale behind the extremeties in that variance) in the true tastes, opinions, methodology, attitude, desires, imaginings, experiences, and feelings of individuals would help eliminate feelings of shame and embarrasment with regards to an individual's personal details; there is the sense that you are not alone and not being singled out in your situation - everyone is in it together - and what would otherwise seem weird by comparison would now become normal outside of the influence of dishonesty and discretion and with such notions a thing of the past, without the capacity to conceal personal information there is no longer the need or desire to do so - with people being born into such a world such a state of total exposure would truly be the norm and something with which you become used to.

Communication becomes far more efficient and direct and with that the visual and aural components of the personality, and the style behind wordplay become utterly diminished, existing in a practical sense only in the arts. People become as close to one another as they possibly can without all being as one; no longer is there a need for physical closeness and intimacy as no longer is there such a strong divide between the mental makeup of individuals.

Information becomes far more exact and reliable and readily available, as does knowledge and technical proficiency to an extent; the world would be a far more efficient place.

The practise of the social sciences would enter a golden age with absolute perfection in data. In psychology, the roots of mental illness will be picked up as early as possible and be in a far greater position to be eliminated. Perfect symmetry of information, assuming adequate understanding, would exist in the market place and politics becomes a matter of administration rather than persuasion.

Without the notion of going unpunished from criminal activity, given the physical presence of the authorities outweigh the physical presence of the criminal, no longer is there even any desire or notion of commiting crimes, unless the benefit gained from commiting the crime is worth the sacrfice of facing punishment, a presumably anomolous occurence. For the very same reason, no longer is there opportunity for criminality to rise to the point that it becomes a physical threat to legal and political authorities - such thoughts of organisation would be eliminated before having had a chance to be put into practise.

Originally posted by inimalist
deception played a massive role in our evolution

in a reality where mind reading is possible, neither humans nor civilization as we know it would exist in any form


I don't think deception would stop existing per se, because a global-level mindreader, who can read all the variety of thoughts of every kind of brain out there is highly unlikely.

Originally posted by Bentley
I don't think deception would stop existing per se, because a global-level mindreader, who can read all the variety of thoughts of every kind of brain out there is highly unlikely.

most people have already taken their own interpretation of what it would mean for people to be able to "read minds" and gone with that, and sure, I suppose since people can't read minds the whole thing is up to interpretation anyhow.

Well, from a notion full of impossibilities, I assume that somehow interpreting the physical similarities that come as a result of someone who is near is a more "possible" kind of mind-reading than some sort of pan-dimensional out-of-the-body assimilation of every thought out there.

Not that either makes sense.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
I can't remember which philosopher first posed the thought experiment of two beings which knew and experienced all of each other's thoughts, feelings, and memories (Descartes perhaps?) and as a result were only distinguishable in the sense that they inhabited different points of space.

The more I think of this question the more it seems like such a world wouldn't really have individuality, at least not as we know it.

There'd be no need for a thought police, and even if such a thing existed you'd know they were coming for you before they got there.


Not if you were in bed sleeping lol.

Originally posted by Stoic
Not if you were in bed sleeping lol.
How would you go to sleep when you can hear anyone's thoughts any time?

And lol at you ignoring the rest of what I said.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
How would you go to sleep when you can hear anyone's thoughts any time?

And lol at you ignoring the rest of what I said.
The same way people fall asleep, now, when the TV is on and guests are over yacking away.

I wonder about ripples that would happen with intrusive telepathy.

Say a man is shot in a major city. Even if the range of telepathy is only a few meters the whole city is going to know within a few hours. So even in violence decreases (and it would almost have to since getting caught is now a guarantee) you end up with a society inundated with violence. Crossing seas or mountains is unlikely, though, unless you have TP that goes a few hundred miles.

What would that do to people? Maybe we'd be more sensitive to genocides or maybe we'd be so used to death that no one would react on an emotional level.

I agree with Bentley, a hive mind like society ensues.
The weak would be eliminated.
Breeding would be a careful and attentive process.
Race issues would become a thing of the past for people would look at each other on a higher level.
No more unnecessary waste economically and environmentally.
Religion would be completely erased. And replaced with a different system.

But that's if the human race has had this for at least 3 generations.

If we suddenly got it. Chaos would ensue.

It would be cool but it would just cause trouble as well.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I wonder about ripples that would happen with intrusive telepathy.

Say a man is shot in a major city. Even if the range of telepathy is only a few meters the whole city is going to know within a few hours. So even in violence decreases (and it would almost have to since getting caught is now a guarantee) you end up with a society inundated with violence. Crossing seas or mountains is unlikely, though, unless you have TP that goes a few hundred miles.

What would that do to people? Maybe we'd be more sensitive to genocides or maybe we'd be so used to death that no one would react on an emotional level.

Interesting point. Some consider Web 2.0 to have already created this and you made an awesome metaphor for Web 2.0, actually. You can see it happen with tweets: "there was an earthquake a few seconds ago"...then it spreads and makes news within minutes. Saw it happen here in Oklahoma with the recent earthquakes we had.

Same with murders.

Same with rapes.


So I believe you have a society already inundated with violence in their news. Turn on your local news: more crap about murder, some failing company, or corruption. People write songs about this stuff.

Originally posted by Bentley
Well, from a notion full of impossibilities, I assume that somehow interpreting the physical similarities that come as a result of someone who is near is a more "possible" kind of mind-reading than some sort of pan-dimensional out-of-the-body assimilation of every thought out there.

Not that either makes sense.

that is sort of what I meant with deception though

you wouldn't need anyone to have global level mind-reading for it to have impacted our evolution. My ability to steal from you when you aren't looking only requires that I can deceive you, not if I can deceive the planet.

the biggest issue would come in the impact this would have on gossip. From an evolutionary perspective (admittedly, a "just-so" evolutionary perspective, but anyways), gossip served as a mechanism of building in-group trust and as a way that our societies grew in a social-communicative manner. This step would have been unnecessary if our ancestors could read minds, and we likely would never have had as much need of language and other interpersonal communication skills, which would mean that any civilization that did form from those creatures would be orders of magnitude different than our own. I think it is impossible to conceive of a society without language, even "primitive" ones. Not to say they can't exist, just that they would be so different from anything we know, if they can even exist (or if they would be closer to more animal like non-linguistic societies, who knows)

Originally posted by inimalist
I think it is impossible to conceive of a society without language, even "primitive" ones. Not to say they can't exist, just that they would be so different from anything we know, if they can even exist (or if they would be closer to more animal like non-linguistic societies, who knows)

I like to think of societies like that...and then think of it being paradoxical: "society".

why speak? we wouldn't have a need to

Originally posted by inimalist
that is sort of what I meant with deception though

you wouldn't need anyone to have global level mind-reading for it to have impacted our evolution. My ability to steal from you when you aren't looking only requires that I can deceive you, not if I can deceive the planet.

the biggest issue would come in the impact this would have on gossip. From an evolutionary perspective (admittedly, a "just-so" evolutionary perspective, but anyways), gossip served as a mechanism of building in-group trust and as a way that our societies grew in a social-communicative manner. This step would have been unnecessary if our ancestors could read minds, and we likely would never have had as much need of language and other interpersonal communication skills, which would mean that any civilization that did form from those creatures would be orders of magnitude different than our own. I think it is impossible to conceive of a society without language, even "primitive" ones. Not to say they can't exist, just that they would be so different from anything we know, if they can even exist (or if they would be closer to more animal like non-linguistic societies, who knows)


Arguably you wouldn't be able to read the minds of future generations, so at some point someone might "invent" history to communicate with someone in the future. It doesn't need to be a large amount of time, if your society becomes complex the idea of leaving messages for someone seems natural. There could probably be some kind of writting.

But yeah, by diverging at an early point it would be impossible to predict how the society would've developped. If telepathy can replace some learning proposes for practical proposes -or if it can't- it's going to lead to entirely different kinds of tribes, with different approaches at early science.

Originally posted by Bentley
Arguably you wouldn't be able to read the minds of future generations, so at some point someone might "invent" history to communicate with someone in the future. It doesn't need to be a large amount of time, if your society becomes complex the idea of leaving messages for someone seems natural. There could probably be some kind of writting.

But yeah, by diverging at an early point it would be impossible to predict how the society would've developped. If telepathy can replace some learning proposes for practical proposes -or if it can't- it's going to lead to entirely different kinds of tribes, with different approaches at early science.

but the development of language and other parts of human society isn't "top-down" in the way you seem to be describing. Writing didn't come into existence because someone thought, "gee, this will be an effective tool for long term preservation of knowledge and civilization growth", it came out of a need to form economic contracts for simple trade, or basic social interaction. However, if language was never necessary (we don't need to pass symbols to know the internal makeup of another's psyche, we can just read it) such symbols would represent, really, nothing.

I'm saying society would never have become as complex in the first place. Because we would never have a need to communicate in symbols between minds, there would not have been the other needs for us to develop society based around those things. Sure, we might still invent things or discover stuff like fire, hell, we could probably even domesticate animals and plants. However, the social bonds and other highly linguistic behaviours that drove early human evolution wouldn't be there. Essentially, we would be land dolphins or orcas; incredibly intelligent but lacking that essential "je-ne-sais-quoi" that takes simply having complex problem solving and behaviours and turns it into civilization.

we wouldn't "invent" history, because we didn't "invent" history in the first place. The passing of previous information was a behavioural pattern that emerged in a species that already had sophisticated communication abilities, and survived because it had an advantage. Sure, passing information about from generation to generation will be advantageous in societies of mind reading organisms as well, however, unless you can think of a low tech way that such communicated mental states could be preserved beyond the minds they are in, the lack of a language would prevent it from being stored in some meaningful way that would allow a collection or study of "histoy" that differed significantly from oral storytelling or hand-me-down directions to relevant resource locations.

Originally posted by inimalist
most people have already taken their own interpretation of what it would mean for people to be able to "read minds" and gone with that, and sure, I suppose since people can't read minds the whole thing is up to interpretation anyhow. Word.

Better to establish specific parameters for a hypothetical scenario and work from there. Might even get good story material out of it.

A great novel regarding telepathy: "Dying Inside," by Robert Silverberg. Simple, basic, wonderfully done.

I think that if you get to the point in which you get domestic animals and sedentarism you are actually forced to have writting by the sheer comprehension of the economy you just created. Not to mention that telepathy isn't necessarily a replacement for artistic experience -unless we could stimulate each other brains, in that case, heck, we may not even need reality (we were doomed from the beginning-. Pictures and visual communication predate language, but they can be tied as a part of what made written language happen in the first place. Also there is the human desire for inmortality and trascendance that would need to be stored somewhere -althought you're right, intergenerational speech should solve that quick enough-.

If a species in another galaxy also invented atomic reactors we still invented atomic reactors, so I don't see how other races having "history" takes anything from us. Unless you argue that we weren't even human back when our first history was developped in which case I agree, we didn't invent history but it's still a bit nitpickish.

Originally posted by alltoomany
What we do with our self? You would what I was thinking.. probably die of over-stimulation

PG would be a Kang fan kangbiscuits

Originally posted by psycho gundam
probably die of over-stimulation

or none

maybe when we could read eachother's Mind or feel another's understanding we will be in peace?

death is the only peace

when I walk into a store I get this paranoid feeling that Im going to steal something even tho I dont really want to, I guess if people could read my mind they would have that same feeling.

It wouldn't be good to be bombarded by everyones thoughts. So many of peoples thoughts are not real intentions. Sometimes people don't really know what they are day dreaming about. Some are pretty abstract thoughts....scary. Jumpy

Originally posted by Deja~vu
It wouldn't be good to be bombarded by everyones thoughts. So many of peoples thoughts are not real intentions. Sometimes people don't really know what they are day dreaming about. Some are pretty abstract thoughts....scary. Jumpy

Yes, scary...

I think it would get loud and confusing for everyone at all times, mostly because our brains think many different things at once, as opposed to one particular thought that could be clearly read.

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
I think it would get loud and confusing for everyone at all times, mostly because our brains think many different things at once, as opposed to one particular thought that could be clearly read.

wonder how john edwards feels about that

John edwards is a hack. I think the only voice he hears is the voice inside him of bullsh*t and the lies he tells himself to go to sleep.

Well done ,learn more
http://www.kread.info/g.gif

Originally posted by Deja~vu
It wouldn't be good to be bombarded by everyones thoughts. So many of peoples thoughts are not real intentions. Sometimes people don't really know what they are day dreaming about. Some are pretty abstract thoughts....scary. Jumpy

yeah people fear change

Must not think nasty thoughts, must not think nasty thouhts, nuts wat nuts? Those in his pants or am I nuts, nuts so tasty, nuts so smelly, nuts, chikmunks like nuts. Must stay awake and kill time. Time is evil, time is catching up. Time never stops. Must stop pretending.

if we could then we would know who the evil ones are and kill them

Originally posted by alltoomany
if we could then we would know who the evil ones are and kill them I like you!