Originally posted by inimalist
deception played a massive role in our evolutionin 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.
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.
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".
Originally posted by inimalist
that is sort of what I meant with deception thoughyou 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 inimalistWord.
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.
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.