Part 4 (1/2)

HANDHELD MRI SCANNERS

Yet another stu block to practical telepathy is the sheer size of the fMRIseveralseveral tons The heart of the MRIseveral feet in dianetic field of several teslas (The netic field is so enormous that several workers have been seriously injured when hah the air when the poas accidentally turned on) Recently physicists Igor Savukov and Michael Roy that ht eventually make handheld MRIthe price of an fMRI e MRI netonetic fields

First, Savukov and Ronetic sensor froas Then they used laser light to align the electron spins of the potassiunetic field to a sample of water (to simulate a human body) Then they sent a radio pulse into the water sa ”echo” fro water molecules made the potassiu could be detected by a second laser They canetic field could produce an ”echo” that could be picked up by their sensors Not only could they replace the netic field of the standard MRI et pictures instantaneously (whereas MRI machines can take up to twenty minutes to produce each picture)

Eventually, they theorize, taking an MRI photo could be as easy as taking a picture with a digital ca blocks, however One problem is that the subject and the netic fields from the outside) If handheld MRI ht be coupled to a tiny computer, which in turn could be loaded with the software capable of decoding certain key phrases, words, or sentences Such a device would never be as sophisticated as the telepathic devices found in science fiction, but it could come close

THE BRAIN AS A NEURAL NETWORK

But will some futuristic MRI hts, word for word, ie, as a true telepath could? This is not so clear Soued that MRI ue outlines of our thoughts, because the brain is not really a coital coid set of rules A digital counit (CPU), inputs, and outputs A central processor (eg, the Pentium chip) performs a definite set of manipulations of the input and produces an output, and ”thinking” is therefore localized in the CPU

Our brain, however, is not a digital computer Our brain has no Pentiu systele transistor in the CPU of a computer, you are likely to cripple it But there are recorded cases in which half the hu half of the brain takes over

The hu machine, a ”neural network,” that constantly rewires itself after learning a new task MRI studies have confirhts in the brain are not localized in one spot, as in a Turing machine, but are spread out over much of the brain, which is a typical feature of a neural network MRI scans show that thinking is actually like a Ping-Pong ga up sequentially, with electrical activity bouncing around the brain

Because thoughts are so diffuse and scattered throughout many parts of the brain, perhaps the best that scientists will be able to do is cohts, that is, establish a one-to-one correspondence between certain thoughts and specific patterns of EEGs or MRI scans Austrian bioineer Gert Pfurtscheller, for exanize specific brain patterns and thoughts by focusing his efforts on waves found in EEGs Apparently, waves are associated with the intention to make certain er, smile, or frown, and then the computer records which waves are activated Each time the patient perfors the wave pattern This process is difficult and tedious, since you have to carefully process out spurious waves, but eventually Pfurtscheller has been able to find striking correspondences between simple movements and certain brain patterns

Over time this effort, co a co certain patterns on an EEG or MRI scan, a coht be able to identify such patterns and reveal what the patient is thinking, at least in general ter” would establish a one-to-one correspondence between particular waves and MRI scans, and specific thoughts But it is doubtful that this dictionary will be capable of picking out specific words in your thoughts

PROJECTING YOUR THOUGHTS

If one day we hts, then would it be possible to perforhts into another person's head? The answer seems to be a qualified yes Radio waves can be beamed directly into the human brain to excite areas of the brain known to control certain functions

This line of research began in the 1950s, when Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield was perforery on the brains of epileptic patients He found that when he stimulated certain areas of the tean to hear voices and see ghostlike apparitions Psychologists have known that epileptic lesions of the brain can cause the patient to feel that supernatural forces are at work, that de events around theists have even theorized that the stiht have led to the seions Sole-handedly led French troops to victory in battles against the British, ht have suffered from such a lesion caused by a blow to the head) On the basis of these conjectures, neuroscientist Michael Persinger of Sudbury, Ontario, has created a specially wired helned to beahts and es Neuroscientists know that a certain injury to your left temporal lobe can cause your left brain to becoht interpret activity within the right he from another ”self” This injury could create the ihostlike spirit in the room, because the brain is unaware that this presence is actually just another part of itself Depending on his or her beliefs, the patient el, extraterrestrial, or even God

In the future it nals at precise parts of the brain that are known to control specific functions By firing such signals into the aht be able to elicit certain eht be able to evoke visual ihts But research in this direction is only at the earliest stages

MAPPING THE BRAIN

So project,” sienes in the hule neuron in the hu all their connections It would be a truly monumental project, since there are over 100 billion neurons in the brain, and each neuron is connected to thousands of other neurons assu that such a project is accohts stimulate certain neural pathways Co MRI scans and EEG waves, one ht conceivably be able to decipher the neural structure of certain thoughts, in such a way that one es correspond to specific neurons being activated Thus one would achieve a one-to-one correspondence between a specific thought, its MRI expression, and the specific neurons that fire to create that thought in the brain

One small step in this direction was the announcement in 2006 by the Allen Institute for Brain Science (created by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen) that they have been able to create a 3-Dthe expression of 21,000 genes at the cellular level They hope to follow this with a similar atlas for the human brain ”The coe leap forward in one of the great frontiers of ne, chairman of the institute This atlas will be indispensable for anyone wishi+ng to analyze the neural connections within the huh the Brain Atlas falls considerably short of a true neuron- project

In summary, natural telepathy, the kind often featured in science fiction and fantasy, is impossible today MRI scans and EEG waves can be used to read only our sihts are spread out over the entire brain in coy advance over the co decades to centuries? Inevitably science's ability to probe the thinking process is going to expand exponentially As the sensitivity of our MRI and other sensing devices increases, science will be able to localize with greater precision the way in which the brain sequentially processes thoughts and ereater computer power, one should be able to analyze this ht ht patterns where different thought patterns on an MRI screen correspond to different thoughts or feelings Although a complete one-to-one correspondence between MRI patterns and thoughts ht could correctly identify general thoughts about certain subjects MRI thought patterns, in turn, could beprecisely which neurons are firing to produce a specific thought in the brain

But because the brain is not a cohts are spread out throughout the brain, ultih science will probe deeper and deeper into the thinking brain,processes, it will not be possible to ”read your thoughts” with the pinpoint accuracy promised by science fiction Given this, I would terht patterns as a Class I impossibility The ability to read s of the orized as a Class II impossibility

But there is perhaps a more direct way in which to tap into the enor radio, which is weak and easily dispersed, could one tap directly into the brain's neurons? If so, we reater power: psychokinesis

6: PSYCHOKINESIS

A new scientific truth does not triuht, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is faative to utter truths that no one else will speak

-SHAKESPEARE

One day the Gods meet in the heavens and cousted by our vain, silly, and pointless follies But one God takes pity on us and decides to conduct an experirant one very ordinary person unli a God, they ask?

That dull, average person is George Fotheringay, a haberdasher who suddenly finds hie the color of water, create splendid meals, and even conjure up diamonds At first he uses his power for aood deeds But eventually his vanity and lust for power overtake him and he becomes a power-thirsty tyrant, with palaces and riches beyond belief Intoxicated with this unliantly coinable chaos erupts as fierce winds hurl everything into the air at 1,000 miles per hour, the rotation rate of the Earth All of humanity is swept away into outer space In desperation, heto the way it was

This is the story line of the movie The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936), based on the 1911 short story by H G Wells (It would later be readapted into theJim Carrey) Of all the powers ascribed to ESP, psychokinesis-orabout them-is by far the most powerful, essentially the power of a deity The point made by Wells in his short story is that Godlike powers also require Godlike judgures prominently in literature, especially in the Shakespearean play The Tehter Miranda, and the ical sprite Ariel are stranded for years on a deserted island due to the treachery of Prospero's evil brother When Prospero learns that his evil brother is sailing on a boat in his vicinity, in revenge Prospero summons his psychokinetic power and conjures up ahis evil brother's shi+p to crash onto the island Prospero then uses his psychokinetic powers toFerdinand, an innocent, handsoineers into a love match with Miranda

(The Russian writer Vladi similarity to a science fiction tale In fact, about 350 years after it ritten, The Tempest was remade into a 1956 science fiction classic called Forbidden Planet, in which Prospero beco scientist Morbius, the sprite becohter Altaira, and the island becomes the planet Altair-4 Gene Roddenberry, creator of the Star Trek series, acknowledged that Forbidden Planet was one of the inspirations for his TV series) More recently psychokinesis was the central plot idea behind the novel Carrie (1974), by Stephen King, which propelled an unknown, poverty-stricken writer into the world's number one writer of horror novels Carrie is a painfully shy, pathetic high school girl who is despised as a social outcast and hounded by her mentally unstable mother Her only consolation is her psychokinetic pohich apparently runs in her family In the final scene, her tor she will be pro's blood all over her new dress In a final act of revenge, Carrie mentally locks all the doors, electrocutes her tormentors, burns down the schoolhouse, and unleashes a suicidal firestor herself in the process

The theme of psychokinesis in the hands of an unstable individual was also the basis of a memorable Star Trek episode entitled ”Charlie X,” about a young man from a distant colony in space who is cri his psychokinetic power for good, he uses it to control other people and bend their will to his own selfish desires If he is able to take over the Enterprise and reach Earth, he could unleash planetary havoc and destroy the planet

Psychokinesis is also the power of the Force, wielded by the hts in the Star Wars saga

PSYCHOKINESIS AND THE REAL WORLD

Perhaps the most celebrated confrontation over psychokinesis in real life took place on the Johnny Carson show in 1973 This epic confrontation involved Uri Geller-the Israeli psychic who claimed to be able to bend spoons with the force of his ician whofakes who claimed to have psychic powers (Oddly, all three of thee: all had started their careers as ht-of-hand tricks that would amaze incredulous audiences) Before Geller's appearance, Carson consulted with Randi, who suggested that Johnny furnish his own supply of spoons and have them inspected before showti him to bend not his own spoons, but Carson's spoons Ely, each time he tried Geller failed to bend the spoons (Later, Randi appeared on the Johnny Carson show and successfully perfor trick, but he was careful to say that his art was pureRandi has offered 1 million to anyone who can successfully demonstrate psychic power So far no psychic has been able to rise to his 1 e

PSYCHOKINESIS AND SCIENCE

One proble psychokinesis scientifically is that scientists are easily fooled by those clai to have psychic power Scientists are trained to believe what they see in the lab Magicians clai psychic powers, however, are trained to deceive others by fooling their visual senses As a result, scientists have been poor observers of psychic phenoists were invited to analyze two young boys ere thought to have extraordinary gifts: Michael Edwards and Steve Shaw These boys clairaphic filhts, ist Michael Thalbourne was so impressed he invented the term ”psychokinete” to describe these boys At the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research in St Louis, Missouri, the parapsychologists were dazzled by the boys' abilities The parapsychologists believed they had genuine proof of the boys' psychic power and began preparing a scientific paper on them The next year the boys announced that they were fakes and that their ”power” originated froic tricks, not supernatural power (One of the youths, Steve Shaould go on to beco on national television and being ”buried alive” for days at a time) Extensive experiments on psychokinesis have been conducted at the Rhine Institute at Duke University under controlled conditions, but with mixed results One pioneer in the subject, Professor Gertrude Schue of mine at the City University of New York A forazine and a past president of the Parapsychology association, she was fascinated by ESP and conducted e She used to scour cocktail parties where famous psychics would perforuests, in order to recruithundreds of students and scores of mentalists and psychics, she once confided to le person who could perform these psychokinetic feats on demand, under controlled conditions

She once spread around a rooes in teree One mentalist was able, after strenuous mental effort, to raise the teree Schmeidler was proud that she could perfororous conditions But it was a far cry froe objects on deorous, but also controversial, studies on psychokinesis was done at the Princeton Engineering Anoram at Princeton University, founded by Robert G Jahn in 1979 when he was serving as dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science The PEAR engineers were exploring whether or not the hu the results of random events For example, we know that e flip a coin, there is a 50 percent probability of getting heads or tails But the scientists at PEAR clai the results of these randoraineers at PEAR conducted thousands of experi over 17 million trials and 340 million coin tosses The results seemed to confirm that the effects of psychokinesis exist-but the effects are quite tiny, no e And even these er results have been disputed by other scientists who claim that the researchers had subtle, hidden biases in their data

(In 1988 the US Arate claims of paranormal activity The US Are it could offer its troops, including psychic power The National Research Council's report studied creating a hypothetical ”First Earth battalion” made up of ”warrior monks” ould master almost all the techniques under consideration by the co their bodies at will, levitating, psychic healing, and walking through walls In investigating the claims of PEAR, the National Research Council found that fully half of all successful trials originated frole individual Some critics believe that this person was the one who ran the experiram for PEAR ”For me it's proble the results,” says Dr Ray Hyon The report concluded that there was ”no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological pheno psychokinesis, even its advocates admit, is that it does not easily conform to the knos of physics Gravity, the weakest force in the universe, is only attractive and cannot be used to levitate or repel objects The electronetic force obeys Maxwell's equations, and it does not ad electrically neutral objects across a rooes, such as the distance between nuclear particles

Another probley supply The human body can produce only about one-fifth of a horsepower, yet when Yoda in Star Wars levitated an entire starshi+p by the power of his mind, or when Cyclops unleashed bolts of laser power froy-a tiny being like Yoda cannot ay necessary to lift a starshi+p No y to perform the feats and miracles ascribed to psychokinesis Given all these probleht psychokinesis be consistent with the laws of physics?

PSYCHOKINESIS AND THE BRAIN

If psychokinesis does not easily conforht it be harnessed in the future? One clue to this was revealed in the Star Trek episode entitled ”Who Mourns for Adonais?” in which the crew of the Enterprise encounters a race of beings rese Greek Gods, with the ability to perfor of them At first it appears as if the crew has indeed met the Gods from Olympus Eventually, however, the crew realizes that these are not Gods at all, but ordinary beings who can mentally control a central power station, which then carries out their wishes and perfor their central power source, the crew of the Enterprise es to break free of their power

Similarly, it is ithin the laws of physics for a person in the future to be trained to ive him Godlike powers Radio-enhanced or computer-enhanced psychokinesis is a real possibility For example, the EEG could be used as a primitive psychokinesis device When people look at their own EEG brain patterns on a screen, eventually they learn how to crudely but consciously control the brain patterns that they see, by a process called ”biofeedback”

Since there is no detailed blueprint of the brain to tell us which neuron controls which muscle, the patient would need to actively participate in learning how to control these new patterns via the computer

Eventually, individuals could, on demand, produce certain types of wave patterns on the screen The iranize these specific wave patterns, and then execute a precise co a , create a specific brain pattern on the EEG screen and trigger a computer or motor

In this way, for example, a totally paralyzed person could control his or her wheelchair sihts Or, if a person could produce twenty-six recognizable patterns on the screen, heOf course, this would still be a crude hts It takes a considerable amount of time to train people to manipulate their own brain waves via biofeedback