{"id":54,"date":"2013-12-04T11:38:33","date_gmt":"2013-12-04T18:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tophcarter.wordpress.com\/?p=54"},"modified":"2013-12-04T11:38:33","modified_gmt":"2013-12-04T18:38:33","slug":"telepathic-technology-may-change-how-we-communicate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/telepathic-technology-may-change-how-we-communicate\/","title":{"rendered":"Telepathic Technology May Change How We Communicate"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Ender\u2019s Game<\/i>, Orson Scott Card\u2019s popular novel turned blockbuster hit, the people of Earth are waging war against the extraplanetary Buggers.\u00a0 This insect-like race has one major technical advantage over the humans: Telepathy.\u00a0 As if they were a giant computer, the Buggers fight and move as one through instantaneous communication.\u00a0\u00a0\"EndersGameFormic\"<\/a> Countless other tales in fantasy and science fiction herald telepathic powers, the ability to communicate directly from one mind to another, as one of the greatest and most sought over gifts.\u00a0 Though it seems far-fetched, direct mind-to-mind communication might not be so implausible after all.<\/p>\n

Researchers at Duke University in North Carolina have shown that telepathic communication could be possible with the advances in technology.\u00a0 In the experiment, two rats\u2019 brains were connected by microelectrodes (For more detail on the experiment and the technology used, watch the video below).<\/p>\n

Rat 1 would receive a stimulus and Rat 2 would receive and act on that message.\u00a0 If the rats worked together they would receive a reward.\u00a0 Rat 2 was able to correctly act on the message provided by Rat 1 around 60% of the time.\u00a0 What is even more incredible is that once the experiment was completed at Duke, they teamed up with another University in Brazil, and completed the experiment across continents.\u00a0 The results were astounding.\u00a0 Rat 2 in Brazil acted on the stimulus it received from Rat 1 halfway across the globe!<\/p>\n

[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=6rcWWYSSo6w&w=560&h=315]<\/p>\n

In the basic communication model, the sender encodes an idea into a message that is transmitted through a channel (language, e-mail, body language) to a receiver who decodes the message to understand the idea of the sender (see image below). \u00a0\u00a0I had a professor who explained that it is better to think of an idea as meaning.\u00a0 Have you ever had a thought or feeling and did not have the words to describe it?\u00a0 That is because meaning does not always translate directly into language.\u00a0 Often meaning is lost because the sender decodes a message into different meaning than the sender intended.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"talking\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What does this have to do with telepathic rats?\u00a0 This technology replaces the normal channels of communication with electronic signals that go directly from one brain to another.\u00a0\u00a0 This makes it so meaning is being communicated directly from one brain to another, and the brain signals are what encode and decode the idea.\u00a0 Most people imagine telepathy as a voice in their head talking directly to them.\u00a0 I imagine something different, instantaneously understanding an idea or meaning from another person. \u00a0There is less room for a message or idea to get jumbled or misinterpreted when meaning is passed directly to another person, thus enhancing efficacy as communicators.<\/p>\n

Another way that telepathic communication may change the way we communicate is across language barriers.\u00a0 Currently when someone speaks to me in a different language (other than Spanish), the message is not received because I do not speak his or her language.\u00a0 This has become apparent to me in my work as an interpreter coordinator.\u00a0 It is extremely difficult to communicate with someone who you have no idea what they are saying.\u00a0 Direct brain-to-brain communication could solve this problem because meaning, or ideas, does not begin as language.\u00a0 Language is merely the channel we use to communicate.\u00a0 If we could communicate directly, meaning-to-meaning, brain-to-brain, we would be able to understand the thoughts of others without it being lost in translation.\u00a0 This would enhance cultural understanding locally and hopefully better international relations.<\/p>\n

Though it will be years before this technology is experimented on with human subjects, it provokes an interesting discussion about how technology effects the way we communicate.\u00a0 In this post, I did not delve into the ethical discussion that surrounds this topic, as it will require another post in its entirety.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe someday in the near future we, like the Bugger\u2019s in Orson Scott Card\u2019s novel, will be able to communicate meaning directly from one person to another; and the stuff of science fiction will become reality.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n

Brain-net: Telepathic mice first step in creation of biological computer<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n