How to Disprove Telempathy
Disclaimer: Don’t take anything too seriously. I enjoy taking ideas to their logical extremes just to see where things may lead. In this case, it has led to an experiment that should be able to detect the presence of a quantum advantage across all sorts of weird phenomena.
Okay, maybe take it a little bit seriously. How cool would it be if some of this wild nonsense were actually true? You’re a damned liar if you say the prospect doesn’t excite you even a bit.
It’s okay! Breathe. We can talk about this stuff as long as we don’t commit any logical fallacies! I try not to make any but am only human. Let me know if there are any and I’ll try to correct them.
Speaking without speaking
Did you know it is not too uncommon for people to experience telepathy on psychedelics?
Explanations usually fall into two categories:
- It’s mere hallucination.
- It’s mere body language.
I’ve experienced this myself twice with a friend. It feels distinctly unique. I may be wrong but lean towards option two.
Not mere body language though. Enhanced somehow. Possibly by quantum mechanics.
The brain is not “too warm & wet for quantum mechanics,” as proven this April. (Tryptophan is a key player. Curious, considering the connection to psychedelics.)
Telepathy is a misnomer. There is no communication of information. Telempathy is a better name for it.
How is there an advantage if there is no communication of information?
Like a quantum algorithm, we can exploit quantum correlations to do something that appears remarkable.
The experiment
None of this useful if something can’t be made falsifiable and tested. Thankfully I can think of a way we can possibly detect any quantum advantage.
Null hypothesis
Telempathy is either not physically real, or does not require quantum entanglement to function.
Experiment
Two players experiencing telempathy attempt to cooperatively win rounds of the Mermin-Peres magic square game. This game can only be won 8/9 of the time classically, and 100% of the time with one pair of entangled qubits.
Best case success
Telempathic coordination is easy. The players win statistically-significantly more than 8/9 of the time.
Worst case success
Telempathic coordination is hard. The players win statistically-significantly more than a pair of AI models trained to replicate their decision probabilities classically. Perhaps a sufficiently high-order Markov chain. I’m open to suggestions on how to approach this statistically.
In this case it would help to know how many rounds into the past significantly influence a player’s current choice. Each extra round into the past greatly increases the data needed to train a Markov chain.
Hopefully shorter than 7±2, since players aren’t usually trying to remember past choices.
The Mermin-Peres magic squares game
In this game a random row and column of a 3x3 grid are assigned to two players. Each doesn’t know which row or column the other got. Players may strategize beforehand but may not communicate while playing. One must fill their row with an odd number of 1s, and the other must fill their column with an odd number of 0s.
To win, they must both make the same choice where the row and column overlap.
Classically, the best strategy is to memorize a solution which fills the grid correctly for all but 1 of the 9 squares.
With a single entangled qubit, the players can win every time. No additional information required.
Testing
Thankfully each round of the game doesn’t take long to complete so gathering data shouldn’t be too painful.
Players should be separated well enough to minimize sensory leakage, but not so far than testing becomes impossible, if distance or physical obstacles do matter.
We are testing telempathy not telepathy. Enhanced communication may just not work when there is zero information content to enhance in the first place.
If that’s the case, a possible option to minimize leakage could be to have subjects periodically meet for some time before returning to separated testing. Assuming contact helps and lasts long enough when separated again.
Statistics
Will probably need to model this as a beta-binomial distribution.
I’ll give it a try and provide an update in the future. Let me know if you try something yourself.
FAQ
What does it feel like?
Like multiple consciousnesses are “in the same room” so to speak.
Can be very uncomfortable at first, realizing the lack of privacy and trying to fight off inappropriate intrusive thoughts. But if there is no information transfer, this lack of privacy is more felt than actual.
What else may this apply to?
Most any quantum woo. I can think of ways this experiment can be modified to disprove a quantum explanation for things like remote viewing or the law of attraction, but telempathy is weird enough so I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Why? How?
Evolution maybe? Before language, evolutionary advantage would be for the group that can communicate better given two otherwise equal packs. Evolution is pretty good a searching large solution spaces.
It reminds me of this article describing how an artificially evolved FPGA learned to exploit magnetic side-effects to arrive at a solution. Yeah it may be artificial, but so are forest fire and viral disease simulations and they aren’t useless to learn from.
Some suggest magnetic fields could be involved.
The brain may use quantum mechanics, but how can entanglement occur over the air?
I don’t know. Skepticism is healthy. Not even long ago suggesting a quantum aspect to the brain would be laughed at, but it turns out nature is more clever than us. Is biological entanglement over the air that much more of an impossibility?
Not saying this is how, but for example: photons can encode quantum states, and “the human body literally glimmers” visible light.
What may help?
Maybe:
Psychedelics. I don’t recommended these if they are illegal for you where you are. I suspect Ketamine, LSD, DMT, and psilocybin mushrooms may help induce such a state, in approximate order of effectiveness.
Meditation.
Music or binaural beats. (Acoustic entrainment.)
Electromagnetic shielding/stimulation/entrainment.
This is woo nonsense
Yeah probably. Lots of speculation. But I think it’s fun to have found a plausible experiment, which is what matters.
This is not woo nonsense…
On the chance I end up being too right, should I mention I’m not suicidal, clumsy, or hang out around open windows?
Haha, just kidding… Sort of. Is your shadow org hiring?
What might happen if this is true?
Hopefully evidence that all people are connected will lead to a little bit more peace and empathy for everyone.
It’s hard to be mad at anyone you share a mind with.
If the chance is at all non-zero, it is worth the effort.