The evolution of telepathy

Just out of curiosity, did anyone here actually think the movie was about specifically telepathy as a skill and how possible it is or how far it could go as a skill, or was this just an opportunity to talk about belief in it because it's in the film's title? I for one struggle to see it so. Very few things would have to change about the script if one were to replace "telepathy" with "levitation", in my opinion, which would suggest that the specific "power" in question is circumstantial, and the tale is more about what people are like and how what makes the human character what it is must be far deeper than any such superficial trait.

We don't even have to reach for any sort of magical powers for that! Imagine a race of human-like intelligent beings who developed grip through suction instead of opposable thumbs and then at some point an opposable thumb mutation started spreading because surrounding an object with actual bone provides a better and more surface independent grip than suction cups. We can invent labels (or even slurs) for each group, say, thumblings and sucklings. When in the beginning the mutant thumbling kids may have been seen like creepy super-climing monkeys by their suckling majority peers, by the time the mutation became dominant the sucklings were being left behind and seen as slow and slippery. Jobs involving manual labour of any sort are suddenly more efficiently performed by thumblings to the point where sucklings are at a disadvantage in the competition for positions, if they are even being ever hired at all. Camps to protect sucklings from unfairly mean treatment of the outside world as well as from the crime they'd have to resort to in lieu of opportunities for honest employment could be established. Patronizing therapy sessions to help the sucklings "cope with their inferiority" could be scheduled for as long as the thumblings thought it worth their while to give a damn about sucklings still. I guess the only thing that would be different is that a thumbling cannot invade something so private as a suckling's thoughts, and there is no form of entertainment delivery exclusive to thumblings. I'm sure there'd be other ways to torture and exclude sucklings from society, but aside from those two plot points I struggle to find anything else in the film that is specific to telepathy as the matter of conflict.

Very good gisteron. That is the exact point. Why are humans tribal and why do different tribes condescend each other? You call yourself a jedi. And you define that as something, a group different than others not in the group.

So what is a jedi vs not a jedi? And why is it that some that want to be jedi get shunned because of a belief the rest of other jedi I guess dont have? At one time this place embraced reike, now its looked at as not a jedi trait and those that follow it get asked to move along from this place.

So are you guilty of the very prejudice this video shows? Yes you are.

Rex exactly what is a "reasonable person"? How do you define that? Is a jedi a reasonable person and others not jedi are not? Why? What gives you absolute dominion over that name or that viewpoint that you get to just decide you are jedi and o am not?

A reasonable person is a fictional person with an ordinary degree of reason, prudence, care, foresight, or intelligence whose conduct, conclusion, or expectation in relation to a particular circumstance or fact is used as an objective standard by which to measure or determine something. Not my definition.

It has nothing to do with jediism. I never said anyone is or isn't a Jedi, so moot point. I think that more concerning than your incorrect belief that I'm defining jediism, is your aspiration to do so. It's defined by concensus use.

It seems like you're looking for disagreements.

Just my 2 cents

I know for myself I have just started to go through the IP program here to become a jedi.

End one of the readings is on Alan watts
The book
It's very fascinating because he talks about us all being connected and We create this let's call it life just a we can experience it.
Something similar to the movie the matrix except a lot more in depth.
Show I don't understand what so hard to fathom about people having telepathy Or being able to move objects or whatever with just their mind considering it's explained that we are all God so to speak. Of course I am paraphrasing do not quote me..
Guys we are all on the same side here

To paraphrase even more if we are all God and one together and we create this reality for our enjoyment we create the Sun the moon the stars .....
I think we would all have to agree that telekinesis and telepathy or at least possible right.

Even if you have not experienced it and you deny it is even possible at least can you think about it

forceuser wrote: I think we would all have to agree that telekinesis and telepathy or at least possible right.

No, I don't think we have to agree on that. I don't think we even have to agree that this is something Watts says or implies in The Book, nor that we are under any obligation to agree with him even if he did. I also don't think that anyone would feel the need to try and twist and reinterpret some semi-philosophical vagueries in the teaching materials offered if actual evidence of people reliably invading each other's minds or moving inert objects with their own was something that could be presented instead. With all due respect, you wouldn't make this appeal to charity if there was something at your avail you deemed convincing.


That being said, though:

Even if you have not experienced it and you deny it is even possible at least can you think about it

Yes, we can. In fact, this is what I am suggesting we do, but it seems to be an unwanted direction to proceed in.

Arguably one of the central points and purposes of any good science fiction is just that, though. It's not about presenting us with possible visions of the future (even in cases where it accidentally might do just that), it's about making us think about ourselves and each other, and the problems we face on a more fundamental level by presenting a world or a narrative just far enough divorced from actual reality that our daily sensibilities about it can be safely set aside.


It is (apparently falsely) alleged that Aristotle said that it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. If we take a saying like this seriously, we should consider ourselves free to discuss the situation presented in the fiction without having to agree on just how realistic it otherwise may be. We have, after all, no trouble rejecting that the account of an orphaned human moisture farmer destroying a giant battlestation a long time ago in a galaxy far far away is a historical record of real events. We never waste time, that could be used discussing the moral or other philosophical questions or lessons that tale presents, on debating its historicity or realism. We never sit down to first make sure we can or do agree that the tale is a realistic account before we go on and discuss the interesting parts of it, nor do we discount any of the narrative's richness on the grounds that a blade of actual light - what ever that even is - couldn't stop another like the wooden rods the actors wielded.


And yet, here we are... fighting like narrow-minded children over whether or not a parsec is a sensible unit by which to boast of the swiftness of the Millennium Falcon's Kessel Run, as if at the end of the day there is any difference that makes.

I apologise for making an assumption on anybody here
So I take it For just talking purposes anybody who's ever been scratched or bruised by a ghost or let's say the paranormal Is delusional are making it up.
Improbably the same thing with ufos it's impossible to get technology are any kind of metal that is not from the earth that's all delusional or lies right?
You come across like the smartest person in the Room So I have a simple question for you

Can a molecule be in 2 places at the same time?

Also just throwing it out I think most of us are pretty clear on the difference between all the fictional things we see on TV and the made up things in peoples Heads that are not real but only in their head.

And I am sure I am doing a stretch on this one for most of us.
But just as 50 or 60 years ago everyone would have thought you were crazy to think you could have a cellphone in your car
I think the same is true in 50 or 60 years from now they will prove People can cure incurable diseases with only their mind by the belief they can.
And they will be able to move objects with only thought alone. And they will be able to prove it has been done in the past and can be done.
Even now when I've been with people And They have seen Things move or things that are physically impossible in they say how in the h*** did that happen that's impossible.

I just say I don't know. Unless they're family of course
Because even if you explained it a 1000 times to them their mind is so smart they could never comprehend it.
I only mention that because you seem to imply that some people don't know the difference between science fiction and the physical norm as we know it.
I think most of us do but even saying that I'm sure there's a lot of you will fight even that point.
So is it possible for a molecule to be in 2 places at the same time?

So rex if a reasonable person is a fictional person are you saying they don't exist? Or they dont exist as jedi? It would stand to reason in that way, rejecting the entire power of the force in favor of personal power. This video also shows us this. It is a might makes right mentality that seems to exist here. Appealing to the masses opinion to suppress the minority belief.

Yes, there's not an actual physical person used as a reference point.
Never said anything linking jedi and the reasonable person standard (which I didn't invent). The reasonable person standard has nothing to do with group dynamics or the force. To be explicit, the reasonable person standard is used for determining a person's duty to something or their cognizance of something - nothing in there about multiple people or jediism.

In this case, that means that a hypothetical reasonable person wouldn't believe in supernatural powers. I believe a reasonable person would also think that the video was a wee bit overdramatic and not representative of reality.