Psychic Powers

[Liazon]

I've always wondered if it is possible to have any form of psychic power. Telekinesis, Telepathy, pyrokinesis, psychometabolism, just to name a few.

I have no background in this kind of stuff; Biology class didn't touch neuroscience.

My hope is that yes, it is possible that human beings can develope a certain degree of psychic power. I can only logically explain some of the above powers.

Psychometabolism is basically a "smarter" endocrine/nervous system. You can will yourself to allocate nutrients a certain way. But considering how our immune systems and bodies are constantly evolving, this could be a possibility.

My explanation for Telepathy and Telekinesis is that the electric synapses generate enough electromagnetic force to manipulate matter. It can also cause a frequency of energy to be released. The only thing is that electromagnetism is such a weak force though.

Pyrokinesis is an offshoot of Telekinesis; you move air molecules with you mind fast enough to produce enough heat, through friction, that flammable material catch fire. Or you can rearrange atoms with your mind to form hydrogen out of oxygen and ignite them.

Hypercognition: Ya, we become super smart, that's a possible evolutionary path. I mean, you guys are all super smart already.

Psychoportation: Offshoot of Telekinesis and pyschometabolism. You move yourself faster, or slow the world around you to the the time travel stuff.

btw, I got these words from the Psionics Handbook supplement for D&D.

[AlienCC]

[Brazucs]

All pseudoscience/supernatural stuff blows. Especially if you're gonna be a biologist like me.
Go ahead: tell me how ANY one of those can be scientifically possible.

[Jeremiah Walgren]

Psychometabolism was my choice. I mean, it's the closest I'm going to come from those options mentioned. I already feel like I'm kind of there anyway because I keep a state of mind that I won't be sick and I have been three, maybe four times in the past seven or eight years. More power to me.

[Liazon]

[Weregoose]

Consider how the evolutionary process works: What society would have to do is to agree to eliminate all but those who seem to possess these uncanny traits, and in the hope that the survivors continue to procreate. No substantial progress could be made otherwise. By the way, I'm already psychic.

[Liazon]

Wow, that'd be very interesting background to my story. A guy who uses his psychic powers to battle the system that gave them to him in the first place.

[JoeImp]

[Liazon]

-scribbles "note to self, make main character like the Hulk"

maybe someone should delete this topic. It's not very productive. Apparently, ppl here can accept fantasy stuff, but they can't accept this kind of scifi.

[JoeImp]

It's been up for like an hour, got eight replies, and only one person disagreed, which can bring further discussion. Not that bad if you ask me ...

[Weregoose]

[axcho]

[Brazucs]

[Liazon]

well somewhere in our minds, there should be a thing that simply says:

if being attacked by virus and permission not granted
then
produce ton's of white blood cells
calculate possible gene mutation
write self-evolving algorithm to track mutations
produce correct antibodies
end

I think at some point our minds will evolve to that point. If that did happen, no need for computers almost. Computers probably can't simulate gene mutation and produce antibodies quickly enough.

@axcho: I'm not saying science is bad. I'm just saying that faith and science are both needed. Who chose psychoportation? I'm not sure is slowing down the world/speed yourself past light speed will cause time travel. Only logical explanation. But the thing Brazcus is right about is how do you channel electromagnetic force that great in your head? It'd probably burn out first.

Perhaps before the human mind can obtain psychic powers, it has already become some spirtual entity/higher being of its own. Eternal because that brainwave that you have is forever resonating energy throughout the universe. And at that point there is never a need for psychic powers. because you are at peace.

[Brazucs]

You'd be surprised: People say computers are evoluting 250X as fast as we did. They don't need a whole generation for a 1/1000000 chance to evolve++, which means 999999/1000000 mutations kill you or give you cancer, down syndrome, etc. Plus, all cells (bacteria, etc but not viruses) have an antimutation mechanism. Sometimes, things slip, though.


My version of psychic powers came to me while watching this documentary about this guy (Neil DeGrasse Tyson, if I remember correctly) trying to "teleport" particles from the future into the past with lasers. Now, if you could do it consistently in a timely manner, you could write a program that send/receives those messages. Hook it up to a COM port or something, you know?
You'd never have to write any programs or essays again! You could win the lottery (only once not to rise any suspicions), publish research papers that are years in advance, publish books, etc! You could even have a thing that you'd click every single morning and sends a "You're alive" message a week or so. If you're not, say goodbye to your kids and family You'd be the new Davinci (not saying Einstein cause davinci was more, uh - widespread in his studies).

P.S. Read the book "Terminal Man", by ?Crichton?.

[JoeImp]

[Liazon]

perhaps computer evolution is logarithmic. It will slow down eventually becuase of the contruction methods. Unless of course quantum computing would start working correctly.

Our evolution might be exponential, and where still at the y=x^2 where x=.00000001

[Brazucs]

Perhaps human evolution is logarithmic too. We've basically killed it by changing the environment and not us. Armstrong (the bike guy) has awesome genes: bigger heart, faster lungs, less acid production when exercising, etc. If there were any natural selection today, we'd all look like him in a few years.

I think the best way to evolve is not waiting around for people to mate and generate offspring and for gametes to mutate one or two basepairs.

The way to go is genetic engineering. If we can tell gallonfulls of bacteria to make insulin (Something not found in bacteria. Ever.), then you can tell your body to make new white blood cells.
Genes are universal - every living thing has genes. If you want a tobacco plant to express a "firefly gene", you suck out some DNA from the firefly (well, it was a jellyfish, but meh) and stick it into the plant. What do you get?

If you want a human to express a spider gene and squeeze it out from their forearm, you do the same. Since all your cells can produce the same genes (heart cells making spider silk), there haven't been any volunteers lately. They did it with goats, though...

Another good thing out there now is RNAi, which destroys viral DNA. I think they've been able to "cure" lab rats with AIDS.

P.S. Check out the google ads up top! Apparently people make a lot of money from this "mind over body" stuff. Now THAT'S what I call gullibility.

P.S. OMG! IF YOU PRESS ALT-F4, THE SCREEN CHANGES COLOR!!! </gullable people only, please>

[thornahawk]

I'm tempted to move this to "Open Topic", given that this is a bit of the fringe area, but I'll let it stay here for the time being.

Me, I don't know what I really like. It's already a big enough responsibility for me that I can sense (and sometimes see) extracorporeal beings, and I don't think I'd be happy to have more gifts than I can carry. :)

JoeImp, white corpuscles come from either the bone marrow (the so-called "B cells") or the thymus gland (the "T cells"). It is not known to many people that there are a lot of types of white cells, e.g. the macrophages, helper T cells, killer T cells, phagocytes...

thornahawk

[axcho]