The Pros And Cons Of Telepathy And Precognition

Telepathy and precognition: two “superpowers” often desired by millions across the world. To be able to read minds and tell the future? It seems awesome yet impossible to possess such abilities. However, some people believe that they possess these powers. Some even believe that all humans are capable of tapping into an area of our brains which could enable us to transfer thoughts without speaking, and tell the future not just by a prediction that can be explained on the basis of what we know. However, science has not come to an age where this is possible. In fact, many scientists have proved the opposite. Although some people claim that they may be experiencing extrasensory perception, such as telepathy or precognition, there is significant …show more content…
What they are experiencing may seem real as a result of subliminal messages, social skills, or neurological disorders. A subliminal message, is a message, image, or sign, shown “just below your absolute threshold for conscious perception”, at 13/1000 of a second. This is just long enough for the unconscious mind to register, but the conscious mind to remain unaware of seeing the message (Franzoi). Despite not being consciously aware of the message, the brain utilizes the information seen. It is believed that “Subliminal messages gain their potential ability to influence from the fact that they may be able to circumvent the conscious awareness and its critical functions” (Dobson). The brain constantly picks up subliminal messages, therefore a person may believe that he or she read another person’s mind, when in reality they have just subliminally picked up on the body language of another person. Humans have an unexplained talent for reading body language, and constantly are picking up cues from other people’s body language without even knowing it (Radin and Rae). A coinciding factor with subliminal messages is social skills. Every second “we pick up subtle nonverbal cues from another person, guessing what 's on their minds because of subtle cues and/or our knowledge of that person” (Presley). A common scenario is when the phone rings just as you were thinking of someone, …show more content…
This is because they are doing just that: predicting. Precognition is often confused with prediction, yet the two are very different. When you make a prediction, you are using information that you already have to make an inference about what will happen in the future, while precognition is foretelling something which cannot be explained by what we already know (Vongehr). There are tons of other reasons as to why people believe they possess the ability of precognition. In her article on why people believe in extrasensory perception, Sharon Presley states that “misperception of chance events is one of the most powerful psychological phenomena affecting belief in ESP”. Not many people besides trained scientists and mathematicians truly understand chance. Therefore, when an event seems like it could not have solely been a coincidence, chances are it probably was simply a coincidence. It has been argued that “coincidences… are as common as cornflakes but because we don 't understand probability, we don 't always recognize that unusual-looking events are in fact just coincidences” (Presley). Similarly to telepathy, another reason why people believe in precognition is because of cognitive biases, which cause people to draw illogical conclusions about an event (About Health). When people constantly experience coincidental events that do not seem coincidental, they may believe that they can tell the future,