Virtual world tests telepathy

Scientists at the University of Manchester have created a virtual world to test telepathic ability.

Participants in a trial will wear a head-mounted 3D display and an electronic glove to navigate their way through a computer-generated world.

The people in the trial are placed in separate rooms on different floors of a building to eliminate any possibility of communication.

One will view a random selection of computer-generated objects--such as a telephone, a football and an umbrella--and will be asked to concentrate on and interact with one of them.

A second participant is simultaneously presented with the chosen object, plus three decoy objects, and asked to guess which object the other person is trying to transmit.

The system has been designed to make the task as realistic as possible. In addition to selecting objects and hearing the sounds they make, participants are able to hold and move them within the virtual environment.

"By creating a virtual environment, we are creating a completely objective environment, which makes it impossible for participants to leave signals or even unconscious clues as to which object they have chosen," Toby Howard of the university's School of Computer Science said in a statement.

The results of the experiment are expected to be published early in 2007.

Steve Ranger of Silicon.com reported from London.

[Chung Leong]

I can read your mind!

You are thinking, "what kind of BS study is this?"

[startiger]

Wow! You're good.

Yet another way to blow perfectly good research money.

[corridor5]

Known testing practices = beatable system

I would hope they are keeping other testing methods under wrap, otherwise this system may be easily broken.

Armed with the information that two "telepathic" people will be in different rooms, and will be interacting with items through viusal manipulation and sound, people can organize a plan to communicate through their chices.

[Tui Pohutukawa]

Get over it

Telepathy is as normal breathing, dreaming, or riding a bicycle.
Everybody experiences moments of telepathy. Just ask mothers
how they know their children's feelings, even across great
distances.
Animals are very telepathic, they have to be. It is part of their
survival strategy.
It is only 'scientists' who can't accept the obvious.

[Tui Pohutukawa]

Get over it

Telepathy is as normal breathing, dreaming, or riding a bicycle.
Everybody experiences moments of telepathy. Just ask mothers
how they know their children's feelings, even across great
distances.
Animals are very telepathic, they have to be. It is part of their
survival strategy.
It is only 'scientists' who can't accept the obvious.

[grasshopper80]

...what?

At first I thought you were being facetious, but just in case...what?

Animals aren't telepathic. If they were, none of them would ever get eaten, run over, shot, etc., etc., etc.

People aren't telepathic either. This study and its results will probably reinforce every other valid and reliable study on telepathy and telekinesis...that under controlled circumstances it has never been demonstrated/replicated.

About thinking and feeling across distances...I love this one. Like whenever you are thinking about a friend you haven't talked to in a long time and they "magically' call you that day...must be telepathy. Or just a coincidence that you choose to dwell on and ignore the thousands of time you think about people and they don't call you. It's serendipitous, coincidental, accidental, and if you have a thesaurus add to the list...

In case you were joking...my mistake.

[stmon99]

Guess this

Which finger am I hold up?

[Earl Benser]

Another uselss study....

... there is no telepathy, despite all the science fiction stories
that exploit the concept. Any one who proposes to do a study on
the subject flunked his basic IQ test long ago.Maybe what it
proves is that there are too many fog headed people, even in
supposedly intelligent organizations. After all, look at the
collection of dumb politicians in Washington.

But you really can't stop people from making fools of
themselves, or believing in any idiotic idea that comes along.

[Earl Benser]

Wishful thinking....

.... otherwise known as pure BS. Telepathy is a total crock and any
truly intelligent person knows that. Only budding idiots trying to
avoid ejection from a university would propose such a waste of
time and money.

[baisa]

Scientists should be ashamed

Those scientists should be appalled for pandering to superstitious nonsense such as "telepathy" -- there is no known example of any scientific demonstration of such powers -- there are an endless supply of kooky mystics who claim all manner of absurd nonsense, but that doesn't mean that legitimate science should pay any attention to them. Sheesh.