Telekinesis
If somebody had some super cool power of controlling objects just by thinking, how would the world be? Well, we have heard of this power, the power of ‘Telekinesis’ (Note: ‘Tele’ = far and ‘kinesis’ = movement). We have seen various fictional characters in movies, comics using Telekinesis and the desire to possess that power is definitely alluring. But can telekinesis ever be a part of the real world or will it just be confined to science-fiction?
The power of the deity has always been a vital part of supernatural stories since the early days of literature. ‘The Man Who Could Work Miracles’ by H. G. Wells was totally influenced by this concept and later re-adapted in the movie ‘Bruce Almighty’. The power of mind has been featured in notable works from Shakespearean Dramas to the Star Trek series. Jedi from Star Wars, Lucy, Neo from The Matrix are some of the fictional characters possessing Telekinesis. Popular superheros like Jean Grey (X-Men) and Doctor Strange also use brainwaves to control other objects.
But does telekinesis have any hope of being realized in the near future? Various researches conducted for the possibility of its existence in real life are not able to yield/reproduce the same results under scientific conditions, confirming these to be false claims. The problem with the study is that researchers are still perplexed about what exactly is being measured. Due to the unavailability of research standard, the validity of the idea still can’t be observed.
For Telekinesis, our brain is expected to be manipulating the physical objects around us via the waves originated from it. But these brain waves aren’t strong and far-reaching enough to act on their own. Till date, only electromagnetic and gravitational forces are the forces that physically influence objects from the distance. The concept also violates various laws of physics like inverse square law, laws of thermodynamics, conservation of momentum, etc.
The Global Consciousness Project is an ongoing research project to determine the possibility of the influence of thoughts on the occurrence of random events. For 28 years, data is being collected continuously from a network of physical random number generators located in up to 70 sites around the world at any given time. They examine the correlation in the result caused by consciousness of people around the world and was found pretty optimistic around the time of global events that engage our mind and heart like 9/11 attack, Paris attack and Indonesia Tsunami. Still, the official researchers believe that the odds is only one in a trillion.
Even with the astonishing amount of false claims, people’s belief has not been shaken. There is even a huge amount of prize money to those who can demonstrate the existence of psychic powers. Businessman Gerald Fleming offered £250000 to Uri Geller if he could bend the spoon under controlled condition. The James Randy Educational Foundation has offered One Million Paranormal Challenge to whoever can produce any paranormal event upon controlled and mutually agreed environment, but the prize remains unclaimed.
With very minimum scientific evidence being found, it’s hard to authenticate its actual existence. In the History of science, there have been discoveries that have gone against the established science. In our case, science has progressed to detect the brain signals and it is possible to manipulate the electronic sensing devices. Computer-enhanced primitive Telekinesis is a real possibility. The brain patterns from EEG device can be taken as an example. By observing their brain signals, a person can train himself to control them i.e. ‘Biofeedback’. With the help of machine learning algorithms, the patterns can be implemented to accomplish a certain task. This rules out the impossibility of controlling physical objects via one’s mind. A physically disabled person could be able to control the movement of their wheelchair totally by the power of their thought. Additionally, if a person could produce 26 distinct patterns, ‘Typing by Thinking’ would also be possible.
In the biofeedback process, the task of reading their own EEG signals is rather tedious and time consuming. A famous neuroscientist John Donoghue has made a device called BrainGate that can be placed on top of the part of the brain that controls motor activity, in order to get the signals to the computer. One of his patients, Matthew Nagle was subjected to the test. The most galvanic part of the result was that he was able to control the robotic arm for changing TV channels, drawing, using computers and reading e-mails with just a day of training. Since scientists have already mapped out most parts of the brain responsible for various tasks, it will only be a matter of time before the technology can be used for other parts of brain too. Considering the possibility, there arises the chance of a construction of an ‘exoskeleton’ for disabled humans which could be controlled via thoughts.
The underlying possibility of controlling objects physically by decoding brain signals means that in future we could be living in a world where our BOT-ASSISTANTS will do the tasks for us and all we have to do is just think of doing it. Let’s be optimistic. Science will be there to clear our doubts, sooner or later.
