How Fast is thought?

[maboroshi]

How fast is thought! I always figured if we wanted to travel light years in space we could use our minds and communicate with other life.

We could travel to the past the future light years. Alls I am saying is the human mind is a powerful tool don't disregard it as a means of communication with higher level creatures or being able to travel with it

But if you could measure thought. How fast would it be when the receptors in your mind start firing etc

I dunno



Bye I will shut up now

[floodhound2]

I bet it could be measured perhaps it has already.

I am not a doctor and if i recall from anatomy class at the university, the mind works on chemical and electrical signals. The electrical signals is about the speed of light, the chemicals might be the thing slowing things down a bit. Although some chemical reactions can happen quite rapidly its no where close to the speed of light. This probably explains the reaction time of race car drivers, etc...

[DNR]

Like Floodie said, the body is firing between gaps of neurons, chemicals in between, maybe plaque. Does the inital firing of a single neuron imply a thought being born? Or does it need a ripple of cross-fires spreading across parts of the brain? Does a mind have to grasp an idea to own it?

What is even more disturbing is the lack of action on intuition.

Intuition is different - it is a thought that has not been grasped by its owner.
People fail to act on intuition, they lose opportunity. 98% of the time, in a well rounded person, your intuition is powerful and correct. (2% of the time, your intuition could be wrong as the circumstances were not exactly clear)

DNR

[lilrofl]

I had to dig out my old Vio books, as was mentioned the speed of thoughts has been mapped for some years now as the firing of neurons (200 Hz) and the rate of travel (100 meters/second) This seems pretty slow when you stack it next to the quad core Phenom II... but you have a lot more neurons then the chip has transistors, which suggest that if you could increase the rate at which neurons fire, you would not be a smarter person, but you could effectively think faster.

I was going to say more, but Mabs and I covered it in Skype

[ph0bYx]

How fast is thought! I always figured if we wanted to travel light years in space we could use our minds and communicate with other life.

As much as I'm aware, thought can't travel outside of the brain, nor can electricity and chemical reactions that happen in the brain travel anywhere outside brain/nerve tissue. Also I'm not aware of any invisible Force between people/things that could allow something like that, well none that is actually scientifically proven so I doubt that could work :/

[CommonStray]

I dunno, physicists have observed protons being connected to each other that defies space/time yet still adheres to quantum mechanics.

We have to remember that every other process in the human body probably takes longer to transmit to the brain than the brain actually processing information. Also - our brains probably throttle parts or how we make decisions or recall information as well.

Consider how long it takes you to think of a list of 50 words that start with the letter S in rapid succession. Then consider how long it takes your mind to recognize a color. Next ask yourself, without looking, how many identifiable products are in your refrigerator.

I think the output of thought takes more time than anything else.

[CommonStray]

How fast is thought! I always figured if we wanted to travel light years in space we could use our minds and communicate with other life.

As much as I'm aware, thought can't travel outside of the brain, nor can electricity and chemical reactions that happen in the brain travel anywhere outside brain/nerve tissue. Also I'm not aware of any invisible Force between people/things that could allow something like that, well none that is actually scientifically proven so I doubt that could work :/

Well...gravity is scientifically proven, end all matter has a gravitational force.

[lilrofl]

Hm, to doubt the existence of a thing because it has not been proven scientifically is a little shallow I think, science has not discovered everything after-all. If you had said, 213 years ago, that you had discovered an egg laying, aquatic venomous mammal with the face of a duck and the tail of a beaver science would have called you a liar... which is exactly what happened... yet the duck-billed platypus exist. Similarly the Earth is round, it revolves around the sun and heavier then air craft fly all of the time.

I don't doubt the existence of a God particle... but I know it will be some time before we find out where it hides, there are so many unexplained things in this universe, whether the human brain can direct energies from the body seems inconsequential. it either can or it cannot, and nothing is lost by believing it possible without proof, while a lot is lost by believing it impossible for lack of proof.

[ph0bYx]

Hm, to doubt the existence of a thing because it has not been proven scientifically is a little shallow I think, science has not discovered everything after-all. If you had said, 213 years ago, that you had discovered an egg laying, aquatic venomous mammal with the face of a duck and the tail of a beaver science would have called you a liar... which is exactly what happened... yet the duck-billed platypus exist. Similarly the Earth is round, it revolves around the sun and heavier then air craft fly all of the time.

Well, if it was me I would show that animal to the one calling me a liar and thus I would have proof for my statement.

Still how many people have said to have seen some strange animal/zombie/whatever and it turned out to be complete bullshit? For example, a man has seen an unicorn with wings, would you believe him?

Of course maybe 1% of those phenomenons probably will turn out to be true but until then I'm remaining blissfully shallow.

nothing is lost by believing it possible without proof, while a lot is lost by believing it impossible for lack of proof.

Countless of time and more importantly, money, have been lost and are still losing for believing a lot of things are possible without proof. (I'm referring to those countless of hustlers who take a lot of time and money, which are both probably the most valuable of assets today, from naive people for years).
And I totally agree that a lot is lost by believing it's impossible, but IF those things are really true someone bright enough will come up with proof for it eventually. And again, until that day I remain shallow.

@CommonStray: Gravity can make thought travel from one persons brain to another? oO

Note that I was referring to the "we could use our minds and communicate with other life" in mab's post as in telepathy which, after reading again, I have a feeling I misunderstood

[lilrofl]

My metaphor must have gotten skewed, I meant to imply that you would be the individual arguing against the forward thinking people who suggested (in their time) that the world was round, revolved around the sun... etc etc. Much like I'm sure that you didn't mean to imply that we have more then likely discovered all but an approximate 1% of the discoverable.

Not really trying to be argumentative, there is certainly nothing wrong with taking a stance of, "it doesn't exist until you show me that it exist", perhaps it may cut a future in an R&D department short... but that's probably not an ideal situation for someone who feels that way.in the first place.

I'm not saying that I believe in telepathy, although I'm not opposed to the idea, I do know that every few years someone comes up with something that everyone thought was a pipe dream. From the internal combustion engine, to the atomic bomb, to an arsenic based life form found in Mono Lake California earlier this year, shit we think are impossible gets discovered all the time.

[ph0bYx]

My metaphor must have gotten skewed, I meant to imply that you would be the individual arguing against the forward thinking people who suggested (in their time) that the world was round, revolved around the sun... etc etc. Much like I'm sure that you didn't mean to imply that we have more then likely discovered all but an approximate 1% of the discoverable.

Not really trying to be argumentative, there is certainly nothing wrong with taking a stance of, "it doesn't exist until you show me that it exist", perhaps it may cut a future in an R&D department short... but that's probably not an ideal situation for someone who feels that way.in the first place.

I'm not saying that I believe in telepathy, although I'm not opposed to the idea, I do know that every few years someone comes up with something that everyone thought was a pipe dream. From the internal combustion engine, to the atomic bomb, to an arsenic based life form found in Mono Lake California earlier this year, shit we think are impossible gets discovered all the time.

Well, that would be a little extreme version of me. In one word I would describe my stance as skeptic. I'm always playing the devils advocate just to make sure a theory or whatever has valid arguments for itself, it's in my nature to be skeptic about the things that don't have them.
So yeah, I'd probably be against those people you mentioned in your first paragraph, but I wouldn't go as far as to forbid them to think about their theories, to research them etc. I'd encourage them to do proper research on their theories, I encourage anyone out there to do research on their theories no matter how impossible they might seem. If it proves to be true then awesome, a step forward for the knowledge of man kind but if it proves to be false then it's false and will remain so until someone more competent comes up with solid proof.

The difference between you and me is that you take a more philosophical stance and I'm taking a scientific one. Let's take telepathy as an example again. You don't believe it but you're not opposed to it either, but that doesn't help anyone at all. If I was a brain researcher and I had the time and resources for it, I'd be all over the place trying to prove/disprove telepathy once and for all. But I'm not so all I can do is debate about it.

That's basically how I see science. Without it everything MIGHT be true, every single theory, no matter how impossible it might sound. The word 'certainty' would have no meaning then and human kind wouldn't make any progress whatsoever.

--

With that 1% I was referring to all the 'impossible' theories that emerge all the time, gargoyles, telepathy, talking to the death etc. Of course there are a lot of things that we haven't discovered.

Lastly I would like to recommend a show called Bullshit by Penn & Teller:
http://www.sho.com/site/video/brightcov ... 4033851001" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
They may not have the best ways to prove something but it's a quite interesting show, I think you would enjoy it

[CommonStray]

here we go
linkhttp://i.imgur.com/b1tKA.jpg

[lilrofl]

I was going to mention the show Stan Lees Superhumans,

Code: Select all

http://www.history.com/shows/stan-lees-superhumans[code]

but decided against it... good point though ;)

[ph0bYx]

Sorry for bringing this thread back but I HAVE to post this video because I feel I ended up a bad guy in this discussion.
And this video somewhat perfectly explains my stance: " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; start at 1:14

[DNR]

lol bad guy.

I am too a skeptic, and I am very scientific - as that is the way my mind works. Crime lab, forensics was perfect for me because in order for me to believe something, I had to duplicate it. I do believe in faith, as I am a Godly man - that is believing that sometimes there are no 'human' answers to somethings. But, on the most part I agree with Ph0 - many things can be explained.

Ph0 asked why people waste so much time on bullshit stuff? Its hopes, dreams, wishes, and sidetracks to horrible realities called life. It is easy for people to believe in a mystery sometimes than the hard edged reality of what really happened or is happening. Something so horrible as women, children, and men being fed into gas chambers, by the thousands - it was easier for some to believe it was made up. In the case of USA, we wage war on other countries for oil and economic power, but our government tells the public it is for safety, for world peace.
When I talk about 'wine and games' I am talking about distractions the governments and media use to keep the people misdirected from the real issues and real answers to those problems. Beer advertisements everywhere you go, a party store on every block. "Stupid people tax" - lottery tickets, scratch offs, Lotto - dreams for $1 suckers.
Games - we present a war, rather than dialog about our failed policies of morgages, bank loans, jobs, and education. Its easier to shoot at other people than consider ourselves the enemy. The sooner young people remove the veil of 'wine and games', and start asking questions and demanding answers to the real issues - the sooner we can move in the direction to fix things.

DNR