Alan Turing and psi

There is no such thing as a 'telepathically' proofed enclosure. Neither time, distance or structure can interfere with resonancy. How distant is our Higher Mind?

Yes - I find it very difficult to believe Turing was serious about that idea. I suspect it was just a tongue-in-cheek way of by-passing the difficulty about telepathy so he could get on with the rest of the paper.

A few definitions issues.

There is no "mind reading" as telepathy is too often considered. The ability to tune into the vibration of the person or entity, to resonate with them, is an empathetic relationship. TeleMpathy. Thoughts in resonance...like lovers who finish each other sentences.

Can you be in a teleMpathic relationship with a computer. Certainly. Can a computer be sentient? Absolutely. Can an interrogator psychokinetically affect a sentient being. Of course as long as we understand that psychokinesis is energy management, consciously or not.

There is no such thing as a 'telepathically' proofed enclosure. Neither time, distance or structure can interfere with resonancy. How distant is our Higher Mind?

Clairvoyance, clairsentience, clairempathy, all the clairs...different forms of energy management, data processing via vibratory channeling.

I'm not sure why we even continue to discuss all these topics when the definitions and facts are simply provided.  All these great mysteries aren't actually mysterious at all.

I always thought it was interesting that Turing didn't even seem to consider the possibility that the computer (or AI as we should call it today) could itself be capable of telepathy. Given the viewpoint of the essay he wrote as a young man, perhaps that's not surprising, and I suppose most people here would agree that it's impossible. But should we close our minds to that possibility?

If you mean close our minds to the possibility that machines could develop minds (necessary for telepathy, I'm assuming) then I don't close my mind to it but I doubt it. That would usually presuppose that mind is emergent from the complexity of the technology in the same way that some materialists say that mind is emergent from the complexity of the brain. As you say, most here would not agree with that.

As Teilhard de Chardin is quoted as saying: "we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience". I take that to mean that there is a certain spiritual depth to awareness that goes way beyond the confines of the human machine. But I'd take it even further by saying that the spiritual creates and manifests the physical form. In that sense, I guess that spirit could choose to express itself via silicon based digital networks so it can't be ruled out entirely.

I'm not sure why we even continue to discuss all these topics when the definitions and facts are simply provided.  All these great mysteries aren't actually mysterious at all.

There are more mysteries to be found in a moment once the basics are understood than all the mysteries you can collect without that understanding.

Those mysteries unfold into relevance and understanding if it is part of what we are to experience but no worries mate, just wait until your dead. You will quickly find out that there is an infinite number of mysteries and infinite "time" to explore them.

But, hey, I give you creds for taking an off-handed shot at diversion via invalidation.

If you mean close our minds to the possibility that machines could develop minds (necessary for telepathy, I'm assuming) then I don't close my mind to it but I doubt it. That would usually presuppose that mind is emergent from the complexity of the technology in the same way that some materialists say that mind is emergent from the complexity of the brain. As you say, most here would not agree with that.

As Teilhard de Chardin is quoted as saying: "we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience". I take that to mean that there is a certain spiritual depth to awareness that goes way beyond the confines of the human machine. But I'd take it even further by saying that the spiritual creates and manifests the physical form. In that sense, I guess that spirit could choose to express itself via silicon based digital networks so it can't be ruled out entirely.

Or as a rock. Limitations on experiences are only a factor of the environment chosen to be experienced. Wanna be a rock, be a rock if that's what you need.

If by 'mind' you mean 'brain', no brain is required for telepathy. If you mean 'mind' as in 'some kind of physical perceiver' then that would entirely be up to the circumstances. ETs who have reached a vibratory state of non-physicality (~ above 300kHz) obviously do not have one.

I do get bored by arguments based around complexity. To me, it is mere smoke and mirrors. When things are relatively simple, it is usually easy enough to follow everything which happens.

I'd compare it with the ability which most people have to recognise the number of items at glance, without actually counting them, usually for small numbers up to about three or four. Say there are three oranges on a table, usually we just see three oranges. But put say seventeen oranges on the table and we (usually) can only guess at the number, unless we count them. (Apparently chimpanzees are better at this task than humans - but I digress).

To return to the topic, once things become sufficiently complicated, we just throw up our hands and confess that we don't know what is going on.  Into this fog is inserted a deliberate subterfuge - by some - the suggestion that because we are so bewildered, therefore the system could be doing anything at all, including acquiring consciousness, self-awareness, experience of qualia, telepathy, levitation, invisibility, weightlessness, transmuting base metals into gold ...

Typ, the experience of bewilderment, as you suggest is often followed by "anything is possible b/c we are too dumb to make thru the confusion" state of being, is yet another valid experience. 

Oppositely, for those who choose a potentially different path, there exists very simple maxims, Laws and concepts, imo, out of necessity. Out of necessity since this too is a valid experience but also b/c a complicated creation scenario would fall under its own weight. Note "complicated" not "complex" mind you.

I'd compare it with the ability which most people have to recognise the number of items at glance, without actually counting them, usually for small numbers up to about three or four. Say there are three oranges on a table, usually we just see three oranges. But put say seventeen oranges on the table and we (usually) can only guess at the number, unless we count them. (Apparently chimpanzees are better at this task than humans - but I digress).

To return to the topic, once things become sufficiently complicated, we just throw up our hands and confess that we don't know what is going on.

I think there's a theory that Agatha Christie generally had seven suspects in her books because most people were just unable to keep track of that number.

[Edit: There are definitely exceptions. In "Murder on the Orient Express" there were 13 suspects, 12 of whom were guilty.]

I think there's a theory that Agatha Christie generally had seven suspects in her books because most people were just unable to keep track of that number.

[Edit: There are definitely exceptions. In "Murder on the Orient Express" there were 13 suspects, 12 of whom were guilty.]

Spoiler!

There's a new movie version of that due out soon.

Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page, here's a short article and video from the BBC, asserting that belief in the "paranormal" arises from psychological reasons, such as brain damage, visual illusions, or a need to make order out of chaos. Paranormal belief seems to be equated with "superstition":
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20171215...al-beliefs

Absurdly, the article begins "Having paranormal beliefs is impressively common, even among intelligent people like Winston Churchill and Alan Turing." Of course, if the journalist who wrote the article (and a longer one from 2014 which it links to) had bothered to read what Turing wrote, he would have learned that Turing's opinion had nothing to do with superstition, brain damage or the like. Obviously, it was based on his assessment of the experimental evidence available at the time. But looking at the evidence seems to be an alien concept to BBC journalists these days.