12.2.1. Introduction

Where are we going? New assumptions related to the information systems evolution were elaborated by the mathematician Vernor Vinge. His inference thinking (1993) led him to predict a “technological singularity”. As said when discussing the sustainability of complex systems (Chapter 11), a singularity is a disruptive change that enables an ecosystem to switch from one trend to another.

More recently, Ray Kurzweil, in 2001, conducted some studies about the evolution of human biology and intelligence; he defined the law of accelerating returns (which we will not describe in detail in this book), which is illustrated in Figure 12.1.

Most importantly, a new singularity is on the verge of happening over the present and next decades, caused by the increasingly higher capabilities of our information processing environment (in terms of volume, interconnectivity and speed).

If we look at the vectors of the evolution (with regard to the above graph – Figure 12.1), we have four successive items in the evolution of the universe: matter (physics), biology (life), technologies and the mind. The mind: here, we mean everything related to knowledge, cognition, spiritualities, etc. As per the graph, it perfectly matches with the next singularity. In fact, considering the paradigm changes related to that singularity, we have to determine on which points we have to focus out:

• – interconnectivity: resulting from ubiquitous information systems and the Internet of the things;
• – analyses of the main factors involved and required in the changes associated with the new paradigm;
• – interconnectivity: new ways of communication between the agents involved in the new transhumanism. Indeed, we are switching from the “Internet of the Things” toward the “Internet of the Minds”.

12.2.2. The role of the interconnections in the new paradigm

Quite often, in this book, we have used Moore’s law to express how nature is evolving. Indeed, Moore’s law expresses that the capabilities offered by acquiring a new computer technology continue to drop (periodic doubling every 18 months). Therefore, our ability to provide new problem-solving capabilities through the network (or an assembly) will continue to become tremendously easier.

Interconnectivity: everybody knows that networking several resources leads to fostering the so-called collaborative intelligence. As a reminder, this advantage can be measured in two ways:

• – The first way is related to Metcalfe’s law [MET 07]: he predicted that the increasing value of computer networks is nonlinear and it directly depends on the number of network participants, networked devices and the number of network groups. Metcalfe’s law states that: the “total value of a communications network grows with the square of the number of devices or people it connects together (N2)”.

• – The second way is expressed by Reed’s law: the number and value of group-forming options grow exponentially as the N or number of people in a network increases (2N).

Comparing the two curves, the formula used in Reed’s law shows that the value of group-forming options grows much faster than the growing value of the network itself. Thus, the larger the network is, the better the synergy resulting from the complete system. Sustainability, as indicated in the part dedicated to cellular automata, will just depend on the K-connectivity of the network. The objective is to overcome the problems associated with the networks to simplify the number of interactions and establish direct links with the pertinent node or agent involved in the information exchange.

12.2.3. Factors involved in a major change: skill mismatch

This section is only intended to focus on problems related to changes. Introducing a new technique such as telepathy does not only change a communication tool. The whole working process will be changed. A new paradigm needs be designed, in terms of thinking, working processes, objectives, cultural approaches and methodologies. Then we are faced with the so-called “change management”.

Let us take an example: in electronics, technology trends show that evolution is not only made with speed, power, size or cost considerations; sustainability means reframing organizations or innovation to address, for instance, the global challenges of environment, health and workers’ rights, etc.

As soon as a decision to implement a change is taken, some performance components have to be developed. Several in-depth studies show that they are as follows [ASG 13]:

• – leadership level [OXT 02, SOP 11];
• – internal and external communication [BUO 08, BUO 10];
• – bonus and awards [BUO 08, BUO 10];
• – motivation [JUD 09];
• – structural flexibility [WEI 07];
• – organizational culture adaptation oriented [BUO 08, BUO 10, SOP 11];

• – organizational learning [KLA 08, BUO 08];
• – skill hiring [SGH 13].

To manage these above components, individual prerequisites for change have to occur, since we will continue working and decide through the changes, then to apply attaining and sustaining improvements. During that process, we have to involve three main areas:

• – our brain, to think and understand the present and the future of the system (eco-system), to change our mind-set and generate a new vision;
• – our heart: since any decision is based on intuitive dynamics, it is necessary to harness our incentives, such as emotion and motivation;
• – our actuators: indeed, we have to change and reshape our behaviors, and then develop new skills know-how and capabilities.

We are faced with a skill mismatch problem, as soon as the previous requirements are not fulfilled. Conventionally speaking, a manager will either hire and fire people or reassign new resources in some specific jobs. Now, in a networked environment, one solution consists of the merging of transdisciplinary knowledge: not to share people, but to share knowledge, know-how, skills or experiences. In such a process, the aim is in acquiring, getting or developing necessary skills and an “integral vision” to understand and weave together different perspectives, skills and worldviews ([WIL 01], as in [WAH 08]). The merged outcome resembles “Mode 2” knowledge [GIB 94], which is socially distributed, application-oriented and transdisciplinary [NOW 03, p. 179].

In such an example, communication is of key importance. The new paradigm requires unconstrained and instantaneous interactions. Sharing and exchanging knowledge is a “highly reflexive” and iterative process [NOW 03, p. 187]. In the European GNOSIS and PABADIS projects, 15 years ago, a long time before the availability of social networks, the “spiral dynamics” model was developed in quite stable environments. This does not apply as planned before, since we are permanently submitted to the emergence of global needs, based on the extraction synthesis, aggregation and equilibriums coming from spontaneous and detailed desires toward the holistic system level. Even considering the focus on specific skills, knowledge and professional tools or technologies, such an approach may apply. As we can see, it is an iterative co-creation of the design aim, organized in a fractal way, on several scales and perspectives: this remains valid in any field of applications.

12.2.4. Brain communication: telesympathy and telepathy

Reality is of an increasing complexity: brain-to-brain communication through sensors is starting to be developed. Yet, a communication based on direct mind-to-mind exchanges, such as telepathy, appears to be both much more complicated and complex to engineer. Moreover, as of today, there is not a formal proof of its existence. Now, some people hold telepathy as being imaginary. Others think it is an inappropriate absurdity.

In the scientific world, there are often partitioning approaches, with clusters of knowledge and rights imposed by the institutions themselves: the notion of transversality in R&D, class struggles in populations, cultural or cognitive sectarianism, etc., are an undeniable historical fact. Certainly, deviations and approaches fade over time, relationships tend to humanize and to be more comprehensive, but it is nevertheless appropriate not to reject and to discriminate concepts so that there is no plausible explanation about their pertinence, validity and possible usage.

It is within this framework that we will consider telepathy as a possible new paradigm; it is also the reason why we will differentiate the concepts of telepathy and telesympathy. We are, however, considering a progression in the different following concepts.

12.2.5. Non-invasive brain–computer interface

A brain–computer interface (BCI) is often called a mind–machine interface (MMI), or direct neural interface (DNI), synthetic telepathy interface (STI) or brain–machine interface (BMI). The objective of a BCI is to enable a direct communication pathway between the brain and an external device, that is to say, to capture the cortical information of the brain and activate a physical feature.

Initially, BCIs are directed at assisting, augmenting, or repairing human cognitive or sensorimotor functions. This approach is being developed to improve the information exchange in pervasive information systems: video games, user-to-user communication, etc. It uses a well-known technology based on non-invasive neuroimaging and is presently experimented on human beings through specific interfaces.

Figure 12.2 presents the diagram of the BCI developed by Miguel Nicolelis and colleagues for use on Rhesus monkeys [NIC 11]:

Signals such as sensorimotor stimuli are collected with a set of electrodes (electromagnetic sensors), preprocessed and recorded: in this way, they can be used to power muscle implants and restore partial movement in an experimental volunteer. It is a big advance.

The problem is that we still have a poor signal resolution because the skull dampens signals, dispersing and blurring the electromagnetic waves created by the neurons. Also, there is too big a “distance” between the few electrodes we use and the actions of billions of neurons we have in our brain. Many techniques to improve a solution have been used, some being based on artificial neuron learning. Yet, when information content is reduced, it becomes impossible to recreate the lost information, and the solution paradigm will not likely be this one.

12.3.1. Quantum entanglement and telepathy

The origin of the concept of telepathy can be traced back to the late 19th Century. At that time, science did not frequently concern itself with works about “the mind”. As physical sciences made significant advances, scientific concepts could be applied to mental phenomena, such as magnetism effects on live beings. Scientists tried to understand and explain paranormal phenomena, telepathy, etc. Now due to quantum physics associated with some specific properties (e.g. entanglementation or teleportation at macro-molecule level, whatever the distance), new incites emerge to foster this concept again.

Many studies and experiments are conducted in this area to improve the mind-to-mind communications. Sponsors are coming from defense departments, universities, etc. Indeed, direct communication methods are always expected in order to reduce energy consumptions, costs, delays, security risks, etc.

A famous experiment in telepathy was recorded by the American author Upton Sinclair [SIN 30]. During the test, his wife attempted to duplicate 290 pictures which were drawn by her husband, located in a different and isolated room. Sinclair claimed his wife successfully duplicated 65 of them, with 155 “partial successes” and 70 failures.

Long-distance telepathy experiments were also conducted with the DARPA, with people located in a submarine. We can also point out a famous experiment conducted at the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory [SAD 74]. It involved two people: Frances May Turner positioned herself in the lab, while Sarah Owenby claimed to receive transmissions 250 miles away. For this experiment, Turner would think of a symbol and write it down while Owenby would write her guesses. The scores were highly successful but the test was invalidated since it contained flaws.

A wide variety of tests have been performed to demonstrate that telepathy is a real phenomenon, but there exists no scientific evidence that such a paranormal power exists [HIN 03]. Many studies seeking to detect, understand and utilize telepathy have been conducted, but no replicable results from well-controlled experiments have been forthcoming. A panel commissioned by the United States National Research Council to study paranormal claims concluded that “despite a 130-year record of scientific research on such matters, our committee could find no scientific justification for the existence of phenomena such as extrasensory perception, mental telepathy or ‘mind over matter’ exercises”.

After many discussions with critics, the main comment given our knowledge is that there is no known accepted mechanism behind telepathy. Some researchers claim there is a link between quantum theory and telepathy: the theory is that the human mind has abilities that influence and receive “quantum fluctuations” from other minds. But, some scientists say that telepathy would contradict the laws of science or scientific laws, that is to say, statements that describe, predict and, perhaps, explain why a range of phenomena behave as they appear to in nature. For instance:

• – If the origin of a signal is associated with an electromagnetic nature, it cannot be transmitted across space without fading: to be consistent with physics, the signal attenuation is inversely proportional to the cube of the distance.
• – If quantum physics applies, we will specifically address either entanglement (vs position, momentum, spin, polarization, etc.) or the q-teleportation and the e-teleportation [DAV 04]. With regard to more recent scientific studies, we know that teleportation (or entanglement) may apply to macromolecules. But people did not integrate those results to higher level assemblies; thus, at an upper level such as thoughts and the mind, the concept is not yet accepted and it has to be validated.

Also, some people in the scientific community consider parapsychology as a pseudoscience, that is to say, as a system of theories, assumptions and methods erroneously regarded as scientific.

Likewise, in this field of parapsychology, telepathy is generally explained as the result of fraud, self-delusion and/or self-deception, and not as a paranormal power. In addition, some researchers believe that telepathy has its roots in the instances of more popular psychic phenomena (such as cold-reading or in association with techniques issued from hot-reading). We hope that this will be clarified as soon as our human capacity capable of embracing new paradigms (biology, information systems, nanotechnologies and quantum physics) will be ready to explain such power. Indeed, biological systems display own aggregated laws which differ from that other scientific fields use.

12.3.2. Quantum entanglement and teleportation

This section attempts to specify ideas leaving out unnecessary facts. We will first recall that “quantum entanglement” has many areas of application, including secure encryption, ultra-fast quantum computers, ghost imaging, teleportation and, perhaps, telepathy. In this framework, for comparison:

• – telepathy is described as the transfer of thought or feeling from one person to another without using known channels of communication;
• – teleportation is used to communicate an unknown quantum bit between two persons A and B located in two different areas.

In teleportation, people are supposed to have at their disposal only a conventional way of communication, and one pair of entangled qubits. One way for A would be to measure the qubit, guess the state based on outcomes of measurement and describe it to B via the communication system. However, in this way, the state will be transferred with very poor fidelity.

In general, an unknown qubit has an unknown quantum state and cannot be described by classical means. However, A can send the qubit to B at the price of simultaneously erasing it at his/her site. This is the essence of teleportation: the quantum state is transferred from one place to another, not copied to other place, but moved to that place. This is very fast and can be done at the speed of light.

We will not detail how to perform this communication with a pair of maximally entangled qubits [HOR 07]. Now, recent experiments show this is possible with mesoscopic objects (see [SHE 06]).

We have to be careful with that two concepts because they are different: the first phenomenon can be, at present time, considered as paranormal, while the other is depending on physics.

12.4.1. Introduction

Coming back to the Upton Sinclair example above, his wife could gain intimate knowledge of her husband in an intuitive way, was able to guess what he would be likely to draw with a fair degree of accuracy, how he was painting, what the last significant experiences and events were, etc. Thus, in quite simple pictures like chairs and tables, she knows what is predominant, how these are exhausted, maybe, after some possible conversational hints during some of the pretests.

Returning to cold reading: a so-called mentalist is a person who does not have telepathy. He has no power over a person’s thoughts based on reason. Instead, he has the ability to read people’s emotions, motivations and values. This mentalist immediately knows what kind of person he/she is talking to and whether they are inherently good or bad in nature. In addition, they can send their emotions to others so that others can understand their own emotions.

Then, if the key man or manager in an organization is a good psychologist, you can understand things that a lot of people cannot do and persuade them to turn good/evil, since their emotions and goals are common to most of the people. Also, you can convey your own emotions back to others.

Thus, the behavior of other people can be handled in a complete specific, oriented and predefined manner.

In the above two developments, when an experiment is conducted satisfactorily, some observers could be misled and could make a mistake by giving to the telepathy power the ability to generate similar behaviors.

For this reason, we have to explain some details related to the so-called telesympathy.

“Telesympathy” is an unusual word aimed at describing a specific kind of communication; it is positioned between the conventional ways related to interpersonal communication and the so-called telepathy.

12.4.2. Origin of telesympathy

The notion of “telesympathy” has mainly developed in the medical field. This term is attributed to a French doctor named Pierre Cauchy. Regardless of his knowledge in the field of health, he understood that he had to rely on his knowledge, know-how and intuition in order to perform a good diagnosis: just approaching a sick person, this young practitioner felt – somehow by telesympathy – all the symptoms experienced by the sick. He was becoming distressed with the same pain, same spasms, same sorrows and same itching as his sick patients; this was due to the fact that Dr Cauchy was extremely eager to relieve them. As his experience grew, however, his tolerance in sharing the pain of others faded over time; he devoted himself to opioid analgesics and many other expedients, such as drugs or elixirs, aimed at making him forget his troubles; his survival was depending on the occurrence of a fully personal symptom, up to his death.

This story calls for a well-known characteristic: the empathy. Here, the main principle consists of being embedded in the body of the sick.

12.4.3. Definition of telesympathy

Telesympathy is the ability to tell, understand and perceive others’ motivations, emotions, actions and values. Many examples are quoted to illustrate such a fact: when two people feel sorry for each other at the same time, it is also telesympathy. Empathy is a component of telesympathy. Also, when considering the verbal and technical jargon used by politicians, in order to attract a popular audience, the talks have their drawbacks in a kind of telesympathy.

We may add that retrocognitive, precognitive and intuitive telepathy can be described as being the transfer of information, through Psi, about the past, future or present state of an individual’s mind to another individual: then, telesympathy is a prerequisite to telepathy.

12.4.4. A comment

The requirements for challenging prerequisites such as telesympathy are quite recent. Recalling the French doctor medical field case, we can state the following:

• – Several decades ago, the practitioners were trained before the era of antibiotics, fiber optic, endoscopy and MRI, at a time when medicine was much more invasive. In contrast, the diagnosis was based on a reasoned approach to identify the disease and analyze the patients; it is marked with a lot of humanism that what was called “the art of medicine”.

• – Doctors who have completed their studies since the 1970s are now operating in a very different context: the pharmaceutical explosion and the development of medical technologies, more complex and unavoidable, have changed the training of new practitioners: a diagnosis is based on an imaging process and sophisticated biochemical testing, scientific realities, etc. It is not only the treatment of a disease which is the subject of all the anguish, but also the spectrum of aging and gradual decay. Good practices insist much less on clinical interactions and more on rational use of biomedical resources by now. Within this context, it seems that a sick person is moved away from the state of “patient” to an “object”.

Interestingly, a strong antagonism shows up: while discussing telepathy for facilitating direct person-to-person communication modality, technology enslaves a person to hardware interfaces and electronic components. A human being becomes an object and is devalued.