Can we move things with our mind?

Perhaps you have thought of having the ability to move things with your mind.!! Undoubtedly, It would make life a lot easier and it’s definitely a thrilling idea- but is it technically possible? And are there people who already have this ability?

Telekinesis, also known as Psychokinesis, is a psychic ability that allows a person to manipulate physical objects without touching them. The term was first used in 1890 by Alexander N. Aksakof who was a Russian Psychical researcher. The word itself is a mixture of two Greek words, ‘tēle’ and ‘kinesis’, which literally means ‘distance motion’. The idea that Telekinesis is possible has intrigued people for hundreds of years, but belief in it being provable only came about on a wide scale in the late 1800’s due to the popularity of Spiritualism. In their performances, psychics would supposedly cross the spiritual plane to make contact with the dead and, in the process, objects would move across the room. This was, of course, no more than a magic trick, but at the time people were convinced- even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who created Sherlock Holmes, was a believer.

The acts were soon debunked, and faded from belief, but the possibility was revived in the 1940’s when a researcher from Duke University began looking at whether people could effect seemingly random occurrences by thought. Since then, numerous researchers have tried to prove it, and famous psychics, such as Uri Geller, have traveled the world showing their apparent abilities at bending spoons and fixing watches. Today it’s thought that between 15 and 30 percent of Americans believe that it’s possible to effect the world by thought. While believers will always believe, those in the Scientific community have set out to try and prove that Telekinesis is possible. But so far, the evidence that has been collected is circumstantial at best and, as with other psychic phenomena, definitive proof has remained elusive.

There are, of course, a number of people who fraudulently claim they have such powers, and any competent magician can perform tricks to the same effect. This doesn’t mean that Telekinesis doesn’t exist, but it shows that it’s easy to fake if someone decided to do so. Scientifically speaking, there’s a big problem with the idea of Telekinesis. It breaks some important fundamental laws of physics; the inverse square law, the second law of thermodynamics, and the conservation of momentum. Simply put, every reaction requires an action to cause it and, from our current understanding of the Universe, mind power isn’t able to create a force against an object.

This hasn’t deterred some researchers from continuing with their studies, though, and the results are quite interesting. To start, they have split the phenomenon into two distinct categories; micro-PK for the manipulation of small objects, and macro-PK for the manipulation of large ones. The theory is that if humans can influence matter by thought, then the force would be quite small and, therefore, be easier to prove if tested on small objects like dice. Therefore, most experiments focus on micro-PK, asking participants to cause dice to land the same way a number of times in a row, or influence computer produced random number generators. By repeating these experiments thousands of times, researchers can then perform complex statistical analysis on the results to determine if there’s any effect of significance.

Despite this rigorous testing, evidence is still scarce, which would suggest that either Telekinesis is not naturally possible, or it’s incredibly rare and they haven’t been able to test the right person yet. So That Means I Can’t be Telekinetic? With this all being said, there’s actually a good chance that within the near future Telekinesis will become possible but, rather than coming from the mind, it would likely be a result of technology. A development studio called Neurable announced in 2017 that they were using eye movement tracking and brain scanning technologies in a headset, that would allow you to move and manipulate objects in a virtual world simply by looking and thinking about them. This could actually become the norm. It’s not too far a reach to be wearing a headset and ordering an Uber, cooking your food, or even flying a plane, simply by thinking.

When this becomes a reality, who’s to say that this isn’t Telekinesis because it surely would be granting everyone the ability to influence physical objects simply by thinking. Telekinesis is a widely believed phenomenon and the ability that most people would choose if given the option. Laboratory studies have yet to find a way to prove it is a real thing, but that in itself isn’t enough to prove that it actually doesn’t exist. Don’t let this discourage you, though, because soon enough we’ll have technology that creates the same effect, and you’ll be pretty close to having Jedi powers of your own!