"'There have been hysterics who could hear a watch ticking twenty feet away that the normal person could not hear at one foot.'" (p. 156)
"'Some apparent cases of mind reading in the last century were shown to be due to extremely acute hearing. Most people subvocalize their surface thoughts. With a little practice, a person who can hear those vibrations can learn to interpret them. That's all.'" (p. 157)
"...in the last century..." means in the twentieth century. I googled but did not find any reference to mind reading by hearing subvocalization. Is that even feasible? I came across the idea somewhere else in sf.
Dalgetty will take two months to recover from using his powers and meanwhile will have a nervous breakdown. Is it worth it? A yogi allegedly lived for decades without eating or drinking anything but was an ascetic in a cave in a jungle for all that time. Would it be worth it? Dalgetty was "'...only a test case.'" (ibid.) - but unfortunately we do are not shown any later cases.
2 comments:
The link between speaking and thinking seems to have gotten more faint over time.
Eg., until the early modern period most people vocalized when they read (or wrote); to read silently was an exceptional skill.
I think this shows the difference between an -oral culture with literacy- and a literate culture.
Reading silently and reading aloud are -different- practices. I've become aware of this because I read what I've written aloud as part of the editing process.
You notice different things when you're reading aloud. Things "strike the ear" that don't when it's purely internal.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Sometimes I've done a little bit of that vocalizing myself--reading or almost reading aloud something I wrote, to "see" what it feels like.
But most of my READING is silent.
Ad astra! Sean
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