Telepathy

The Long Way Home, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

"But a telepathic listener does not perceive pure thought. 'Thought' does not exist as part of the real world; there is only the process of thinking, the flow of pulses across synapses." (p. 142)

Here is the philosophical mind-body problem in a nutshell. "Thought" is real, exists, happens, but is not part of the empirically observed realm, here called "the real world." That world includes pulses flowing across synapses but that empirically observable objective flow can be fully described without referring to any subjective thoughts. Yet the text refers to the objective flow as "the process of thinking" while simultaneously differentiating it from "pure thought" or just "thought." Pulses flow across synapses while a subject is thinking but how do objective processes cause subjective processes?

Since they cannot perceive thoughts by detecting synaptic pulses, telepaths instead hear subvocalizations and therefore need to understand the thinker's language. Conscious thought is inner speech. Motor impulses from brain to throat are suppressed but nevertheless heard, or at least somehow sensed, by telepaths. But is that telepathy or just good hearing? And can subvocalizations possibly be audible?

The text informs us that nervous systems radiate three kinds of energy:

electrical impulses, detectable encephalographically;

heat;

gyromagnetic emissions -

- and, fourthly, energy from the nervous impulses detected by telepaths?