Developing a sense for electricity

Hi guys, I think this is my first time posting here, but I'm fascinated with what you guys do and have tried. It completely changed my view on science and the individual since delving into this world of 'weirdos' and 'transhumanism' and what that really meant. I believe that we are the future - a world where we have full control over our bodies and every human is only bounded by their imagination (which is really true already, people don't realize it). I've had an idea about an explanation for 'empathy' or how some people are just good at feeling 'prescence' of other people - they are better at detecting electricity! 

Do people have auras/electromagnetic fields? (yea..)
How is that affected by the state of our brain? If we're more active or happy, I wonder if this is a significant difference in our field that surrounds us compared to when we are sad or in a different mood. 


We have identified that yes! Our cells CAN detect electricity and its regulated by genetics. What's not to say that over time people will become better and better at doing this because of epigenetic evolution happening throughout the last 100 years with our ever increasing exposure to electromagnetic waves? 

Dunno, just some thoughts I've had that would be interesting if someone actually gathered the data and looking into this from a genetics point of view and the perceived emotional IQ/empathy of a person. 

(there are a lot of other interesting implications of this in terms of regenerative medicine and cognition if we consider how small currents/magnets on our scalp can do some really cool stuff. I think that would provide more evidence to an evolution explanation - our brains want to continue to evolve and seek out sources of electrical stimuli? Just rambling..)

Comments

  • The human body, especially the nervous system, does put out tiny EM fields but it's so tiny it can't be detected without being in a heavily shielded room.

    Our cells are sensitive to electrical currents, but that is quite different from picking up on EM fields - something that we can't do naturally without augmentations (hence all those implanted magnets).

    As for evolution - it doesn't work that way. Evolution is just about whoever has the most babies, if a trait doesn't lead to you making more babies, it's got nothing to do with evolution.
  • We don't consciously pick up on it, but our cells do behave differently under even small electrical stimulus. What if over time, you could develop a sense for it 'intuitively' or at least subconsciously? You do it with many other things in everyday life and don't even realize it. Record yourself for a day then go back and watch yourself. You'll learn a lot about yourself. Did you read the paper I linked to? 


  • Cells do respond to electrical currents (as the link you posted states, this includes wound healing etc), but unless it's your nervous system you won't pick up on it consciously and there's no way you'd pick up on the EM field put out by other humans - it's too weak. You can't pick up on an electrical current without making contact, the only way to remotely detect a current is the EM field.
  • I didn't get a chance to read the article yet due to just getting home from work. I just have to add one thing I thought of really quick.

    Hair standing up while being in a room with VERY high voltage your body does pick it up and you can "feel" it in an odd way.

    I'm not sure if that's what your referring too
  • in that case, you don't feel the electric field tho. you only feel the motion of your hair.
  • edited October 2015
    Ok, so from what I get, the type of electricity you are referring to, and the type of electricity that they are referencing in the paper are of two different types.

    When you are talking about gap charges and the changes and sensing of that, we are talking about electron levels of change. Like ionic levels (refer to your intro to chem and intro to bio here). The scale is radically different than what you would sense on any logical level. Cellular level of charge are like the pull that a water molecule has on a salt molecule. Do you notice a charge rxn when you mix salt and water? of course not. I mean, it's happening, charges are being swapped, but you don't know that. Now a cellular response of that level has little to know way to communicate with our limbic system.

    I'm trying to stay away from the evolution topic and just the word, you can just search for me ranting about evolution somewhere else on here. 
    The main point is that without an pressure that causes an increase in the viability of the species, the emergence over time (lets be kind and say something like 1000 years) of a viable marco level electronic sensing internal biological network would be a hitherto unseen precedent for something in the vertebrate world.
  • So, want to work on developing something like that over in the Mitochondria 2.0 Thread?
  • edited October 2015
    maaaaybe... this again comes down to a matter of hardcore system changes to the human body. Mitochondria2 is a possible entry point, but a tiny block in a very big wall...

    But yeah, its a place to focus

  • Ok, so what is the grind you're looking for here? Are you looking to gain the ability to consciously detect electricity/magnetism? Are you looking to boost empathy? Or is it that you're looking to better read the emotive state of another? This is what I'm reading from you - You've read that cells respond to electric fields and are speculating that this is.. something like auras etc. This is good.. you'd need to try to first find a connection between the field and emotion. Has there ever been a study correlating intensity of the field or something like this with different emotional states? That's be a place to start.

    Second, you'd have to show evidence that human cells detect the fields produced by another humans cells. MRI's for example are in shielded rooms. If our best equipment requires shielding, then it's unlikely our cells can do better and get meaningful data from the environment.

    Basically, what I'm saying is that while this may be an area to start researching.. this would require the design of a study, funding, and then careful analysis. Regardless of the result, it isn't actually a grind. So refocus this. What is it that you'd really like? Are you looking to feel others emotions? Because there might be a better approach to this ability.
  • auras ~= electromagnetic fields 

    Same thing, different word. I know there's no research on that, which is why i proposed it was something to at least check. I'd like to see if first, there is a correlation, or if we could find a way to increase the expression of those proteins responsible for the polyamines in the cell, do that, and compare to a base study and see how it affects things like wound healing, cognition, your "aura", and how you score on some sort of emotion recognition/intelligence test.

    Measuring it would be difficult i think unless there's some predetermined values for what some emotion should look like in the brain and the equivalent field. I think it's doable, but like others have pointed out, these are extremely weak fields, but who knows...what if we can actually pick up on it and we don't even know it because it is too small to consciously perceive? 
  • sorry you've got a typo there. Auras ~= nothing. Either you're refering to the glow we give off from heat in the form of infrared light, which no you can't train yourself to see, or what's been mentioned, the tiny electromagnetic fields given off by ionic movement, which, again, no you can't train your self to feel. Also your emotions don't come off as a different color or some other nonsense. At best you get a bit warmed when you are excited. You're better off walking around with a thermal camera from which you'll gain little to no ACTUAL information about the persons emotions. 

    Now there is a way this could almost work. The thing is, to detect EM fields, you generally need to produce your own rather strong EM field and then rather than directly detect the field you're interested in, you detect disturbance in your own field. Problem, it won't work very well on land. Er, well at all actually. But it works great for electric eels and sharks since the water conducts the field better. And it should go without saying that the modification needed to make this work is absurdly difficult. Assuming u wanted it biological anyway.
  • edited October 2015
    Depends on your definition of 'aura'. In strong EM fields you could sense it, just because the ones we give off is weak, doesn't mean we don't have one. 

    And as far as the IR light being invisible, it's been proven we can expand our vision to see certain spectrums of light by doing something as simple (but hard) as eating an incredibly restrictive diet. We have night vision goggles, etc, but I know that goes without saying we can't exactly implement into our bodies at this point.

    Don't people with magnets in their fingers start sensing EM fields (albeit weak ones)? 

    Also, I know emotions aren't "colors" and I see what you're digging at with the whole mysticism shit, but that's not what I was getting at. Maybe you're not very empathetic yourself, but personally, I can just tell how people feel with surprising accuracy. I don't know if it comes down to social intelligence or just being observative. I also don't know if anybody has proven or disproven the effects of various emotions or states of consciousness on certain signals we give off, whether it be heat or EM. Even our 'light signature' our bodies give off changes on a day to day basis; you're literately 'brighter' (as in give off more biophotons) based off of metabolic functions, and this can change just by thinking about it.


    What if these biophoton emissions do correlate with color though? 

    Maybe another explanation would be how our bodies transmit and receive biophotons, which goes back to at least some linkage to our bodies EM fields.

    I'm not saying any of this IS or ISNT true, just trying not to be so closed off to the what ifs. I'm just throwing out my thoughts and what I've found that might be interesting or support my ideas

    Anybody know of any research into the limbic system with emotion and biophoton emission or something along those lines? 
  • edited October 2015
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroreception

    This what you mean? It's definitely possible THEORETICALLY to introduce these traits in any other species, just not sure how much you'll be able to pick up (with air being the medium). Also, we won't be doing anything like this anytime soon (captain is obvious).
  • Having a look at the platypus, which is a mammal with electroreception capabilities, would probably be fruitful.

    In terms of air, all we have to do is use a very high voltage field. Maybe a corona discharge. How cool would it be to be surrounded in a glowing purple sphere and disrupt electronics in a 2 foot radius?
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