when language becomes old fashion

[Scorpion531]

Language as we know it has been around for a very long time. Its not surprising that we use it, its the best way we know of to communicate to others what it is that we are thinking/feeling, but I see no reason to believe that we can not develop a new method of communication. When we finally came up with written languages there was a huge boom in life as we know it. I would seriously doubt that things will be the same as they are now a few millenia in the future. What might we do that would bring about this next leap and how drasticly would it change us?
What if you could almost instantly know a complete stranger's (you) thoughts and they knew yours, now what if you just met two complete strangers (or 50!!!), what if they instantly would know things that you would dread letting anyone know? As scary as that sounds to me, I still would have to think that the benifits would far outweight the downsides. What it would be like? What could be accomplished? I can't fathom it right now i'll have to think about that later.

what I do know is that there is a huge difference between how we can think in our head and how we have to conform it to fit into engish

[MagicRat]

Well, it would be nice to read minds.
However, if possible, the risk would be to reveal too much too quickly, or reveal information we would rather keep private.

Most people can read (at least read a Roman or Cyrillic alphabet based language) much faster than actually talking. Therefore, the next evolution may be based on reading instead of listening & speaking.

[turtlecrxsi]

Ah... the things people think about at 12:44AM...

I think what you're describing is more like a collective mind - kind of like the Borg from Star Trek. And if you've seen that show you know that nobody wants to be assimilated. Quite possibly the collective mentality would be to propagate an ideology that the positives would far outweigh the negatives of a collective telekinetic society. However, the ones not yet integrated to this new evolution of mankind would probably disagree.

I agree with MagicRat with the fact that people can read and absorb data in text much faster than actually articulating/communicating what the mind is thinking. Therefore, the next form of communication would not be mindreading per se but more like a touch screen kind of sign language. As long as humans can interpret signs (the most fundamental form of communicating... see Derrida) and technology advances perhaps humans wouldn't need to speak. Perhaps we could project thoughts via some kind selective telekinesis using some hardware... like Bluetooth only to project your thoughts into somebody's head (ultimately) or onto a visible/readable media in which the person(s) you're communicating with can read and understand. Of course, another significant part of this is that people across the world would want to hold onto their specific cultural mindspeech. Not everybody thinks in English so this form of communication could possibly translate directly to the language that person uses to think. Eventually, everybody would understand everybody and wouldn't have to talk. But this could also be controlled to prevent people from being able to read everybody's mind.

[Gohan Ryu]

Scientists have been studying telepathy for years. As with any type of scientific research there are believers and there are skeptics. Some people believe that telepathy is a latent ability most humans have but don't use, and we would need to evolve further as a species to wake up this ability. The problem is evolution doesn't happen without a need. For example, as amphibians evolved from fishes they developed legs because their fins didn't work on land. With all of the different forms of communication available today (cell phones, pda's, pc's, ipods, etc...) humans don't have the need for telepathy, just the desire for it.

Originally Posted by turtlecrxsi

Perhaps we could project thoughts via some kind selective telekinesis using some hardware... like Bluetooth only to project your thoughts into somebody's head (ultimately) or onto a visible/readable media in which the person(s) you're communicating with can read and understand.

Telepathy is different from telekinesis. There is a belief that telepathy enabled by using technology will be popular in the future. They call it Techlepathy.

[turtlecrxsi]

Yes. My bad. I meant telepathy. See what happens when trying to use too much of your brain at 9:00 in the morning... haha. Anyway, this techlepathy you mentioned is what I was driving at. I think it would be pretty cool especially with an auto-translate function so anybody in the world can read what you want them to know. One positive would be that there would be less grammatical mistakes and verbal pauses; unless people actually think that way - in which case they need to work on a more fundamental issue... LOL

[Gohan Ryu]

I wonder if mind-reading would be like reading a book - visualizing (or hearing) the words that are in someone else's head, even if the words are in another language and you don't understand what you are seeing/hearing.

Or would it be more that you feel their emotions and their thought process so you understand what they are feeling and the concept they wish to communicate, not necessarily the words they are thinking, so it wouldn't matter what language you speak. Like in the movie "Independance Day" - the alien links telepathically with the President - and even though they don't speak the same language the President just knew what the alien was thinking.