What would happen if humans wake up tomorrow with unrestricted telepathic connection with each other? Their thoughts uncontrollably being broadcast and received! I just stumbled on this ‘what if…?’ scenario while a friend was describing the premise of the ‘3 Body Problem’ TV series. What are the various ways this sudden change in our very existence as a species could play out?

Some basic assumptions need to be made here. What has happened and how is it manifesting. Let’s assume that this happens overnight as people are waking up into the new year of 2025. This seismic shift happens as the sun rises on the 1st of January, 2025 across the world. It doesn’t matter if you were sleeping or not. Sun’s up? Thoughts out! Even more bizarrely, people still in New Year’s Eve haven’t yet transformed while the ones in the new year have. This wave starts with and follows the rising sun. Sorry, Japan, Kiribati etc. Not sure whether the news for this flows westward before the sun. This creates a complicated scenario of what could happen as portions of the human civilization slowly gains this telepathic medium. With instant access via internet and media it will be difficult for the world to keep this information away from the non-transformed or will it? A very visceral change like this can be very crippling and might put people in a silent shock. The non-transformed world will probably wonder why the everyone in 2025 is silent, but not for long. 

This origin story is unwieldy. Which is the first place that sees the first light of 1st January 2025? What does that even mean to anyone but humans? Let’s change the plot a bit. How about a sudden burst of cosmic rays from the deep recesses of the universe mysteriously bathing just Earth. It goes right through our planet passing through everything and everyone on it. Just as mysteriously as it came, it disappeared without any residual trace but this strange shift in human perception. 

But what is this that has happened? Let’s try to understand. Humans cannot hear others thinking. We are not telepathic. We communicate via words, verbal or written and physical actions using various parts of our body. Different societies over human history have developed different languages to communicate. Some are only verbal, many have scripts, some share linguistic roots, some are tonal, some are guttural, some are mellifluous but in the end they have all been used to communicate ideas, feelings, desires, wants and emotions. All these things are what first occur in our minds which we then convey to others using words. These thoughts can sometimes be clear or nebulous or confusing or downright nonsensical. It’s hard enough to understand our own thoughts and even harder to coherently describe them to another. They are constrained to the limitations of the lexicon and the skill and willingness of the person. Non-verbal communication also goes a long way when words fail or can’t be used. A shrug of your shoulder is enough to give a simple answer to a long winded question. A smile often conveys more than words can say but still does not always say what you are truly thinking. The human mind is isolated, imprisoned in a playground that no one else may enter. The mind learns to play with thoughts. It learns to use them. It eventually learns to identify with them and bewitchingly become them. The thoughts often take an illusive life of their own and create a right old mess in this playground. Humans learn to keep this mess hidden. It’s their private place. A safe place. A dangerous place. A punishing place. A rewarding place. A fantastical place. An isolating place. All of them simultaneously. Our thoughts are usually unstructured and it takes effort to keep them on point. So we have huge walls around this place and only what we deem necessary gets out. We are very careful with the thoughts we voice. This leads to very fascinating and complex dynamics of communication. No one truly knows what the other is thinking no matter what is being said. Humans thus cannot communicate truthfully and completely. We are almost lying or hiding, partially of fully, knowingly or unknowingly. We live with gross assumptions based on what each other says or does. 

So, when this mysterious, cosmic ray radiated all of humanity, they suddenly gained unrestricted telepathy. They now could perceive each other’s thoughts without needing spoken words or visible actions. They could intuitively visualize or understand another in an ineffable manner. By unrestricted it means that they could not choose not to broadcast or receive thoughts. Here are some ways this could play out. 

Scenario 1: It blew my mind! (Worst case scenario)

The effects of this ray was devastating. All eight billion humans on the planet simultaneously began to perceive each other’s thoughts. There was no range limit to this telepathy. This sudden onslaught of direct perception drove everyone insane. They couldn’t tell what was happening. It was beyond comprehension. No perceptible difference in thoughts from each other’s minds. It was like eight billion TV channels turned on at equal intensity. It was too much for our brains to take. Society came to a halt. Nobody could function. No one could handle this mental deluge and literally froze to the places they were at. The brain was incapable of doing anything. The bodies stopped moving and lost control of all voluntary and involuntary muscles. People got heart attacks, bled from their noses, some tore into their own flesh in sheer agony and being incapacitated they eventually starved to death. Earth was selectively rid off its apex species almost instantly.

Scenario 2: Melded Hive (Best case scenario)

It turns out that this telepathy had a range. A range of 6 feet. One could not perceive another’s thoughts if they were more than 6 feet away. It took a while but after the initial shock the word quickly got around, telepathically, of course, that a distance of 6 feet could be maintained to not unwittingly mind meld. They used this range limit to slowly experiment and learn about this new way of communicating. They found out that their minds were now connected as a network and that there was no overload to the brain as long as they maintained sufficient distance from each other. They had already learned to do this during the Covid years. Was it a prep training of sorts? Humans embraced this new trait rather positively instead of finding it strange and invasive. Mental boundaries and walls drawn up over millennia of existence almost instantaneously fell apart. No thought was personal or private. It could not be attributed to one person or the other. All of a sudden humans were part of a large hive. They began to cohesively think and act. They learnt that they could tap into each other’s memories. Knowledge was thus stored in the network. All information was available to everyone. There was no judgement of another since no thought was independent. Concepts and study of morality, ethics, logic and philosophy suddenly became moot. The network balanced itself. Differences were resolved quickly as everyone understood and felt each other very deeply and truly. Harmonious existence was the natural outcome. Since thoughts were not the domain of an individual anymore, humans could not find any way to feel unique or separate. There are no leaders or governments or countries anymore. Individualism died but humans lived on as a collective species and no one person acted to the detriment of the other. 

Scenario 3: Fractured Mind (Poor scenario)

Humans did not take to this new way of being wholeheartedly. They mostly turned inwards and into loners. Almost everyone kept themselves more than 6 feet away from each other. Mental walls and boundaries were replaced with physical ones. Society limped along the same way it did during Covid times. They relied on technology to keep things the way they were. People communicated remotely and stayed by themselves, each time getting an unpleasant jolt when they got close to another. They felt overwhelmed, confused and uneasy and this was enough to keep them away from everyone else. They eventually died lonely and scared. No more than if they didn’t have this sudden new way of perception. This group of misfits did not procreate and this way of living and these people eventually faded away.

Some people who found it comfortable to let in and out thoughts, found people who they resonated with and formed groups. They forged a new way of living. Children born into this new world did not question this perception and communicated intuitively. Their collective mind did not have the capacity for new thoughts or ideas. It was limited to the primal predisposition that formed the group in the first place. Growth was not possible at all since there was no experimentation and variety in being. Eventually, the mind stagnated and dulled. Any mind that did not resonate was cast out, left to find an accepting group, form a new one or live and die alone, relying on the dying art of speech to get by. 

Humanity did not flourish. It barely survived in scattered groups and never managed to thrive and grow to its ancient civilizational heights. 

Scenario 4: I’m you and you are me, but not always (Good scenario)

In this scenario humans retain their individuality while also being able to use this newfound means of communication to further mankind. Humans slowly figured out how to control this ability and use it as the de facto means of communicating. (How? Mental control? Special Magneto helmets? Distance?) The overhead of different, restrictive languages was done away with. Thoughts flowed seamlessly when they wanted it to. They were able to identify their own thoughts in this collective and assign ownership to a thought. This helped retain a general sense of self and individuality. Science, technology and philosophy flourished and grew exponentially on the back of lossless communication. Differences in opinions and perspectives still existed and were cherished as an opportunity to further the understanding of life and living. Differences were almost always resolved with no conflict or put aside as mental tasks for a collective to resolve in the future. Society prospered and became egalitarian, crime almost vanished.

This was not a perfect society though. Since individualism still existed, ownership and privacy of data, thoughts and material things still mattered. Some of the vestiges of the old society like theft, deceit, jealousy, hate, etc still wreaked havoc and people sometimes still chose to reject the communal approach for personal gains. 

I am sure there are many ways this new way of communicating, being and living can make or break humanity. It’s a fundamental change and humanity will have to do its utmost to survive it. There are so many nuances to this change. Do thoughts still need a language or will they shift to being visual and emotional? Will we be able to perceive feelings and emotions too? Will the next generation intuitively take to this means of communicating? Will we ever be able to deceive, lie, be sarcastic or funny? Will babies ever cry? Won’t parents know exactly what the child needs? Or will it still take a while for a child to be coherent? What will happen to language? Will it become obsolete and only studied by esoteric scholars? Will we loose our ability to speak? How will it affect the blind, deaf and mute? What will relationships look like? Will we still marry or be monogamous? How would we interact with nature? Would we now take drugs to seek contraction or narrowing of our mind? How would we value another life? Would it change? Will we still have religion? Would people still form factions or will we unite? Will there be countries? I have so many questions. So many thoughts on this matter. What are your thoughts on this subject? If only we could share our thoughts instantly and completely.