[Hunches] Scientific Evidence of Non-Local Mind? The Powers Twins

[Jundo]

This pair of twins, with an uncanny ability to speak simultaneously, may potentially offer evidence of a conjoined or non-local mind. As you will hear, they are expressing complex thoughts at normal pace, using complex and identical grammar structures and word choices. There appears to be no gap whatsoever in the timing of their words for much of it (some portions include a delay, but too much of it seems spot on).

This must be tested (they do not mention any prior tests) to see (1) they are truly speaking simultaneously, with no delay by which one hears and mimics the other. (2) They should be separated by a partition so that they cannot see each other through peripheral vision. (3) Earphones should be used to block their hearing each other as they speak. (4) They should be tested simultaneously with twin MRI machines to measure whether the identical sections of their brains are firing. Also, any signs of trickery or fraud must be investigated (although, frankly, the twins seem so nice, I would doubt that this is a stunt.)

See what you think. They have gone viral from a news story in which they recounted a robbery that they witnessed:
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By the way, let me repeat my "hunch" on how the mind works.

In my hunch (that is all it is), the brain does not "create" consciousness, so much as it isolates the more fundamental basis of consciousness in a particular place and vantage point, rendering it self-reflective, much like a single broadcast wave can be broken into individual sounds heard by individual ears via our personal radios, a single satellite's GPS signal places our individual vehicles at unique points of location, a carnival 'fun house' of mirrors breaks our single image into infinite images, much as a single brain can be severed though physical injury or schizophrenia into identifiable separate personalities/selves all occupying a single skull simultaneously. Each is the same yet different, individual yet ultimately precisely the same.

...

It is much the same as if I were in a large house, looking out of one window seeing the world a certain way, then (with amnesia causing me to forget the first window) looking out a second window seeing the world a quite different way ... but this is happening simultaneously. In other words, we are all the very same consciousness looking out of different windows at once, but not aware of each other, thus feeling like individuals of separate experiences and views out our window eyes. I am "Mary" just Jundoing, Mary is Jundo just "Marying" ... likewise for John, Harry, mountain, cat and everything.

By my notion, if no other explanation can be found, it is possible that their brains are somehow "conjoined" like bodily siamese twins, whereby they are tapping into the same thoughts which usually would be localized in one brain. Their brains are (1) tapping into something that is typically localized in a single brain (e.g., imagine twin cell phones that ring simultaneously when one phone number is dialed) or, in the alternative, (2) their brains are somehow sharing thoughts between them or (3) the brains are so structurally identical that they speak identically. I believe (3) is very unlikely given the individuality of the brain, and its plasticity, even in the case of identical twins.

This will be a major story that (assuming other possible explanations can be eliminated) will revolutionize our view of individual nature and consciousness.

Gassho, J
stlah

[Jundo]

Thank you to our Treeleafer, Oliver, who pointed me to a summary of research that has been done on twin synchronicity. I was happy to see that the kind of experiments I described were already being done by separating twins into separate rooms, mri machines and such. Some of the research involved long time Zen pratitioner, brain scientist and skeptic regarding most paranormal claims, Susan Blackmore (I am a big fan). Most of the studies are small, most often there was no statistically significant phenomenon shown that could not be written off to chance or joint attention, social mirroring, deep familiarity plus shared genetics and upbringing. Most of the studies were not particularly about simultaneous speech, but were looking for some other kind of ESP connection. There were a couple of interesting outliers among the studies, specifically this one, although the sample size is small and it has not been replicated I think:

In 2022–2023, a team led by Richard Silberstein carried out an experiment with five pairs of identical twins using EEG steady-state brain responses. Each twin pair underwent two sessions in a lab: one twin served as a “sender” who was shown a randomized sequence of 50 images (some neutral, some personally emotional to the twins), while the other twin, as “receiver,” sat in a separate closed booth wearing an EEG cap. The rooms were electrically shielded and completely silent, preventing any normal communication. The clever part of Silberstein’s method was measuring event-related functional connectivity (FC) changes in the receiver’s EEG – essentially looking for moments when the receiver’s brain activity between different electrode sites suddenly rose or fell in sync with the precise moments the sender saw a new image. Using rigorous permutation statistics and corrections for multiple comparisons, they tested whether the receiver’s EEG showed significant fluctuations time-locked to the distant twin’s stimuli presentations. In their published 2024 report, the authors stated that they did find statistically significant FC changes in the receiver coincident with the sender’s viewing times, more often than expected by chance. In other words, there were moments where the isolated twin’s brain connectivity shifted in a way that correlated with the other twin’s experience, even though no conventional signal could reach them. This result was taken to confirm their hypothesis that some form of anomalous mind-to-mind influence might be detectable. Notably, they observed these significant brain responses in roughly one-third of the trials – not in every instance – and the patterns varied greatly between different twin pairs. Emotional or personally meaningful images were slightly more likely to produce such effects than neutral images, but the difference was not large enough to be statistically reliable with the small sample. The researchers reported a large effect size in the data (Cohen’s d ~0.85) for the anomalous connectivity changes, but they caution that individual differences were huge: some twins showed marked brain reactions aligned with the distant stimulus, while others showed little to none. Because averaging across subjects could wash out a real effect (if only certain twins are “telepathically responsive”), the study argues that traditional group statistics might underestimate any telepathy-like phenomenon. This implies that if a twin telepathy effect exists, it may be idiosyncratic – only manifesting strongly in particular pairs or under particular conditions, thus easily lost in noise when data are pooled. Silberstein’s study is one of the most sophisticated attempts to date and did take pains to rule out normal explanations (through isolation and randomization). Still, like all others, it will require independent replication. At present, these EEG findings are viewed with cautious interest in parapsychology circles, but skepticism by the broader scientific community until corroborated.

So, it is interesting that he said that it could be only some twin pairs, and results would wash out if results from all twin pairs are simply averaged. Or, it could just be a outlier, never to be replicated. As the conclusion of one paper summarizes ...

After nearly a century of investigation, the scientific consensus is that there is no credible evidence for twin telepathy. Mainstream psychologists, neuroscientists, and twin researchers generally agree that twin synchrony can be explained by known factors – genetic similarity, close social bonding, learned anticipation of each other – rather than any paranormal channel. Reviews of the literature consistently find that controlled experiments fail to demonstrate significant telepathic communication between twins. In the words of one review, “despite abundant anecdotal evidence, scientific research has struggled to validate the existence of twin telepathy”. High-quality studies with proper blinding and isolation have mostly yielded negative results, and the few positive findings are marginal and not independently confirmed. From a conservative scientific standpoint, the default position is that twin telepathy does not exist – or at least, that no known study has provided convincing repeatable proof of it. This aligns with the broader view on ESP research, which has yet to meet the stringent reproducibility and theoretical plausibility standards required for acceptance into mainstream science. That said, the topic isn’t completely closed. A handful of researchers (often in the field of parapsychology or frontier neuroscience) continue to explore the possibility of non-local mind connections, using ever more refined techniques. They argue that if some twins do share an anomalous link, we may need to develop more sensitive methods or theories to detect it. For example, some have speculated about quantum entanglement-inspired models of consciousness to explain how two brains might be linked across space – though this idea is highly controversial and purely hypothetical at this stage. Others note that nearly all studies so far have tested twins in relatively emotionless tasks; future experiments might try inducing a stronger emotional resonance (for instance, guiding one twin through a deeply sentimental memory) to see if the other twin reacts. There are also open questions about whether certain twin pairs (perhaps those with unusually high empathy or a history of unexplained coincidences) might consistently exhibit effects that average groups do not. The recent EEG study by Silberstein et al. hints that focusing on individual outcomes rather than group means may be important. If only a minority of twins have a true “anomalous connection,” expanding sample sizes and targeting those pairs could be key to either capturing it or finally laying it to rest.

I would like to see this kind of test run on the Powers twins specifically. Probably they are just picking up on each other's verbal and visual clues due to being raised together, but it would be interesting to see if there is more to it.

The papers from Oliver ...

https://forum.treeleaf.org/filedata/fetch?id=546795

https://forum.treeleaf.org/filedata/fetch?id=546764

Gassho, Jundo
stlah



Gassho, Jundo

[Kotishka]

Very interesting. I did notice that when the twins spoke separately their diction, tone and pace changed. Not saying they do it on purpose, but more like when someone picks up the phone to speak with his partner and "sweetens" the tone or becomes serious and formal suddenly when he realises it was his boss. Shared context, interpersonal bonds, all that plays a role. Their childhood also informs us that they spent a lot of time by and with themselves.

Still, I am very interested in consciousness and the brain. I am doing my final year to become a Neuropsychologist at university and this was one of the initial fields which attracted me. If I find anything worth of interest, I will share it here.

Gassho,
Karlos sat/lah today