Do we really understand how telepathy works?

Let's start with the definition. Dictionaries typically give more than one definition, but if you understand what they describe, it's always the same concept. I find this definition to be the most accurate:

Telepathy: "The capability to communicate directly by psychic means; the sympathetic affection of one mind by the thoughts, feelings, or emotions of another at a distance, without communication through the ordinary channels of sensation."

This raises an important question: Is telepathy a language?

So, we need the definition of language first:

Language: "Communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols."

This definition introduces the usage of signals, so we need that definition as well:

Signal: "An indicator, such as a gesture or colored light, that serves as a means of communication."

This changes the question as follows:

Is telepathic communication based on indicators?

In my understanding, this shows how telepathy and signal-based language differ: Telepathy doesn't work with indicators, because an indicator is a placeholder for something else. For example, a red traffic light indicates a wanted behavior of the participants in traffic. That meaning doesn't come from the red light itself, but was attached to it arbitrarily. In other words: The meaning is not inherent to the signal.

If telepathy would use the same indicators, it would just be another means to transport language. For example, if you telepathically show another person a red traffic light, there's still the possibility that the other person doesn't know what it means. In that case, telepathy wouldn't be better than language.

But telepathy does seem to be better than language. It looks like it's capable of conveying the meaning of something without using indicators. In the traffic light example: The other person getting the red traffic light telepathically would know what the red traffic light means, even if that person didn't know the meaning before.

To me, it looks like that the following is happening: Telepathy transports the meaning on a basis that every ISBE can understand. I don't know how this works, but it seems to work. The brain of the recipient then can translate the meaning into language (but doesn't have to).

But telepathy also seems to be dependent on lived experience, at least to a certain degree. Have a look at the following video:

Let's take the Danish word "hygge" as an example. It's meaning, described in English, is:

"A quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being."

Telepathy is able to transport this meaning without naming it. The recipient seems to get the point instantly. An English speaker would describe the concept as above, and a Danish speaker would instantly call it "hygge".

But it seems to be necessary that you had that feeling before in order to instantly recognize the feeling when someone sends it to you telepathically. If you never experienced it, your brain doesn't compute.

A good example for this is the Reed incident:

➡️ https://www.farsightprime.com/forums/suggestions-for-new-projects/76059-the-reed-incident

Context: One day, Dr. Jonathan Reed stumbled upon an ET somewhere in the woods. His dog barked at the ET, and the ET interpreted the barking as an attack, so it defended itself by killing the dog. Dr. Reed witnessed how his dog was killed. He fell into berserk-mode and attacked the ET with a wooden stick. The ET communicated telepathically "don't attack". Dr. Reed remembers that he understood the telepathic message, but didn't care in that moment because of his instinctive reaction.

After the incident, the ET visited Dr. Reed numerous times. Dr. Reed tried to convey telepathically what his dog meant to him, in order to explain his emotional reaction, but the ET, though receiving the message, was unable to understand it. This shows that telepathy relies on experience – the ET most likely never had the experience of an emotional attachment to an animal.

But this leads to a significant problem:

If lived experience is the limiting factor of telepathy, it means that misunderstandings cannot be ruled out. While telepathy is better than arbitrary language, ISBEs still don't always share the same experience. It's even more likely that ISBEs have been shaped by entirely different experiences.

For example, imagine a glowing plasma entity conveying to you telepathically how it feels to be a glowing plasma entity flying through the sky. You, as a two-legged human, wouldn't be able to get 100% of the experience. You could only compare it to a human experience. On the other side, the plasma entity most likely doesn't know how it feels to dip your feet in cold water, or how you feel if you listen to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody with human ears.

It's a fascinating topic...