Until now, scientists suspected that there were close personal ties between people across distances but could not be sure. Recent research has provided a way to test one’s feelings about someone else [1]. The research goes like this: an experiment was conducted on heart movements for people walking across hot coals. The research found that the people walkling across the hot coals had elevated heart rates due to the stress—so far that is obvious, carrying coals to Newcastle, as it were. However, the research came with a twist.
The twist was that loved ones—friends and family–who were watching specific walkers also showed the same elevated heart movements when their loved one walked across the coals. Scientists believe that the shared biological response amounts to a sympathetic social bonding, where people “feel” the stress and anxiety of their friends and family, those they love and trust in their organs (like the heart). The shared response is evidence of the shared bond.
This research has some serious and possibly even nefarious implications. For one, it used to be possible for people to “fake” responses without anyone being the wiser. However, this research suggests that a relatively simple and low-cost heart monitor may be able to provide evidence that someone is a particularly close loved one. Let us ponder some of the possible situations where this occurs. For example, a lover may test his or her beloved to see whether they still love them by setting up a stressful situation with a heart monitor on the other one to see if there is elevated stress levels for the other person too. No stress means no love and d-i-v-o-r-c-e. In another example, bosses could see whether their employees are really on board with a program by testing the heart responses for signs of excitement. In this case, scientifically, it appears that “your cheating heart will tell on you.” If you want the truth about whether someone cares about you, science has finally given you a way to know for sure, if you really want to (and the other person is confident enough to wear a heart monitor, which serves as a low-cost lie-detector).
The truly nefarious possibilities of this sort of technology exist with regards to totalitarian regimes. If people are forced to wear heart monitors while their loved ones are put through stress and torment, their own elevated stress responses will show that they care about the political prisoner and would put themselves at risk for being purged as well. Clearly, this could create some very ugly situations where lies are no longer sufficient to deflect suspicion and targeting, and where a verifiable demonstration of one’s emotional bonds can be provided clinically and cheaply and easily. Where that will go is hard to say with any certainty, but it’s possible that such evidence will be used against others.
Edge Induced Cohesion 