alex_greene
Guest
Or like J-o-T skill.atpollard said:
Psions?
- Thread starter barnest2
- Start date
Vile
Banded Mongoose
There have been successful experiments in teleporting photons. Not using brain power, though.
I still think SF teleporting is actually a kind of replicating - you are disintegrated the first time you do it, thereafter it's just copies of copies of copies. They might think they're you, but they're really not. :?
I still think SF teleporting is actually a kind of replicating - you are disintegrated the first time you do it, thereafter it's just copies of copies of copies. They might think they're you, but they're really not. :?
alex_greene
Guest
The problem with psi, I think, is that - like the MacGuffins of hard sf which allow it to exist such as FTL and grav - you can't explain how they do it.Vile said:
Psi, to me, is the semi-controlled replication of Fortean phenomena. Psis know that they can bilocate, teleport, project, read minds, remote view a distant location, place themselves in suspended animation or magnetically attract spoons to stick to them (clean spoons, clean dry skin) - they just can't explain how they can do it.
And FTL / grav / mesons are, in their way, also Fortean in that while the characters may take them for granted, and Engineers might work miracles with the Jump drive, even those who use them and rely upon them couldn't even begin to guess at the mathematics and the physics behind it. They just know that it works, and they work with that knowledge.
Not in the 'matter here.. now there' sense of the word (like used in the context of psionics). This scientific use of the word 'teleportating' is in reference to 'information' - matter was not removed from one location and instantly recreated in another, as in the popular use of the term.Vile said:
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Quantum Tunneling is a form of subatomic teleportation. Electrons and other small subatomic particles seem to disappear from one location and appear in another instantaneously.
alex_greene
Guest
The word "teleportation" was coined by Charles Hoy Fort, referring to the phenomenon whereby men, objects, vehicles and even vessels would just simply vanish from one place, and turn up somewhere else apparently without having traversed the intervening distance. Sometimes a teleport would seemingly send someone to another time. There was no way of knowing.
To answer questions such as "How did they do that?" and "How did they learn to do that reliably?" you start having to ask questions such as "What is the difference between the particles of matter inside a living, breathing, talking person and the same person, only dead?" and "Why do we have to eat living matter to live? Why can't we eat rocks or draw energy directly from the sun like plants do?"
And that takes most of the hardcore Traveller fans away from the tangible world of high level mathematics - yes, irony, try not to faint - and physics and into disciplines such as semiotics or even down some esoteric, little-traversed side path of quantum physics with a sign reading "HERE LIES MADNESS" in large, friendly Comic Sans lettering at the front door.
To answer questions such as "How did they do that?" and "How did they learn to do that reliably?" you start having to ask questions such as "What is the difference between the particles of matter inside a living, breathing, talking person and the same person, only dead?" and "Why do we have to eat living matter to live? Why can't we eat rocks or draw energy directly from the sun like plants do?"
And that takes most of the hardcore Traveller fans away from the tangible world of high level mathematics - yes, irony, try not to faint - and physics and into disciplines such as semiotics or even down some esoteric, little-traversed side path of quantum physics with a sign reading "HERE LIES MADNESS" in large, friendly Comic Sans lettering at the front door.
rust said:
I never could swallow the cryo-low berth concept for bio reasons. I did run into one Trav ref that does comply though. It is grav induced suspension. The immobilization of motion at the atomic level. From the human viewpoint, it would be suspension of time...
Something to ponder...
far-trader
Mongoose
DFW said:
Sounds like the Challenge(?) article for MT (iirc, fuzzy mind at the moment
). Part of or with an equally good treatment on diseases I think.Agreed, it was quite good. I adopted it immediately with open arms.
You had the low tech Chill(?) Berths (freeze/thaw and chemicals etc., not without hazards) with CT low survival rates. Just the thing for low tech, cost conscious, Free-Traders :twisted:
Or you went with the high tech Cold(?) Berths (gravisonic rapid stasis at molecular or smaller level under computer control) with much better (all but guaranteed iirc) survival rates. Enough so that (also part of the article iirc) they spawned Timer Clubs. Groups who pooled resources to use Cold Berths to travel into the future, decades or even centuries. To reap the rewards of investments or just in the hopes of finding more interesting times.
I'll have to see if I can hunt up the article to provide the specific source...
...and in the meantime, I'm not sure I get your issues with hibernation berths though rust?
You say it's because of your area of expertise. Can you elaborate a little please? I thought there was some credible research not too many years ago? (Japanese?) Where "not too many" could be between 10 or 20 with an error of 5 or 10
Of course I've also not heard anything since which in its own way speaks volumes about the optimism of their claims* 
* or, for the conspiracy minded, their success
alex_greene
Guest
So, apart from the blunt and somewhat unproductive answers "We don't," and "No superheroes," and "Psi doesn't exist" ... how does anybody else run psions in their campaigns? As NPCs only, dark and mysterious with inscrutable motives and scheming ambitions? Or as troubled, tragic romantic characters, confused to heavy alcoholism by the visions in their heads which they cannot control? (imagine River Tam at age 24, reduced to a bar hopping lush early in her life by the things she has seen in other people's heads, and I can't imagine anybody telling her she's had enough to drink tonight ...)
Do you run them as psychotic freaks, creepy gurus, serene swamis, outwardly charming but secretly terrified charlatans who only occasionally glimpse a taste of true psi ability due to a latent, infrequently - triggered untested psi potential, or as cool, detached mental giants striding unconcerned across the universe, and the interior of people's minds, leaving large heavy footprints in their wake?
Do you run them as psychotic freaks, creepy gurus, serene swamis, outwardly charming but secretly terrified charlatans who only occasionally glimpse a taste of true psi ability due to a latent, infrequently - triggered untested psi potential, or as cool, detached mental giants striding unconcerned across the universe, and the interior of people's minds, leaving large heavy footprints in their wake?
In Traveller's original concept, lowering the body temperature to belowfar-trader said:
zero, the water in the body's cells would freeze and turn into ice crystals,
which would rupture the cell walls. To give an example of the effect, the
Inuit "cook" meat by freezing it, it breaks up the cell walls and makes the
meat edible, just as roasting the meat does.
But the basic flaw was a misunderstanding of hibernation. Hibernating
animals do not sleep during the entire hibernation period, they wake up,
move around a bit to prevent muscle atrophy (the body reduces muscles
which are not used), eat (which is why hamsters, squirrels and thelike
gather food for the hibernation period), and go to the toilet. Bears even
get their young ones during their hibernation period. So, the activity is
much reduced, but it is still there.
Humans are a special case, their big brains need a lot of energy and oxy-
gen to work. If the metabolism is slowed down beneath a certain level,
and not enough nutrients and oxygen reach the brain cells, the result is
first massive brain damage, and then death. Therefore the heart has to
beat a certain minimum number of times per hour, and the lungs have
to breath a minimum number of times per hour, or the person will die.
Therefore it would make a lot more sense to keep the body warm, feed
it easily digestible highly nutrient food and lead it to the toilet about once
per day to prevent muscle atrophy. If a reduced mental state is deemed
necessary, drugs could do that.
As for the "freezing" experiments, there have been many, with a peak
around ca. 2007, but all have ended in failures, usually with perceived
success in the beginning and the discovery of serious brain damage la-
ter on (the "zombie dogs" were a famous case). Even if it should turn out
some day that it can be done, which I seriously doubt, it would require
a lot more than just to put the body into a freezer, and the treatment to
prepare the body for the freeze (exchange all blood for another, non-
freeze liquid, etc.) would be dangerous as well as very expensive.
alex_greene
Guest
Sometimes to sleep, too. Sometimes they have to wake up just to get in some normal sleep for a bit and clear out fatigue poisons.rust said:
Now we can get the subject back on track and talk about telepaths and psions, or if you wish, please create a new thread to discuss the topic of cryo sleep and take it there.
Thank you.
far-trader said:Sounds like the Challenge(?) article for MT (iirc, fuzzy mind at the moment
I was hoping you'd chime in. I wish I could remember. Your description sounds like what I read. I'm going to search on line and see if I can narrow down.
alex_greene
Guest
Rust, you genius. I have been looking up SF book titles to recommend for the next meeting of my local SF reading club, and the theme is Psi powers. You just reminded me of this book in my library. Thank you.rust said:
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
rust said:
But if the new object is identical to the old object, because it has identical Information, then how is that different than teleportation?
