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Old 08-29-2014, 04:59 AM   #1
vicky_molokh
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Default New Inventions: just-around-the-corner breakthroughs in Psychology (and similar)?

Greetings, all!

So, Psychology (capitalised) walked a long way from TL0 mix of lore and superstition with its exorcism of angry mind-spirits to a TL8 science with techniques and drugs that actually do allow fixing derangements and doing other stuff (when done properly, anyway). It went even further up to TL10, with inventions such as harnessing the intuitive capabilities of the local subconscious (TM134, 136), ability to edit individual mental traits of people (TS166, TS136 and 144), efficient unconscious education (FW34) and genuinely efficient edutainment (FW35) etc.

But Transhuman Space is a world of rapid invention. So the question is, what sort of inventions along the lines of Psychology and its related fields are just-behind-the-corner, ready to be the next big thing accessed through a New Invention. I'm talking both TL10 stuff that hasn't been invented yet, and early-TL11 stuff that can become yet another of the first heralds of TL11 that keep popping up in 2100?

Thanks in advance!
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Old 08-29-2014, 07:46 AM   #2
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Default Re: New Inventions: just-around-the-corner breakthroughs in Psychology (and similar)?

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
Greetings, all!

So, Psychology (capitalised) walked a long way from TL0 mix of lore and superstition with its exorcism of angry mind-spirits to a TL8 science with techniques and drugs that actually do allow fixing derangements and doing other stuff (when done properly, anyway).!
TL8 Pharmacy(Synthetic) and Physiology (Neural) can provide Mitigators for some things for some of then population that needs them. They don't actually "fix" anything.

Psychology as the scientific study of the human mind may not actually contribute that much right now. What works (sometimes) may be more the domain of that neurophysiology and related medical sciences.

A vastly improved State Of The Art is assumed in TS but what it can or should be able to do is largely unrelated to current practices.

Other than "turn to the later TLs of Bio-tech and UT" to get game mechanical answers I haven't got anything for you. I just wanted to get in my 2 cents on what I thought were mistaken beliefs about the current SOTA.
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Old 08-29-2014, 09:12 AM   #3
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Default Re: New Inventions: just-around-the-corner breakthroughs in Psychology (and similar)?

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Other than "turn to the later TLs of Bio-tech and UT" to get game mechanical answers I haven't got anything for you. I just wanted to get in my 2 cents on what I thought were mistaken beliefs about the current SOTA.
Ditto; most improvements in the treatment of "mental illness" are the identification of what are in fact organic disorders that impact behavior without more overt physical symptoms, schizophrenia and depression among them.

Psychological injury, and the behaviors resulting from unsuccessful or imperfect coping attempts, that's much less tractable,.
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Old 08-29-2014, 11:49 AM   #4
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Default Re: New Inventions: just-around-the-corner breakthroughs in Psychology (and similar)?

The "hardest" part right is making someone realize they have a problem and should change for their own benefit.

It's not depression; it's that my life sucks or I feel physical pain and everyone keeps calling me "crazy".
It's not bipolar disorder; it's depression, and my rare happy moods are normal.
It's not abuse; she/he loves me, and every relationship has problems.

Some "magical" method of getting people to see their lives in an unbiased manner would help so many people.
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Old 08-29-2014, 10:31 PM   #5
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Default Re: New Inventions: just-around-the-corner breakthroughs in Psychology (and similar)?

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The "hardest" part right is making someone realize they have a problem and should change for their own benefit.

It's not depression; it's that my life sucks or I feel physical pain and everyone keeps calling me "crazy".
It's not bipolar disorder; it's depression, and my rare happy moods are normal.
It's not abuse; she/he loves me, and every relationship has problems.

Some "magical" method of getting people to see their lives in an unbiased manner would help so many people.
Personally, I worry about a society where these 'ills' can be cured. I have/am schizotypal PD. It's considered a disorder, and I've suffered more than a bit from it. It's not the kind of thing you would wish on your children....but I'm not at all sure that removing it from society would be a good thing. People who think differently are important to the development of a society, and unfortunately, that often involves personal suffering. If you cure all mental illness, there's no Van Gogh. For my part, I have no interest at all in being 'cured'. Despite a lifetime of loneliness (primary trait of schizotypal PD is the inability to form relationships) that lead to a failed suicide attempt years back, I wouldn't change.

It seems to me (and to Confucius) that as technology develops, the degree of individuality permitted by a society increases. Many people on this forum would have been considered dangerously unstable and anti-social in previous eras, but now we're part of the mix. If you accept dual inheritance theory, that humans evolve culturally through memetic exchange, people like me play a vital role - we produce mutated memes for lateral exchange. Most of them are inviable, of course, but crazy and creative are closely linked. In THS, you see a society of maximized individuality, so I'm thinking there's a helluva lot more room for crazy.

Also, y'all are kind of ignoring the whole hedonist imperative of transhumanism. There's a whole school of TH thought based around altering one's neurochemisitry to end suffering. A pill for getting up, a pill for work, a pill for coming home and a extra one for weekend - screw that, let's get a MDMA gland! Coffee plants gene-fixed to make modafinil. A high tech society that has normalized hallucinogen use would be VERY odd. Expect religious revivals for one thing. This is a world were New New Coke is real coke, where you can go on a heroin binge, write some Old Romantic poetry, dose yourself of Nu-Bogaine (TM) and never be addicted. Solving addiction itself would drastically alter society. Ibogaine been around for decades, with dozens of scientific studies and it's still utterly illegal in the US.
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Old 08-31-2014, 10:46 AM   #6
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Default Re: New Inventions: just-around-the-corner breakthroughs in Psychology (and similar)?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
TL8 Pharmacy(Synthetic) and Physiology (Neural) can provide Mitigators for some things for some of then population that needs them. They don't actually "fix" anything.

Psychology as the scientific study of the human mind may not actually contribute that much right now. What works (sometimes) may be more the domain of that neurophysiology and related medical sciences.

A vastly improved State Of The Art is assumed in TS but what it can or should be able to do is largely unrelated to current practices.

Other than "turn to the later TLs of Bio-tech and UT" to get game mechanical answers I haven't got anything for you. I just wanted to get in my 2 cents on what I thought were mistaken beliefs about the current SOTA.
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Originally Posted by jeff_wilson View Post
Ditto; most improvements in the treatment of "mental illness" are the identification of what are in fact organic disorders that impact behavior without more overt physical symptoms, schizophrenia and depression among them.

Psychological injury, and the behaviors resulting from unsuccessful or imperfect coping attempts, that's much less tractable,.
I thought that documented capability to grant patients the ability to buy off Phobias dates at least to TL6, and was done through Psychological Techniques alone. Wasn't there also some (partial) breakthrough in treatment of PTSD and other attained derangements?

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
The "hardest" part right is making someone realize they have a problem and should change for their own benefit.

It's not depression; it's that my life sucks or I feel physical pain and everyone keeps calling me "crazy".
It's not bipolar disorder; it's depression, and my rare happy moods are normal.
It's not abuse; she/he loves me, and every relationship has problems.

Some "magical" method of getting people to see their lives in an unbiased manner would help so many people.
That's . . . actually quite impressive.
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Old 08-31-2014, 11:27 AM   #7
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Default Re: New Inventions: just-around-the-corner breakthroughs in Psychology (and similar)?

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
I thought that documented capability to grant patients the ability to buy off Phobias dates at least to TL6, and was done through Psychological Techniques alone. Wasn't there also some (partial) breakthrough in treatment of PTSD and other attained derangements?

That's . . . actually quite impressive.
I think just giving a label to your problems can help. Confusion and inability to articulate your suffering leads to increased suffering and isolation.

Social phobia and generalized anxiety disorder is so much easier to explain to oneself than vague terms like crippling shyness or how even good excitement can lead to hell.
Dealing with that inner voice with psychological techniques should be possible at real world TL 6 or any time with proper types of culture.
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Old 08-31-2014, 11:42 AM   #8
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Default Re: New Inventions: just-around-the-corner breakthroughs in Psychology (and similar)?

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
I thought that documented capability to grant patients the ability to buy off Phobias dates at least to TL6, and was done through Psychological Techniques alone. Wasn't there also some (partial) breakthrough in treatment of PTSD and other attained derangements?
.
If you mean things like hypnotherapy for phobias that tends to be more "anecdotal" than "documented".

Frequently for therapists working with a "black box" they don't even have initial diagnoses that would pass a rigorous scientific standard. Then once you're in the fix of not knowing how was sick with what and how bad you have lots of trouble measuring success of therapy v. letting the patient try to recover on their own.

To Gurpsify things you could be looking at "Roll v. Will every 6 months at a penalty equal to x to recover. Treatment with Psychology-12 gives a bonus of y." and we can't tell what the values of x and y should be or even if 6 months is about right.

It's very hard to tell when things that can't be quantified are scientific.
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Old 09-01-2014, 12:06 AM   #9
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Default Re: New Inventions: just-around-the-corner breakthroughs in Psychology (and similar)?

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
I thought that documented capability to grant patients the ability to buy off Phobias dates at least to TL6, and was done through Psychological Techniques alone. Wasn't there also some (partial) breakthrough in treatment of PTSD and other attained derangements?
If the subject retains the agency and will to seek treatment, desensitization and such can work, but that's a big if, and sometimes they don't.
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Old 09-01-2014, 01:36 AM   #10
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If the subject retains the agency and will to seek treatment, desensitization and such can work, but that's a big if, and sometimes they don't.
The source of the phobias must have a huge effect on optimal treatment type and success rate.
Mine are biological not trauma or experience created, so desensitization is not very effective. I still try if only to keep from getting worse.

Also social phobias are tricky as every exposure is radically different. Not like how all spiders are pretty much spiders and unlikely to perform truly unexpected fear inducing behaviors.
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