03-07-2016, 12:12 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Kenai, Alaska
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Most plausible Psionic powers?
So would it be possible to arrange psi powers into classes based on their plausibility and work ability under current physics?
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03-07-2016, 12:57 AM | #2 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Most plausible Psionic powers?
Not usefully. The categories are something like "thoroughly implausible" and "extremely implausible."
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03-07-2016, 01:15 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Melbourne, Australia (also known as zone Brisbane)
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Re: Most plausible Psionic powers?
The technology already exists for humans to give machines mental commands. It isn't much of a stretch to imagine that same technology being developed further to provide the equivalent of psi powers at least in terms of functionality.
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03-07-2016, 01:56 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Melbourne, Australia (also known as zone Brisbane)
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Re: Most plausible Psionic powers?
Another point that may be worth mentioning is that whilst science is a powerful tool for acquiring knowledge there is still much about the universe and ourselves we don't understand.
The mind-body problem is an example: how does something nebulous like a thought translate into a physical action like picking up an object? We assume that the mind can control the body because it is part of the same physical system and everything else, that we don't seem to be able to control, is not part of that system. But what if that assumption is wrong? What if the entire universe was one interconnected system in a real physical sense? Not in a Deepak Chopra mumbo-jumbo pseudo-science kind of way. If that were true you might be able to manipulate anything just by thinking about it in the right kind of way. Hello psi powers! If that's how the universe works then I would only rule out psi powers that blatantly break well established physics. For instance teleportation unless the actual travel is limited to the speed of light. As what happens when scientists teleport elementary particles in a laboratory. Last edited by Boomerang; 03-07-2016 at 02:06 AM. |
03-07-2016, 08:51 AM | #5 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: Most plausible Psionic powers?
Quote:
Probably the most plausible psi powers are the limited "ESP" kind - the ones that you could make a case are processing of information your senses could be gathering but humans just don't interpret - Empathy (smell based), or Dark Vision based on echolocation, or Clairaudience (only when you can directly see the noise source), followed by the ones that let you do things to your own body that it does normally do, but faster or better or longer - things like reacting faster (Combat Reflexes), stopping bleeding, purging poisons or diseases, surviving a hour in freezing water, not breathing for minutes at a time, or doubling your ST for a single action.
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03-07-2016, 08:59 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Southern New Hampshire
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Re: Most plausible Psionic powers?
I'm curious about why we'd group them by plausibility. What's the goal in GURPS? Is this for a campaign setting? And if we're talking about the real world... none of the psionic abilities is plausible... because they don't exist and there are no known mechanisms that would support them as defined.
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03-07-2016, 09:00 AM | #7 |
Join Date: Feb 2010
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Re: Most plausible Psionic powers?
If your going to allow psi powers of any kind, including IMO dange sense, you have to accept that in your setting psychic abilities are real, but not yet understood (possibly because of the taboo stigma on seriously studying them) by science. From there it really depends on how far you are willing to run wit lh that.
I woukd allow things like: Danger sense, empathy, precognitin, psychometry, etc. I would not allow things that affect physical objects grossly such as tk, or pretty anything ending in kenesis.
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03-07-2016, 09:01 AM | #8 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Dobbstown Sane Asylum
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Re: Most plausible Psionic powers?
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Definitely exists: Anti-Psi, Astral Projection, ESP, Probability Alteration ("micropsychokinesis"). Probably exists: Psychic Healing, Psychic Vampirism, weak Ergokinesis or Psychokinesis Might exist: Teleportation, strong Ergokinesis or Psychokinesis
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03-07-2016, 09:21 AM | #9 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Austin, TX
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Re: Most plausible Psionic powers?
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So that's a more generous margin, but any TK who lifts more than a championship bodybuilder is out of the "plausible" category, even if TK is plausible in the first place.
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03-07-2016, 10:21 AM | #10 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Most plausible Psionic powers?
Using the square of ST in W as sustained energy production (a ST 10 human being would produce 100 W, which would translate a 2,200 calorie diet). I would suggest that a realistic sustained psychic power could not use more energy than ten percent of the sustained energy production (10 W for a ST 10 human). In general, that would limit 'realistic' psychic powers to Animal Telepathy, Anti-Psi, Astral Projection, Dream Control, ESP, Probability Alteration, and Telepathy. I think that Biokinesis, Ergokinesis, Psychic Healing, Psychic Vampirism, Psychokinesis, Psychometabolism, and Teleportation are not 'realistic'.
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