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Old 05-04-2012, 09:14 PM   #121
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Definition of Sapience - IQ6+ and other stuff

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Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
No, it's the same thing as arguing "Well, babies are just non-sapient animals until they're 3-18 months of age, so we can eat them."

...".
That has nothing what so ever to do with what I wrote. One does not eat human children, because they are the offspring of humans. They aren't sapient, but as I wrote many times before, sapience isn't really important to people any where near as much as "they" say.
Besides, that topic gets dangerously close to the abortion debate. When is a human bundle of cells a person?
Let's stick to what is sapience, please.
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Old 05-04-2012, 09:22 PM   #122
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
...

However, there is some validity to saying that this rule could better spell out that GURPS assesses sentience and sapience on what it calls a "racial" basis. The definitions definitely should (but don't) say that they apply to racial-average IQ, not to individual IQ. Granted, a funky robot or a weird demon may be a "race" of one, but the point is that the world's smartest shark belongs to a race with racial-average IQ 2, while the world's dumbest human belongs to a race with racial-average IQ 10, and the former isn't sapient, game-mechanically, while the latter is . . . even if both individuals have, say, IQ 5.
That is really wrong. Gurps doesn't give advantages out for free. If IQ 5 profoundly retarded human can do or have things that an IQ monkey cannot, then he would have to pay for that ill defined advantage.
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Old 05-04-2012, 09:26 PM   #123
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Gurps doesn't give advantages out for free.
It gives features out for free. In this case Native Language Native/Native [0] and Can use Tools [0].
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Old 05-04-2012, 09:40 PM   #124
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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It gives features out for free. In this case Native Language Native/Native [0] and Can use Tools [0].
Those are features. But not having a native language would give points back for the sapient one only. That's unbalanced.
It effectively functions as a MASSIVE negative Talent for the non-sapient.
I would rather lump anything IQ6 as sapient, and those with less not, for simplicity's sake.
A profoundly retarded human with IQ5 isn't sapient. But if they were my child, I wouldn't give a damn. I would love and care for them just as I would an IQ 13 child. My best friend may qualify for IQ 8, but she is a better person than many posters.
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Old 05-04-2012, 09:42 PM   #125
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
A profoundly retarded human with IQ5 isn't sapient.
So it's not possible for that person to talk or use tools?
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Old 05-04-2012, 09:58 PM   #126
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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Originally Posted by Curmudgeon View Post
If by Space Monkey, you mean the monkey, actually I think it was monkeys, that were used in early rocket shots, they didn't actually fly the rocket as I understand it. They were pretty much limited to wear a spacesuit and be trained not to touch the controls. They were a test for proof of concept that humans could actually survive being shot into space and orbiting the earth at breakneck speed.
Perhaps not too surprisingly, there were a number of people who didn't think man could survive a spaceshot.
I got more curious and had to go look this up on Wikipedia. There were indeed monkeys (and dogs?) but I seem to have used the wrong name. I had heard of "Space Monkey" but apparently the particular chimpanzee I was thinking of is referred to instead as Ham the Astrochimp. And from Wikipedia it appears that he did not contribute anything particular to flying the thing, so I was mistaken.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Those are features. But not having a native language would give points back for the sapient one only. That's unbalanced.
It effectively functions as a MASSIVE negative Talent for the non-sapient.
Any animal that can't talk on account of being non-sapient gets Mute (Cannot Speak), and things like Innumerate and Non-Iconographic, so it isn't really unbalanced.
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Old 05-04-2012, 09:59 PM   #127
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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So it's not possible for that person to talk or use tools?
Not anymore than any other IQ5 animal. If they can, then they aren't IQ 5. Anyone slower to learn than a smart dog or average monkey is not magically sapient just for being human.
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Old 05-04-2012, 10:04 PM   #128
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Not anymore than any other IQ5 animal. If they can, then they aren't IQ 5. Anyone slower to learn than a smart dog or average monkey is not magically sapient just for being human.
In which case they get Cannot Speak and so on. That doesn't mean that humans aren't sapient.
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Old 05-14-2012, 10:10 AM   #129
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Those are features. But not having a native language would give points back for the sapient one only. That's unbalanced.
How so? You only get points back for lacking a racially normal trait that is worth points.
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Old 05-14-2012, 10:24 AM   #130
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
That is really wrong. Gurps doesn't give advantages out for free. If IQ 5 profoundly retarded human can do or have things that an IQ monkey cannot, then he would have to pay for that ill defined advantage.
"Feature: Sapient [0]" as given by the "Racial Template: Human [0]" package.
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