Most plausible Psionic powers?

[brianfb]

Originally Posted by robkelk

Why?

I know that there are some settings where this makes sense, but it appears to me to be in direct contradiction to the OP's question. Could you enlighten me how it isn't, please?

I was more replying to an unproductive post about how psi is impossible. I was merely stating that a certain level of the suspension if disbelief is required for an RPG that uses psychic abilities, much the same as one that uses fireballs, Orcs, or FTL drives.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Still there *are* degrees. An obvious first cut is does it require more energy than a human metabolism (more than about 100 W)?

It's not difficult for a moderately trained athlete to generate 150 W, and there are videos of a computer architect giving a presentation while riding a stationary bike attached to a generator powering 150 W of computers. It looks like maximum peak output is closer to 2 kW and sustained output can reach 400-500 W for an hour or more.

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.

[AlexanderHowl]

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'.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Still there *are* degrees. An obvious first cut is does it require more energy than a human metabolism (more than about 100 W)? Those are clearly more impossible than something that you could theoretically have the energy for, and eliminates much of the flashy stuff.

No, it doesn't. All it does is eliminate a particular mechanism to underlie such effects, i.e. that they derive from the chemical energy consumed by the person controlling/directing them. Other mechanisms might not suffer from that limitation.

That may sound like nit-picking, but it's not. If we don't recognize that distinction, we risk falling into the same trap as the old assertion that the Sun could not be billions of years old because no plausible chemical reaction could power it that long. Which made perfect sense in terms of Daltonian atomic theory, but was still erroneous.

[joshualevy]

I think that comment #13 was on the right track.

Rather than measure level of implausibility via physics, measure level of published support. For example, remote viewing (as measured by Targ et al at SRI) got some papers published in "real" journals, so that would be quite plausible. You could easily rate Psionics based on how many papers were published in how main-stream a journal.

Let me add an expansion: that stuff published is science journals is most plausible, stuff published in the New York Times is next most plausible, regular newspapers less plausible, and the national enquirer least plausible. And roll from there.....

Joshua Levy

[Minuteman37]

I'd say the ability to "sense" someones presence without the usage of your know senses would rank pretty high up there.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by joshualevy

You could easily rate Psionics based on how many papers were published in how main-stream a journal.

Let me add an expansion: that stuff published is science journals is most plausible, stuff published in the New York Times is next most plausible, regular newspapers less plausible, and the national enquirer least plausible. And roll from there.....

Joshua Levy

Hoo boy...I honestly don't know if mentioning the current issues about reproducibility and the reliability of peer review in the various journals would add to the discussion or distract from it.

Suffice it to say that the idea that the NYT is more credible than any other paper is questionable, too. It depends on the subject, the reporter, and some other things too.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

That may sound like nit-picking, but it's not. If we don't recognize that distinction, we risk falling into the same trap as the old assertion that the Sun could not be billions of years old because no plausible chemical reaction could power it that long. Which made perfect sense in terms of Daltonian atomic theory, but was still erroneous.

The thing is, that observation is *correct* - the sun can't run on a chemical reaction and be billions of years old. In order for a psi power to do something that requires more energy than a human can generate, it has to tap an external source of power, at which point it's not a psi power, it's some other kind of power.

Of course it's possible to debate what a psi power is. In a sense I suppose the most plausible ones are the ones people actually have. I can for example unerringly lead you to trees likely to have pecans at certain times of the year, or stand in certain places and recite the words I've never heard that were spoken there by the long dead, or look at a pallet of girl scout cookies and divine exactly how many boxes of them there are for each of an arbitrary number of people. Yes I do those with memory of where they were last year, literacy and historical plaques, and mental multiplication and division, but still amazing exercises of psychic divinatory powers right?

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The thing is, that observation is *correct* - the sun can't run on a chemical reaction and be billions of years old. In order for a psi power to do something that requires more energy than a human can generate, it has to tap an external source of power, at which point it's not a psi power, it's some other kind of power.

is it? I'm no expert, but does psi specify that the energy comes from the person's body?

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The thing is, that observation is *correct* - the sun can't run on a chemical reaction and be billions of years old.

That wasn't the claim made, though. The bad argument was that the geological evidence for prehistoric biotic time scales in the hundreds or thousands of megayears had to be wrong, because no energy source existed that could energize the Sun for so long. The people making the error made it pretty confidently, too.

In order for a psi power to do something that requires more energy than a human can generate, it has to tap an external source of power, at which point it's not a psi power, it's some other kind of power.

Meaningless. That's like saying that if a car has a power source other than gasoline, it's not a car.