Most plausible Psionic powers?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by kdtipa

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.

It gives an idea of how much work is needed to backlog the ability into a given setting if it is desired.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by brianfb

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. ...

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?

[ericthered]

There are two measures of 'realistic'

The first is 'which violates observed physics least'

The second is 'which is in greatest conflict with observation so far'

The difference is the degree of surety you place on known physics. Seeing the future, for example, is one of those things that violates observed physics the most while violating human observation the least.

[Flyndaran]

Which impossibility is more impossible than another impossibility sounds impossibly subjective.
We need some parameters to confine the question into a workable format.

For a modern setting, you all but need a global Illuminati level conspiracy hiding all evidence of a not insignificant aspect of basic reality.

I suppose one could go with internal spooky powers versus external macroscopic abilities.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by ericthered

There are two measures of 'realistic'

The first is 'which violates observed physics least'
...

What does that even mean though? Either something violates physics or it doesn't. The only differences are in our ability to understand the how. As in creating matter out of thin air is obviously impossible even to children, while getting why teleportation is as well requires a bit more education.

[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.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

What does that even mean though? Either something violates physics or it doesn't. The only differences are in our ability to understand the how. As in creating matter out of thin air is obviously impossible even to children, while getting why teleportation is as well requires a bit more education.

The difference is in how highly we rate our ability to understand the how. Or rather, how sure we are of the extrapolations we call science. And yes, I freely confess that from a scientific view, the list that uses science as its primary measuring stick does a lot better.

But if you ask from the point of view where you ask what could be happening without science noticing, you get a different list. This list is most likely based on 'hardest to prove', and 'most subtle and believable' rather than 'most in harmony with predictions of science'.

[Flyndaran]

God of the gaps is no less silly for magic as it is for literal gods. It requires the supernatural to not only have physics breaking powers, but that they are insanely effective at hiding it all.

Your theme seems to still fall down to what seems kind of possible to average adults rather than children. Adding new forces seems more possible than creating matter out of thin air, but it isn't really.
Which is why I think a good parameter is education/knowledge required to define powers as impossible rather than merely unproven.

[Minuteman37]

I suppose more information is do.

This is for a setting where a hyper advanced (like TL13) interstellar civilization in the far far far future broke down do to a cataclysmic event. Now for this setting I'd like to present some Psi abilities that are present in people do to radical biological engineering that's occurred in the thousands of years this civilization was in it's Golden Age. So I guess in the end I'm looking for psi powers that are just impossible for humans to do for biological reasons like lacking the "hardware" so to speak. Not powers that the action of usage regardless of who or what the subject is are impossible do to physics based reasons.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by ericthered

The difference is in how highly we rate our ability to understand the how. Or rather, how sure we are of the extrapolations we call science. And yes, I freely confess that from a scientific view, the list that uses science as its primary measuring stick does a lot better.

But if you ask from the point of view where you ask what could be happening without science noticing, you get a different list. This list is most likely based on 'hardest to prove', and 'most subtle and believable' rather than 'most in harmony with predictions of science'.

I don't think science should be the primary measuring stick. I think "what the readers will take" should be. Or perhaps "what is plausible in-setting."