Most plausible Psionic powers?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by ericthered

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

Well it's not like there is a clear definition of the various kinds of magic. But when somebody makes a distinction it often is psi comes from you (and generally is accessible without tools) and external sources are different kinds depending on the source and/or required equipment.

[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.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by ericthered

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

GURPS certainly tends towards magic being the utilization of ambient mana energy, whereas things like psionics and ki comes from within.

It's also worth repeating (again) that there are two radically different undertandings of what psionics are.

One is the science fiction understanding, grounded fairly heavily in John W. Campbell's editorship of "Astounding" (who was a fan of early psionic research), where psionics are constrained to a fairly limited set of abilities, having to do with thoughts and the mental movement of objects, control of bodily function, and only in very rare cases the healing of others or teleportation.

The other is the one perpetuated by D&D, which is that psionics is just an alternative magic system to wizardly magic, and that it can potentially do anything, no constraints and thus no flavour.

Clearly the OP is using the first definition. As is GURPS in general.

[kdtipa]

Originally Posted by 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.

I think the moment you suggest super-science, all of the psi powers become possible enough to suspend disbelief. Telekinesis needing a power supply to explain the strength (I think I saw someone mention it) is an example of way you could modify the existing psi powers to make them more believable, but power cells at TL 13+ probably can manage it in the size of a B cell that lasts all day.

Telepathy can be the result of modified brain tissue that humans now just have to some degree. Basically radio (or some exotic EM type) could interact with some biological construct in the brain, and some people can control it now.

I think you can find an plausible explanation for any of it.

[Fred Brackin]

Let's se if we can generate some useful discussion on a different axis of improbability.

If the human brain is a computer it is a computer that grows its' own hardware and writes its' own software and is continuously modifying both. I'm running Fredsoft2016.0308 myself but I'll be updated to .0309 by tomorrow.

there must be a "kernel" for both "hardware" and "software" in the genes but it is almost certainly very basic.

consequent tot his is tat nay psi ability involving the interaction of two brains is more implausible than an ability that involves only one brain. also, as the complexity of interaction increases the implausibility goes up.

As examples Clairvoyance is more plausible than Empathy and Empathy is more plausible than verbal Telepathy.

As a tangent this same principle would apply to much cyberpunk stuff A computer wired into your nervous system could probably eventually learn to read what was going on but one with the necessary sophistication wouldn't have much use for your brain..

[smurf]

Originally Posted by PK

I discuss real-world belief in psi in GURPS Psionic Campaigns. From my studies, here's what "believer" paraphysicists and parapsychologists seem to think:

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

I done my background on:

ESP, Telephathy, and Psychokinesis

Really not nice stuff and should be avoided:

Teleportation, Psychic Vampirism and Psychic Healing

No no to:
Astral Projection.

[Boomerang]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Let's se if we can generate some useful discussion on a different axis of improbability.

If the human brain is a computer it is a computer that grows its' own hardware and writes its' own software and is continuously modifying both. I'm running Fredsoft2016.0308 myself but I'll be updated to .0309 by tomorrow.

there must be a "kernel" for both "hardware" and "software" in the genes but it is almost certainly very basic.

consequent tot his is tat nay psi ability involving the interaction of two brains is more implausible than an ability that involves only one brain. also, as the complexity of interaction increases the implausibility goes up.

As examples Clairvoyance is more plausible than Empathy and Empathy is more plausible than verbal Telepathy.

As a tangent this same principle would apply to much cyberpunk stuff A computer wired into your nervous system could probably eventually learn to read what was going on but one with the necessary sophistication wouldn't have much use for your brain..

You don't need to wait for cyberpunk, the technology already exists. The Wikipedia article on brain-computer interface is a good place to start if you want to learn about this.

[Boomerang]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Well it's not like there is a clear definition of the various kinds of magic. But when somebody makes a distinction it often is psi comes from you (and generally is accessible without tools) and external sources are different kinds depending on the source and/or required equipment.

Where does it say psi powers draw energy from within? Game mechanically it seems the opposite, most psi powers can be used without spending fatigue implying that the energy comes from somewhere else. In saying that, spells are powered by mana and yet do often cost fatigue so the issue is not clear cut in my opinion.

[starslayer]

Alright,

So were looking for things that could potentially be achieved by a TL13 society that would resemble psi powers.

1. Empathy (scent/sound based)- by carefully redoing the sectors of the brain that respond to pheremones and tiny warbles in voice in a way that allows the conscious part of the brain to understand what is being broadcast the person effectively gains empathy (in that they have an understanding of the subjects responses)

2. ESP (sense based)- if a powerful enough computer to run extremely accurate simulations of the immediate enviornment can be shrunk down enough to be inside a persons head it can happily calculate odds and discover things that SEEM like they must be the action of a psycic.

3. Danger sense - computer in head, checks over situation, sends warning faster then brain can actually formulate it.

4. Common Sense (reduced time + intuition)- that same computer can happily calculate presented data, figuring things like computer passwords, and who the murderer is based on presented data and probabilities

5. Modular abilities/Visualization - If the brain-computer can present an augmented reality interface that shows the user exactly how to move their hands to get a task done it would (again for all intents and purposes) allow these abilities.

6. Regeneration/healing/affliction-regeneration/regrowth/immunity to metabolic hazards/etc - Well engineered cells could present some of this, nanomachines inside the bloodstream could do other parts of this. Being able to transfer those nanomachines to others could provide healing.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by smurf

I done my background on:

ESP, Telephathy, and Psychokinesis

Really not nice stuff and should be avoided:

Teleportation, Psychic Vampirism and Psychic Healing

No no to:
Astral Projection.

I know 2 people who claim varying degrees of success in Astral Projection, although it postulates the existence of an astral plane, which is a much larger claim than of just psionics.