Tinkering with Ultratech Super Science

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It should just be TL^. Given a sufficiently large data set machine translation is TL 8-9, doing it without that dataset is magic.

Everything is TL ^, that's the point. However the mental translator isn't just machine translation. It reads everyone's mind for the meaning of the words they say and projects the meaning of the words into everyone else's mind. Data sets are irrelevant.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It should just be TL^. Given a sufficiently large data set machine translation is TL 8-9, doing it without that dataset is magic.

For both Star Trek and Dr Who it's reasonably likely there [is] that large data set. It's certainly trivial for time travelers to collect one. And Star Trek is set in a region with a continuous history interacting spacefaring species that could easily be passing around tens of thousands of years worth of linguistic data from every world in the quadrant.

It maybe made less sense in TOS, but with what's been established since, and given all the different kinds of secret aliens shown to have been visiting/slave raiding/culture preserving Earth without leaving much in the way of evidence, and all the other worlds there's somebody there at the same time as, or historically verified to have been there before the Federation, I'm pretty confident [somebody] has some sort of contact that could collect data on the major languages of everything inhabited often enough to maintain some sort of continuity. You only need one speaker every few centuries, and trading data isn't hard. Even the NX01 seems to be able to load the libraries of entire civilizations in a few minutes. Ships may very well swap, compare and update their entire language databases of a billion tongues by millennia old conventions every time they "open hailing frequencies".

For the smokables, well. "Aw, man, that's not what you heard him say? Hey Moonflower pass me the peace pipe, the Security Chief here needs another toke."

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by malloyd

For both Star Trek and Dr Who it's reasonably likely there [is] that large data set.

Real-time continuous translation, given an appropriate database, is current to near-future, depending how good you want it to be, so not much above TL 9. The magic part is when you run into a previously unknown society and are instantly able to communicate.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Real-time continuous translation, given an appropriate database, is current to near-future, depending how good you want it to be, so not much above TL 9. The magic part is when you run into a previously unknown society and are instantly able to communicate.

There's also the bit where those you're communicating with somehow fail to notice you're actually speaking another language that they can somehow understand, or if you're using some fancy tech to replace the sound of your voice with the translation that your mouth's movements don't match what you're saying (as in a dubbed movie). I've seen at least a few Star Trek episodes that relied on that aspect, with the characters relying on their translators to blend in.

[David Johnston2]

Another variant on the mental translator would be the biotech approach, a subsapient telepathic animal bred to automatically translate speech for the minds of other people close to it. Speaking of which the question of whether mental translators would work for people with active mental shields is worth considering

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

the biotech approach, a subsapient telepathic animal bred to automatically translate speech for the minds of other people close to it.

Naturally, they work best when located close to the user's brain, most commonly inserted into the ear canal.

It is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that something so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Another variant on the mental translator would be the biotech approach, a subsapient telepathic animal bred to automatically translate speech for the minds of other people close to it. Speaking of which the question of whether mental translators would work for people with active mental shields is worth considering

In Brandon Sanderson's novella Sixth of the Dusk, the narrative focuses on an archipelago filled with animals that have some degree of psionic ability - one thing that makes it particularly dangerous is that most of the apex predators hunt via a sense that lets them detect minds. The primary "magic" that appears to be in use in the setting actually revolves around capturing birds from the archipelago, as they can be readily domesticated and each breed has a useful ability (but their offspring do not unless they grow up on the archipelago). The most commonly used by the caretakers of the archipelago are ones that project a mind shield within a certain radius (making anything in that radius invisible to the mind-sense of the apex predators); the main character also keeps one perched on his shoulder that will project visions of his (or anyone else in its short range) imminent death, which he uses to avoid such fates. I could absolutely see there being a breed that serves as a translator.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

It is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that something so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

I think you may have their conclusion backwards, there. Highly-improbable-but-fortuitous happenings are generally more likely to be used as evidence in favor of a creator intelligence than as evidence against the same.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I think you may have their conclusion backwards, there. Highly-improbable-but-fortuitous happenings are generally more likely to be used as evidence in favor of a creator intelligence than as evidence against the same.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was a quirky book.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The magic part is when you run into a previously unknown society and are instantly able to communicate.

Sure if one of the parties are unknown to everyone and always have been. Otherwise, well, as long as both of you can translate your own languages into some other language you both know, you can establish communication. The fact that shared language is that of a species from the other side of the galaxy neither of you have met because it went extinct millions of years ago and it has been passed to you through different non-overlapping strings of other spacefaring cultures doesn't particularly matter as long as all the translation steps are good.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Sure if one of the parties are unknown to everyone and always have been. Otherwise, well, as long as both of you can translate your own languages into some other language you both know, you can establish communication. The fact that shared language is that of a species from the other side of the galaxy neither of you have met because it went extinct millions of years ago and it has been passed to you through different non-overlapping strings of other spacefaring cultures doesn't particularly matter as long as all the translation steps are good.

That would require no race to invent their language ex nihilo. Even then the ability to project the meanings into people's minds seamlessly would still be "magic". There is actually a version of the translator which just draws on a big database, and repeats everything in the other speakers language just a cyberneticized version of what a human translator does and thus avoids being superscience. Of course if you add a brain implant to the mix you can create the illusion of something closer to the mental translator. Wouldn't work very well with anyone who didn't have such an implant though.