[alphamikefox]

Psychic powers simply do not exist in reality, and never will. That discussion is over. No technology or knowledge in the future will ever change that. It's pure fantasy, but since it was once part of sci-fi, it has somehow maintained its presence by "tradition".

Correction: human psychic powers do not exist in reality. This is not the same thing as psychic powers not existing in reality in other species of sentient creatures. The science that, as you say, has proven that human beings are incapable of using psychic powers have never been tested (to my knowledge) on alien lifeforms, which makes it entirely possible that an alien has the ability to use and manipulate such powers

If you are assuming that psychic powers do not exist at all, or a skeptical of the pseudoscience of parapsychology, that's fair, since as human beings are incapable of harnessing a theoretical power there's no way to substantiate it's existence, but certain aspects of parapsychology could be understood within the framework of science to be partially explained. For example: telekinesis could be the manipulation of gravity fields or a variation on magnetism, and while I don't know how it could be done, it's not inconceivable that a sentient lifeform could have evolved (or been genetically engineered) to manipulate forces in this kind of telekinetic way. Birds can supposedly "see" the earth's magnetic field already, that's a hop-skip-and-a-jump to manipulating magnetic fields...theoretically. Similarly with telepathy: the human brain produces electromagnetic waves that a sentient being could theoretically attune to and "read," with enough practice to interpret those signals as the thoughts that they contain. I could go on

tl;dr: just because it doesn't exist and you don't know how it could be done doesn't mean that it *can't* exist

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Correction: human psychic powers do not exist in reality. This is not the same thing as psychic powers not existing in reality in other species of sentient creatures. The science that, as you say, has proven that human beings are incapable of using psychic powers have never been tested (to my knowledge) on alien lifeforms, which makes it entirely possible that an alien has the ability to use and manipulate such powers

If you are assuming that psychic powers do not exist at all, or a skeptical of the pseudoscience of parapsychology, that's fair, since as human beings are incapable of harnessing a theoretical power there's no way to substantiate it's existence, but certain aspects of parapsychology could be understood within the framework of science to be partially explained. For example: telekinesis could be the manipulation of gravity fields or a variation on magnetism, and while I don't know how it could be done, it's not inconceivable that a sentient lifeform could have evolved (or been genetically engineered) to manipulate forces in this kind of telekinetic way. Birds can supposedly "see" the earth's magnetic field already, that's a hop-skip-and-a-jump to manipulating magnetic fields...theoretically. Similarly with telepathy: the human brain produces electromagnetic waves that a sentient being could theoretically attune to and "read," with enough practice to interpret those signals as the thoughts that they contain. I could go on

tl;dr: just because it doesn't exist and you don't know how it could be done doesn't mean that it *can't* exist

I'm all for psionics in science fiction, but I gotta say you're using a pretty tired "Well just because it seems impossible NOW doesn't mean it will always be impossible!" argument that I see got trotted out to defend all kinds of hogswash.

We can talk about radio telepathy all we want- it's not a "psychic power".

 

[TheAtreides84]

Except not. There is precisely ZERO statistical or empirical evidence to support even a single claim of the most minimal instance of any kind of psychic ability. While there is at least some very functional mathematics that indicate it may indeed be possible to exceed, bypass, or negate the limit of the speed of light.

Except not what? I didn't go into empirical evidence (nor I want to, because I honestly don't think you'll follow my advice of going through thousands of papers before we hold this conversation), I just said there is more empirical research going on in psi than in half the stuff that are in the game. This is a fact. Many university depts do or have at one point done research into parapsychology, a good amount of top scientists, including Nobel prizes, have dabbled in it, while I'm not aware of experiments going on about ringworld building or macro-scale teleportation or weaponized giant amoebas.

That discussion is over.

Funny thing, I remember a Daryl Bem paper about precognition published by Nature some years ago, sparking a big discussion. I also remember Rupert Sheldrake being invited at a TED talk and then boycotted, again sparking a figurative brawl. The discussion is far from over, psi papers are published by top journals every now and then, to strong and mixed reactions in the academia. You should really follow the thing before speaking about it. The discussion about, don't know, alchemy or the tolemaic model is over, that about parapsychology absolutely not.

 

[TheAtreides84]

If you are assuming that psychic powers do not exist at all, or a skeptical of the pseudoscience of parapsychology

Parapsychology is, by official recognition, not a pseudo-science. The Parapsychological Association is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, and so far any try to revoke this status has been rebuked. For the simple reason that real science *is not* about the claim being a-priori real (that would be divination), but about investigating it with sound protocols and professional integrity.

 

[alphamikefox]

I'm all for psionics in science fiction, but I gotta say you're using a pretty tired "Well just because it seems impossible NOW doesn't mean it will always be impossible!" argument that I see got trotted out to defend all kinds of hogswash.

Aren't we talking about science fiction? Aka the genre invented by writers who thought "Well just because it seems impossible NOW doesn't mean it will always be impossible!" You'll have to explain to me wherein the hogwash lies...

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Aren't we talking about science fiction? Aka the genre invented by writers who thought "Well just because it seems impossible NOW doesn't mean it will always be impossible!" You'll have to explain to me wherein the hogwash lies...

Sorry, we might be having two different arguments.

The first argument is that science fiction has room for the impossible- including psychic abilities. I agree with this.

The second is that psychic abilities actually could exist in some other species than humans. I disagree with this (because, as your own argument shows, any credible explanation for a "psychic phenomena" routed through Actual Science becomes Actual Science, not psychic ability; telepathy done through an organ capable of detecting radio/EM waves is no longer psychic telepathy, it's radio telepathy, etc...).

 

[alphamikefox]

The second is that psychic abilities actually could exist in some other species than humans. I disagree with this (because, as your own argument shows, any credible explanation for a "psychic phenomena" routed through Actual Science becomes Actual Science, not psychic ability; telepathy done through an organ capable of detecting radio/EM waves is no longer psychic telepathy, it's radio telepathy, etc...).

I can understand that, but it's semantics. Human beings had a plethora of names for scientific phenomena that they couldn't explain before they discovered the science behind it and named it something. Gravity wasn't called gravity before it was gravity. So if/when the scientific explanation and terminology is discovered to explain what psychic abilities are, they will be named something, but it will still be, and have been, the same thing. I don't know how it will work, I was just speculating

If you don't want to call radio telepathy psychic telepathy because you think the two will actually be different and have different definable and determinable qualities, that's fine too. Again, I just think it's semantics, but I'm not a credible source on telepathic powers so...take it with a grain of salt

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

If you don't want to call radio telepathy psychic telepathy because you think the two will actually be different and have different definable and determinable qualities, that's fine too. Again, I just think it's semantics, but I'm not a credible source on telepathic powers so...take it with a grain of salt

The big difference in my mind is that "traditional" psychic ability supposedly stems from the brain itself Just Being Able To Do That. It's tossed around with the idea we "only use 10%" and such. That's bad science.

I have no doubt that an alien lifeform might evolve to pick up and generate radio waves and use this to communicate- maybe, maybe even manipulate electromagnetics in some macro-scale sense (although I have difficulty imagining how, and "manipulating gravity" is ridiculous and almost definitely impossible on multiple levels).

I just think if we ever found something like that, we'd be far better off studying it with the applicable fields and scientific principles those abilities stemmed from than trying to explain them as "psychic powers". I'm reminded of how Actual Science shows that a lot of "haunted buildings" are "haunted" because of ultrasonic reverberations stemming from their pipes that cause vibrations in the eyeball that result in visual glitches, simultaneous with those tones affecting the brain and causing paranoia.

That's not a "supernatural phenomenon". That's not "ghosts". That's... well, audio/neural science.

 

[TheAtreides84]

The second is that psychic abilities actually could exist in some other species than humans. I disagree with this (because, as your own argument shows, any credible explanation for a "psychic phenomena" routed through Actual Science becomes Actual Science, not psychic ability; telepathy done through an organ capable of detecting radio/EM waves is no longer psychic telepathy, it's radio telepathy, etc...).

This doesn't really make sense. Nobody ever theorized psi should be miraculous to be real. There are all kinds of theories out there, some wacky some less, from morphogenic fields to quantum vibrations in the microtubules to retrocausation from the future, but not one parapsychologist ever said "this is unnatural, a wizard did it". That would make the whole field self-defeating.

 

[Ikael]

These are not victory-conditions. And first tier of them requires any other two perks unlocked before it.

I see, my mistake. So in order to reach the "2nd tier" ones you would need to unlock other 3 ascension perks first, right? (2 basic ascension perks + one 1st tier).

As for the victory conditions, they looked like victory conditions to me since the developers mentioned the 3 different, mutually exclusive paths for victory, tied to getting specific, high end perks.

Not sure why they would, but with traditions you can only unlock 7 ascension perks, but perks also can be unlocked by exploration and such.

My concern is more about having to fill every single tradition tree in order to reach ascension, thus making every game feel same-y, rather than making you carefully pick which traditions you want your empire to dwelve in and which ones you don't want to relate with.

 

[Milten]

My concern is more about having to fill every single tradition tree in order to reach ascension, thus making every game feel same-y, rather than making you carefully pick which traditions you want your empire to dwelve in and which ones you don't want to relate with.

Legitimate concern, but I guess all of them will be achievable only by very late date, so majority of time you'd spend developing these which you need most.

 

[Belaaron]

Not going to quote anything this time, because there's just too much.

Firstly, there are no theories regarding psychic abilities. A theory is a systemic model based on facts that has been tested thoroughly and repeatedly, and found to be concordant with passive observations of reality, and capable of making accurate predictions within that model's framework.
There are some very VERY flimsy hypotheses, that have not once been experimentally tested with proper protocols. "Experimentally tested" in the colloquial sense, sure I suppose...but the data is useless because the experiments were corrupted from their inception. Their sample sizes were too low to produce any usable data in the first place, there was no double-blind administration of the tests, there were no proper control groups, and those who administered the tests were responsible for collating and interpreting what data points there were at all.

Second, it is not a semantic issue to claim that psychic abilities cease to be psychic abilities and become something else. Organic wi-fi does not count as telepathy. If it did, it would already exist because there are some individuals who've gotten various types of experimental brain implants (for unrelated reasons) whose devices are updated wirelessly. It would also mean your computer, laptop, PDA, tablet, or smartphone, are likewise psychic. And finally, if "radio telepathy" were somehow actually psychic abilities, we'd have easily figured it out decades ago...right along with the fact that we were already developing radio technology and related knowledge. It would've been a completely unavoidable consequence.

Third, science fiction is not about the impossible. While certain aspects may seem functionally impossible by our current capabilities, they are often not impossible by our current understanding. The warp drive is an excellent example...as are wormholes (hyperdrives have no support at this point)...as they have mathematical, and even some observational data to support the possibility. We can't build such a thing, and it's possible that it can't be done, but there are at least solid numbers behind it, and some observations that are largely consistent with the possibility. Science fiction is speculative fiction that is constructed on a foundation of proper science. It doesn't necessarily have to be "hard sci-fi", but Star Trek and some of the other classics have certainly crossed some lines, unfortunately. Frankly, I'm being generous. The only reasonable interpretation is a literal one, in which only "hard sci-fi" is applicable as sci-fi at all, and all else is space fantasy.

Psychic abilities, being wholly arbitrary, inconsistent in their behavior with EVERYTHING that is currently known both in biology AND physics, and to-date completely debunked in every scenario they're found in, do not meet the loosest-yet-still-reasonable standard for science fiction. They literally work exactly like spells and other forms of "magic" and "miracles". That their supposed source is from our brains is irrelevant. It also does not matter whether or not supposed paranormal researchers have ever claimed the supposed phenomena they claim to study were supernatural or not. Most of their claims are simply untestable, and therefore to be completely disregarded. If you can't test it, you can't claim it as even a reasonable hypothesis, let alone any kind of fact. Those few features and claims that have been testable, have been either conducted so poorly as to be worthless, or have simply failed entirely to demonstrate any kind of event at all. Such "researchers" are, at best, crackpots or charlatans...and at worst, both.

 

[alphamikefox]

At this point, you'll need to have to provide the definition that you're working with of what "psychic abilities" are in order for the conversation to continue

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Third, science fiction is not about the impossible. While certain aspects may seem functionally impossible by our current capabilities, they are often not impossible by our current understanding. [...] Psychic abilities, [...] do not meet the loosest-yet-still-reasonable standard for science fiction.

While I agree with most of your other analysis, I gotta point out this one as, uh, one bit I don't.

As I've said before: show me where "science fiction" is defined, in a "this is what it can and can not be, as decreed by God Himself" manner. I'll wait. Science fiction absolutely has room for the impossible. A common metric of what makes good vs. bad science fiction is internal consistency- the impossible can still make good scifi provided it holds to internally consistent rules.

Basically, soft scifi is still legitimate scifi. "Hard sf" is not the only legitimate form of the genre.

 

[Zarathustra_the]

This whole debate reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke's infamous utterance, sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. But if the premise is true, then the inverse would also follow. Just because you are convinced that psionic abilities are not possible, does not mean that a sufficiently advanced race would not be able to either engineer them, or at least create a mechanism that appears as such. Consider bio-engineering a node in the brain that generates and makes sensible electromagnetic energy. That would de-facto satisfy the premise of telepathy or esp, the ability for perception beyond the physical senses, especially if you could use such a node to express some form of communication. You will find defintions of psionics are not as wedded to actualities as you seem to want them to be. Most definitions of psychics tend to look more at what they achieve than necessarily where they originate.

 

[TheAtreides84]

Not going to quote anything this time, because there's just too much.

Firstly, there are no theories regarding psychic abilities. A theory is a systemic model based on facts that has been tested thoroughly and repeatedly, and found to be concordant with passive observations of reality, and capable of making accurate predictions within that model's framework.
There are some very VERY flimsy hypotheses, that have not once been experimentally tested with proper protocols. "Experimentally tested" in the colloquial sense, sure I suppose...but the data is useless because the experiments were corrupted from their inception. Their sample sizes were too low to produce any usable data in the first place, there was no double-blind administration of the tests, there were no proper control groups, and those who administered the tests were responsible for collating and interpreting what data points there were at all.

Second, it is not a semantic issue to claim that psychic abilities cease to be psychic abilities and become something else. Organic wi-fi does not count as telepathy. If it did, it would already exist because there are some individuals who've gotten various types of experimental brain implants (for unrelated reasons) whose devices are updated wirelessly. It would also mean your computer, laptop, PDA, tablet, or smartphone, are likewise psychic. And finally, if "radio telepathy" were somehow actually psychic abilities, we'd have easily figured it out decades ago...right along with the fact that we were already developing radio technology and related knowledge. It would've been a completely unavoidable consequence.

Third, science fiction is not about the impossible. While certain aspects may seem functionally impossible by our current capabilities, they are often not impossible by our current understanding. The warp drive is an excellent example...as are wormholes (hyperdrives have no support at this point)...as they have mathematical, and even some observational data to support the possibility. We can't build such a thing, and it's possible that it can't be done, but there are at least solid numbers behind it, and some observations that are largely consistent with the possibility. Science fiction is speculative fiction that is constructed on a foundation of proper science. It doesn't necessarily have to be "hard sci-fi", but Star Trek and some of the other classics have certainly crossed some lines, unfortunately. Frankly, I'm being generous. The only reasonable interpretation is a literal one, in which only "hard sci-fi" is applicable as sci-fi at all, and all else is space fantasy.

Psychic abilities, being wholly arbitrary, inconsistent in their behavior with EVERYTHING that is currently known both in biology AND physics, and to-date completely debunked in every scenario they're found in, do not meet the loosest-yet-still-reasonable standard for science fiction. They literally work exactly like spells and other forms of "magic" and "miracles". That their supposed source is from our brains is irrelevant. It also does not matter whether or not supposed paranormal researchers have ever claimed the supposed phenomena they claim to study were supernatural or not. Most of their claims are simply untestable, and therefore to be completely disregarded. If you can't test it, you can't claim it as even a reasonable hypothesis, let alone any kind of fact. Those few features and claims that have been testable, have been either conducted so poorly as to be worthless, or have simply failed entirely to demonstrate any kind of event at all. Such "researchers" are, at best, crackpots or charlatans...and at worst, both.

And still you talk without knowing the matter. The current status of the research is simply not as you say. To avoid a lenghty discussion, I'll just leave you with a quote from professor Richard Wiseman, who you may know as a prominent media skeptic, about the point parapsychology find itself at the moment:

"I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do."

So, here you are. The data are in and pretty much everyone who does actual research recognizes it. It's the Bayesian prior that proponents and skeptics are now discussing. Not really worse a state than all other speculative science in the game. It's just like "we have some data about the possibility of Drexler-type self-replicating nanomachines, but the theory behind it is not supported by strong enough evidence for the feasibility of such a small scale manufacturing, because of the seemingly insurmountable "fat fingers" problem (see professor Smalley argument). *"

* the debate has progressed somewhat, but still the field isn't much more solid than at the time Smalley proposed his arguments.

 

[Chaos_TLW]

"I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do."

Taken out of context. Here's the rest of the quote:

"I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do. If I said that there is a red car outside my house, you would probably believe me. But if I said that a UFO had just landed, you'd probably want a lot more evidence. Because remote viewing is such an outlandish claim that will revolutionise the world, we need overwhelming evidence before we draw any conclusions. Right now we don't have that evidence."


Pretty much the basic problem with parapsychology and other such fields of study: they inherently need a much higher degree of supporting evidence before becoming accepted, especially in the case of parapsychology that tends to contradict a lot of previously established basic research. You've thrown around how much it has already been researched, but you still haven't posted a single credible, reproducible paper for it. Can you do at least that?



I also find the argument that it is accepted in AAAS somewhat weak. Homeopathy is funded by the British NHS, but that doesn't stop it from being absolute bullshit. Similarly, my own country's public health service, the Brazilian SUS, has funding for a number of completely pseudoscientific "alternative" medical practices, but that does not necessarily lend them much credence.

 

[TheAtreides84]

Taken out of context. Here's the rest of the quote:

"I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do. If I said that there is a red car outside my house, you would probably believe me. But if I said that a UFO had just landed, you'd probably want a lot more evidence. Because remote viewing is such an outlandish claim that will revolutionise the world, we need overwhelming evidence before we draw any conclusions. Right now we don't have that evidence."

Isn't the second part just reinforcing the first? In research terms, he is assigning a very low Bayesian prior to the claim, so he's requiring stronger evidence. That's exactly what I said.

Pretty much the basic problem with parapsychology and other such fields of study: they inherently need a much higher degree of supporting evidence before becoming accepted, especially in the case of parapsychology that tends to contradict a lot of previously established basic research. You've thrown around how much it has already been researched, but you still haven't posted a single credible, reproducible paper for it. Can you do at least that?

Well, I'm ambivalent about this. While the general weakness of the theoretic part lends a good deal of support to Wiseman's position, on the other hand if this criterion was applied consistently in science we would be struck in the testing phase forever for a lot of things. There are drugs released on the market with lower statistical evidence than auto-ganzfeld studies. It's reasonable skepticism, yes, but even skepticism must be taken with a grain of salt, lest it paralyzes progress.

That said, the whole argument is way past "we don't have any evidence whatsoever and everyone who does research in the field is a crackpot". That's just outright lying, and not better than TV mediums saying "yeah, your late uncle Pete is sending his regards from a beautiful garden in the sky".

If you want the papers, just start here: http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm

Some papers are strong, some less so, but there is a lot of replication going on in the field. Bem's study, for example, has a 2015 meta-analysis by Bem, Tressoldi et alii, supporting the results (while there could still be some file drawer problems lessening the impact) Also, the research on remote viewing by Wiseman and Hutts is quite strong, or do you think Wiseman would simply concede on a lifelong stance that way?

I also find the argument that it is accepted in AAAS somewhat weak. Homeopathy is funded by the British NHS, but that doesn't stop it from being absolute bullshit. Similarly, my own country's public health service, the Brazilian SUS, has funding for a number of completely pseudoscientific "alternative" medical practices, but that does not necessarily lend them much credence.

It's not the same thing at all. Public health services have nothing to do with the AAAS. If an area of inquiry is accepted as legitimate by the gatekeeper organs of the academia, then it isn't pseudoscience. It isn't like we can assign that label at will to anything we don't like. The thing has been called into question in 1979 by professor Wheeler (the same guy who toward the end of his life embraced a form of anthropic principle as an interpretation of QM and faced opposition from the traditional academia, go figure) and the association was confirmed, so you can be sure they looked into the matter deeply.

 

[scaper12123]

I'm super excited for these ascension perks, especially knowing how they'll give so many interesting game mechanics in tandem. Although I'm still a bit iffy on the idea that the species endgames are mutually exclusive. Seems like it'd be cooler if we could only choose two of the species perks, but choosing one would allow us to choose the upgraded version of it as opposed to one of the others. That way we could be the super psionics or the psyonic muscle-warriors of our dreams.

 

[Derp]

prove that I'm not psychic