Is There in Truth No Awesome?

Yes I suppose Kirk might believe that was possible. Another reason why Miranda style telepathy is far more interesting than Betazoids !

 

An episode ruined by the "improved" effects

 

I did not like this episode when I first watched it, but it has grown on me. It's still not my favorite; it is tolerable, though.

 

It's not a favourite of mine either but it's still miles above that Plato nonsense!
JB

 

Diana Muldaur and David Frankham were a good duo in the episode.

 

I've spoken with David Frankham a few years back and he says he loves living in the US but he does miss fish and chips!
JB

 

"I love you...Miranda..!"
JB

 

Yes, he went over to director Ralph Senensky's house just recently and they both rewatched the episode together.

 

.....and then "Arrrggghhhhhhhhh!!!".

 

"LIAR...LIAR...!
JB

 

When he collapses, Frankham really looks dead. I think he is a really underrated actor. I would have liked to seen him as a regular TOS crew member.

 

In "The Empath":

Suppose there are exactly 50 known telepathic species when Spock makes that statement. If 49 telepathic species can send thoughts as well as receive them, exactly 98 percent can send as well as receive. If 50 telephatic species can send as well as recieve that would be exactly 100 percent, and Spock wouldn't say "over ninety eight percent".

If there were exactly 100 known telepathic species and 98 of them can send as well as receive, that would be exactly 98 percent. If 99 could send as well as receive, that would be exactly 99 percent, and Spock wouldn't say "over ninety eight percent".

So if there are exactly 457 known telepathic species and 447.86 of them can send as well as receive, that would be exactly 98 percent. If 452.43 could send as well as receive, that would be exactly 99 percent. So Spock could say "over ninety eight percent" if 448, 449, 450, 451, or 452 of them could send as well as receive.

If there were exactly 200 telepathic species, and 196 could send as well as receive, that would be exactly 98 percent. If 198 could send as well as receive, that would be exactly 99 percent, and Spock might say "over ninety eight percent" if the number of species that could send as well as receive was 197.

Thus I suspect that at least 200 telepathic species were known at the time of "The Empath" and thus the era of "Is There in Truth No Beauty".

Are humans counted as one of the telepathic species?

Miranda says:

Four years, even if they just recently ended, should go back to the time of "Where No Man Has Gone before" or even earlier.

I think most viewers would think that Miranda should have been old enough to talk about her telepathy and how other people's thoughts and feelings overwhelmed her at least 20 years before the episode, and so telepathy should have been known to occur among some Earth humans a couple of decades before TOS.

But in "Where No Man Has Gone before":

Spock and Kirk certainly experience forms of ESP not normal for Earth humans in later episodes and might already know of some examples which they don't happen to mention in reply to Dehner.

Nobody mentions telepathy as a type of ESP, though Mitchell later does develop telepathy. This indicates three possibilities.

1. No Earth humans are known to include telepathy among their ESP abilties.

2. Telepathy exists among Earth humans but is considered to be a separate category from ESP.

3. Telepathy is an ESP ability that some Earth humans have but nobody happens to mention it as a form of ESP in "Where No Man Has Gone before".

Considering when Miranda Jones started experiencing telepathy it is improbable that # 1 is true in the Star Trek universe.

So I wonder how common telepathy is among Earth humans and whether it is common enough for Earth humans to be counted as a telepathic species.

 

I'm not firmly convinced of the timeline but certainly Dr. Jones was a known telepath during that conversation in WNMGB, however they specifically do not include telepathy in the ESP types, sense future happenings, read the backs of playing cards and so on, see through solid objects, cause fires to start spontaneously?
so I'm going to pick number 2 of your conclusions that telepathy was not in the ESP they were discussing. Also, I'd say that there were no telepaths aboard the Enterprise then, Mr. Spock being a possible exception but then he wasn't on the list of high ESP rated people, either.

Yes, he would be the ultimate Red Shirt, gets killed convincingly every week!

 

In some sense Miranda Jones is not an "Earth human" at all; as she says in the arboretum scene:

"I've never been to Earth."​

Perhaps (assuming she is of Earth ancestry in the first place) she was born a telepath because of some element in her off-Earth environment, presumably one that her parents were exposed to.

 

Brilliant writing when Miranda says someone is in this room is thinking of murder.

 

I'm sort of biased towards #2 as the rationalization. Why should telepathy count as "extrasensory" when it's not that much "extra" even for the humans of Trek, and appears commonplace enough in the already known galaxy?

But what is ESP in Trek terms? "Unverifiable" is the keyword for that today, but nothing about "mind arts" would remain unverifiable in a world of telepaths! And the point in "Where No Man" is that Mitchell and Dehner are officially verified and entered into the records as possessing said mind arts.

I'm all for telepathy being ETP, tho - it would be simplicity enough to assume Earthlings catch the skill from aliens soon after T'Pol and Tucker make it fashionable to mix.

Timo Saloniemi

 

That's probably every morning at the office! I think the trick might be who isn't thinking of murder.

But in the future with those notables assembled it would be indeed unusual to sense such a thing.

 

Love this episode. Particularly the whole Kollos/Spock mind-meld sequence.

 

In the video Star Trek Voyager Elite Force, there is a Betazoid character who had to study on Vulcan, who displays the same edgy mostly-controlled emotions Miranda did. In a few episodes of TNG, Troi is referred to generally as "human," even though she is part Betazoid. Miranda, though referred to as "human," says she has not seen Earth in person. Adding that to your estimates, plus the fact that many have compared her abilities to to Troi's, it only adds strength to this episode if Miranda were all or partly genetically a Betazoid. Her behavior and the video game character, medic Juliet Jurot, are so similar that I have to think Juliet Jurot was based on her in any case.

 

So of the people assembled who did we guess it was thinking of murder?
Was it one of Kirk and co. or the special guest star of the week?